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A new study out of the UK states that children of women who work for a living (you know, to pay the bills so that life can actually be lived) are not as healthy as those children who are raised by a mother who is a stay-at-home mom.
Their findings are based primarily upon the fact that while in a mother’s absence, the children are far likelier to develop unhealthy habits such as the consumption of junk food and other detrimental dietary habits and were also much less likely to exercise regularly and have constant access to outdoor play.
According to this article, the research did not specify the type of care the children in question received while the mother was away at work and I think that’s a huge factor to consider when conducting a study of this type. For example, I currently work full-time in supplement to my writing career here at Zelda Lily. My husband attends grad school two days a week and as his schedule is somewhat restricted when it comes to availability for full-time employment. Ultimately, the burden falls upon me to fill in the gaps where funds are needed to sustain our standard of living. While I work five days a week and my husband attends school two out of the five days, my mother comes into play and watches my daughter on the two days that my husband is absent from our home.
My mother, who raised me, clearly, is the perfect fit for the “babysitter” mold. She takes as good care of my daughter as my husband and I do and she ensures that my daughter eats the best foods, interacts with people on a personal level and maintains healthy exercise habits, i.e., doesn’t stick her in front of the television for eight hours a day, which would only promote laziness and heighten the potential for childhood obesity.
Even though my mother is our sitter, the situation is not an ideal one for me. I wish to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom while continuing my writing career and publishing A Great American Novel while my husband finishes his Masters’ thesis as an intern for a luxe government job. However, that’s not the case at this point in time. In time, it will be, but until then, there’s hardly much more I can do than suck it up and work until I don’t need to any longer.
Although I realize that not every individual has the luxury or means to allow their parents to supervise their children when they leave their homes in the morning, I do still feel that the best childcare comes with research, diligence in finding an appropriate caretaker and whatever financial solvency is ultimately possible. People who dump their children off on an absentee neighbor or thirteen year-old niece or nephew should expect that their children clearly aren’t in the best of hands when it comes to cultivating good eating habits or healthy activity levels.
I clearly expect to receive some flack regarding this piece; I can surely realize that, again, not everyone has the luxury or the funding for such “extravagant” childcare, but come on, people. It’s your children. The fostering of young minds and bodies begin at conception. You need to do what you need to do in order to fully take care of your children even if you are a mother or father that need to work full-time in order to sustain a living to ultimately care for your family.
As far as my opinion on the study, I feel that more research could have been done in order to more accurately paint a picture of healthful being and the ideal circumstances that go along with the cultivation of said being.
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No flak from me :-) I totally agree that moms should be raising their kids. A grandparent would be second best but anyone who thinks that a paid employee, probably taking care of several other kids too, is going to do as good a job is kidding themselves.
By the time you add up childcare, extra expenses associated with working such as transport, clothing, lunch out, beauty expenses like fancier hair cuts and such then there probably isn’t much left if you intend to actually get out of work at a reasonable hour to pick the kids up i.e. not a doctor, limited travel, etc. Combine that with the money you can save by being home by cooking from scratch (I make my own bread, seitan, stocks, etc.) and shopping sales and so on and you’ll be lucky to break even after taxes. I’ve figured it out and I’d need to make about $50K to make any money at all by the time all my expenses and taxes are taken in to account and I just have one child. It would need to be substantially more than that to make it worth my while, I wouldn’t miss my kid’s childhood just to bring in a couple of hundred bucks a week.
She didn’t say moms (only) should be raising their kids, she says do the best you can for your child.
Bull on your budget also. It is dependent on you getting money from somewhere, either the child’s dad, your parents or wherever.
Why does this subject always just turn into Stay-at-home-moms versus Working-moms? It’s not a black-and-white issue; there are definitely people who are doing it wrong but that doesn’t mean your way is the only right way.
Did you read the article? It’s about a study that said that kids raised by SAHMs are better off than kids who are sent to daycare. I didn’t turn this issue in to anything.
Sorry, Rhonda, but for a woman in a family to choose NOT to work is a luxury only allowed to the incredibly priveleged of this country. Not everyone’s husband makes boatloads of money, which your husband MUST make, regardless of whether you cook from scratch or not, if he is supporting both of you and a child. If most people’s families were to do that, they would be living on the street, or at the very least, in very uncomfortable conditions.
