Working for Lifestyle/Extras
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| 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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"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.&
"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.&
I am just not willing to woh for those things. As I stated long ago in this thread, I have bartered for some of the things our children do. Swim team is sooo expensive here and so highly competitive but soooo wonderful for them. I don't mind paying for it but I would never woh for it. Guitar lessons, piano lessons, voice lessons, coutillian (charm classes for the Eastern folks), sewing lessons, basketball, Little League, Babe Ruth, local gym membership. We vacation in the outerbanks in the Carolinas and in Georgia or Florida and sometimes out west in the Four Corners area or Santa Fe area. DH and ds are going this next year on two excursions to Utah and then to Idaho. Hiking and 4X4's. I love our home school co-op because they learn so many things there for a small family fee each semester. Cooking has been the highlight of all the olders week there. We are a cooking family so they learn and come home and show off. It's great!
It would pretty much all be gone if I had to rely on extra income and not find a way to include it in our yearly budgeting.
"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.&
"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.&
"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.&
"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.&
Why can't a child pay for these things themselves? I am not understanding the importance of the parent paying for these extra things? I worked in HS and paid for a great deal of all of this. Not to mention some of these things mentioned are just not even necessary. They are fluff. Nice, sure. But fluff nevertheless. Why does the child have to have all this and why can't they pay for them, if they do indeed want them?
Visits to college campuses? Not my problem. It will be upon my child to find out how to go about doing all of that including paying for it. I'm sure we'll help pay but not the full ride. How much more significant it will be for the child who pays their way through school. It will have meaning like no other education would.
I simply think that children, on the whole, are spoiled. Period.
Edited 12/19/2006 11:25 pm ET by phoenixrising687
"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.&
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Sure...that's why ME was in big ol' giant capital letters, right? And why she specifically said "my satisfaction"? Because it was all about someone ELSE.
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You must have read a different post than I did.
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Who has said squat about "useful relationship builder(s)"? In any case, I don't see that we live in a world where time is of the essence when it comes to our children, nor do I consider my children "resources" of any sort.
I wasn't responding to the original post. I was responding to the 2830th post.
As for why you haven't yet heard from someone who works for "extras and lifestyle" after over 3,000 posts, maybe there's a reason for that. What could it possibly be?
So you would be comfortable with your child at 17 driving across state or across several states to visit college campuses by themselves? You would allow your child to attend a college sight unseen by you?
If you were capable of that at 17 and your parents felt comfortable giving you such freedom, more power to you. There was no way my parents were going to let me do any such thing.
If course my parents afforded me the luxuries you mentioned. Actually I could have cared less about a class ring - but my dad's class ring is a big thing to him so he wanted me to have one. They also paid 1/2 of my college tution (that wasn't covered by scholorships) by getting a parents loan. In high school and college I paid for my spending money but studies were my first priority according to my parents. I got the luxury of a tradional college experience - living in dorms - doing the sorority thing (I paid for that) and enjoying the whole experience. Yes I had loans coming out - but I still figure it was worth it.
Yes I plan to pass my parents kindness forward to my daughter. If that makes my daughter and I spoiled so be it. My parents did it on a single income - for my DH and I it will take two incomes.
Except that last paragraph - no way that would have flied with my parents or me. Affording extras is one things, teaching irresponsibility is something completely different.
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