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my wife has been offered a job

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This excerpt is from this site. it shows that kids in day care are 2 times more likely to develop a URTI.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/en...2652&dopt=Abstract

Log-linear regression analysis showed that the predicted number of URTI was 1.9 higher if the child was attending day care, and that the number of URTI increased by 1.015 with each month until the age of 24 months, but decreased after that by 0.985. CONCLUSIONS--The major factors which affect the frequency of URTI are: age, sex, family history of frequent URTI, asthma, allergy, and the form of day care. Measures to reduce URTI could involve prospective intervention studies on the form of day care.
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I would take the job. So what if you have to do more housework. She'll appreciate it and your relationship will probably only be better because of that.

Also, think of the extra money you'll be able to save/invest in the future because of the extra money coming in. You'll be able to have more money when you retire and maybe even be less of a strain to your kids if it comes down to that...
 
Originally posted by: WingZero94
My thought is NOT to take the job. Let me explain:

If the job she is taking will just pay for daycare/etc for the kids, then there is no monetary gain from this. Why have kids if you are not going to raise them? Kids that are in daycare average 40 colds per year. If each cold lasts one week, then 40 out of 52 weeks your kids are sick. This is compared to 10 weeks for kids that stay home. Now, I realize that they are going to school, however the summer should be time that you really get to know them. If your wife can be there for your kids, before, during and after school it will be worth far more then any job would. Waiting until they are at least past 5th grade will help your family greatly. After all, what is important to you... family or money/career? I'm assuming it is family. My wife could work and we'd have a lot of extra money, however she chose to stay home and raise our daughter. We feel that we can benefit in the long run by having better family life, our own values instilled in our children and better relationships. Plus it can make you all healthier because she can cook you good meals/lunches! After the kids are of a certain age and can be self sufficient, then she could get a job. Yes it may be a while, but having kids demands certain sacrifices. I guarantee for your sacrifices there will be rewards though. My .02 cents.

Paul
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agree with him.

good post WingZero94
 
Originally posted by: Wingznut
Originally posted by: WingZero94
Originally posted by: Qosis
Originally posted by: misle
Originally posted by: WingZero94
My thought is NOT to take the job. Let me explain:

If the job she is taking will just pay for daycare/etc for the kids, then there is no monetary gain from this. Why have kids if you are not going to raise them? Kids that are in daycare average 40 colds per year. If each cold lasts one week, then 40 out of 52 weeks your kids are sick. This is compared to 10 weeks for kids that stay home. Now, I realize that they are going to school, however the summer should be time that you really get to know them. If your wife can be there for your kids, before, during and after school it will be worth far more then any job would. Waiting until they are at least past 5th grade will help your family greatly. After all, what is important to you... family or money/career? I'm assuming it is family. My wife could work and we'd have a lot of extra money, however she chose to stay home and raise our daughter. We feel that we can benefit in the long run by having better family life, our own values instilled in our children and better relationships. Plus it can make you all healthier because she can cook you good meals/lunches! After the kids are of a certain age and can be self sufficient, then she could get a job. Yes it may be a while, but having kids demands certain sacrifices. I guarantee for your sacrifices there will be rewards though. My .02 cents.

Paul
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While I didn't agree with you on Jon Stewart (😉), I do agree with you here.
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Amen!
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Heh, thx!
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Absolutely! Why in the world would anyone think that some minimum wage daycare worker can take care of their child as good as their mom and dad???

Your wife's "career" will still be there in a few years. Your kids' first accomplishments will not. Oh well, they can show the daycare worker their first lost tooth, or their first reading experiences, etc... I'm sure that will mean exactly the same thing to them.

When they have a hard day at school, they can turn to the daycare worker.

How about when they start organized activities... Sports, after school events, etc?


As a parent of two boys, I can't vote strongly enough AGAINST daycare. Especially if it's voluntary, as in this case.
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Agreed.

Another interesting perspective:

I was watching a show on a tribe in Africa that performed body modification (mostly scarification) on all members as a rite of passage. Now they did this when the children were just babies. It was obviously painful and sucked to hear the babies crying. The mothers would never leave their side though. When the journalist asked the mother how she could do this to her child she ask him how us (westerners) could take our children to daycare.
 
As a divorced mother, I think you are all nuts trying to argue that she stay out of the work force. If she were perfectly happy at home then sure, she should; but it's obvious that she's not happy.

