Writes Dorothy Pomerantz (in Forbes), whose 7-year-old daughter said to her "When I’m a mom I’m not going to get a job. I’m just going to look after my children." Asked why, the daughter — at age 7 — showed a dramatically astute understanding of economics: She's going to marry a guy who wants to work full time, and if she works too, they'll have to hire a babysitter for their children.
At this point, you'd think the mother would praise the young girl for thinking on such a sophisticated level. Instead, she frets first about whether the daughter has perceived the mother's inadequacies and failed to learn that a woman "can work and be fulfilled professionally and have children." Then she goes on about the importance of changing the workplace "so that both parents will be recognized as equal caregivers and employees will be encouraged to find balance and have lives outside of the office."
What's so bad about division of labor, with one parent out in the world making the money, competing vigorously, and the other home-based, controlling and avoiding expenses? Especially if you consider the tax consequences — which the 7-year-old probably hasn't analyzed yet — it's much more efficient for the husband and the wife to adopt different roles. Either the husband or the wife can be the home-based spouse.
And note how Pomerantz assumes that careers are fulfilling. Often, they are not. And anything you do consumes your time and energy. If you do one fulfilling thing, you're doing less of something else that might be fulfilling. I should think many women — and men — would get great satisfaction out of avoiding a life of money-making and concentrating on conserving the money the career-spouse brings home, raising lovely children, cooking delicious meals, developing the couple's social connections, and so forth. The benefits to the working spouse in that arrangement are obvious.
November 27, 2011
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 257 of 257Ritmo, you're a bad boy, but then again I like bad boys;)
I agree that there will probably need to be drastic cuts, and I am sympathetic to the need we have in America to allow for market-based innovations in both delivery of health care and the technology that drives both better diagnosis and better treatment.
On a personal level, on an emotional level, I understand and want the government to allow for as free a system as possible.
But on a practical level I know that certain expenditures will be cut, by CMS if no one else (they already do), and they (as a government body) drive the same cost-cutting measures emulated by the private insurance market.
One advantage we're starting to develop nowadays is the advent of evidence-based medicine and professional guidelines.
I myself work in a part of the health-care sector where I have to make cost-clinical benefit evaluations and presentations on a regular basis. My audience includes mostly physicians, but also nurses. Believe me, I do my damnedest to appreciate the patient-care arguments that can be used to challenge any financial consideration. It is, after all, a part of my training as well.
Everything is a balance in life and I sure hope that we will pull off this balancing act without sacrificing so many crucial advantages. I'd hate to see freedom and innovation as the necessary counterbalance to greater coverage, but I do think that politically and socially, something just had to give.
Once the AMA realized that HMOs were doing the same thing that they feared the gov't would do, there was really no physician resistance left of which to speak. The younger generation of physicians was just becoming too darn disillusioned at what they were seeing with the gaps in coverage.
The rest, as they say, is history. But we obviously need to keep hearing from all interested and knowledgeable/reputable parties.
Lol. And I like bad girls ;-)
No reason to apologize Ritmo, you didn't say anything insulting to me, but offering it anyway is impressive and rare in these environs.
hanks, for posting on this. I am getting married next year, and will be sometime in the near future growing into stay-at-home wife/mother life. I think this is a perfectly natural process which society has, sadly, been slowly suppressing, and now there are woman walking around- with business and tech degrees-longing for a good man and a home with secure, creative atmosphere in which to love their husbands, nurture their children and use their many talents to the fullest. I am very grateful that in developments of time and human thought there has been the removal of many prejudices against woman, allowing them to pursue interest and careers that have increased their contributions to society and their own happiness. Yet, again sadly, the same movement of thought which removed prejudice also created it. Some women live independently, devoted to their job; Some have a family life and work to help support the family; and there are some who are the most at home, at home-serving their loved ones with resourcefulness, creativity and in reasonable contentment. Presently, it seems that the first is admired, the second is acknowledged as practical, and the third is thought silly and backwards, a waist of youth and talent. I however, intend to fight for the first right of and last prejudice against women, to be free to be at home, at home: to take care of their own house, to play with and teach their own children, and, encourage and spend time with their own husband. I am a liberal arts student, an amateur artist, craftsman, writer, and philosopher, I work in retail and when it comes to it I am happy to give up all my ambition (fame and fortune included) to start a family and defend my 'woman's rights'.
