upset at nanny -- vent

(Michelle Spina) wrote in message . com...
Marie wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:56:09 +0100, "Tine Andersen"
wrote:
I just cook, housekeep and clean BESIDES having a full time job. If I only
had to do that my house would be spotless, or I would spin, knit, sew and
weave which I don't consider work but play.

Trust me, no one's house is spotless just because they stay at home.
During the hours you are working "full time", what do you think stay
at home mothers are doing? Like the joke about the husband who comes
home and looks around and asks "So what did you do all day?" Our days
are full of taking care of our children, with children at home they
make messes. We don't just leave our nice clean house in the mornings
and come home to the same nice clean homes at night as working mothers
do...our homes are constantly lived in. Our children are being
interacted with, taught, doing arts/crafts, eating... The way I see it
working out of the house is the easy thing to do as far as how much
work is concerned. And I've been there so I know.
As for knitting/sewing, LMAO No stay-at-home moms *I* know have the
time for that.
Marie

This is *clearly* very person dependent, then. I was thinking as I was
reading this "you have no idea what it's like to be a working mother!"
When exactly do you think the house *gets* cleaned? I'd love to have
the picture you painted - clean house in the morning, come home to
same clean house. Hmmm - when would I manage that? Mornings are busy
getting parents ready for work, and kids ready for their day. The day
is filled with work. Come home, play with kids, make dinner, play more
with kids, put kids to bed. Now it's 8:30 - 9:00pm. Some cleaning can
be done, but nothing too noisy, because, well, the kids are sleeping.
And, we've been going since 6:30am - cleaning is NOT at the top of my
list at that point. So, dirty house remains dirty. Repeat 5x. Weekends
are a blur of errands and cleaning that should have been done during
the week. Hardly the nirvana painted above.

But then you said that you have done both, so I'm somewhat baffled, as
I've also done both. When I was home full-time, my house was MUCH
cleaner, shopping was always done (never the panic of "oh crud, what
on EARTH are we going to eat tonight?!?"), laundry was regularly done,
AND I had time to myself (short snips, to be sure, but still time). To
me, there is NO comparison to the stress level, and amount of work
total that is done when you compare SAH vs WOH. Not even *close*.

I have to say I agree whole heartedly with you Michelle. I've only
been a SAHM during my maturnity leaves, and I still worked at least 5
hours every week, and even with a newborn...those times were
immeasurably less stressful then working and it was way way easier to
keep a house and home running. Now all I get is vacation time to get
a small taste of SAHMhood. In addition to there being so many more
hours in the day to get things done the kids are so much easier to
handle. When I'm gone all day they do so much more arguing and crying
and clinging in the evening. When I am home even for a week they just
relax and do their thing.

--

Nikki

Circe wrote:


I think this is a really good point. I have always said much the same about
my paternal grandmother, who in addition to raising five children was also
the "farmer's wife" on a dairy farm in Minnesota in the 30s that did not (at
least initially) have either electricity or running water. Frankly, there is
just no *way* she could have done her "job" and also have spent anywhere
*near* the amount of time or energy on childrearing as most modern parents
who hold jobs outside the home do.

And I've been thinking more about this too, and will try to post
soemthing more coherant at some point, but ime, the children of these
families I have been talking about are VASTLY different from those of
the second group, and I can't help thinking, even as a fairly AP minded
person, that the "devotion" to children in the form of setting their
life schedules full of "playdates" and constant involvement in their
activities may NOT be the tremendously desireable or particularly
"normal" thing it is made out to be.

There is a LOT to be said for letting kids be kids, as well as for
modeling for them how to accomplish more than leisure without making it
drudgery.

I think that while a child may not specifically appreciate the clean
laundry or that the kitchen is orderly and the house running smoothly
and calmly, they do NOT thrive in chaos and disorder and high-stress and
running just below breakdown.

and as a sig on another group reads, "if you want to do something, you
will find a way, if you don't, you'll find an excuse." and i think
that's a very valid sentiment.

i'm still putting together my thoughts on this, but that's the nitty
gritty of it to this point.