For practical purposes she should get a job right away. You idiots! She may not be making a "profit" but she is contributing to her/your/your kids' social security-disability; she is gaining valuable workplace experience [the very difficult job of staying home and caring for a family is (sadly) a detriment to working in the "real" world]; she is making contacts in the business world; she is laying the foundation for a much better job/career later, when it becomes VERY HARD to begin a serious career.

Older women have a difficult time getting hired for anything but the lowest-tier jobs, without recent experience. Is this what you want to do to her?

And heaven forbid you should meet a younger, sexier cutie & fall in love, and dump your current wife - yeah, it'll never happen (that's what my ex said too). You may not care about her, but it's better for the kids if she's not struggling from scratch. You do care about the kids, don't you?

This particular job may not work out, but it'll give her a good idea of what she IS looking for in a job.
 
Originally posted by: Aharami
all i can say is my friend works paralegal. she works LOOOONG hours (comes home after dinner at the office)
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hahaha Hi Rak! And I am said friend. Yeah, a paralegal's life is extremely tough, and I can have work that keeps me going straight through until the small hours of the morning. Having said that, I work in your typical large, high-powered NY law firm and so it's a 24 hour society here. Chances are very high that this guy values his time as much as most normal people do in terms of wanting to have a life, and that your wife will find an interesting job there.

EDIT: And i've got to add, i find my job pretty interesting for the most part. She'll probably have even more interesting things to do since it's only a one man firm.
 
ya, it's a good idea to work your butt off to pay someone else to raise your kids

are you nuts? It's only one more year, then she can do whatever she wants. 😕
 
Originally posted by: Stark
ya, it's a good idea to work your butt off to pay someone else to raise your kids

are you nuts? It's only one more year, then she can do whatever she wants. 😕
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not really. it's not that simple in the real world. good job opportunities don't come around that frequently. this is a good job opportunity. i know the lawyer pretty well and he's a good guy and he does good work.

the ideal thing of course would be to have her mother or my mother come out here and help us with the kids. there is a strong possibility that her mother might be available. that might be an angle worth considering.
 
I had 3 kids and your wife has no clue as to how freaking hard it's going to be to manage a preschooler, a kindergardener and a second grader just in terms of their widely different school schedules.All you need is one school bus to not show up and you or she is screwed, add in school holidays, half day sessions for the kindergardner not to mention the inevitable illlnesses the kids will have and she'll be living a nitemare.


You might suggest she consider some sort of 3rd shift job, she can nap in the morning for a couple hours after she gets the kids off to school,still handle all the cooking and cleaning as she does now.Your routine and that of the kids won't change a bit and she'll finally be pulling a bit of her own weight in terms of bringing home some money.
 
Originally posted by: Geekbabe
I had 3 kids and your wife has no clue as to how freaking hard it's going to be to manage a preschooler, a kindergardener and a second grader just in terms of their widely different school schedules.All you need is one school bus to not show up and you or she is screwed, add in school holidays, half day sessions for the kindergardner not to mention the inevitable illlnesses the kids will have and she'll be living a nitemare.


You might suggest she consider some sort of 3rd shift job, she can nap in the morning for a couple hours after she gets the kids off to school,still handle all the cooking and cleaning as she does now.Your routine and that of the kids won't change a bit and she'll finally be pulling a bit of her own weight in terms of bringing home some money.
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🙂

that's why her first thought is to go back to nursing school because nurses have a lot of options as far as shifts etc.

i'd be happy if she never worked.

but i'm not going to stop her from pursuing it.

 
Originally posted by: badmouse
As a divorced mother, I think you are all nuts trying to argue that she stay out of the work force. If she were perfectly happy at home then sure, she should; but it's obvious that she's not happy.

For practical purposes she should get a job right away. You idiots! She may not be making a "profit" but she is contributing to her/your/your kids' social security-disability; she is gaining valuable workplace experience [the very difficult job of staying home and caring for a family is (sadly) a detriment to working in the "real" world]; she is making contacts in the business world; she is laying the foundation for a much better job/career later, when it becomes VERY HARD to begin a serious career.

Older women have a difficult time getting hired for anything but the lowest-tier jobs, without recent experience. Is this what you want to do to her?

And heaven forbid you should meet a younger, sexier cutie & fall in love, and dump your current wife - yeah, it'll never happen (that's what my ex said too). You may not care about her, but it's better for the kids if she's not struggling from scratch. You do care about the kids, don't you?

