Did you guys read the latest post at Sweet Juniper? Here, please do…
Reason Skazillion why I gave up on getting the MBA (which I really, really, really wanted to do for the intellectual aspect).
I just don’t have the stamina anymore. California Bar 2006 exhausted the last of it.
I’m afraid I’ll go back to smoking, stop working out, go back to drinking (drinking isn’t bad, don’t feel I’m judging the tipple, but there is a difference between enjoying a drink once and again and what goes on in the name of escaping graduate school drudgery), gain weight. Leave business school with my health and personal life shot, the way I did law school, and have to pick up the pieces. Impossible when you work a zillion hours a week. I’m so tired of being on a treadmill and feeling like I’m going to die. Right now I’m on the scenic route and do you know that for all the misery I’ve suffered the last three years of my life were 1 kazillion times better than the miserable hell of school and job worries?
Sometimes I wonder what the solution is. I’m happy where I am, comfortable mediocrity as a federal attorney. Is the salary stupendous? No. But I can take care of myself. I could give (1) a kid a nice life all by my lonesome. Those are things to be proud of, I think.
I know no one wants to pay more taxes, that universal healthcare and a bucket of maternity leave would be too expensive (though I still don’t understand how unpaid job protection status for women for up to a year would destroy the fabric of our corporate welfare state…I honestly don’t). But I wonder what people expect of us these days. Stay at home, be the best mom or dad you can be. Is it really that easy? I know everyone says children need love, not stuff. I agree with that. But…don’t children need a good education? Who pays for that? Private schools can be impossibly expensive, and besides, I’m a pretty big proponent of public education (K-JD public myself you guys!). So you try to move to a nice town with a decent public school system (only to find out that it costs well over a half a million in most parts of the country).
How much do those numbers actually costs, in terms of your daily budget? Who pays the mortgage on that? One salary? How does it work? How are two teachers supposed to make a go of it some place like Cupertino, CA or Wellesley, MA? Or for that matter, even one upper income professional and a SAHM whose hard work/education saves the family a whole bunch of money on childcare/other necessary work (family finances, taxes etc.)? How many people are going to take a gamble on going into something like teaching, journalism, academia in this climate…professions that require extensive education but are lower on the scale in terms of remuneration.
A whole bunch of Ivy League schools just eliminated tuition for kids whose families are WAY above the poverty line. Doesn’t that just weird you guys out?
So this is just a disjointed post but Dutch’s post about what life is like as a corporate lawyer is both sad and accurate and brought up all these feelings for me. It seems like we’re working so hard these days, to get ahead by one inch, like someone is turning the treadmill speed very high without noticing the exhaustion on the face of the runner. There are so many people out there doling advice to people like “suck it up, kids need their parents, get off the treadmill”* while ignoring the fact that it’s one big vicious circle. You live in an area that costs an arm and a leg because that’s where the jobs are, but you have to work like crazy to afford being there. You want your children to go to great schools, but the cost of living is so high, you have to work endlessly to give them that. Everyone tells you education is the way to get ahead so you take the risk and go to get more and more education until you find yourself unable to balance your family life with the debt load that led to the salary increase in the first place.
I don’t know what the answers are, nor do I think some sort of socialist paradise welfare state is the answer. All I’m saying is that whether you’re a two-income or one-income family, HOW THE FROCK DO YOU GUYS NOT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE DROWNING ALIVE? Is it just something you deal with and move on? Man, your kids must be REALLY adorable and loveable to make up for this sensation of dumbstruck indignation when I think about trying to make it in this country. I have neither the Sperminator nor my Progeny in place, and I already look at the numbers and feel…I don’t know, in awe of how you make it work, I guess.
I guess being relatively responsibility-free, it’s difficult for me to fathom the choices families face on a daily basis. Whatever your (as in you, my parentish readers) personal choices, I just hope your kids get to grow up with the opportunities I had without it being as impossible/difficult to attain as it seems.
ETA: before I hurt ANYONE’s feelings… I want to say,
a) This is not a statement against working families
b) Not a rant against SAHM moms
It’s basically a post about how I feel that families, whatever their choices about two income/one income, just seem STRESSED to the gills these days, and the fact that I think it kind of sucks.
*Coming from a background where my parents prioritised us over work, I do agree with this, as I think it has a LOT to do with my and my sister’s relationship with them, as well as the fact that I stayed out of trouble. That said, I think it’s getting harder and harder to pull off.
