Sneaking purchases...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sneaking purchases...
1291
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

"I do not want to be a princess! I want to be myself"

Mallory (age 3)

      &nbs

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 11:27am

<< I'll wager - and we'll never know, will we, because even WOHPs are not in the heads of the dcp>>


and you as a sahm are even further removed from dcp, so how on earth can you comment on something you have no experience with?


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 11:33am
Dh and I not only worked together in the first year of our relationship, we actually shared a lab bench. We managed, but I did have to put a very large red tape down the middle of the bench with the words "do not cross" to separate his space from mine. I wouldn't survived otherwise...the man is a HOG in the lab (and not much better in the kitchen) :-).


Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 11:41am
>>>"This is an ideal, and better solution."

AACK - DH and I together, all day, 7 days a week? Kill me now!!!!

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You know, as soon as I finished submitting that, I KNEW I should've added "for me" to the end of it...but I wanted to catch up on all the new posts! :-P

ps: yeah, we're a little weird!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:04pm
LOL. <> ludicrous as i've NEVER seen her ever put down sahms. yet, your posts are full of put-downs of wohms.

<>

OY, it just goes on. can you explain to me this: how is it that i can work 40 hours per week at my job and THAT is full-time AND be HOME with my children 128 HOURS per week (MORE than 3 TIMES that of my job) AND be responsible for their health, social, emotional, educational and religious/spiritual needs and that is NOT full-time? It doesn't even make any sense.

<>

no, actually, i think it speaks to her confidence in her skills as a parent that she KNOWS, regardless of her work status, how WELL she parents her children.

<>

i'm sure you can't think of any other reason.

Do you think so little of YOUR parenting skills that you wouldn't be able to raise your children while woh ft?

eileen

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:20pm
<>

Thats what I'm always saying. Those people who can't IMAGINE another human being actually enjoying a job which involved caring for other peoples children, probably don't enjoy caring for their own! It certainly doesn't sound like YOU enjoy caring for your OWN much.

You know - a little advice for you. Any old way you can possibly spend your day as an adult is going to involve some kind of drudgery, by any kind of default drudgery definition. If the busy/messy variety is one of the most distressing varieties for you (and it sounds like it is) - perhaps you need to find a way to spend YOUR day that doesn't involved children 7x24. Yours or anyone elses. Drudgery does not have to equate to a need to be saved by 5 pm. Its a big world, you should be able to find some form of drudgery that suits you, and henceforth, won't cause this kind of stress.

Now, some tips on how to tell if you are invovled in the right kind of drudgery for you. If people come up to you and say things like "WOW! I don't know how you can stand doing what you do with your days!" and your instinctive response is "Huh? What part don't you know how I can stand!" you are involved in drudgery which is right for you. Not that if you stop to think about it, you won't be able to id the drudgery components in question...its just that...well...heck, overall its so enjoyable...whats a little drugery? On the other hand...if you find that you are explaining to others things like "I don't think I could possibly handle this in any kind of extended fashion" (like you just did above) YOU are involved with the wrong kind of drudgery for you. If you have the option, you should try to find a more suitable variety of drudgery.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:30pm
Well, I'm not a Marxist, so I don't really think that everything, including human emotion, is economically driven. People are much more flexible and complex than that. I don't think a loving relationship would get any more loving with a higher salary, and I don't think a person who resents the children in her care because her salary isn't high enough is suddenly going to become loving to the child should she suddenly get paid more.

I don't really think that it's "rare" that providers and children develop a long-term, loving relationship. I'm thinking of my nephews, whose nanny was a retired woman who came to their house and they developed such a strong bond that my 16 year old nephew still goes over to "Fi's" house twice a month to help her with household tasks that she can no longer do for herself. Or my kids and their providers, who are still very fond of each other. When my provider's oldest son was hospitalized after a car crash two years ago the younger two kids and the provider's younger sister stayed at our house for a week until their brother/nephew was out of danger -- it happened to be over Christmas break so I wasn't working. I am sure that if something happened now where I needed some help with the kids, that T. would step in now, for free. The economic reason for our relationship no longer exists, but the bond is still there.

I myself work with kids a lot, on a regular basis. I've taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School and been a summer camp counselor for kids at my church for over a decade. There's not a kid in that church that I couldn't be become a good caregiver for, if that's where my life path had taken me. The kids would be safe, would learn in my care, would be given age-appropriate stimulation, and lots and lots of affection. That's not a parental relationship nor should it be, but I could provide a safe, happy, loving, stable place for them to be.

That's what I meant by your world being "small" if you can't imagine or understand that a bond doesn't have to be parental in order to be worthwhile, to enhance a child's life, and to serve the needs of the child when the parent is working or otherwise unavailabe.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:41pm
You know, I don't "love" the people in my department at work, but I really, truly love the work I do. After nearly twenty years in the field, I wake up excited about going to work and what the day will bring. I love working with students, and I love the research and learning and writing my job entails. I am enthusiastic and upbeat about the contributions I can make in this field. My daycare provider was/is the same way about her job. She has an incredible talent for making each week of daycare special for the kids. She knows each one of their interests, talents, and fears. She puts on "theme weeks" based on the kids' interests -- when she has a little boy fascinated with "Octerpusses" she does an ocean week, with crafts, books, field trips and games geared toward that. She's constantly learning and stretching herself after almost twenty years as a home daycare provider. She loves the company of small children. She forms long-term bonds with her charges. Neither one of us is paid anywhere near where we'd be paid if we applied our talents in other directions, but neither one of us can imagine doing anything else with our lives right now. I frankly think that students who come to my classes are getting a good ride for their money, and I am sure that she thinks she is doing a darned good job providing a service of value for the families in her daycare.

Neither one of us feels "demeaned" by the profession we've chosen. How very condescending of you to assume that because you wouldn't be good at a job and form loving bonds with your charges, that no one else could or would either.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:43pm
LOL...that's a really good response. ...that dirty diaper comment you quoted really struck a cord with me. I'm the Cribbery Director (got a "promotion" from Co-Coordinator) at church and I also "teach" the 0-2 year old Sunday School. Between the 11am service that I'm in the Nursery for and my Sunday School class, I spend about 3 hours every Sunday wiping faces and hands, passing out goldfish and sippy cups and changing an awful lot of diapers!! LOL...but I don't really think of that as drudgery until someone else mentions it. I mean diapers have NEVER really been that much of a hardship to me; I don't go skipping through the halls rejoicing that I "got" to change them, but I don't dread them either.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:48pm


What facts would that be? I'm assuming that you believe it will *negatively* affect the kids. In what ways?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2003
Tue, 04-06-2004 - 12:52pm
OK. If you had just said that earlier (that *your* kids are better for having you AH than if you weren't home) then it wouldn't have caused as much stir. Instead, you posted things like "What I do know is that ANYONE who thinks 40 hrs a week away from BOTH parents DOES NOT affect the children, is not facing facts." That implies that SAH is better for *my* children as well.

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