If by uncomfortable you mean you can’t own a giant house and two giant cars and send your kids to private school and dance lessons, then yes, you’re right.
We’ve always been a one income family. My husband makes decent money, but certainly not boatloads of it.
We’re also a one car family, we live in an apartment and we don’t go out much. There are choices to be made in life. We’ve chosen this.
I can understand how it can seem like losing half of your wages when you take a two income family and turn it into a one income family, but again, it’s a choice. You can either tighten your belt or decide to pay for child care.
Um. Most of us WISH that we could even do that with one person’s income.
And it’s not what you choose that leads me to say this, it’s Rhonda’s implications that this should and CAN be more common.
Most people wish they could afford an apartment and one car on one income?
Most adults or most college students?
It should be more common but there are a lot of families out there that choose to pay someone else to raise their kids rather than tighten their belts a little. One little girl I know needed a corrective helmet after a daycare provider left her sitting in her car seat day in and day out because she was crying so she wound up with a flat head. Another was fed food that she’s severely allergic too and wound up with a diaper rash so severe that her skin was cracked and bleeding for days. A friend of a friend lost her child after a daycare provider ignored two of the kids in her care and they ran a bath which the child then drowned in.
A child can drown in their own home but it’s less likely when there are less kids about. It’s highly unlikely that a parent is going to forget that their child can’t eat certain foods and cause a horrible reaction. Only a horrible and abusive parent would leave their child in a car seat for most of the day.
I choose to tighten my belt rather than expose my child to those situations. I choose to forgo vacations to avoid having to board a plane to take my child to a specialist to correct damage inflicted by a baby sitter. I choose to cook from scratch and eat at home so my son isn’t away being fed food that will cause him pain and suffering by someone who really doesn’t give a crap. To me, that’s not even a choice, it’s a necessity.
I also think it depends on where you live. When I was living in San Diego, where the cost of living is so high (and that’s nothing compared to, say, New York), there’s no way that we could have had a kid and paid the bills on just my husband’s salary. But in Wichita, his brother, who makes $11 an hour (less than my husband), supports his wife and his two children on a single salary just fine.
Hardly. Some of the poorest families have SAHMs or work opposite shifts so there’s always a parent at home because going out to work is a very expensive proposition when you have a child to consider. If one partner is making minimum wage and paying for child care out of that then they’re not actually making money. In my area the minimum wage is $8 and decent childcare costs $400-500 per week. Even if you’re paying an unlicensed neighbor under the table you’re probably paying $40-50 a day which still leaves you with basically no money left and once you take the additional expenses in to account like transport or picking up fast food for dinner when you’re just too exhausted to cook you’re paying to work.
My husband doesn’t make boatloads of money, neither do most of my friend’s husbands. One is a brick layer, one works in a quarry, one is a truck driver, and a couple are cops. I know some moms who say they have to work to support their families and I know they’re speaking crap. One works for not much over minimum wage in an administrative position and spends her entire pay check and more on designer labels for her kids. She could quit her job and just buy her kid’s clothes somewhere cheaper but she won’t. I could take virtually any family and find a way for mom to stay home but a large chunk of them still wouldn’t because the idea freaks them out.
They must be the best paid bricklayer in the whole god damned world. I can tell you, my father makes more than a brick layer…..and I wouldn’t have, say, starved to death if my mother hadn’t worked. But I wouldn’t have had been able to, oh, I don’t know, attend school? Most of us needs those things not to have luxuries like designers, but actual important things that may not be absolutely necessary for existence. My mother did not get a job so I could have designer clothes, she has a job, in addition to not wanting to be a financial slave to my father, to make enough money so I don’t have to be a slave to MY husband, and I can buy my own designer clothes should I so choose.
Rhonda so what about single mothers? You say they’d be better off quitting their jobs.. and what, going on the dole? Greaaat, lazy ass parents raising their kids on government money. That’s what people would say. And it’s true.
There are a few mothers out there who have to work and if they have to then they have to, simple as that. That said, there are single mothers out there who are able to stay home and raise their kids through a variety of different means. My mother was a single mother from the time I was 8 but she managed to stay home anyway and live off life insurance pay out and a widow’s pension. Once I was old enough to watch my sister she started doing some part time work, mostly cleaning stuff, to supplement her income while we were in school and just after too. There are women who take their kids to work with them, working in a day care is a prime example, or work from home. One of my friends managed to support herself and her two kids but doing in-home hair dressing after her partner left. People would come to her or she’d go to them and do cuts, perms, coloring, and whatever else they needed. Her son was in school by that time so she’d take her daughter along with her. She’s hardly rolling in it but she gets by and now that her kids are both in school she can do more shifts at a local salon in addition to continuing her own business so she has a hope of getting somewhere.
