Proper Jobs
Apparently there is some sort of question as to what is a proper job. I really don’t care, but it’s me and other stay at home moms who are earning money that are under fire and in question so I’d like to clear this up a little. You know, for the slow learning.
It’s my personal opinion that making any type of money and staying off of welfare is usually a good choice. Rather than use up the United States resources and put our country further in debt I’d love to see people sit on their “butts” and blog. It seems to be that retail is in question against paid blogging. Does retail actually require skills? It was said that blogging doesn’t.
Daily I got to the store, any store, even high end department stores, and have workers go Duh? when they attempt to use a credit card, debit card, check, cash, cash register, security release thing, uh plastic bag. If you can type up a blog entry on your computer using wordpress then you could successfully run a cash register. ANYONE can stand around and ask if someone needs help and direct them to the nearest pair of Nike’s.
Are either of these things are “career”? No. Is anyone claiming they are? I’m not. My plus is that if I don’t wanna blog on a given day or on 3 weeks worth of days, I don’t. If you are working in a retail job to pay your bills and you want to take 3 weeks off, you are screwed, and fired.
In my personal opinion if you attempt to get money by not stealing or conning people then you are being pretty mature. It’s also my opinion that if you claim taxes, and you guys may want to take a look at the IRS site and familiarize yourself with the process of income taxes. See if you have a job, you file them and you pay the government. I don’t know how it goes in England, but I’m guessing it’s similar. I’m also guessing that even people who are repeat bankruptcy filers still file taxes every year, so the both of the idiots who are perpetuating this argument should be familiar with proper work.
See according to the IRS and my 2006 taxes I worked a proper job by blogging. I paid the government and the state their share. So if it’s not proper then could someone point me to the proof that it is, because I’d love to get the IRS involved in this. I’m sure they’d have a good chuckle and inform you that theft, drug sales, and prostitution are about the only forms of “non proper” employment that there is. Not that they don’t have their perks.
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I was under the impression that a proper job is the type that compensates you for work done. And the jobs that don’t piss off the government are the ones that are LEGAL and TAX PAYING. Whether that work be flipping burgers, obsessing about women and toddlers while patrolling the floor at Best Buy, cashing people out at toy stores, or in our case, writing advertisements for companies.
But hey, let them complain. While they’re dealing with rising gas prices, imaginary children to take to daycare, trying to get days off and dealing with co-worker bullshit, you and I and every other person who works through PPP and the like use NO gas, get to stay HOME with our children (real or otherwise), don’t have any co-workers to put up with, and can make our own hours. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a win-win situation.
And for what it’s worth, in nine months I have made almost what I made in a year working fast food, retail and customer service. And I haven’t spent any gas money or had to buy uniforms and then launder said uniforms. By the way, that is NOT counting the $500 - $1500 I make for any given writing assignment through another company I work for.
By the way, how are the payouts from that pretend job of yours going today?
I’ve only done one so I’m under $20.00. I have this bad habit of attempting to take anything during the day so I don’t have to do much at night when we’re doing anything like Friday, Saturday, Sunday or on nights that I have tv shows on I like. But you’ll find me slaving away on Tuesday and Wednesday for a $1.00 a pop.
I have to say your entire comment made me spit out my Mt. Dew. It’s just so funny how most of the lives they live are imaginary. And by they I mean Mick the Pedo.
I do most of my good opps in the morning, before my two are up, or very late at night, when most PPPers are in bed and the good opps are available.
And I’m glad I could amuse you!
As far as I’m concerned being a stay at home mom IS A JOB. Paid posting is just ADDING to your already existing workload!
When Ben and I decide to have a baby, I will do paid posting to suppliment some of my income.
^ That too. I was thinking along the lines of the whole “real” job thing when I posted. Being a stay at home mom is definitely a job in itself. It’s a very useful one, as well - keeping the home and kids so that the husband can concentrate on a job/career and then have a warm, inviting house to come home to and relax in.
But then again, we’re trying to reason with an idiot who has no sense of reality.
I for one am glad to see this post. And if I could do what you all are doing and work from home writing paid posts, I would in a heart beat.
Crys I would too if I were you. First of all you have the daycare thing which I don’t know about military because you might have programs on site, but here in your average child mill daycare you pay $140 and up for 2 kids. Plus food. Plus you have to drag them out every single morning and in the winter it’s dark, it’s cold, etc. It’s not really good for babies. Or mommies.
You essentially just admitted PPP is a cop-out - you don’t have to deal with this, you don’t have to deal with that, you can sit on your ass all day, blah blah blah. The point is, you’re neither contributing to nor participating in society, and this has been mentioned on both your blog and Jenn’s.
I’m sorry, but parenthood isn’t a job on one level with actual professional occupations, no matter how much SAHMs want the world to think otherwise. My mother managed to raise me, cook, clean and keep the house in order while working 12-14 hours a day operating on people. That’s a job. I was neither abused nor neglected, had and still have home-cooked meals daily, a clean house and parents with functioning brains.
