If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#71
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
My salary is good - I'm a skilled computer professional. A lousy salary
would be 1200$ per month, but you would get reduction in the price of the day care. If I had to pay 60% of my salary in day care I might make other decisions. I also have 5 weeks of paid (even a little higher paid) vacation a year. I have extra 5 days for family caring (sick children, playing hooky like today) so it's not so hard to be a full time working mom. BTW, my full time is 35 hours with no paid lunch. so more comparable to my husbands job, but with the tax bands his take home pay is not very much more than if I worked full time. Basically working is of little financial benefit for me, but I enjoy the 16 hours I do. I would enjoy working in the kind of job you do even more, but its difficult to get that kind of thing part time. Though I have been very fortunate, from the 1st May I will be working as a research assistant, in the computer science department of Cambridge University, this is a slight pay increase, but still of not much benefit, but it's a step towards me completing my phd. |
#72
|
|||
|
|||
Cultural differences (was: upset at nanny -- vent)
Clisby wrote:
Circe wrote: Nina wrote: "Tine Andersen" wrote in message k... "Nina" skrev i en meddelelse ... It's not 'negro' in Danish - it's 'neger'. But it's the same word. The english translation of "neger' would be "black" not "negro" as "negro" is basically a euphemism for black. So calling black people "neger" is the equivalent of calling them "black" here, not "negro". Neger probably sounds like ******, which is a Bad Word. You are right - I checked my vocabulary - it's 'black'. Was negro a bad word 35 years ago? No, negro was then standard usage. It changes. Er, 35 years ago, I was 4 years old. I'm reasonably sure that Negro was in disfavor by then. I believe "colored" was actually the favored term by that time. I think you have it backward - at least, for where I grew up, in S.C. and Mississippi. "Colored" had been around for a long time - that's the term my parents (now in their 70s) had used all their lives. The NAACP is almost 100 years old, after all. I'm pretty sure "Negro" was more a '40s and '50s successor to "colored" - when I was growing up, the word "Negro" came with the implication the person saying it wasn't Southern. That's interesting. I'd have guessed that in California (where I grew up), the term in favor by the late '60s or early '70s would have been neither colored nor Negro, but black. Certainly, when I was 8 (1972 or thereabouts), I had a neighbor friend who was black and we said she was "black", not Negro, not colored. (Of course, there were some kids in the neighborhood who called me a deregatory term I'll leave to your imagination as well.) I was thinking, however, that colored was considered a less offensive term than Negro first, since blacks themselves used the term (as in the NAACP). I'll admit, my regionalism may be showing! That said, Negro was *always* a word with negative implications because it was coined and used at a time when black people were considered so inferior in the US that it was okay to enslave them. For obvious reasons, most people in the US now want to dissociate themselves from that term and all its baggage. I'm not sure I'd say "Negro" was coined - it just means black. I disagree for the simple reason that Negro is *never* used to define the color of objects in English. It just isn't. The *only* use of the word is to describe people. That makes it a word with implications that the word "white"--and by extension "black"--don't have. Certainly, in slave-holding times, the term for blacks was Negro (or a much ruder variation thereof). IMO, that means it was, by definition, not a value-neutral word. And I disagree that it always had negative connotations - at least not in the way I think you mean. When I was a child, my parents would consider a person calling himself/herself a "Negro" to be an outsider, almost a radical - like someone leading a voting rights drive, for example. To them, it was a negative term - I doubt that it was to the people who used it to refer to themselves. (I'm sure Malcolm X considered it a negative term, but that's another story.) That's very interesting. I really had no idea. Perhaps this was a bit like the gay movement appropriating the word "queer", however? See, Tine, we've got cultural differences even *within* the US! -- 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 |
#73
|
|||
|
|||
Cultural differences (was: upset at nanny -- vent)
"Circe" skrev i en meddelelse news:sZsWb.39183$QJ3.10241@fed1read04... See, Tine, we've got cultural differences even *within* the US! Well after all - you span quite an amount of sq km and you are 200 mill. We are only 5 mill and also have cultural differences (we have a lot of small islands). Why shouldn't you? But I love hearing about it - I become wiser and wiser. Tine, Denmark |
#74
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
iphigenia wrote:
