What is your opinion on American "work culture" and working conditions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RCIAGraduate
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
My limited understanding of wages in the US is that they are quite low? Surely this makes a difference to work/life balance.

In Australia we have minimim wage (i think around $18 an hour). People shouldn’t have to work two jobs just to pay rent and live modestly.

I’m a senior science teacher who used to work as a medical researcher. I get paid quite well for my role (6 figures). My understanding is teachers in the US have dismal earnings. My wage affords us a nice house and nice lifestyle.

My observations are purely from the media and my limited time in the US. I may be incorrect in my assumptions.
 
Last edited:
I certainly agree with you about at least one parent staying away from working a non-home job so that they can stay home to raise their children. One of the things I insist on saying is that daycare providers are “raising your children”, not “watching your children.”

But I fully realize that there are young women who have no choice but to place their children in a daycare setting so they can earn enough money to support their family. Often this is because their husband does not work in a profession where he can make enough money to even meet the poverty level of wages.

I know very few young women in my hospital who are working full time (with children in a daycare center) to maintain a high standard of living. Many of them are driving very old cars (more than 10 years, sometimes almost 20 years), living in homes that are being held together with duct tape (or rental properties), eating as frugally as possible, taking no vacations outside of their home (all time off is spent at home doing home repairs and other necessary tasks), and not enrolling their children in anything other than public schools–no music lessons, sports teams, or clubs.

But this all goes back to the husband, As I said in an earlier post, many women who end up with low incomes have made a free choice to marry someone who isn’t educated in a field that offers stable jobs with middle/high pay. Perhaps they did not comprehend just how little money their fiance would be making. Perhaps they thought that love would be enough–until they had their child(ren) and realized that love can’t buy diapers.

I do not believe that American taxpayers or American companies and business owners should foot the bill for women who make this choice.

Women do not HAVE to marry anyone. And if they do fall in love and marry someone who will probably not make enough income to allow her to stay home and care for their children, then they need to gird up their loins and be prepared to work outside the home and hire someone else to raise their children.

Frankly, I think this all falls square on the MEN of our nation! Sure, go ahead and pursue that English degree. But at the same time, enroll in a trade school and learn a trade that is in demand and pays a high salary, e.g., welding. Or enroll in a community college and before pursuing the English degree, earn a certificate in a high-demand field, e.g.technical writing.

This would allow a man to support a family, not richly, but with enough income to be somewhat secure (no one is secure in this age of tax-and-spend politics).

Or join the military.

Sorry guys–you need to step up. 🤦‍♂️ If your wife WANTS to work outside the home because she loves her profession and is OK with someone else raising her children, OK–you lucked out. But many women would like to stay home and raise their children, at least while the kidlets are tiny. So do your duty and make sure that by the time you get married, you possess the chops to be able to support your family. Just do it.
 
Last edited:
Sometimes it’s not just about income.

Sometimes it’s about health benefits. A lot of employers do not offer health care. A lot
of men I know work for contracting companies that do not offer any benefits. They get their benefits from their wives’ employers. This seems to be the more and more the case.
 
ewohdrol said:
My limited understanding of wages in the US is that they are quite low? Surely this makes a difference to work/life balance.

In Australia we have minimim wage (i think around $18 an hour). People shouldn’t have to work two jobs just to pay rent and live modestly.

I’m a senior science teacher who used to work as a medical researcher. I get paid quite well for my role (6 figures). My understanding is teachers in the US have dismal earnings. My wage affords us a nice house and nice lifestyle.

My observations are purely from the media and my limited time in the US. I may be incorrect in my assumptions.
Click to expand...
Your observations are correct. The unemployment rate is low right now but it speaks nothing of one person working 2 or 3 part time jobs to make ends meet for the basics.

We’re infiltrated with this idea that working “hard” is akin to this and that rugged individualism is the “American Way”. It very well may be for many but it in fact contributes less to God, family and community insomuch as the work life balance that symbolizes it.

