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Old 03-06-2010, 02:39 PM
 
Location: Florida
1,738 posts, read 8,255,640 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
It's good you don't have credit cards but you should eliminate car payments. I'd get rid of them before you have a child. It's smart to buy cars with cash and have only a mortgage as debt.

What some couples do is work different shifts to save on babysitting costs if they have no source of free babysitting like family members.

Or one works weekends while the other works weekdays. Or work from home, provide day care for other people for example, offer tutoring services if you like teaching.
yup yup! I second that. we have one car payment and a mortgage. THAT'S IT! I didn't want the new car but hub was insistent on a safe car with babies.
I worked from home until last week. I just stopped working.
my hub would get home at 4pm and take over until around 7 or 8pm. it works and sometimes I'd finish early. I had one day out of the week where my mom watched the baby for 2 hours so I could go work at the college but that was more grandma time then babysitting.
*We have friends, the mom is a teacher and dad is a police man. He works 4pm through the night so he can be home with her and she works school days.
*my sil and bro pass off as well. She works 3-4 days starting early until 3pm and he starts to head to work once she gets home. Its very do-able!
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Old 03-06-2010, 02:48 PM
 
Location: Florida
1,738 posts, read 8,255,640 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
The issue isn't accepting it but, rather, being unable to change it. Just growing a garden doesn't bring back the sense of belonging to the family team that must have existed 100 years ago on the family farm. It's just playing where that was reality.

Pretending things haven't changed, won't change that they have. Kids know that sewing and cooking from scratch are no longer needed functions. What is lost is the importance of the job not the ability to do it. We can still bake bread or buy a cow and milk it but that doesn't change that we no longer NEED to do those things so they have lost their importance. It was in the importance of the work children and teens did that the sense of being part of the family team was born not in the job itself. You can't replace that by growing a garden or making jelly.

One of the reasons women have pushed their way into the work force is the importance of the job they did at home is gone. It's no longer a case of the family can't survive without her labors at home. Not only can they survive without them, they can do so well now because much of what women, traditionally, did is easily and cheaply replaced. In working a job and bringing in an income, women can replace the importance of what they do. Children don't have that option. Well, they do but, usually, they're not handing over their paycheck to their parents to help pay the bills.
my job at home is not gone for one. its never ending ...to start with!
ALSO, growing up I sure did do chores ...maybe not farm chores but we cleaned bathrooms, made dinner(from scratch), didn't play on Sunday, took care of the dog, the lawn, etc. ....not all at once but we did our share and never felt a lack of family team. I don't think being part o the family team is about chores. my parents made sure each of us was important and felt important creating a family team.

And to ADD. my kid is a toddler but we instill family values and security even at her young age. THEY CAN BE TAUGHT!

...in fact one summer my sister and I painted the house(two story!). ...wasn't shoeing a horse but I might have preferred that over painting in the heat
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Old 03-06-2010, 02:54 PM
 
Location: Northern Virginia
4,489 posts, read 10,906,811 times
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I think the point is that while you can give your kids as many chores as they like, kids aren't dumb--they know the house isn't going to fall apart if they don't make their bed, nor is anyone going to starve if they don't do the dishes. 100 years ago, if you didn't milk the cows or tend to the fields, people WERE going to starve.

I had plenty of chores growing up, but they certainly didn't make me feel needed in my family. My parents could have done the dishes and mowed the lawns and vacuumed and done just fine. The chores were assigned to me to "teach me responsibility", not because it was needed to keep the house running and the family fed.
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Old 03-06-2010, 03:10 PM
 
16,972 posts, read 16,201,327 times
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If you let dirty dishes pile up in the sink you will attract bugs and maybe even rodents into your house (which actually could make you very sick). If you never wash your clothes, you will be filthy. If you don't maintain your car, you probably won't have a car for very long. If you let your house fall into disrepair your dwelling may become unsafe for you to live in....

Chores are necessary even today.
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:07 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,414,606 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by springfieldva View Post
I probably never will teach my kids how to can jelly, spin wool, slaughter pigs or churn butter. You're right, people don't do these things like they used to. Why would they?

But there are still plenty of chores to do around the house and, yes, my kids are expected to pitch in and help out every day. They do their jobs at home and work hard in school. We have taught and will continue to teach them the skills that they need to live in today's world - how to do their own laundry, type on/troubleshoot/use the computer, fix their own meals, change a flat tire, paint their own house, steam clean a carpet, basic yard maintenance, how to balance a checkbook....

Seriously, we are not at a loss for what to teach them because there is so much for them to learn. So, while it's true that our kids will probably never learn how to shoe a horse, they will be shown how to change their car's oil/air filter/battery. Mode of transportation may have changed, but basic maintenance is still needed .
The problem is, today, they're just chores. In yesteryear, what needed to be done needed to be done for the family's survival and well being. You HAD to bake bread or you had none to eat, you HAD to sew clothes or you had nothing to wear, you HAD to can vegetables or you had none in the winter, you HAD to smoke and salt meat to preserve it, you HAD to draw water from the well, you HAD to chop wood for the fire....the list goes on and on and on. What do we HAVE to do at home that our fami'y's survival depends on today?