Dawn

| I've done it all, been a married SAHM, married and Out of the home
| (school, not work)
| Single and SAHM, and Single and in school.
| It was all pretty difficult, just in different areas,
| MY PERSONAL BELIEF is that the ideal is for young children to spend as
| much
| time with their parents as possible, not a daycare worker, not a
| nanny. `
| So for me, not being the one interacting with my child, teaching her,
| feeding her
| playing with her etc, would be a big problem.
| For those who it isnt, I dont have a problem with that.
| Its funny, Im not jusdging anyone, but immediately I am told
| that my beliefs are silly, and that if I believe what I do that it is
| out
| of ignorance, yet I havent disparaged anyone elses beliefs.
|
|

I'm wondering if I'm the only one who feels this way, so I'm going to ask.
I've done it all :-), been a mom and worked, been a mom and stayed at home,
and am currently a mom who goes to school full time and worked, then mom and
just school. Did you, as a mom who went to school, ever feel like the times
when you were mom and going to school were the hardest? You have all of the
problems working moms have, and all of the problems sahm moms have (take
care of baby, clean, cook) but you get to leave work behind when you get
home, but still have to bring home your school... so it's never gone.

I was just wondering if out of all of the people who've done the same as me,
going to school while raising a baby (which isn't many that I know of
because I seem to be the only mom my age who thought about going back to
school, and I'm a young one), if I was the only one who felt going to school
and being mom was the hardest. LOL. Some days I'd rather be working
because at least then I don't have to bring the job home with me. And of
course I'd love to be a SAHM, but I know that's not an option if I want to
become anything in life.

Did I even make sense? My brain is floating 20 feet above my head today,
I've got an awful head cold.

Cadie

| I'm wondering if I'm the only one who feels this way, so I'm going to ask.
| I've done it all :-), been a mom and worked, been a mom and stayed at
home,
| and am currently a mom who goes to school full time and worked, then mom
and
| just school. Did you, as a mom who went to school, ever feel like the
times
| when you were mom and going to school were the hardest? You have all of
the
| problems working moms have, and all of the problems sahm moms have (take
| care of baby, clean, cook) but you get to leave work behind when you get
| home, but still have to bring home your school... so it's never gone.
|
| I was just wondering if out of all of the people who've done the same as
me,
| going to school while raising a baby (which isn't many that I know of
| because I seem to be the only mom my age who thought about going back to
| school, and I'm a young one), if I was the only one who felt going to
school
| and being mom was the hardest. LOL. Some days I'd rather be working
| because at least then I don't have to bring the job home with me. And of
| course I'd love to be a SAHM, but I know that's not an option if I want to
| become anything in life.
|
| Did I even make sense? My brain is floating 20 feet above my head today,
| I've got an awful head cold.
|
| Cadie
|
|

Just to correct my own post... I'm currently a mom and going to school, I
quit working 7 months ago. Whereas my post says I'm currently working and
going to school. :-)

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 18:48:36 GMT, "Mom2Aries"
wrote:
I was just wondering if out of all of the people who've done the same as me,
going to school while raising a baby (which isn't many that I know of
because I seem to be the only mom my age who thought about going back to
school, and I'm a young one), if I was the only one who felt going to school
and being mom was the hardest.

I had a 16 month old and an almost-3 year old when I went to school
(it was a two year junior college). I went to the evening classes,
5-9pm 4 days a week and some saturdays. The kids stayed home with dh
most of the time, though the first semester they came with me and
stayed in the childcare room (all the classes and childcare room were
in one building on one floor, very small place!)
I actually enjoyed it. I did all the playing, cleaning and cooking in
the day and had dinner cooking when dh got home from work a few
minutes after 4, and left to go to school. I did homework usually at
night when I got home, and sometimes if I needed to study (I have a
great memory if I highlight something in a book or write it down I
normally remember it) I'd take the kids to the park and read over my
books/notes. I graduated with a 3.6 so I didn't do too bad ;o)
It wasn't the easiest thing I've done but I really enjoyed it, using
my brain and working hard (i crapped through high school with a 2.4 or
so and felt the need to "prove" myself), I enjoyed the socialization.
At this college most of the other women were mothers, there were very
few just out of high school, and many of them were above middle-age
from a plant that had just closed down in our area and they needed
some education to get some new skills to find a decent job in
different fields.
I think if my youngest wasn't high needs I would take some classes. I
feel like college was a waste (and have been told that several times
also) because I stay at home, and don't have a job. I owe over $12,000
for it and what do I have to show?
There were times I was really really stressed and a couple of times I
called my mom crying lol. It is very hard, to keep being interrupted
and lose your concentration and work on a project instead of cooking
dinner.
What are you studying, and how long will you be going?
Marie

