Is it unrealistic to be a housewife in 2009?

[puzzleannie]

DH was a public school teacher for many years, in a building that made local and even national news for various violent events, and where a colleague was permantly crippled in a random, routine attack by middle school students.

Just want to say that until you have walked in someone’s else’s shoes it is wise not to criticize their own reactions to their own experiences, and until you have been a teacher the way schools are today you simply won’t believe what goes on, and yes you will see the worst side of parents and families, very hard to keep faith in these circumstances, so show compassion to teachers and pray for them.

 

[Madaglan]

But children are horrible becasue their parents refuse to raise them correctly. I’ve worked with children for years (before I got burned out from the neglected children). And children are horrible, I had a first grader say the f-word to me, and I wanted to smack him and his mom/dad/whoever. Too many parents don’t care anymore, they are just looking for another trophy to show of (look at me, I had sex, I had a baby!). I’m glad I’m infertile. My friend had a third grader take a gun to school and threatened to shoot the music teacher if she didn’t play music he liked. lost faith all any goodness from children.

I taught high schoolers for a year (mostly sophomores), and I can understand your frustration. At first I thought they were demons, but afterwards I realized they were only possessed by them.

 

[CountrySinger]

DH was a public school teacher for many years, in a building that made local and even national news for various violent events, and where a colleague was permantly crippled in a random, routine attack by middle school students.

Just want to say that until you have walked in someone’s else’s shoes it is wise not to criticize their own reactions to their own experiences, and until you have been a teacher the way schools are today you simply won’t believe what goes on, and yes you will see the worst side of parents and families, very hard to keep faith in these circumstances, so show compassion to teachers and pray for them.

I remember when I was in college, and the professor had us look to our left and to our right. And then she said, “in five years, two of you will be out of the teaching profession”. I know out of my five closest friends from college who graduated with a degree in Education, only one of us is still teaching. And she went straight into teaching at a Catholic school. People don’t know how hard teachers have it. I wish I had held out for a better school, than starting at school in the middle of a gang zone. And before people get all in arms, it really was a gang zone, the school had a metal detector, in an elementary school. What is wrong with that?

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Actually, I was a school teacher until I got burned out. I worked with children whose parents wouldn’t feed them, so guess who bought food for them? Me. Who made sure they were dressed properly? Not their parents. Who tried to teach them even when parents didn’t care? Me. When there was a person with a gun in the school ,who protected her students? Me. Before that, I worked in day cares, student teaching, etc. I might be heartless, but I wasn’t going to let children suffer. After all those years of working with children, I was done. All I know is that I didn’t want any of my own.

If I hated children, I would have let the gunman have them, let them starve, and not teach them.

I guess I should have said, you aren’t the best authority on PARENTING, since you don’t have children and don’t give any evidence of ever having any kind of nuturing bond with a child.

If you want to share your experiences as a teacher, that’s fine. It has been my observation that teachers that who complain the loudest about how impossible and terrible the students are (recognizing it may be true in some of the worst school districts, though) are the worst teachers. Don’t know if that’s true in your case, it’s just what I’ve seen.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

**But children are horrible becasue their parents refuse to raise them correctly. ** I’ve worked with children for years (before I got burned out from the neglected children). And children are horrible, I had a first grader say the f-word to me, and I wanted to smack him and his mom/dad/whoever. Too many parents don’t care anymore, they are just looking for another trophy to show of (look at me, I had sex, I had a baby!). I’m glad I’m infertile. My friend had a third grader take a gun to school and threatened to shoot the music teacher if she didn’t play music he liked. lost faith all any goodness from children.

That is absolutely correct. And I do feel for you and other teachers who have to deal with those consequences. BUT, the children did not set themselves on this path deliberately. They were put there and pushed down the way be the behavior and decisions of the adults in their lives. Paddling children at school is not going to correct the root cause–it is merely going to make them hate school or teachers even more than they already do.

Pope John Paul II spoke of an ‘abyss of love’ as the only thing that could counteract ‘abyss of hate’ brought about by the Nazi (then communist) rule in Poland. I feel the same about the inner-city and underprivileged children in the US today.

 

[sarahraegraham]

But children are horrible becasue their parents refuse to raise them correctly.

Amen to that! I attend an NO only parish plus a TLM parish. The children are literally NIGHT AND DAY. It’s all about how they are raised, and the others are exceptions… I know it’s sorta off topic, but I wanted to just share my experience and my agreement with you.

Yes it is very realistic. I’m the ultimate counter-culture woman. I’m a full time stay at home wife AND I don’t even have children (we can’t due to infertility.) So I stay at home JUST to be a homemaker and my husband’s helpmate. My husband and I would have it no other way. This truly is the best and most fulfilling option for us both. I tried working at the beginning of our marriage and everything at home fell apart. We even grew emotionally apart at the time and had hardly any time together.

