<p>MiamiDAP, working parents can make their kids more flexible, but it is harder for two-career families to fit into a rigid schedule set by a teacher. How did you drive your daughter around when you were working?</p>
<p>She was in school when I was working. Then she would wait for me at “after school” I would have dinner warmed up in microwave at work if we did not have time to stop at home. I drove her everywhere, all 3 of us went (my H. driving) went to out of town meets, very many of them. In a summer, when she had 2/day practices (since age of 10), I hired baby sitters who were driving her to morning practices and I was still driving her to evening practices. You see, when you work, you can afford hiring people if it is during working hours, but all kids EC’s during school year are after school. D. was also taking private piano and art lessons which were very easy to schedule around my work and her sport practices. She continued with music at college, still does at Med. School and her sport is her work out (sometime). As I mentioned, when both are working it is so much more family can do, awesome vacation for all, trips abroad…and all those out of town meets with staying at hotels sometime for 2-3 nights, who can afford it if not 2-income families?</p>
<p>I’m not sure that money makes up for what is lost in the craziness of a two-working parent family, but it obviously worked for you! My kids turned out wonderfully, as well, but it’s not the life I would have chosen for myself.</p>
<p>There is no craziness whatsoever, it is what you make out of it. I cannot be at home. I refuse. I have been between jobs, I was feeling so isolated, so diminished. Not working is not for everybody. It never was craziness for me, never failed to work out, having time with friends, had fun both at home and at work. People are different and I cannot fully sacrifice my life, others might feel different. I want to do what I love, I hire for tasks that I hate doing. Spending time with my kid after work was always my highest priority, the rest could be done by somebody else.</p>
<p>OF COURSE teachers/nurses/social workers are dealing with harder & harder issues, and increasingly troubled children and families. </p>
<p>We’re becoming a third world country. Many of our kids are, if not yet hungry, then at least half-fed. Lacking in health care. Lacking in stable homes because their parents are lacking in stable jobs. </p>
<p>Welcome to 21st century USA.</p>
<p>I don’t want to make this into a working mom thread- but not everyone works 5 days a week 8 to 4. Different schedules can make parenting much more difficult.</p>
<p>Additionally some schools are really able to tap into parents contributions both financial and of time. Makes a huge difference in these days of constant budget cuts. However other schools may not even have a PTA and force the teachers to stretch themselves even thinner.</p>
<p>I don’t think one school can be all things to all kids & I wish our state would at least try charter schools. I realize some districts have alternative schools without charters but our last superintendent closed the alternative that my D attended ( which had been around for 30+ years) as well as moved others around, harming the programs.</p>
<p>I think back to my own school days- in an “elite” suburban district with homogenous classrooms & I think many of todays classrooms seem much more interesting.</p>
<p>Well it’s not always what you make of it. I commute 1 1/2 hours each way and have had parents with health issues for all of my parenting life, so craziness has nothing to do with my choices. Different people have different ways of being happy. I would have liked some time to be an at home parent, but it was never able to happen for me and it is the regret of my life. I have always worked out and spent time with my husband, but friends would never have been possible, unfortunately. I feel that by having always worked, I sacrificed balance in my life. But waht can you do?</p>
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In my state, at least, health care is completely accessible to the poor if they choose to enroll. Which is a whole other issue, by the way. In my city, food is provided all year round in schools, breakfast, lunch and a snack. It’s what happens at home that’s at issue.</p>
<p>It’s what happens at home that’s at issue.</p>
<p>& that is the difference between two families- on the uneducated /low income side, both families are challenged but some families see education as a way up for their children & support the school & try and provide structure at home & other families may feel that education is completely in the schools purview and don’t reinforce it at home. ( for many reasons)
The teachers of course are charged with educating both their kids.</p>
<p>At some point, I have been commuting for 1 hr one way (lasted 1.5 years). My schedule never changed because of that. I spend time with firends every day. while our kids were at sport practice, our kids were on the same team and worked out at the gym right after we had our walk. My kid brought more people into my life than I would have otherwise. I also had frinds at work. My H. was taking care of his sick parents. I believe that all working couples are mor4e or less in the same situation. We went to many awesome fancy vacations, all of us.
