Career vs Parent at Home

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PrincessFiona60 said:
Love nursing, having the time of my life! I also enjoy the science of nutrition.
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Well some of us seem to have this other science (other than food science) in common lol. My aunt recently told me if she thought she would ever have to butcher a chicken she would never eat it again. Anatomy class prepared me for it though so I do not mind...even though I love animals.

Addie said:
I had two paths to take for a career. Music or nursing. I chose motherhood over both. :angel:
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That is very noble. I am only 22 but I think it is a shame for kids to come home alone or not have at least one stay at home parent. I think our society needs stay at home moms. It is how I grew up until middle school at least.
 
unfortunately, because of financial circumstances, and furthermore poor personal choices (selfish choices such as divorce after children are born, abusive relationships not withstanding, of course - and those aren't gender specific), stay at home parents are uncommon in our times.

maybe the issue of the death knell of work unions has something to do with it, in conjunction with the greed of wall street (you aren't excused if you've dabbled in securities or bonds as so many americans have done - without much knowledge of the factors involved -you might have been better off buying lottery tickets), has something to do with it.

if you value stay at home parenting, make sacrifices both of budget and of spirit. don't become a lamb following the herd of what your neighbors say, or community thinks. do what's right for you and your kids, the next generation.

this message was sponsored by and approved by buckytom for president.

i approved this message...

lol.. :)

where in the hell did our backbone go? our desire, nay, our god given right fir the pursuit of happines go? it only comes with sweat and tears. not by handoutss

you may have your soap box back now. i'm done.

and under the thumb of the sites' t.o.s, i was only stating an opinion, non-political as it were, nor religious in nature.

i will not argue any further.
:)
 
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Umm..whatever the situation is....it is better that children grow up in a stable home and with a particular benefit of having a stay at home parent in their early years especially. Everyone knows that..research has shown it. Life happens you make the best as my parents did when I was in middle school. For us it was one of my father's workers made a mistake and my father was liable so both my parents had to suddenly work and we scrapped to get by for a while. I never would have learned the value of a frozen dinner, bag of chips or new clothes otherwise...so ultimately I am greatful for that experience.

In short, I wasnt at all speaking down on any parents but simply saying it is a shame that we have been forced to sacrifice such a precious opportunity. The economy sucks. Sometimes people suck and as before mentioned, I say again, life happens. Yes a good parent takes what life deals and does their absolute best to plsy their hand to the benefit of their children. I am deeply sorry if you feel offended. Any parent that sacrifices self for the betterment of their child is noble, whatever choice they may have to make...
 
buckytom said:
unfortunately, because of financial circumstances, and furthermore poor personal choices (selfish choices such as divorce after children are born, abusive relationships not withstanding, of course - and those aren't gender specific), stay at home parents are uncommon in our times...:)
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I too value family and sacrificed all the adult toys, except for my fishing poles, and the toys I had before getting married (my bow, arrows, and rifles). You know what, I didn't miss any of the material things that neighbors had. And in return, I have four of the most wonderful adult children, period. Even all of the families who became part of our family through marriage, love them. And they treat me with both love and respect. I may be living from paycheck to paycheck monetarily, but for the family I have, it is well worth the price.

IMHO, those who don't value family relationships over self, are missing out on the most happiness people can have in this, or any other life.

Maybe that's why we get along so well, BT. We both have the same family values. Besides, we're brothers in every way but the parents.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
i was in no way offended, cui-food-pur :) (that's too laborious, we need to work on that).

i was just stating my opinion on youlr theme, and i respect your position. i was raised in a home that wasn't wealthy, but was just barely able to have a stay at home parent with due sacrifice. but we got by.

i'm interested in diverse opinions, the lot.

and yeah, chief, blood brothers no doubt.

but geez, i hate cuts on my hands. i'm too sensitive...
 
buckytom said:
i was in no way offended, cui-food-pur :) (that's too laborious, we need to work on that).

i was just stating my opinion on youlr theme, and i respect your position. i was raised in a home that wasn't wealthy, but was just barely able to have a stay at home parent with due sacrifice. but we got by.

i'm interested in diverse opinions, the lot.

and yeah, chief, blood brothers no doubt.

but geez, i hate cuts on my hands. i'm too sensitive...
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I'm thinking my chi, and your chi got tangled up somewhere in the cosmos before we were placed into a body, and you got some of me, and I got some of you. Obviously, we took only the best parts (why did you take so much memory? I don't have nearly enough, and that's been for all of my mortal life!:LOL:)

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
chief, if i got the memory, does that mean you got the looks? :neutral:


cui-f-p, (better), certainly not!

if nothing else, i appreciate a strong opinion. whether you're 22 or 92.

btw, the chief is almost 92... :cool:
 
Cuisine Purity said:
Well some of us seem to have this other science (other than food science) in common lol. My aunt recently told me if she thought she would ever have to butcher a chicken she would never eat it again. Anatomy class prepared me for it though so I do not mind...even though I love animals.