I’m not saying it’s not possible to be a working wife/mother, and there are times when it is absolutely necessary, but so many people don’t realize how very little they can live on and what a great gain the stay at home wife/mother is to her family. (I should know, we live very much day to day, paycheck to paycheck, and often go without many comforts. We go without many so called “needs” of society. We live simply.) It is a far greater gain to her husband and children both than any monetary asset she could give working full time. That is not saying a wife/mother working full time is wrong, it is sometimes absolutely necessary, but I think it should be the exception rather than the norm.

You sound very much like me. My husband and I are not sure whether or not we can have children. 2 1/2 years obedient to the Church’s teachings and no little ones yet, but, we’ll see… Like I said in a previous post, I worked full-time for 90% of our marriage (so far), and our home life and emotional relationship both became very strained. We had no time for each other, and I can’t imagine if we tried to live that way with children. I don’t know how people do it. I’m hoping that once I graduate from college we’ll be able to sustain our current lifestyle and even improve it without my having to work for pay at all. I would love to able to stay at home full-time, with or without children and have my extra time free for volunteering. So many service jobs are now filled by paid employees, and many times the recipients suffer for it (not always, of course). If people volunteer to do that work without pay, you can bet solidly that they are there because they really care. We need people to care like that, for others and not just themselves. We have very few examples of that in this current culture.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

But children are horrible becasue their parents refuse to raise them correctly.

No, she isn’t right on this. She has no idea why the children behaved the way they did. A person who is trained in how to deal with behavior problems does not speak this way about children. The children may have had developmental or physical problems, they may have been dealing with something in their environment that has nothing to with their parenting, OR they might be reacting to a badly trained, ill-suited teacher.

Amen to that! I attend an NO only parish plus a TLM parish. The children are literally NIGHT AND DAY. .

If I had to choose a parish with you in it, or 100 screaming children, I’d pick the 100 screaming children any day.

 

[CountrySinger]

I guess I should have said, you aren’t the best authority on PARENTING, since you don’t have children and don’t give any evidence of ever having any kind of nuturing bond with a child.

If you want to share your experiences as a teacher, that’s fine. It has been my observation that teachers that who complain the loudest about how impossible and terrible the students are (recognizing it may be true in some of the worst school districts, though) are the worst teachers. Don’t know if that’s true in your case, it’s just what I’ve seen.

My students loved me, once they got over how strict (strict= making rules, expecting students to behave, show resepct) I was in the beginning. If you try to be their friend first, they will walk over you. I had the only class that wouldn’t go crazy in the halls, assemblies, etc. I spent a lot of my paychecks on supplies, food, etc. for them. Did you know that if a child doesn’t pay for lunch, the school cuts them off and they don’t eat? On an average day, I would make lunches for my students who didn’t briung money so they wouldn’t starve (tried to ask the parents to feed them, most blew me off). I did teach in a inner-city district, so my situation was a very extreme one.
Most of the teachers I worked with didn’t care, and would just pass them through. I refused to accept that. I tried to overcome the world these kids and were in. But it didn’t work, but at least I went down in a blaze of glory. I’m still passionate about educating children, so many people are willing to write them off.
When I first started, the prinicipal said “good luck, these are the lowest-testing kids.” Let’s give the first-year teacher to hardest class. By the end of the year, all the kids were reading, writing at the grade level, and most were at grade level for math. At the end of the year, the kids were said, “we want to stay here”. I thought all kids said that every year.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

My students loved me, once they got over how strict (strict= making rules, expecting students to behave, show resepct) I was in the beginning. If you try to be their friend first, they will walk over you. I had the only class that wouldn’t go crazy in the halls, assemblies, etc. I spent a lot of my paychecks on supplies, food, etc. for them. Did you know that if a child doesn’t pay for lunch, the school cuts them off and they don’t eat? On an average day, I would make lunches for my students who didn’t briung money so they wouldn’t starve (tried to ask the parents to feed them, most blew me off). I did teach in a inner-city district, so my situation was a very extreme one.
Most of the teachers I worked with didn’t care, and would just pass them through. I refused to accept that. I tried to overcome the world these kids and were in. But it didn’t work, but at least I went down in a blaze of glory. I’m still passionate about educating children, so many people are willing to write them off.
When I first started, the prinicipal said “good luck, these are the lowest-testing kids.” Let’s give the first-year teacher to hardest class. By the end of the year, all the kids were reading, writing at the grade level, and most were at grade level for math. At the end of the year, the kids were said, “we want to stay here”. I thought all kids said that every year.

This sounds like you are a good teacher. You were a problem-solver. Your kids had problems, and you gave them rules and they thrived, and you went above and beyond to meet their physical needs.

