OT: How much baggage will you accept?

[scaredyclassic]

i feel like we are an old married couple arguing and im not even sure what we are arguing about anymore.

i concede that it would cost a lot of money to hire someone to do what you do.

i don’t concede I’d actually hire anyone to do it. id cobble together some sort of patchwork to hold shit together.

i concede you make my life much richer.

but i refuse to put a dollar value on it.

and it’s not worth X cause you say it is.

[UCGal]

[quote=scaredyclassic]i feel like we are an old married couple arguing and im not even sure what we are arguing about anymore.

i concede that it would cost a lot of money to hire someone to do what you do.

i don’t concede I’d actually hire anyone to do it. id cobble together some sort of patchwork to hold shit together.

i concede you make my life much richer.

but i refuse to put a dollar value on it.

and it’s not worth X cause you say it is.[/quote]

Best summation yet.

[scaredyclassic]

i ahve a feeling after this kind of argument im not getting laid…

would it be worth anything if i said i love you?

[scaredyclassic]

stuff i say to my kids:

I’m so glad you’re on the planet. You make my life really interesting and good. thank G-d you’re here or id be so lonely wanting you guys as id have no one to drink or play ping pong with.

stuff i don’t say:

jeez, if id been unable to have kids naturally, i wouldve had to have spent50k on likely ultimately unsuccessful in vitro fertility treatments, and then 50k for each of you to adopt substitute kids from overseas. that’s 200k savings right there, boys. really appreciate that 200k in the pocket….you guys are awesome. i mean, i really woulda spent the money, so it’s just like they actually made me that money by being such good sperm and eggs…

strangely, this is actually probably true…

but my kdis didnt make me 200k richer by being conceived so easily, even accidentally in certain cases…

they cost me a shitload of money!!!

[CA renter]

[quote=UCGal][quote=CA renter]
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. [/quote]

This is the specific quote that set me off. (I added the bolds.) It implies that working parents don’t manage tasks outside of work…. because you imply that you’re trying to hire a 7 day a week, babysitter, financial advisor, business manager, housekeeper.

***
to your other points
***
I agree that our professions gave us enough income to get by on 3 and 4 day work weeks. If we had lower paying jobs we might have had to work full time. Just like if your husband made less, you would have to consider working, or living in a lesser neighborhood than you do. Each family makes decisions in the context of their own financial situation.

We also made choices not to buy new cars, install pools, send the kids to private schools, buy designer clothes. Heck I even cut my own hair and rarely eat out. By spending less (being a cheap b*tch) I was able to work less – and eventually pay off my mortgage, and save enough to stop working while my kids are still tween/teenagers. So, in effect, I’m a SAHM now. The difference, I guess, is I don’t feel that the world needs to value my choices – only my family’s opinion matters.[/quote]

All of this work does have value — a monetary value — whether it is done by the SAHP, the wage-earner, or a third party.

Many SAHPs really do work seven days a week, and they sacrifice their friendships, careers, personal interest, etc. in order to do so. These sacrifices would NOT be made if they had chosen not to get married and have kids. The person who could provide all these services if they were outsourced (at the same level, with the same dedication, and same quality as the SAHP) would have to be someone who is totally unencumbered and who was willing to dedicate their lives to this family. How much would that cost?

Even today, there are a number of “unenlightened” wage earners who refuse to do any domestic chores, including taking care of the kids. A friend of ours just told us the other day that her husband had never changed a single diaper in all the years that her two kids wore diapers (they are now in their tween/teen years). You have a good husband who wants to work *with* you, and while many men are starting to grasp the fact that working in the home IS work, and that it doesn’t ever stop, there are men out there who think like BG does — that they are doing their wives a “favor” by letting them get a “free ride.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

I couldn’t care less about the world valuing my choices, but I DO care when people use every opportunity to publicly take unjustified and uninformed potshots at people who make a lot of sacrifices and do this work for their families.

[CA renter]

[quote=scaredyclassic]i like lifting weights. i could pay someone to lift weights for me, but it would kind of defeat the purpose.

i could have kids and pay someone else to raise them. but wouldnt that kind of defeat the purpose in a similar way.?

isn’t raising kids more like an art, a craft, a hobby and a purpose, than a job?

sure, if you were in a bind and needed to pay someone to watch the damned kids, it would cost you a pretty penny.

but that’s not the plan going in, right? the plan is it’s unpriced, priceless, and while it is hopefully appreciated, we can’t really pretend our kids are making the world a richer better place. they are a drain. a cost. like a hobby.

if id had 1 kid instead of 3, my wife woulda got back to work sooner, and we’d be quite a bit “wealthier” in terms of money. all the rich life satisfaction we got out of the other 2 would be missing though, and our lif would not be nearly as cool as it is, but…what about the unborn ones…the girl… she misses the daughter we never had.

but if we’d had that 4th kid, a girl, and she had had to watch the kids longer, we’d be even poorer, hell we wouldnt be living in this nice house probably. we’d have been screwed financially i think. 3 was the limit of what we could do to be in the situation we are in. even that was pretty hairy.

i know I would have been out even more money if we’d had that kid and had to pay a nanny to watch her. but if we’d had her, and my wife watched her, our net worth would be a lot lower.

imputed income my ass.

we would have had no house, and much much less savings.

but is this whole “savings” thing a moneymaking enterprise? you just can’t get rich having kids…

i concede the work is worth money, but not real money…. the plan is never to make money by having kids. and you seem to say that it’s a savings, JUST LIKE INCOME.

this kind of family planning is planning for bankruptcy…

if i make a big giant mess in the house on purpose, i could pay someone to clean it up, but i cant get richer by making messes and cleaning them up myself.

that’s what kids is liek to me.

it’s like having a big giant problematic mess you created with your spouse that somehow you ahve to deal with.

jst cause it would cost money to get someone to come in and clean it up doesnt mean yousaved money because you actually made the mess on purpose. you wanted the damned mess…[/quote]

You are totally not getting it. It’s not the kids that represent the “savings.” It’s having someone to do all of the work involved in raising them and caring for the household so that you don’t have to pay someone else to do it (or do it yourself) that has monetary value.

