Greed and one income households...

[Ardsgaine]

Gonz: The only thing stopping one income households is greed.

[soapbox] Greed has been in the news a lot lately, ever since Greenspan's "infectious greed" comment. Websters.com defines greed as follows:

greed (grēd) n. An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: “Many... attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed” (Henry Fawcett).

How much do people need? Do people need a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house? Do they need two cars, or even one car? Do they need electricity, indoor plumbing or air conditioning? Do they need televisions, refridgerators, washer/dryers or computers? People survived for centuries without these things, so obviously they could live without them now. All the marvels of modern technology that we have are things that we do not need. In fact, if you were to strip mankind down to no more than what we need, then we could live with nothing but a stick to dig up termites and a tree to hunker under when it rained.

(Hang in there, I'm getting to the point...)

What about the desire for more than we deserve. How much wealth do we deserve? How does one determine that? We often hear people say that they deserve more money than they're making. Politicians tell us that hamburger flippers deserve a higher minimum wage. Sports writers tell us that star athletes don't deserve contracts involving millions of dollars. And you would have to look far and wide to find anyone who believes that any human being deserves to make a billion dollars in a single year like Bill Gates. How do they arrive at their idea of what people deserve to make? Obviously, it's not by looking at what these people can earn in a free market, because it is precisely the free market wage that they are opposed to. For some reason, the collective choices of people making purchases in a free market counts for nothing. They have some mystical insight into what people ought to make, and their divine intuition should be forced on others, at gunpoint if necessary.

Certainly there is a such thing as the desire for undeserved wealth, and a person who acquires wealth by force or fraud doesn't deserve it. He deserves to be hauled into court, tried and convicted and forced to make restitution. The term 'greed', though, isn't reserved for such people. It's most often applied to people who work hard and manage to acquire a degree of wealth that surpasses the wealth of... whoever is calling them greedy. It is most often used by the envious to describe those better off than them.

(Just a little more...)

I am not saying that greed is good, though. What I'm saying is that 'greed' is a bogus concept. As defined, it defies any objective application. It is a package deal that places people who work for the money they earn in the same category with people who cheat and steal. It is simply a means for the incompetent or mediocre to slander people who are more productive than them.

If greed were used to describe a person who has sacrificed something of greater value for money, then it might have some objective application. For example, a person who sells out a friend for money, or a person who betrays his country for money, might be called greedy by that definition, but a man who gets rich playing basketball wouldn't.

(Here we are!)

A person who chooses to have a career instead of staying home to take care of the children, though, isn't simply choosing between money and the kids. He, or she, is choosing between two types of productive achievement, and it's very possible that staying home with the kids might not be the most rewarding of the two for that person. It is an individual choice, and I don't think that a blanket statement can, or should, be made about the people who choose one side or the other.

Even if one parent is inclined to stay home, there are a lot of monetary factors that go into making the choice. Salary, cost of living, logistics of childcare, quality of schools, etc. If the decision results in having the family fall at or below the poverty line, it might not be a net benefit for the kids. Moving to a cheaper area might be an option in some cases, but it won't necessarily be feasible in all cases.

Whichever choice is made, though, if you choose to have children, you do have a responsibility to raise them properly. Obviously, you can't do that if you're focused exclusively on your career. If your career is that much more important than raising children, don't have children. If you want children, be prepared to settle for less than you might have accomplished in your career. That goes for both parents to a certain extent, because, even if you have one parent doing full time work at the house, he is going to need that other parent coming home at a reasonable time in the evening to give him a break. Trust me on that one. [/soapbox]

 

[PT]

Very well said. Damn I like having you around.

I don't focus exclusively on my career, in fact, I have chosen a career that allows me to focus on my children, as with most of the other things in my life.

My post in the other thread that I wish we could go back to the days of one income families is true, I wish we could. What is holding us back is not greed, but desire. True, I could raise my children under that tree, digging up termites for food, but I choose to raise my children in a house that they are comfortable in, that I am comfortable in, with the luxuries that I can afford. If my wife or I advance in our career to the point that one of us can stay home, and maintain the lifestyle we have become accustomed to, then one of us will stay home. Until that day, we will continue to live the life we Want to live.

 

[Ardsgaine]

Very well said. Damn I like having you around.

Thanks!

If my wife or I advance in our career to the point that one of us can stay home, and maintain the lifestyle we have become accustomed to, then one of us will stay home.

