Thursday, June 24, 2010

Question of the Week


Emma's Wedding presents yet another example of poor parental estate planning. Emma's unfortunately deceased daddy had sufficient money, but then unwisely invested in....a computer company! How dumb can you be? Computers? In Neeldom? Yeah. Computers. He sank the family 401K into risky investments. Regrettable, to be sure, but my question doesn't revolve around his bad financial decisions. Mummy Dearest wigs out at the thought of being poor - and yet....she refuses to consider getting a job herself. She's never worked before, so why start now?

Imagine yourself, age 50ish, no work experience, no training, and a powerful urge to not be hungry or homeless. What would you do?

6 comments:

  1. Oh boy, I don't know what I would do, but I would have to work. Unless I was lucky enough to have one of my parents around to support me. Don't scoff, my dad's side is very long-lived :-)
    I would work. I might not like and I might not make a lot of $, but I would suck it up and do it.
    I think this is why I couldn't relate to the movie "The Upside of Anger."
    The main character is left without her (rich) husband after many years of being a stay at home mom. She has 4 daughters and a very expensive house. She spends a lot of time complaining, but I don't think she considered getting a job once. And the fact that it never even crossed her mind when she had children to take care of kind of annoyed me.

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  2. Let's see ... I would find the nearest University and work in the cafeteria, or such, thus at least one meal would be taken care of a day. Possible education benefits - or just sit in on classes until I find a possible career path. Long road but I could survive on one meal a day if I had to. Oh, wait this is really close to what I really did. Does experience count against my answer?

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  3. I think it counts FOR your answer. I think I would go the Sherri route. Try to find a job at a college and hope for reduced tuition and then go into...computers!

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  4. Here's my observations on Betty Neel mothers - they are very "black and white" - either very sweet or very selfish (no middle ground). As I think of it though, I've never known a Neel's mother who worked, after all, they were probably "the wrong side of 40". Since I'm 58 and sooo the wrong side of 40, and still working, I think it reflects the times that Betty grew up (prewar England) and mothers never worked.

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  5. Well...they worked...they just didn't get paid for it. ;0)

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  6. Sell the house; downsize to a smaller one. Then use the difference to support myself while I make myself marketable.

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