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 :)

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-27-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 1:18pm

I didn't say it did, and I don't think the article pushes that agenda either. In fact, it goes on to give pointers on how to know if a child is ready to be left at home alone.

I think though that your definition of latch key and what I am referring to is totally different. I'm not referring to those who have the nicety of having a nanny at home on afternoon duty for the children or a babysitter or a care center of some kind.

I'm referring to those who come home to an empty home. Stay there until mom or dad comes home. (if they do stay there)

"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: 03-27-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 1:25pm

Striving to pay for a house in cash is seriously bad advice. There are some extremely wealthy people who have enough in their bank accounts for such a purchase. However, for huge chunks of the population, attempting to buy a house without a mortgage would lead to choosing a far cheaper house than they ought to live in: either a decrepit house that they have no money to repair because they used all their money on buying w/o mortgage, or a house in a horrid school district, that they then must use because all money that could be spent on private school tution just got blown on the house.

Buying a house w/o a mortgage is a really bad goal and I wouldn't advise anybody to do it but those wealthy enough to be able to buy in a great neighborhood and have lots left over besides for repairs and furnishings.

It's possible to have a mortgage without being house-poor and living beyond your means. It sounds like you (like everybody else on this board) is doing just that. You simply get a mortgage which will not take too big a chunk out of your paycheck.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 1:58pm

"I'm referring to those who come home to an empty home. Stay there until mom or dad comes home."

That's pretty much standard operating procedure for most kids over the age of 11 in Sweden. Some may be on their own for an hour or two, some for 3-4 hours. And yet, half the kids aren't failing out of school (in fact, Swedish kids did very well in general on the last round of PISA tests compared to kids from other countries where having a SAHM is more the norm), and there isn't a higher rate of teen alcohol/drug abuse or teen pregnancy.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 2:05pm

There definitely have been a lot of studies that discuss the impact of mothers working on their children. Here are a sample. I know that you have to pay to read these studies, but that's the nature of scholarly publications. I think the overall conclusion has been that in some cases mothers working is beneficial, in others detrimental. Basically it is not a foregone conclusion that a mother's working status determines how the kids turn out. It is much more complex than that.

Jessica

Determining Children's Home Environments: The Impact of Maternal Characteristics and Current Occupational and Family Conditions.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2445(199105)53%3A2%3C417%3ADCHETI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

"We have argued that the home environments young mothers create for their young children are a function of maternal and child background, maternal working conditions, and current family characteristics. We have found that indicators from each conceptual group affect children's home environments. These effects are generally additive in their impact, with little evidence for important stress-accumulation or stress-buffering interactions. The findings suggest, however, that maternal characteristics--age, education, ethnicity, and initial self-esteem and locus of control-- are the most critical predictors. In addition, mothers of children with health limitations have stronger NLSY-HOME scores, suggesting that mothers may compensate for their children's limitations by reinforcing the home environment."

Early Parental Work, Family Social Capital, and Early Childhood Outcomes

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9602(199401)99%3A4%3C972%3AEPWFSC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

"we find minimally negative effects of early maternal employment on child outcomes. The data suggest that mothers who do not work during the child's first three years may, if their occupational prospects are poor, facilitate verbal fluency in their children; however, this effect is reversed for mothers whose later occupations are high in complexity. In addition, comparable effects regarding behavior are not apparent. Thus, the emphasis on mothers forgoing employment to preven children's social maladjustment (e.g. Belsky and Eggebeen (1991a) does not receive strong support."

WORK AND FAMILY IN THE 1990S

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111%2Fj.1741-3737.2000.00981.x

"The effect of maternal employment on children is an old theme in the work and family literature, but researchers gave it some new twists in the 1990s. Early in this decade, a number of studies explored the effects of early maternal employment on child outcomes, with inconsistent results. Using large, nationally representative data sets such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), some studies reported significant relationships between maternal employment in the child's first year of life and negative cognitive and social outcomes (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Belsky & Eggebeen, 1991), whereas others found enhanced cognitive outcomes for children as a function of early maternal employment (Vandell & Ramanan, 1992) or no overall net effect (Blau & Grossberg, 1990).

"Using the latest NLSY data, Harvey (1999) reviewed the diverse methodological approaches to sample construction, measurement of outcomes, and the construction of early maternal employment variables in the early studies that may have led to such discrepant findings. In her reanalysis, neither early maternal nor paternal employment status, nor the timing and continuity of maternal employment, were consistently related to child outcomes. The few significant findings revealed that, for mothers, working more hours in the first 3 years was associated with slightly lower vocabulary scores up through age 9. Maternal employment during the 1st year of the child's life appeared to be slightly more beneficial for the children of single mothers, and early employment of mothers and fathers was related to more positive child outcomes for low-income families. Neither job satisfaction nor race moderated these effects. Although these results suggest parental employment status has few negative effects on young children, other research in the 1990s illuminated some of the conditions under which parental work makes its mark on family relations.




Edited 12/17/2006 2:06 pm ET by geschichtsgal
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 2:07pm
Reputable financial advisors

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 2:11pm
True.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 2:26pm
Now, is he the Covenant System guy, or is

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-08-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 3:01pm

hey Jennie! I think i'm the "other one" that she's not posting to anymore:( I'm going to try not to lose sleep over it, LOL!

You also have it quite right about the insulting and caustic things said.

Carole - a wohm who completely agrees with you

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 3:13pm
I can't even possibly imagine in what universe it is better to throw money down the drain (rent) rather than take out a mortgage.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2006
Sun, 12-17-2006 - 3:20pm
If it were vulgar language, she would be banned. "Crap" is not vulgar. And apparently, disagreement is "caustic"... maybe you shouldn't frequent debate boards?

Pages