"Circe" wrote in message
news:nJNWb.39371$QJ3.7028@fed1read04...
Taniwha grrrl wrote:
"Circe" wrote in message

I'd say black is a broader term for all people of the darker
sorts
of skin tone that originate in Africa and might apply equally
well
to some Pacific Islanders (e.g. Papua New Guineans

Not here in New Zealand, if you called a Maori or an
Islander black your likely to get your head kicked in. It's
a pretty offensive term. You're referred to according to
your culture, Maori, Islander, Somali or Asian rather than
your skin tone.

I'm just saying that if I saw someone I'd never met before who was
Papuan or
possibly Maori, I might well describe that person as "black" if
asked.
I don't claim to be able to intuit people's cultural affiliations
from their
skin color, and I think it's a bad idea to try, since you can very
easily be
misled. Again, citing my favorite example, Sammy Sosa of baseball
fame is
black, but he's Hispanic rather than African-American.

I guess I don't completely understand why we impute so much meaning
to words
that are really just intended to describe relative skin tones. Black
as a
description for skin tone isn't, strictly speaking, any more
accurate than
white, but it's a word we all understand as describing a certain
range of
skin tones. I'm white, my husband is brown, my kids are brown, my
Zulu au
pair was black, and my "colored" South African au pair was also
black
because her skin tone fit into the range of skin tones we Americans
describe
with the word "black". Colin Powell, IMO, is not black. I'm not
saying he's
not African-American, because of course, he is. It's just that black
doesn't
really correctly describe his skin tone--he's more in the range I'd
consider
brown.

he is of caribbean ancestry

"Circe" wrote in message
news:1vOWb.39385$QJ3.36087@fed1read04...
Nina wrote:
MY PERSONAL BELIEF is that the ideal is for young children to
spend
as much time with their parents as possible, not a daycare worker,
not a
nanny. So for me, not being the one interacting with my child,
teaching
her, feeding her playing with her etc, would be a big problem.
For those who it isnt, I dont have a problem with that.
Its funny, Im not jusdging anyone, but immediately I am told
that my beliefs are silly, and that if I believe what I do that it
is out of ignorance, yet I havent disparaged anyone elses beliefs.

I believe that you have no INTENT to disparage or judge other
people's
choices, but when you use words like *ideal* to describe your own
choices,
it's hard for other people not to read criticism between the lines.

Well, I cant help if people read things I didnt write.
I have repeatedly stated that I am referring to MY life, MY child
and not anyone elses. What is IDEAL for me, may not be for other
people.
If they believe otherwise, I have no problem with that. Just as my
political
and religious beliefs may differ for others, or my standards from
others.
I can accept that everyone has their own beliefs about what is ideal
or not.

It would
seem much less critical if you said that for *you* as a mother, the
ideal is
to spend as much time with your *child* as possible. When you cast
your
choices as being best for your child instead of as being best for
you, I
think you necessarily suggest that people who make a different
choice don't
care as much about doing the best for their children.

I said that FOR ME, MY beliefs, MY values, the ideal is a child
spending as much time with immediate family. How that
can be seen as critical, I dont know. I DO think this is best for my
child.

Im not one of those people who thinks everyone has to believe as I do.
It seems that if I state that I belive thing X is best for my child, I
cannot do so
without someone thinking I am also saying "People who dont do thing X
arent
doing whats best for their child". I havent said that anywhere.


I think what is best for both the child and the parents is very
situation
and personality-dependent, and it's therefore somewhat perilous to
say that
X situation is "ideal" for young children as a blanket statement,
even if it
is merely a blanket statement of your own opinion.

