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CA renter.
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October 22, 2014 at 10:52 PM #779279October 23, 2014 at 2:00 AM #779282
CA renter
Participant[quote=UCGal]Ok – I want to clarify a few things.
I think a family’s choice to have a single earner and SAHP is a fine choice. I think a family’s choice to have two working parents is also fine. That’s the more common feminist view – the opportunity for choice.
I am an engineer because of feminism. I remember being told by a professor that I was a waste of a seat that could be filled by a male. (Yes – I reported him to the dean and he was forced to apologize to me and the other 2 women in the class.) I was told by a manager at an internship that he felt the internship should have been offered to a male student – he assumed I was like his daughter, at college to get the “MRS” degree. He also “encouraged” me to wear skirts to work, despite the fact that the job required climbing poles on top of buildings to retrieve the weather instrumentation for calibration. Feminism made these guys obsolete. I am proud to have the label “feminist” assigned to me because it suggests that I believe that women AND men should have all choices available – and should be compensated equivalently.
Now – back to the childcare and budget and work vs stay at home. I’m a numbers gal. When I had my first child I was able to negotiate a 3 day work week. That was the perfect compromise for me. My husband also dropped down to 4 days a week, so we only had our son in an in-home daycare 2 days a week. The daycare was with a friend who was a SAHM who we were the only client of. It was a win win – and comparable care to what my son got from me.
When pregnant with my second son, and in a different state than the first daycare provider I made a spreadsheet to figure out what the best financial options were. 2 kids, one in a “2s” room, one in an infant room is pricey. I think we paid $26k/year for both of them during two expensive years while the youngest was in the infant room. That dropped significantly when they were out of diapers. This was Kindercare – not the cheapest option, not the most expensive. The parents I met there were definitely professionals: lawyers, doctors, Phd chemists and biologists, engineers like myself, corporate managers.My spreadsheet confirmed that we would still be ahead, financially, if I returned to work. And it was more than 30cents on the dollar. We also had columns for nanny, in-home daycares, and for both options of stay at home parents. (I made more than DH at the time plus provided the benefits.) One of the factors that played into my continuing to work was the fact that engineers, MALE or FEMALE, become “stale” if unemployed for a few years. The only way around that is to get a graduate degree during the parenting break, to justify current skills. I’ve seen guys get burned by this same gap – it’s not a problem just for mommy-track women.
For us – it came down to life balance vs income. I continued to be part time until I retired. Part time options happened because of feminism, also. At least at my employer… it was women pushing for family balance – and then DADs taking advantage of it. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s Motorola consistently got awards for being “mommy friendly”.
And to reaffirm BG’s point. I brought my lunch to work – saving a fortune. As an engineer I could wear jeans or crops and flip-flops to work. (And did) Even if I had customer meetings a skirt or slacks and blouse was more than adequate. I never had to wear a suit outside of job interviews. (Legal and Banking professions are different in that respect.)
At this point – I’ve chosen to be home with the kids full time. I’m calling it retirement. I can afford it because I didn’t hire outside help to take care of my household… brought my lunch… never spent a fortune on clothes. My part time salary was under $100k – but I was still able to save a lot, pay off my mortgage, and still have time to coach my kids FLL team and cheer them on in basketball and baseball.
You have made your choice to be a stay at home parent. That’s a great choice for your family. I made a choice to continue to work. That worked for me and my family. Feminism promotes these kind of choices. But families MUST consider the financial impact of their choices – regardless of what choice they make. You should make the choice with open eyes.[/quote]
I appreciate your story, UCGal, and agree with everything you’ve said. My problem isn’t with you nor with your version of feminism. My problem is with BG’s version of feminism…where choice is NOT AT ALL on their agenda. Not only that, but they have pushed the message that women are no more than men with breasts; that childbearing, child-rearing, and homemaking are not valuable or worthy of any sort of recognition, credit, or respect. They are perpetuating the myth that only “men’s work” (paid labor) is valuable, and that women contribute little to nothing in their traditional roles. That is the antithesis of genuine feminism that would seek to improve women’s lot in life.
Some of us do NOT have the same choices that you and your husband have had, for a variety of reasons; but we have other options that work best for us. As a fellow numbers person, we have run the numbers, and it was very obvious which option would work best for us, just from a financial perspective. We also considered what we wanted for our family in the short, medium, and long term. We discussed all of these things at great length before and during our engagement. Mr. CAR was the one who chose the SAHP option, as I told him I would either be childless and work outside of the home, or have children and work inside the home…the choice was 100% his. This discussion happened **before** we were even engaged.
