Re: You mean there are costs to stay-at-home mothering, too?

In article <marek1-CD7550.12000029072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
In article <MPG.2115910d9b18a0eb98a59a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <marek1-5F84B2.19075928072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
In article <MPG.211550503cbf31f598a599@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <marek1-1AE687.12011228072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
<<SNIP>>
But this is untrue: While the feminists like to point to a nebulous
"world economy" for wage deflation, flooding the workplace with
millions
of women probably didn't help matters either.

Also, there's the cost of college. I know men with daughters who
cried:
"Now I have to worry about college!" I laughed and said that money for
college for daughters is like washing a rental car.

So who do you suppose should support the increasing number of women
who, if they marry at all, do so in their thirties? Should they
stay out of the labor market and remain dependent on family support,
or do you want to increase the welfare budget?

And of course, what has happened due to faux equality is that with
wages
deflated and fewer men for career women to marry up to, most of them
wind up as single parents anyway.


MOST of what group? Women? Career women?

Gee, when I write "career women" that might imply I mean "career women".

The US Census says that only
32% of births in the US are to single women. It also says that there
were only 10.4 million single mothers living with their children
in 2005. There is no way that is MOST of women or even the subset
you might consider 'career women'.

That's because women, single, career, married, etc. are capable of being
mothers and not necessarily live with their children their whole lives.
:-) In addition, you just cited a 32% figure (which is 1/3d) and then
try to claim what? That 10.4 million out of 320 means an even smaller
ratio? You might want to contact the census bureau. :-)

I guess the first thing I might ask would be "What census data would
lead anyone to think that there are 320 million women in the USA?" ;-)

You should be able to figure out for yourself that I forgot to cut the
population number in half.

I honestly didn't know what you were trying to do with the numbers
explosion above.

I was countering your unsupported assertion that most career women
end up as single mothers.

<<SNIP>>

I work at home all day and do find being without adult company all
day annoying at times. It is not annoying enough to make me want
to go back to work in a noisy office or lab.


And working to pay the bills for the whole family is one big playtime.

Well, it can be if you really enjoy your job---as I do!

But for MOST PEOPLE, it's not. I sense you're bragging a bit that you
are fortunate (and smart) enough to be able to negotiate a job you can
enjoy, but that also smacks of elitism and a reality disconnect from the
issues we're discussing here.

I didn't negotiate a job. I quit one and became self-employed. If I
had been a better negotiator, I might now own part of my former company
and still be employed there. I enjoy my present job and also liked
my former job---except for some of the engineering management problems.

I think you'd find that a majority of scientists and engineers enjoy
their jobs---but that may not match your definition of "one big
playtime". Whether it 'smacks of elitism' to refer to my own
experiences or is a reality disconnect, please remember that
I'm not the one who referred to working to pay the bills as
"one big playtime"!

So it's somehow my fault that YOU chose to argue that your profession
"could be" one big playtime and now you're arguing that it's not and
acting like it's my fault for making a generalization that it wasn't in
the first place.

I didn't say that my work is not interesting enough so that I look
forward to it. I wondered, rather, what is your definition of
"one big playtime". I do look forward to going to work most
days---although not so much those that start at 0430 and involve
spending the day in the desert in Arizona in August.

You sound like a woman. :-)

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean that women more
often sound like they look forward to going to work each day?

Granted, what Denise says is true but nobody says that the woman has to
have a gun to her head not to talk to other mothers in the area.

Most working class families had the mother work part-time to get by and
for the reasons she mentioned.

Finally, although many observers overlook this truth, the male
breadwinner-female homemaker family can cause special problems for
men
who can feel terribly pressured by having the full financial burden
resting on their shoulders.

And lord knows how concerned you are by justifying the courts force him
to pay alimony and child-support even after his wife leaves him without
any duties of her own.

If she's getting child support, doesn't she retain the duty of raising
the children?

Who says it's a duty? Many fathers would be more than happy to take the
child off of their hands. But you are right in that this "child"
support does carry a minimal "duty" of looking after the "child".

In fact, failure to carry out that duty would probably be good grounds
for a father to sue for custody.

So failure to do something means that they might have someone else do it
for them? Yeah, that's a real "duty" alright.

Yep. If you don't do the duty, you may lose the priveleges associated
with the job. Is that such a strange concept to you? Or is it that
you've never associated the receipt of child support payments with the
duty to raise the children?

They may work very long hours in order to
support their families and, in the process, become alienated from the
very wives and children for whom they are working.

Indeed. And the compensation men get for this sacrifice is... nill.

Do these truths mean that all stay-at-home moms should instantly
stampede into the nearest employment office? Of course not. Many
will
find that the advantages of staying home outweigh the costs.

Hence, maybe men don't need to compensate women for something they
wanted anyway...

