Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

zagubov

i'm not sure we're doing a good salespitch for parenthood here! You can be a parent too early ( but we're all too old for that I think).
You can be too old for it (see earlier posts about menopause being 20 years after the start of infertility and 10 years after its completed). And for men a daughter of a 20-year old dad can live around 5 years longer than the daughter of a 60-year old dad

I'd point out that when you have kids you pretty quickly find that just like everyone who really knows how to run the country is driving your taxi or cutting you hair, everyone who's already got a kid's the leading world expert on childcare and upbringing and has fully-blown delusions that ther's only one correct way to bring up a kid, without any. supporting. evidence. whatsoever. -except for their single experience bringing up thier one or two children.

I'm certainly no expert! But be aware that almost everyone you speak to about parenthood is speaking from comparatively limited experience compared with the past when people necessarily had far more children and learned how to handle it.

BTW I think Oz's economy isn't declining/stagnating the way most Western ones are? Worth doing a bit of homework about ....well, lots of things.

PasturesNew

My mum used to work part-time, term-time only. Back then more jobs existed for those hours; once people started getting benefits/WTC I think it killed off those hours as more mums started trying to be full-time too. Also, pre benefits top ups, there were more specifically evening/weekend jobs. Nowadays, it seems that job hours are more about working 16 hours/week on random days, rather than jobs that were part-time on specific days.

e.g. supermarkets would be staffed by full-timers, with Saturday staff. Now supermarkets are open longer hours there are more 16 hours jobs that fit anywhere on the rota, where needed.

Mums expect to be able to work full-time these days, whereas they didn't before, so life used to be set up on the basis that you went to work part-time for extra money, at hours when the bloke wasn't working.

Pubs are another example. Whereas before you might have had 2 full-time members of staff and three mums working specific evening shifts behind the bar and two in the kitchen, so you'd apply for the job knowing it was "Wed & Thu nights" now only the Manager is full-time, with everybody else being put on rotas of 16 hours, with rotas being drawn up the week before and you've no idea which days/hours you'd be working. You used to know who was going to be behind a bar/counter on any given day as a customer.

This whole new random shifts patterns makes it harder to take on two jobs or extra work as you've now no idea what hours you're working on a set pattern - and employers want 'flexible' people now, meaning they want the right to shove you down for whatever hours they want so they won't employ you if they think you have another job you're fitting in.

You used to also get places that had a day shift and an evening shift. If you were on the day shift it was a full-time job, if you were on the evening shift then everybody was a part-timer. Again, these workplaces have now merged all jobs into random hours dotted all over the place in 16 hour weeks.

Employers now have more staff, none of whom are in set working patterns and I've noticed a significant difference in employee pride and ownership of a job as they're just working hours now and don't feel "in charge" of their job during their hours. They feel more like cannon fodder and don't "own" the job, so are more likely to let things slide for the next random rota person to sort out. e.g. "There's some muck to be cleaned, I'll leave it for the next shift to notice/sort out" rather than "There's some muck to be cleaned, I'm Monday staff and I know it's Bob on Tuesdays so I'll clean it now; he knows I'm Mondays and he'll think I'm a bit slack"

Not sure I said much of that clearly.

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Do you want to buy a house or have a baby?

That has to be an easy question to answer... one you can get rid of quite easily, even during a slow market

neverdespairgirl

silvercar wrote: »

Hope he is better soon. To the diorilyte mix I would add no milk products until he has been clear of any D&V signs for 24hrs.

When the kids were little we would have the debate on whether it was easier to look after an ill child when you are well or look after a well child when you are ill.

He doesn't seem to want anything dairy, himself. So he's eaten a few oatcakes and a banana.

Lots of upsets during the night, poor little sod.

zagubov wrote: »

... and has fully-blown delusions that ther's only one correct way to bring up a kid, without any. supporting. evidence. whatsoever. -except for their single experience bringing up thier one or two children.

I'm not in that party - I think there are hundreds of equally successful child-rearing methods, it depends on the child, siblings, parents, and family dynamics.

