Secular Confessions

[Gwenn]

Nightly homework in kindergarten seems like a lot, even if it is only 20 minutes. Wow. I'm glad they both had a good day and that the social powers that be are a little more in favor of DS since you were concerned about how it would go. How amazing! I remember seeing pics of them as babies when I first joined APA, and now they are in kindergarten! Not quite the same as parenting for 5 years, but wow, time flies.

My niece is applying to colleges this year, speaking of time flying. Her mom posted a pic of her last night that was taken 11 years ago, when she was 6. So amazing to see such a change from a sweet little one in a fish-print bathing suit to a glamorous young lady applying to MIT. Where did that time go?

[AmeriBrit]

Omg, put me in the wus crowd when it comes to scary movies. I used to watch them all the time as a kid, but I can't handle them now. I noticed after watching The Grudge, The Ring and a few other ones that I'd wake up from horrible nightmares gasping to breathe, so I've banned myself from watching anything scary. Also, I must have watched too many gory things as a kid because I can't handle wearing jewelry on my wrists (i hate that feeling of something touching my veins near my wrists) and when I'm sitting down, my feet always stay on my tippy toes (because I don't like the feeling of having the back of my feet exposed for someone to grab!) So. Yeah. Scary movies aren't my thing.

Bridget, that's really frustrating about the school class size. At Travis' school, there are about 30 kids in his class under one teacher, but they are broken up through the day in to key worker groups of about 10 kids. I like how that works. I also like his school because they spend so much time outside rain or shine.

We're going in about 3 hours to introduce Cash to his new daycare. It's where Travis used to go, so we know everyone, but I'll let you know how Cash reacts to it all. We're just going today to fill out paperwork for about half an hour.

[AmeriBrit]

Omg, put me in the wus crowd when it comes to scary movies. I used to watch them all the time as a kid, but I can't handle them now. I noticed after watching The Grudge, The Ring and a few other ones that I'd wake up from horrible nightmares gasping to breathe, so I've banned myself from watching anything scary. Also, I must have watched too many gory things as a kid because I can't handle wearing jewelry on my wrists (i hate that feeling of something touching my veins near my wrists) and when I'm sitting down, my feet always stay on my tippy toes (because I don't like the feeling of having the back of my feet exposed for someone to grab!) So. Yeah. Scary movies aren't my thing.

Bridget, that's really frustrating about the school class size. At Travis' school, there are about 30 kids in his class under one teacher, but they are broken up through the day in to key worker groups of about 10 kids. I like how that works. I also like his school because they spend so much time outside rain or shine.

We're going in about 3 hours to introduce Cash to his new daycare. It's where Travis used to go, so we know everyone, but I'll let you know how Cash reacts to it all. We're just going today to fill out paperwork for about half an hour.

[missychrissy]

I hope Cash loves it! I'm glad yours had a great day L :-) 20 minutes of hw in K every night does seem excessive to me. It only gets worse.

[AmeriBrit]

We're back from the daycare. He loved it. I feel better about leaving him there now. We go back on Thurs and Fri to let him have an hour without me in the room and staying for lunch. When we got there today, he ran straight to a table with toys on and joined in with everyone. He did end up pushing a girl who pushed him first, so at least I know he'll be ok sticking up for himself (and it makes me feel better that he's not the only pusher!) I did have to stop him from snatching once as well, but I think he'll learn to stop that kind of behaviour once he gets used to being in a group environment. I'm feeling good about him going to daycare now; I think his language will move along more than it is now and he'll learn sharpen his little social skills.

L, I agree that sounds excessive about the homework. What kind of assignments are they?

[AmeriBrit]

We're back from the daycare. He loved it. I feel better about leaving him there now. We go back on Thurs and Fri to let him have an hour without me in the room and staying for lunch. When we got there today, he ran straight to a table with toys on and joined in with everyone. He did end up pushing a girl who pushed him first, so at least I know he'll be ok sticking up for himself (and it makes me feel better that he's not the only pusher!) I did have to stop him from snatching once as well, but I think he'll learn to stop that kind of behaviour once he gets used to being in a group environment. I'm feeling good about him going to daycare now; I think his language will move along more than it is now and he'll learn sharpen his little social skills.

L, I agree that sounds excessive about the homework. What kind of assignments are they?

[Ky'sMom]

Ugh....kindergarten homework.....