It's easy to experience an upward movement in your expectation of personal luxuries. Your standards increase as your income increases. Jan and I are making twice as much with just her salary as we were together when we first married. That is entirely due to the increase in her salary over the past several years. She was a college student when we married, and since she's been in the computer industry she's seen a dramatic increase in wages. As our collective income has risen, so has our spending. We drive better cars, we own our own home (such as it is), we take nice vacations, eat at restaurants on a regular basis, etc. Still, it wasn't much of a sacrifice for us to give up what I was making. I was working for a drywall company making about a third of what she was grossing. I didn't like my job, and I was more than willing to stay home with the kids. It was a fairly easy decision for us. We probably live somewhat below the scale of most people who earn a similar amount of money, because we prefer to stay out of debt and save money. I wouldn't say that we've given up a lot for me to stay home with the kids, though. The benefits far outweigh the loss of income.

 

[PT]

I know, you will just about always spend whatever you make, or more.

I'm starting to advance in my career though, and my wife is just a couple classes away from her Masters in Psych. Hopefully one of us will start making some serious money soon.

 

[Gonz]

An excessive desire to acquire or possess

I don't focus exclusively on my career, in fact, I have chosen a career that allows me to focus on my children, as with most of the other things in my life

As I stressed originally, CHOICE. One choses to gain more & greater material goods. A choice is made between career & child raising. A choice for a nicer house has NOTHING and I do mean NOTHING to do with the children. They could live in a cracker box. Do not lie to yourself nor others. The better neighborhood/schools argument holds no water. If you want a better neighborhood, get involved with making it better. Better schools? Volunteer or better yet, become a teacher. Choices made for ego should never be blamed on the children.

On the other hand greed is good. It advances math & science. It creates bigger better faster. For less. If greed gets out of hand, it ultimately kills the greedy.

 

[PT]

A choice for a nicer house has NOTHING and I do mean NOTHING to do with the children. They could live in a cracker box. Do not lie to yourself nor others.

*cough* BULLSHIT *cough*

 

[PT]

The better neighborhood/schools argument holds no water. If you want a better neighborhood, get involved with making it better. Better schools? Volunteer or better yet, become a teacher.

Your ideals are very honorable, let me know when you come back to reality however.

 

[Gonz]

I live in that world. By choice.

 

[Nixy]

It is NOT always a choise whether one parent will stay home or not, sometimes it is necessary for both to work.

People CAN NOT change a neighbourhood or make the education of a certain school better on their own.

Children will NOT be happy living in a "cracker box".

Living in proverty (or near proverty) will NEVER be worth having one parent stay home.

Kids at school will tease other kids if they don't have proper clothes or shoes or house. They don't care if that stuff was sacrificed for a stay at home parent.

If one parent stays at home and babysits other children aswell inorder to make up for lost income that parent may aswell just go to work. I know, my mother babysat until I was 12 (my brother was 7). Most of the time it seemed like she was paying more attention to the kids than ot me and my brother. This isn't her fault, she had to take care of them and since we lived in the house we were pretty capable of doing stuff for ourselves and I woudl do stuff for my brother (get a drink, etc). Often though, I woudl have prefered go to summer camp and before and after school programs than be home with her and all the kids. My brother hated being home with them too, he was always asking when they were going home. I think he woudl have prefered preschool rather than all the kids. atleast at preschool everyone is around the same age.

 

[Nixy]

^Reader's Digest version BTW cause my browser kept going back when I hit backspace and I lost my long post like 5 times! i almost punched the monitor!

 

[Luis G]

i read the other thread, and i have to say that i agree with Gonz in "the idea". however, things might be different for the rest of the people living in this world.

i've seen families where the two parents need to go to work and still they don't even have own mid-class house, and they have no luxuries, they need to go out and earn some money to support their kids (which is the primary function of the parents), leaving them without a parent at home, and that isn't their choice, IT IS THE REALITY they are living, i bet they would wish to raise their childs in better conditions, but they can't, you should consider that situations are not always favorable for taking "choices".

in fact, you could also consider "choices" as a luxury, if a parent can earn enough money to have a decent life, then you're affording the LUXURY of having one parent at home.

(i probly didn't make myself clear in my sentences, just ask)

 

[Ardsgaine]

As I stressed originally, CHOICE. One choses to gain more & greater material goods. A choice is made between career & child raising.

No, a choice is made between career and how to raise the children. I had a friend growing up whose parents both worked. He and his sister were latchkey kids. Nonetheless, they grew up just fine. I never heard a breath of scandal about either one. No gang involvement, no drugs, no DUIs even. It can be done. Come to think of it, Jan's mother was a single mom who worked.