Did I not make it clear that I wa referring to my beliefs? Can I not
state my own beliefs without it being seen as an attack on those of
others?


See what I mean?
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [23 mos.] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
Financing for "5" years -- car dealership sign

Mommy: I call you "baby" because I love you.
Julian (age 4): Oh! All right, Mommy baby.

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and
insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider,
its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin'
for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

--
Cadie and Aries
"Marie" wrote in message
...
| On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 18:48:36 GMT, "Mom2Aries"
| wrote:
| I was just wondering if out of all of the people who've done the same as
me,
| going to school while raising a baby (which isn't many that I know of
| because I seem to be the only mom my age who thought about going back to
| school, and I'm a young one), if I was the only one who felt going to
school
| and being mom was the hardest.
|
| I had a 16 month old and an almost-3 year old when I went to school
| (it was a two year junior college). I went to the evening classes,
| 5-9pm 4 days a week and some saturdays. The kids stayed home with dh
| most of the time, though the first semester they came with me and
| stayed in the childcare room (all the classes and childcare room were
| in one building on one floor, very small place!)
| I actually enjoyed it. I did all the playing, cleaning and cooking in
| the day and had dinner cooking when dh got home from work a few
| minutes after 4, and left to go to school. I did homework usually at
| night when I got home, and sometimes if I needed to study (I have a
| great memory if I highlight something in a book or write it down I
| normally remember it) I'd take the kids to the park and read over my
| books/notes. I graduated with a 3.6 so I didn't do too bad ;o)
| It wasn't the easiest thing I've done but I really enjoyed it, using
| my brain and working hard (i crapped through high school with a 2.4 or
| so and felt the need to "prove" myself), I enjoyed the socialization.
| At this college most of the other women were mothers, there were very
| few just out of high school, and many of them were above middle-age
| from a plant that had just closed down in our area and they needed
| some education to get some new skills to find a decent job in
| different fields.
| I think if my youngest wasn't high needs I would take some classes. I
| feel like college was a waste (and have been told that several times
| also) because I stay at home, and don't have a job. I owe over $12,000
| for it and what do I have to show?
| There were times I was really really stressed and a couple of times I
| called my mom crying lol. It is very hard, to keep being interrupted
| and lose your concentration and work on a project instead of cooking
| dinner.
| What are you studying, and how long will you be going?
| Marie

Hmm, maybe that means it will get easier as he gets older. He's only just
one year right now, so he still needs a lot of attention, and doesn't like
to play by himself, so I get naptimes to study.

I'm currently getting all of the pre-requisites for the nursing program out
of the way. Then I want to get my RN degree, work for a while, then
eventually I'd like to go to medical school. So I'm looking at... 20 years?
LOL. This semester I have both day and night classes. During the day my
mom watches him, and my classes during the day are together, so I'm gone
from him only 1 1/2 hours T, Th, and 3 hours MWF. At night on T, TH, his
dad watches him for 4 hours on Tues but only 2 on Th (tues is lab and
lecture). W night my grandmother watches him for 2 hours and then we all
have dinner over there.

I'm missing out on studying, most always, because I can't do anything with a
baby in my lap... he likes eating my books LOL. And after paying up some of
200 dollars for some of those books, I just don't want him to eat them. I
was lucky though to get a pel grant that pays my way through, with some
extra money at the end of the semester because I go to a community college
and the tutition isn't nearly half of my award. So I get reimbursed for the
horrible gas for my car, and food.

At my college, most of the people are just out of highschool, but then
again, so am I. Only difference is, tehre biggest problem is if Johnny will
call them again... mine is whether or not I'm spending enough time with my
son and enough time on school work, and will I have money for diapers this
week? I'm 18, and get told I could just put it off until he's older, and
even got chastized for choosing to better myself (like you I did bad in
highschool, only I barely passed with a 2.0... but I have a 3.4 in college)
told I was a bad mother for leaving him to go to school. I didn't leave him
until he was a little over 6 months old, and was nver gone for him for
longer than 4 hours at a time, and got to play with him for an hour or 4
between classes.