Reminds me of the email homework battle I had with Ky's new teacher last year. This year she has been much better about not giving him too much so it actually has gotten better. At Elle's preschool, they told me she would get homework on Friday and I told them she probably wouldn't do it. I like to be honest. I just don't see the need of 3/4 year olds doing homework. Plus she already does "homework" herself. She has some chunky pencils and some notebooks and while Ky does him homework she will write her name and numbers and draw impressive stick figures and houses. I think it's great she likes to do that so I don't see the point of forcing her to "write her name" and other stuff. She already knows how to write her name. I will admit though that I will be teaching her to read soon. She asked me to teach her a while ago but I felt she was too immature as she wouldn't listen very well. She got sad when I told her that but I assured her we would start up again later. She has matured a bit more and has been pestering me about it since she does know some sight words and pretty much all her letter sounds (except she mixes up "g" and "j" sounds as she will pronounce "g" like a "j"). She likes to "read" at night. Ky says she is the best picture book reader he has ever seen lol! She is really good and even if she has never heard the story, she usually can piece together what is going on or she will make the store much better than it actually is. On my lazy Saturdays when I don't get up early, Ky and Elle hang out together and read to each other, which I think is sweet. Ky has also gotten into making "movies" with his action figures. He made one last Saturday that I think is too cute. It is Pikachu versus The Hulk so there is a lot of "I'm going to kill you" in it, which I don't like but Elle is in the background playing and rambling on kind of softly and he is telling her to get out of the scene and "shhh" and I just thought it was cute and just reminds me of them and wonderful childhood play. Elle also has her blonde afro Barbie in the scene and since Barbie still has some hair hanging from the back of her head, I guess it kind of looks like a mullet so I'm going to go with Mullet Barbie instead of Afro Barbie from now on.

I used to LOVE the Thriller video. It came out when I was 5 or 6 I think. I remember dancing the whole video with my mom and older brother. That is actually one of my favorite memories and we just had a ball doing that. All of us still remember most of the video even though I know we look nothing like the dancers in the video because neither one of us are very good at dancing.

My dad used to make me watch Freddie Cougar movies and Jason movies. They terrified me initially but after some time I got used to them so they stopped making me afraid. I remember watching Nightmare on Elm Street and the part when the girl was in the tub and Freddie getting her. I wouldn't take a bath after that. I told my dad he would have to come in the bathroom while I take a bath. Dad was like "I'll have Adrian (my older brother) come in there with you." And I told him "Adrian can't protect me from Freddie, he's too little and Freddie will kill him" I was going on and on. My dad thinks that was just hilarious. After my bath I wouldn't go to sleep thinking of the guy that got pulled into the bed and blood splattered all over the ceiling. My brother slept in my room with me but I made dad stay in the room too and he felt bad for scaring me. He said he didn't think I would be scared and he didn't have me watch anymore scary movies after that. We watched 2 Nightmare on Elm Street's and one of the Jason movies on that same day. I was never afraid of Jason. If he was following me, I would just run and not fall like the dummies in the movie LOL! I remember thinking that when I was like 6 or 7. Halloween with Michael Myers was scary to me and Freddie because he would kill you in your sleep but Jason was just a bumbling idiot IMO.

I used to love scary movies after that but I don't anymore. It seems to many of them have kids in them and I don't like seeing kids in scary movies, it unnerves me. I now am not as desentized as I used to be. I won't even watch a scary movie anymore. I have never seen any of the Saw movies after the first one, which I thought was stupid and gory and just not entertaining to me. I also was afraid of The Ring, especially since right after I watched it and turned off the DVD, my dad called me on my old school phone and it scared the mess out of me since I thought it was going to say "Seven Days." LOL

Erin

[Bridget]

Put me on the kindergarten homework is BS list. I actually think too much homework for any age is ridiculous. They are in school for 8 hours for goodness sake. Let them be children! Last year it was like pulling teeth to get Savana to do her worksheets but any other time you can find her in her room making books, drawing pictures, writing letters to her Oma, etc. I guess I just feel like the more we do to make them fight it and hate it, the less inspired they will be to learn.