There is a HUGE difference between cleaning your room or running the dishwasher and the kinds of "chores" kids did 100 years ago on the farm that the family depended on. THAT is what our children have lost. It should come as no surprise they have also lost their tie to their family and seek, at a very young age, to break out and associate with peers over family. It should come as no surprise to us that their peers matter more to them than we do. They are kindred souls seeking comfort in the company of those like them. That used to be a role of the family. Now it's not. We're simply not working together as a team for the survival of the family anymore. It's mom and dad working to pay the bills and the kids helping clean the house, mow the lawn...whatever chore that really doesn't matter if it gets done today or not.

I do not know how to bring back that sense of importance for our kids short of becomming a missionary. I've only ever known one person who knew this sense of importance growing up and her father was a missionary to Peru and her mother died before she was 13 (when I met her - her dad was on furlough). She sewed the clothes for the family because there was no Walmart. She baked the bread from grain she ground because there was no grocery store to buy it at...etc, etc, etc...and she was PROUD of what she could do for her family. I've never known anyone who held their head as high as her. Not in a concieted way. She was happy that she could do those things for her family.

IMO, it's no wonder our kids have a self esteem crisis today. Nothing they do really matters. Without sense of importance to what we do, how do you build, genuine self esteem? Instead, we've substituted telling our children they are mommy's special snowflake but that doesn't give them back the sense of importance that kids had generations ago. It's no wonder they're lost and turn to peers and drugs and alcohol. They're looking for a sense of importance.

I see this in my two daughters. My nick is in honor my youngest who has been performing on the piano in public since she was 6. She knows she can do something that is of value, appreciated by others and most people cannot do. The kid has more self esteem than any 10 kids I know. My oldest dd doesn't have anything that compares and she struggles. I wish I knew how to help her. I know what the problem is but I don't know how to fix it. She needs to find her sense of importance to others. She needs to find something she does that is of value to others and is appreciated by others. Sadly, our kids are often through college before they can find this.

I'm planning on volunteering with her at a local animal shelter this summer. I'm hoping that will help. She loves animals. Of course she'll want to bring every stray home . If I thought she'd appreciate it, we'd also volunteer at a nursing home but she wouldn't get that the people there are really lonely and volunteering is of great value to them. My younger daughter would but she already has enough self esteem to be able to see beyond herself and her needs. My older daughter is still stuck trying to find her sense of belonging and what makes her of value.

Contrary to popular belief, today, telling your kids they are of value doesn't do it. They need to know WHY they are of value. Kids in the past knew why they were of value without anyone telling them because they knew the importance of their work. This is one thing I wish I could give my kids. When my mom died, my youngest sister was onlyl 14. She took over the role of mom to the two youngest boys. I used to feel sorry for her but now I realize that she gained greatly by being placed in a position, from a young age, where she was NEEDED.
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:19 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,414,606 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by springfieldva View Post
If you let dirty dishes pile up in the sink you will attract bugs and maybe even rodents into your house (which actually could make you very sick). If you never wash your clothes, you will be filthy. If you don't maintain your car, you probably won't have a car for very long. If you let your house fall into disrepair your dwelling may become unsafe for you to live in....

Chores are necessary even today.
BUT, the child is not needed to do those things because, today, it takes very little effort to do them. It no longer has to be a family combined effort to get everything done. It's 30 minutes a day of chores that could be done today or tomorrow or someone else could do in 30 minutes they have to spare as well.

In the past, each child meant that more labor could be done and that meant more crops planted, more animals in the pens, more farm hands that could be fed at the family table and there was so much work to be done that it took a team effort to make sure it got done. All of this added to the family's bottom line and quality of life. You're not, seriously, comparing putting your dish in the dishwasher or turning on a washing machine to that, are you?

Women are lucky. We can go get jobs and replace that sense of importance to our work. We can contribute to the family's bottom line through our pay and gain a sense of accomplishment from what we do at work. Our children, have been turned into students. They work for grades. Grades that really don't matter to the day to day survival of their families. Women replaced what they lost with careers and paychecks. We replaced our children's contribution to the family with school. Unfortunately, they do not find the same kind of satisfaction in doing homework they found in helping put bread on the table.

BTW, I've known many a family who let the dishes pile up and no one got sick. I've known people who have huge piles of laundry on the basement floor and no one was worse for the wear. Yesterday, if kids didn't do their chores, the family probably went hungry. Today, nothing much happens. Hence, the chores have lost their value and importance. It's gone from being a matter of survival to being nice to live in a neat house. And then we wonder why we can't get our kids to clean their rooms. They KNOW it doesn't matter. They wonder why we think it does. They, probably, think we're idiots for putting so much emphasis on neatness. In the past, there was so much to do that being neat about everything mattered (plus when you heated your house with an open fire, there was the threat of burning the house down if things got cluttered and a spark flew out of the fireplace). Today, it just means it takes a few minutes extra to find that matching sock....

