Housewifes (or husbands... or house co-habs or civil partners ?...) & the economy

neverdespairgirl

Presenteeism?

StevieJ

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Presenteeism?

Hi NDG, middle of the night just like the old days have to go now G'night.

Orpheo

blue_monkey wrote: »

These days the dog follows me to the loo. However, unless the dorr is locked there is usually someone else in there with me unless they are at school!

I think that kids these days are left to fend for themselves and they do try things that kids 20 years ago would not have done. Drugs seems so readily available these days, when I was a teen it was practically unheard of for kids to take drugs, let alone getting hold of them - these days it seems unusual for kids NOT to have tried drugs in one form or another.

Maybe parents are so keen in keeping the kids occupied when they are under 14 that the minute they get too old for after school clubs and stuff they are bored and need to find something else to do and so turn to drugs. My friends kids do something after school almost every day - plus Saturday and Sundays - and they are just 7. I sometimes feel guilty, that I do not do enough with my children after school but then I have to remind myself they are only small, they still go to bed at 7.30, why would I be giving them 3 hours of extra curriculum activiy every day?? My DD is exhausted with Brownies and Swimming after school. So maybe lifestyle choises these days are also to blame. I guess we'll never know.

The woman next door used to go out to work and left her 9 and 7 year old to fend for themselves during the holidays. More shocking is that the police spoke to her and told her not to do it and she still did - and why Social Services were not interested I'll never know. Thanks god we do not live next door to them anymore.

Yours is a good post.

We have only one daughter, she is approaching 13 now, and we have always wanted her to be raised by a parent. Over the years both her mother and I have taken the role of main child carer.

In our daughter's early years her mum stayed at home full time to raise her while I worked full time as a primary teacher. Her mum is right hemisphere dominant, very creative, outgoing and artistic. Our infant daughter was always covered up to the eyeballs in paint, cake mix, dough and compost/earth (wife is now RHS qualified horticulturalist). My wife did work P/T on a Sat/Sun at the local WHSmith, not for the money, but partly to keep something on her CV and mainly to give her social contact with people in the workplace and not just young mums.

At one point my wife was tempted by additional hours during the week and we put our daughter with a childminder for these hours. This was a disaster. Our child's happiness and behaviour was negatively impacted and the impact on her development became very quickly apparent. I arrived at one time to pick our daughter up from the childminder to find her strapped into her pushchair in front of the TV, the excuse from the childminder was that she had got her ready to be picked up. Another time I arrived to pick our daughter up and found her standing, unattended, in the middle of the road while the childminder was depositing grocery shopping in her house. A careless, even a careful, driver in a Chelsea tractor would have utterly failed to spot her. Fortunately I was on foot. This was the last straw and we returned to the previous arrangement of her being cared for by her SAHM.

When our daughter was about 6 years old, we reversed the arrangement. My wife returned to work full time and I gave up full time work as a teacher to become a SAHD. As our daughter was at school during school hours, I continued to work part-time as a teacher though, mainly to uphold my male pride and self esteem. I just needed to make a financial contribution for my own psychological wellbeing (social conditioning sucks). With a SAHD during her junior years our daughter has benefitted from my experience as a (junior) teacher; while our daughter has been school educated, me at home has been the closest thing to a private education that we could afford. Our daughter did exceptionally well at primary school and is intelligent and happy. There are not many 12 year olds that can explain to you, in newtonian terms, why there is no such thing as zero gravity.

Of course she also benefits from my being at home throughout school holidays and her mum doesn't have to worry about who is taking care of her or picking her up. If our daughter is unwell, it is I who stays at home with her (work day or not), and, strangely enough, the only head teacher that this was 'dreadfully' unacceptable to was a single woman, "can't your wife stay at home!?" Another thing that our daughter benefits from is the crushing of gender stereotypes in our household. She sees her mum as the chief wage earner, she is as likely to see her dad doing the cooking as she is to see her mum tinkering under the bonnet of the car. But what she does have a strong concept of is family and parental care.

Our daughter has been raised by parents. She is educated from our experiences and she is raised according to our values. There is only one motivation for caring for children, and I say this as a teacher as well as a parent, and that motivation is love.

I understand that some parents do not have an option and that they either must go to work and leave their children in childcare or they must stay at home and take care of their children themselves. Folks have different circumstances. But it is hard to deny that there is link between the behaviour of children and the quality of their care; usually the best quality care comes from their parents. Parents should spend more time with their kids. I understand that not all parents are good parents, I see this every day. Kids who have parents that are constantly drunk, parents who wear designer gear yet send their kids to school in rags, endless. I used to teach a boy who could backflip his way from one side of the playground to the other, incredibly gymnastically talented, but no parental support - his fate was to sit outside The Prince Albert every night after school until his dad staggered out, hopefully with enough money left for a bag of chips. Social services seem to do nothing for kids like him in spite of the evidence that we give them.

Now for the economy. I don't quite get the argument that these days both parents have to work full time just to pay the bills. This is bull (low incomes, maybe, excepted). We have never both worked full time as parents and we pay the bills, have been [STRIKE]homeowners[/STRIKE] mortgagees and we have savings and zero debt. The trick is that we live within our means. What folks really mean is that they have to both work to keep gifting themselves with **** they don't need but that the TV tells them that they must have. By doing this they are just helping to push the prices of everything, houses especially, up and are perpetuating the problem. High house prices push up the price of everything and there is a social cost too.

olly300

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I don't know about 20 years ago, but 15 years ago it was pretty common for teenagers to drink / smoke pot sometimes.

It was the circles you hang out in.