[missychrissy]

Put me on the kindergarten homework is BS list. I actually think too much homework for any age is ridiculous. They are in school for 8 hours for goodness sake. Let them be children! Last year it was like pulling teeth to get Savana to do her worksheets but any other time you can find her in her room making books, drawing pictures, writing letters to her Oma, etc. I guess I just feel like the more we do to make them fight it and hate it, the less inspired they will be to learn.

ita with you Bridget.

[Bridget]

I am just a mess of emotions right now! Everything around here is changing and what is happening is that just days before my kids are about to start school, it's looking more and more like I'll be doing very little daycare and would be able to homeschool just the way I always wanted to. But we've committed to the school, so going to stick it out and give it a fair shot.
I keep crying, and then giving myself pep talks. This whole class size thing is eating away at me. Especially since they leave school so often. The library is off site, they take bike rides, work at local farms, etc. Will it be just one teacher to all those children? Do I need to send the prinicipal yet another email? I already emailed her about the Savana in kindy situation, then again asking if there would be a morning snack and what the drop off pick up routine would be. Am I driving her crazy?

[Ky'sMom]

You are probably not driving her crazy Bridget. I'm sure other parents have questions too, this is a new school so I bet someone really is driving them crazy about something!

Since you won't be doing daycare as often, can you go up to the school and volunteer? We have parents that stay 2-4 hours every day at Ky's school. I wish you lived here and Savana and Kai could go to school where my Ky goes. We had an increase in class sizes this year for K-2 and 4th grade but the highest class size is 8 in kindergarten and 7 in first grade and I bet Savana would just love it. There were budget cuts to charter schools this year as our state is not charter friendly and so we were short $180K needed for our school's budget and had to let in 12 additional students off the wait list.

The school sounds fun though Bridget. Sounds like they get a lot of time outside and not in the classroom, which I'm sure they'll love and I bet they would love a pair of extra hands that you can provide via volunteering but not sure on whether or not your school will let you bring Sawyer. Our school lets younger kids come since we see ourselves as a family, we just have to sign a waiver to protect the school district lol! In traditional schools, you cannot bring non-school aged children or any children who don't go to the school into any classroom or class activity.

Erin

[Cosmosmom]

Mandy don't worry about it. I am glad that you have a place to talk. I definitely know somewhat close to what you are going through. I think that I have seen or heard of that book but I don't think I read it.
My worst was new years eve 2010/2011. My bff just had her baby a few days before and it was a very ugly night for me. It was after that DH agreed to adoption. Before that I was supposed to decide on a house or a baby and I picked house so he had some resentment that I ended up with both for a while. It was a money issue and he wasn't sure we could afford both. And we had a few times where he freaked out after we made the decison (after we got Molly and had some fights about training her....he seems to think that we should always agree 100%...it's more like 95% of the time we agree on technique) and said maybe we shouldn't have a baby. It would be easy if we had just gotten pg and than you just deal but when you have a choice and a lot of time to wait, it's easy to second guess. But we are pretty strong now on direction.....it just took time to get here.
And harder for me than him to give up the biology. I actually worried that we might not get a cute baby (because of course our bio kid would have been cute since we are both cute enough LOL).....his response without hesitation was that the less cute kids need good parents too. I think some of it was just the idea too that I had always assumed that I would carry my own baby for 9 months and have all that bonding time....but men don't have that expectation their whole lives.


I don't like scary movies myself. Though I love me some Dexter! And while I like True Blood true. Real life gore isn't too bad though long as it is in pictures and doesn't involve the eyeball. I can look at any of our medical stuff just fine....but not stuff involving the eyeball. I try to get my boss to do the eye care requests.

Ash I agree with you on balance. DH had the chance to work in the oil industry looking for new oil in Texas....but it would have required him to live remotely in trailers for weeks or even a month or two at a time. It wasn't worth it to us to give up that time together even for a six figure salary. We would rather make less money but have jobs that aren't stressful, he doesn't bring work home and I rarely have to and we get time together.

[Suja]

I'm going to be way in the minority here, but IMO, American kids are completely spoiled with the amount of work they get to do in/for school. I've seen both sides of that coin, and in this world of global competitiveness, our kids are going to get their butts handed to them by Indian and Chinese kids. Our country is even more competitive than it was back when I was in kinder, and we start formal education at 3, and IIRC, kids needed to know how to count from 1-100, 100 - 1, write all their alphabets (on four ruled paper, to develop penmanship), write their numbers from 1-10, etc. I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but I came here with a month to spare in 11th grade, and between that and 12th grade, did basically NO work for high school, while averaging 99+ in my subjects. Everything they were teaching me with the exception of AP math, I had covered in 8th or 9th grade back home. All I did was read for my English classes. It was ridiculously easy, which kind of explains where I see this country headed in the science and technology arenas especially.