p.s. Some will like what I have expressed here, and some will dislike my opinion on this matter and reflect that it must be do to the influence of my family. I would not deny the accuracy of their thought, It is true that my family has influence my thinking. Most families do influence their own family members. That is one reason why I believe in happy, industrious, resourceful, creative women in happy homes. Every person started out in a happy home, if not, I am pretty sure they would like one. I just hope I will be a good example in my working to make one.
first word: Thanks... (and so my history of simple posting errors continues).
It's the same creep Bellami, Rit (ie, sorepaw, seeing red, jay-, allie). Even acts female. LDS log cabin at work
Wow, this discussion really could have been interesting, had some commenters been less excited to talk about everything but the topic.
My husband and I decided a long time ago that he would be the primary caretaker and I the primary breadwinner. Our families (both of us had SAHMs; both families are very conservative) have expressed no problem with this. In fact, the only people who seem to think that this is a problem, in my experience, are liberal women.
Not that we'd care anyway, of course. We're confident that our children need a parent (not a daycare center), and that, in our case, the division of labor is best this way. We're happy with this choice, even if liberals are not.
- Lyssa
I don't have a link, but the idea makes sense if you consider that children are under the control of women far more often than they are under men. Just due to exposure and opportunity alone the amount of abuse should be higher from women.
Then we should be looking at it proportionately, n'es pas?
I was also curious what it was counting as abuse and if there was a difference between the sexes (for instance, is it counting neglect the same as physical abuse?)
Also, I would just like to know there is an actual study, rather than people just making up things and treating them as gospel. Which tends to happen on the internet and once a fake fact is in the ether it never goes away.
Wow! I missed quite a chat! I dreamed last night that I was back at work in the dreaded public school where I taught before. Madness and mayhem....I was never so glad to wake up.
bagoh20 said...
Both my grandmother and my mother were welders in a steel plant. They worked beside men, did the same work and got the exact same pay. That's equality, and it's been around a long time.
++++
Quite right Bagoh.
But if we get the light just right and squint we can see pay inequity here.
Assume that both your GM and the male next to her make $10/hr.
Assume that both have equal opportunities to work overtime.
When OT is available, who is going to volunteer for it? Your GM who wants to get home to the kids or the guy?
So the guy works 50 hours and earns $550 for the week.
Your GM works the straight 40 and makes $400.
She is earning 72% of what the male welder makes.
It MUST be discrimination. There can be no other reason for this pay disparity.
Right?
Get Gloria Allred on the horn RIGHT NOW!!!
John Henry
Late here, but here goes. Mom was a stay-at-home until I entered the 1st grade, at which time she went back to teaching full-time until she retired--so I guess I personally got the advantage of both worlds-the nurturing of my Mother during my vital, formative years and the monetary advantages of the income two earners bring later on. That approach has, I think, much to recommend it.
Stay-at-home Dads? George Guilder once wrote (in terms of how society views stay-at-home men): "Women have three choices: They can work full-time; they can stay at home full time; or they can work some and stay at home some. Men have three choices too: They can work full-time; they can work full-time, or they can work full-time." Guilder goes on to observe that men who chose to shun work for the "support" role are nevertheless inevitably thought by society at large--to include the majority of both sexes--to be nothing more than "ne'er-do wells," i.e., societal failures. (And it doesn't matter how many award-winning books on the photography of prize-winning roses he publishes, either.)
Ritmo Re-Animated said...
I do read, Baggie. I love to read. Read a lot.
Hysterical.
The only thing that trumps this lack of self awareness, is the ignorance.