There's a difference between saying things are different and calling people lazy. I'm very, very, very offended at the implication that I'm just lazy and that's why I stay at home with my child, instead of working my ass off to pay someone else to do so. Well, I don't think Tine meant that she would think an American mother who stayed home with her children was lazy, but that she'd think that of a Danish woman who did so. That's because of the way her country's social structure has developed, though. Mind you, in Tine's country and much of Europe, it's entirely common for women to be on maternity leave for almost a year after their babies are born. The average work-week is shorter and most people get 6 weeks of paid vacation. They have subsidized daycare to the extent that women *don't* have to work their asses off to pay someone else to care for their children. That's a *very* different model of working motherhood than we have in this country. Personally, however, I think there is something sad about a culture putting so much pressure on women to work, particularly when their children are young. I happen to be a working mother, but I have the luxury of working at home now (something I didn't when my first two were babies/toddlers), and I *love* having so much time with my kids as a result of my working situation. If I had to work in an office and leave my children in a daycare center, even under the conditions Tine describes, I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it any longer. I've seen the other side, and I *want* the time with my kids. They won't be kids forever, after all. So I guess I'd like to see women everywhere having the freedom to *choose* what sort of motherhood they want to do without any preconceptions or prejudices about those choices. -- 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 |
#75
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
"iphigenia" skrev i en meddelelse
news Dawn Lawson wrote: and imo, this is why NAmerican daycare is poorer than what Tine is used to. We have to be as sensitive to the differences in culture as Tine has been, if we are to continue asking her to spell out those differences. She was ASKED what NAmericans do that she finds unusual and shocking. There's a difference between saying things are different and calling people lazy. I'm very, very, very offended at the implication that I'm just lazy and that's why I stay at home with my child, instead of working my ass off to pay someone else to do so. Please! I'm not saying you were lazy. I'm saying that if I met a Dane staying at home on her DH's salary without knowing anything else about her I would probably consider her lazy. Or spoiled - or both. Here you are supposed to support yourself earn a salary. It's a cultural thing - maybe a reminiscence of the 70'ties. You are not a Dane. Your conditions are very much different from what they would be here. We have different history and culture. What is considered lazy, rude, nice behavior, dangerous, insert your favorite term here is very different from country to country. The whole discussion started when I said I often was (forgot the term I used) suprised? by you. But your culture is your culture and you are perfectly entitled to do as you please - as I am. Tine, Denmark |
#76
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
"Anne Rogers" skrev i en meddelelse
... Basically working is of little financial benefit for me, but I enjoy the 16 hours I do. I would enjoy working in the kind of job you do even more, but its difficult to get that kind of thing part time. Though I have been very fortunate, from the 1st May I will be working as a research assistant, in the computer science department of Cambridge University, this is a slight pay increase, but still of not much benefit, but it's a step towards me completing my phd. That sounds SO interesting - I did that for some years as well. Lousy pay but very challeging (sp?). Best of luck to you, Anne. Tine, Denmark |
#77
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
Tine Andersen wrote:
Please! I'm not saying you were lazy. I'm saying that if I met a Dane staying at home on her DH's salary without knowing anything else about her I would probably consider her lazy. Or spoiled - or both. Here you are supposed to support yourself earn a salary. It's a cultural thing - maybe a reminiscence of the 70'ties. Don't you find it a bit illogical, though, that staying home and raising your own children is *not* (in your country) considered "supporting yourself" or working but if you work in a daycare center taking care of other people's children, it is? I just find it silly to consider raising a kid a "job" as long as the kids aren't your own! I'm a working mother, so I'm certainly not *opposed* to mothers who work. I truly don't believe I'm well suited to full-time motherhood, in any event. But I think *some* women are very well suited to full-time motherhood, and I'm sure they exist in Denmark as well as in the States. Surely the *fairest* cultural system is one that allows women (and men, I hasten to add!) to make the choices that best suit their personalities, lifestyles, and family structures without being subjected to social stigma based on those choices. The whole discussion started when I said I often was (forgot the term I used) suprised? by you. But your culture is your culture and you are perfectly entitled to do as you please - as I am. But wouldn't it be even nicer is a Danish parent could stay home with his/her children without having people think him/her lazy or spoiled? I'm not suggesting *you* can change your culture single-handedly, mind you. I just like the idea of personal freedom! -- 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 |
