My Night: End of a Job (with thoughts on parenthood added in)

Tonight I picked Jenni up at Barnes and Nobles after work. She was almost in tears. Without going into all the details she ended up terminating her employment at Circuit City. This is no small matter; she has worked for Circuit City for four and a half years.

Interestingly enough I expected her eventually to resign, just not in this way. Jenni has been struggling with balancing motherhood, work, and family; she has been feeling she hasn’t been paying enough attention to William.

What I find so interestring in this society is how much we don’t value parenthood. I feel that parenting is the ultimate gift that you can give, it is something that you never will be, and never should expect to be fully repaid for, giving the gift in and of itself is reward enough.

I guess the best example I can give of this, is when I’m holding, or burping, or playing with William, often it is alot of effort and sometimes results in my clothing being puked upon or salivated upon to no end. But these are so inconsequential to me, I derive an immense amount of joy from being with William, despite the fact that he drains my energy when I’m with him, and he requires all of my attention.

When I talked with my mom on Sunday one of the things that she said that I agreed with, is that the home and children need a parent to take care of them. The more and more time I spend with Jenni and William the more I realize that taking care of children is a full time job, and really does deserve the same respect as any other full time job.

I would have to say that perhaps because our society is so focused on what dollar value we can derive from something. Perhaps this is really a failure in economics being taught correctly. We’ve not as a society been taught to identify and attempt to quantify all costs and opportunity-costs associated with a choice; I believe too often people look at the monetary cost, and don’t fully examine the emotional, relationship, psychological, and personal costs involved with a choice.

For better or worse, I am beginning to think I agree more and more with Dr. Irvine’s thesis in Doing Right by Children, of which a core piece is that we are living above any standards that we have previously lived at as a society, but we are placing our children at a status below where they existed during the “golden age of childhood” in the 1950s.

I guess it is easy for me to say this as a non-parent, its always easiest to throw stones in a glass house if you live in a concrete bunker. The one thing is that I’ve really started critiquing parents, and noticing people who are doing a very good job vs. those who should have children services called on them.

I could keep going on I think, but at some point in my life I wish to have my own kids, but just want to wait for the right time in my life to adopt a child.