Posted on 11/26/2006 5:02:22 AM PST by shrinkermd
....More American women than ever are putting motherhood before matrimony. New data released by the Centers for Disease Control show that nearly four in 10 U.S. babies were born outside of marriage in 2005—a new high. These unwed moms aren't all teens—last year teen pregnancies fell to their lowest levels in 65 years. Some—like 44-year-old Mary Lee MacKichan, who used a gay friend as a sperm donor—are professional, older women who want to have babies before their biological clocks run out, but most are low-income twentysomethings. (Unwed births among 30- to 44-year-olds are up 17 percent since 1991; among those 25 to 29, they're up 30 percent.) And some 40 percent of those moms aren't going it alone—they're cohabiting, at least for a while. That's creating a major shift in what a generation of children are coming to call a family. "Marriage is still alive and well, but it has a lot of competition," says Wellesley College sociologist Rosanna Hertz, author of "Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice."
Ironically, sociologists say, marriage may be on the decline precisely because it has become so idealized. People expect more from marriage than they did a century ago, when it was mainly a practical arrangement to provide financial stability for women and a place to raise children. "Now it's not only love and romance but also self-fulfillment and personal growth," says Pamela Smock, professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Since there's no longer much of a stigma attached to getting pregnant outside of marriage, many couples have replaced "shotgun weddings" with "shotgun cohabitations
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
This is a true and legitimate point. I know many women who work very hard and tell me they 'balance' personal life. I always ask for details - there are only so many hours in the day. If a person works 12 hours a day, commutes another two hours, and sleeps six hours, all that leaves is four hours a day.
I've asked many women how they 'balance' a clearly imbalanced dynamic - 12 hrs vs 4-5 hrs. What's the balance?
I've never got a satisfactory answer, just that it's a 'challenge' and that they do manage to 'balance' it.
Still sounds fishy to me. In fact, there is no real balance, only choices and sacrifices. I also ask these 'balancers' from time to time for 5 or 6 examples of when they sacrificed their family demands for a job demand. These flow freely - on the tip of their tongue. OK, now what are 5 or 6 comparable times where you sacrificed your job demands for a family demand.
Things get very quiet at that point. Didn't see that one coming.
I have no problem with men and women being honest about this dynamic. They made their choices and the consequences come - you choose your choices, you can only anticipate (or be in denial of) the consequences. We don;t get to choose consequences in many cases. I am turned off by attempts to rationalize them using a concept like 'balance' when no true balance exists.
I am sure plenty of people do execute this balance. I just haven't met many who have been able to articulate how it actually works. Absence of evidence, evidence of absence, and all that jazz.
LOL!
You really dig that false choice thing, don't you? You keep going to that well, though you should know it's not about one or the other - anyone can explore both and have a wide range of other choices.
Trust me - don't hang your hat on these false choices. Life isn't like that.
And my mom and granny taught me how to cook pretty well! I'm a man, and I value my cooking skills more than my college degree. I'm a strange one, I confess.
It's very hard to do it alone. Heck it's hard to do it with two people. This is one of the reasons Europe is in the state it is in. Too many people not getting married and if they do have kids, having them out of wedlock. Your solution for not becoming like Europe is one of the reasons Europe is in decline. You can't produce strong men unless you have strong male influences in a child's life. A woman is only half the equation.
Not specific to the poster but to the world view of many people, I think it's more a problem of maturity and wisdom, which has something to do with age, but not necessarily so.
A lot of people can be relatively young and be fairly wise and savvy. I agree, it's not that common.
Wants and beliefs. They are good things, but usually when tempered with an appreciation of truth and consequences, as well as other things.
Good luck.
Add 'hope' to that. Wants, beliefs, and hopes.
I use mine to cheat now and then, so its worth it, but I don't resort to it much.
No microwave for me, except for popcorn now and then. It came with the apartment.
No canned or jarred gravy for me either - for those of you that speak British, that would be 'tomato sauce.' ;-)
Popcorn is the only thing I know how to make in a microwave, because it has a button that SAYS "popcorn".
They are good for things like stew. They are also good if you are going to be gone most of the day and want a hot meal when you come home. They are good for soups.
I also used ours to keep hot apple cider warm during a party that was outdoors. I just plugged it in and it worked great.
I've made some things that I don't like, and others that are great. It's just nice to have something that I can make in the morning when the kids are at school, and then it is ready to eat when they get home from school.
There's a LOT of truth to that statement! I didn't get married 'til I was in my 30s, and I have 3 kids: 19, 17, and 4 (not a typo!).