So why describe them as bad? Instead of just describing their behaviors? There is a difference between identifing a problem behavior and saying these kids and their parents are bad, right?

 

[shannyk]

Actually, I was a school teacher until I got burned out. I worked with children whose parents wouldn’t feed them, so guess who bought food for them? Me. Who made sure they were dressed properly? Not their parents. Who tried to teach them even when parents didn’t care? Me. When there was a person with a gun in the school ,who protected her students? Me. Before that, I worked in day cares, student teaching, etc. I might be heartless, but I wasn’t going to let children suffer. After all those years of working with children, I was done. All I know is that I didn’t want any of my own.

If I hated children, I would have let the gunman have them, let them starve, and not teach them.

not to take this thread way OT but…Country Singer, you say the parents are to blame for their childrens’ behavior and in the cases you mention who could argue that? But then you say children are ‘horrible’, so I’m wondering which one is it, children are horrible or their parents are…I hardly think that with the experience and obvious caring you had for your students that you wouldn’t be that kind of irresponsible parent. I guess your statements just confuse me.

FWIW I have seen firsthand those types of parents myself and it can be extremely wearing on a person and disheartening to say the least. When I worked in the NICU there were more than a few parents who would NEVER come to visit their babies, not once, and would just come get them on the day they were released. On top of it they’d make it very clear from their attitude that the instructions you were giving them for caring for their child at home weren’t going to be followed, because it was simply too time consuming and bothersome. Actually, sometimes they’d say that outright. Then you have the ones who never came back, at all.

I can relate, but I think your disdain for children, who are at the mercy of their parents, is misplaced.

 

[CountrySinger]

This sounds like you are a good teacher. You were a problem-solver. Your kids had problems, and you gave them rules and they thrived, and you went above and beyond to meet their physical needs.

So why describe them as bad? Instead of just describing their behaviors? There is a difference between identifing a problem behavior and saying these kids and their parents are bad, right?

Their behaviors were bad, not the kids themselves. The kids don’t have choice what their parents do. I hold parents to a different standards. They have this little person who is dependent on them, and they ignore them, instead of feeding them? That is BAD. Most of my students wanted me to adopt them, I told them that I wouldn’t be a proper mom. And one of them said, “my mom isn’t, so take me home!”. I cried that night.

 

[sarahraegraham]

If I had to choose a parish with you in it, or 100 screaming children, I’d pick the 100 screaming children any day.

Excuse me? You don’t know me, nor have I insulted you or made derogatory or inflammatory statements. So, as is common courtesy in real life and online, please refrain from rude and ignorant comments.

 

[st_lucy]

But children are horrible becasue their parents refuse to raise them correctly. I’ve worked with children for years (before I got burned out from the neglected children). And children are horrible, I had a first grader say the f-word to me, and I wanted to smack him and his mom/dad/whoever. Too many parents don’t care anymore, they are just looking for another trophy to show of (look at me, I had sex, I had a baby!). I’m glad I’m infertile. My friend had a third grader take a gun to school and threatened to shoot the music teacher if she didn’t play music he liked. lost faith all any goodness from children.

Did it ever occur to you that God has put you in those children’s lives for a reason? Those “horrible” children have lived horrible lives and they are hoping for one adult to walk into their lives even if they don’t seem to want it. I have worked with these “horrible” children and they are not so 'horrible" when you get to know them.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Excuse me? You don’t know me, nor have I insulted you or made derogatory or inflammatory statements. So, as is common courtesy in real life and online, please refrain from rude and ignorant comments.

You said AMEN, all of the children in the Novus Ordo parish you attend are badly parented, or something to that effect. Wouldn’t that be you insulting a whole parish?

If I had the chance to go to a parish with a bunch of kids that were perhaps “badly behaved”, though I’m not sure what you meant by that because you didn’t describe any behaviors, you simply judged these children and/or parents as “bad”, then my choice would be to show tolerance and love to the children and be with them rather than to attend a parish with a person who has no children but thinks she knows how to parent everyone else’s children. Sorry if you take offense at that, but IMO, your blanket judgement on all the kids in your parish is the worse crime.

 

[sarahraegraham]

You said AMEN, all of the children in the Novus Ordo parish you attend are badly parented, or something to that effect. Wouldn’t that be you insulting a whole parish?

If I had the chance to go to a parish with a bunch of kids that were perhaps “badly behaved”, though I’m not sure what you meant by that because you didn’t describe any behaviors, you simply judged these children and/or parents as “bad”, then my choice would be to show tolerance and love to the children and be with them rather than to attend a parish with a person who has no children but thinks she knows how to parent everyone else’s children. Sorry if you take offense at that, but IMO, your blanket judgement on all the kids in your parish is the worse crime.