This particular job may not work out, but it'll give her a good idea of what she IS looking for in a job.
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amen

it's clear that she wants a job and this one seems like a good opportunity

 
Originally posted by: badmouse
As a divorced mother, I think you are all nuts trying to argue that she stay out of the work force. If she were perfectly happy at home then sure, she should; but it's obvious that she's not happy.
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And here is the problem with many "parents" these days...

It's not all about her... Once you become a parent, you being "perfectly happy" is no longer a priority. RAISING the children is. Not dumping them off with a minimum wage worker and diluting your time available for them.

And you inferring that being a full time mother (or father) is not part of the "real world" is a complete insult to those who do the responsible thing and actually parent their child.

 
I would lean strongly towards it too, until I tip right into it. I know that in some cases stay-at-home moms have supposedly great, fulfilling lives, but in many cases they don't. I've read some bits here and there on the psychological effects that it has on a lot of women, and a lot of them aren't happy once the kids go to school, because they end up being stuck in the house all day basically doing jack (or pottery lessons). If you can find a good sitter for them or something, then pretty well everybody wins. Ultimately the children will be in school all day anyway, so your wife might as well make herself useful!
 
In regards to colds/year, yes kids in daycare do get sick more. Although one might think that it could help their immunity, the fact is that it doesn't. There was actually an article from CNN about it recently. We're personally not going to use one. You've got a spectrum of daycares, depending on how much money you want to part with. The worst pair 6 kids with 1 caregiver. The better, and best offer as little as a 4:1 ratio. It can help their social development, but they can be sick more. Also, depending on the age, they may not get enough attention. I know from ours that sometimes she doesn't need any, and other times she needs the devotion of a full person. If you've got three-four crying kids for one caregiver it's really a miracle not more caregivers go on rampages at work.

Anyway, the optimal way to do it is to find a sitter willing to come in, or find a stay at home mom who can take your kids. The more you have the more difficult that would be, obviously.

Badmouse has a good point from a security perspective. What if Plat loses his job? He could take care of the children for a while, while his wife goes to work. It would help with the bills. Other advantages, down the road, would be more money for things like karate lessons, dance lessons, paying for trips, college education, etc.

Platinum, if nursing school is an option it's by far the best one. It would almost certainly help her career in the shorter team, to a great degree. Also, nursing affords some massive benefits in terms of time. Mrsskoorb, for instance, is going back to work full time after Christmas, and given the hours she'll take we will only be putting Skoorbaby with somebody twice/week (we were lucky enough to find a neighbour a few doors down who we'll be paying a good bit of money to and who has two wonderful kids already).

---

FWIW my mother went to work full time. The one thing they always taught us was humility, and because of that I'm just about as awesome as a guy can get 😀
 
Let her find a job in a year or two.

Let your youngest spend the last year with her, that's more important than all that change.
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
In regards to colds/year, yes kids in daycare do get sick more. Although one might think that it could help their immunity, the fact is that it doesn't. There was actually an article from CNN about it recently. We're personally not going to use one. You've got a spectrum of daycares, depending on how much money you want to part with. The worst pair 6 kids with 1 caregiver. The better, and best offer as little as a 4:1 ratio. It can help their social development, but they can be sick more. Also, depending on the age, they may not get enough attention. I know from ours that sometimes she doesn't need any, and other times she needs the devotion of a full person. If you've got three-four crying kids for one caregiver it's really a miracle not more caregivers go on rampages at work.

Anyway, the optimal way to do it is to find a sitter willing to come in, or find a stay at home mom who can take your kids. The more you have the more difficult that would be, obviously.

Badmouse has a good point from a security perspective. What if Plat loses his job? He could take care of the children for a while, while his wife goes to work. It would help with the bills. Other advantages, down the road, would be more money for things like karate lessons, dance lessons, paying for trips, college education, etc.

Platinum, if nursing school is an option it's by far the best one. It would almost certainly help her career in the shorter team, to a great degree. Also, nursing affords some massive benefits in terms of time. Mrsskoorb, for instance, is going back to work full time after Christmas, and given the hours she'll take we will only be putting Skoorbaby with somebody twice/week (we were lucky enough to find a neighbour a few doors down who we'll be paying a good bit of money to and who has two wonderful kids already).

