What SAHDs Do All Day

[fiery redhead]

No offense to this girl but she has responsibilities of someone half her age. She cleans ONE room, makes dinner ONCE a week, does dishes with help? Oh, but she "took the initiative" (does a 22 year old need permission do plant flowers?) to dig her own little garden plot :P

I am a Christian, college age, and living at home. And yes I work with helping families but I am paid to do it and I take care of special needs children. I live and help out at home because my brother is disabled and I have two small sisters and my mother has health issues from a medical mistake. I love them, and university is not my thing anyways. And yes I study the Bible too. Even if I lived on my own and had a full time job, I'd still find time. And I garden. Not flowers, tons of food.

I'm not trying to down this girl by saying I do more than her, I just feel bad that she has to obey parents who obviously hyper analyze any little activity to see if it is too feminist or not. It's such a joke.

But if she goes to Mally camp then I'm not surprised by the hyper legalism and irrationality.

[Black Aliss]

She could've made decent money doing lessons. When I was in college almost 20 years ago, a friend of mine (sinful divorced mom with 2 sons) worked part-time teaching piano lessons. She earned $12 an hour then and was able to support her boys and go to nursing school. Too bad Emily doesn't have that option.

Maybe they're afraid that if she had that kind of money she'd use it to buy herself a Greyhound ticket to anywhere-but-here.

[GeoBQn]

Just for comparison, what were you doing at 22?

I was studying abroad in Jerusalem, making new friends, traveled to Turkey and Egypt with them, learning Hebrew to get by during my interactions in town, taking public transportation, had my first (ok, only) random hook-up, then dealt with anxiety when I came back to the US and the war with Lebanon started 3 weeks later. I had enough in scholarships to go to college the equivalent of half-ride, and I earned additional scholarships for my semester abroad.

[Dollypeeps]

At 22 I was married with 2 kids and working full time. Had my own garden to pottering in. My own home with mortgage. Cooking every day as normal. Yup Independence I had and managing just fine.

To me they've infantilised her 22 nope she sounds much younger.

[Ave Maria]

I didn't have a paid job at 22, either, (also by choice) so I feel like I can't judge her very much.

I was married, living in an apartment with my DH. During that time, I had some health stuff pop up that was far from pleasant and I had to travel to see specialists, etc. We also found a house and entered escrow right before I turned 23. There was a lot of stuff going on (legal, medical, etc) that wasn't fun, but we were in it together and we got through it.

[ThatSnark]

A lucrative job at a music store? Really?

When I was 22, I was a year out of university and working full-time as a nursing home social worker in a rural mill town in Alabama. I was engaged to be married but fully capable of supporting myself should the need have arisen. I married my husband the following year and was in graduate school the year after that.

In addition to my full-time job, I also kept our three-bedroom house neat and clean, cooked dinner every night, made my lunch to take to work, and took care of the gardens, out of which I was able to create tasteful flower arrangements, even though I was working during the day.

[VVV]

OMG. Unions should make sure that music teachers get extra money for the musical torture they have to endure everyday. I really admire you and your colleagues who have the patience to teach music to kids, even the tone deaf ones.

I teach private violin lessons and I charge a crapload more than the local music store pays. "Lucrative" - I do not think that word means what she thinks it means.

[HoneyBunny]

This kind of justification for having nothing worthwhile to do makes me crazy, really crazy. When I was in my early 20s, there was a Styx song called "Too Much Time on My Hands", and, though I used to run to it, it made me crazy too. At 22, I had my degree, was working for an international corporation and was 85% travel all over the world. My work weeks were regularly 80 hours long (more with flights) AND I was dating the guy I would marry the next year. In my rare spare time, I doted on my nephews like a Maxwell.

I was NOT artfully arranging flowers or lighting candles, however.

[Trynn]

The ages of 19-22 are a big blur to me. I was living with my parents, unable to find a job, and unable to go to school (too depressed.)

