- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
Doris, perhaps you're right on girls vs. boys after all - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090601/sc_nm/us_math_girls_1 
Miss California
- Thread starter skatingbc
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
Just on the issue of "stability" of a married person (or one with a child) over the single person. I think it depends very much on the career. I'm a lawyer and more often than not being single is seen as a positive because you've got no-one to go home to which means you have no "excuse" to not put in all the extra hours that are expected. It's much easier for the Partners to demand that you give up your night/weekend etc if they know that you won't be upsetting a partner/family.
It actually became so infuriating to me that I was always the one asked to give up their free time that I ended up making up a relationship so that the badness of losing your free time was actually spread around everyone more fairly. Free time is free time and I disagreed strongly that mine was apparently worth less because i didn't have a partner or child.
Ant
It actually became so infuriating to me that I was always the one asked to give up their free time that I ended up making up a relationship so that the badness of losing your free time was actually spread around everyone more fairly. Free time is free time and I disagreed strongly that mine was apparently worth less because i didn't have a partner or child.
Ant
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
Ant, I think lawyers are in a category in and of themselves. A good friend of mine is a corporate lawyer. She says that everyone she works with either has no children or has a stay-at-home spouse (and yes, that includes a couple of women with stay-at-home husbands). She felt for a while that the only way for her to have a baby was to convince her mother to retire (her mom had a relatively low paying job so my friend could make up for it financially without any difficulty). In her case, though, things really did work out. Her husband got a teaching position in another state, and she asked her law firm if she could work remotely part time (she calculated that 60% of her work could be done remotely, so that's what she offered to work for). They agreed, and she's now a mother of two, working from home part time (which actually amounts to about the same as the rest of the work calls full time).
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
Yes that does sound like familiar territory. I actually have to say that law firms seem to be comnig out of the stone age in terms of flexible working. Though i suspect you would struggle with London or New York Corporate outfits, think most firms are willing to allow some flexibility (even though hours are still incredibly high). Being single really is seen as an asset especially since most Partners experience divorce on their rise up through the ranks to become a Partner. That's pretty sad really, so it's good to hear when people make things work for them.Ant
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Can't go along with one exception. Single people are always left to close up shop, get to work earlier, because they do not have family comitments. They are used as one to do the extra work when neccessary in any organization or job.
Of course some marrieds do toil later at the work place by choice, but never before a get-a-way weekend. They also have to leave early because of the kids. yeah. That's ok the single person can finish the job.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
my dad never got special priviledges for being a "family man"... he was the one that got guilt tripped into staying late... or working extra hours... but he got his way in other ways... he got to bring his kid to work more than just one day a year 
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- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
Joe, isn't there a "payback" though? In my experience, the people who don't do that extra work are never promoted. They are also among the first candidates for the layoffs. (All companies pay lip service to being "family friendly" but it's a smokescreen 95% of the time.) I sometimes leave early, sure - but every time I do, I then end up working from home after putting my son to bed, meaning at the time when most people are drinking their beers in front of the TV.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Well, without getting too involved, there are so many factors (mostly clandestine) that promotion opportunities go through. A non married couple (boss and secretary) were being actively close in the garage of an office building but they got caught. She was fired. he was promoted.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Some 30 years ago. The boss was not coveting his neighbor's wife; just his single secretary.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2007
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
Yup back then, it was often that way.
Some 20 years ago, a cleaning lady was caught at work with the married guy who ran the chemical mix room at IBM. She was fired, he was forcibly retired, and his son, who was a manager was vilely embarrassed.
Some 20 years ago, a cleaning lady was caught at work with the married guy who ran the chemical mix room at IBM. She was fired, he was forcibly retired, and his son, who was a manager was vilely embarrassed.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
Actually, "traditional marriage" isn't just what yet another arrogant athiest on youtube claims in a bitter one-sided rant about the bible. It IS what has worked for society for thousands of years.
In fairness, in our modern western society, traditional marriage is just about dead. Our "traditional" marriage now is a single mom, a few out-of-control neglected, undisciplined, internet-addicted children, and an absent father whose only role is to pay child support. It's the new American dream! I don't see gay marriage making the state of marriage much worse, per se. But I do see the complete and utter abandonment of "traditional" values eventually destroying our society.
Perhaps someday, a human society will manage to figure out how to keep from imploding without adhering to rigid moral standards and god concepts. I doubt it.
In fairness, in our modern western society, traditional marriage is just about dead. Our "traditional" marriage now is a single mom, a few out-of-control neglected, undisciplined, internet-addicted children, and an absent father whose only role is to pay child support. It's the new American dream! I don't see gay marriage making the state of marriage much worse, per se. But I do see the complete and utter abandonment of "traditional" values eventually destroying our society.
Perhaps someday, a human society will manage to figure out how to keep from imploding without adhering to rigid moral standards and god concepts. I doubt it.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
Well it "worked" if by "working" you mean that it was all fine and dandy while everyone accepted that the women were simply chattles being bought and sold by men. Men who, by virtue of the sale and purchase contract they'd entered into could do whatever they wanted with that chattle including physically and sexually abuse it.