Generalizations are just that: general. I’m not judging except by what I see, which is all any of us can do. At my TLM parish NOT A SINGLE child misbehaves, ever. EVER. At NO, 90% are eating, playing with toys, talking, pulling their sister’s hair, bugging mom and dad, screaming… There are not “normal” or appropriate behaviors for a child who is brought up properly to attend Mass. That was my point. If a certain group of parents have children who behave wonderfully while another set have children who behave poorly, then the generalization stands.

I think it’s time we ended this discussion, because the original thread topic deserves to be discussed.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Generalizations are just that: general. I’m not judging except by what I see, which is all any of us can do.

All any of us can do is have the humility to realize we may not understand other people or their experiences unless we have walked in their shoes and extend the sense of compassion to them that Jesus would if He were sitting next to them in the pew.

At my TLM parish NOT A SINGLE child misbehaves, ever. EVER.

Depending on the age of the child, and depending upon how you define mis-behavior, this is not normal for every single child in the parish. Since it is developmentally impossible for some 2 and 3 year olds to sit perfectly still through Mass, how did those children that will by way of physiology be unlikely to be able to sit still for one hour get to be so perfectly behaved? I have an idea of how they might have learned.

At NO, 90% are eating, playing with toys, talking, pulling their sister’s hair, bugging mom and dad, screaming… There are not “normal” or appropriate behaviors for a child who is brought up properly to attend Mass.

Depending on the age, it is perfectly normal. If a 2 year old is sitting in Mass eating cheerios and playing with a quiet, soft toy, he is learning how to sit through Mass. By the time he is 4 or 5he will be able to fully participate with only slight fidgeting. How does any of that bother you? If a child screams, do the parents remove him or her? Do you notice that there is a lot of parenting going on with all of this “bad” behavior? When a child squirms, are they distracted with something that will hold their attention? When a child makes noise, they are hushed, or taken to the cry room? Are these older children and teenagers?

I have a hard time believing your entire Nodus Ordo parish is composed of parents who don’t care about their children’s behavior and aren’t teaching them to sit through Mass. And if they are, then aren’t you glad they are there? Maybe they are working hard at getting their out of control families on the right track, and could use a little compassion for not being quite there yet. Since you don’t have children, maybe they would appreciate hearing your thoughts on how you could do a better job with their children.

Surely your Pastor has noticed what an animal house your parish is. What is his opinion? Have you brought up all this “bad behavior” with him?

 

[purplesunshine]

At my TLM parish NOT A SINGLE child misbehaves, ever. EVER.

Have you ever even babysat? Even the best kid will act up sometimes. You probably have better focus and don’t see the minor squirming. The mass is chanted bringing the volume up, making small noises dissapate.

Last time I went to a TLM I got stuck in the outer vestibule (my own reasons). There I was with no less than eight mothers cooing their infants and small children while dad took care of the older children, or the older ones took care of younger children. You don’t even usually see eight families at a Ordinary mass, but I guarentee you that the children in the vestibule (or narthex is it?) were screaming, twisting and in general acting like the spawn of Satin. The big oak doors muffled the sounds.

Their parents took them out, but there was a space for it…in many Ordinary churches there’s no space for it and its less than soundproof. The TLM’s also tend to be either in very, very tiny parishes or rather large ones. Either way there’s lots of people and therefore, lots of sound absorption. A medium sized church, barley filled will echo.

Your opinion, filled with generalizations and extremes is rather rude. I’m with Angels. I’d rather go to the squirming parish than with someone as judgemental as you.

 

[sarahraegraham]

My observations are my observations. Believe me or not, that’s not my problem.

I will no longer feed the trolls here. This is not your thread. Bash other people somewhere else and leave the OP’s thread alone. I’m done.

 

[Bluegoat]

Generalizations are just that: general. I’m not judging except by what I see, which is all any of us can do. At my TLM parish NOT A SINGLE child misbehaves, ever. EVER. At NO, 90% are eating, playing with toys, talking, pulling their sister’s hair, bugging mom and dad, screaming… There are not “normal” or appropriate behaviors for a child who is brought up properly to attend Mass. That was my point. If a certain group of parents have children who behave wonderfully while another set have children who behave poorly, then the generalization stands.

I think it’s time we ended this discussion, because the original thread topic deserves to be discussed.

Perhaps people get the impression that kids that aren’t perfectly behaved aren’t welcome, so they don’t bring them to the TLM. That could be why there are none in evidence.

 

[flyingfish]

Perhaps people get the impression that kids that aren’t perfectly behaved aren’t welcome, so they don’t bring them to the TLM. That could be why there are none in evidence.

Or because TLM is comparatively rare, the people who go out of their way to attend one are conservative Catholics who take Mass more seriously than the average person, and are more likely to instill the fear of God in their children. Perhaps they are also more likely to physically punish their children for misbehavior. Who knows.