Jump to content

Menu

maize

Members
  • Posts

    24,689
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    51

Everything posted by maize

  1. I feel like a newcomer! I think I first became aware of the boards around 2006; my oldest was 3 and I had begun seriously researching homeschool options. I didn't start reading regularly though until about 2010/2011.
  2. Posting again to say that it's totally fine to pay someone to do it if you dislike the job. I bet you pay people to do lots of things you could theoretically do yourself; if you ever eat out or even buy a loaf of bread at the store, you are paying someone to cook for you. Do you pay someone to change your oil? Did you buy a house that someone else built rather than building it yourself? Pay for entertainment rather than always producing all your own entertainment? I think sometimes we get stuck thinking *certain tasks* are things we just ought to do ourselves, but of we hate the task and can afford to pay someone else to do it, maybe we should rethink.
  3. I've always done ours; most years they are not very complicated. Haven't tackled it yet this year.
  4. I think it is unreasonable to expect young people to actually understand the implications of their decisions decades down the road; when you are young and your experience of life is limited, there's no way around those two realities. You can listen to the experience and wisdom of those farther along the path of life, but you don't actually have that experience. And that's not entirely a bad thing. We are all going to face serious challenges in life. Would we dare step forward at all if we really, truly knew what trials we would face on the road we step onto? I've thought about this often with regards to my own life. Would I have chosen to marry my husband had I known and understood all the anguish that his mental illness would bring into my life? Probably not. And yet I have never regretted marrying him and bringing a family into the world together. I suspect that some of the greatest shocks come when we think we do know what we are getting ourselves into. When we have tried to control for all the potential pitfalls. There is so much that is outside our control and life is guaranteed to throw us some major curveballs along the way; I have never met anyone who sailed through life without pain and struggles and griefs.
  5. Ah, bringing up the next generation of tradwives properly I see... 😁 I remember once we had a contractor at the house doing some work and he had forgotten a type of saw he needed for something. He asked me "does your husband have a [ ] saw" and I told him my husband doesn't use woodworking tools but I might have one. It annoyed me enough that I remember the interaction years later. I'm not much of a handyman but I'm the only one in this household who does any handyman stuff; I don't care if you ascribe ownership of the tools to me or the household at large, but don't ascribe ownership exclusively to someone who never uses them at all.
  6. This seems to me like a big step in the right direction. Hard to push through in the US political climate.
  7. I'm 100% with you on this. The needs of my kids are not easily addressed by the public school system, and that absolutely limits what options I have careerwise. I currently work 15-25 hours per week with most of those hours being flexible and from home; it's a rare job that allows that much flexibility, and I'm not currently in a position of needing to be a primary breadwinner. I am in the process of positioning myself to take over as primary breadwinner if (really when) my dh's kidney disease or other disabilities force him into disability retirement. Depending on when that happens and whether he is able to take over any of my current parenting load at that point, things could be very complicated. Not that they aren't already.
  8. Social Security credit for caregiving work is one of the things I would most like to see as a start to acknowledging the real value of that work.
  9. I feel like #tradwife is a different thing entirely from being a traditional full-time parent/homemaker. It seems to be *performative* in nature. I agree with you 100% that there is immense value to a family in having a parent who dedicates themselves primarily to the work of the home and family; it is not work to be looked down on. I would love to see the value of caregiving work taken up as a serious focus within feminist movements. Whether full-time or in tandem with other labor, caregiving is a huge portion of many women's lives and it hasn't been given the attention, consideration, or respect it deserves. I don't think it is actually possible to put women on an equal footing in society until we elevate caregiving on equal footing with the competitive kinds of work we currently value most highly. The book Unifinished Business did a pretty good job of explaining why caregiving needs to be taken more seriously, by everyone and especially by feminists. https://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Business-Women-Work-Family/dp/0812984978#
  10. I know nothing about sadbeigechildren, but if you want to know about the children who were having a snowball fight last week in T-shirts, shorts, and bare feet...they seem to live at the same address as me. I claim no relationship or responsibility.
  11. To my mind the question isn't so much why do trad wife influencers make videos and such--we know why they do, it's a way to make money and probably also fill a need for attention. I want to know why anyone follows them? Also why anyone follows any influencer? Why do humans do humanness?
  12. I did learn something interesting from my aunt recently. She said that grandma (her mom) got a lot off pushback from women in her small farming community over working professionally. It wasn't that other women didn't work; they worked at the gas station, the diner, the supermarket...but grandma going to college and working as a nurse was viewed negatively. That surprised me because nursing has a long history of being viewed as a feminine profession. I think the community had a negative view of higher education in general though. My grandparents were very pro-education and made sure that all of their kids got college degrees, but my dad never really fit in back in his hometown after getting a degree.
  13. The 1950s homemaker model was never a reality for any significant percentage of women. My parents were both born in 1950. Both of their mothers worked for significant portions of their childhoods. My maternal grandmother worked as a secretary; my mom was the oldest child and was cared for during the day by one grandmother; her younger sister was cared for by the other grandmother, who lived too far away to drop off and pick up ever day so she just lived at Grandma's house during the workweek and spent weekends with her parents. My dad grew up on a farm, so his mother was busy with everything involved in running both a farm and a household; when all her kids were school-age she went to college to become a nurse and spent the decades until retirement age working professionally.
