Cake- It's like you're really really excited about the new thread, so you're trying to hurry up the end of this one!
You didn't sound patronising at all, by the way. I'm always wary of sounding like I'm giving people an economics lecture! I'm not advocating the removal of women's rights at all- I think that the fact that women have the freedom they do is fantastic, however - and there is kind of a paradox in what I'm about to say- sometimes I think in a troubled society, people have to reliquish certain freedoms, or change elements of their lifestyle, for the good of the group as a whole, which is where my point comes in about; if there were fewer dual income families, there might be fewer no income families, and therefore less money being paid in benefits, less tax and generally a more prosperous society. There is a danger that a society which concentrates on etheral concepts like "fulfillment" and "happiness" rather than old fashioned ones like "duty" damages itself as a whole, so, for example, (and PLEASE don't think I'm having a dig at women with successful careers, because I'm really not) but, the pursuit of a fulfilling career before having children means that there is a much, much higher number of women having conception problems and complicated pregnancies as they try to concieve in their late 30s rather than their early 20s and so the birth rate is dropping. Likewise, the choice of so many women to pursue careers, while benefitting their own family in the short term, in the long term makes it almost essential for future generations of mothers to work, in order to maintain a mortgage in linewith inflation.
Good grief, that was a convoluted paragraph, and now I sound like a pompous arse. Obviously, I'm not blaming all the problems of society on working women, there is obviously a lot more to the argument than the points I've made, I just wanted to keep it vaguely relevant!
TSC it cracks me up when you call me Dude, thanks for cheering me up! However a little advice: as the wife of a writer who has written a series of books that went Harry Potter Stellar, trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be! In our house we have brief periods where he's working 24/7 and tearing his hair out and giving himslef a hernia, then looooooong periods where he's sleeping till noon, chain smoking and working a few hours a day before expecting his dinner on the table at six sharp and then reading the paper and chain smoking while you do the washing up, laundry, ironing, mending...
Ok. I might be a little biased because we've been having such a rotten few weeks, and actually, he does work incredibly hard, even though he's not writing at the moment- plans for the theatre are causing him a lot of stress. But it can be really frustrating when his person's work doesn't necessarily require him to work 9-5: it can make the workload seem very one sided, even if that isn't the case, and I have to shake myself sometimes to reming myself that I'm not the only one who ever does anything!
All joking aside though, if it really is his passion, i hope I can wish him lick without sounding patronising.