On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Chetan Nagendra <che...@nagster.org> wrote: > Appalled by the parents mentioned in the article. Gross negligence by any > standards. Why have kids in the first place?
Every couple of months we go through a panic stricken routine of trying to replace our nanny. I've been lucky enough to be working for relatively understanding employers who've tolerated weeks of working from home. But I can definitely sympathise with parents who've been caught between a rock and a hard place with child care woes. The unspoken assumption in both this thread and the 40-hour week one that anyone who sacrifices family or personal time for work is a bad parent is, quite frankly, elitist crap. Sexist too, because it's the mothers who face the brunt of criticism. I've been laid off in the past and worried how I was going to make mortgage payments or pay school fees. I'm not going to apologise for trying to ensure it doesn't happen again. If that means a 50 or 60 hour week, well, tough shit. Forgoing my wife's paycheck is also a luxury that we can't afford. Luckily, we're able to arrange things such that one of us is with the kids most of the day. I shudder to think what would have happened if I wasn't able to work 20hrs of my 50hr week at home. I suspected I would have hated it, but lived with it. Rather like the people in the article, I suspect. -- b