In our case, I could have gone part-time, but there was no way my DH would have been able to do this, not that he wanted this option in the first place. But my pay would have been so low, we would have been one of those families who would be *paying* in order for me to work outside of the home (the negative income thing). We also knew we didn’t want to send our kids to public school (just our personal choice, not judging people who choose other options…I know BG is going to spout off about this), and private school is too expensive, so we opted to homeschool, which is a nice compromise that has worked exceedingly well for our family.
We also have very complex scheduling issues, and my being home, and homeschooling — having a completely flexible schedule — is the only way we could get any reasonable family time together. All of our decisions were calculated after a lot of thought, running the numbers, and taking many other variables into consideration. And in addition to giving up my job, I had to move to a different city/county in order to be with my husband, so gave up all of my long-term friends and my professional networks in order to accommodate his work and lifestyle. And San Diego has a horrible job market for those outside of telephony or biotech (I was not in either).
To say that people like myself are getting a “free ride” is absurd and incredibly offensive. SAHPs do a tremendous amount of work, and this work is incredibly valuable to society, even though it is unpaid labor. To suggest otherwise is totally ignorant of the facts, and it perpetuates the denigration of women. I’ve bitten my tongue on many occasions while BG goes off on one of her anti-woman diatribes, but her posts here were the straw that broke the camel’s back. I will no longer stay silent when she makes these attacks.
October 23, 2014 at 2:06 AM #779283Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=njtosd][quote=FlyerInHi]The very idea of imputed income as you put it CAr, is just weird.
Value is the what the market will pay, no more, no less.
More kids, more work = more income/savings? sounds ludicrous.[/quote]
Imputed income is a tax concept. Take a look back at my earlier post on this matter. It is particularly discussed in terms of real estate but it is just an interesting concept in terms of what this thread is addressing[/quote]
Yes, I realize that.
But CAr renter implies that all the work done around the house is income/savings.[/quote]
Because it is. Read the links I’ve provided; you’ll get a better understanding of what I’m talking about. All of these jobs can be done by hiring a third party. The value of that work can be fairly easily ascertained by looking at what it would cost to outsource all of this work. It doesn’t matter who does the work; the work still has a monetary value, just as installing your own solar panels, or fixing your own car has a monetary value.
And with all due respect, Brian, you have *no idea* how much work is involved when taking care of a family. It is nothing at all like tidying up after yourself as a single person; there is absolutely no comparison, whatsoever.
October 23, 2014 at 3:21 AM #779286Participant[quote=UCGal]
I am an engineer because of feminism. I remember being told by a professor that I was a waste of a seat that could be filled by a male. (Yes – I reported him to the dean and he was forced to apologize to me and the other 2 women in the class.) I was told by a manager at an internship that he felt the internship should have been offered to a male student – he assumed I was like his daughter, at college to get the “MRS” degree. He also “encouraged” me to wear skirts to work, despite the fact that the job required climbing poles on top of buildings to retrieve the weather instrumentation for calibration. Feminism made these guys obsolete. I am proud to have the label “feminist” assigned to me because it suggests that I believe that women AND men should have all choices available – and should be compensated equivalently.
[/quote]
Wanted to add that I also have my own discrimination story. Back when I worked in the corporate world (a group of related companies, mostly tech-related), I had worked my way up to management after a number of years. At the time, I had the highest level of education of the managers at my level, and had the longest time on the job with this group of companies. I was the only one to have worked for four of the companies, as they moved me from one company to another, and one department to another in order to troubleshoot inefficiencies and investigate a number of problems (I was able to improve efficiency and accuracy in every department, as well as make a number of other improvements); I was the only employee in any of the companies to ever be used in this way. And there were a series of events that proved my level of honesty and integrity, which they highly valued. I had experience in domestic and international sales, import/export, accounting, and operations. I was also involved in designing our business software because I knew how all of the different operations related to one another — the software company tried to hire me away from them. And when we had any kind of audit, I was either put in charge, or heavily involved, even when it was totally unrelated to my job/position — I was usually covering the work that should have been done my these other managers, but even they admitted that I was better at getting these things done right, and I was usually there at their request. I could go on, but there was no question that I was the most highly valued of the managers at my level. None of the other managers came close.
I was the only female at my level, out of ~5 managers. After awhile, I found out that all of the other managers were making more than I was. When I asked about the reason, my boss said, “because they’re men and they have families to provide for.” They offered me more after that, but I realized the deck was stacked against me. I quit about a year after that and went into teaching (and took a huge cut in pay) where everyone is paid equally, based on the same requirements, and everything is fully transparent…though that’s not the only reason I changed careers.