That is very noble. I am only 22 but I think it is a shame for kids to come home alone or not have at least one stay at home parent. I think our society needs stay at home moms. It is how I grew up until middle school at least.
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I made a choice when I was very young. At that time it was expected that if you didn't go on to college, then you got married. I looked at the cost of college and chose marriage. And as it usually is, the pill was not available at that time, so along came the babies. I grew up with my kids and had a lot of fun along with some heartaches. But when you have five kids, you can expect heartaches. It goes with the territory. There were a few times when my husband was seriously hurt on the job, I pitched in and found a job only for the length of time he was at home. I always worked the night shift. That way I was there to get them off to school with a good breakfast in their tummies. Once he went back to work, I went back to being a fulltime mother. During those days, that is what you did. So I did it. I simply followed the rules of society and did what was expected of me and what was necessary. I made my choices and have no complaints. My kids turned out pretty good. They all have a good job/trade.

Not all mothers or even fathers have a choice. They are the single parents that really struggle today to raise just one kid. You don't hear of large famlies too often today. :angel:
 
Cuisine Purity said:
Umm..whatever the situation is....it is better that children grow up in a stable home and with a particular benefit of having a stay at home parent in their early years especially. Everyone knows that..research has shown it...
Click to expand...

My specialty is devil's advocate :mrgreen: You take a big risk as a stay-at-home parent with little or no work experience. If the relationship fails or one's spouse dies, it can be very difficult to start a career. Every family makes its choices based on their priorities and circumstances.
 
Excellent point GG .

Me, I had both, kids and career, neither of us wanted to give work up , it was hard work juggling it all, but it worked out fine . If you can afford to and want to stay at home then good luck but don't lay this responsibility on women, men can and do do it too !

There is a risk especially these days in taking yourself out of the job market to stay at home, it was one I didn't want to take . I hear people , mainly women, referring to themselves as full time Mums ie stay at home . Silly because people who work are still full time parents !
 
Addie said:
I had two paths to take for a career. Music or nursing. I chose motherhood over both. :angel:
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I chose Shrek over Motherhood, he encouraged me to take up nursing. I think it's because he knew he would need a nurse in his later years.
 
I share the nursing career with many here. Although I haven't worked as nurse for nearly 10 years now, I still enjoyed the job. When DH and I married, I was working as a pediatric RN in a hospital. He had just graduated with an engineering degree. It was a whole lot easier in the early 80's for me to find work than for him. So we went where he got a job. Nursing is such a flexible career that it worked out for us as a family. After the first one came along I went to part-time 2nd shift for a while. That meant only a few hours in the afternoon for a sitter. Then I moved into an office setting when he started pre-school. That worked well until #2 arrived and I went part-time at the office. Tried working in the schools thinking it would be great to have the same schedule but I hated that so stayed home for about 2 years until #2 went to kindergarten. Then found another office position part-time. I worked there through most of their school days.

I was fortunate to be able to have a bit of both worlds. I had some time at home with each of the kids as a stay at home mom but was never out of the job market for too long to lose my ability to find work. I was also fortunate to have a "granny" (no relation) live on our street who cared for my boys like her own grandkids when I had to work.
 
I was able to stay at home for the first couple of years of my daughter's life. A close family friend, grandmother type, stayed with her at our home while I worked outside the home for about a year or so. Then, I went back to school and her daycare was on school grounds so I was there on the spot if there was an emergency. After that when I was working in the healthcare field, my mother worked at a family-owned business (not our family but employees were treated as such) and was able to go pick my daughter up after school and go back to work with her. Then, I ended up getting a job at the same place as my mom and so my daughter rarely had to attend after-school programs. Unfortunately, the kids of the owner weren't really interested in continuing the business and he wanted to retire about the time she was 9 or so. I had to work at a regular job for a couple of years. My mom helped out by picking her up after school, she took a couple of years off work when the business got sold because we got VERY nice "thank you for making my business a success and worth so much money" bonuses when it sold.

After working at my real office job for the new company for a couple of years, the company decided to close the office that was close to me. I was able to transfer to another office but it was a long commute. Did that for a couple of years until Craig and I decided it wasn't worth it in terms of commute costs, money and time wise. So, I fell back on my medical transcription skills that I had been using as a part-time extra income job and just went full-time on that. Daughter was about 13 then. I've been working from home since.

She never got into any trouble to speak of. She has admitted to me thru the years that she and her friends sometimes sneaked alcohol, but she never drank that much because I had always let her have a few sips of any drink I had that she wanted to try. I always figured if it's forbidden, it's more tempting (at least it was to me as a teen) and if not, eh, what's the big deal. She went thru a period where her and her girlfriend smoked cigarettes once she was able to buy them legally and/or get somebody to buy them for them. Craig and I don't smoke, never have, and she knew better than to ask us to buy them for her or smoke in the house. She never did drugs though. She knew that I and Craig had both experimented when we were younger and I talked with her about that, told her I wished I hadn't and regretted it. Don't know if she ever talked about it with Craig or not. And, she made it thru high school without having sex. She and I are very open with each other about things so I am absolutely positive she is telling me the truth about what, when, where, etc. She's not a very good liar either, she can't keep her stories straight so you can always catch her in a lie, which also tells me she's being truthful.

The only thing she did that ever really upset me was get a tattoo on the side of her hip/upper thigh, a tiger's head. She had been talking about getting one and knew I was against it even though she was just over 18 but I told her to give me some time and we'd talk about it again. Well, one morning she came downstairs when I called her for breakfast after a night out with her friends and just about gave me a heart attack (I literally felt my heart skip a beat and got dizzy) when she pulled her up PJ shorts up and had a tiger's head on her. After I got over the shock, I told her that I guess she was lucky she had gotten it because I had been planning on telling her that day that if she got a tatoo she had to leave the house and support herself. She was planning, at that time, on going into the corporate world and one of my arguments was that a tatoo would not be favorably looked upon at the level she wanted to reach. She was being stubborn about getting one though and I thought she'd back off if I gave her an ultimatum, too late though.

I am firmly of the belief that my being able to be home, especially in her teen years, kept her from getting into trouble. It's kind of hard to get into trouble when a parent is around all the time. She ended up choosing a family instead of a high-powered career and is working from home so that she can be there for the girls.
 
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Gravy Queen said:
Excellent point GG .

Me, I had both, kids and career, neither of us wanted to give work up , it was hard work juggling it all, but it worked out fine . If you can afford to and want to stay at home then good luck but don't lay this responsibility on women, men can and do do it too !

There is a risk especially these days in taking yourself out of the job market to stay at home, it was one I didn't want to take . I hear people , mainly women, referring to themselves as full time Mums ie stay at home . Silly because people who work are still full time parents !
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I out lived two husbands. Yet I still managed to make a reasonably decent income to take care of my family. My kids were at an age that they no longer required a babysitter. That was a big plus. And anytime there was a crisis, I never hesitated to yell to my boss, "Emergency at home" and walked out. I would give them an explanation the next day. And there plenty of emergencies with five kids. I was in the ER so often I was on first name basis with the staff.

During the formative years I was there for them. I went to all the school events, PTA meetings, etc. Wherever I went, you saw a bunch of well behaved kids at my side. :angel:
 
I stayed at home until our youngest was 7 and in grade school. I can't say I regret it but I have to admit that entering the job market later was a sacrifice. While my husband can retire in three years I will be working a long time to come before I get to retire.
 
I guess I don't really understand the point of this whole thread. My mother, who passed away several years ago, worked her entire adult life. She was college educated and worked as a teacher for 35 years. And then when retirement was forced upon her by the school district, she went back to work part time in a public library. She kept right on working until she was no longer able to because of health problems.

Yet she and my dad still managed to raise my brother and I. We never once held it against her that she worked. We both turned out fine, I think.

My wife and I both work, and our daughter is now in college. We couldn't have asked for a better kid. She's never been in any trouble. On the contrary, she works hard and makes us proud every day. I don't think she suffered one bit because of her parent's decision to work.

My point is, I don't see how it matters if one or both parents work or stay at home. As long as the kids are provided for and have a good home life, that's the important thing.
 
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Steve Kroll said:
I guess I don't really understand the point of this whole thread. My mother, who passed away several years ago, worked her entire adult life. She was college educated and worked as a teacher for 35 years. And then when retirement was forced upon her by the school district, she went back to work part time in a public library. She kept right on working until she was no longer able to because of health problems.

Yet she and my dad still managed to raise my brother and I. We never once held it against her that she worked. We both turned out fine, I think.

My wife and I both work, and our daughter is now in college. We couldn't have asked for a better kid. She's never been in any trouble. On the contrary, she works hard and makes us proud every day. I don't think she suffered one bit because of her parent's decision to work.

My point is, I don't see how it matters if one or both parents work or stay at home. As long as the kids are provided for and have a good home life, that's the important thing.
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I agree Steve. It is all a matter of choices and teaching your children right from wrong. The time you spend with your children should be quality time. You take every opportunity to teach right from wrong.

I was fortunate in that I married in the late 50's. Women could afford to stay home with the kids. That is no longer an option today with our economy. Putting a roof on the home and food on the table is now a required effort of both parents. :angel:
 
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