[missychrissy]

I'm not clear on why global competition is necessary. My philosophy is you only live once and I agree with Bridget about letting them be kids. Far too many Asians commit suicide over the pressure they feel from their families to succeed. No thank you. I have no desire to pursue $, esteem, or anything along a professional line. As long as my kids seek their own happiness, they can do what they chose. Bobbie is academically minded all on her own. She's capable, so if she chooses she can pursue those goals. I have no worries that they'll end up unemployed. That's BS.

Bridget, I will say that even though our school had a high number of kids per teacher, every time they go somewhere they have parent volunteers with them. The kid-to-adult ratio is much better in those circumstances. It doesn't hurt to ask though!

[Cosmosmom]

Suja, you aren't alone. I agree with you. I don't have your experience but was shocked at how much more work my "sister" did in France. She had to do two languages, both of which started long before I got to take language in school. It's why we converse in English and not French....I was ok in it after five years but she has so many more English years.

Our grade school here is only 7 hours a day, not 8. I had to look that up and noticed that we have a preschool program in my city that looks like a pre-K for 4 yr olds that is half days but taught by dpi licensed instructors. That is cool and something that I would definitely be interested in.

[Suja]

Chrissy, global competition is a reality. Since we do a lot of hiring in the software development realm, I can tell you that most of our younger hires are foreigners. It's a pain in the butt for us and far more expensive to deal with the visa issues and such, but we simply cannot find American kids who are actually qualified and have a decent work ethic. We hand out thousands of high paying tech jobs every year to foreigners for lack of qualified natives.

Yes, Asian countries do put an enormous pressure on kids, but American ones don't seem to have much of any. There has to be some sort of a happy medium there. You set the bar low, your kids will indeed work towards meeting it. IMO, it's better to work hard early, establish oneself, take some of the stress and worries out of life (trying to find jobs, saving for retirement, for kids' college, etc.) early so that you are indeed free to enjoy life. The way it was explained to me was that everyone in the house has a job. Mom's job was to take care of us, the house, make sure our education was uncompromised (she was a SAHM who went to work after we were older). Dad's job was to make money so that we will all have the resources necessary for mom's work to be done. Our job as kids was to work and study hard and secure a good future so we won't be reliant on them in the future, wouldn't give them too much to worry about, and free them up in their old age to have a happy retirement, as well as grow up to be good, contributing members of the society. When it was time to work hard, we worked hard. When it was time to play hard, we played hard. Did we have an amazingly good childhood? For sure. Was hanging out with friends and partying any priority at all? NOPE. Never was, never will be.

[missychrissy]

I'm not entering a debate about it. It's a philosophical lifestyle difference. 1-I don't give one wit about the high paying jobs. Kids that want that are capable of learning it. 2-I was the laziest student ever, even quit in 10th grade and got a GED. I'm still above the median household income, on my salary alone. I didn't have to kill myself (rhetorically speaking) or have anyone hound me to get here either. To insinuate I don't have a strong worth ethic is plain insulting. Not one of my coworkers, even the ones that I annoy, would ever say that about me. Not one that I've had my entire working career.

[Suja]

I didn't mean to imply that your work ethic is not strong, Chrissy (I was talking specifically about young American kids, and that's of course a generalization). We as a company cannot find qualified American kids in our field that are willing to work the kind of hours a software development shop requires. It's not a 9-5 job, and it's not a 5 days a week job either. And no, we don't pay 150K (yes, we were quoted that amount) for someone fresh out of college with no actual software development experience. So, we hand out well paying jobs with excellent benefits to foreigners, although unemployment rate in this country is high, and it is especially high among young people.

ETA: I'm not implying that everyone needs to go to college. Just that they need whatever education is necessary to get jobs that pay living wages. That could be learning a vocation.

[Ky'sMom]

I do agree that our country needs to be competitive globally in business and technology, I just don't think that a ton of homework is going to get us there.

I was the most...I'll say "driven" student around and I was in very accelerated classes from K-12 and got scholarships for school. School was always easy for me even though I was in "gifted" classes pretty much for my whole childhood.

