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: 02-06-2006
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 3:28pm
Unless your OB/GYN is in a group practice where patients generally see all of the different doctors in the group over the course of their pregnancies and the babies are delivered by whomever is on call.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 3:54pm

When a parent decides to work, he doesn't just give up time with his children today, he gives up that time for the rest of his life. He can never regain those years.

Obviously, someone has to bring in money to support each family. But since I have the option to SAH, I would rather pick up my career when my son begins school and retire a few years later than I would have otherwise. And actually, our reduced taxes and zero childcare costs offset any income losses I would incur in "starting over."

I can't speak for people in other careers, but at least in teaching, most people are able to pick up exactly where they left off. I'll have to renew my gifted/talented/AP certification, but that's something that in my state has to be done every few years anyway.

I'm sure in some careers, like computer programming, the learning curve begins all over again after any time off. But how many SAHP's choose careers where reentrance to the field is formidable?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-19-2006
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 3:58pm
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Yep."


I was at a park in Claremont, CA and some KKK members walked up to me and called me a n***er.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 3:58pm

Even when they were 6 weeks old? 4 months old? Even 16 months old? After DS was around a year old, he enjoyed the other children at church nursery, but he still is very ready for us to retrieve him after a couple of hours. The kids in his nursery still seem pretty ignorant about how to play with each other, and a couple of them are in day care during the week, so it's not for lack of practice.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:09pm
I don't know if I'll ever go back to work again. DS will be 10 when the baby starts kindy--if I go back to work then, it would be after
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:18pm

Well, even though DS is only 16 months old, I am constantly working with him on his vocabulary--he sings "EIEIO" at the right time when we sing "Old Macdonald had a farm" and he can find middle C on the piano. We check out 3 new books from the library every week and by the end of the week he "reads" them by himself, pointing out words that he knows from the pictures (cow, bear, cat, etc.). He knows over 10 signs and says over 50 words. He follows directions (sometimes reluctantly!) and loves Spanish story time and Mainly Music (a program out of New Zealand, I believe).

I'm convinced he has benefitted from one on one teaching. At this age, I don't think a 1:4 teacher: child ratio is superior or even equivalent. I would put him in day care and rtw if I believed a dcp could do more teaching with 4-5 babies than I can do with one.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2006
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:20pm
My great grandmother was 14 when she married my 28 year old great grandfather. These days he would have been in jail not getting married.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:21pm
I don't even understand how it could not be offensive. It is meant to be offensive. Besides, some terms do not have any real meaning other than to be offensive. When someone calls a woman a c***, how can that be even a little bit true? She may have one, but how can she BE one? As for n*****r, it is a very long time ago that this term had any meaning other than to be a way of causing offense.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:22pm

That's how my OB worked.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-21-2001
Sun, 12-03-2006 - 4:23pm

I look at it the opposite way...how many parents choose to SAH when the reentrance is formidable.


Most people I know choose the career path long before they choose to become parents.

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