Are Women Taught Not To Worry about Money And Career
69
How to plan your stay home mommy career
Are women taught not to worry about money and career?
I went to the supermarket the other day and I saw the cutest little girl standing next to her mother counting the money in her pink "Hello Kitty" purse. It was Saturday so she was probably about to buy her weekend sweets. She told her mother how much money she had and asked her; "If I spend 50c I will only have $5.00 in here, how do I get the 50c back? Her mother replied don't worry about that, your father will make more money at work so next weekend you'll get more money, just buy what ever you like!
As I overheard the conversation I was thinking to myself, "I wonder if this is how women’s independency weakens?" I can absolutely relate to the mother who probably wanted to get out of the supermarket and home to unpack her groceries, so the easy way would be to give the explanation she did and get the kid to pick her sweets. If this happened on regular basis are little girls to grow up with the picture in their head that their daddy’s will buy them what they need, and when they grow up they will have a husband that caters for their financial needs.
The Rubik cube revelation
I grew up with a father that always provided well and a stepmother who happily preached women's independency to anyone that would like to hear. She told me; "Always have the ability to provide for yourself, and never rely on your father or any other man to do it for you." If you are depending on someone else to exist they will be in control of your life." When I was younger I never really realized the role she played in my life, how she truly made me believe that I could do or be anything that I wanted to. I never really realized what they did for me and how much of an impact they made on me until now.
When I was 6 years old buying sweets on a Saturday I certainly wasn't thinking about how to get the money I spent back, but I did dream about that pink Barbie car in the toy store and my dad helped me calculate, how long it would take me to save up for it if I only spent 50c a week of my allowance. When the day finally came, and it was time to go and get it, I had a look around the toy store to make sure that I really wanted that car rather then something else. All the sudden I saw a rubik cube, and I asked my dad what it was. He explained to me how it worked, and at that moment the Barbie car just didn't have the same value anymore. I bought the rubik cube and I played with it for 6 years, and had a lot of money left! I always knew in the back of my head though, that if I did want that Barbie car after all, I had enough in my piggy bank to get it. That feeling alone made the car less valuable to me, since the rubik cube costed me less and I played with it for so long, it turned out to be a better investment. If I was brought up to learn that my father would have bought it for me, I don't think the idea of the rubik cube would've ever entered my mind, I simply wouldn't see the point of getting something of lesser value since I didn't have to pay for it myself.
The supermarket incident still made me wonder, why mothers still teach their little girls that the items they desire will be purchased for them by the "man" in their lives. I thought that mothers today told taught their young girl to be independent, and how to pay their own ways through life. The year being 2008 I still think that most little girls have their "rubik cube moments" a lot earlier then I did.
How can we really maintain the "rubik cube revelation" after having children?
When you first have children it is important to spend as much time as you can with them while they are young. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to spend every waking moment with them, but when they are old enough to go to kindergarten women need to start working on them selves a little bit.
If you have a degree in let's say marketing, it may be a good idea to build up your portfolio online. When they are old enough to go to school and you will join the work force, if nothing more it will show that you are ambitious and that you can be creative under pressure. Since most people don't do any form of paid work while they work as a stay home mother. I know a lady who converted one of the rooms in her house to a hairdressing salon. When her kids where in kindergarten she cut people's hair at home, had a nice little business, and when her kids started school her business was booming.
She hired a nanny to take care of her kids for 3 hours a day after school, to make sure that they got their after school snacks and started on their homework. This allowed her to do her 8 hour days and it gave her time to establish her business under no pressure as she didn't have to borrow any money to start up. The equipment i.e. the chair, hair dryers basins etc she bought second handed, and her husband helped her re-upholster the furniture. It took her 2 month to save up money to buy all the equipment and re-do her spare room and it took her 2 weeks working only part-time while her kids were in kindergarten to earn that money back.
With that type of running costs, she only needs 2 clients a week to break even. Her and her husband, kept on living like they did before on one income and they put her income a side. In 6 month they will use it to pay off their whole mortgage. I asked her once why she planned it that way, she told me that this was the fastest way that they could pay off their mortgage and save up money for their kids to go to college. If the takings of her business are the same, it will take them 3 more years to save up money for both their kids’ education. After that the parents in the family will spend some time on their own. They have decided to go on holiday alone at least twice a year, well deserved goal to have don't you think?
