Rock and a Hard Place

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Rock and a Hard Place
1524
Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am

There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 11:41pm
I have to agree with Cyndi on this one. I'm an engineer, too - and I'm only 33. But I can see the trend of engineers either getting burned out or having a hard time finding jobs. At 50, with nearly 30 years experience, engineers can make big bucks - and a lot of companies don't want to pay it.

If you have specific experience, you have a hard time finding a good "match", and at as much as $90K or $100K a year (or more, depending on location), companies want a near-perfect match.

Not to mention that a lot of our jobs are simply going overseas. Not sure what my 2nd career will be, but hopefully, if I have one, it will be something that can't be sent overseas.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 11:46pm
I don't remember exactly what happens. But changing hard wiring process is a bad thing though because there is a particular process that must occur. When it is interrupted or changed, some wiring may not occur. One of the concerns was with vision. I wish I could remember all of the technical info that they spewed out there, but it was too much too fast. The LCD images do not do the same thing - something to do with pixels?? All I know is it made perfect sense and when they were talking about not having the substatiative studies until these kids are grown, it hit home for me. Why chance it? I know I tried to keep my ds off the pc. While he is not considered gifted (and I hate the term)he is academcially advanced currently reading at a Grade 2/3 level in K, but not due to the computer. That is simply due to readiness and each child being on their own timetable. He didn't learn to read on the pc. I fully expect he will even out with his peers over the next few years. I found myself wishing I had have purchased one of those locking cabinets I had wanted to purchase to keep his little paws off the pc. Instead I taught him how to use it, rather than abuse it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 11:49pm
I don't see how being "challenged" with SAH has anything to do with being a kid person.

I like being "challenged" too - but I like being challenged in a way that requires critical thinking, not abstract thinking. Critical thinking as - "now why does this HEMT have lower power? Is it lower current or a problem with passivation?" Not critical thinking as in "how should I react to my child's picky eating in a way that will stop it, not encourage it?"

Has nothing to do with being a kid person, it's more the KIND of challenge. Women tend to be stronger verbally, so I think the more emotional/bonding kind of challenges are good for them. I happened to have gotten the math gene, and tend to be more guy-like.

Not that I wouldn't find SAH to be challenging. I'm sure I would...got plenty of friends showing me just how hard it is.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-02-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 11:57pm
<<>>

And if caring for children does not provide the fulfillment/challenge that one seeks, I take the leap to say maybe they just aren't a kid person... there's no shame in not enjoying that KIND of challenge is there?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 1:09am
Do you mean that parents competing is outrageous?? That happens ALL the time! It's just that nobody (well, very few people) will admit up to it.

But parents constantly compete via their children - sports, academia, musical talent, you name it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 5:52am
<>

No, i wouldn't make that leap. So because i want to continue working (and wouldn't find fulfillment/challenge in sah) means that i'm not a kid person???

Sorry but i just gotta do it....BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHHAHHAAHHA!!!!!!!!! That's a leap that doesn't even make sense. I'm plenty much a kid-person. Lucky thing since i have 3 of them. However, i can work AND raise them at the same time.

<<... there's no shame in not enjoying that KIND of challenge is there?>>

Never said there was. There's also no shame in enjoying the KIND of challenge a woh job brings IN ADDITION to raising kids, right?

eileen

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-23-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 6:29am
Then why are you sounding alarm bells? IMO, you haven't established that change is bad. The human brain hard wires in response to stimuli in it's environment. It addapts to the environment in which is it born. Kids who are born in the US are probably hard wired differently than kids who grow up in a tribal village somewhere but different doesn't mean bad if it helps you in your environmnent. Each adapts to their own environment. While I'd never let a child veg out in front of a computer, I fail to see where use of one preschool is a negative in the absense of any evidence of the differences being negative. So there are differences? As I said, I can't see where it has done dd#2 any harm. She's head and shoulders above her sister who didn't really us a computer until she was 5. Dd#1 was around them but had no real interest. Dd#2 has been using one since she was about 2 1/2. She's leaps and bounds ahead of her peers in visual perception, gross and small motor skills and her memory is astounding. Maybe she does have special hard wiring stemming from early computer use. Maybe she'll grow up to be an excellent computer engineer and it will help her. Who knows but I'm not going to proclaim different as bad without cause.

Both of my dd's got/get plenty of play without TV or computers. Sorry, but you'll have to show me that any differences resulting from computer use actually are negative before I'm going to worry about it. Different isn't necessarily bad. The kids in my dd's class who had trouble with computers did so for a long time and looking at the class as a whole, I don't see them at any kind of advantage. On the contrary. Some of the kids who were proficient in computer use made up the top of the class. I know this is but one small snapshot but I just don't see the negatives of early computer use in my world. In fact, I see a benefit.

We'll just have to wait for dd#2's brain to turn to mush. She's so far ahead of her classmates that they will be using, GASP, computer programs among other things to challenge her while the teacher deals with the slower kids.

Avatar for outside_the_box_mom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 7:33am
I have read those reports, too. I kept my DS off the computer for a very long time. Everyone thought I was nuts. Even his grandmother, who is an *educator.* (As she is forever reminding me.) She said I was putting him at a "disdavantage." Bullcrap. His preschool teacher said he was one of the few children who could use the entire room for imaginative play. She said some children didn't know *how* to play.

He's allowed to play on it for a half hour or so two or three times a week. I limit it for two reasons. One, it's my work computer and I live in fear he's going to download something accidently and wipe me out. Second, he just does not need it. What is it going to give him that he's not already getting in school?

I also read somewhere that the earlier children get on the computer, the more critical of their own creations they are. The computer makes everything neat and clean -- their creations on the other hand, are messy, outside the lines, etc. My DS has tons of craft supplies, which he is encouraged to do often -- like every day. He is preparing for his first show -- scuplture made from recyclable items. Bwhahahahahahahahaha

outside_the_box_mom

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 7:47am
Okay, I understand that you asked. Several points here: 1-She could have said that some children weren't read to before school-without going into their moms' work status. 2- It is unlikely that being read to is actually the defining factor here. It is much more likely that the differences are in readiness and ability. The teacher's assumption that it is a result of sahms not reading to their children inidcates her bias. 3-If you pushed and said "why weren't they read to?" instead of responding that sahms weren't reading to their children, she should have said something along the lines of, "well, some people prefer to wait until their children begin school to start academics," or something equally bland. Your asking a question doesn't negate her obligation to remain professional. If you ask an inappropriate question, she should be able to deflect it without offending you or compromising her professionalism. Obviously, she didn't do that but instead took your question as a chance to gossip about her students' parents and wallow in her biases.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 7:54am
There is a difference between knowing where your child ranks nationally in third grade and knowing where she ranks in her kindergarten class. For one thing, such class rankings aren't that helpful. In my dd's kindergarten class, *every* student was reading in kindergarten, in your dd's class, most of them didn't know their letters. It is quite possible for the student at the *bottom* of my dd's class to have been ahead of the student at the *top* of your dd's class. So what's the point?

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