That said, even with the great education I received, I did not have homework like my son has homework. On top of that when I did have homework, it was something relevant and something like a research project for science that involved doing experiments, writing an extensive report, using a particular number of references (so I would know how to write a report and a bibliography), interviewing professionals (so I would develop social and leadership skills), an art project to display what I'd done (so I would get some fun and creativity mixed in), and a presentation to teachers and my fellow "gifted" classmates on what I had done, what I learned, what I thought about what I learned, and so on. Basically we did a lot of critical thinking, analyzing, finding solutions. Not memorizing crap for worksheets, which is basically what homework is now a days.

FWIW, they don't even teach handwriting or cursive writing anymore in most American public schools because it takes away from more pertinent info they are trying to cram into kids' brains. Some concerned parents at Ky's school got cursive writing back into the curriculum, but it is basically just now relegated back to homework. They don't do it in class and our reasoning was that many people write cursive and our 4th graders at the time could not read cursive writing.

I also am one to believe that more rigorous study should be involved in education from grades 5 and up. That in 3rd grade they should begin to start to do more intense study, not kindergarten. But a lot of research has shown that unless a child is severely behind academically, that homework in K-5 is not going to give kids any sort of edge.

I also have very high expectations for my kids in regards to school but I know school by itself is not going to make them successful. The definition of success differs for each person. Even though I was smart and had a very high GPA and got accepted in very good colleges, I decided to go to an HBCU for more of a family environment and my time was spent well there. I also became burned out on school though and did not see it as something that really mattered in the whole scheme of things. Family and time with family are more important to me now, which is why I took such a long break away from academia. I love learning but I don't need to go to school to learn. I try to read about 3 texts a week and I am just nerdy and geeky by nature. Money is also not something that drives me, which I think for our country and many people around the world, including people looking to "make it" in other countries, that is their definition of success. Money. Like Jen mentioned in regards to the 6 figures her DH could have made, it was more important to see him than to have a lot of money. I also don't think happiness comes from money and it is something I try to instill in my kids. Even though I do expect them to get 90% or more on everything at school, I don't expect them to see money as the end all for every aspect of happiness in their lives and I think that more and more this is what is driving our global society instead of focusing on the family and way to improve society just for the sake of improvement, we focus on money and what job we can get so we can buy XYZ for our kids or mom or brother or impress Sally and Billy down the street.

But like I said earlier, the amount of homework one does has no correlation at a young age, how much information they learn. It also depends on what the homework is. Writing is not important in today's day and age, Ky is learning to type, which I see as better than trying to improve his dismal handwriting. Eventually we will be talking to computers and they'll write what we say anyway. Memorizing sight words at 4 might give a kid an edge right now, but by the time both of them are in 3rd grade, that little bit of an edge will fade away anyway even if another kid knew nothing when they entered kindergarten. This is one of the reasons why I don't really want to teach Elle how to read. She wants me to so I will give it a go with her as she loves books and wants to learn it. I like to encourage her to learn new things, not force her to do things she doesn't want to do at an early age, like doing useless worksheets or memorizing numbers. Studies show kids learn best through play. Elle already can count from 1-100 and from 100 back to 1 and I have never made her sit and learn how to do it. We sing songs and she just picked it up. She can also recognize the numbers from puzzles and just because she'll ask me to write a number for her and she'll write it. I'd rather kids learn naturally than to be forced, especially as preschoolers and kindergartners.

Erin

[Bridget]

I agree with Erin that homework is not the answer to drive our children. I also have zero desire to push my kids into ma high pressure corporate job. If that's what they want, cool. I'd like to see them live a modest life filled with peace doing a job they love. All of this technology is going to blow up in our faces at some point and when that happens, I hope my children or grandchildren have learned to survive and imo that can't be learned doing worksheets after school.

[AmeriBrit]

[Cosmosmom]

I think that it is often we see our kids being like us (well at least I certainly did! I pictured a nerdy, non-athletic bookworm who was kind of shy). I pictured more an academic kid.
Now I feel much more open about my child since I don't know how much is nature and how much nuture.
If my kid wants to be a plumber, that is great. But if my kid wants to be a doctor or a high tech inventor, that is great too. I want the little dude to be happy and a good person in society. BUT I also want a good solid education there from the state, in case he/she wants to go into a competitive field....that they can actually compete.