We live comfortably in New Jersey, my dad doesn’t make a ton of money, and my mom stayed at home and raised 4 kids. She works now because she likes having extra money to pay for hobbies but when we were kids we fared just fine. I think you’re making some pretty drastic assumptions here.
Some women actually enjoy their careers y’know, its not all about making money.I was raised by a babysitter because my mother wanted to pursue her career. And I’m glad she did. In the long run, her income is the real reason I’m thin, in college on dean’s list, and very happy with my life. I love my mother , and as a child I wished I could have spent more time with her, but making paper mache with mommy in the kindergarten wasn’t going to pay my tuition now. Besides, my mom loves her job, and she inspires me to work hard to get what I want.
Rhonda, moms ARE raising their kids whether they use childcare (relatives or licensed daycare providers), or stay at home full-time. Studies have shown that “at-home” moms don’t spend a significant amount more time with their SCHOOL-AGE kids that working-out-of-home moms do. Basically, it’s about an hour in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon, if we’re looking at a standard 9-5 workday plus commute.
Further, why must the ridiculous Mom Wars continue??? An unhappy mom, whether stuck in a for-pay job she hates because she has to to make ends meet, or an unfulfilled at-home mom who stays at home because her husband or peer group expects her to, are projecting the same unhappy vibes to their kid. A HAPPY mom, whether happy because she loves her job and contributing to the household income, or happy because she loves dedicating herself to her home and (hopefully), her community, projects a positive influence to her child.
All I can say–and I’ve been in both shoes, as I currently work from home full-time (meaning I’m the one who gets my kid ready for school and picks her up after school) BUT I used to use a quality licensed daycare that was staffed by wonderful caring, college-educated childcare workers a few years ago–is the important thing is finding what works for YOUR family and YOUR kids, RIGHT NOW (after all, it could change in a few years).
I loved working in an office when I did. I DID in fact clear over $65K a year so it was worth the money. (One thing I agree with, Rhonda, is that you do need a lot of $$$ to make it worthwhile if you live in a big city.) Further, I set an example to my daughter: hard work will get you the job you love. As I mentioned, she spent part of her day in daycare, part at kindergarten, and the rest with her parents. And she loved it. Daycare helps socialize kids to share and take turns, and I also had the freedom to pull her out of class some days so she could come with me to work: to magazine photo shoots –she actually helped wardrobe-style models when she was 5 years old and now has an interest in fashion design! –and on the town, location scouting and checking out new stores, art galleries and so on. What an experience! Not one she would have had if I listened to the alpha moms in my neighbourhood and stayed home for “her sake.”
I agree with Sarah, the author, that quality daycare is key. relatives who understand the importance of good food. Licensed childcare workers who know what they’re doing, or a nanny or unlicensed caregiver whose references you’ve checked and whose work you trust. I spent top dollar when my daughter was in daycare and I spend top dollar when I get a babysitter the odd Saturday night. You get what you pay for and our kids are worth it.
I am a nanny and I have to say what you have to do as a parent is set clear rules.
Now, I became a nanny (which I do next to my studies) because I WANTED to be a nanny. There are lot’s of nannies who do it because they HAVE to be a nanny because they can’t get another job.
As a nanny who WANTS to be a nanny it is part of my believe that I treat the child like my own. I go for long walks with her, I play educational games with her, talk to her, sing with her …
For food – I give her what her parents want me to give her. Which is mac and cheese or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I understand that the parents make me give that stuff to her because it’s fast and easy to make and doesn’t take any play-time away from her but I’d much rather give her healthier food. What I do is to always start with fruit. She can fill up on fruit and THEN she can have her unhealthy lunch. I am a good cook and I wouldn’t mind cooking for her but another thing they could do for a nanny who can’t cook would be to make a big batch of food and freeze it in little portions that the nanny can just heat up.
Also the parents don’t want me to give her sweets and I respect that. They want to be the ones giving her the occasional treat and I get that. She is not allowed to watch TV with me and that’s fine too – I am paid to play with her, not to sit there.