The whole premise behind community property is that marriage is an ecoomic partnership and the work performed by each partner is equal, regardless of whether it is compensated. Wisconsin became a community property state in 1986 and we thought that all of the states would follow. However, around that time the feminists decided that compensation should be the measure of the "value" of work and, as a result, being a stay at home mom had no value. Jo Staab wrote a book on the adoption of the Wisconsin Marital Property Act called "Marriage as an Economic Partnerhip: How one State Made it Happen" that has a great discussion about this and about why none of the other states followed Wisconsin's lead. I think the feminists made a big mistake.
The majority of homeless are mentally ill ... and you can thank the Left for keeping them on the streets.
Care to elaborate on this theory?
Thank you, Ann! Eight months ago I left Big Law (and a $200,000) salary to stay home with my daughter. After we tallied all the economic costs of working (extra car, extra gas, work wardrobe, dry cleaning, child care, increased meals at restaurants) and the utility costs (a hectic and stressful life, and a shallow and reduced role in my daughter's life), our choice could not have been more clear. Thanks for making the point!
"If you plan to be a stay-at-home Mom, and your marriage falters, or your partner dies, then where are you?"
While there are risks for the stay-at-hopme mother, the risks seem higher for the husband of the stay-at-home mother.
After all, if she decides "I don't love you anymore ..." that usually means the husband will be ejected from the home, seeing his children as a vistor on weekends until she moves away or some other reason causes his estrangement.
He loses his children, his marriage, his home, and a large part of his income for many years. Whereas her life goes on much as before, sans husband.
It's not that most men think stay-at-home wives are "moochers, parasites, leeches"; it's that for men this is an insanely risky situation.
And it will remain so, so long as so-called "family law" supports the "I don't love you anymore- so I'll take the children and the house and a big chunk of your income now, loser" method of resolvution.
And, no, it's not personal. I'm married and I've never been divorced. But I see that most young men are aware of the risks in such an arrangement and thus are, frankly, afraid of it.
Jessica, I'm curious, with you having an earning power of that much, why wouldn't it make more sense for your husband to stay home? (unless, of course, he can make even more).
What it comes down to for me is that I think someone should stay home if possible, and it doesn't bother me if that's more frequently the mom, but I do object to the assumption that it is the mom or nothing.
For the first time since 1995, my wife does not work for pay (but boy, does she work "not for pay!")
Since two of our children are grown and gone and the other is a high school senior, her non-employment is not to take care of the kids. Nor is it because my own income has dramatically risen (it hasn't).
No, Cathy is not employed because there are almost no jobs within 20 miles or more that pay above min-wage, and we aren't so in need of more income to make that worth it.
However, in the 20 months since she's been free of employment's demands, we also agree that the non-financial rewards have been enormous. We are *much* less stressed about time and, actually, about money. We are closer emotionally, spiritually and (ahem) other ways because of that and because at least she isn't worn out by the end of the day any more. Our domestic division of labors have become more sensible and less stressful between us. In short, life is simpler, easier and more enjoyable.
Our life together is in fact so much better now that for Cathy to re-begin working for money, it would take a lot of money. Much more, really than she would ever be offered.
Life is good.
Your remarks called to mind a pre-med student who was so bright and capable, she was almost certain to get into medical school. She told me quite firmly that, when she had children, she'd be staying home with them, career or no career.
Why was she so firm about that? She had a reason. She'd worked at a day-care center and seen the misery of small children whose mothers dropped them off each morning to go to work. She wasn't going to inflict that on her children.
From aborting children with Downs syndrome to working in an exhausting, time-sucking job, feminist chatter about choice really comes down to expecting women to make the one choice they find acceptable.
""What If Our Daughters Don't Want to Work?""
"When I’m a mom I’m not going to get a job. I’m just going to look after my children."
Fine, and then what are they going to do the other 30 years of their work lives?
The first problem, from my point of view, is that the SAHM model was built on several pillars: women would keep having kids until they died in child birth; they tended to have younger kids in the house until they died; and they didn't have modern conveniences like microwaves, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, etc.
So, now the average woman in this country will have maybe two kids, preferably somewhat close together. Figure optimally maybe 2 or 3 years apart. That means that in less than 10 years, the kids are in school all day 5 days a week.
