Home v. Work: Child Rearing not Worthy of Time and Talents of Intelligent Humans

[Said1]

I did that for 7 yrs. My hair finally grew back, although I noticed a few greys!

 

[fuzzykitten99]

I did that for 7 yrs. My hair finally grew back, although I noticed a few greys!

i already have greys. I actually have had grey hair since i was like 7. It was actually white (no pigment in 2 spots for some reason), but because of the natural sheen/shine to my hair, it looks grey. I used to dye it (mom let me) because an 11yo girl with grey hair doesn't feel the best about her looks.

 

[fuzzykitten99]

I agree - I'm allowing my wife to learn basic math and some reading JUST IN CASE!

:

will she get to take off the burqa soon?

 

[manu1959]

i look at my children and watch them intercat with others and i am so grateful that i am able to earn enough to allow my wife the choice to stay home and teach our children to be be good humans.....i am also so grateful that my wife has chosen to teach my children to be be good humans....

the pay off is that my wife is happy, i am happy and my children know right from wrong.

 

[jillian]

i look at my children and watch them intercat with others and i am so grateful that i am able to earn enough to allow my wife the choice to stay home and teach our children to be be good humans.....i am also so grateful that my wife has chosen to teach my children to be be good humans....

the pay off is that my wife is happy, i am happy and my children know right from wrong.

Guess what...I'm happy, my husband is happy and my son knows right from wrong, too. :funnyface

 

[manu1959]

Guess what...I'm happy, my husband is happy and my son knows right from wrong, too. :funnyface

wanna get naked ?:69:

 

[jillian]

wanna get naked ?:69:

 

[dmp]

Guess what...I'm happy, my husband is happy and my son knows right from wrong, too. :funnyface

But you'd have mothered 'better' had you stayed home with your son.

 

[Shattered]

Don't feel special, or threatened. He asks everyone that.

 

[no1tovote4]

When we were having the first child my wife and I were in a little contest...

Whoever earned the least got to stay home with the kids. I lost and thus I still go to the corporate grindstone!

 

[Trigg]

To many people have this all or nothing mentality.

Working part-time (at least for me) has been great. No, your not going to make it to the top of the ladder at work. But, who ever said at their death bed "I wish I'd spent more time at work."??

Personnally I loved staying at home while my older 3 were little. Got around daycare for my 4th by working weekends.

 

[manu1959]

seen that look

 

[GotZoom]

Nice. Her next book: How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Geez.

------

Linda Hirshman, a feminist US writer on cultural issues, has told the world why she thinks staying at home with the children is an occupation “not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings.” She complains at length that the feminist movement, while making some gains in public life through legal activism, has largely failed in the one area where it counts most: the family.

She upbraids women who stay at home for failing the feminist agenda, saying, “They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.”

Writing in the November 2005 edition of the American Prospect, Hirshman admitted that the real intention of the feminist movement was not “equality”, but to destroy what she calls “the unreconstructed family” of a husband and wife rearing children. She writes that the goal was to see as many women as possible abandoning family life for high-level professions and politics.

Hirshman, a committed radical, was a member in the 1970s of the feminist lobby, the National Organization for Women (NOW), a donor to the pro-abortion political organization, EMILY’s List, and a professor of women’s studies.

But, she complains, the movement has “stalled”; while the “public world has changed…private lives have hardly budged.” Childrearing is still seen by both men and women to be the natural purview of women. She writes of her “shock” to discover that among those professional women whom she called the “logical heirs of feminism”, large numbers were leaving their careers to opt for childrearing.

“Marriage is essentially unchanged,” she laments. “The real glass ceiling is at home…Looking back, it seems obvious that the unreconstructed family was destined to re-emerge after the passage of feminism’s storm of social change.”

She writes, “this represents not a loss of present value but a loss of hope for the future -- a loss of hope that the role of women in society will continue to increase.”

Some of the women she interviewed confirmed her worst fears: they liked being mothers. One declined to be interviewed because she could not leave her activities with her daughters: “We’re all in here making fresh apple pie,” she said.

Another, an “an Ivy Leaguer with a master’s degree” described her at-home activities: “I take my [3-year-old] daughter to all the major museums. We go to little movement classes.”

The article ignited a blaze of online outrage from feminists and traditionalists alike. Bloggers and editorials in print and online editions of a number of magazines have run comments blasting Hirshman.

In an op-ed at the online edition of the political magazine, the Huffington Post, Ann Coulter wrote that Hirshman and those who think like her, are “expressing an intolerant world view that women who don't work are losers.”

“Hirshman isn't just expressing an opinion about what she thinks is best, she is saying that any woman who makes a choice different from what she espouses is unequivocally ‘wrong.’”

Coulter writes that feminism is losing its sway in public because it focuses on “problems that hardly exist…while spending precious little energy on issues that indisputably have a negative impact on women: pornography, sex trafficking.”

“If [feminists] spent a fraction of the time on these issues that they spend trying to get women to get their men to vacuum the living room, the world would be a better place.”

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06062007.html

 

[Annie]

Nice. Her next book: How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Geez.

------

Linda Hirshman, a feminist US writer on cultural issues, has told the world why she thinks staying at home with the children is an occupation “not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings.” She complains at length that the feminist movement, while making some gains in public life through legal activism, has largely failed in the one area where it counts most: the family.

She upbraids women who stay at home for failing the feminist agenda, saying, “They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.”

