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: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:27am

<<my child is spoiled, no more so than yours however, my kids sure arent out riding their gators and 4 wheelers. >>


That's what I was thinking as well.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:30am

Read the whole post, lol. I agreed that the rhymes can be learned with or without books. However, my point was that a book would add another important and useful dimension to the experience of learning the rhyme. The flash card? I do not see what it really adds here that can't be better added with a book. The other point I was trying to make was that if a mother, after reading this study, picks 4 rhymes and says them 10 times a day, but otherwise does not read to the kid nor has books around, I doubt the kid will become a great reader. OTOH, I am sure he will enter school knowing those 4 rhymes backwards and forwards.

FWIW, I did read Mother Goose to dd. I thought it was important because it was a cultural foundation for the language. OTOH, I really detest poetry and rhymes, so I was not very dilligent about it. Dd managed to assemble her important pre-reading skills in spite of never having recited a nursery rhyme for anyone. I imagine it was because she had all the tools available to her, through the general reading we did, the talking and the availability of books.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:32am

<>


Okay, I agree with all of those.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:35am

<>

I agree, but some groups really do need special approaches, provided by specialists in their fields. Your daughter's needs should have been addressed, in the mainstream if possible.

<>

That's because the school and/or the teachers need some serious staff development.

<< I am also curious as to why ability grouping is considered such a terrible thing in elementary, yet a fine thing in HS. What makes the difference there?>>

The difference: while ability grouping of young kids tends to stigmatize them, in HS there is a much broader variety of courses, and kids need to be properly placed. When you're in first or second grade, then first or second grade *is* the course; the minimum requirements are the same for all students. But when you're in trigonometry, not all students can handle that. By HS, most kids know what kinds of learners they are, and it's sad for the slower learners to be slower. But it's also very nonproductive to be overplaced.

<>

It's hard to know for sure without having been there, but I suspect they just weren't up to speed on their differentiated instruction.

<>

Depends on the content area. Let's take science. If we're studying the solar system, a slower student can make a model of the earth, the moon, or one of the other planets. An advanced student can model the solar system in its entirety. A slower student can write a two-page paper describing the solar system. An advanced student can write a 10-page paper describing the changing story of the nature of the solar system. Expectations are set differently, reading assignments can differ, and finished products can differ. Yet these students can work together in groups, too.

Sabina


Oh, lifeis a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea:


And love is a thing that can never go wrong; and I am Marie of Roumania.


Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:37am

<>


Trust, it's the subject we are talking about.


<>


Trust.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:38am

She met her dh in 3rd grade.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:39am

Flash cards?


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:42am

Wow, over $2000 for one of those things.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:43am

The book sticks in my mind because when it came out it touched off a little review war. It got flagged or slagged depending on the reviewer's own personal feelings of the subject. A common theme was your very sentence, "Americans were doomed due to cultural shortcomings." Some reviewers saw the book as a call to arms. Proof that Americans are indeed doomed due to cultural differences when competing against Asian countries unless we adopt their cultural practices. (I seem to remember that in the 80's too. Calls to arms that we should start imitating their business practice.)

Other reviewers said (and it is with them that I agree), that there is more to success in the global market than good grades. That America's greatest intellectual strength is not how well we do on tests (we don't) but rather that our particularly American individualism leads to inventive risks that sometimes pay off big time. Two examples being personal computers and hip hop. Both are global juggernauts created in the U.S. that generate considerable wealth for (some) Americans.

The book was somewhat controversial because it did divide people very sharply on whether or not following the Asian family model regarding academics was a good thing or not. But all did agree that Asian family culture was an effective incubator for academic achievement.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Wed, 12-20-2006 - 11:48am

I thought you meant that knowing the nursery rhymes was just a by-product of having been read to and that the books were more important. I was just making the point that the rhymes are important in themselves, regardless of how they're learned, but I guess we already agree on that. I also agree that neither oral recitation nor flash cards can substitute for books.

It's not clear from the research that kids need to actually say nursery rhymes to benefit from them. The research has focused more on just having heard them. But I do sometimes have to remediate kids who have been "rhyme-deprived" lol. By first grade, they should be able to predict the last word in the verse when reading Dr. Seuss.

Sabina


Oh, lifeis a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea:


And love is a thing that can never go wrong; and I am Marie of Roumania.


Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

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