Sneaking purchases...
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| Thu, 03-25-2004 - 11:10am |
I was reading another board about sneaking purchases past their husband's. I know I use to sneak before we started doing our finances together. I would actually come home during lunch to get the mail or unload packages. I was pitiful. Even now, I will bring things in the house and wince thinking how upset Devin would be with me.
So, have you ever hid purchases or not told your DH the whole picture of your finances? We use to horrible fights about finances. I would do the weekly budget and e-mail him it. We would discuss it and everything was fine. Then, he would tell me two days later that he was doing a marathon that cost $75.00. I had to actually ask him before we did the budget-Do you have any marathons? Do you need shoes? Do you have any equipment you need? Can you tell I

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"...the fact that I would never take a job that required me to put my kids in dc, that I am EXTREMELY proud of the fact that my degree allows me to work so little and gain so much ft AWAKE DAYTIME with my kids (that would be the times in those 40 hrs when the typical WOHM has her children in dc and mine are with me, FT, for those hours, in my care AT HOME.). "
My degree (and my DH's) allows me to not work at all.
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One thing that always confuses me about this line of thinking is what people expect to magically change when children hit school age. I am not really saying anything about your personal situation because you might be planning on homeschooling for all I know. But one thing I have learned from watching my kids get to school age and seeing 13 other older nieces and nephews go through various school systems is that the damage a poor teacher can inflict on an older child is pretty well as bad as the damage younger children might suffer from poor dc situations. The only difference that I can see is that parents usually have a much bigger say in who they choose as a dcp than they do in who their child ends up with as a teacher. Why is the risk worth taking when a child reaches school age but not before? Is it because the benefits to be gained by attending school outweigh the risks? But why is this true at age 5 and not 4 or 3 or 6 or 7? 5 is a pretty arbitrary age, ime. Swiss children start school at age 4 as do English and Dutch children. German children are expected to attend half-day preschool from age 3. None of this is compulsory (nor is kindergarten) but it is the expected cultural norm for starting school and nearly all start at this age (and I'll note for the record that that the vast majority of families in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands have a SAHM).
Laura
I WANT you to SAH - I fully support your choice in doing that.
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There are days when I am looking at the clock waiting for dh to come home. Does that mean I don't really love my children or being home with them?
Why are Sweetsah's and Kerry's unfortunate anecdotal experiences "frequent"? I had two home dcp that loved my child, both left the area (yep, my underpaid dcps could actually afford to move to a nicer neighborhood before me, the selfish new car driving WOHM). Both keep in touch with us, both have invited my son to their homes free of charge.
SUS
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"We choose not to settle for adequate, or even good, where our children are concerned. Not when there's a "better" option."
Great!
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You are claiming there IS? Universally, there is? I am sure it happens, but generally these are the types of people that burn out. And no it isn't obvious. DC was somewhat of a hardship for us, but we needed dh's income and we needed my insurance, so we went without other things (vacations, a second car, cable tv etc...) in order to pay a quality dcp. It is called priorities. You don't know any of those statements to be a universal truth or even close to a majority representation.
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So how would you feel if someone told you that you couldn't possibly love your child because you do all the grunt work while DH goes off to work so you are so jealous of him that you can't seperate and direct your feelings? Possibly you are not jealous of him at all? My dcps both expressed how miserable they would be going off to work for someone else every day and how much the loved the freedom, control and lack of office politics/drudgery their jobs provided.
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Sometimes being a mom is just an undervalued job in our society. Moms are human, have a emotions and their own internal lives and needs too. Does that mean that we can't love our children?
SUS
To say MOST of the good dcps love their charges is to disregard the human factor. In fact, you're imbuing them with a superhuman ability to put aside everything going on in their lives, going on in the centers/homes, going on in the world and love other people's children. It is very human for them to feel underpaid, undervalued, disgust at changing the 20th dirty diaper of the day, (not to mention stress at the tantrums/fights/sleep fighting, etc), resentment toward those WOHPs who drive off in a Mercedez (some do, don't they?). They have lives of their own, children of their own, problems of their own, etc. To set all of that aside and truly love - a hugely, unusual and supreme emotion - a child in their care is to ask them to be more than human. How many of us in our jobs truly LOVE our subordinates? I'll wager - and we'll never know, will we, because even WOHPs are not in the heads of the dcp - that it is very rare for true love to occur (however you want to define it - "different from a parent's love", whatever). Caring and concern and giving? Definitely possible.
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