Rss Feed
  1. Peer Pressure

    Friday, January 25, 2013

     Peer Pressure...when we think of it, we think of it just for our children, but it's still there for us as adults.
     
     
     
     
    We live in a world where everyone has everything. Oh, I want that...so you go and buy it. It may be with cash, check card, or credit card. We live in a world where both parents in the home go to work every single morning. They drop their kids off at school, or grandparents house, or the babysitters. Why? Because they have so many expenses, wants, wishes that they can't afford for one parent to stay at home and raise their children. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking women who work...I'm just saying that we should reevaluate and look at what is really important. I have had so many conversations with women who work and they don't want to. They want to stay at home and take care of their children. I always ask them this question..."Can you make it on your husbands income?" The answer is normally this, "Yes, we can. It would be tight. We couldn't go out to eat whenever we want, we couldn't go shopping whenever we want, but we could make it."  So my question is again, "What is important?"  Raising your children and making your home what it needs to be, or being able to eat out and shop whenever you want.
     
    I have three children and we want two more. I homeschool my kids and right now I do have a full time job that allows me to work from home. But I am here to tell you, that if I could not work from home, we would reevaluate our life and make it work to where I would not have to leave my family. We do not have a good christian school around where we live and the public school district is so rough that my kids could not handle it (we tried and had to pull them out). So we do homeschooling. But people ask me, "How are you going to be able to afford two more children?" "Life is expensive and there is peer pressure among kids. When they get older, they are going to have peer pressure about the clothes they wear, the shoes they wear..." My answer is always this, "when will we teach our children that there is going to be peer pressure for the rest of their life and they are not going to be able to always get what they want. There are plenty of people in my life that are my age that have alot more than I do, but I can't get a brand new house, or a nice camper, or a brand new car. The thing of it is, there is peer pressure. Wether you are 5yr, 10 yr, 15yr, or 25yr, or even 50yrs old, we must live in a way that we don't live out of our budget. I'm afraid many people have the idea that you can't have more than two children or even one or maybe it's even four children because it's hard to provide for them in what they want. If I made $80,000/year and bought my kids everything they wanted or everything that was "in", then what am I teaching my children. If I made $30,000/year and had even one child or two children and I bought them everything they wanted or was "in", then what am I teaching them. They will never ever learn that someday when they are 30yrs old and they are standing in that moment where they need to make a decision of wether they are going to buy something that they need or want. It will always be because they want it. If I want it then I can have it. No matter what the budget allows. Our family does just fine. My husband is a school teacher and I have my job from home. We live off of a budget. We do not get happy meals at mcdonald's. (for one I think they are junk and it is a waste of money) They don't get whatever they want when we go to the store. We live off of a grocery budget and I make out our meals for the week. When we do go out to eat, it is said ahead of time of what the price range is for each person. We have a budget for christmas and I try to stick with it. Sometimes I do go over, (but who doesn't) My kids get ONE big gift and then a few smaller items. It is good to practice discipline with our money. And it is very important for our children to know now that there is going to be peer pressure when they are teenagers and then when they have grandchildren themselves. Let's live within our budget and not give into the peer pressure of this world.
     
     


  2. 0 comments:

    Post a Comment