Today there is a negative attitude towards having children and taking care of children.
Family Portrait (Photo credit: Gideon Tsang)
It’s true that having children interferes with work. Lots of people do find it hurts their career in the short and long term. some do find it normal that those who get kids should be penalised in their professional career and in the later years of retirement. For them it is very logical that those who stayed at home can not receive retirement allowance for those years they were not productive for the economical world.
As it should, in a fair world. What else can you expect to happen when you take time away from actually doing work? But even if there would be no impact on my career, I still would not want children.
writes Childfree Voice.
Breadwinner
“breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers.
A recent study by Pew Research in the States, details the trend: In 15 percent of all households of married adults with children under the age of 18, mothers are the sole or primary breadwinner. That’s up from 4 percent back in 1960, and accounts for 5.1 million married mothers who have higher incomes than their husbands.
Stay-at-home dads face many of the economic challenges and concerns as stay-at-home moms — how transitioning from two salaries to one will impact their family, if the time at home might hinder a return to the job force, and whether new roles will cause resentment. But stay-at-home dads often face cultural stigmas about what it means to be a man in America, and what price tag that role should carry.
Paychecks
More women than ever are CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies and in every day households more women are bringing home bigger paychecks than their husbands.
The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.
The income gap between the two groups remains when using personal income as the measure. The median personal income of married mothers who out-earn their husbands was $50,000 in 2011, compared with $20,000 for single moms. Both personal and family income was self-reported. There is a small difference between the median personal income of single mothers and their family income. It could be due to financial contributions of other adult family members such as a cohabiting partner or a parent.
Since 2007 (before the recession officially began) mothers’ views about whether and how much they would like to work had changed significantly. The share of mothers saying their ideal situation would be to work full time increased from 20% in 2007 to 32% in 2012. And the share saying they would prefer not to work at all fell from 29% to 20%.
Gains of women and motherhood
Rally for single parents and their children (Photo credit: Greens MP Jamie Parker, Member for Balmain)
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the public remains of two minds about the gains mothers have made in the workplace–most recognize the clear economic benefits to families, but many voice concerns about the toll that having a working mother may take on children or even marriage.
About three-quarters of adults (74%) say the increasing number of women working for pay has made it harder for parents to raise children, and half say that it has made marriages harder to succeed. At the same time, two-thirds say it has made it easier for families to live comfortably.
In Belgium this can be clearly seen at the amount of divorces which soar the pan. It’s really far out and most children are just dropped at childcare early in the morning to be fetched late at night to be put in bed. the aim to live comfortably having enough luxury to show off to others has become more important than family life.
Primary child attendant
Making the shift from primary breadwinner to a primary caregiver can be so dramatic, especially if that change comes after a job loss, that it got so much negative press to give them who would consider to stay home a nasty shock. Lots of people are put off by the idea to take a part time job and staying some time at home to take care for the kids.
Many youngsters also find it not done that somebody stays at home not being productive in the world economy, and those who would perhaps originally would love to have a family with kids can not afford children and take all efforts not to be with child.
A house or a child
Facing the cost of children many consider it better to by a house instead spening all that money on a child.
And yes, it costs over $200,000 to raise a child to 18. That’s a lot of money to throw away. You could buy a decent house for that price. But even if everything a child would need is was free, even if I was actually paid for having a child, I still would not want children.
writes Childfree Voice to the Natalist World.
Bettering oneself through education
According to them having children interferes with bettering oneself through education. Many think when they have to spend time at bringing up children they themselves would not have enough time for themselves. Having children, according to them also takes away the focus from more important work. There are great opportunities for growth and learning even in our sometimes boring 9-5 desk jobs, so why should people use the other time for taking care of the household? After work should there not be fun?
Leisure has become a very important business in our welfare industry.
Well, parents should see that it should already be fun that they are taking the time to invest in them-self and learning more about their world and that they could get other people involved in what they do with their children. There are not only the out-of school events, sports and games the children can enjoy. Also watching documentaries with the partner and kids or work on puzzles with the children, playing trivial pursuit with the family, or discuss new and fresh topics with them and with the friends of yourself, your partner and new friends the children let you know.
Claiming that children will limit your world is not seeing that they will do the opposite, getting you to know more people outside your daily job.
Studying together
The Green Children in Bangladesh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When you would like to study something new, your kids do not have to be a stand in the way. Things aren’t just going to be different for you – your kids will also feel the effect of you taking on a new project. However, they may be so proud of your attempt to forward your career that they may surprise you and help out around the house to give you extra time to focus. One way to include them in your endeavours is to set up study groups for all of you to sit down and do your homework together. Why not? This shall inspire you both and it will be much more fun for them than the ordinary school work they have to do obligatory.
In the old days, ‘bettering yourself’ was usually related to improving your social status, often through education and certainly by getting a better job. These days, you can take a wider perspective. Life is much more than earning money. We do not have to measure everything in the form of investment for receiving financial gain.