Then, what does the woman do with her life? Go to the gym to work off the bon-bons?
I grew up a number of years ago (I am a year older than Ann) in a neighborhood where the women stayed at home and raised their 4-5 kids. Many of them seemed to spend their lives after getting their last kid to school full time at the country club. Luckily, I think, my mother got into politics and stuff like that instead. And, then, 25 years later, their husbands were able to retire, and they could start seriously traveling, etc.
Kid went to private school where about half the mothers were SAHM. They tended to have more than the 2 or so kids we are supposed to limit themselves to, even having the 4 or 5 that my parents' generation had. And, it was a luxury there. They tended to be the richest parents. Yes, they were a lot more active in the school - but by middle school, that isn't always a good thing.
So, what would I tell a girl who wanted to be a stay at home mom instead of working outside the home for much of your career?
1. To make it viable, you probably need 4-5 kids. Or maybe more. Otherwise, you will likely face half or better of your work life essentially idle.
2. what happens if you pick wrong when you pick a husband? If he doesn't stick around or just doesn't earn much? Need a backup plan there.
I think though that the place where we, as a society, are going is for the females to have careers like the males, but maybe take 10 or 15 years out of their careers to have kids and raise them until they are part way through school. Or, maybe the guys can take time off to parent too. Seeing more of that too.
'Instead, she frets first about whether the daughter has perceived the mother's inadequacies and failed to learn that a woman "can work and be fulfilled professionally and have children."'
So, is she intelligent enough to figure out that her daughter disagrees with her about that? That her child thinks she's being cheated because mommy is at work all the time.
Or is Mommy's politics just more important than her daughter's reality?
2. what happens if you pick wrong when you pick a husband? If he doesn't stick around or just doesn't earn much? Need a backup plan there.
I'm fascinated that so many people are arguing against stay-at-home parenthood by invoking the "what if it goes wrong" argument, as if the career thing can't also go horribly wrong.
Life can go wrong in many many ways. Yes, it's best to plan for it, but in the meantime you have to live it. You have to do what you think is best for you, because those are the mistakes that are easier to live with.
One huge issue that colors the debate is that women who are tastemakers by their nature have atypical, interesting jobs. Female authors, pundits, professors have extremely interesting jobs, that may genuinely enhance their lives. But, their experience can't be projected on to the vast majority of working women, who have mundane, uninteresting jobs (like most men). A professor of womens' studies at Harvard has a fundamentally different work experience than a secretary or a factory worker.
I should think many women — and men — would get great satisfaction out of avoiding a life of money-making and concentrating on conserving the money the career-spouse brings home...
My wife did. When my oldest was born we did a cost/benefits analysis and realized that if both of us were working, one of us was working just to pay for daycare. She was breastfeeding and since I didn't have boobs, she stayed home. We made some heavy sacrifice in the early years, but now we're on par with everyone else I know.
I have to say, my wife never just "stayed home". She volunteered with the schools, coached, helped out with all sorts of community and church groups while I traveled extensively for work. Eventually she started working part-time and now that the youngest is in school, she's back full-time. I may have had the responsibility to earn the money, but my wife kept us in the black. I don't think I could have managed half as well.
I'm actually more nervous about the effect that her going back to work will have on our situation than I was when she stopped. It took a great deal of work to keep things around here going as well as they did.
'Career' is 'job' with too many letters, and 'job' is 'work' with one too few.
I am lucky enough to love my job. But really, it is a way to have a family and a life, and to do the stuff we like to do. Work must be done to support yourself and your family. Who should do it? The person with the chance to do the best for the family, I guess.
One thing I have noticed- feminism has become a tool of capitalism to keep everyone on the treadmill. (I like capitalism. I'm just observing things, though).
I think that when women thought of work or *ahem* career as a choice they should have, they had an important point, and exclusion from work based on gender or sex or body parts or whatever the right way to express it is crazy.