Oh, and I also have the job application that my mom filled out to work for IBM back in the late 50s/early 60s. They asked about the woman’s age, height, weight, marital/family status, etc. Yeah, we’ve come a long way, but we shouldn’t overshoot, and we should NEVER disparage those who make traditional choices. There is nothing wrong with being a woman, and unpaid “women’s work” is not inferior to wage earning.
So, I totally get the desire to have equal pay for equal work, and there is no question in my mind that women should have equal opportunities and access to positions of power, both in the corporate and in the political world (and men should have the right to care for their families, as well). But that’s not the issue here.
October 23, 2014 at 6:23 AM #779290scaredyclassic
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=njtosd][quote=FlyerInHi]The very idea of imputed income as you put it CAr, is just weird.
Value is the what the market will pay, no more, no less.
More kids, more work = more income/savings? sounds ludicrous.[/quote]
Imputed income is a tax concept. Take a look back at my earlier post on this matter. It is particularly discussed in terms of real estate but it is just an interesting concept in terms of what this thread is addressing[/quote]
Yes, I realize that.
But CAr renter implies that all the work done around the house is income/savings.[/quote]
Because it is. Read the links I’ve provided; you’ll get a better understanding of what I’m talking about. All of these jobs can be done by hiring a third party. The value of that work can be fairly easily ascertained by looking at what it would cost to outsource all of this work. It doesn’t matter who does the work; the work still has a monetary value, just as installing your own solar panels, or fixing your own car has a monetary value.
And with all due respect, Brian, you have *no idea* how much work is involved when taking care of a family. It is nothing at all like tidying up after yourself as a single person; there is absolutely no comparison, whatsoever.[/quote]
the project of all the housework, the goal if you will, is to produce children. that’s the product of all this work.
and perhaps that has a negative net value to society.
like an enterprise that tans leather and dumps lots of toxins and destroys a river. they made some leather, yeah, but on balance, the value to society was negative.
making more people isa negative, probably at this point in time, at least from my negative perspective on the earth’s carrying capacity, global warming our general impending demise.
we should probably be PAYING for the right to reproduce. or taxed on it anyway.
so Im not persuaded that this venture of producing raising and caring for children is worth antyhing, to society at least. it’s obviously worth something to each of us, as we wouldnt do it if we werent into it.
but is it worth it to society?
i think no.
it’s definitely not wortha a la cart pricing menu of hiring independent contracteors to get this “important” work done.
fingernal clipping $14.00 per kid, plus travel expenses to an from) and insurance for said nail clipping $124.55
hair washing: $4.50
towel dry $1.43
cooking of pasta: 6.55
getting glass of water for little fucker at 2 a.m. (emergency housecall) 455.00
imparting social mores at dinner $.39
pat on head .15
christmas shopping for gifts (not including gift value) $75.99
strapping into car seat 3.00
preparing lunch for school. .89
changing of diaper @5.44each 19,477.56
reading at bedtime 9.00
oncall vomit cleanup plus hazmat suit and licensing: 7,900
October 23, 2014 at 6:27 AM #779291Participantim not saying that these things dont have value…to us …as individuals…just that they have no commerial value,just like i cannot price what it is to have sex with my wife.
sure we could contract out that servive. i could be paying escorts to have sex with me.
but that’s kind of ridcuolus right, to say my wife is producing a dolalr value equivalent of what the escort would ahve been paid?
that that is a form of “savings”
to say that this work is not “valued” because we don’t put a price on it is, in my view, kind of missing the point.
this is personal life.
it’s not a markeptlace.
it is based on irrational love an d affection.
sure it’s a shitty deal. love is a shitty deal for everyone involved.
it’s nuts!
it’s not subject to rational whims and efficient pricing.
October 23, 2014 at 6:40 AM #779293NotCranky
ParticipantIt appears that the consensus it that it is worth 30k or less. More for prima donna stay at home parents.
October 23, 2014 at 6:52 AM #779294Participant[quote=Blogstar]It appears that the consensus it that it is worth 30k or less. More for prima donna stay at home parents.[/quote]
Try to find someone who will take care of your kids seven days a week, and take care of your house, pay bills, manage all of your family’s business, etc. for $30K/year. You can’t even get a teenaged babysitter to work just 40 hours/week for that money…and that’s just for keeping an eye on the kids. Good luck with that, whiner.