Pets or children
Flexcin International, Inc., a company that makes natural supplements for humans and pets, found that according to its recent survey, more Americans are electing to house dogs over kids.
The company polled 1,250 pet owners nationwide (ages 21 to 30) about their attitudes on child rearing and pet adoption.
When asked what’s a better fit for them, more than half (54 percent) of respondents said dogs; 46 percent said children.
When asked why they prefer dogs, 34 percent of respondents said they’re not sure if they can handle the needs of raising a child; 28 percent said they don’t have the time to raise a child; 21 percent said kids are more expensive than dogs; and 17 percent said they “just love” dogs more than kids.
If it was polling people with pets, specifically the kind likely to care enough to give their kids supplements, I would think they’d be more likely to get a pet-friendly answer by such people than they would the general public.
I’m childfree and have one dog, but I did Not choose pets over kids any more than I choose driving a sports car over being slapped in the face. That is, the two things have little to nothing to do with each other. Sure, I prefer one over the other, but that doesn’t mean that I chose one over the other.
Many people who do have kids also have pets. It’s not like people can only have one or the other. On the other hand, even if, for some reason, I had decided to never have pets, I still wouldn’t want kids. It’s not like I’m required to have either.
Unpleasant burden
The writer let us hear a voice we can hear at many places. She like many youngsters today do not care much for children. Pets or no, children would be nothing but an unpleasant burden to them. they prefer to enjoy undisturbed sex with their partner, without having any commitments to this partner or for any off-springs of their sexual action.
They shudder to think of how much they would miss out on in life if ever they became a mother or father. Kids would be a stumble bloc at their leg, limiting their freedom where to go and what to do. Parenthood is totally undesirable to them. It has even come so far that many think “kids would ruin their life”.
The reality is that parenthood is not a fairy-tale filled with Kodak moments. It’s nasty business. There are gross bodily functions, dangers, bitter fights, sleepless nights, tantrums, and regrets. It’s not always pretty. But even if the life of parenthood really was all sunshine, rainbows, kisses, hugs, “I love your”s, and macaroni art, I still would not want children.
confirms ‘childfree’.
Overcrowding
To her horror,
the world population is over 7 billion. That’s far too many humans for one small planet with dwindling resources and a climate on the brink of disaster. It’s dangerous. But even if the world were not overpopulated, even if it was somehow underpopulated, I still would not want children.
At an early age youngsters do want to enjoy sex and more than once we find kids who are with child and have to stop further education. Taking time away from school has a high price. This lack of further education may also bring more difficulties to higher a person in a good paid job. Resulting in receiving less income than somebody who studied longer, the children often came in the same street as their parents and because of the family struggles also start misbehaving, sometimes criminally so.
Benefits
But having stopped studies early in adulthood should not be a reason not to progress and to continue taking up knowledge and wisdom.
Having children in such an instance should also not be a burden, but could be used as a blessing. When giving up some time to spend with the kids they also can provide new knowledge and reasons enough to study further on your own.
The final stage is to build a series of stepping stones towards your self-betterment. List all the activities that you do now and assess how you spend your time. Then ask yourself which ones contribute to your aim and how. Get not blindfolded by others or get blind by the financial gain you may receive by not being present for your children but at work for an employer.
The work you have to do at home, is not be paid for in money, but it shall be more profitable to you than man think. You yourself have to make the choice, either to be there for your children or to be there for yourself or a company.
Obligation
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the public remains of two minds about the gains mothers have made in the workplace–most recognize the clear economic benefits to families, but many voice concerns about the toll that having a working mother may take on children or even marriage. About three-quarters of adults (74%) say the increasing number of women working for pay has made it harder for parents to raise children, and half say that it has made marriages harder to succeed. At the same time, two-thirds say it has made it easier for families to live comfortably.
As parents it is the obligation to take care for those who came after sexual enjoyment. There are enough preservative measures if people do not want children, but once they are there they shall have to consider them and have the sense of duty.
Both parents shall have to find answers how to manage properly the household. they shall have to choose who is going to play which role, or how they can divide the household tasks. They shall need to change how they use their time.
Banker-turned-financial-advisor Denise Winston of Money Start Here says that when either parent decides to stay home, it’s important to run the numbers on both sides of the equation. Not only is this important for budgeting, but it helps emphasize how the stay-at-home parent is contributing financially to the household, even when they’re no longer bringing in a traditional salary.
“Ask, how much is child care? That could easily be $2,000 a month. Did you have a housekeeper, commute, laundry service? If one parent is now providing those services, that’s a tremendous savings,” she says.
Winston warns that a parent exiting the workforce might need a crash course in domestic finances.
“When you think about how much money flows through that person’s hands — groceries, back to school, prescriptions — if they’re not into getting a good deal, this could potentially cost the household a ton of money. You have to look at it like a sport, or a business.”
Having children may interfere with many plans, and could require another budget use, but parents should be aware it is not the money which shall make them as happy as the blessings and pleasure those children can bring.