---

FWIW my mother went to work full time. The one thing they always taught us was humility, and because of that I'm just about as awesome as a guy can get 😀
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it's only for one child. the older two are in school from 8 to 3 and then they'll be in after school programs from 3 to 6. i'm not concerned about them.

the youngest is really our primary concern. he went to preschool last year 9 to 12 and we were going to send him this year but then decided he would be better off with her all day. so far that has worked out well.

i think we can work something out where she starts part time until he starts kindergarten next fall.

 
Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
our youngest will start kindergarten next fall. the two older ones are in 2grade and kindergarten this year.

it's a good opportunity, she will start as a paralegal in a single lawyer firm and he wants her manage the office within a couple of years (currently he is managing the office himself but his volume of work is getting overwhelming).

to be honest, it's not about the money she would make, for the first couple of years, she would just break even, daycare for youngest and after school program for two older ones would = her take home pay.

the main reason we are considering it is: she wants to have something to do once our youngest goes to school.

we are leaning strongly towards it now (it would mean i would have to contribute a lot more housework).


any thoughts?
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why not a part-time job when ALL the kids are in school? that way she's home when they get home?
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
In regards to colds/year, yes kids in daycare do get sick more. Although one might think that it could help their immunity, the fact is that it doesn't. There was actually an article from CNN about it recently. We're personally not going to use one. You've got a spectrum of daycares, depending on how much money you want to part with. The worst pair 6 kids with 1 caregiver. The better, and best offer as little as a 4:1 ratio. It can help their social development, but they can be sick more. Also, depending on the age, they may not get enough attention. I know from ours that sometimes she doesn't need any, and other times she needs the devotion of a full person. If you've got three-four crying kids for one caregiver it's really a miracle not more caregivers go on rampages at work.
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I really doubt that "40 colds/year" is accurate. That's almost one per week. But yes, it is painfully obvious to any parent that kids get sick significantly more often in daycare. And no... You cannot build up immunity to a cold.

As for the ratio... Does it even matter if it were 1:1 daycare worker:child? How can anyone possibly fathom that a paid daycare provider can be a better mother than the child's actual mother??? (I'm presuming that Mrs. PlatinumGold is not a lunatic.)
it's only for one child. the older two are in school from 8 to 3 and then they'll be in after school programs from 3 to 6. i'm not concerned about them.
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What kind of after school program is every day for a 1st and 3rd grader?
 
Originally posted by: Wingznut
Originally posted by: Skoorb
In regards to colds/year, yes kids in daycare do get sick more. Although one might think that it could help their immunity, the fact is that it doesn't. There was actually an article from CNN about it recently. We're personally not going to use one. You've got a spectrum of daycares, depending on how much money you want to part with. The worst pair 6 kids with 1 caregiver. The better, and best offer as little as a 4:1 ratio. It can help their social development, but they can be sick more. Also, depending on the age, they may not get enough attention. I know from ours that sometimes she doesn't need any, and other times she needs the devotion of a full person. If you've got three-four crying kids for one caregiver it's really a miracle not more caregivers go on rampages at work.
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I really doubt that "40 colds/year" is accurate. That's almost one per week. But yes, it is painfully obvious to any parent that kids get sick significantly more often in daycare. And no... You cannot build up immunity to a cold.

As for the ratio... Does it even matter if it were 1:1 daycare worker:child? How can anyone possibly fathom that a paid daycare provider can be a better mother than the child's actual mother??? (I'm presuming that Mrs. PlatinumGold is not a lunatic.)
it's only for one child. the older two are in school from 8 to 3 and then they'll be in after school programs from 3 to 6. i'm not concerned about them.
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What kind of after school program is every day for a 1st and 3rd grader?
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the after school program is at the Y.

they pick them up from the school, take them to the Y, the kids are first required to do their homework, and then they get to play with friends.

my sons best friend went to that program for about 1 yr. my two older children will be attending it next week and the week after as my wife has to go to korea for 2 weeks. (my mother in law is having surgery).
 
Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
the after school program is at the Y.

they pick them up from the school, take them to the Y, the kids are first required to do their homework, and then they get to play with friends.

my sons best friend went to that program for about 1 yr. my two older children will be attending it next week and the week after as my wife has to go to korea for 2 weeks. (my mother in law is having surgery).
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That's cool... But every single day?!? Who helps them with their homework? Who talks to them about their day? Who helps them through the rough days?

And then how much time would you guys see them in between the Y and bedtime... Two hours, tops? Basically, out of the ~13 hours of the day they are awake, they'd be with their parents a whopping 2. How can this possibly be a good for the children?

 
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