When I got to college and university I was shocked to find out how much the richer kids drank and smoked and most of them had SAHMs. The reason you never heard about it was that if they were caught with it then the matter got hushed up.

There us poorer kids with both working parents wouldn't dream of doing it while we lived under our parents roofs.

carolt

Orpheo wrote: »

Yours is a good post.

We have only one daughter, she is approaching 13 now, and we have always wanted her to be raised by a parent. Over the years both her mother and I have taken the role of main child carer.

In our daughter's early years her mum stayed at home full time to raise her while I worked full time as a primary teacher. Her mum is right hemisphere dominant, very creative, outgoing and artistic. Our infant daughter was always covered up to the eyeballs in paint, cake mix, dough and compost/earth (wife is now RHS qualified horticulturalist). My wife did work P/T on a Sat/Sun at the local WHSmith, not for the money, but partly to keep something on her CV and mainly to give her social contact with people in the workplace and not just young mums.

At one point my wife was tempted by additional hours during the week and we put our daughter with a childminder for these hours. This was a disaster. Our child's happiness and behaviour was negatively impacted and the impact on her development became very quickly apparent. I arrived at one time to pick our daughter up from the childminder to find her strapped into her pushchair in front of the TV, the excuse from the childminder was that she had got her ready to be picked up. Another time I arrived to pick our daughter up and found her standing, unattended, in the middle of the road while the childminder was depositing grocery shopping in her house. A careless, even a careful, driver in a Chelsea tractor would have utterly failed to spot her. Fortunately I was on foot. This was the last straw and we returned to the previous arrangement of her being cared for by her SAHM.

When our daughter was about 6 years old, we reversed the arrangement. My wife returned to work full time and I gave up full time work as a teacher to become a SAHD. As our daughter was at school during school hours, I continued to work part-time as a teacher though, mainly to uphold my male pride and self esteem. I just needed to make a financial contribution for my own psychological wellbeing (social conditioning sucks). With a SAHD during her junior years our daughter has benefitted from my experience as a (junior) teacher; while our daughter has been school educated, me at home has been the closest thing to a private education that we could afford. Our daughter did exceptionally well at primary school and is intelligent and happy. There are not many 12 year olds that can explain to you, in newtonian terms, why there is no such thing as zero gravity.

Of course she also benefits from my being at home throughout school holidays and her mum doesn't have to worry about who is taking care of her or picking her up. If our daughter is unwell, it is I who stays at home with her (work day or not), and, strangely enough, the only head teacher that this was 'dreadfully' unacceptable to was a single woman, "can't your wife stay at home!?" Another thing that our daughter benefits from is the crushing of gender stereotypes in our household. She sees her mum as the chief wage earner, she is as likely to see her dad doing the cooking as she is to see her mum tinkering under the bonnet of the car. But what she does have a strong concept of is family and parental care.

Our daughter has been raised by parents. She is educated from our experiences and she is raised according to our values. There is only one motivation for caring for children, and I say this as a teacher as well as a parent, and that motivation is love.

I understand that some parents do not have an option and that they either must go to work and leave their children in childcare or they must stay at home and take care of their children themselves. Folks have different circumstances. But it is hard to deny that there is link between the behaviour of children and the quality of their care; usually the best quality care comes from their parents. Parents should spend more time with their kids. I understand that not all parents are good parents, I see this every day. Kids who have parents that are constantly drunk, parents who wear designer gear yet send their kids to school in rags, endless. I used to teach a boy who could backflip his way from one side of the playground to the other, incredibly gymnastically talented, but no parental support - his fate was to sit outside The Prince Albert every night after school until his dad staggered out, hopefully with enough money left for a bag of chips. Social services seem to do nothing for kids like him in spite of the evidence that we give them.

Now for the economy. I don't quite get the argument that these days both parents have to work full time just to pay the bills. This is bull (low incomes, maybe, excepted). We have never both worked full time as parents and we pay the bills, have been [STRIKE]homeowners[/STRIKE] mortgagees and we have savings and zero debt. The trick is that we live within our means. What folks really mean is that they have to both work to keep gifting themselves with **** they don't need but that the TV tells them that they must have. By doing this they are just helping to push the prices of everything, houses especially, up and are perpetuating the problem. High house prices push up the price of everything and there is a social cost too.

Great post, Orpheo.

neverdespairgirl

I was at school and uni in London, and most people I know tried various drugs at one point or another. I didn't, I hate feeling even a little drunk, so mind-altering substances aren't my idea of a good time.

LilacPixie

I could not be a SAHM. No offence to those that are or want to be but for me my brain would rot. I love my kids to bits but I need more than that, I need to be doing something totally seperate from family life for my own sanity and hapiness.

I probably sound incredibly selfish but at the end of 9 months maternity leave with my daughter I was needing back to work so much that we changed our plans for me to have a year off.

sjaypink

michaels wrote: »

I'd somehow always seen you as young free and single - hope you are not offended...

Not at all, I am (relatively) young and free (spirited)

blue_monkey wrote: »

I just read this and had a thought. Where the kids go to school there are 50/50 of mums that work or stay at home. The ones that go to work, generally, want to be at home with their children. The work night shifts and/or pass their hubbies in the morning or the kids are with nannies before and after school. They are all the ones that have mortgages and have to work. There are very few that are happy leaving their children.

Then there are the SAH mums - we (I include myself in this although I do run a business it is more a hobby these days) we all have council or Housing Association houses.

Ah bugger blue monkey :cool: My poor kids being ignored by me for 40+ hrs pw and still only have a HA house to show for it But, seriously, you have made some brilliant points on this thread (as I have seen you do in DT before) thankyou :A