Working for Lifestyle/Extras

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-22-2005
Working for Lifestyle/Extras
3621
Mon, 11-20-2006 - 11:13am

Hi Ladies :)

This is my first time on this debate board and I have been dying to jump into some of the topics, but I feel as though they are sooooo long (one in particular is over 1000 replies, yikes!) that starting my own specific one might work out better.

Anyhow, a recurring theme here seems to be what Moms should and shouldn't be going to work for. It seems some are of the opinion that is OK for Mom to work if she must to pay her bills but NOT if its to afford a nice car, house, good neighborhood. This is considered keeping up with the Johnses (who are they???) and thats bad.

Well, I want to know what in the heck is wrong with a women working to have nice things? I don't mean working and leaving baby in child care 16 hours a day, everyday...thats pretty extreme.

I enjoyed a certain lifestyle before having a child, should I have downsized that lifestyle once baby came so I didn't have to work? What about me *wanting* to maintain a certain lifestyle for myself, my husband, and my child makes me a (a) workaholic or (b) striving to keep up with the Joneses?

Don't some people (like myself) simply enjoy living in a nice place with nice things and want their children to have the same experience?

So please, anyone who thinks a women is wrong for WOH if she is not doing so to financially survive but does it to maintain a certain lifestyle...whats wrong with this?

Thanks all :)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-27-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 8:54am

Exactly. However, DR maintains it is best to be able to pay for the house in full than to take out a mortgage. He realizes though that it is not common to have the cash to buy outright.

It is certainly something to strive for.

"Besides this we have our living prophet, for whom I am grateful, and I hope to follow after him all the days of my life.&

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 8:56am
I have tried to explain.

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 8:59am
I tend to agree. It's complicated and highly individual, but there's no reason IMO to shy away from mortgage debt, properly handled.

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-27-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 9:04am

As I stated before, your posts to me are caustic in nature and I prefer not to address you at all rather than have any type of conversation with you. You aren't the only one. There are two others I won't address for the same reason.

My rebuttal may not be what you want me to say or anything you agree with but it is mine and I have posted it to people who aren't here to denigrate and harm others by using such vulgar language and condescending tones to other posters.

Thanks for your interest, nevertheless, I have none where your posts are concerned.

"Besides this we have our living prophet, for whom I am grateful, and I hope to follow after him all the days of my life.&

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-27-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 9:26am

You have a variety of things on your list. Knex, to me, is like lego and I do not think of it as educational. It is just fun. So, there our only quibble is one of classification.>>

So, you don't read any educational value into K'nex or Legos? I think there are loads of value in both if you care to find them. I used to make homemade counter and matching games for the children in my pre-school out of things like clothespins which I spray painted different colors and gave them a tin pie plate to clip them to. This was the same type thing as Legos so far as ed. value is concerned only for a smaller set of children who couldn't play with the small Lego parts. I also did the same with puzzle pieces and other things from around the house.

The handhelds are where I do have a problem. It is not that I am against them in principle, but I think it is a cop-out and a mistake to consider them beneficial. IOW, the leap thingy is not appreciably different from the gameboy, and as you yourself say its main value is in saving your sanity on car trips. A fine and worthy goal, I agree, but nothing to do with edumacational in the end.>>

I think I may have focused so much on my having a decent car trip because I found out Friday that we were headed to LA for Christmas when I had planned a nice holiday here at home! Sorry. While I can tell you won't agree, I do think that the Leap pad for my youngers is of great worth educationally. The little books which come with it have regular household items we normally point out to our babies in any given day. I don't know, I do this daily with all my young children as their interest comes up or I see things they are aware of and ask for. I think it's worthwhile to teach them the names of the things in their environment, don't you? That's all this Leap item does as it provides some fun while learning. I recognize it is not a replacement for real interaction with other family members teaching the concepts it does but it is fun and educational for the child and I like it too. It's in addition to, not instead of.

"The idea that our children have to learn only in a "natural" setting just doesn't make sense to me."