We are regressive within that school of thought. Most of our immigrant ancestors wanted the next generation to work smarter not harder. They toiled for their children to have a higher education and many succeeded. There is no shame in being a street sweeper or having a non-degreed position, none at all. But, we could be so much more progressive as a nation and offer innovative discoveries that make for the betterment of a society, respect the environment, and give all the glory to God at the same time, vs yearning for the return of coal mining and certain manufacturing jobs that most certainly will never return completely to the status of by-gone days.
 
Last edited:
My parents contemplated a move to the US when I was quite young. There were lots of factors of course but my dad tells me a big one was the lack of annual leave.

Personally and forgive me if this sounds offensive but I think making new mothers return to work as little as 6 weeks after giving birth seems barbaric.
 
But all of us have the opportunity to acquire a free education, and for many people, help (financial and otherwise) is available for them to attend college, or trade school. Also, the military offers a lot of career training and benefits.

People need to be trained FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD to make wise decisions about how they will spend their lives.

Work hard in school–no skipping, no fighting, no slacking. If you don’t understand, ask the teacher and keep asking for help!

GRADUATE from high school–without a high school diploma, you WILL be poor unless you sell drugs.

Make sensible decisions about what to do after high school–your high school counselor works free of charge (taxpayers pays his/her salary), and he/she is qualified to help you work through all your options.

Avoid addictions. Avoid violence. If you have to join a gang to survive (Chicago), keep your hands clean.

If you get on the wrong path, then step off it and get on the RIGHT PATH. Don’t whine about “Rich Fat Cats” or anything else holding you back.

If you are a girl DO NOT HAVE SEX! Your chances of getting pregnant are very high at this fertile time of your life, and unless you are willing to give up your baby for adoption, you have joined the group of people in the U.S. who have the HIGHEST RATE OF POVERTY–single mothers! Don’t mess this up!
 
As for bringing back the manufacturing jobs–my father LOVED working in the shop (pipe fitter). He loved the people and all the social aspects of factory work. Even after he retired at age 55 (after 40 years), he continued to visit his old shop, and…when my brother got a job as a welder on 2nd shift (different factory), my father drove in every night with my brother’'s lunch, or he would join my brother and all the other workers for lunch at the factory “bar and grill” (across the street from the factory, established by the owners of the factory, and it’s currently THE place to go eat at a “diner” in our city!). He LOVED talking shop and being in a shop!

My father in law is the same way. He worked teaching middle school during the day and working as a welder in a factory in the evening (two jobs–when teaching didn’t pay enough, my FIL took on 2 full time jobs to make a good living, and he didn’t consider himself ill-used by his country!). He retired from teaching in his 50s, but continued welding into his 70s, even though he had plenty of retirement benefits from teaching! And when he retired from welding, he worked as a factory inspector until he was 82! Now he is too infirm to work, but he STILL gets requests to do inspections, which he has to turn down with GREAT RELUCTANCE!

My brother has worked as a welder now for over 40 years, and he has no plans to retire. He loves welding and loves repairing the big machines and climbing the 70 foot cranes! For the last few months, he has been working 18 hour days because of the sheer volume of work that they’re getting thanks to the greatly-improved economy. They cannot find anyone qualified to work as welders in their factory! People apply and want On-The-Job training, but the company stopped this policy years ago, as so many people spent a year getting free training (and a salary!), and then quit the instant they earned their certificate to go work in Chicago factories closer to where they lived.

Factory work provides a lot of social interaction and community–don’t be too quick to disparage it. There are a lot of people, including me, who look back with fondness on our days of working in factories. There’s something about that hum of goods being manufactured that warms the blood! (or maybe it was the lack of air conditioning!)
 
No one MAKES a young mother return to work. She makes that choice by marrying someone (or not marrying anyone) who doesn’t make enough wages/benefit to support their family.

If young women would stop marrying men with little prospects, and more importantly, if young women would STOP HAVING SEX outside of marriage, young men would be forced to step up their game if they want to enjoy the company of a beautiful young woman.
 
I don’t like the idea that only the wealthiest in society deserve children. Besides surely someone on 2 hours sleep is just going to be falling asleep at their desk and making a ton of mistakes.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
Personally and forgive me if this sounds offensive but I think making new mothers return to work as little as 6 weeks after giving birth seems barbaric.
Click to expand...
That’s not in the United States. FMLA requires most employers to give at least 12 weeks of leave for pregnancy and child birth as well as for serious illness.