And if the husband choses to go to work rather than stay at home
with the kids, what compensation does he deserve for doing what
he wanted to do? Saying that each is doing "something they
wanted anyway" ignores the pressures that influenced the choice.

You're engaging in an argument of abstraction. Yes, you're right that
we all have pressures for the decisions we make but that doesn't show
why women should get compensated for a choice they clearly had more than
enough freedom to decline. On the other hand, few men enjoy the option
of staying at home or just working for "fun".

Of course it's an argument of abstraction----but I'm not the only one
making such abstractions.

That's also an argument of abstraction. :-)

You do it yourself when you make statements
like "few men enjoy the option of staying at home....".

That's not an abstraction. That's a broad generalization and a correct
one at that.

That's still in the category of 'opinion' rather than a proven fact
here.

I think a
lot of men (married or single) have the option to find work they
would enjoy if they were to accept a reduction in income.

Only if they have a realistic option of accepting a reduction in income
and even then, just because a job pays less doesn't mean it's more
"fun". Store clerk or ditch digger is hardly fun (for most people just
in case you want to disingenuously argue you know someone who has fun at
it) but it pays little.

I think
that group would include almost all artists, performers, and writers,

You forgot: housewife.

And indeed, most of the people who can afford to do these jobs, FULL
TIME, at low pay tend to be WOMEN because men pay the bills. MEN, on
the other hand, who do such work usually have a "day job".

You're out of touch with the crative and performing arts and teaching
professions if you think most of those people are women for whom men
are paying the bills. Many of the people I know in this category
(other than full-time teachers) do have other jobs to support their
work in the arts.

and teachers, to start.

Teachers actually make pretty good money and enjoy a government pension.
That's not something to sneeze at.

High school teachers with bachelor's or masters in science make quite
a lot less than people with the same education make in private
industry. That's one of the reasons it's hard to find good science
and math teachers. I do agree that their pension funds are less
likely to fail or be looted by management.

Parg argued that teachers are "low paid" because they deserve to be paid
more based upon their job skills but that doesn't make them low paid.
If Bill Gates offered me a $400K a year job as CEO of microsoft, I'd
take it in a minute. :-)

I don't understand that analogy at all! And I don't think I'd take the
job either at that rate--and probably not at 5 times that rate.
At 10 times the rate, I might think about doing it for a year,
then retiring. ;-)

The group probably includes a lot of people
who make mid-life career changes, too (I opted for self-employment at
age 53, with children aged 4 and 8 at the time.)


I'm not sure where 'low paid' came into this discussion. I'm not
sure it matters as much to people who look forward to going to work.
Since more married women are working full time now than was the case
a few decades ago, it should be easier now for men to find work that
they enjoy, even if it results in a lower pay rate.

This is not really a "career change" if you're doing the same thing but
just doing it in business for yourself. I found self-employment to be
more trouble than it was worth and I'm impressed you made it work out.

Within the broad category of 'embedded computer engineering' I guess
I'm still in the same field. However I've switched from about 100%
oceanographic instruments to about 30% oceanographic stuff, 60%
aerospace, and 10% accounting and business management. The
last 10% has been the least enjoyable and the most 'trouble'.

I think the keys to successful self-employment are the ability
to accept the risks involved and having a skill set that
you can target at a very specific market. It also helps
a lot to have the resources to live at significantly
reduced income for a year or two!


Mark Borgerson
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: You mean there are costs to stay-at-home mothering, too?
    ... college for daughters is like washing a rental car. ... So who do you suppose should support the increasing number of women ... The late marriage goes hand in hand with the career thing. ... responsibility to pay the bills. ...
    (soc.men)
  • Re: Does nobody at this retirement site ever talk about retirement issues???
    ... My father is 87 and without SS would not have enough income to support himself. ... There needs to be several workers paying into it, to support even one recipient. ... That doesn't exactly seem right to me that younger workers should be robbed from in order to pay Paul, if you know what I mean. ... I suggest that you access the Social Security web site and review the survivor benefits. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Feminist single mum rattles the cage
    ... It's crammed with demands that you pay for YOUR child because it's YOUR ... responsibility to SUPPORT YOUR CHILD!! ... has the baby or not. ... stick around guys because children need fathers. ...
    (soc.men)
  • Re: You mean there are costs to stay-at-home mothering, too?
    ... deflated and fewer men for career women to marry up to, ... And working to pay the bills for the whole family is one big playtime. ... And the compensation men get for this sacrifice is... ... You're engaging in an argument of abstraction. ...
    (soc.men)
  • Re: taking our health care back......
    ... and they should pay when they do. ... don't need to repeat that you support such actions. ... The automobile of today is so much more advanced than ... society is geared to think the worst first. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
Loading