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This is a reaction on: Letters To A Natalist World: I Don’t Want Children Because I Don’t Want Children
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Find also:
- What I “Regret” About Being Childfree
- Choosing Pets Over Kids?
- Why are people choosing pets over kids?
- Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #8 Work
- Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #12 Conclusion
- Work with joy and pray with love
- Gender Roles, What?
- Stay-at-Home Dads Get a Crash Course in Family Finances (and Guilt)
- Breadwinner Moms
- Only I can change my life
- Leaving behind the lives we have touched.
- The business of this life
- Power in the life of certain
- A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
- Thirst for happiness and meaning
- Be happy that the thorn bush has roses
- Suffering produces perseverance
- Change
- It is a free will choice
- Your life the sum total of all your choices
- Monotomy of life
- Teach children the Bible
- Words in the world
- We should use the Bible every day
- Created to live in relation with God
- Life in gratitude opens glory of God
- A Living Faith #8 Change
- A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
- Choose you this day whom ye will serve
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Just like there is no reason you should be less or more respected if your doing less of the very hard work of mothering and more of the very hard work of having a career. We should just respect each other because it takes a village and a village missing things like stay at home moms, stay at home dads, two income families, old people keeping track of the neighborhood from their window becomes less of a village then our children deserve. - Thought You Noticed More Stay-at-Home Dads? You’re Right! Here’s Why (thebump.com)
A new study published in the Journal of Family Issues noted that more than half-million dads are staying home with the kids as stay-at-home fathers. The research, conducted by sociologist Karen Z. Kramer of the University of Illinois, noted that when compared to moms staying home with the kids, stay-at-home dads who were not stay at home by choice tended to be older and less educated than moms. Most were also disabled, ill or unemployed. But among men who chose to be a stay-at-home dad, most tended to be higher-income with wives with greater earning potential and had more children under 5.
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While traditional family roles are changing, so too is the make-up of the typical family.Families with two natural parents and two children make up 28 per cent of all families with kids.Couple families with one child are the second most common at 23 per cent, followed by single parents with one child at 15 per cent.However, one of the largest increases has been in the number of blended and stepfamilies – doubling in recent decades, to make up almost 11 per cent of Australian families with dependent children, compared with 6.8 per cent in 1986.
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There’s such a thing called “mother’s guilt.” It starts once she first gives birth and realizes she has some options regarding whether or not she should work. Interestingly, regardless of her decision, over half of mothers documented by the Working Mother Research Institute in both categories feel guilty.In fact, 51 percent of working mothers feel guilty about not spending enough time with their children. 55 percent of stay-at-home mothers feel guilty for not contributing to family income. WMRI - Number of the Week: Rise of Single Moms Drives Down Overall Income (blogs.wsj.com)
New data this week showed once again that it’s been a rough couple decades for the American middle class. Median household income barely budged in 2012, and is actually lower, after adjusting for inflation, than it was in 1989. “This isn’t a lost decade for economic gains for Americans,” the Washington Post’s Neil Irwin wrote on Tuesday. “It is a lost generation.”
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The median income for all families with children under 18 was just under $60,000 last year, up about 3% since 1990 after adjusting for inflation. But what might once have been considered the “typical” American family — a married couple, living together, with at least one child under 18 — has done quite a bit better: Their median income was $81,455, up nearly 16% from 1990.The trouble is, such families have become significantly less common over time. In 1980, married couples made up 80% of all families with children. A decade later, that figure had fallen below 75%. Today, it’s less than two-thirds. The number of families headed by single moms — any mother with no spouse present, regardless of whether she has a live-in partner — has increased more than 30% since 1990, to more than 10 million.
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In terms of income growth, single moms aren’t actually doing much worse than their married counterparts — their median income is up 14% since 1990, nearly as much as for married parents. But they earn far less in absolute terms. The median income for a family headed by a single mother was $25,493 in 2012, which means roughly 5 million single mothers earn less than $25,000 a year. - Recognizing the “SAHD” (timesunion.com)
A few male twitter users recently blasted me for neglecting to include stay-at-home dads in various online discussions. I honestly hadn’t given a serious thought to the fact that there are plenty of fathers filling the shoes stay-at-home-moms traditionally stand in. I shamefully admit that I was oblivious to men who are staying home to care for their children. While the definition the US Census Bureau has been using to base their family and living arrangement statistics on produces small numbers, the reality is much more impressive: nearly 1.5 million men are SAHDs (Stay-at-home-dads) today, and this number continues to climb as women are assuming more demanding / valuable roles in the workplace. - Building a more father-friendly Calgary (metronews.ca)
How father-friendly is our city? That’s an important question, and not just for local fathers and families. The answer has implications for women, the economy, and the overall strength of our communities. - Pew research reveals more women becoming ‘breadwinners’ (nbc-2.com)
More women are bringing home the bacon, while their husbands take care of the chores at home.
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According to the Pew Research Center, mothers are the sole or primary provider in four out of ten U.S. households with children.These ‘breadwinner moms’ are broken into two groups: 37 percent are married mothers while 63 percent are single mothers.
Stepping Toes 