  14. I do really want to see women who have dedicated large portions of their life to family and home represented in legislative assemblies and elsewhere. I don't personally feel well-represented by women who have been primarily focused on career throughout their lives. Nurturing and caregiving are huge parts of many women's lives and I want to see those recognized as the competent, skill-filled, impactful work that they are! Not a fan of the term housewife though and no clue what Tommy Tuberville intended by that remark.
  15. Really? This has been my life every day!!! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 How I miss our old willy-nilly emoji...
  16. I haven't been able to figure out how big a phenomenon/movement trad wife is. There's no-one I interact with who identifies as a trad wife. I get the impression that it extends beyond religious sub-cultures?
  17. The poster's meaning isn't super clear but I interpret it along the lines of part of her kid is looking for a family (which can make allowances for imperfections in self and others) and part is looking for that perfect match that supposedly will bring happiness because they are perfect. And eventually he will learn that happiness can go along with imperfection. It just reads to me as sort of rambly philosophical musing while feeling sympathetic to her kid going through his first break-up. I really doubt anyone at all is reading it and judging your kid because of it.
  18. She said nothing at all about your kid. She said this about her own kid: "Right now there are two parts to my teen -- one part is looking for his next family -- a happy home -- the other doesn't want to relinquish the illusion of perfection. In time I think they will get in synch." Suggesting part of him doesnt want to relinquish illusions of perfection. I see no offense towards you or your child.
  19. Oh, the therapist I'm currently working with for trauma isn't in Provo but does do online therapy. I've only met with her once but like her so far: https://www.speranzamentalhealth.com/ My family has also had a very positive experience with Serenity Mental Health, and it looks like they have a location in Provo: https://serenitymentalhealthcenters.com/utah/provo/
  20. I know people in the Provo area who have experience with therapists, I'll ask.
  21. Short women also are more likely to have soft/chirpy voices. It's of course not universal, but smaller vocal tract does naturally tend to correspond to softer and higher pitched sounds. My Grandma was 5'1" and, not surprisingly, had a softer and higher pitched voice than her daughter who took after Grandpa at 6'. People's voices also do weird things when they are nervous. None of which of course means that people can't and don't alter their voice and speech patterns intentionally, or in ways induced by trauma. I still find analyzing and critiquing people's speech patterns distasteful unless the person is enrolled in a class on acting or speaking or something.
  22. @prairiewindmomma my experience is that when we look for things to criticize, we find things to criticize. Which...can be fine. I'm not interested in trying to persuade you to my point of view; I respect you and your experiences and perspective. I happen to find a lot of good in my religion and am OK with also being aware of shortfalls. My Pathways cohort was a huge benefit to me. The service missionaries who were our mentors are people I will value and respect for the rest of my life. It was a source of support and encouragement at a point where I very much needed support and encouragement. As other church organizations and programs and members and leaders have been at various points in my life. So, no, I'm not personally interested in picking apart imperfections in the program. Programs, organizations, and people don't need to be perfect to do good. I do understand there are people who have found more negatives than positives in their personal experience with church. I accept those stories and experiences. But I live my story and my experience, and I personally find primarily hope and help and support and comfort and encouragement in my faith and my faith community.
  23. I don't discount these extreme cases. But my own religion was brought up early in the discussion, and there is nothing like this happening in the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have no illusions that the church as an organization or the leadership and membership of the church as individuals are perfect, and in fact see lots of room for improvement--including increased leadership roles for women. I have seen some positive changes in my life and hope to see more. And I understand and respect that some people have had experiences that have hurt them; there are people close to me who have chosen to distance themselves from the church for reasons that I understand as completely legitimate. But lumping the experience of most women among the Latter-day Saints with Gotthard-style fundamentalism is a far stretch. I met with a woman just his past week, in my work role as placement coordinator for a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women break into tech careers. She is an immigrant who, due to poverty and health issues as a child, was not able to attend school past fourth grade. She was able to earn a GED a couple of years ago and is now enrolled in an educational programs, the BYU-Pathway, sponsored by the LDS church that offers certificates and college diplomas through flexible, supported, online programs at very low cost with the goal of helping women and men gain in-demand employable skills. She is receiving encouragement and support to gain an education and find high-level employment. I went through the introductory Pathways program myself last year, and my small-group cohort was 9 women and 1 man. I'm now in the follow-on degree program working on a degree in IT and cybersecurity. This is not the kind of program that a Gotthard-style keep-the-women-submissive-and-dependent church undertakes. This is one of my personal favorite General Conference talks. What I see and hear is a woman speaking clearly and honestly, to an audience of millions of men, women, and children around the world, about a topic that is meaningful and personal to her. If people want to analyze and critique her voice or deliverance, so be it--they can choose to do so. But I see no value in such a critique.
  24. My daughter is in Dortmund, Germany and the grass is emerald green in all her recent photos. Lots of other signs of spring too, including daffodils and ducklings and trees budding out.
×
×
  • Create New...