WOH/Kids/Feminism: WDYT?
Find a Conversation
| Tue, 02-08-2005 - 9:06am |
Okay, let's debate something else. One morning a few months ago, I was crabby to DH about having to get ready for work. DH said, "Well, if you don't want to go to work, quit!"
Later that day, I told him I was just venting, and then I told him some of the reasons I really do like WOH. One reason was something to the effect that I wanted to WOH as part of at-home feminism for our DD's. He said he had no idea what I was talking about.
I thought about it some and decided that although this is a heartfelt idea for me, it's still fuzzy. I suppose I meant that I want to show my DDs how to live independently of a man, in the sense of income, ability to make one's way in the world, and so on, even if they choose marriage & kids. My feelings of pride in my own mom, who was a WOH mom, come into it, too.
Caution: I don't mean in any way to suggest anything the least bit negative about SAH moms. That's not what this is about. Nor do I mean to suggest that anyone has to WOH to teach their kids feminist or gender neutral values. That's not what this is about, either.
Do you think there's any value in WOH as part of raising kids? Please help me clarify my thinking.
Sabina

Pages
The at-home ones we have used are. That's one reason why I couldn't take a full-time job with my client. DH's hours render him unable do dropoff *or* pickup on a regular work day. If I took the job I was offered in December, then DH would be the one with the shorter work hours, which would be completely untenable.
That's an interesting point that hasn't been raised here -- how does the commute affect the feasibility of a dual WOH family? For many of the people I know, and I live 15 miles from Boston, the commute makes dual WOH impossible.
Most of the families that live on around $40K there don't see themselves as poor. They see themselves as middle-class. They live in the nicer neighborhoods, have mortgages, have two vehicles that run reliably, and more than likely send their kids to private school, though they usually do qualify for a tuition break from the Church. Most of these people would not apply for food stamps even if they qualified; because food stamps are for poor people, and they are not poor. Nearly 1/3 of the households in town live on less than $20K. *Those* people are the town's poor.
The Federal numbers really don't mean much there; SES is all in what people are used to. They are pretty satisfied with their standard of living, and compared to lots of others they see, they consider themselves comfortable. Not your definition of comfortable, but these are the sort of people who wouldn't ever be comfortable living in NYC, mostly by virtue of the business of the place and the lack of open space. If they had to move into traditional suburbia, with covenants and homeowner's associations, they would hate it. They keep big dogs, maintain small boats, and either grow, gather or kill a lot of what they eat.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/columnists.nsf/bettycuniberti/story/4D9FC3CF935C6D6086256FA30037AA3C?OpenDocument&Headline=They+married+on+a+Saturday,+and+almost+nobody+came
But could your commute be 20 minutes if you tweaked your schedule by 45 mins? Mine can, which makes me crazy when I get into work situations that lock me into a particular arrival/departure time. I REALLY think that even a little flexibility on hours can make a huge difference in retaining employees.
If I leave my office by 4:55, or wait to leave until 5:50, I can get home in 20 minutes. If I leave anytime between 4:55 and 5:50, it will take an hour. Arrrgh.
It can be 45 minutes. For 2.5 years, I worked from 11-3, two or three days a week, for my big client, and it took around 45 minutes (at least 20 minutes of that is city traffic). If I left for home after 3:00pm, I would have terrible trouble getting to DS2's dc by 5:00pm, but if I left right at 3:00pm, I'd make it with 15 minutes to a half hour to spare.
I now go in very rarely, mostly for meetings, but my last two meetings took place at 9:00am, so I had to leave the house at 7:00 in order to drop DS1 off at school on my way to work.
OMG, I just remembered that when DS2 was a tiny, three-month-old baby, I had a series of meetings there at 8:00am. I had to get up at around 4:00am to make it to the meetings on time. That was very difficult.
$800/month?!?! Good Gods, what are you feeding a baseball team??? ;) If you'd like some tips I'd be glad to share... How many are you feeding and what ages? (Or we can take it up via email or an off topic thread as this one is SO long already ;)
Wytchy
Oh- and "rolled out the system" means that he designed and wrote the system, put together the training and it's now in active use.
Wytchy
All this "grocery bill" talk made me curious.
This week my grocery total was $127 before tax.
Fresh fruits/veggies -- $15
Dairy -- $9
household/personal care -- $10
pet care -- $27
meat -- $21
canned goods -- $12
Valentine party stuff -- $17
juice/water -- $6
breakfast foods -- $6
miscellaneous -- $4
Take out the V-day, household and pet stuff and I'm at only $73. Leave in the household stuff and I'm still only at $83 for the week. Pretty good.
Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
When do you plan to retire? Not that I care enough to keep track of you for that long- no offence LOL! DH will be able to retire, with our current financial plan at 50, maybe earlier, and be making 75% of what he makes now just with his basic retirement plan. That doesn't factor in various investments, savings etc. etc. Oh, but wait, just because it sounds good it must be made up, right? LOL!
Wytchy
Pages