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From: cindy@solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Housewives...
Message-ID: <1991May14.165258*cindy@solan.unit.no>
Date: 14 May 91 23:52:58 GMT
References: <91130.021458IO92142@MAINE.BITNET>
Sender: news@ugle.unit.no
Organization: Flodnak, Inc., Trondheim, Norway
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
In-Reply-To: IO92142%MAINE.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu's message of 13 May 91 20:13:49 GMT
Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org



actually, i've had the same problem.  i want to have kids and i hope i can
afford to stay home, at least until the youngest is old enough to start
school (7 years old here).  if i go to work while the kids are still small,
it will be out of economic necessity, not from wanting to.  why?  because
i love kids, pure and simple.

i have had to explain this to friends, though, some of whom can't understand
that i would want to stay home.  a couple of weeks ago i got into a discussion
with a (female) friend who didn't actually say i was *crazy*, but asked...
you're sure?  i mean, you've thought about it?  if you have two kids, two
years apart, that's NINE YEARS of staying at home with little people whose
tempers are subject to change at any moment, and who won't be very intelligent
company... etc.

i KNOW all this, and i STILL WANT to stay at home with my kids, but convincing
other people that i want to can be hard sometimes.  not that this decision is
in the immediate future... i have to finish school yet and we definitely
will need a bigger place to live (i know of a couple who had themselves and
a baby in an apartment the size of ours, 35 m^2, but i think they were a little
loopy 8-))... 

incidentally, women so commonly work outside the home here that there is a 
slang term for women who do stay home... "luxus-kone", meaning "luxury wife".
this attitude does not make it any easier....

-cindy kandolf
 cindy@solan.unit.no
 trondheim, norway