#78
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
"Circe" skrev i en meddelelse news:8ntWb.39185$QJ3.1126@fed1read04... iphigenia wrote: There's a difference between saying things are different and calling people lazy. I'm very, very, very offended at the implication that I'm just lazy and that's why I stay at home with my child, instead of working my ass off to pay someone else to do so. Well, I don't think Tine meant that she would think an American mother who stayed home with her children was lazy, but that she'd think that of a Danish woman who did so. That's because of the way her country's social structure has developed, though. Mind you, in Tine's country and much of Europe, it's entirely common for women to be on maternity leave for almost a year after their babies are born. The average work-week is shorter and most people get 6 weeks of paid vacation. They have subsidized daycare to the extent that women *don't* have to work their asses off to pay someone else to care for their children. That's a *very* different model of working motherhood than we have in this country. Very wisely put. I wish I could have done that. Maybe it works better when it comes from you, though :-) Personally, however, I think there is something sad about a culture putting so much pressure on women to work, particularly when their children are young. I happen to be a working mother, but I have the luxury of working at home now (something I didn't when my first two were babies/toddlers), and I *love* having so much time with my kids as a result of my working situation. If I had to work in an office and leave my children in a daycare center, even under the conditions Tine describes, I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it any longer. I've seen the other side, and I *want* the time with my kids. They won't be kids forever, after all. One generation back - or maybe two - we had the choice here as well. I remember the shock (see Dawn: I can do it now) it was to me at age 26-27 when I realized that I couldn't just find myself a DH to support me and live the life my mom did. I would forever be responsible for myself (and my kids) personally and echonomically. It changed very quickly during the 70'ies and 80'ies. Tine, Denmark |
#79
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
"Circe" skrev i en meddelelse
news:TwtWb.39186$QJ3.23083@fed1read04... Tine Andersen wrote: Please! I'm not saying you were lazy. I'm saying that if I met a Dane staying at home on her DH's salary without knowing anything else about her I would probably consider her lazy. Or spoiled - or both. Here you are supposed to support yourself earn a salary. It's a cultural thing - maybe a reminiscence of the 70'ties. Don't you find it a bit illogical, though, that staying home and raising your own children is *not* (in your country) considered "supporting yourself" or working but if you work in a daycare center taking care of other people's children, it is? I just find it silly to consider raising a kid a "job" as long as the kids aren't your own! I may have used a wrong term. I meant 'being able to pay for housing and food with money you provide yourself'. Her it's called a job if you are paid. I'm not saying I wouldn't like it otherwise - I'm just completely neutral telling about another culture. I'm a working mother, so I'm certainly not *opposed* to mothers who work. I truly don't believe I'm well suited to full-time motherhood, in any event. But I think *some* women are very well suited to full-time motherhood, and I'm sure they exist in Denmark as well as in the States. Surely the *fairest* cultural system is one that allows women (and men, I hasten to add!) to make the choices that best suit their personalities, lifestyles, and family structures without being subjected to social stigma based on those choices. You are right that some women are very good at being full time mothers. Sometimes I envy them. Especially their patience :-) I would like a 'citizen salary' system where you were entitled to an amount of money - enough to live on. Or a 'paid leave of absence' system (we used to have that for each child, but the pay was very low so not many could afford it). But all cultures are different. It's a package - you can't have part of it (well, you can but only within certain limits). If it was too obnoxious to me I'd have to move somewhere else, but I've sort of gotten used to it over the last 39 years (spent 5 in NYC, actually). Tine, Denmark |
#80
|
|||
|
|||
upset at nanny -- vent
"Dawn Lawson" wrote in message
news:FQrWb.462164$JQ1.333434@pd7tw1no... AND I snipped! She was ASKED what NAmericans do that she finds unusual and shocking. Yes, that was me who asked. I was curious. It's been an interesting thread to read. Thanks, Tine, for answering honestly. -Patty, mom to Corinne (5.75y) and Nathan (3.5y) and stepmom to Victoria (13.5y) |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
nanny question | Stephanie Stowe | General | 2 | June 6th 04 07:49 AM |
"How to find a nanny" | Mike | General | 0 | May 4th 04 03:36 PM |
Toddler's way of telling us they are upset - what does your kid do? | Cathy Weeks | General | 12 | October 17th 03 03:33 PM |
sad about nanny | Andrea | Breastfeeding | 13 | August 30th 03 06:03 PM |
Nanny needs a wonderful family in MA. | It's always something | General | 0 | July 9th 03 03:58 PM |