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-06-2010 at 04:28 PM..
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:27 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,414,606 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliTerp07 View Post
I think the point is that while you can give your kids as many chores as they like, kids aren't dumb--they know the house isn't going to fall apart if they don't make their bed, nor is anyone going to starve if they don't do the dishes. 100 years ago, if you didn't milk the cows or tend to the fields, people WERE going to starve.

I had plenty of chores growing up, but they certainly didn't make me feel needed in my family. My parents could have done the dishes and mowed the lawns and vacuumed and done just fine. The chores were assigned to me to "teach me responsibility", not because it was needed to keep the house running and the family fed.
Yes. You get the point.
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:34 PM
 
16,972 posts, read 16,201,327 times
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^When people were living off of the land, I doubt that they had very much time to worry if what they did was "of value to others and (was) appreciated by others." Things were pretty clear cut and basic back then.
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Old 03-06-2010, 06:10 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,414,606 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by springfieldva View Post
^When people were living off of the land, I doubt that they had very much time to worry if what they did was "of value to others and (was) appreciated by others." Things were pretty clear cut and basic back then.
But they KNEW what they did was of value. THAT is the difference today. Whether they thought about it, consciously, or not, they KNEW what they did mattered.

I'm not debating whether they thought much about it. I'm debating that they KNEW what they did was of value. It was easy to see the value whether anyone said thank you or not. No one had to tell them what they did was valuable. No one had to explain why it had to be done. Today, my kids don't get why I want to run the dishwasher before we go to bed. As far as they are concerned, there's no harm done if they leave a dish on the table over night and, really, there isn't any harm done.

There is NOTHING my kids do today that contributes to the well being of the family. They do chores but they're just chores today. No one goes hungry or thirsty or gets cold if they are not done. No animals are harmed. No crops lost. What they do, really doesn't matter. Heck, what I do at home doesn't really matter. It only takes about 6 hours a week to clean a house top to bottom. Not that it stays that way but I could start upstairs and end mopping the basement floors in less than one work day and I can hire that out for about $75. Way back when, there were hundreds of hours of work to be done so everyone had to pull their weight. Children were valuable members of the family. Couples actually had kids to have help. Today, they're treated more like pets. We feed them, clothe them, train them to do a few tricks and tell them how pretty, smart, wonderful they are and think they should have great self esteem as a result. Unlike a dog that fetches the paper, my kids get no joy out of being petted and told "Good girl" when they put a dish in the dishwasher. In fact, they rebel against that becuase they know it's just a mindless chore.

Childhood has changed, drastically, in the past 60 or so years. It's now about education and preparation for a future contribution to THEIR OWN families. It should come as no suprise that they indoctrinate with peers at a very young age. That IS what we are now preparing them for. They're not taking over the family farm when mom and dad are too old to work it anymore. They're going out on their own to form their own family unit and they, in turn, will focus on educating their children not making sure they make a contribution to family. It's just the way things are now. As scary as this world is, I'd love to figure out how to hold them close like you could 100 years ago simply because they were part of the family team and everyone and their efforts mattered from a very young age.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-06-2010 at 06:20 PM..
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Old 03-06-2010, 10:41 PM
 
6,066 posts, read 14,998,099 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
It's good you don't have credit cards but you should eliminate car payments. I'd get rid of them before you have a child. It's smart to buy cars with cash and have only a mortgage as debt.

What some couples do is work different shifts to save on babysitting costs if they have no source of free babysitting like family members.

Or one works weekends while the other works weekdays. Or work from home, provide day care for other people for example, offer tutoring services if you like teaching.
This is good advice. I'll only say that my husband and I tried both working in the early years of our parentinghood (not sure that's a real word, but I'm sticking with it!). We tried both ways malamute mentions - we tried alternating shifts and we also tried one weekdays and one part-time/only weekends. It was great in that we never had to use daycare, but it was a little hard on the marriage. If you do try those ideas, I'd try to schedule it so there's at least one day a week where you and you husband both have that same day off, and maybe find some kind of child care for your child(ren) that day, so that you and your husband can spend some time alone together, as adults enjoying each others company and not just busy working parents. The MOST important thing, I think, parents can do for their children is to love and respect each other and set good examples of what a loving, caring, relationship looks like. You'll have a hard time showing your kids that if you don't make time for each other. It helps a child greatly when they know - by watching you with your spouse - that their parents love, respect, and care for one another. If all they see is a swapping off or passing of the parenting baton and then you guys exhausted on your days off... that's not setting a very good example of what a potential life can be for you child. People do it all the time of course, but it's not really the ideal situation.

And I've already mentioned how I feel about the home day care thing. In my experience as a child of a mother who did the home day care thing... I wouldn't recommend it unless it's just something that you've dreamed of doing your whole life. If you're only doing it for the money/extra income coming in, don't do it. It would be better to find childcare for your own child(ren) and pursue a career you really want to do if you have your heart set on raising your child(ren) while pursuing a career at the same time.

Last edited by haggardhouseelf; 03-06-2010 at 11:03 PM..
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