For Stay-at-home Moms and Moms who wish they could

Let's say that a child cost $52,158 in formula, childcare and disposable diapers over a 12 year period. Let's say that a woman has 6 children. Let's say that she has these 6 children in a 10 year period. From the time her first child is born, until her last child is 12 years old will be 22 years. Over that 22 year period, this woman will spend $312,948 on her children’s formula, childcare and disposable diapers. This averages out to be $14,225 per year over the 22 year period.

Let’s say that this woman takes home $20,000 from her job after taxes. After she pays for her children’s expenses, she will average $5,775 left over each year. That makes her profit $127,050 over the 22 year period.

For the record, this woman has spent $312,948 so that she could continue working at a job that would only bring her $127,050 ahead after a 22 year period.

QUESTIONS:
Q:Why did you use a scenario of 6 children when the average family size is much smaller?
A:Because I hope to have 6 children, and I think that many other woman would consider having larger families if they thought they could afford being a full-time stay-at-home mom. Women today are limited in the number of children they can have because they work outside the home and have to bear the cost of formula and childcare. If these women stayed home and breastfed their babies, the cost for these items would be $0.

Q:Why do you only take three things into account when estimating the cost of a child?
A:Because those are the three things that women usually have to pay for when they work outside the home that stay-at-home mom’s do not have to pay for.

Q:What if our family desperately needs that extra $5,775 per year that I would get from working outside the home?
A:How about starting a home business? It wouldn’t have to be too large to only make 5k-6k a year! Plus, if you do have 6 children, they will eventually be old enough to help you with the business.

Q:What if I’m a single mom?
A:Someone has to watch your kids, no matter what the situation may be. Is not being able to be the one to watch your kids your punishment for being a single mom? I don’t think it should be. Again, look into starting a home business. If your children are being watched for free by a relative, why? If your relative really cares about you and wants to help you, why don’t they go get a job and let YOU watch your own kids? I know I don’t know everyone’s personal situation, and there are situations far more complicated than the ones I have mentioned. I simply want women to think about their options. I want women to have the FREEDOM to CHOOSE to raise their own children.
Summer Duncan

My Rant

I had my appointment yesterday and had the blood drawn for the Lenetix test. I should hear back about that some time next week.

I still haven't had an MCA scan, I'm 22 weeks. They did the anatomy ultrasound and the tech doing it said that they usually do not start the MCA scans that early. I told her that everyone I'd heard of started at 18 weeks... so I don't know what's going on there. She said the baby looks perfect (it's a boy!) and has no signs of hydrops, which made me feel better. I even asked her why should couldn't just go ahead and do the MCA scan, since she had already told me that they do them in that room, but she never gave me a straight answer.

I'm praying so hard that the baby has negative blood! I don't know if I can stand going to that clinic for the entire pregnancy!

I was also told by a nurse that my titers were NOT checked at my last visit, which is so upsetting because I called and they told me that the number was 1:16, which is the same number it has been all along. I feel like I was given a false sense of relief because I thought the number was simply staying the same. So I guess my titers have not been checked for 2 months. They said they would check them yesterday, I hope they did. They also scheduled my next visit for 4 weeks again. I decided not to say anything, just in case the baby's blood turns out to be negative. If it's positive, I will be calling and insisting on a sooner appointment.

Do you think that I'm overboard and just a big complainer? Or does it seem like things aren't being handled very well in my situation?

UPDATE ON WEANING

Well, I thought I would have a hard time night-weaning. However, it just seemed to happen all by itself. At about 8/9 months we moved Haven into her own room and she started sleeping through the night. Over this past month, she started day weaning herself. I still offer at night and in the morning and I still have some milk, but I am more worried about weaning too early now, instead of not being able to wean whenever I want to. Now I don't even know when I want to wean. I just feel better knowing that she is getting to nurse. I know that it is good for her and it's easy for me.

This is scary stuff! How soon will this be happening in the US?

Homeschooling in Germany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homeschooling in Germany is illegal with rare exceptions. The requirement to attend school has been upheld, on challenge from parents, by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Parents violating the law have most prominently included fundamentalist Christians who want to give their children a more Christian education than that which is offered by the schools. Penalties against these parents have included fines (around €5,000), successful legal actions to take away the parents' custody of their children, and jail time for the parents.^[1]

In a landmark legal case commenced in 2003 at the European Court of Human Rights a homeschooling parent couple argued on behalf of their children that Germany's compulsory school attendance endangered their children's religious upbringing, promoted teaching inconsistent with their Christian faith – especially the German State's mandates relating to sex education in the schools – and contravened the declaration in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that "the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions". In September 2006 the European Court of Human Rights upheld the German ban on homeschooling, stating "parents may not refuse... [compulsory schooling] on the basis of their convictions", and adding that the right to education "calls for regulation by the State". The European Court took the position that the plaintiffs were the children, not their parents, and declared "children are unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision for home education because of their young age.... Schools represent society, and it is in the children's interest to become part of that society. The parents' right to educate does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience." The European Court endorsed a "carefully reasoned" decision of the German court concerning "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."^[2]

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

Weaning my baby from nursing; weaning myself from Babycenter.com

Hey there, everyone.

