Working for Lifestyle/Extras
Find a Conversation
| 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
oh my! feel better now???? I'm just going to tackle a few major points because I just don't have the time or energy to deal with all of that...
<>
yes, which is why in the long run -- it just doesn't matter. When you factor in all of those things that DO make a difference in the vast majority of kids -- sah or woh mom is not even a blip on the radar screen.
I like the "be a high achiever part", LOL! I'm a public school teacher and my ex is a transmission technician who co-owns the shop with his partner. We bought our house 16 years ago and haven't moved since. It's not in a fancy neighborhood. We're in a small city (or large town, LOL!) with OK schools. I drive an 11 year old Honda Accord with 167,000 miles on it. I divorced in 2004 and was awarded the house in the divorce. I remarried in 2006 and have now added my current dh (who's a chemist) and his daughter (he has sole custody).
I took 8 weeks off with the birth of each of my kids. We used in-home dc and found plenty of warm, caring, kind women to take care of our children during that time. I didn't need them to be ME. My kids had/have me and I had no problems leaving the baby to go do my job (which I LOVE!).
<>
HOW in the world do you figure THIS??? It doesn't even make mathematical sense that a child can't bond with it's parents fully in the 128 HOURS per week that are left over (not to mention weekends, holidays and vacations)!!!
Heck, my kids are 15, 12 and 11 and I STILL "bask in their development" (insert eye roll here!) as they go through school. It's called being a GOOD, INVOLVED, ACTIVE parent.
<>
We're firmly middle class (we dropped to very-lower middle class when I was a single mom) and PLANNED to do it on two incomes.
<>
As for "getting their younger years back", LOL! I don't need to because I have BEEN HERE the whole time. Of course, since you haven't even hit first grade with any of your kids, I'd expect my vision of parenthood is far more wide-reaching and deeper than you've gotten to yet.
Carole
Sigh. I wish I had your posting style, but I am overly sensitive about the plight of the inner city mother and child having spoken with (deposed) dozens at my last job (in a Section 1983 class action suit.) To see so many ignorant posts about them simply makes my stomach turn.
I agree with you that the inner city mother is generally a single mother (unless we're talking about the middle or upper classes...or Paris). And while she may live in poverty and in public housing, she is generally working off-the-books at more than one job. Like you said, they don't file tax returns. They won't likely have the benefit of Social Security. She is most certainly not a SAHP. She relies mostly on other adult family members for help with childcare.
Thank you for clarifying based on your first-hand experience. Unfortunately, old ignorant prejudices about those living in poverty in our country die very hard. 1968 was a very bad year for civil rights in this country and we have probably not rebounded when I read some of the shocking posts on this board.
She has insulted no one. If you don't know by now what it is to speak in broad generalizations and theories, then the support board is your answer.
TBH, from what I've seen and read about U.S. K-8
Sabina
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
<>
In education today, teachers always have several students in each class with alternative learning styles and/or with IEP's that call for specific accommodations and modifications.
Sabina
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
<>
I agree; you don't really understand until you've been there.
Sabina
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
Yeah, but it's a very real fact of inner city life in Texas, and probably California, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Maybe other states too, now.
I think it's a stereotype, at least in my state. My understanding is that it's very difficult for a person without a physical disability to draw welfare. Foodstamps, prenatal and medical coverage for children, but not a check in the mail every month that covers rent and utilities.
Do you have any numbers to back up this assumption?
As with any other SAH/WOH/WAH decision, I believe it would depend on the family's situation. If by poverty you mean not having two new cars, cable TV, and cell phones, well, that's obviously a different situation than not having food, medical insurance, utilities, shelter, clothing, etc. You'd have to look at what kind of othercare is available and accessible, how much the parent could make working after subtracting work and childcare related expenses, whether the parent might be better off trying to get some schooling while the child/children were small.
But in general answer to your question, no, I don't think having a SAHM is more important than not living in poverty, and statistics show that the women most likely to live in poverty are also the most likely to provide care inferior to daycare.
Exactly. Most of these women are just like us in that they are doing everything in their power to raise their children in the best way they know how; unfortunately, their low education levels often render them quite powerless to do more than provide the most basic necessities for their children. Like you say, adult family members often are the ones to provide othercare, perhaps as often boyfriends or neighbors. These women do what they have to to survive.
Sadly, the children do suffer. I always taught my sophomores Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, although I cringed at the explicit description of sexual abuse in chapters eleven and twelve. My teen girls almost invariably rated it the best of all that we read, in large part because they had been victims of abuse at the hands of someone who provided short-term othercare and for the first time they understood that they (1) were not at fault, (2) that there was freedom in exposing the truth, and (3) that they could move past the emotional devastation.
Pages