Reply to Some thoughts on daycare

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Some thoughts on daycare"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I remember reading some article on the impact of "No fault Divorce" laws on society as a whole.   Back in the 50s and earlier, a husband worked at his job and provided for the wife and kids.   If he met someone younger and prettier and wanted to dump the first wife, he couldn't unless she was at fault (adultury, abandonment, etc.)   So in order to get her to agree to the divorce, they had to come to an agreeable settlement, which usually involved using his salary to support her and the kids, keeping her on his health insurance, keeping her on his pension, etc.

When it became easier to get no faulty divorces in the 70s, guys could just ditch the stay at home wives for wife number two and not have to agree to much at all.  Yeah there was some alimony and child support -- but not the health insurance, pension, etc.

This was the era when SAHwives found themselves being dropped and stuck -- no work skills etc.   So many women now cite seeing what happened to their moms and promising that they would never let that happen to them; they would never drop out of the workforce for any reason because that's what makes you vulnerable if someone leaves you.

In many countries, the safety net of pension and health insurance is there whether you are mararied or not.  So that makes it a lot easier for someone to stay out of the workforce for a while.

[/quote]

I think this is key. While we want to do whatever possible to protect our children, some women are frankly putting their children in very vulnerable positions by not working. I'm not saying everyone is, but just looking at staying home in such black and white terms as OP has seems crazy to me. Divorce is not that uncommon, and even if your husband pays child support and stays in the picture, supporting a family on one salary but two households is almost impossible for most people, and very different than supporting one household on one salary. And if not divorce, because certainly not everyone is going to get divorced, layoffs are pretty common these days. Then add in things like no pensions, the precarious health care/insurance situation and its ties to employment, and pay freezes, and staying home can be a gamble for many women and their children, even if there are husbands are doing pretty well right now.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics