Posted on 11/30/2004 2:28:45 PM PST by Lorianne
Moral Absolutes Ping - Unforunately I don't have time to read this right now, I have to get up really early and go out...
Check it out, it looks really good.
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
Who is that? The blessed 10% of the population with a family income over $90K per year?
Time for you to check up on the income bracket levels and median family income. When the top 20% starts at around $75K per year, splitting the amounts below that doesn't produce two "high paying" jobs for too many people.
The cost of living in NJ, MA, CT, NYC, SF, LA are so astronomical that it is long past time for any sane person who values time and family to have moved somewhere else less expensive to live, and less doctrinairely liberal.
It is extrmely difficult to live in such places as a single worker family unless that single worker is a lawyer or investment banker.
The EITC "costs" about $100 per person per year, so it is hardly impoverishing any family in its tax "cost". However, it isn't even really a cost except in liberalthink tax theory. It represents a refund of social security taxes to low income persons. If you earn nothing, you get no EITC. And since it is a refund of other taxes, it is not a real cost, but a removal of part of the tax burden on the US population.
A more thoughtful plan of action would have moved the family to be tended out of NJ, rather than moving your family into that hell-hole.
Funny, where I am, its the guys in the 40's-50's who want all that crap, while most of us younger guys are happy that our wives ARE at home with the kiddies.
I really don't want to be mean. It's just a fact that single parents almost always have to work. I don't think it is automatically an awful situation. But you felt BETTER when your kids told you they like you better when you aren't around?
That would have added to my guilt
I think that both cost of living and taxes, and our more affluent lifestyle, "force" many families to rely on two incomes.
Taxes: I think the real killer here is becoming property taxes. Add state income tax and federal income tax, and we've got a crushing tax burden.
But it's not just taxes that separates us from the 1950s or 1960s. For better or worse, there are many necessities now that weren't necessities then. Many people mention things like DVD players or microwaves, but these are largely one time expenses. I look at recurring charges that exist now that didn't exist then.
TV: just about everyone has cable TV. Then there's premium cable, NetFlix, Tivo charges. Some people pay up to $200 a month just to watch TV. In the 1950s, the actual device was more expensive, but then it was always free to watch the three or four channels you got.
Internet: the internet may be free, but you've got to have an ISP, probably cable or DSL. Then you need virus protection. Plus whatever other internet access services you may have. 1950s folk had such great TV, they didn't need to worry about the internet.
Phone: long distance rates are cheaper, but most everyone has a cell phone, with snazzy ringtones and such. In the 1950s, you had one black rotary dial phone in your house.
Electric: who had central air in their house in the 1950s? Or computers, etc.
Car: now there's Onstar, which incurs a monthly fee.
Credit: anyone can get credit now. It's easy to abuse this privilege.
There are a lot of recurring fees that people have now that they didn't have in the 1950s.
Thanks for saying that raising kids is cheap! I tell people this all the time, I raised good kids, my youngest is 18 now, and I may have spent LESS than the amount I would've spent on the narcissistic track I was on.
You are right, adults create their own expensive lifestyles, and then insist that kids are too expensive because they cannot do without. Gearing down is not impossible, but it takes ego-supression.
Some people just can't do ego-supression. They have shiny cars and spoiled angry kids.
It's nothing more than a taxpayer-subsidized babysitting service. Why pay out of your own pocket for your own children's care when you can spread the costs around to every taxpayer, including people who don't have kids, whose kids are grown up, or send their kids to private school or homeschool.
I'm sorry dear but I hope it makes you very, very, uncomfortable. Your kids need you and you will never have this time with them again.
When my kids were first born I continued working, missed both of their first steps. Finally the light bulb went off and I left a six figure career to stay with the kids. The change in my kids was just amazing. My sons preschool teachers surrounded me in the hall of his school a few weeks after I quit wanting to know what was going on in our lives. My son all of a sudden had confidence. They had never seen anything like it
I really hope you sit down and calculate the cost of you working when your husband goes back to work. Consider higher tax bracket, cost of car and gas, child care, clothing, lunches and that fact you probably won't making a lot of meals from scratch (That has saved me a bundle of money!)
We had to make some life style changes but they were really minor. (No more jewelery, no more Nordstroms, a lot less eating out)
Having two parents work is very, very expensive. Looking back my six figure career brought us surprisingly little profit, definitely not enough to abandon my kids. Plus just being able to be there for your family 24/7 is heavenly! Stuff happens and I'm there to handle it. I love it! 12 years of college and a great career were fun at the time but being a mom is much better and much more rewarding.
Another good book to look into is WHAT OUR MOTHERS DIDN'T TELL US: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden. It explains what feminist have "accomplished".
Your kids don't want to be raised by a payed employee. They want and deserve a parent.
LOL! Too true. Been there. Two parents working is very expensive but kids pay the highest price.
bttt
...that's why I included the caveat about health bennies.
Here in Michigan, all children have access to insurance--period. If insurance cannot be provided by the parent, it is provided by the state. Another thing to consider, which, sadly, most people don't: Doctors, dentists in particular, are some of the most willing negotiators you'll ever find outside of a farmer's market. They won't bring it up, but its true. My advice...shop around. Call three different dentists a day, explain your financial situation and the needs of your kids, eventually you will strike gold--probably sooner than later. Most doctors will offer a reduction of fees to the uninsured or underinsured if they are asked to do so. Many will allow you to pay off expensive dental work on a payment plan with no interest--you pay what you can afford to pay. Depending on how often your kids need to see a specialized doctor, you might want to consider contacting the closest state university (or any other college) that has a medical/dental school--it may mean driving an hour for an appointment, but if your appointment is only once every two or three months it could be cheaper in the long run.
Its far easier to negotiate with a doctor than a corporation!
Those children are someones sons or daughters. Put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine if 1/2 million American kids were sent to China every year for adoption. You don't think this would go unnnoticed and not cause any problems?
Just remember, these children weren't produced by an orphanage. They were produced by a mother and a father, who now do not have their children.
These kids are nothing but a drain on the social fabric of those countries, and even if those countries weren't already mired in poverty, no one would adopt them.
They don't need adoption, they need their parents.
They are still quite prejudiced against adoption.
Thanks for making my point.
And why do you think we are TRAITORS?
People who refuse to have their own children when they could are essentially traitors, because they refuse to provide for the continuation of this nation. I was not referring to adoption but to a refusal to give birth out of selfish hedonism.
But to make a larger point:
Nation, n. 1. large number of people of common descent, language, history, etc., usually inhabiting a territory bounded by defined limits and forming a society under one government ... (ME f. OF f. L natio -onis (nasci nat- be born)
Hordes of adopted children are not "growth" for our nation because they aren't of "common descent" with us; they are an extension of the nation where they came from onto our nation's land. Call it reverse western colonization if that makes it clearer.
One more thought about "stealing" children. The Angelina Jolie brouhaha is a perfect example.
I disagree with this. It's not the cost of living, it's the cost of wanting everything right now that forces moms to work.
Becky
>>>I disagree with this. It's not the cost of living, it's the cost of wanting everything right now that forces moms to work.
Not true. You live in OK. Come to NJ and tell me that.
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