But I would not work if I felt that I should be at home. I never understood why 2 parents working is a danger to raising children. it seems to me that it is very opposite. And again, if some parents feel that they cannot handle it and can be at home without emotional breakdown and feeling isolated, then they should quit. I agree that no money worth working if you feeling to be torn apart. I am sorry for all this “side talk”, I stop.</p>
<p>Zoos, you’re lucky to live in a place where the poor can get healthcare and food. Now let’s make sure that’s available everywhere in America, and not just the poor. The middle class needs these things too. And unless it gets it, they will slide into poverty. And a country with a weak or barely-existing middle class is called the third world. What we are on the way to becoming.</p>
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Well it’s not necessarily luck. The taxes to pay for it are the highest in the nation.</p>
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True, that. Which is why we need employment-friendly policies.</p>
<p>katliamom
</p>
<p>And the only way to create and sustain a better way of life for the poor and middle class is for people to be free to create or secure jobs for themselves. Business owners will keep holding on to their money, allowing it to shrink in value with inflation (against their nature), due to fear of increased taxes and regulation. With confidence in a pro-business climate, business owners will happily invest in new businesses and the expansion of existing ones. They need to know that they will not lose their shirts with anti-business policy surprises if they risk everything, which is what business owners do over and over to create jobs. When capitol gains taxes are low, businesses can borrow more cheaply, and therefore innovate and create new businesses and jobs. </p>
<p>With more people working, and with businesses generating more tax revenue for the government, there is more money for schools (and health care). When people have jobs, and the psychological health (peace of mind) that goes with a pro-business climate (self-reliance, security, freedom, liberty), there is greater likelihood that school-supportive behaviors will happen at home. </p>
<p>We are, most of us, very much like one another. Everybody wants a shot at the American dream, and every child deserves a good school and wonderful teachers. Parents needs jobs to enable all of that to happen, and they also need a minimal level of confidence that the job will not disappear tomorrow. Job creators need to have government step out of the way a bit to let them do what they do best, so that the amount of anxiety in this country can get back to reasonable levels.</p>
<p>You have to be careful about two parent working families and making assumptions about who they are and how easy it is. If you have a family where, for example, one of the parents has a relatively high paying job and the second income, whatever the level, is basically for gravy, then for example the working parent with the less rigid job could be there for the kid to get driven around and so forth…(or, for example, if you work as a real estate agent where hours and such can be flexible). </p>
<p>But what happens when you have a working class family, or working poor, where both parents are working jobs, sometimes multiple ones, to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, where they don’t have time to supervise the kids? In many of the areas we are talking about, the second parent isn’t working to afford that vacation or vacation home or to pay for junior’s baseball camp, they are both working long hours, often multiple jobs, to try and survive, and that is a reality for a lot of people at that end of the spectrum. </p>
<p>It is funny, I have heard the same assumption from certain quarters, that when people bemoan the fact that it often takes two incomes these days to make what one income used to do, you get all this rhetoric that that is greed, that people want the fancy house, the big car, the fancy vacation and so forth, but that is nothing but dodge; for many people we are talking about two incomes to maintain a basic, no frills existence and for many it is simply to survive.</p>
<p>As far as the comment about business friendly environments, about how low cost of borrowing and lowered capital gains will lead to job creation, I would love someone to explain to me that how, over the past 10 years or so, we had borrowing at ridiculously low rates (these days the cost of lenders borrowing is literally zero), the lowest capital gains rate since they have had income taxes (15%), and yet during this 10 year period job creation stagnated and disappeared, millions of jobs were lost, wages stagnated for 98% of the country (net loss about 7%), yet CEO pay during the same period, on the median, has risen as much as 50% or more, and income at the very top has shot through the roof…if cheap cost of borrowing, low capital gains tax rates and the like are the nirvana, where are the jobs from this? The problem is while I won’t argue that those things can create jobs, it only works when those running the show believe creating good paying jobs is in their interest…and they sadly still don’t, the problem is that doesn’t factor in greed, where thanks to having access to third world labor, they can slash their operating expenses and increase their profits, and have been, which is reflected in the income of the top 1% and the executives…but what they forget about is Chinese workers at 50c an hour or Indian workers making sub middle income wages don’t buy their goods and services (for every dollar spent in China and India, less then 20c comes back to the US in new business). For a number of years, demand has been stimulated by by borrowing, but one of these days the people running companies will realize that cheap wages might look good on the bottom line for a while, but eventually someone has to buy Ipods and Iphones and other goods and services, and it is unlikely to be workers being paid cheap wages.</p>
<p>I can explain. Our economy always has, and always will, have its ups and downs. It’s the nature of our system. However, when you have ill-advised policies which are the wrong thing at the wrong time, the bounce back doesn’t happen. That is what we are experiencing now.</p>
<p>But back to the topic of the thread, which is teachers and education…</p>
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<p>Living in an anti-union state, I can assure you that it is not “PRO”-worker. </p>
<p>Take a quick look the salaries and benefits of teachers in states with strong unions and compare them to, say, Texas.</p>
<p>PRO-teacher? Please, that’s just ridiculous.</p>
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I’m glad Miami that you were able to do all the things you love, like spending time at your job, with your friends, at your gym, and with your kids. As a teacher, there are plenty of times when I wondered if the parents really understood their kids suffered b/c the mom worked and their needs could only be met during certain hours. Many parents had the same attitude you have: the stuff they didn’t like to do was given and paid to someone else to do it. That’s where teachers fill the void.</p>
<p>We draw our teachers largely from the bottom of the barrel - the bottom 25% of college grads, people who would be checking out groceries were it not for teaching. Is it any wonder that so many of them complain about a job that requires hard, focused WORK to do well? And then figure they can retire on the job because they’re protected by tenure? </p>
<p>Yes, I know there are exceptions, and God bless them. But they are exceptions.</p>
<p>^^^
I, for one, am tired of hearing this. It is not true and it is the very epitome of the anti- teacher sentiment that has become so pervasive. Is it any wonder that so many of us are burning out when we have to listen to that kind of drivel coming from people who have, very likely, not stepped one foot in a classroom since they graduated from High School?</p>
<p>I, for one, am tired of hearing this. It is not true and it is the very epitome of the anti- teacher sentiment that has become so pervasive.</p>
<p>I agree.</p>