Staying at home a choice??
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Staying at home a choice??
| Sun, 04-29-2007 - 6:46am |
The author of this article thinks most mothers go to work because they want to, not because they have to.
"Most parents from two-parent families today do have a choice when it comes to parental care. They can try and talk themselves into believing they don't, but it really boils down to priorities."
http://backofthebook.ca/living/2007/03/part-time-ophanages-part-2-job-only.html
Does anyone (other than her) really believe this? I don't know of anyone among my friends who works who wouldn't rather be staying at home with their children. But they don't have the choice!

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I had to LOL because I have said that kind of thing to people, and I've had an experience like you describe, too. I don't tell people not to come in, but on many occasions I have apologized for my house being a wreck, only to have them kinda roll their eyes at me. It freaks me out when people see my house messy...but in all honesty, that usually means not much more than some toys didn't get put away like they were supposed to. I'm very middle-of-the-road when it comes to housework. I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want my house to be clean and livable. My son, though, is a stuff magnet. He could sit perfectly still, doing nothing, for hours and still manage to be surrounded by an accumulation of clutter by the time it was over. This is a constant battle for us.
So anyhoo, one of the people I'd said that to later invited me to his home...and OMG, I knew then why he'd rolled his eyes at me the way he did. That house was a pigsty. Dirty, and with piles of stuff (not garbage or anything, but pack-ratty stuff) everywhere, to the point I really don't know how anyone could function inside there. I'd never seen anything like it.
It's the kind of experience that changes the old perspective *just* a little.
Ok, see for awhile I thought that maybe you didnt realize how you came across with some of your ideas.
In fact, Hazel has confirmed that you're absolutely right. She's stated flat out that her kids have scratched the floors they have (the daughter with her chair), and yet she claims that she was raised in a clean home that was mindfully kept and keeps one herself.
Hence, scratched floors, by her own posts, cannot be synonymous with slovenly cleaning habits.
"Maybe I know different kinds of people than everyone else here because where I was raised, you establish yourself and have better things as you get older."
How many of your friends are millionaires? I'd bet very few with that philosophy."
Well certainly very few who were self made and before say -- 40. I know quite a few in that category.
Personally I've always been extremely focused on goals; and time sensitive to how quickly I could get there. Having "better things" wasnt something I wanted to wait to have till either my parents (god forbid it happens anytime soon!) passed away, or, I was 30, let alone 40:)
Yeah, I can see how this could happen. My dh's mom was apparently like this, but the pendulum swing too far in the next generation in his family. My dh is messy and has a real aversion to anyone touching his "stuff," which is pretty clearly a reaction to the way he grew up. I'm not a neatnik, but my dh's standards are way too low for me.
My mil was a sahm until her youngest went to middle school, and she says her one regret about raising her family was that she spent too much time cleaning and not enough time just hanging out with her kids. But she has an entirely different attitude with her grandkids, so in that sense the next generation did benefit. She's really an awesome gradnmother.
I also do not have family here to help us. We do everything ourselves. I also do not have an extra room for them to trash. We only have a living room that is our main room to walk into. I can not have tons of toys laying around all the time as you can not walk into the rest of the house like that.
I think you're confusing a "lived-in" house with a house that's trashed because the children basically have control. I've been in that kind of house, too, and it's not what I'd considered lived-in at all. A lived-in house is basically clean and well-maintained, but is not expected to be perfect at all times.
And I've learned that an extra coat of poly on hardwood floors really goes a long way toward the scratch-prevention thing.
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