I don't see a problem with homework. I don't really remember much about my K year or first grade too much but I know I had it in second grade.
And I don't have a problem with memorization...some things like basic spelling, basic math should be memorized. We used to pick out a poem and memorize it and share with the class in one of my grade school classes. I thought that was really helpful in working on memory. of course that shouldn't be the ONLY way of learning.

I have a problem with not learning cursive....I mean how do you do things like buy a house that require an actual signature if all you can do is block print your name?

[Ky'sMom]

ETA: I'm not implying that everyone needs to go to college. Just that they need whatever education is necessary to get jobs that pay living wages. That could be learning a vocation.

I agree with this in general but if it happened, we'd have no one to do the jobs that need to be done on a service level that do not pay livable wages. I think I think about this sort of thing too much lol! But really we need all class levels in our society, people who make little and people who make a lot. Also many people can become entreprenurers or business owners without going to college or vocational school, they may just have a good selling ability or the drive to get out there and make something happen. I actually am a big proponent of people becoming business owners, I think it has something to do with where I live and speaking to drug dealers and such and growing up around, the only way to say it is criminals. If they went out and found a good legal product and got a vendor's license or something they could make way more than a livable wage with no formal education.

A cousin of mine started replacing car windows and makes a really good living now after he decided not to get involved in criminal activities like a lot of his friends/associates. He only works 2-3 days a week, gets insurance referrals for glass/windshield replacements and makes $150-400 per window/windshield he replaces. He can do about 10 per day, so good money.

One can always find a way to make money IMO. I do think it is important to find something you love to do and do that because eventually, doing something you don't like doing will make you unhappy. I make really good money where I work now and they have given me a lot of raises and really want to keep me here, but I don't like it and am actually going to go back to school and take a HUGE pay cut for a couple years in order to do something I actually want to do. I even considered going into medicine. I have no doubt I can do it and if I want to do something academically, it will get done and I will be the best in the class because that is just the way I am about academics. I joke that the only thing I'm good at is school. But medicine would be too much time away from my family and the money is not worth it to me. I'd rather make 40K and teach college and get lots of vacation time in summer and spring/winter breaks and holidays than make six figures and only have a couple weeks vacation per year while worrying over patients dying and not having time to spend with my kids.

Erin

[Cosmosmom]

I think that people are done a disservice by the find what you love and do it. I know too many who expect a career to be everything and want it to be so much fun and want to be passionate about it. I just know too many who have been burned doing that. My DH is one....he would have went into a different field (he was liking a few but went with the most fun class)....and that would have had a lot more job opportunities. And I think that he would have liked those fields.

i would rather see people being told, find something that you like well enough and see decent at and can make a living wage....and do that. I like mine....I don't love it...I would not do it for free and I prefer to be home most of the time but I also do like coming. What I love is watching TV and hanging out with DH and my doggies. I loved taking philosophy classes....can't make money doing that. I love reading fiction....again not much money there (and contrary to popular belief, librarians don't sit around reading all day! LOL).

[missychrissy]

I'd rather make 40K and teach college and get lots of vacation time in summer and spring/winter breaks and holidays than make six figures and only have a couple weeks vacation per year while worrying over patients dying and not having time to spend with my kids.

Erin

I absolutely agree with you Erin. I'm content being middle class & having more time with my kids. To me, that's what life is really all about.

[Suja]

I do agree with a lot you have to say, Erin. While I don't believe that homework is necessary or important in the lower grades, IMO, it is in higher grades, and what they're doing is more more important than just doing a truckload of stuff. Yes to writing, critical thinking, independent projects, research, etc. Rote memorization is necessary for some stuff (I think of it as a necessary evil), but not nearly as much as developing/fostering inquisitiveness, the ability to design thought experiments, critical and logical thinking, etc. which I find to be severely lacking. Back in the days when I was a TA, I actually had a student complain to me that I made him think! You're in college, FFS! Grow the heck up!

I think that teaching to pass some standardized tests is absolutely the wrong way to go about it, and that seems to be all the teachers have time for these days, apparently. Not their fault really, it is a fault of the system. And I really, really, really wish kids would be assigned newspaper reading as part of their assignments. The lack of awareness of the world around them, it's mind boggling. I know lots of kids that cannot point out on a map where they live, who our neighbors are (same is true of fighter pilots, BTW, some huge % did not know where Canada and Mexico were, for instance), who our leaders are, the process that puts them in power, etc. Just a lot of apathy, that I find troubling.