I did a whole lot of... knitting. I knitted over 20 (I lost count, but it might be closer to 50 pairs, I'm not sure.) of socks. And I watched movies and read books...

I'm trying to remember if I tried school again when I was 22 or 23...

Actually, maybe I went back to school at 21-22 but then gave up when I was 22 only to try again when I was 23...

I give up. Either way, I was not working, and, whether I attended school or not, I was not tecnically mentally well enough to do so.

So.... probably not all that different from whatshername, except that if I was offered a job, I'd have taken it on the spot. And if I hadn't, my parents would probably not have continued with letting me live there much longer.

[Bbfamteam]

I turned 22 while traveling in India for 7 weeks doing medical work and studying religion and history at the various sites we visited. I was a full time college student, working on campus, doing 20-30 hrs a week volunteering, involved in multiple on campus activities, lived in an apartment with a roommate, and had just gotten accepted to med school. I would have shriveled up and died if I had been stifled like this girl

[Want More Babies]

When I was 22 I was married, had a child, and working full time.

I have a daughter who will be 22 soon. Right now she is in college full time, shares an apartment with a couple of friends (who also go to college full time), works almost full time in retail, and does volunteer work. She is pulling a 4.0 in college even with her honors classes (yes, I am so proud of her!). If that is not enough she still has time to go out, party, do sorority things and have fun with her boyfriend who lives around the corner in another apartment. I can't imagine how BORING this girls life is. I would be depressed as hell.

[Jilli]

At 22, I just restarted school after a year and a half off due to medical reasons. It took me 4.5 years but I graduated December 2013 with an AAS degree while maintaining a 4.0. I still live at home, looking for work now. Taking it slow to make sure I don't overwhelm myself and crash again.

[Loveday]

At 22, I was working in a drugstore making around $4 an hour (this was 1980). I had gone to community college but left because I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life (still have no clue at 56 :lol: , and no college degree, but I did go back and take more classes some years later; I really should finish up sometime :embarrassed: ).

I was living on my own, though, despite the low pay, because I'd lucked out in the apartment department. A year earlier I'd sort of 'inherited' a place a friend of mine had moved out of, for $150 a month, fully furnished; it had originally been built on to the back of the owner's ranch house for her parents, and after the parents moved to a nursing home, the owner rented it out to my friend, and then to me. Three rooms, with a tiny little kitchenette tucked into a corner of the living room, and it was pure heaven. I lived there for six years, getting by on around $500-$600 after taxes, working (made it to store supervisor eventually, a sort of assistant manager without the salary the real AM got), going out with friends, traveling a bit, just being an average, independent twenty-something. You know-- the type of young woman who is anathema to the fundies we discuss here. :roll:

[Sailing on Europa]

I think when I was 22 I was taking a year off from college before returning and majoring in biology. During that year I worked at our local co-op grocery store, lived on my own (with my cat), barely scraped by, and dated a guy with whom I spent the next 5 years in a less-than-healthy relationship. Despite how many years I've spent broke, stressed, overwhelmed with school, and despite the bad relationships I've had, I STILL wouldn't want to be a brainwashed stay at home daughter of fundies. I STILL prefer my life to that.

[Trynn]

My cousin wants to be a music teacher. I watch her struggle, I hear her complain, and I will never. Ever. EVER say its not a real job. In fact, because of my cousin, that thought never even crossed my MIND.

[salex]

I think that this sad little list of stuff that most tween kids could or are doing (in addition, usually to school, sports, church, etc) is like Lady Lydia's list of things a woman should do before saying she is bored and getting a job... a lot of bullshit a justification to even others in their circle who ask or questions wtf these people do all day. It is similar to saying that one of the Maxwell son's attributes is he'll eat the leftovers-- it comes across as a desperate list to explain away wasted days and wasted nights and a tendency for these strict legalists to create generic people. There is nothing to suggest which of this assortment of time fillers the girl might be passionate about-- arranging wild flowers gets equal credit with playing the violin and making tea for her sisters.

