From: EKOCK@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: At what age is day care appropriate?
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:07:18 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs


People who sacrifice their ENTIRE lives (or even five years of it) set
themselves up for tremendous disappointment.  Sacrifice creates the
expectation of a future payback -- generally an expectation that *no*
human being can meet.  It is the basis of the attitude you often see
between parents and older children.  The parent: "I've sacrificied
everything so you (the child) could have the things I did not.  How can
you be so ungrateful?"  The child: "Nothing I do ever satisfies my
mom/dad.  I can never be good enough for them."


Elise.


I completely agree with Elise.  Did anybody hear Freud's granddaughter
on the NPR show"The parent's journal"?  She made the point
that it's important to a child's well-being that parents lead
whole lives.  Flame on, but I think that the phenomenon of
a middle-class woman "staying home" would not, for me, constitute
a very whole life.  Explain to me, why, when I speak with
such women that I find them to be obsessed by trivial, banal
matters such as which garage sale to go to (for example).
I don't find these women following politics or reading books or
writing The Great American Novel.  Their marriages are divided
along strict stereotypical roles.  Daddy mows the lawn and
Mommy bakes the cakes.  Daddy divorces Mommy when Daddy gets
to be 45.  Mommy can't find a job and she tells her daughters
to make sure they learn a marketable skill regardless of whether
or not they marry.

In case you can't tell already, I have a job.  I also have a child.
Sure, I'd like to work fewer hours, have cheaper daycare, have it all.
But it ain't gonna happen.  And what's this nostalgia for the past
I hear from Judy?  A woman bearing 13 children, many of whom die in
infancy, working her buns off is not my idea of something to bring
back.  I don't think there was a lot of "quality time" in the old days.

It would not be good for me or my son if I were a stay-at-home mommy.
He is the most important person in the world to me but there's got
to be a balance in a family's life.  He's being nurtured, cared for,
and taught, right this minute, by people who have skills I don't have.
I'm working at a job I enjoy and which helps support our family.  We'll
all be together again this afternoon and we'll talk about what we
all did.  My son will have brought some joy to the elderly man
who likes to read him stories at his daycare.  I will have done
some mentally challenging work.  My house will be a mess (big deal).

My son will not grow up to think of Mommies as people who are
"home" .       Mommies are also
not people who owe their husbands respect simply because
Daddy makes all the money.  I hope he'll realize that in a
family everybody must pitch in and play all the roles sometimes.

I really resent the attitude that the fact that I work is somehow
a self-indulgent luxery.  It's simply what I do.  I find this
attitude sexist to the extreme.  Sure, if I were a millionaire
I might not work but that decision would have nothing to do
with whether or not I had children.  I find sometimes that
women of my mother's generation who didn't work (the fabulous
50's) are far more understanding about the importance of women
taking part in all aspects of life than are younger women.
Perhaps this is because they've learned their lessons the
hard way.  We don't have to.

If I had a shred of evidence that I am in any way harming my son
by going to work everyday I'd quit immediately.  But I doubt
that there is any evidence out there.  The circle of people who
love my son is just a little bit bigger than if I stayed at home
with him.

Flame on.

Ellen
Newsgroups: misc.kids