The key to raising children is to teach them to be rational and to teach them to want something out of life. If you teach them poverty and selflessness as an ideal, you will end up with children who are self-destructive parasites. If you teach them to value productive achievement and happiness, you will have children who are well adjusted and well off. You don't have to be there 24/7, you just have to teach them these things by word and deed.

A choice for a nicer house has NOTHING and I do mean NOTHING to do with the children. They could live in a cracker box. Do not lie to yourself nor others.

Theoretically, yes. My father grew up in a converted log cabin that had no electricity until he was 12 and no plumbing until long after he moved away. They got their water from a well, bathed in the creek and took a dump in the outhouse. My mother lived in various slab shacks under similar conditions. Try raising children in a cracker box with no plumbing or electricity these days, though, and see how long it takes your state's Dept of Health and Family Services to put them in a foster home.

You do have a point when you say that there are ways to cut back and make it possible for one parent to stay home. It's not possible in every case, as I think you agree, but is possible in a lot of cases. If a couple decides that it would be better for one parent to stay home, then they have to decide what they are willing to give up in order to accomplish that. I don't think you appreciate the fact that it is possible to raise good children without one parent being at home, or that there are reasons that have nothing to do with finances for why both parents might choose to work.

On the other hand greed is good. It advances math & science. It creates bigger better faster. For less. If greed gets out of hand, it ultimately kills the greedy.

Still taking issue with use of the word 'greed'... see my original post for details.

 

[Janimal]

...Come to think of it, Jan's mother was a single mom who worked.

I'm good with everything except for the above example. Mom did a fantastic job given the circumstances. And we were certainly better of without my father around than with him. But the experience gave me a great appreciation for the value of having a two-parent family, whether one parent stays at home or not.

That's somewhat off-topic to the conversation, but I thought I should point that out.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Gee, Ards...That post sure hogged a lot of bandwidth. You're just greedy...

 

[Ardsgaine]

Gee, Ards...That post sure hogged a lot of bandwidth. You're just greedy...

No, I'm altruistic. I sacrificed hours of my valuable time to bring enlightenment to the masses.

 

[Nixy]

I'm altruistic too! I wrote my post like 5 times (and I was LONG all those times) but the computer was being egocentric and kept making me lose it so I had to do a Reader's Diegest version!

 

[Gonz]

sorry, had to go do the vacation camping thing...I didn't abandon the debate

It is NOT always a choise whether one parent will stay home or not, sometimes it is necessary for both to work.

NO, it's not always choice. Those who live $12. above the poverty line know I'm not talking about them. Those who prefer a 3 car garage on their 2.75 acre home lot & have great rooms & see thru refrigerators & a gated community are the ones I'm primarily adressing. It's a wonderful life if it's not forsaking the kids to get there.

People CAN NOT change a neighbourhood or make the education of a certain school better on their own.

Then how does change happen? Waiting for the next guy is a long wait.

Children will NOT be happy living in a "cracker box".

Why? Is it better to have parents who work 50, 60, 70+ hours a week just to live in grandeur than have those parents home being parents?

Kids at school will tease other kids if they don't have proper clothes or shoes or house. They don't care if that stuff was sacrificed for a stay at home parent.

Weak, materialistic, thoughtless children do this. If the latest fad is more important than a strong, solid bond between parent & child(ren) then kill them all now & start over. Go say this to someone who lived thru the depression & ask their opinion. Today the child is mad at the parent (so...) but, in the long run, the child is a better person for learning not to follow fads.

If one parent stays at home and babysits other children as well in order to make up for lost income that parent may as well just go to work. I know, my mother babysat until I was 12 (my brother was 7). Most of the time it seemed like she was paying more attention to the kids than ot me and my brother.

You are correct. That paragrapgh said more than I could.

Ards, there are exceptions to all rules. The generalized statement-"Having a stay at home parent is better for all involved" is still true. I think Janimal pointed that out quite nicely & wasn't off topic at all. The key to raising children is to raise them. Start by picking a suitable & proper companion. Don't date losers. More importantly, don't marry losers. The greatest gift you can give your offspring is your decent caring, responsible spouse. Do not let them raise themselves, do not let them be raised by strangers (daycare/babysitter). If, as a mature, thinking adult, one chooses to have children, then all the responsibility should befall them. Not Nana. Not the paid Nanny, not Kinder-Care. It is up to the parent to tend their own flock. Full time. Careers can be resumed or changed. Childhood is once.