October 23, 2014 at 7:00 AM #779295Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]im not saying that these things dont have value…to us …as individuals…just that they have no commerial value,just like i cannot price what it is to have sex with my wife.
sure we could contract out that servive. i could be paying escorts to have sex with me.
but that’s kind of ridcuolus right, to say my wife is producing a dolalr value equivalent of what the escort would ahve been paid?
that that is a form of “savings”
to say that this work is not “valued” because we don’t put a price on it is, in my view, kind of missing the point.
this is personal life.
it’s not a markeptlace.
it is based on irrational love an d affection.
sure it’s a shitty deal. love is a shitty deal for everyone involved.
it’s nuts!
it’s not subject to rational whims and efficient pricing.[/quote]
Again, that “love and affection” stuff is used to mask the real value of these services. While married, a spouse might be willing to do all of those things because s/he believes that there is a binding contract (commitment for life — service in exchange for security), but I can assure you that if you were to inform the SAHP that you would be abandoning them after 5, 10, 20 years…they would no longer perform these services for free. Not even close.
As stated before, the market rate for these services is easily ascertained. Just contact an agency and ask them how much it would cost to get a full-time nanny (or nannies) to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Specify that you want this nanny to help with the cooking, cleaning, shopping, run errands, take kids to appointments/activities, etc. Again, this would still not nearly as much as what a typical SAHP would do, but you can at least get some estimates. Stop acting like this is difficult to value; it’s not. And tell them you want someone who will commit to doing it for over ten years…since you don’t want to traumatize Johnny with unnecessary transitions (it might be easy to find someone who will do it for a few months, but VERY difficult to find someone who will commit to many years of doing this service).
October 23, 2014 at 7:03 AM #779296Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]
the project of all the housework, the goal if you will, is to produce children. that’s the product of all this work.
and perhaps that has a negative net value to society.
like an enterprise that tans leather and dumps lots of toxins and destroys a river. they made some leather, yeah, but on balance, the value to society was negative.
making more people isa negative, probably at this point in time, at least from my negative perspective on the earth’s carrying capacity, global warming our general impending demise.
we should probably be PAYING for the right to reproduce. or taxed on it anyway.
so Im not persuaded that this venture of producing raising and caring for children is worth antyhing, to society at least. it’s obviously worth something to each of us, as we wouldnt do it if we werent into it.
[/quote]
Ask Japan, or any other country with a declining/stagnant population, about that one.
October 23, 2014 at 7:23 AM #779297ParticipantContact an agency or hire an undocumented worker?
Probably be a big difference between highest and lowest pay.
October 23, 2014 at 7:24 AM #779298Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=scaredyclassic]
the project of all the housework, the goal if you will, is to produce children. that’s the product of all this work.
and perhaps that has a negative net value to society.
like an enterprise that tans leather and dumps lots of toxins and destroys a river. they made some leather, yeah, but on balance, the value to society was negative.
making more people isa negative, probably at this point in time, at least from my negative perspective on the earth’s carrying capacity, global warming our general impending demise.
we should probably be PAYING for the right to reproduce. or taxed on it anyway.
so Im not persuaded that this venture of producing raising and caring for children is worth antyhing, to society at least. it’s obviously worth something to each of us, as we wouldnt do it if we werent into it.
[/quote]
Ask Japan, or any other country with a declining/stagnant population, about that one.[/quote]
I guess I was speaking on behalf of the earth not any individual nation.
October 23, 2014 at 7:41 AM #779299Participantcertain tools may be very expensive but only have value toa particular carftsman. similarly, a nanny’s “value” is only relativeto the dollar value of the money the person who would have been the caretaker can earn instead of doing the care.
that value varies tremendously on the income of the employer/parent.
October 23, 2014 at 7:53 AM #779300Participantparents probably are the worst people to engage in raising children.
maybe a steady employee is not so desireable when they suck.
chilrdren should probably be left alone a lot more than they are…less activities. more idleness.
less cooking and cleaning. just some bags of beef jerky and gatorade.
This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourselfOctober 23, 2014 at 11:00 AM #779308ParticipantDo men abandon their families or are they officially or defacto expelled from them? A little of both but historically, modern times though a lot of the latter. Women against 50/50 are the expellers, as is the government. Less government influence in involuntary dis-equal custody rights is better.
Here is one example,http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-05-18/news/1992139210_1_unintended-consequences-poor-families-social-welfare-policies
When I was a young man I met a lot of men who were expelled from their homes and had never done anything wrong but either not be wanted by their mates anymore or not want them. That would tend to emotional stunt someone. He is now a slave with difficult access to caring for and protecting his kids the woman is possibly with a new man she hooked up with before she the old one out.
There was a song about it. “She got the goldmine I got the shaft”.
I am sure there is much more to this than meets the eye but none of it will make women better than men.
Being any absentee bread winner is a little like being expelled from your home(kids). Doing that with the risk that the courts would guarantee your expulsionin in the case of a dissolution of the marriage wouldn’t feel very powerful at all.
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