Writing in the November 2005 edition of the American Prospect, Hirshman admitted that the real intention of the feminist movement was not “equality”, but to destroy what she calls “the unreconstructed family” of a husband and wife rearing children. She writes that the goal was to see as many women as possible abandoning family life for high-level professions and politics.

Hirshman, a committed radical, was a member in the 1970s of the feminist lobby, the National Organization for Women (NOW), a donor to the pro-abortion political organization, EMILY’s List, and a professor of women’s studies.

But, she complains, the movement has “stalled”; while the “public world has changed…private lives have hardly budged.” Childrearing is still seen by both men and women to be the natural purview of women. She writes of her “shock” to discover that among those professional women whom she called the “logical heirs of feminism”, large numbers were leaving their careers to opt for childrearing.

“Marriage is essentially unchanged,” she laments. “The real glass ceiling is at home…Looking back, it seems obvious that the unreconstructed family was destined to re-emerge after the passage of feminism’s storm of social change.”

She writes, “this represents not a loss of present value but a loss of hope for the future -- a loss of hope that the role of women in society will continue to increase.”

Some of the women she interviewed confirmed her worst fears: they liked being mothers. One declined to be interviewed because she could not leave her activities with her daughters: “We’re all in here making fresh apple pie,” she said.

Another, an “an Ivy Leaguer with a master’s degree” described her at-home activities: “I take my [3-year-old] daughter to all the major museums. We go to little movement classes.”

The article ignited a blaze of online outrage from feminists and traditionalists alike. Bloggers and editorials in print and online editions of a number of magazines have run comments blasting Hirshman.

In an op-ed at the online edition of the political magazine, the Huffington Post, Ann Coulter wrote that Hirshman and those who think like her, are “expressing an intolerant world view that women who don't work are losers.”

“Hirshman isn't just expressing an opinion about what she thinks is best, she is saying that any woman who makes a choice different from what she espouses is unequivocally ‘wrong.’”

Coulter writes that feminism is losing its sway in public because it focuses on “problems that hardly exist…while spending precious little energy on issues that indisputably have a negative impact on women: pornography, sex trafficking.”

“If [feminists] spent a fraction of the time on these issues that they spend trying to get women to get their men to vacuum the living room, the world would be a better place.”

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06062007.html

We did it again! Merging like threads!

 

[GotZoom]

We did it again! Merging like threads!

Geez...that is what I get for trying to post in between games.

Note to Self: SEARCH Function.

 

[Annie]

Geez...that is what I get for trying to post in between games.

Note to Self: SEARCH Function.

Are you my long lost twin brother? We seem to share a brain!

 

[GotZoom]

Are you my long lost twin brother? We seem to share a brain!

It is appearing more and more like we just might be.

 

[Hobbit]

There is no more worthy, more demanding career in the entire world than raising the next generation. I know my sister and I put my mom through Hell and I expect no less from my kids, whenever I get some. People like this Linda Hirshman only demean the most noble profession on the planet, probably because they can't ever get anyone to give them children.

If one wants a little insight at how the different sexes think on this issue, just watch innocent children at play. Lay out a pile of toys and take a bunch of little kids who know nothing of the stereotypes and the different struggles of the real world. Girls will grab Barbie dolls and baby dolls, and they will play games about relationships, child rearing, shopping, and home care. Boys will grab toy guns, soldiers, and construction equipment, and they'll play bulldozer, hunting trip, or some kind of war games. The 'traditional' gender roles are placed there by God and begin to take shape before we even begin to think about hearth and home. Sure, some buck the trend, but it's rare.

For a very interesting examination of this situation, I recommend the Michael Keaton movie, "Mr. Mom." In it, he loses his job and his wife manages to find a high paying advertising job before he finds anything, leaving him at home to care for the kids. Aside from the common 'strong working woman' and 'bumbling dad' cliches, it really displays the truth of the matter. The dad is driven crazy with cabin fever and goes almost straight into full-fledged mid-life crisis mode. It isn't until he figures out that he's going to have to be a man, suck it up, and do what has to be done that he finds a way to put a 'manly' touch on the housekeeping and settles into the role. In the meantime, his wife goes hysterical about leaving the kids at home with the husband, and is constantly worried if this and that get done. She also flips at his mid-life crisis mode, which leads him into a pretty funny dream sequence. After a while, she learns to trust him and gets matters done.

In the end, Michael Keaton finds out the plant he was fired from is falling apart in his absence and gets his old job offered back with a promotion and a raise, which he at first refuses but only takes because his wife's boss sexually assaults her and she quits. In the end, everything is back to the way it was, except everyone's happier and more empathetic for the experience.

 

[William Joyce]

$20 says she's batting for the other team.

$50 says Linda Hirshman's "other team" isn't necessarily lesbians:

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/books-Preface.html

 

[Nienna]

To many people have this all or nothing mentality.

Working part-time (at least for me) has been great. No, your not going to make it to the top of the ladder at work. But, who ever said at their death bed "I wish I'd spent more time at work."??

Personnally I loved staying at home while my older 3 were little. Got around daycare for my 4th by working weekends.

This is what I plan to do. This coming school year will be my last year with a child at home during the day. They are starting all-day-every-day kindergarten this year (to which I am vehemently opposed ). So, when my baby starts school, I'm going to substitute teach. It's perfect; the hours are the same as the kids', the same days off for snow days, summer, etc, and if I don't want to work one day, I can just say, "No thanks."

But I am so grateful that I got to stay at home with them. I don't think there is any substitute for a parent's care.