LydiaJ wrote: »

Whenever one of us was ill as a child, my mum would summon her mum to come and look after the ill one, while she kept the show on the road for the rest of the family. (I'm one of four kids.) I have very special memories of being read to by Granny when ill.

Ditto, and ditto. I'm the eldest of 4, and Granny also came over when someone was ill.

Generali

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

He doesn't seem to want anything dairy, himself. So he's eaten a few oatcakes and a banana.

Lots of upsets during the night, poor little sod.



I'm not in that party - I think there are hundreds of equally successful child-rearing methods, it depends on the child, siblings, parents, and family dynamics.



Ditto, and ditto. I'm the eldest of 4, and Granny also came over when someone was ill.

When I was ill (excepting measles etc) I went to school. A low point was walking a mile to school on an infected verrucca that meant I could only lace one shoe. That was on sports day in which I was also meant to take part.

It's caused me no end of trouble in later life as now I go to work sick as a dog, infect everyone else and then spend a week doing double work.

They muck you up your Mum and Dad
They may not mean to but they do
They give you all the faults they had
And then some others just for you......

....Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
So get out early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself

sss555s

That sick bug went through my house in early December. I have a friend in South Wales who had it the week before and it's rife nationwide. All you can really do is let it run it's course and get through your system. It's a shame when it gets in the way of festivities and especially for those who don't see family so much in the rest of the year.

Not sure if chewy was asking for advice or just venting. It's hard for others to judge or give advice in such a private matter where every one and situation is different.

silvercar

sss555s wrote: »

Not sure if chewy was asking for advice or just venting. It's hard for others to judge or give advice in such a private matter where every one and situation is different.

True, but even NP can't keep quiet on public forums.

Personally, if someone had stuck with me for 5.5 years and still couldn't decide if they wanted to buy a house with me or have my babies, I'd be pretty p155ed off.

And all because you don't want to spend out on air fares to Oz? I'm not buying it.

sss555s

silvercar wrote: »

True, but even NP can't keep quiet on public forums.

Personally, if someone had stuck with me for 5.5 years and still couldn't decide if they wanted to buy a house with me or have my babies, I'd be pretty p155ed off.

And all because you don't want to spend out on air fares to Oz? I'm not buying it.

Not wanting to dissect chewys relationship, but ......

That's a bit unfair to judge like that. We don't know if she is the nicest most considerate and understanding person or not.

Maybe there is other considerations, who knows.

vivatifosi

silvercar wrote: »

Two solutions:

a) save airmiles
b) let her go to Oz with kid(s) without you - she'll only do it once.

Seriously, all the RL peeps I know with family that far away only go themselves once every 2-3 years. For some their relatives come here in between, but then the relative comes without the family.

What with Skype and webcams you can keep in touch more easily.

As you know, my family has a foot in both countries, as does my husband's and my sil's. I'd say on average we get someone coming over here or going over there every few years, not every year. I went to visit my uncle and his family 5 years ago, he came over this year to stay with Mum. I stay in touch with my cousins via Skype.

One thing I will say is that people also have to be prepared for distance and that sometimes having families in both continents can cause troubles. When my sil's father died just after they'd bought a new house with three kids, it meant that under no circumstances could she afford to go to her own father's funeral because it happened at the time that they were most stretched financially. In my husband's family, it meant that one of the rel's dads, who is estranged, had to make the financial decision whether to see his daughter for her 18th or 21st birthday. When my uncle was stuck in the floods and we couldn't get hold of him, I had Gen (love you Gen!!!) checking out the news for me.

In other words, I'd rather have a buffer fund so that I could fly off at short notice if needed than visit my family on a regular basis, but that's something we've learned the hard way. Having family in two continents will always be a compromise and will always involve being realistic about what's involved. Other than that, I'm not going to say any more as I don't have kids and never wanted to have them so its not fair to comment.

silvercar

sss555s wrote: »

Not wanting to dissect chewys relationship, but ......

That's a bit unfair to judge like that. We don't know if she is the nicest most considerate and understanding person or not.

Maybe there is other considerations, who knows.

I agree.

I always feel fairly cushioned from all this biological clock ticking business, having found my life partner (I hope!) at uni, so I can only try and imagine how I would feel in others situations.