I have decided to become a minimalist. To me, this means:

• I only keep what I need, no duplicates
• I keep floors and surfaces clear of clutter and dishes
• I do not buy anything that is not necessary

I have already started with my kitchen cabinets. I am going to toss a bunch of kitchen knives that I never use. That is about as far as I've gotten. I don't have a whole ton of junk because I already was somewhat a minimalist, but I'm just wanting to crack down on it a little more. Having 4 closets full of junk is not my cup of tea. It bothers me just knowing that stuff is there... just sitting there... doing nothing but taking up space.

Why do I keep junk?

• I think I might need it someday
• Someone gave it to me
• I've had it for a long time

That's about it.

I might need it someday
This is a BIG one. What if I need those 10 little candle holders someday. If I throw away the ones I have, I might have to buy more and that is a waste of money. I CANNOT waste money! Yes, I really do have a bunch of little candle holders under my kitchen sink that I cannot bring myself to get rid of... I also have clothes I haven't worn in over a year that I cannot get rid of because I might want to wear them someday. I have to find a way to realize that I will NOT use these things in the future. They are just taking up valuable space in my home. Cluttering up my style! Crowding and wrinkling the things I do love to wear.

Someone gave it to me
Oh the gifts! How can I get rid of something someone GAVE to ME??? Someone cared about me enough to give me something. How could I just get rid of it? But, if someone really loves me, they will be happy with whatever I want to do with the gift, right? They wouldn't want me to keep it if I don't want it, would they? Plus, they are probably never going to find out anyway. I am still clinging to many useless things, just because they were given to me.

I've had it for a long time
This one gets me a lot. What about all those birthday cards I have kept (or my mother kept for me) since I was born? I need to keep those forever, right? What about the comics that I kept from 1996? How can I throw those away now? What about the t-shirt I got when I was 12? It still fits. For some reason I believe that the longer I've had something, the more valuable it is to me, making it much harder to get rid of. Many of these things are also gifts -making them even harder to part with. Yes, there are things that are old and are gifts that I would NEVER get rid of. For example, the quilts my grandma gave to me. I LOVE the quilts! I cherish them AND I use them. I guess I'm not a "keep collectibles pristine in a box" kind of person. If I can't get it out of the box, it's of no use to me. I've tried collecting things before and it's never worked out for me. I collect boxes. Boxes are very useful to me. I can keep all my junk in them!!!

BIG NEWS

Hello Everyone, I'm back and I have big news -I'm pregnant! Exciting :)

Lately I've been wondering how I will handle breastfeeding both of my children if Haven doesn't wean before the baby is born. I think tandem nursing is great, but I'm a little worried about night-time tandem nursing. That doesn't sound like something I want to try... This is my plan in the works:

Breastfeed Haven on demand until she is 1 year old.

At 1 year, start night-weaning Haven.
Here is my night-weaning plan (We'll see if this works):
STEP ONE: Nurse Haven to sleep, but when she wakes up to nurse during the night, only nurse her for a few minutes and them have her go to sleep without being nursed to sleep. This will probably be hard, since she likes to nurse to sleep.
STEP TWO: Nurse Haven to sleep, but when she wakes up to nurse during the night, do not nurse her, just comfort her back to sleep. She's probably not going to like this very much....
STEP THREE: When Haven stops waking up during the night to nurse (I'm guessing this will happen when she realizes that she is not going to get to nurse) we can move her crib into the other room.

This is my plan, we shall see what actually happens.

Another thing I'm planning on doing before the baby is born is teaching Haven to sit or stand next to me without running off. Well, so far she can't even walk, but I guess she could definitely crawl away, lol. The reason for this is, when I have the new baby, I don't want to be chasing her around when we are in public and in church while carrying around a newborn. Just trying to plan ahead a little. You mom's out there with more than 1 child probably think I'm insane, lol. Again, we shall see what ACTUALLY happens, lol.

We are super excited about the baby!

Any name suggestions?