It now being so that it is really hard to live on one income is a side effect, one predictable as a consequence of doubling the size of the work force.
The woman's comment regarding "a fullfilling career" represent a falsehood that is at the core of the Occupy protests and a large amount of the discontent that currently grips American Society: that people work primarily for "fullfillment."
That's a nice fairytail... but it's a lie. People work primarily to barter their labor/effort/work product in exchange for other people's labor/efforts/work product that they want.
You work to get a house over your head. For food. For the ability to afford unique experiences. If you manage to get something fullfilling out of the work - that's great! That means it's more likely you'll be good at doing what you do. But there's no guarantee that what other people value from you/your skillsets is going to be what's fullfilling to you. Fullfillment from work is far, far from guaranteed; it is less common than not. Fullfillment from providing for your family, or from doing a job well done... those are other things, entirely. And they really don't come from the choice to have a career (or a job). They can also come from staying at home.
"So Ann, I guess you didnt raise lovely children cook great meals and foster family connections? You continually blow my mind."
Here's a test. What assumption are you making? Read the post again. If you still don't know, ask yourself whether you are being sexist. What fact are you assuming?
Fools will be fools, no matter what you tell them.
The story of this woman and her daughter is an interesting one that demonstrates just how anxious leftist women are about their position in the world. They seem to think that at any moment someone will come along, kick them out of their office, drag them to a kitchen somewhere, steal their shoes, and chain them to a stove.
They believe that it will be a man who does this.
Meanwhile men in the real world prefer a woman who can help pay the bills.
The lesson that this woman needs to teach her daughter is not that she should find fulfillment in a career, but that she should able and willing to work and pay her own bills because it is foolish to expect someone else to do it for her.
I grew up in a blue-collar world and my stayed at home with my brother and me. That seemed to suit both of my parents and it certainly suited my brother and me.
For almost two years of grad school I was a stay-at-home Dad with my son (from ages two until four).
With child two, when my wife returned to work, I took ten weeks of accumulated vacation time and stayed at home with infant daughter. With youngest child, my wife went back to work half-time for a couple of years.
When the youngest two were teenagers, I was able to begin to work from home some of the time -- and then, eventually, to work from home full time (although they were college students by that time).
Over all of those years, I have been the person who did all of the grocery shopping and all of the cooking. For many years I choked my career growth in order work close to home and avoid most business travel so I could be able to take my kids to soccer and softball practices and to attend their games and plays and concerts and to ride our bikes to the park. I don't regret any of it.
I do not understand people who want to judge how other people organize their lives.
Sorry that you've been instalanched. I married an athletic, smart -- brilliant, really -- woman, and I have two beautiful, precocious daughters. They are free to make choices for their career. Career may include SAHM. If, however, this is their "choice", then the DoctorWife and myself will "choose" not to pay for any college.
We plan (no joke) to have a legally enforceable contract drawn up when the girls reach college-age that will guarantee at least one year of full-time employment per year of college paid by the two Doctor Parents. We will not waste good money (currently $200k!!!) on private liberal arts education if the girls wish to do nothing more than act as incubators and glorified house-keepers.
We raise our children, have vary full and meaningful careers doing what we love, cook healthy, near-gourmet meals daily, do our own housework and yardwork, and don't have to farm out menial tasks to the day laborers.
If the DrWife stayed home, what kind of message does that tell our girls? That it's ok to depend on someone else? That the proper usage of talents given by the Almighty is to sequester them? That it's ok to be ruled by the wishes of the (probably inferior -- this is my girl I'm talking about!) male?
Choices have consequences.
It bothers me that the author interpreted raising children as not wanting to work. As a stay-at-home mom I work my fingers to the bone every day, all day. I just don't get a paycheck or any accolades. Being at home with my kids has been much harder work than my previous career. But the challenges of motherhood have developed my character much more than my career ever did.
Our entire family is happier and growing more than we would if I were not at home.
Here's a test. What assumption are you making? Read the post again. If you still don't know, ask yourself whether you are being sexist. What fact are you assuming?
Heh. Now I'm glad I didn't give it away because I almost did.