This weekend will be my catch up weekend, I'm so behind on my studying...
nothing's been going right these last few weeks. Thankfully though, I think
my brain has settled back into my head :-)

Cadie

Michelle Spina wrote:

Sounds like you had lousy parents. Do you feel that they would have
been good parents if one of them had been home? That it was their work
that made your childhood less than what you wished for? In all other
ways, they were really great parents, and it really was that they
weren't home for those 8 hours, M-F, that was the crucial time you
needed?

First, no, I do not think I had terrible parents. I don't think I had
perfect parents by any means, but a lot of what went wrong can be attributed
to a lot of factors.

However, yes, I think that having two parents that were both working a lot
had a lot to do with why I felt detached from them. My grandmother was a
SAHM and my mother wanted to be one as well, but financial circumstances and
my father's negative attitude toward the idea of SAH parents made it so that
it never worked out. And I was, in some respects, an easy child, in the
sense of being easy to ignore - I didn't talk to people when I had problems
(and I had a lot of problems). When your career is stressful and you're
working 50 hours weeks and spending an hour and a half or so commuting, it's
probably easier to assume that if your child isn't telling you about her
problems and is doing well academically, that she doesn't *have* problems.

And yes, I think that if my mom had been home with me, interacting with me
more, that she might have realized that the reason I was a quiet child who
kept to myself was that I was friendless and suicidally depressed (yes, at
age 10). It's hard to tell what's normal behavior for someone when you spend
hardly any time with them.

Thinking about my own child feeling the way I did without me even having a
clue - well, I'm getting extremely upset, so I'm going to stop now.


--
tristyn
www.tristyn.net
"i have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
i do not think that they will sing to me."

"PattyMomVA" wrote in message ...
snip

The Yahoo! online dictionary has the following Usage Note:

"The Oxford English Dictionary contains evidence of the use of black with
reference to African peoples as early as 1400, and certainly the word has
been in wide use in racial and ethnic contexts ever since. However, it was
not until the late 1960s that black (or Black) gained its present status as
a self-chosen ethnonym with strong connotations of racial pride, replacing
the then-current Negro among Blacks and non-Blacks alike with remarkable
speed. Equally significant is the degree to which Negro became discredited
in the process, reflecting the profound changes taking place in the Black
community during the tumultuous years of the civil rights and Black Power
movements. The recent success of African American offers an interesting
contrast in this regard. Though by no means a modern coinage, African
American achieved sudden prominence at the end of the 1980s when several
Black leaders, including Jesse Jackson, championed it as an alternative
ethnonym for Americans of African descent. The appeal of this term is
obvious, alluding as it does not to skin color but to an ethnicity
constructed of geography, history, and culture, and it won rapid acceptance
in the media alongside similar forms such as Asian American, Hispanic
American, and Italian American. But unlike what happened a generation
earlier, African American has shown little sign of displacing or
discrediting black, which remains both popular and positive. The difference
may well lie in the fact that the campaign for African American came at a
time of relative social and political stability, when Americans in general
and Black Americans in particular were less caught up in issues involving
radical change than they were in the 1960s. .Black is sometimes capitalized
in its racial sense, especially in the African-American press, though the
lowercase form is still widely used by authors of all races. The
capitalization of Black does raise ancillary problems for the treatment of
the term white. Orthographic evenhandedness would seem to require the use of
uppercase White, but this form might be taken to imply that whites
constitute a single ethnic group, an issue that is certainly debatable.
Uppercase White is also sometimes associated with the writings of white
supremacist groups, a sufficient reason of itself for many to dismiss it. On
the other hand, the use of lowercase white in the same context as uppercase
Black will obviously raise questions as to how and why the writer has
distinguished between the two groups. There is no entirely happy solution to
this problem. In all likelihood, uncertainty as to the mode of styling of
white has dissuaded many publications from adopting the capitalized form
Black."


It's not clear-cut, is it?


Thanks for posting that, Patty, it's helpful. And you're right, it
isn't simple.

Next weekend I will be participating in a workshop on racial issues at
my church. I'm sure these language issues will be among the topics of
discussion.

Grandma Katie