enigma said:
Ditto's, English!!!!!!!!!!!
I so strongly support the concept that kids need their parents, that I'd walk away from the cockpit before I'd let my kids spend another day in day care. My step kids were day-care'd and the difference between them and my biological kids is night and day. My oldest daugher was kept in a friends home for three days a week for one year and I can tell the difference between her and her younger sibling who has not ever spent a day away from her mom. Kids without full time mothers are forced to do without God's intended shepard.
Go listen to Dr. Laura for a day or two and read her book entitled "Parentling by Proxie" for some professional insights into the parent child relationships and the damage that absentee parenting does to those relationships, and most importantly does to the emotional development of a child.
God will bless those who sacrifice material things in order to give their children a proper upbringing.
regards,
enigma
BTW, take your kids to Sunday school.
Hoo, boy. Talk about a can of worms
Skip this if you don't want to read an essay...
I'm in the distinct minority among my female friends - I'm a conservative kind of girl at heart, both politically and as far as some of my values are concerned. At age 23! In southern California! And while I'm not a strict disciple of Dr. Laura, I do agree with a LOT of what she has to say.
From my own personal experience: My father was, and is, an aerospace engineer who worked a lot of hours. He made great money even just starting out in his career. My mother did not have to work if she did not want to, and I never lacked anything that I required or even just wanted as I was growing up. Hell, the guy gave me my private pilot training as a high school graduation present.
But...I saw my dad for maybe a couple of hours a week, total. We've got a better relationship now, but I feel like I've lost a lot of time already.
Different times in my childhood, my mother also worked at the sister my school and I attended. That was great, because she'd take us to school, work, then bring us home. But there was a miserable period of a couple years where she worked another job. My sister and I spent ninety minutes before school each day in daycare, and the same with the three hours after classes were out for the day. I was not a happy kid, my grades suffered, and I honestly wondered why it was that I never got to see my parents. I was thrilled to no end when my mother quit that job. Now that I'm older and we talk about these things, she tells me she regrets doing that and wishes she'd spent more time with my sister and I when we weren't in classes.
I'm (the doctors tell me) almost certainly never going to have my own children. I don't mind so much, because I've never really wanted them anyhow. If I change my mind, there are so many children out there that need good homes, and I don't think I'd have any qualms about doing that. It's just...there are things I want to see and do with my life (ATC is just one!) that are not necessarily conducive to having children at home. Is it a little selfish? Maybe. But I also think I'm being UNselfish in that I would never try to raise any child unless I could be, and
wanted to be home with them. I don't see the point of having a kid if you never get to see it. I don't see the point of a woman having a child and going back to work six weeks later. I can see a woman working part-time when the kids hit grade school, but other than that, no. Having a child means you no longer live for you, but for your child, and I see fewer and fewer people doing that anymore. I see my friends struggle with jobs and kids and it just makes me kind of sad for the kids.
Take it for what you will, but remember, you did ask.
Stephanie
Gotta run, there's a cold shower waiting... 
TC
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