If the DrWife stayed home, what kind of message does that tell our girls? That it's ok to depend on someone else?
Oh, I don't know. They might get other messages like, "You are especially important to us," or "Family life is so important to us that we've appointed a CEO in charge of it." Or something helpful to their future relationships like, "Marriage is a team."
That the proper usage of talents given by the Almighty is to sequester them?
Sequester them? Who told you that a SAHM needs to do that? Whoever it was lied to you. Even if such talents were only used at home for the benefit of your family and friends, you feel that would be a total waste? Why?
Doing That it's ok to be ruled by the wishes of the (probably inferior -- this is my girl I'm talking about!) male?
Not sure how that follows from the female spouse staying at home. Why would the male spouse necessarily "rule" her?
We raise our children, have vary full and meaningful careers doing what we love, cook healthy, near-gourmet meals daily, do our own housework and yardwork, and don't have to farm out menial tasks to the day laborers.
Who has had the task of being with your children?
I graduated with a double major, went to grad school, climbed the ladder at work until age 39 and now I'm a stay-home mom. IT IS WORK.
Staying at home is a very valid choice and the feminists who are so shrilly opposed to that choice are a man-hating bunch who are convinced women are 'better' than men in all ways. They aren't- merely different. Men and women - just like individuals within those blanket designations - have different skills, as has been pointed out more than once. If a couple decide to utilize those differences in one spouse (male or female) staying at home to care for the children, there is nothing wrong with that. Not to mention that with the current tax code, this is actually a good financial decision as well!
I'd say Pomeranzt is simply yet another selfish, fool who cannot look beyond her own inflated ego. How utterly pathetic. The seven-year old on the other hand is both wiser and more selfless than her mother.
I'd guess Jessica's spouse makes as much or more - most BigLaw women are married to BigLaw men, I-Bankers or successful business types. Not in every case, but it is the overwhelming trend. And I'll wager that $20k/annum came with some very late nights (mornings) and a lot of weekend days. To have both spouses pulling those hours while raising kids is not actually impossible, just really tough and REALLY expensive (it turns out that just because you pull and 80 hour week, you can't make the nanny do the same, at least not without some serious additional coin). Not to mention the effects of the marriage penalty, and how much worse it is going to get when the Bush Tax Cuts expire.
And I'll wager that $20k/annum came with some very late nights (mornings) and a lot of weekend days. To have both spouses pulling those hours while raising kids is not actually impossible, just really tough and REALLY expensive
You're probably right, holdfast. I can never understand it when I see two lawyers, particularly biglaw lawyers, get married and spawn. If they're going to have kids, I really can't see any excuse for not having one of them drop out. I was just curious whether it was Jessica because that made sense given their two situations or it was just Jessica because she's the female. Doesn't look like Jess is around anymore, but if my question came off as rude, I'm sorry.
I never understand the articles with extremely successful career women lamenting the fact that they can't find extremely successful career men to marry. If you want to stay in your career, and you're very successful in it, what is the point of making a team with someone else who wants to do the exact same thing? I'd be looking for a guy who was brilliant, funny, hard working, highly competent, resilient, and great with kids (or hoping to learn how to be great with kids). The kind of person I'd want in charge of family life in my house.
I never understand the articles with extremely successful career women lamenting the fact that they can't find extremely successful career men to marry.
I don't either. The more successful (meaning wealthy) a man is the less he needs to depend on his spouse for her earnings. I don't want a business partner with benefits. I want a wife.
A woman's career is a whole lot more important to women than it is to men.
Don't be so sure the 7 year old girl hasn't considered the tax implications of her plan; considering her thinking abilities, we'd probably get a budget out of the Senate faster if SHE were there, rather than the useless tools we have there now.