These last four years have been the most wonderfully challenging years of my life, thanks to the simultaneous joys of being a Lariette (drill team) dad, a band dad, and a toddler dad. My identity in my community, like many other parents, is not that I'm "Night Hides Not": I'm Shauna's Dad, Richie's Dad, and Nathan's Dad, and I wear all 3 mantles proudly.
However, having one child in preschool & another in college is wreaking havoc on my checkbook.
I hope Accygirl picks the right field for her MBA. In my case, there's a glut of 50+ year old CPAs in the market, and the immutable laws of supply and demand are in force.
For you younger folks out there, age discrimination is rampant, even at 4.5% unemployment.
Not that my advice is worth much, but the advice I've tried to pass on to my kids is to discover what you're passionate about, and build your life around that. Life is too short to put yourself in crappy jobs, no matter how much (or how little) they pay.
I enjoy cooking, always have. I considered both a stint in the army and a run in culinary school after high school. Both options freaked out my folks as well as my college counselors.
Microwave popcorn is good - it's done in 2-3 minutes and comparable to prepping it other ways. I don't even use it to defrost, to be honest with you.
That popcorn button comes in handy!
One of my best friends has a very high-powered job and so does her husband. They have 3 kids that are very nice kids.
However, she just doesn't spend much time with her kids. She workds late most evenings. I'll call at 6pm, and she won't be home. I don't think she ever reads to them or plays games with them. Her husband does most of the cooking. She never really took them to parks. They do go on nice family trips about twice a year. The kids are in a lot more after-school activities than my kids (we can't afford them).
I don't understand why people have kids and then don't spend time with them. I understand some people choosing not to have kids.
I worked with a woman years ago who was incredulous that I didn't have a microwave. She touted its usefulness for defrosting something if she had forgotten to do so.
I said, "Gee, when I forget to defrost something, I tell my husband, 'Honey, I forgot to defrost something for dinner', and within twenty minutes or so I'm sitting in a restaurant."
The look on her face was priceless. ;-D
I took a lesson from my father-in-law, who raised 10 kids. I never saw him happier than when he was cooking a meal for any of his 16 grandchildren.
I get the same joy from seeing the smile on my 4 year old's face when he sees me fixing his favorite pasta. Most of the time, he'll polish off two adult size portions, eating as much as his 17 year old brother.
I'm also pretty good with German dishes such as sauerbraten and jagerschnitzel.
For the record, I forgot to add that my brother was a stay-at-home dad. I don't have a problem with the dad staying home. He never worked much because he battled cancer from his early 20's until he died at 48. However, he took care of the kids. He cooked, cleaned, curled his daughter's hair, coached sports teams, and was a Boy Scout leader. He left a great legacy and there were hundreds of people at his funeral.
One other point is that if you really want to get far in your job, you have to put in over 40 hours a week. You can't have both parents doing that. I really don't know how I could have much of a job right now. I have 2 daughters going to school at 8:30 am, and someone has to take them.My son goes to school at 9:30am. My daughters have to be picked up at 3:00pm and my son at 3:40pm. After that, there is homework, and they all need some help with homework (an uneducated nanny would not be able to help). That takes until dinner time. Then it's time to get ready for bed.
That's not to mention things like doctor's appointments, hair appointments, speech therapy twice a week, drama plays at school, field trips and school parties, open houses, sick kids, sick mom, and other school activities. On a good day, I have about 5 hours to go to the grocery stores and run other errands, clean the house, do the laundry, pay the bills, and relax, etc. If I worked, I would never have time to relax or do things with my husband.
Thanks. I have a friend who dumps a load of ribs, sauce and a little water into them in the morning and swears by the results he finds when he returns in the evening.
But I'm gonna hold off a while longer, I think.
I I'm glad you posted that. I have no doubt about what you are saying. I was just thinking about my brother. He worked for 20 years as an auto mechanic and made well over a $100,000 the last 10 of those 20. He paid off two houses and has tons of money put away. He's a mechanical genius and I don't use the word genius lightly. There's NOTHING about cars that he doesn't know and NOTHING he couldn't diagnose. I don't look down my nose at people that are mechanics or do construction. They know a heck of a lot more than I'll ever know about it. I also appreciate people that work at Wal-Mart, clean toilets, change oil, and pick up my garbage--especially pick up my garbage! These people make the world go around.
Thanks. However, understand that I'm a guy who once spent an entire day shopping for a mechanical can opener. Yes, I understand the insanity of that, but I had that darned can opener 15 years. Sadly, the store where I purchased it is no longer in business.
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