[penguinagogo]

At 22

1. Had been financially independantly of parents for 3 years - indeed was sending money home!

2. Own flat and mortgage, managing all basic activities of daily living eg bills, cooking cleaning maintenance

3. First class hons degree and applying to study for second degree (CVs, travel, interviews)

4. Multiple research projects and publications

5. Wide variety of part time jobs - elderly care, shop work, chefs assistant, respite carer for disabled children

6. Long term Relationship (with a chap who turned out to be an eejit - but you cant get everything right, and I cleared up my own messy personal life when the fact became too apparent)

7. Hobbies - costume making, drumming, making wedding cakes, political activism, individual sports

By 23 - had packed everything up and moved alone to another country for medical school

It wasnt perfect, but I am glad I was doing that than asking my parents permission to dig up the garden

[moodygirl86]

I was 22 during the 2008/2009 recession and was unemployed for nine months, but I made a full time job out of looking for a job. I got a great job at the end of 2009 and was so ecstatic about it that I worked harder than I ever had before. My previous work references had always been OK, but my boss at this job always praised me up to the skies and it's kickstarted my reputation as Moodygirl the Grafter! So I think my nine-month spell on the dole, although hard, didn't do me any harm in the end.

[singsingsing]

I'm not going to lie, I'm not fond of these comparison games. Not everyone's the same, wants or cares about the same things, or has the same abilities. Some people at [whatever age] haven't done a lot and aren't very independent through no fault of their own. Some people are totally content living at home and baking cupcakes. The point shouldn't be how much you've done or how independent you are by a certain age, but happiness, fulfillment, and freedom to make your own life choices, whatever those may be. You can do and have a lot by 22 and still be miserable and trapped.

[Sumeri]

Did anyone notice the face on that little girl on the left in the preschool class? She does NOT look amused with this kind of indoctrination. I see great things in that little one's future!

[ThatSnark]

I'm not going to lie, I'm not fond of these comparison games. Not everyone's the same, wants or cares about the same things, or has the same abilities. Some people at [whatever age] haven't done a lot and aren't very independent through no fault of their own. Some people are totally content living at home and baking cupcakes. The point shouldn't be how much you've done or how independent you are by a certain age, but happiness, fulfillment, and freedom to make your own life choices, whatever those may be. You can do and have a lot by 22 and still be miserable and trapped.

I think that's why I am fond of them here-- we can look around the FJ room and see how the rest of us negotiated what is often a very tricky time in life, young adulthood in the first years of being independent, or not. I like seeing the diversity of responses, and it helps to know that being Daddy's Little Helper simply isn't the norm.

[Marianne]

OMG. Unions should make sure that music teachers get extra money for the musical torture they have to endure everyday. I really admire you and your colleagues who have the patience to teach music to kids, even the tone deaf ones.

The worst is to teach to adults who are 20, 30, years older than you, who think they know more than you (a degree in musicology and a conservatory diploma in choir direction), just because they are 50 :roll:

[ndmomma]

I was married for a year by 22 because I knew I could not live with my Fundie lite parents after graduation from a Christian college, and my husband was in the same position. At 22 I had severe depression and insomnia, and my poor sweet husband worked hard to keep us afloat. The next year, I got my first teaching job, was able to get off the meds, and supported my husband through grad school and a phd. Fortunately, we were well suited and are madly in love 16 years and four kids later.

[smittykins]

At 22 I was still living at home(with my divorced mom), but working full-time and paying half the rent and utilities.

[Trynn]

I'm not going to lie, I'm not fond of these comparison games. Not everyone's the same, wants or cares about the same things, or has the same abilities. Some people at [whatever age] haven't done a lot and aren't very independent through no fault of their own. Some people are totally content living at home and baking cupcakes. The point shouldn't be how much you've done or how independent you are by a certain age, but happiness, fulfillment, and freedom to make your own life choices, whatever those may be. You can do and have a lot by 22 and still be miserable and trapped.

Thank you for that. I often feel very inadequate when this subject comes up, as it makes me feel even more like an absolute failure.