“Good Ole Days”
February already!
Kids are back to school and parents are breathing sighs of relief that the holidays are over.
The new year will be bringing some people the opportunity of starting a new job or career path and for others it will be bringing the much anticipated and maybe dreaded retirement.
When people retire they often fear how they will fill their days.
I haven’t yet met anyone who has regretted retiring and I have yet to find any retired person who cannot fill their day with what becomes their new routine. It seems we wonder how we found the time to work!
I was discussing retirement and family with a friend lately and how different it is now for families.
Mums often now are expected to work, unlike several generations ago when Mums were just expected to be Mums. Their job comprised of washing clothes, cleaning up after everyone, cooking family meals and baking for school lunches. Clothes that were damaged by boisterous play were repaired, often by hand, shoes were repaired and Mums were home to greet children after school and husbands after work.
I believe women have inherited a bigger workload since becoming “liberated” and I’m not convinced it works or is best for us or our families. We talk about work/life balance, but do we actually manage to pull this off?
Our expectations are growing all the time and each generation has so many more gadgets and options, you wonder where it will all end? Life was simpler and wants were less, 30 or even 40 years ago. Now we have to have everything right NOW! Nobody wants to save up for the new washing machine or car anymore, we just put it on the plastic card or accrue more debt. What is this teaching our kids? I want my children to appreciate what they have and I also want them to save up for the things they really need or want, I don’t want it to be too easy as this teaches them nothing about budgeting or the thrill of accomplishment which should be one of our motivators for working hard. I am a bit sad that we are contributing to the problem by the simple fact that both parents now work and things are then more affordable, this makes it easier to provide them the gadgets but at what price? Think about it, there were some good values learned when families were bigger and poorer!
