Posted on 06/26/2016 11:52:37 AM PDT by OddLane
Raising a child in America is more expensive today than it has ever been — more than $245,000, not including college tuition, according to the USDA — and supporting a family often requires two incomes. Even when it is not necessarily required of them, many women wish to use their educations to pursue lucrative, fulfilling careers. It should not be surprising that the majority of parents work outside the home, including the majority of mothers. Among married women, 57% with a child under the age of three worked at least part time in 2014, and nearly 74% of those women worked full time.
While there are obviously many good things to be said about the professional progress of women and the significant contributions they have made in their fields, good things tend to come with tradeoffs. More women in the workforce means that more children need some form of child care. (A small but growing minority of fathers in the United States stay at home with their children: 2 million fathers, or 16% of stay-at-home parents, in 2012. Over half of these men were either unemployed or disabled.) For many parents, decisions about work and child care are among the most difficult choices they must make...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalaffairs.com ...
For many parents, decisions about work and child care are among the most difficult choices they must make...
Has this been a positive change in our culture? Decades ago, it was a given that almost all mothers were married to the fathers of their children, and that most mothers would be stay at home moms. It was a given that almost all fathers worked to support the family.
We could discuss all night long about the ramifications of women’s lib and fallout from the women’s movement. I’m just asking a question, as to whether the advancement of women as a group, has been a worthwhile trade off for society?? In terms of the fallout and effects on family life, and the care of children, was it worthwhile to abandon that social norm of working married father and stay at home mother??
My wife ran a day-care in the DC area. Mostly fed govt parents (dems). Most mom and dads had gov jobs. On fed holidays these same loving parents would drop on toddlers and infants as usual, 0600hrs and pick them up as usual 1900hrs.
Loving parents for sure.
Also, because women have joined the working world, this results in double incomes and the impact on living expenses is inflated because more work than previous and this is why a single working parent is rare now days.
But a large part of them, yes.
It is the duty of the parent to civilized the little savage they birthed.
They have been leaving this job to someone else.
And no matter how good this someone else is they are unable to form the bonds and consistency needed for the civilizing process to take.
But feminists forced changes so that women felt obligated to behave like men, and live “liberated” lives. Meanwhile men were emasculated and browbeaten as “the problem” and children were seen as anchors that held women back.
I do not think Women's Liberation has helped anyone. And I thnk women suffered the most from it.
They take one solid week’s pay from me every single month to fund the government I work a forty hour week. To pay for the government. After getting two college degrees and serving in combat during the war. My parents and their contemporaries would never have put up with that That’s another aspect of the story, the situation
If I had worked while raising my kids I’d have given up at least another whole week per month to pay for that and to pay to work (transportation, housekeeping, etc).
Never would I have left my kids without their mom. And to give the government a week a month out of my life? out of the kids’ lives? That’s insane
And no way the government has not grown addicted to womens’ contribution. If it were only men working, the government would be using half the money they’re using now. And this government is 22trillion in debt. Why would I work a week a month for people who mismanage money to that extent and let my kids be without apparent ?
I grew up upper middle class big suburb. Get tw degrees husband with two degrees. Oh. I married a provider, btw, lived in a small house in flyover around similar minded and educated people. When the kids got older taught school. Was home holidays summers.
Women are so dupe-able. They take for granted raising their children without them.
I’m living PROOF that you CAN have it all...you just can’t have it all AT ONCE.
Military Career. Left that at 35 when I MARRIED and adopted 3 Step-Sons. Stayed home to RAISE THEM while husband worked.
Once ours were off on their own, I went back to work and have had a great civilian career as well and am now Retired.
It can be done. BUT - something has to GIVE at each stage of your life. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for anything. :)
I am a dinosaur and I know it but I’ll have my worthless say.
Women have a brain and are capable but their place is at home if they have children and until their children are grown that is where they need to stay. The Bible tells us the character of a virtuous woman and she who meets this has a value FAR GREATER THAN RUBIES.
I quit a traveling job because I did not marry and have children to be away from them. My wife has two degrees but we decided the children must have, not needed MUST HAVE, someone at home to care for them, to nurture them before they go to school, to send them off to school in the morning and greet them when they get home, to bake cookies and warm our home with happiness, love and security. That is what my wife did for our children and we are all eternally grateful to her.
You can have children and raise them properly yourself or a career but you can’t have both at the same time.
I feel so sorry for the little kids that get dumped at daycare at 0600 and remain there for hours and hours each day. I can’t help but wonder what it is really doing to them. I do not wonder that I believe it is WRONG.
Our children’s friends marveled at how they lived. I’ll always remember the girlfriend who came in the kitchen door and said it always smelled of cookies and had to be like Mrs. Olsen’s house. She had never known a real Mom. Sweet girl, so sad. I wonder what her vision of normal became?
If you can’t afford a standard of living that includes rasising your children yourself you do not need children. They need the love and nurturing more than they need the few extra things that more money can buy if their basic needs are being met.
Cookies are very important. Nom, nom, nom.
Well said. Women can have it all, just not all at the same time. It makes sense that someone’s career or job will be different when children are young, as compared to when they are older
,or when the have become adults themselves.
I get the impression that many mothers are trying to fit their families needs around the job, rather than fit the job around their families.
I guess ideally all.couples will discuss all of this before they get married and start families. I wonder how many actually have such discussions about how their lives will accommodate children.
Orville and Wilber Wright’s mother was a college graduate, and nurtured their interest in science. Thomas Edison’s college educated mother homeschooled him after he was judged too disruptive his first year at school, sheer boredom being the cause of his problems, she correctly judged.
Very true, and very well expressed. To borrow a word from the Bible, I think daycare is an abomination.
I’ve raised four kids to adulthood. There’s no way we spent anywhere near a million dollars raising them.
Of course, we are single income with my wife home educating. Maybe spent $1000 a year total.
No special classes for every little thing, heavily involved in scouts and now Trail Life USA. No nanny, no travel sports. Did do music lessons and some heavy duty literature classes for one of them.
Maybe spent $100k all together in last 25 years and that’s a stretch.
I believe the "greatest generation" actually encouraged the growth of government in all realms.
I cannot tell you what a difference it made for my kids.
Oh you’re right. I’m sure it was contributed to by them. Started by them . My parents and their people/ parents ‘loathed the democrats’ particularly the onset of Welfare. And for all the fight reasons. They foresaw this mess. Duh. Of course they did
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