Just a 47-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). **I've made good progress on the kitchen. It's all cleaned out and decluttered.
I've got some more work on the downstairs, but not a lot. (So much for finishing in June. HA! Was felled by illness, and then by heat. Thankfully it cooled off here after the 4th).
I am not planning to move to the upstairs decluttering until fall, so I am happy with progress. Could maybe stand to go through the entire downstairs a second time, before moving on. There is an element of, "I already got piles of stuff sitting out, and don't know how I will find a home for everything." As is, I already set out a second pile of kitchen stuff. Grabbed some of the vases. IT was easier to do so after the first purge left the house. I need to go back through with a more critical thought process.
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**Today I went through the kids' clothes. They are outgrowing the "hand-me-down" stage as they are both practically the same size any more, and no one has given me any hand-me-downs in a while. So, it was a pretty quick task. In fact, usually LM is drowning in hand-me-downs. BUT, his drawers were kind of bare and BM's drawers were spilling over. So we shifted things about - they seem well stocked for clothing. {I've been stocking up on clearance items during the off season. They also don't particularly like pants of long sleeves, so basically all I buy any more is shorts and t-shirts in the winter. The shorts and last a LOT longer than pants, since they grow so much "up" and not "out", so their wardrobe sensibilities are quite frugal}. They might be set until winter.
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If you check the blog links in my sidebar, I have "The Happiest Mom" blog linked (recently changed to "The Happiest Home").
Megan Francis wrote the original blog, and is Amazing. LOVE HER. Kind of a voice of sanity in an insane world.
Anyway, she had an interesting article yesterday:
4 reasons young women are scared to have kids (and why we should knock it off.)
The whole point is not to encourage people to have children on the super young side. BUT, to point out that our culture is putting unnecessary fear and judgment onto younger parents.
& though I love the likes of MyMoneyBlog and Mr. Money Mustache, it was infinitely more important for us to have a family than to be "be financially independent first." I clearly fall into middle ground, but considering the region I grew up, we were always chastised for settling down crazy early. The reasons for the chastising certainly never made any sense to me.
Some excerpts from the article:
Young adults in the prime of their fertility, not to mention energy levels, who want children, are actually afraid to become parents, believing they’ll feel “ready” down the road sometime…at 30, or 35, or maybe 40.
...And I’m tired of seeing youthful adult parenthood conflated with teen parenthood. I also think teen parents can be and are successful all the time, but comparing a girl of 15 to a woman of 23 makes no sense at all unless you seriously underestimate that woman.
From watching TV and movies, you’d think that the 20s are a magical age, full of self-discovery, maturation, and success in relationships and work. And for some, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that parenting can’t happen alongside of self-discovery or career success, or that all people are better off having a decade or more of freedom and fun before settling down
there are tradeoffs at both ends of the spectrum. I’ll still be relatively young when my kids leave the house, and I’ll still have plenty of time for fun and freedom – with a little more jingle in my pockets than I would have had in my 20s. And while I did miss out on some partying in my youth, I also know that I spent those years well.
It’s perfectly OK to grow your family’s financial stability alongside your kids. It makes you more creative, more resourceful, and can even lead to some great memories. And if there’s anything this recession has taught us, it’s that no job, no home equity, no investment, is guaranteed anyway.
I particularly like the 3rd and 5th excerpt that I included. Amen!!
July 15th, 2013 at 02:47 am 1373852828
July 15th, 2013 at 06:14 pm 1373908441
Actually, we have several friends getting married this year and next (late 30s), which is common among our peers given culture and high cost of living. Even in our lower-cost haven most our friends are aged 45-50; the ones with kids the same age as ours. This explains somewhat how though I personally think we found some very good middle ground, establishing our degrees and careers before having children, we have had a lot of chastising for settling down so young. Which I have always found insulting on some level. I understand I didn't want to have a child as a teenager or even at 18, personally. But, I don't understand this "your 20s should be an extension of your teen years; ignore you bioloigical instincts" thing.
July 21st, 2013 at 02:06 am 1374368800