And money does not buy happiness. But, financial security can be a huge player in life security. Couples argue most about money, so of course it plays into family life as well. I think it is nice to think that money is not important, but it is, and you don't realize just how important it is until you don't have any. I don't know if I've told you guys, but DH grew up super rich, and then as he got older, his dad lost it all, basically through mismanagement and poor planning. Being sent out to beg/borrow money from friends/family - that's the sort of thing that stays with one for their life. DH and his older sister both went to professional schools, worked crazy jobs, put their younger siblings through college, and in DH's case, he funded both his younger sisters' marriages, while working as an RA here in the US and making peanuts (IIRC, he was making something like 15K a year).

I grew up in a middle class family, never knew a darn thing about money until we came over here. Dad was supporting the 4 of us on a bank teller's salary (20K a year or so). A month after we came here, I got a job, picking trash from parks in NYC. The other kids scared me (they were playing weird touching "games"), but we needed the money. Mom started off by working in a pharmacy, first stocking shelves and such, then as a teller, she studied and eventually got office jobs in the NY State system. I put myself through college by working/getting scholarships, and I ended up taking some extra time off to make enough to put myself through my graduate program. That was probably the hardest time I had personally gone through - working 70 hour weeks, with 30 of those hours coming on the weekend, working with developmentally disabled adults. My budget through college was $20/week, including the $12.50 that was for subway tokens. And you know what, I was one of the more fortunate ones because I had a home to go to where I could get a nice dinner and even a breakfast, whereas lots of kids I worked/studied with didn't even have that. There were many weeks where my $7.50 spend money for the week went towards feeding friends that otherwise would've starved (there were several that managed to get by with no money by going to events hosted by various departments and filling up on the free coffee/tea/cookies, and jackpot if they had fruits, cheese, etc.).

Anyway, all this to just say that while I think that it's a nice notion that money doesn't matter, in the final analysis it does. Not enough to be Bill Gates, but for sure more than what we had when we first moved to the country. In final analysis, I want us to have enough that my kid's education will never be in any jeopardy due to lack of funds (lack of interest/initiative is a different matter), and she won't have to go through what we went through. Stress - not good for you. And while you're completely correct Erin, in that we do need people in the service sector that work in poorly paying jobs, I wouldn't set that out as a goal for my child. I don't think anyone would.

I am probably in the minority on this one too, but I would absolutely be okay with doing a high paying job that I didn't particularly like, if it meant that I could retire at 55 and spend the rest of my life pursuing things I do enjoy without having to worry about making ends meet. I absolutely do not want to be 80 years old and working because I have to (and not because I want to), in pursuit of something I loved to do but did not provide any financial security.

[missychrissy]

I'm going to retire at 55. From where I am now. I plan to change fields though 'cause that's far to young to start being old. Again, I didn't have to kill myself to get here and I make a comfortable salary. When I'm not trying to pay 1/3 of my future ex's bills as well that is

It's not just a notion. I got an opportunity to work with the elderly and not one of them, whether they were rich or poor, wished they'd made more money. They all wished they'd spent more time with their kids when they were young.

[Bridget]

My dad worked his ass off our whole lives in a job he hated so that he could retire and travel with my mom. Now she's dead and he wonders wtf he was thinking and why didn't he take a lower paying job that wouldn't have him working late hours and traveling all week so that he could spend time with her while she was here.
Luckily, he did in fact take a lower paying job (same field, still hates it) that kept him home right before she got sick. So at least he had those last couple of years.

[missychrissy]

Bridget, that's exactly my point. Money cannot buy time. Not for anyone.

[AmeriBrit]

My dad worked his ass off our whole lives in a job he hated so that he could retire and travel with my mom. Now she's dead and he wonders wtf he was thinking and why didn't he take a lower paying job that wouldn't have him working late hours and traveling all week so that he could spend time with her while she was here.
Luckily, he did in fact take a lower paying job (same field, still hates it) that kept him home right before she got sick. So at least he had those last couple of years.

Suja, when I read the part of your post where you said you'd do a job where you worked a whole lot to retire early, the first thing that popped in to my head is 'well, what if you don't live to 55?' I know what you're saying though.