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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In what ways are the
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"I don't think the DH gets a pass, but he (or is job) is often less flexible"
Why do you think that men as a whole have less flexible jobs? That makes no sense. So if I am an accountant and I am a woman, my job is more flexible than an accountant that happens to be a man?
Susan
"then what was the purpose of your op?"
Heres an idea... (quoted from my OP)
"what Moms should and shouldn't be going to work for."
"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?"
Basically I was asking...why is OK for women to work because they HAVE to but not OK for me to work because I want/and because I enjoy the lifestyle working allows me.
Thats a far cry from what Phoenix's mom told the board my post was.
Its just funny that my DH's income somehow magically only goes to bills and MY income only magically goes to purchase nice things, save, etc.
"from what i've read,you were validating things as if it was exclusive to woh or something. and it's not"
I believe I have explicitly stated its not exclusive to WOH moms. Some SAHs have WOH counterparts that make a very large income and can have the same lifestyle as me on one income. So what? Its a fact. But why is OK for them to enjoy the lifestyle but not for me? And I never said the exclusive reason I work is because I want shiny new things. :)
"sahms aren't the only one judging. you chose to pull my parents down by saying all they cared about was keeping up with some status by sending me and my siblings to parochial school. and that's so far from the truth."
Where did I "pull" them down? I simply countered your outrageous anti-college savings arguement with the FACT that your parents did something very much similar and perhaps. If your parents paid for you to go to private school because it was important to them that you have an excellent education and the cost did not matter to them and that ISNT fluff....why then is me saving for my child's college tuition so she can have any oppourtunitity she wants fluff? You simply cannot have it both ways. (in case you're wondering my opinion is that neither of these are fluff and you are simply wrong about the college savings being fluff)
You missed out, you should have been "down the shore" during those hot days you lived in Jersey! ;-)
Im with P&Js mom, I hate cold weather. I live for summer!! I think its a little hotter in D.C., but I bet the humidity in Jersey could give D.C. a run for it money.
I see, you think providing all the physical necessities in life is raising a child.
70% percent of the families in America being dual income isn't proof that women HAVE to work. It just isn't and I think you know it.
What could you cut out and survive on one income? Or what could you do to improve the odds of that scenario working out for your family?
Who said they had to be extravagent extras?
Extra, disposable income? hmmmm....wasted time away from home and family, imo.
What you earn is often determined by yourself and your chosen path in life. That's what I'm talking about when I say that people need to plan better for their future so that the children have their mother raising them instead of this "other care".
It's not my dream. It's what we wanted so our children could become the best adults they could. Have your dreams but what about your children's dreams? Those are the ones which matter most to me at this time. I have continued school through the years. I am expecting to go back this next Fall yet again.
re-read your posts. It comes through loud and clear.
No, what comes through loud and clear is what I think is best for children on the whole. I maintain that whether a mom woh or wah is the choice of those involved. I simply know there is a better way.
"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.&
<> Perhaps for people who have no impulse control. I've never viewed credit that way. Such paranoid generalizations are evocative of those recovering from bankruptcy and smacks of the hypocrisy of the Ted Haggards and Mark Foleys of the world: preaching one thing and busy doing the opposite in private.
<> It would be foolish to carry that much cash around when it could so easily be lost between home and store. Not gonna do it just because I hear someone for the first time in my life ever mention that she's afraid she can't control her spending and can't appreciate the value of a dollar and her purchases.
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<<70% percent of the families in America being dual income isn't proof that women HAVE to work. It just isn't and I think you know it.>>
That's the main part of your argument I just don't get. Do you think these families haven't crunched the numbers to see if they could have a sahp? Do you have any reason to believe you are smarter than 70% of mothers? Your "advice" seems to be to cut out the extras to sah - don't you think many mothers have thought of that?
<>
He sounds like a saint! But unfortunately that's not what comes from good planning alone. Luck has A LOT to do with businesses that don't fail.
He planned. You're unemployed. Thus, you did not plan - you married well. Welcome to the club. But it doesn't mean that you planned a thing or can credibly use someone else's success and good fortune as a pulpit from which to admonish mothers who cannot afford to comfortably sah.
Yes, with the othercare my child has had, I feel quite confident in saying that what I thought she was getting was what she was getting. Whoever cares for my child does not have to "survive on the same moral values" as I do. For example, most of my child's caregivers were Catholics. I am not a Catholic, so what?
"I still maintain children are adversely affected by mother's absence regardless if it's forced or obliged."
Right, I understand that is what you are saying. You have still to explain why you think this is so, and giving some examples of the hows and whys of this.
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