If that’s what your life amounts to, Jenn, and from the looks of it that’s exactly so, then I feel really sorry for you.
Alex why do you care so much what Jenn’s life amounts to? That just makes me think that you are so unhappy with what your life amounts to that you have to be putting someone else down and criticizing them to make yourself feel validated. I know, I know your mom was a surgeon and you are a blah blah blah. GOOD For both of you! I’m more than happy to see strong women in this world, but it takes a lot of different types of strong women to make the world go around.
I’m also sorry that I don’t think it’s healthy to drag babies out in the freezing cold weather. I live in Indiana. Crys lives in Arizona. I guess it’s more acceptable for Crys to drag out her two babies both under 3 years old all times of the year. Unfortunately for me I deal with snow, ice storms, and freezing weather. It’s a fact of life, but when the weather man advises that people stay in doors because it’s dangerous out and school is closed I don’t see the need to drag out children and attempt to force them on babysitters who don’t want do deal with it either. It’s not healthy for anyone.
Because women don’t have jobs that accommodate for things like this or work around school schedules I don’t see the harm in wanting to be a stay at home mom for your children’s sake. My mom stayed at home and she worked. The best times in my life were when she was home with me. It was when we were happiest. That’s what I’m going on when I based my decisions.
And you better believe that if I go to work full time while my kids are in school and a situation arises where they need me I’ll walk out on an employer who doesn’t allow me the flexibility. I guess I didn’t BRING HER INTO THE WORLD, but essentially that’s how I feel. She’s my number one priority. When that changes and I start wanting her to suffer so I can boast that I work retail, or am the president of the U.S. I’ll let you know.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, my life is absolutely worthless. I’m so miserable that I have to resort to making fun of the mamablogosphere to get through each depressing day. Yep. How’d you guess?
How did this become about how cold it is outside?
1) PPP isn’t on par with a real job. PPP is the equivalent of Cashcrate and those “get rich in your sleep”/”fill out surveys and earn $$$” schemes. I’d understand if you ran a web developing company from home or snagged a book deal, but until then, PPP isn’t a job-job. I’m sorry.
2) If you want to be a SAHM, by all means, go ahead, just don’t expect a gold star for it. Like V of Violent Acres famously said, “most women are nothing more than wasted potential”, and Jenn’s comment illustrates that point - if your top priority is making sure your husband comes home to a clean house and dinner on the table, don’t be surprised when people suggest you’re wasting your life away. Don’t go around explaining how much you cook and clean and cook and clean and cook and clean, as if that’s somehow validating in itself, because there are women out there who cook and clean and have two graduate degrees and two kids and make six figures and have made a name for themselves in their industry. That’s impressive. Cooking and cleaning isn’t.
Alex you aren’t listening to what I said at all. You read it and took it as a slam completely when it was not in any way. I told you why it made me think you were doing it.
If you were directing your entire comment to Jenn then I’m sorry. However, when you said I made excuses that I didn’t have to deal with this and I didn’t have to deal with that the ONLY things I made excuses about not having to deal with were dragging the kids out in the mornings. So I explained my point.
I’ll agree with you on one point. Cleaning isn’t impressive. The cooking part I have to disagree with because I’ve got a flair for it, but throwing something in the microwave is less than impressive or validating. My top priority is my daughter not making sure my husband comes home to something clean and tidy and dinner. It’s far from that around here.
I guess the thing you fail to understand is that at this point in my life I don’t want a job-job. I’m not trying to get rich quick. I originally just wanted to pad the adoption account. The thing is that even if in the next couple years I’m a woman with a BA and I adopt a child under school age, I’ll be a woman with a BA sitting at home taking care of her newly adopted daughter and posting in her spare time. That’s who I wan to be. That’s all I want my life to amount to. That’s my choice and I’m not sure why you can’t think I’m a wonderful person for KNOWING who I want to be and WHAT I want to be doing?
And with all that said I don’t hate you, I’m actually going to check out your site later. You are allowed to have a differing opinion from me. But when it comes to me, and someone on my site I want to educate you on who I am so you’ll get to know the real me, that’s the only reason I’m saying all this stuff. I’m not trying to defend anything. Nobody should really have to defend themselves.
My entire comment was more of a general statement, so my use of “you” was a general “you”, not a “you in particular”. I understand why people do PPP, and their reasons are, quite frankly, none of my concern even if I don’t, but the whole point is that PPP isn’t a JOB, it’s a source of income. If I were to organize monthly garage sales, that wouldn’t be a job, it’d be a source of income.
Re: the priorities - that was in response to Jenn. Now, as for the cooking, once again, cooking can be impressive (much like cleaning can be impressive if a cleaning lady happens to be a godsend, like those two British chicks on TV, for instance), but the general “I cook and clean all day, therefore, I’m worthy of praise” sentiment drives me up the wall.