And there IS monetary value in childbearing, nursing, etc. Surrogates aren’t cheap, and if everyone had to hire a surrogate in order to have children of their own (and carry their family names!), it would cost even more than it does now. Again, that love and affection stuff masks the true cost of this service, so the demand for these services is lower than it would be if the service were provided by “the market.”

And many cultures throughout history have considered large families and children to be an economic asset, as they provided “free” labor and also entitled people in some cultures to more land and resources, along with increasing a family’s security and prestige. My own grandparents had multiple children so that they could have a more productive farm. I’m sure you wouldn’t have to go too far back in your own family line to find a similar situation.

[FlyerInHi]

CAr, those SAHP parents didn’t make any sacrifices. They made their own choices knowing full well what the other paths were.

That’s the lifestyle you want. People don’t have to agree with you.

You friend who complained about her husband never changing diapers should have gone on strike years ago.

If I decide to join the Peace Corps and do charity all my life, I give up a lot of money. Is there any imputed income or does anyone owe me anything?

[CA renter]

[quote=UCGal][quote=scaredyclassic]i feel like we are an old married couple arguing and im not even sure what we are arguing about anymore.

i concede that it would cost a lot of money to hire someone to do what you do.

i don’t concede I’d actually hire anyone to do it. id cobble together some sort of patchwork to hold shit together.

i concede you make my life much richer.

but i refuse to put a dollar value on it.

and it’s not worth X cause you say it is.[/quote]

Best summation yet.[/quote]

I’ve never claimed that it’s worth X because I say it is. There is a market for these services, and the costs are easily calculated.

There is, IN FACT, a value to the work that is done by SAHPs. You don’t get to make up the value any more than I do. The facts — actual numbers that are easily obtained — belie you’re claim that it’s not worth anything (or very little).

[CA renter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]CAr, those SAHP parents didn’t make any sacrifices. They made their own choices knowing full well what the other paths were.

That’s the lifestyle you want. People don’t have to agree with you.

You friend who complained about her husband never changing diapers should have gone on strike years ago.

If I decide to join the Peace Corps and do charity all my life, I give up a lot of money. Is there any imputed income or does anyone owe me anything?[/quote]

You keep trying to convince yourself that you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t. If people knowingly make sacrifices, does that mean that they aren’t really making any sacrifices?

Many SAHPs give up everything outside of their families in order to do this work. You don’t think they’re sacrificing anything?

Are you saying that goods and services that are donated have no monetary or societal value?

If a wealthy doctor abruptly quits his high-paying job so that he can go to Africa and help the needy, does that mean s/he isn’t really sacrificing anything? Presumably, s/he would feel a tremendous passion for and get enjoyment out of this volunteer work. Does that mean that this work has no value?

[FlyerInHi]

In my view, there’s a “sacrifice” only if the path taken made is lesser.

The free markets would say that the doctor went to work in Africa because that choice is of greater value to him. The value is greater than the “sacrifices” = net gain.

Nobody owes the doctor anything, not even recognition or a pat on the back.

[CA renter]

We’ll have to agree to disagree, and strongly so.

[CA renter]

If you want to claim that a SAHPs contribution isn’t worth anything, then the contributions of the wage earner aren’t worth anything, either. After all, s/he would have to work to support him/herself, anyway, so it’s not like they are necessarily doing anything *extra* for the family, right?

edited to add:

And if the wage-earner derives any non-monetary benefit from this job in the form of prestige, social status, friendships, a sense of purpose, etc., then this spouse is LUCKY that the SAHP “let’s” him/her go to work each day. Right?

[FlyerInHi]

If your family coerces you be a housewife that you don’t want to be, then you’ve made sacrifices.

But you don’t get to choose to become a housewife, then claim you made sacrifices.

[CA renter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]If your family coerces you be a housewife that you don’t want to be, then you’ve made sacrifices.

But you don’t get to choose to become a housewife, then claim you made sacrifices.[/quote]

With a family, any choice will involve sacrifices. Every family member will have to sacrifice time, energy, money, leisure pursuits, etc. In order to gain one thing, another must be sacrificed.

Do you think a wage earner makes sacrifices if s/he has a SAH spouse? Are sacrifices made if they have a wage-earning spouse and hire someone else to take care of their children? All of these things involve choice; does that mean that no sacrifices are made?

[NotCranky]

How does this work out in real life CAR, does your husband pay you? Does he know how much the fees for taking a shirt to the cleaners is, or how much sex costs? Are you putting the money in a separate savings account somehow protected from community laws? If not what’s the point in worrying about it?

[Author]

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