Further, no one is indentured to an employer. If you want to go past that limit, the right to quit your job is enshrined in the Constitution. Here in America, everyone has quit a job and everyone has been fired. at some point along the line. This is why our President’s catchphrase “You’re fired” resonates so well with the people here.
 
Peeps said:
Factory work provides a lot of social interaction and community–don’t be too quick to disparage it.
Click to expand...
There is no shame in the factory game nor as I mentioned even a street sweeping job, anything can offer a livelihood to be proud of when done when designed to do what it was meant to do, namely offer a job. But do take into account when my grandfather and your father worked those jobs they offered health care, usually a retirement, and a reasonable source of expectation that life balance was within reach. These gentlemen saw one another at church on Sundays, and shared what their wives packed for their lunches.

Priorities were possible. However innovation is not a bad word and there is nothing wrong with progress either. Science isn’t opposed to God, and the environment is now a concern. Gas emissions, environmental wastes and toxic dumping, the protection of the human ‘lung’, and even auditory loss in individuals in a loud factory setting are only a few of the things that have caused changes. And, I call that a good thing.
 
There are, I think, two separate classes of people here that need to be distinguished.

One is the working poor, those who often work long hours with low pay because they need it to make ends meet. For this class, just working less isn’t really an option - they often have very limited opportunities and it can be very hard to get ahead when you’re working long hours to survive.

The other is those who have enough to meet their needs comfortably, but still work long hours for various reasons. Some might be motivated by greed; some by fear that if they don’t put in long hours they’ll be made fired in favor of someone who will; some simply by that being the expectation and not questioning it; some by debts or other expenses.
 
It’s a bit slick don’t you think to blame women for having to go back to work so soon because she has to. A lot of conservative men deride women for their hypergamy but yet when she has to work they blame her for not being hypergamous enough.

Fortunes can change over time. Even if said young woman married a man with prospects, years down the road, he may get ill, be in an industrial accident or more likely get laid-off. Gone are the days of lifelong employment. Nowadays it’s a matter of when you get laid-off than if you get laid-off. While the husband is unemployed who will pay the bills? Who will take care of medical insurance? Prayers can work wonders but it doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table.

No guarantees in life.
 
Augustinian said:
That’s not in the United States. FMLA requires most employers to give at least 12 weeks of leave for pregnancy and child birth as well as for serious illness.
Click to expand...
But FMLA is for unpaid leave. Women find themselves returning to work too soon because they need the money.

Editing to add that the U.S. is one of only four countries without any required paid maternity leave.
 
Last edited:
blackforest said:
Women find themselves returning to work too soon because they need the money.
Click to expand...
For those women, they really should be relying on the Baby’s Daddy- it wasn’t the employer who got them pregnant.

And for those who have shiftless, no-good baby’s daddies who refuse to man up and do the right thing- we don have the federally funded “Transitional Assistance to Needy Families” program to help with the finances as well as Medicaid for the delivery and the baby while they are out of work.
 
The way we rely on college also relies on everyone having good prediction skills.

This happened to law when I was young. When I went into college, law school was a sure bet if you could make it through. A few years later, there were so many new graduates that many couldn’t find jobs at all. It happens in other fields too - in-demand skills get saturated, or they get automated and there’s less call, or something. A college degree even in an in-demand field isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be in demand for life…
 
My mom received health benefits from her job ( dress maker in a factory). My dad was in the food industry, his job had no benefits.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
I don’t like the idea that only the wealthiest in society deserve children. Besides surely someone on 2 hours sleep is just going to be falling asleep at their desk and making a ton of mistakes.
Click to expand...
I read a book on dating once written by a priest, and he said that until a man is in a position to support a wife and children with basic necessities of life, he is not ready to date. You don’t have to be wealthy to have children, but you do have to consider how they will be supported BEFORE you marry. Of course a woman is free to marry a man without good job prospects, but then going back to work after baby is her CHOICE.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top