WOH/Kids/Feminism: WDYT?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
WOH/Kids/Feminism: WDYT?
1456
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

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 7:34am

Or to the urban working Mom working only 1 job, but whose municipality keeps shutting down the neighborhood library branches, and curtailing the hours of operation to only those of the business week (such as has been happening more and more in places like DC and Baltimore.

Tell that to the working Mom who lives in an area where public transportation is limited or nonexistent. Tell that to the family (like the one in the condo next to mine, where the parents both work, but the Mom works nights and weekends and they share one car (all they can afford). Tell that to that same Mom that she should home school or augment her other children's education when their youngest is autistic and requires a great deal of her attention on a hands-on basis daily.

You're absolutely right, Hollie; we're in complete agreement on this one. The OP's suggestion that good education isn't a need of our society or an entitlement (like it's a luxury that we bestow on a lucky few) and that those who can't give themselve or their children the extra time/attention/materials to make a crappy school system irrelevant are simply parents who don't care and aren't involved.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 7:40am

Balderdash. My dad NEEDS to live in a place where there are no factories. he NEEDS this because he's asthmatic as a result of lung damage caused during the 68 Chicago riots, where he was exposed to various chemical agents used for crowd control.

Factories and the pollutants they released into the air, even in these days of EPA controls on pollutants trigger really bad reactions in his asthma if he's exposed to them for a period of several weeks (long term exposure, compared to visiting the city for a day or weekend).

by your definition, my Dad and others who, based on various disabilities or other needs, are spoiled.

What a load of bull.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 7:55am

Only for the purposes of reporting national statistics. For the purposes of services and assistance, local rates prevail, even for assistance provided or subsidized by federal agencies.

Here in DC, the Post recently ran an article about a developer who had bought and was renovating a formerly swanky apartment complex property that had fallen on hard times. the developer was doing so through grants and programs with HUD, with an end result of what will be 90% subsidized housing. The cutoff income for qualifying for these units will be $52K/year for a family of four. That's well above the natiional average you're quoting. HUD, a federal agency, oversees the project and THEY are the ones who set the cutoffs. They are clearly NOT using national standards.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 7:57am
That's not always possible. My neighbors have a 3 year old son with autism; he is being treated and receives therapy through Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Are you suggesting that his treatment is a luxury they should relinquish so that they can live somewhere where their $40K/year-ish income gets them out of needing public assistance?

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:06am

<>

I take it that this is the reason why you started posting here? To make this comment?

Congratulations! I'm so happy to hear it. I just heard the good news and popped back over, just in case you were still checking in.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:27am

Yes. A bad education is bad. In my part of the world, districts with bad schools are places where your children will encounter daily violence, teachers who don't know their subjects and treat the kids unkindly, administrations that don't care about even basic safety of the kids, and rampant drugs on campus.

We lived in Boston before moving to this burb, and the hs kids used to walk past our condo on their way to work. There would be 20-30 of them walking together, all smoking their morning pot, harassing (as in, hitting, stealing briefcases from, tripping) the commuters walking to the train. I can't think of anything I wouldn't do to keep my kids out of that situation, frankly. The kids would also hang out on porches of the houses they passed, leaving garbage on the property, waking up the residents, and basically terrorizing the neighborhood. Those houses might have been cheap, but so what? You'd never be able to sell one.

Our COL is staggering, compared to what I'm seeing here. But I can't see it as anything other than a need.

Congratulations! I'm so happy to hear it. I just heard the good news and popped back over, just in case you were still checking in.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:44am

Please, no offense meant; you are one of the easier posters here to understand. I just meant that a lot of these posts can be hard to understand. It was pointed out to me that my posts sometimes are hard to understand. It is hard, without faces, without gestures, to "read the tone" of what people are intending to say, especially when you are not familiar. Plus, I find the reasoning confusing sometimes, and the way the point of the thread seems to switch from one thing to another.

For instance, there have been many, many posts about one poster, I think it is PNJ, and her feelings about the loss of her home. I try and try and cannot figure out how it is connected to the OP. But that's okay. It must have meaning to those posting.

To someone unfamiliar, it seems there are some rules and customs connected with this, and I'm trying to figure out what they are. Maybe you can help on this one question: do most posters really not care if the topic goes way, way off topic, or is that expected? I wonder whether starting "parallel threads" would help keep it straight, or does that not matter?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:44am
I agree; I wasn't very clear about my point. I agree that people in middle America *do* commute that far/long. But I don't think anyone there considers it "reasonable". (not even "fairly")

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:48am
I find it hard to believe that any one sees a long commute as reasonable but as something that sometimes has to be done. I think that most people would much rather be doing something else with that 10 hours.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 02-13-2005 - 8:54am

it's what the thing represents emotionally.

I've never been that pressed about any of the houses my parents owned, but when we had to sell my Gram's house (Mom's Mom), I was (and still am, a little) heartbroken. My grandfather built that house. He designed it and built it. It's not just the house...and it's not even the memories, which I have many of, despite NEVER having lived there. it's that it is like the culmination of his life's work. The design of it, the feel of it, the smell of it, the layout, the colors (which I know have long since changed, etc.)

One of my long-term, lifetime goals is one day to buy that house...a thoroughly STUPID lifetime goal, actually, given that it's a very "steep" Cape Cod and I have a bad right knee and a long, ugly history with falling down stairs...but it's still my heart's goal... I want to buy that house, restore it decoratively to it's prime, upgrade the electrical and live there.

I love that house; when I think of "home" I think of that house. That's my "home."

Logical? Probably not. Real? Absolutely. Healthy? heck yeah.

BTW, PNJ, I was 23 when we sold that house and I hadn't lived in Illinois in 6 years,....nor in Joliet, when it exists, for over 12. And selling it was like selling a member of my family. I know whereof you speak.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,

Pages