March 6, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I’m a SAHM to one toddler. My husband has a six figure income. We can’t afford a single family home in our area. In fact, we can barely afford a townhouse. I was a teacher before being a mom and have no clue how a teacher or two teachers could possibly survive in this area. It’s insanity.
March 6, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I live in Canada, and work for the govt where you are entitled to one year parental leave (you can split between a couple) which entitles you to like 60% of your income up to a max of $2000/month. That is paid out of EI and everyone can get that. Because I work for the government, they would top my salary up to 92% of my income for the year that I am off, plus I would get my old job back when I return. Canada is paradise. Except it is cold.
March 7, 2008 at 12:29 am
What you are talking about is a huge reason we have stayed in Central IL. Even though we’re up to our eyeballs in my student loans, the lifestyle we can afford here is so much better than Chicagoland or St. Louisland. I have to say, now that I’m working too it is unreal how fast we are paying LS debt down.
March 7, 2008 at 3:25 am
Yup, it’s why we live in Pittsburgh. House prices never went crazy (and they also haven’t fallen). At the time we moved here, salaries were virtually identical between here and Boston. But here? We could buy a house in a real live neighborhood in the city and put our kids in the public schools.
Now, the public schools are a bit different now than they were when we started a kid 11 years ago (due primarily to NCLB and the changes are about 2% for the good and 98% for the worse, sadly). Less creative, less joyful, more drudgery. But neither here nor there — it’s definitely possible to make a path through the schools here that lead you to a respectable college/university.
March 7, 2008 at 11:22 am
Solution: move to Mozambique (or any other developing country for that matter).
You get paid well, have access to wonderful schools, and honestly work to live for the most part, and not vice-versa.
Downsides are there, obviously, but in my opinion it’s a great way to go…
March 7, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I wonder how parents manage all the hurdles, too. Husband and I have been having lots of talks about these things. Currently, I work in a contract job, good pay but no benefits. If I take another job for benefits I will make earn much less. He’s a student and will be for another three years. We’ve decided to just go for it and figure it out somehow.
Of the big three things we feel are needed to have a kid 1) adequite income, 2) health insurance, and 3) sufficient maternity leave, we are only able to achieve two. I won’t have access to paid leave wich saddens me, but the alternative is waiting another 3 to 4 years, and we are getting a bit long in the tooth to do that. I know there are people who would say this is selfish, and I suppose it is in a way, but my mother always worked and we have a great relationship. I know it’s possible for working parents to create good bonds with their kids.
March 7, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I do feel pretty lucky for our situation. Much of it was financially planned since we always knew we wanted me to stay home full-time. Therefore, we bought WAY less house than we could afford, never committed to having more than one car payment, and paid off debt while we were still kid-free.
Living in the Kansas City area sure as fuck went a long, long way in helping us with this goal. I hate the thought that we may have to move from here. It literally makes me sick to my stomach giving up this nice lifestyle for a stupidly, ridiculously more expensive one on either of the coasts.
Although being a SAHM has its own particular downsides (some monotony, some boredom), I would still have it no other way.
March 7, 2008 at 6:46 pm
It’s daunting these days.
I’m glad my older kid will be making euros for the next couple years.
We all must weigh the pros and cons and make the choices.
I *really* love where I live, but we have certainly paid a price.
March 7, 2008 at 7:33 pm
One family income nowadays doesn’t go much in Canada due to taxes. I am reading Ish’s post and thinking the same.
March 8, 2008 at 4:33 am
Even with both of us working full time, our net income (you know, after insurance, taxes, 401K, etc) is less than 50K/year. Which is shitload of coin when you consider that 5 years ago it was less than half that (I was home with the kids).
But. Now.
Two kids, one in high school and the other one younger than that. Small house. Artfully chosen thrift store duds. No trips to Target. Systems in place. It’s been like this forever. Every time I think we might be getting ahead, something happens, like having to come up with over $1000 for summer day camp, or the car blowing a tire, or one of the animals needing emergency vet services… you get the idea.
March 8, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I’m a freelance writer and my husband is a full-time doctoral candidate. We have a three-year-old and one on the way. We knew it would be hard, and we are blessed beyond articulation that our families, who worked very hard to escape poverty, are very successful and help us a lot financially. But once we’re done with school, we’ll be left to survive on an academic’s salary.
I know we can do it, but you’re right, it isn’t easy.
But it is still worth it to me to be home. I gave up my $70+K gig to raise my kid and never looked back once.