What would you give up to stay home?
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| Sat, 08-05-2006 - 8:36am |
Hi everyone.
I have always said that staying home is so important to me that I would give up many things to be able to do that. We live in a very small home, I have no jewelry and we buy all our clothes at Walmart. I know that if I went back to work, we could afford more. But I would never trade being at home for a larger house or more luxuries.
However, after reading this board I have started to suspect that there are things I would not want to give up. If I couldn't send my kids to preschool a couple of hours a day, if I couldn't afford any after school activities like ballet lessons or if I could'nt afford any kind of summer program for them, I think I would have to find a way to go back to work. So basically, I'm perfectly happy to deny myself "things." But I would not want to take much away from the kids.
Of course I would probably have to find a new career becuase I could never work the 80 hours a week my old career entailed.

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Jennie
"Oh, well considering its a *fact* that England and Ireland are part of Europe, that would be me who is right."
Oh, I'm so sorry you misunderstood...I meant who is right about whether people from the U.K. and Ireland see themselves as Europeans or not. Of course those countries are technically part of Europe, I said that in my original post. The question is whether they actually consider themselves to be European in the same sense that, say, French are European. It's kind of like the way most people, including Icelanders, consider Iceland to be part of Scandinavia even though it technically isn't even remotely close.
"Oh and I lived in Bermuda, which is *full* of expats, for 4 years."
I'm not sure how living in a country *full* of expats can actually give you the same experience as living in the countries those expats come from. I'm guessing, though, that they were mostly British? As far as I can tell, your experience of "living in Europe" involves 2 tiny islands that don't even feel very related to Europe.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about 30-40 years ago. It really was different way back then. Many of my friends in the U.S. weren't at home alone that young, but most in Mexico (where I lived until I was 8) were sometimes home alone as young as 6 or 7. We were also out in the streets on our own, or picking up milk at the local grocery store on our own, or on the beach on our own.
In the U.S., kids were more like 11 or 12 before they were on their own. Most of my friends were babysitting by the age of 11 or 12 so why wouldn't they be able to manage being at home alone sometimes? The moms were probably out shopping, running errands etc. It just wasn't imperative at that time to make sure a parent was at home with a child every second of the day.
I guess it was different in my area. All the moms were home when the kids came home and nobody was left alone unless your mom worked and that was unheard of when we were very young. Most moms went back to work when the kids were in middle or high school.
Why couldn't the moms do errands while the kids were in school? I just don't get why you can't get home in time for your kids. That would be my top priority.
Jennie
Jennie
Jennie
"As far as I can tell, your experience of "living in Europe" involves 2 tiny islands that don't even feel very related to Europe."
Like I said before, the UK is part of Europe. Even if in your world its not. Reality, fortunately for the UK, says differently.
And living in Bermuda -- well not the same as living in Europe. But your original assumption was that the US has a huge problem with underage drinking..whereas the rest of the world doesnt. The reality is its a global issue. And if you have lived, traveled and worked outside of the US for a large % of your life as I have (EMEA, APAC, and yes bermuda) you'd know that.
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