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
I agree that women should be taught to be independent. I think the problem I have with the modern world as that for some reason being a fulltime mother is no longer regarded as respectable. I mean, sure, it is, but, you know, not AS respectable as someone who has a "real job" too.
Frankly, in an age where American kids are doing worse in school than pretty much anywhere in the world, I have to wonder if that's really working out for us.
I'm NOT saying that we should go back to the Fifties either. What I'm saying is that independence is NOT the same as having to have a "real" job. "Having" to do anything is no longer having "independece" in a way. And frankly, I can't think of any job more important than raising kids given how horrific our kids are performing against the rest of the world.
To me, it seems like a better answer to that little girl in the grocery might have been, "Well, our family has a secure income source, so we will be able to replace the money you spend today." By speaking of the family as a collective unit rather than using terms that (for the sake of this conversation) subjugate the women to a dependent role, that child learns the value of family coehesiveness and division of labor. (Done properly and all the time, a comment like "daddy will earn more" becomes a non-issue, because the over-arching family-unit attitude is understood and not belied by language so easily).
I do ramble on, but, this was a thought provoking hub, well written and worthy of some time. Nice work.
Lissie I agree parents need's to think not only of their kids getting everything they want, but on them selves too!
I also agree with you shadesbreath, it is important to be a family unit adn to watch your kids grow up, but I also think that maybe the answer maybe somewhere in between. This is why I believe that being a stay home mommy is the hardest job anyone can have, because in todays society a stay home mommy really need two careers. If their husbands die and they have no skills or haven't worked for 10 years it will be a lot harder for them to get a job, and it could possibly leave them to bring up their children in poverty which would be hard on both the mother and the kids.
Yes, but that's what life insurance is for. If couple's are that worried about someone dying, you can put money on it Vegas style through your insurance company. I don't think fear of death should force women to be torn between two worlds if it isn't what they want to do. Some women thrive under that kind of pressure, but some women end up overwhelmed and doing a half-assed job at work and at home, and feeling guilty about it as if there's something wrong with them.
I'm a guy and I'm the first one to tell you, guys aren't that great at "chipping in their half." I realize that immediately after I say that 15 women will pipe in how great their hubbies are. Which is awesome. I'm not worried about them. It's the other three hundred million families might not have it so perfect. I'd just like to see women be appreciated and accorded the same professional respect for being a stay home mom that they would get if they wore an expensive business esemble and had a law degree. It's a hell of a lot harder to stay home with two kids in diapers and one in first grade than it is to research legal precedents in a stuffy library somewhere.
The more likely scenario isn't someone dying: and shades is right no one with a family or even just a mortgage should be without life insurance - its more the parents splitting up. One of the reasons Ive never had kids was that I could never believe that a man would commit reliably to supporting us and I could see that I need way too much sleep to combine career and motherhood - actaully I nee way too much sleep anyway so kids wouldn't have been good for me LOL
Lissie...well spoken!...as far as the sleep goes...YES...love it as much as I love my husband even...it's good for many things...think I maybe just a lazy person...I even sleep away my problems!!! lol
Years ago I worked in a jewellery store, and I was amazed by the amount of women who would seek my advice when choosing items. They would cheerfully take the opinion of a total stranger rather than make their own minds up. This kind of conditioning happens in childhood. Somehow they are taught to believe that their ideas and preferences are of little value. That someone else will always know best.
Whilst I completely agree with Shadesbreath that being an at home mum is no bad thing, and that in the light of how society has developed of late, it might actually be a preferable thing, I do, however, believe that girls need to learn independance of thought and action from an early age.
This is a good hub, and brings up a really important issue that is not often addressed these days.
I stayed home with my children for seven years and although I did have a bit of a reentry problem when I went to look for work again, once I got back into the swing of working a 'real' job I was always able to provide for myself and my kids, even after an unhappy divorce.
I'm in my 50s now, and home again, through choice. I earn as much working at home (so far) as I did at my nasty office job, and I'm lots happier. I think we've all lost out a bit in the new system where both parents work and both hope that somehow the kids come out fine. Very few households can even afford to have a stay-at-home parent anymore, although happily there are more work-at-home options than there once were.
