How Kids Are Suffering Home Alone

Zenit ^ | 2005-02-27

[Chiapet]

Looks like you're a wee bit "conflicted" after all. LOL.

Um, I'm conflicted because I find your comparison of my situation to a man beating his children to be vile and horrible? I don't think so. I was simply pointing out that your horrible behavior hardly gives you any ground from which to preach to me.

[Chiapet]

Right. And given the choice, you would continue to work and spend before and after with your child. Like I said, most women (given the choice) would rather spend their time with their children.

No, I do spend time with my child. I also work. I enjoy both. It isn't a question of either/or, since I do both.

[HighlyOpinionated]

But she's only five. In five more years, come back and tell us how she's adjusted. In ten more years, come back again and tell us how she's adjusted. And when she's twenty, tell us about her.

You don't mention a second parent in the picture of your happy family. Where's the other parent?

I work in Social Services. You may think your child is better than her cousins now. I suggest the odds are she'll be in an office applying for Medicaid for a pregnancy by the time she's 19. The reason? She wants someone to love and to raise differently than she was raised. If I've heard that story once, I've heard it a couple thousand times.

HOWEVER, You Can Beat The Odds: it appears that you must work and that there is no second parent in your household. If you're willing to give your child number one status in your life, you might end up with the smaller percentage of 'single parented kids who grow up in day care' and have a child who realizes that attending college first and marrying after college graduation gives her different opportunities in life. What this means is that YOU have no life until she's in college. Yup, you don't put her second to ANYone. You don't look for a step-father for her. You don't have babysitters for her, you take her with you or you don't go. It's a hard life for you, but I've seen the results of this kind of parenting and 99 times out of a hundred, they produce successful adults.

But then, no one said parenting would be easy. And if someone did say that, they were lying through their teeth.

[k2blader]

If you're at work, you can't be with your child. You can't do both at the same time unless you take your child to work with you, which appears to not be the case.

[ambrose]

I am not preaching to you. You were the one who bragged about how it didn't bother you one bit that you were abandoning your children to daycare.

People who put children in daycare aren't bad. Many are making necessary compromises, forced upon them by economic circumstances. However, you're the first person I've seen to boast about it and say that it is somehow improving your child's character.

Scary.

[ShadowDancer]

Did she stay home and raise you and your sisters?

[Miss Behave]

Aside from being endlessly thankful that my mom was a stay at home mommy, it made all the WORLD to me and my siblings knowing that she was just a few blocks away from our grade school...at home. Today's mega grade schools bus the little kids clear across creation to the new, bright, shiny, bigger, *better* schools. Gone are most neighborhood schools. I'm sorry, but it's a crime. I felt such security knowing mommy was just a quick run home, or a short, five minute wait to pick me or my siblings up, should we fall ill. These things are SO important to children. When the skies turned black and the thunder and lightning and wind came, I knew that me and my siblings (all under ONE roof in an also now defunct K-6 grade school) were near MOMMY.

It takes getting into a child's mind for adults to understand just how important it is to be with, or very near their parents, in feeling love and security.

What kind of loveless, clueless adult came up with the mega GRADE school idea?

Was it Hillary, by chance?

[Miss Behave]

Whoops...my siblings and I. ;-)

[k2blader]

Are there workplaces out there that'll let moms bring their kids in with them all day?

[Blood of Tyrants]

The left wing will say that the solution is a government program -- and a tax increase to pay for it, of course -- never realizing that the high tax rates and tax bracket creep are making it harder and harder to keep your head above water.

Twenty years ago when the tax tables were set the cutoff for contributing to your IRA before taxes was $32,000 and it was quite a good income then. If you made $32k per year and contributed to your IRA then that meant that you had disposable income. However, today you pay EXACTLY the same tax rate on $32,000 as you did then, but I can guarantee that you won't have very much disposable income.

[workerbee]

Why does either choice always have to be turned into a caricature? Surely reasonable people understand that all working mothers are not cold and unmaternal, just as all stay-at-home mothers are not the mindless cookie-bakers the far left likes to believe.

[anniegetyourgun]

Exactly - it is your choice and you are not resigned to it - you want it this way. I'm simply saying, given the option, most women would prefer to spend the majority of their waking hours with their children. You are rare in that, given the option, you choose 8-9 hours (of your most productive and refreshed time) at work, and a few hours at the beginning and end of your day with kiddo. Having no conflict over that, much less turning over the raising of your child to someone else, is very unusual.

[anniegetyourgun]

My argument has nothing to do with cold or unmaternal. I simply stated that most women are unreconciled to the arrangement of leaving the rearing of their children to someone else while they work outside the home. But, apparently, chiapet is not one of those. She chooses this over the alternative.

[EdReform]

Ping

[HungarianGypsy]

Here is a take most people don't think of. These are the differences between my mom and my mother-in-law. My mother was a stay at home mom and was miserable. She was the stereotype of a housewife. She worked to keep the house clean and serve my stepdad. When I was at school she spent her time watching soaps. When I would try to talk to her she did not have time. Once when she asked if I wanted to be a housewife and take care of my husband, I said "no way". I was going to have a career. I didn't want to be a servant. I actually am a stay-at-home mom. I don't have time to get bored or watch soaps. I try to read, keep up on current events, and educate myself. I do wish my house were cleaner, though. LOL! My children have plenty of time with me.
My husband's parents divorced when my husband was seven. She was suddenly a single mom of four. It was hard work. But, when she came home, she was always available to talk to her children.
The difference is giving as much as you can while with your children. I would have personally preferred having a mom who worked and was there for me emotionally (my dad worked and was there when I needed him), rather than having a mother who was home, but was miserable and only there physically.

[ShadowDancer]

Why have you had her in day care since eight months old?

[EGPWS]

Is there a common theme that connects the numerous problems of American children today?

Yes, a nanny state.

When I was 5 years old I was left alone at home and with blessings from my parents and me.

When I was in first grade I walked to school through "the woods" and my teacher chastised me for not walking home for lunch when my Mom and Dad gave me lunch money to eat at school.

The problem is a fervor for lack of individual responsibility and a zest by some to insist that an individual can not survive on his own without the care of the state.

[Always Right]

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for all couples. Two paychecks are often needed.

Two paychecks are needed because they live in a 2000 sq. ft. home, own two cars, eat out a lot, have computers, TV's, cable, internet access, etc. If people lived more modestly, they could make it on one paycheck.

[outinyellowdogcountry]

I take it your daughter has not turned 13 yet. My sister warned my that my precious little girl would one day turn into a teenager and I would ask "What happened to my sweet ____?" It did happen but not to that extreme. Your little girl will change when hormones begin to churn and you need to be right on top of everything about her, for her own good.

[k2blader]

If people lived more modestly, they could make it on one paycheck.

In certain parts of the country, yes. I think that is the ideal situation, especially for parents with kids.