yguy

I'm suggesting that if mom can't stay home with the kids, the couple is wise to refrain from becoming parents until such time as they can. Plenty of people do it. The more, the merrier.

fatherphil

have you ever been to a convelescent home?

yguy

Listen, I hope it works out for you, even though I don't agree with your methods. Honest injun, I don't mean to make you out to be evil, because I don't think you are.

Godless Dave

I have. My mother worked in a nursing home for a long time, and my grandmother lived in an assisted living apartment for three years. The latter was very nice, but of course very expensive.

Are you saying all day care for children and residential care for invalid adults is bad? I hope not because that would be a gross oversimplification.

I don't care if one or both parents work. I care about the quality of parenting they give when they are home, and the quality of the child care they choose when they are not home.

I don't care whether elderly sick people are put in homes or cared for by relatives. What I care about is the quality of care they are receiving in a home or from relatives.

If I ever develop Alzheimer's or a similar dementia I would rather live in a care facility geared towards that kind of patient than be a burden on my children and/or spouse.

There is good day care for infants and there is bad day care for infants. But I have seen no evidence, empirical or anecdotal, that putting an infant in day care per se harms the infant in any way.

Ab_Normal

While I can get behind any argument that lowers population growth, I gotta quibble...

Anecdote alert: My daughter is the result of a birth control failure. (darn antibiotics!) At the time of conception, my husband and I had been married for five years, and were (and still are!) happy together. We were both employed. just before I delivered, I reached an arrangement with my employer where I would work part time, from home, on an irregular basis, but it didn't work out (not enough work) so I went back to full-time when my kiddo was six months old.

We definitely couldn't afford for one parent to stay home, and couldn't economize much more than we did during my time at home. We did the math, and my returning to work full-time was the only option. Given that, would you rather:

a) I got an abortion at the get go, before I was given the offer of a part time job (which didn't work anyway) - remember, we were figuring we'd need to put the child in daycare for almost the entire pregnancy. (This was never an option in my mind.)
b) We gave up our child for adoption, even though we were in a stable relationship. (And you could explain it to my mother-in-law - she's the only grandchild on my husband's side.)
c) We put our child in a daycare a few blocks from our house which we carefully checked out in advance

I picked c, my daughter is now 9, and is showing no deleterious effects.

I could also argue against "mom" being the only one to choose to stay home. I got a new job when our daughter was three which paid barely enough (I do mean barely, I miss having a savings account) for my husband to stay home, which he did until she was eight.

brighid

Well, thank you! It would be ridiculous to think otherwise IMO. I hope it works out for me as well, but honestly as a parent I can see no ill effects from my child's nearly 10 years of day care. At a very young age, and as a single parent my son spent the majority of 10 months in the care of my grandmother and aunt. There are no day care facilities open from 6 am until 11 pm for a woman to work full-time and go to school full-time. It was difficult, but I also explained to him that in life we must sometimes do the difficult tasks, work hard for a goal, and even sacrifice some things in the short term. (He was between 3-4 at the time.)

As a parent, even with the best planning and intention things happen to alert that plan. A spouse gets ill, someone is laid off, bill accumulate, college is around the corner ... and so many other variables that require parents to weigh their options. Good parents carefully consider those things and make a decision as to what is best for their situation. Sometimes that means doing things they would rather not do, such as place a child in day care, chaning roles of primary care giver, or work an odd shift because they need to eat, have a roof over their heads, etc.

Day care is not evil, or bad simply because "strangers" provide the care for a child. Often times it is an enriching, positive experience that betters a child's development. Parents can't teach a child everything he/she will need to know to grow into a rounded adult. I (we) can't teach my child physics, chemistry, how to properly throw a baseball, and so many other things. We will have to rely on the experience, dedication and expertise of strangers throughout our entire parenting journey.

Furthermore, biology does not a parent make ... at least not a good parent and for those of us who have experienced abuse, or neglect at the hands of a parent(s) ... well at least I am ever thankful for the "strangers" in my childhood that made a positive impact: my 2nd, 4th and 6th grade teachers, my best friends mother, my music instructors, my freshmen creative writing teachers, my German instructor ... I am also thankful for the strong, loving bond my son has made with his caregivers and although there always seems to be a bad apple, or two amongst any group of children it is an opportunity (however young) to teach my child how to appropriately deal with these sorts of individuals ... and yes yguy I have taught the concept (in age appropriate terms) to my son since he was a toddler. Those lessons have worked and are reflected in the responsibility he demonstrates, his control over his emotions and reactions, and his ability to appropriately handle children who pick on him (and as a biracial child with two white parents he has had occassion to be picked on.)

Brighid

yguy

Why would elderly parents be a burden to their children unless the children were a burden to the parents?

Ab_Normal

Wow, you're glib, aintcha.

My mother did what she could for her parents when they both had senile dementia, but it was a heavy burden for her, especially since she was also taking care of her husband, who had emphysema and congestive heart failure. Her health suffered because she was wearing herself out trying to take care of them. There came a point where she just had to give up, because it was beyond her strength and her capability, as an untrained person, to keep them well. She ended up making an arragement with her sister, who "tagged her out", so to speak, and moved their parents to a home near her house.

It wasn't because she didn't love her parents - and her mother worked during her childhood, because of these little things called the Great Depression and World War II - it was because she was physically incapable of handling it anymore.

Yes, some folks do warehouse their parents and never ever see them again. But what percentage of the nursing home population does that describe? Oops, I'm looking for numbers again - bad nerd! Bad!

edited to add: My mom is fully anticipating "losing her marbles" as she gets older, since both her parents had senile dementia, and she has already made it clear to all of her children that she does not want to be cared for at one of our homes. She wants to go to a good facility, because she has experienced this herself. Yeah, no love there.

yguy

Actually, you're not. You're just drawing an inference from what I asked, distorting it enough to make it sound ridiculous, and challenging ME to look for data to support an assertion I haven't made - a common tactic around here.

fatherphil

i've just come out of a situation where an elderly parent would have been better off in a "home" than at her home.

ab, sorry you could'nt find another option but am glad things managed to turn out ok. being a parent really carries a load of resposibility and obligation.

gdave, while i would not imply that all elder care facilities are "bad", what i have observed is that they seem to be hated by a majority of their residents. what a burden it is to grow old.