Basically I agree with Shadesbreath. I've been a single parent and married one, I do believe kids need two parents and lots of time with both parents. You can't just both go off to work 10 hours a day and hope it all works itself out for the kids. The Family Medical Leave Act here in the U.S. helped a lot, but it's still really hard for working parents of small children to handle everything that comes up. At my last job I worked around sick young women all the time who were out of sick days because they used them up caring for their sick kids, so they had to work with fevers and all kinds of problems. That's messed up.
Nobody is completely independent. The thing is, you need to know you can support yourself if need be, then make choices that are good for the whole family, not choices based on some ideal of independence. That's my view.
Thanks for the the hub!
Good thought provoking hub! Made me think about the subtle messages we sometimes impose on our children without thinking. Also, made me remember my own father who did not care what grades I got in math or science, telling my mother in front of me -- "She doesn't need to know much math, she's just going to grow up and get married anyway." Meanwhile, my poor brother heard, "Someday you'll have a family to support and you've got to get good grades. If you don't bring up your math grade, you'll be punished."
For the most part, women are taught not to worry about money and career. The teachings are everywhere you look: in advertisements, in schools, in families. This is not a new condition, and I am sad that after so many years of trying to turn it around, it's still the same. By the same token, boys are still taught to be aggressive, confrontational, out there making their way in the competitive working world, and less involved with family than the little women.
You are a half a world away from me, and you are seeing what I see. I used to think the *Cinderella Complex* belonged only to the US, but perhaps it belongs to most of the world.
My heart goes out to the child you saw in the store. She had a very good question, and the answer she received will make her more dependent than independent.
Think I'll put some fresh lipgloss on, perk up my hair, and bait big daddy to cough up the bucks for some new shoes.
Very thoughtful and provoking Hub. Welcome to HubPages!
I think boys have it harder in some ways today. Girls are being taught (at least in my home and in those of most of our friends with kids) that they have the freedom to choose their lives. We've taught our daughter the value of school and I have really pushed that she be independent before marrying so that she enters into her relationship on equal footing. What comes after is up to the two of them to decide together. But she still has a perfectly viable option to take the path that her mother and my mother took, which is marriage and motherhood. Either choice is fine, as is any combination of the two.
However, and perhaps sadly, but true, we've raised our boys that they MUST become self-sufficient. There IS no option for them. The simple fact is, the option of being a stay home husband, while in theory is there, in reality is not. A man who doesn't work and is incapable of supporting himself and a family is just not going to recieve much welcome in this world. Maybe pity, from some, but mostly derision and riddicule. If you are male, your role is written for you in stone.
Amanda: I really do agree with you. A lot of people are like that, rather take advice from a stranger then making yourown mind up. I used to be like that with clothes, I just wasn't confident enough. It's quite sad actaully looking back at it. I was lucky though I had a good support system and a really good step mother that helped me build my confidence up. My heart goes out the the little girls and young women that doesn't have that.
Pgrundy: Yes I think that a child wether it's a boy or a girls needs both parents, and it is sad that society have made it sothat most people can't afford to have one stay home parent. It's possitive that there are more work from home options, but what makes me sad is that everyone may not be interested in doing that and they're still forced to due to income issues. It is a really good option though I think. Do you think that some of the problem is though that a lot of people from my generation are fabulous and broke 30 year old's that have very poor money management skills. For a lot of us it's not due to lack of teachings from our parents but due to outside influcences you need the nie cars, and expensive clothers etc. I think our generations parents were much better with money then we are, a lot of them gave us the tools to be in the same position as them but we chose to go our own way and are suffering for it now.
Jerrilee: It is sad isn't it, how this is a common way, to put on different preassures on boys and girls. Just having to listen to someone saying that your just gonna get married anyway can't be that inspiring to find the cure for cancer sort of speak.
Sally: Yeah it is like that all over the world. I grew up in Sweden and I live in New Zealand now, both those places are the same. The thing is though, people that share your views will evenutally chage that. They are the once that will bring their kid's up to be independent but to nurture their dreams. If you are taught to REALLY believe that you can be what ever you want to be, I think it will happen.
Shadesbreath: Yes I think it is sad that people value a man that doesn't support his family different. I know in Sweden this is a bit different. The Swedish govenrment actually force men to be stayhome daddys for at least 3 month when the children are young. After that though if anyone is to be a stayhome parent the family usually just have a look at who's income is the biggest and that person will go to work. Most families have their kids in day care though for at least half days. I am one of those lucky kid's who didn't really miss out on anything. I was in day care but when my parents came to pick me up every single second of their day when to concentrate on my wellfare til I went to bed. Didn't give the adults in the house much time for themselves. If nothing more it showed me that the adults in my life did anything for my wellfare. Wasn't too much fun though when my friends were out playing and I was doing my physics homework!