Wile talking to a bunch of other lawyers, you know, typical liberal tools, I said that I would have never married a woman who was worried more about developing a career than being a full time Mom. They were of course shocked and acted like I said the "n" word at an NAACP convention. One asked if my wife knew that she was married to such a Neanderthal. I said, she sure does. I told her on our second date I liked her but if she wasn't willing to give up her teaching career for about 10-15 years to be a stay-at-home Mom there was no reason for us to have a third date. Ten years and 3 babies later, I go to work every day and when I have trial or major depositions I work late and weekends. She cares for the kids, volunteers at school, pays the bills, cleans the house, makes dinner, etc. we couldn't have a happier or better marriage.
You career women, like many of the women lawyers I see and deal with, that do your kids off at daycare at 7 am and pick them up at 6 p.m. I feel sorry for you. When they are older and don't confide in you and you have only a semblance of a relationship with them, don't waste time wondering why. I have 3 girls, and they prefer Mom over me when they are sad or get hurt, and are really sad when Mom leaves for a few hours. I can accept being second best to Mom. She has earned it, and I am lucky to have her. The trade-off is my wife doesn't spend one second worried about where our income is coming from, and I don't have to spend one second making sure the kids get to and from school, go to the doctor when needed, etc.
I just read DrSandman's comment and showed my wife. We are laughing our asses off at those losers. A legally enforceable contract to make them do what you want them to do? Calling them "incubators" and "glorified housekeepers" if they decide to stay home? Oh please. My guess is that your housekeeper and nanny have a better relationship with your kids than you do. And, if you actually have the nerve to do what you said here, my guess is that you won't have much of a relationship with your kids when they are adults. I have 529s set up for each of my girls. They can do whatever the hell they want to do with their lives after college, if they choose to go. Unlike you, I won't complain if my daughters choose to "incubate" my grandchildren instead of going for partner. I owe them love, care, a good education, and the freedom to do whatever the hell they want to do with their lives. You and your wife have fun being at the hospital for 36-hour shifts. I'll be at my 5 year old's game if you need me. Or I could be at my 8 month old's swimming lesson. If you need my wife, ahe'll always be available. She's working t home making our family life happy and the best it can be.
Oh, and my wife wanted me to add this DrSandman: the message my wife sends to our girls by staying home is that they are the most important thing in her life and that her talents aren't being wasted or sequestered, just merely being put on the shelf, to be used again once the girls don't need her around all the time like they do now. Our daughters have never heard the words' "mommy can't come" and thanks to my job (I am a lawyer that changed firms over the time demands)' my girls rarely hear that from me.
And this might get you to call the child welfare authorities on us, but we also raise them on conservative and religious values. My guess is that they will choose to raise our grandchildren the same way, and will choose their husbands accordingly.
I only logged on to stomp out the poo-fire I set. It's hard to convey proper wry humor in text.
There is no housekeeper, nanny, hired help of any sort. We do all the things (kids sports/plays) that the self-righteous SAHM do. We just also have successful careers, the DrWife being quite renowned. We are religious and conservative, and don't at all fit in with the faculty clubs.
The SAHM parents that kill us are the ones that have housekeepers and buy processed food; what do you DO all day?!?
To the husbands who insist on SAHM -- what if you got cancer, or had an accident @ work?
Both of us came from SAHM families and look with a bit of sadness at how our mom's very being withered away when the kids left for school. It wasn't fair to them.
Of course, there are some situations where being a SAHM makes sense: twins, multiple kids under kindergarten, special needs, etc. But it's about time that we make the conservative case for leading our young daughters by example.
"[how do the kids know] you are important to me?" I'm pretty sure that they get that; I don't need to demand that the DrWife sacrifice her entire humanity, to give up all that she is to stay home with the kids for 5 or so years each.
Some of the talents the Almighty give don't lend themselves to home use: synthetic organic chemists, professors, genetic researchers, physicists, engineers... why should a woman blessed with these gifts have to give it up to stay with kids. (If you think that you can get off, and back on the academic tenure track as a woman.... you are delusional!)
@Brian G: Our most important jobs as parents is to invest in our kids so that they become self-sufficient, leave the nest, and learn to do things on their own when mommy and daddy are no longer around. That's what we OWE them. We have 529s, etc., and will gladly pay for undergraduate school to the same sorts of expensive liberal arts that afforded us our opportunities to excel. Raising good, successful kids is our JOB as parents.