You are misunderstanding, I think. The example I gave in my original post was the difference between a baby learning letters, because the baby becomes interested in what mom (or dad) is doing and the baby sees the letters on a page in a context that has meaning, as opposed to a baby being flashcarded by a parent or having some toy that says the letters, for example. Surely you can see that there is a difference between those two situations.>>

I don't think it's ever appropriate to "flash card" any child about things which they normally wouldn't be interested in. Some here have made light of my using flash cards for a 12 mo but what you might not understand is that these flash cards don't have any letter or number symbols on them. They are made with textures and sound items, not unlike a board book you would purchase. Yes, I do see the difference and I do agree with you on that point.

As children grow and learn, they eventually reach a stage when they can take in info and assign it to the appropriate spheres as well as deal with abstract ideas and concepts.>>

I whole-heartedly agree with you on this. As an ecd activist I can tell you that I have seen people shoving things in children's faces which were totally inappropriate but only because they had not the understanding of how a child's brain actually works. Once a person is taught the concepts of physical development in the young child I would hope they would resign their efforts to push this type of learning.

This is why multiplication flash cards may be helpful to a third grader actually learning multiplication, but would be a mistake and possibly downright harmful to a 3yo.>>

Again, I agree.

What I am saying here is pretty standard stuff, and as far as I know widely accepted among educators and other professionals who study and deal with children.>>

I think it was merely misunderstanding on my part. I apologize for the kaffunkle on the matter. You are correct that this is standard and if you understood what it is that I use in the way of educational toys and games you would also know that I completely understand the stages of normal development where the young child is concerned but recognize that not all children develop at the same level or speed (of course).

I see that we agree more than we disagree.

"Besides this we have our living prophet, for whom I am grateful, and I hope to follow after him all the days of my life.&

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 9:37am

I think I am getting confused here. I thought you explained that ability grouping was no longer considered best practice because all kids had to perform at a minimum level, in which context you cited NCLB.

Then I thought that it had been agreed, that such an objective does not necessarily mean that the higher-performing students are learning and are well served. IOW, ability grouping is not considered best practice, but we agree that "best" practice may not be best for high-performing students (btw, by high-performing, I do not mean just gifted, but any kind of decent B student who meets grade level benchmarks on state testing). Did I miss a step somewhere?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 9:53am

Not at all. I'd just like to see some research on the long-term effect of dual FT wohp's. It is my opinion based on the average number of working hours of a dual woh family (93) that many wp's are unable to scale back their working hours to monitor their children's after-school activities and associations. There is a connection between early experimentation with drugs, alcohol, and sex and parental involvement, and my opinion is that kids who are unsupervised for long hours at home are more likely to make poor decisions particularly in the pre-teen/early teen years.

Re. another post: why is it that you think it "unhealthy" for babies to be in a parent's care 24-7?

Avatar for myshkamouse
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 10:12am

Oh please. It's not a WOH/SAH thing. It's a ultra uber-parenting vs. more sedate parenting thing. You can take your kids to Wiggles on Ice, the water park, and the science museum five times a week if you like. I think those things are better left for occasional variety in an otherwise nice life."

Well I agree on wiggles on ice:) I WOH full time and I've taken my kids to disney on ice two times (they are 3.5). DH is a full time SAHD and he takes them weekly to things like the science museum, the library, bounce houses, etc. though.

" Frankly, I that no good can come from overdoing it and making kids expect that they have to be entertained by big fancy events all the time, but you are free to parent as you choose."

Museums arent big fancy events. Wiggles or Disney on ice...are.

But again, agree this has little to do with SAH or WOH status!

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 10:26am
Well, whoever you were responding to, I agree.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-08-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 11:14am

<>

And why do you think that those kids are "unsupervised"??? I can't be home when my kids get home, but that is why I have my nanny on afternoon duty. Of course, I'm home within an hour of the first 3 getting home -- and I usually beat the last one home.

Early experimentation with drugs, alcohol and sex is certainly linked with less parental involvement and/or supervision, but that cuts across work status lines.

as for research related to the long-term effects of dual-wohp -- there isn't any because it isn't there to find.

<< unable to scale back their working hours to monitor their children's after-school activities and associations. >>

just because some parents work later doesn't mean that they haven't figured out a way to monitor these things. You need to be active and involved with your teens, talk to them, listen to them when they are talking to their friends, etc.

carole

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