In today's economy, how can U stay home?
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| Mon, 08-07-2006 - 2:46pm |
I am 33 and am basically now sadly coming to the conclusion that we just can't have kids. I just don't know how people do it. In order to afford our mortgage, my husband and I both have to work full-time. And we bought a home in the least expensive market we could find in proximity to our jobs, so we commute up to four hours a day to make this work.
However, we both agreed, long long ago that we would only have kids if we could raise them ourselves. We just can't in good conscience reconcile the idea of having children and then handing them off to some stranger who is making close to minimum wages to rear them, and who can't possibly care about them as much as we do. And what would be the point? We would miss all their development and "firsts" and wouldn't be a close family, and they would grow up with attachment issues due to rapidly changing daycare staffing. No, if we can't do it the right way, we don't want to do it at all. We feel it's selfish to have them because WE WANT them; we decided long ago only to have them if we felt we could give them a wonderful life filled with love, hope, and opportunity.
So I am getting up there in age now, and I don't see things changing. The only people I see around me having children are people who 1) have family who live close by and can take care of their kids, 2) rich people, or women who marry rich men to be more specific, and 3) people whose families help them out financially.
Is there a chance for two people like us to have a family, when we don't have any of the above advantages? It doesn't seem like it should be THIS impossible! We're both hard workers who make decent money TOGETHER. Separately, it's not enough, but together, it's a good amount.
HOW could we make it happen? I have heard that having children after 34 the risks just go up and up and up, that they may not be healthy...

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"But you only get the leave pay if you leave your job."
Do you have any clue as to what Maternity Leave means? We do not quit, we have a leave of absence. It's completely different. They are not paying us to quit. That would be a severance package from the government. You assume waaaaaay too much. You really have no clue do you? No matter how many times someone is going to explain that women go back, quite often, to their jobs, you're just going to think we're lazy women playing house.
Sad
Earth to KB. We are respected here. Just because it sounds like you work in an environment where women are not respected very often, doesn't mean a whole entire country is the same way. I have yet to encounter any sexism here, and I work in a field that is traditionally male.
Feel like offering any proof?
I agree that a government providing daycare for its citizens is a showing that the government values its dual wohp couples.
While the US has the marital tax penalty, I wonder where you think the "heavy subsidies" for universal daycare in Sweden come from? Swedish taxpayers provide those subsidies. And I believe parents pay out-of-pocket a set amount above taxes when their children are actually using daycare/before/aftercare. Parents in Sweden who no longer have children in daycare continue to pay taxes to the government for other children to attend daycare.
And from what I've read, Sweden like every other country has had its own problems with the quality of its daycare.
I'm basing it on the recommendations of the AAP which states child-led weaning can take up to 4 1/2 years and the WHO which recommends at least two years of nursing, as well as various research which suggests (not proves) that children were designed to nurse for 2-6 years. Many experts believe that the reason "milk teeth" take so long to be replaced is because of this. It is by no means a medical fact; however, the recommendations of the AAP and the WHO are 1-2 years of nursing at least plus child-led weaning if possible.
"My child would be nursing as he went off to first grade?"
He could have been, if he'd decided to take that long to self-wean, and you'd allowed it. :)
Hey, thanks for the welcome! I am always interested in this type of debate even though I don't have kids. I do want to have kids, and obviously spending $100k in tuition for law school, I am pretty interested in having a career as well! Although admittedly, I'm biased as my mother not only worked my whole life, but had a pretty high powered career. In addition, both of my grandmothers worked full time (from the 1950's on which is pretty rare). So I have no close family model of a SAHM. I only know women who were able to successfully balance a working and children. In fact my one grandmother was upper level management at AT&T at a time when most women weren't working at all. So I guess I feel like I need to carry on the tradition.
So hey, you're an attorney right? (I think I've read that in previous posts...) In what area of the law do you practice?
And to everyone else on the board:
DCP's can be amazing. The one I had as a child until I was about 8 or 9 was like a grandmother to me. She loved me and my brother like we were her own children. Like I said in a previous post, she actually used to be incensed when my parents would go away and my "real" grandmother would come to stay with us. She thought it was ridiculous and unfair that she had to be away from us for a week even though she got paid whether we were there or not. She was just awesome and I believe my childhood was better off for having known her. Not all DC situations are what some of you are envisioning....a ton of kids crammed into some room with one or two people who are ignoring most of them. If you research and ask other parents and look around, you can find someone great who will love your kids and take good care of them.
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