Ant
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2007
Yeah, I am pretty sure that he means that. Perhaps he also means that the marriages were stable, because in 80% of the population not many women made it past 35 because they died of childbirth or of simple exhaustion after getting married at 15, having 12 children (7 of them died before turning 5) before they turned 30.
You just have to love people who claim that things were so much better 50/70/100 etc. years ago. Everytime one of my elder relatives start a sentence with "When we were young, that would never have happened" and I am always very close to saying "When you were young this entire country was full of mass-murdering lunatics". Really, when were things that much better than today for everyone! You will always finds time periods where one group of people were living an idyllic "ideal" life. But how often was that life only possible because other people (women, black people, slaves, simple workers, children...) suffered?
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
There is a wonderful Russian poem by Alexander Kushner (made into a famous song by Nikitin - http://stranamp3.com/tracks/486718/1/tatyana_i_sergei_nikitiny_vremena_ne_vybirayut.html) – I’ll try to translate it loosely (I won’t even bother with rhyming, I’ll just get the gist of it):
One doesn’t choose his time,
One just lives and dies in it.
There’s nothing more banal
Than pleading and complaining,
As if one can exchange one for the other
As if it were a market.
Any century is the “iron” one.
But the garden is beautiful,
The cloud is shining; at five
I was supposed to die of scarlet fever.
Live in the innocent century,
That knows no hardship!
You want to happy.
Would you rather live under Ivan the Terrible?
Do you dream of Florentine
Plague or leprosy?
You want to ride first class,
Not in dark in ship’s hold?
Any century is the “iron” one.
But the garden is beautiful,
The cloud is shining; I’ll hug
My century and my fate.
Time is a test.
Don’t envy anyone.
The hug is right.
Time is the skin, not the dress.
It’s imprint is deep.
If you’re careful,
You can take print it’s signs and folds
From us as fingerprints.
One doesn’t choose his time,
One just lives and dies in it.
There’s nothing more banal
Than pleading and complaining,
As if one can exchange one for the other
As if it were a market.
Any century is the “iron” one.
But the garden is beautiful,
The cloud is shining; at five
I was supposed to die of scarlet fever.
Live in the innocent century,
That knows no hardship!
You want to happy.
Would you rather live under Ivan the Terrible?
Do you dream of Florentine
Plague or leprosy?
You want to ride first class,
Not in dark in ship’s hold?
Any century is the “iron” one.
But the garden is beautiful,
The cloud is shining; I’ll hug
My century and my fate.
Time is a test.
Don’t envy anyone.
The hug is right.
Time is the skin, not the dress.
It’s imprint is deep.
If you’re careful,
You can take print it’s signs and folds
From us as fingerprints.
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
It is indeed beautiful!
But at my age, I know why your elders hark back to the past as being better. It's always better when all of your parts worked correctly, when you were young and in love before disillusionment, when everything that was beautiful you had newly discovered for the first time, instead of nodding your head, and saying, yes, it's still beautiful, but it was better then.
However, even with that, the 1950's still were dreadful, and I still remember them that way. OTOH, I can get quite nostalgically happy thinking about the 1970's: bad clothes, disco, Nixon, the gas crisis and all.
But at my age, I know why your elders hark back to the past as being better. It's always better when all of your parts worked correctly, when you were young and in love before disillusionment, when everything that was beautiful you had newly discovered for the first time, instead of nodding your head, and saying, yes, it's still beautiful, but it was better then.
However, even with that, the 1950's still were dreadful, and I still remember them that way. OTOH, I can get quite nostalgically happy thinking about the 1970's: bad clothes, disco, Nixon, the gas crisis and all.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
Yawn. What worked was when kids had a mother and a father. Never said it was perfect. So instead of working on perfecting it, you choose to demonize the past, and ignore the failings of the present. I see the human race fundamentally as a bunch of children. The noble ideals of Christianity like self-sacrifice, humility and believing in something more important than just your own immediate happiness -- those are the values which used to be instilled in said children. Now we're just spoiled and worthless, we don't understand why "me me me" won't work, we think everyone deserves everything even when it is incongruous. Our society is completely selfish, and the courts have granted women the power to abuse that selfishness and destroy families. Yep, your modern values are so freaking noble. I'm just in awe.
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2007
Really? Is that how you really think everyone is right now? I don't think that's true for everyone. I admit, some people of my generation are ambitious, they want to achieve, to strive--but I see that in a more positive light. That today, everyone--i.e. women, blacks, etc, and not just white, middle/upper-class men--can have the chance to achieve their dreams. That everyone has the opportunity now to become something other than the narrow societal roles of the past. Is that really a bad thing: that everyone can have their own goals, dreams and ambitions, and now have the chance to pursue them? I would think that we as a society are better for it.
As a student, I must say that while there are spoiled, hyper-ambitious types who believe that they are entitled to riches and fame, there are also many people my age who show the qualities of self-sacrifice, humility and believing in something more important than just their immediate happiness--whether by spending long hours volunteering at a homeless shelter, or organizing fundraisers to sponsor a child overseas, or donating hours of their time to conduct volunteer research for an entirely student-run research group. These values aren't dead right now. It's that for every generation, there are selfish people, and there are good people. You may only see the selfish people, but that doesn't mean that everyone is like that.
Personally, I think you're demonizing the present and ignoring the failings of the past.
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