But, if the kid is going to not use talents requiring expensive academic credentials, then why spend so much money putting stuff in her head? Give her the money for a down payment for a mortgage or something. Think! Higher-Ed is an investment, not a birthright. If the most complicated problem you have to work out is how to get 3 kids to 3 different play-dates, you probably don't need a B.S. in chemical engineering.
So yes, I treat an investment in higher-ed as an investment. Don't you?
Don't think of it as a problem, just think of the great personalities that made it big even if they have not finish their studies. A person will realized later on what he really wants. Anyway, how to start a business if the person don't know what to do. My point is that if someone likes something he will do whatever it takes.
single moms. They have kicked their husbands out and replaced him with government support.
They kicked him out?? In all cases?
Granted, it's a problem that there's now no shame in being a single mom or an absentee dad. The shame (and the shotgun, and the lack of alternatives) used to go some way towards assuring that babies would have support from two parents.
It's ridiculous for people to be inflexible and one-size-fits-all about these arrangements. People are different. Ideally, no one of either sex who prefers being a home-based parent to having an outside-the-home career should need to explain and justify or feel like less of a man, woman, or individual.
Sandman, if your idea of parenting is limited to the feeding, cleaning, and moving of children, then I can see why you would be unable to see the value in having a full time parent around.
You say that you and your wife think it was bad to have SAHMs because they "withered" after the children left. The "withering" is unnecessary. That is a choice your parents made. They could have done something else. If you're assuming that children will appreciate the example of having two parents working full time careers, nice to meet you, I had that. It's one of the reasons I'm a SAHM now.
Your conception of a full time parent as a menial laborer with a life bereft of intellectual stimulation and use is stunted. (You really can't think of what a stay at home parent might do if not cleaning the house?) If that's what the stay at home parents are like in your circle, you need to meet more people. One can have all sorts of interests outside of one's career. My husband has an excellent career that requires brilliance and creativity, but it doesn't call on all of his talents. What career could possibly do that? He pursues those talents outside of the workplace. Just like a stay at home parent might do with the talents not being put to use at home.
Plus, if one is parenting without calling on all of his capabilities, he's probably not doing it right.
@Lyssa Lovely Redhead -- My husband and I made almost exactly the same amount of money, so it was really a toss-up. When it came down to it, I think I wanted to be home more. If I had had a higher earning capacity, he would have stayed home. (We have friends who have stay-at-home-husbands.) Not offensive at all - I think it's an interesting discussion!
Wow, Sandman, that's very ... ... ... interesting.
So, when you kiss your daughter good night and tell her that she can be ANYTHING that she wants to be when she grows up, are you comfortable lying to her? Tall kids won't be gymnasts, short kids won't play volleyball, and if you aspire your kid to be a SAHM, she will never become a scientist, professor, engineer, or mathmetician.
My kid wants to be the first woman on Mars. I hope she makes it before I expire from this Earth.
Good grief, Sandman--when did "aspire" become a transitive verb? Though your usage does seem of a piece with your flaming arrogance.
Me, I let my kids have their own aspirations, it seems a lot more respectful of their own individuality; while of course modelling in my own behavior how a reasonable, competent adult handles his own aspirations.
It is possible to "have it all." It is just not possible to have it all at once. I'm paraphrasing from a speech given, I believe, by Madeleine Allbright at Georgetown University, perhaps to women law students.
Living longer, woman can make a good start on a career before they marry and have children, stay home with the children, and complete their career afterwards.
I did that, and enjoyed both my time at home and the later years in which my career was far more enjoyable than had I been worried about what was happening to my children in day care.
It's always important to point out too that a spouse at home is a safety net - if the working spouse has a problem or money is short, the non-working spouse can go out and earn money. THat only works if a family does not base its lifestyle so as to be dependent on two incomes from the start.
I'd say this little girl is pretty smart.
Thanks for this information, but it doesnt work all the time.
Expense forms
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