Yes, I think everyone expects more materially now than when I was growing up. Plus, I'm kind of anti-stuff--My goal has always been to sell my labor as little as possible so I can do what I care about as much as possible, and that has meant doing without new cars, fancy clothes, lots of stuff. I still feel happy with much less than most people feel they can't live without. I feel like my guy and I have too much stuff, and we live very, very simply.
Everything goes in cycles though. We'll be seeing it all go round again soon with all this world financial meltdown. We'll all be exchanging beans and rice recipes.
And yeah, Shadesbreath is right on the no options for guys thing. It's totally unfair. On the other hand, I've never really had a sugar daddy--even when I could still bounce quarters off my belly. I always had to hold my own and make my own way. I think I'm just stupid in that area of my life--I'm man-impaired or something. If I walked into a Prince Charming convention I'd head straight for the pickpocket working the room and introduce myself.
Hey, those guys need love too. (o:
pgrundy: I think wether your in a relationship or not, you're way is a good one to always hold your own and have the ability to pay your own ways. Sugar daddy may be tempting for some, but it would also take away the sense of achieving things on your own. Do you guys think though that there will always be people that are looking for the easy way out, men or women and they will be the ones that dream of sugar daddys and what ever it's called for men.
I love buying stuff...but I also like money a little too much so sometimes it may be harder to part with then it should. Whatever makes one happy I think is the best to spend your time on! If you love what you're doing the money will come that's what I think anyways. Has worked for me anyways so far.
I think this is a problem with women in this country in particular. We're just not taught about money from an early age. Even in our household growing up, we were not given everything we wanted, and while we were given allowances and even savings accounts, we still weren't really taught about money. Fortunately I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and began trying to develop my own businesses around the age of 12 or 13.
In general, parents do their children a huge disservice by not teaching them the facts about earning, spending, saving and investing. In my younger years just being out of the house, I had a problem with saving; money "burned a hole in my pocket" so to speak. Even now, I admit that even now I don't know as much about investing, stocks, bonds etc. as I probably should. I would be completely dependent on a financial advisor to help me invest or plan for retirement. I partially blame that on a lack of financial education going back to my youth.
If parents would do more to educate their children about the ways of money when they're young, perhaps setting up prepaid debit cards for them to track & spend their allowances and even perhaps a little bit about investing, young people would be much more prepared for making financial decisions in their adult years. I even feel that this is something that should be taught in schools; in many ways I consider financial education more important than some of the things that parents push to have taught in schools (like religion-themed subjections such as creationism, which really does not apply to all children). We really didn't learn about money in school either, other than how to count it, and how to write out checks. There was nothing to teach us about saving or investing.
For mother's in particular, as I feel that during the formative years we as women spend the most time with young children, it's important for us to instill individualism and independence in our children. Taking children with you to the grocery store or the mall is a perfect opportunity to help them learn about spending and saving. The problem is that in today's society, things are just too fast-paced and we as adults are just too impatient. It wouldn't take but a few more minutes to help a child understand how much money they have and what would be left if they spent it. Likewise, it wouldn't take too much extra time to explain that by keeping their room clean, taking out the trash or getting their homework done by a certain time they can earn money to replace what they spend. We're just in too much of a rush to do that which really is our duty.
What we fail to realize is that by teaching our children good financial habits while they're young, we can help to minimize the struggle that they may go through as young adults (and often parents are the ones to bail kids out of financial issues). We'd really be saving ourselves money in the future by teaching good habits now!
This is quite a topic to discuss in a Hub! Thanks for bringing this up... I know a lot of people say the same to me because my partner makes a lot of money and I don't at all, though I still pay for my share of things :)
Lissie says:
14 months ago
I think the most important message is that the kid actually has control of the money and not :oh I havent got enough for the Barbie give it to me now which seems to be the most common approach of parents these days. I know someone who has just shouted his 2 kids holidays across the country twice in 3 months. All very fine except he's broke and the kids are 19 and 21 ! What value of money do they know: don't worry dad will pay seems to be the message!