So if you have to rely on a nanny – set strict rules. Tell her exactly when your kids should eat, tell her to go for walks with your child, prepare food for the kid ahead of time if you want them to have healthy food …
Don’t get a nanny and tell her to “keep the kid busy”. If you don’t want your child to watch TV – tell your nanny (but don’t introduce a “no TV” policy when the kid is normally allowed to watch TV around the clock).
A decent nanny will do exactly as you tell her and respect your rules for the child.
If you don’t set those rules than it’s your own fault if you have a sedentary child – not the nannies.
Most people do not have a Nanny. They either have a babysitter or their kid is in daycare.
Babysitter and nanny can be the same thing today. If you are babysitting the more than 4 hours at a time – you are a nanny.
Amen to this–I’m a babysitter most summers, up to 6 or 7 hours a day sometimes, and occasionally during the school year when I can fit it in. And while in my earlier years of babysitting, when I was only 12 or 13, I might have given in to the temptation of letting a kid sit in front of cartoons all afternoon, now I make sure that they have a balance–no being a couch potato for more than an hour, then go outside or find a game. And just ask my kiddos (that’s what i call the kids i bbsit) if they get extra candy or junk food when I’m around–answer: no way. You get the same as your mom would give. With one family in particular, i’m so close with the mom after working for her for 6 years, that I can pretty much guess what she would say in any situation. Or, I call if i’m not sure. No shame in that.
I think, like Aline says, it has a lot to do with getting a sitter/nanny who *wants* to be there, who loves kids and enjoys being with them. Also, one who respects the mom/dad and their rules, and agrees to enforce them when they are working. Seems like babysitters get a bad rap from that article, but I think they are just looking at the bad babysitters!
When my daughter was young I had to work and I couldn’t afford anything other than daycare, because I was on welfare.
So I found a nice place and spent as much time as I could at the school before and after work. I made friends with all the teachers and asked about her progress daily.
I learned that from my dad. He did the same thing when I was in preschool and I definitely received more and better attention from the staff because of it.
Because they had a more personal relationship with me they were more attentive to my daughter. In fact, one of her teachers loved her so much that she ended up having my daughter spend the night at her house a couple of times. When my daughter’s school had to close, I found out which school that teacher was moving to and sent my daughter there.
There’s always something you can do to better your child’s situation, even if you have to go with daycare instead of a nanny or parent.
why does this article assume it is mothers who should stay home? this type of bias makes me doubt the study’s validity.
They’re doing a study on what typically does happen. Men staying home with the children is not typical.
alzaetia: yes, i know, but constantly saying “stay at home mothers” instead of “stay at home parent” is enforcing the idea that it is a woman’s job to take care of her children. it may be typical but it is certainly not the only way – many stay at home parents are now men. if the study was unbiased it would not single out one sex over the other, therefore i believe the conductors of the study expected certain results.
I think the people doing the study were working with what they had. In a perfect world, distribution of child care would be even. In the world we actually live in, it isn’t. I would have less trust of a study that was hypothetical than one that was actual.
My dad was the stay at home parent in our house. He was a rarity.
1. It’s easier when the kids are little because the milk is right there on tap rather than mom having to pump and leave bottles at home.
2. Generally men make more and are more able to support a family. Not saying it’s right, just that it’s a fact. I only know one family where the mom works and the dad stays home because she makes more.
3. Women are just better at it as a general rule. Being a SAHP requires a lot of multi-tasking. Ask any mom what happens when she leave daddy home with the kids for the day. The fast majority of them will tell you that no chores get done and the place usually looks like a bomb hit it. I know my hubby can get the dishes in the kitchen half the time but that’s about it.
4. The woman is more likely to want to stay home. It’s part biology, part societal norms, part psychology. Bring a SAHD is tough. I always make a point of including them at play groups and such but most women don’t. I’ve even had some moms tell me that they’ve heard other moms gossip about me because I talk to the guys.
Whatever you write – you always sound like one of the wives from Mad Men.
I’ve never seen Mad Men but that sounds like a compliment to me.
^It’s not.
I wish I could be a wife in that time period. Wouldn’t have to deal with people giving me crap for wanting to stay at home instead of work.
^Were you dropped on your head as a child? Yeah, no one would give you crap for staying at home, because that would be all that you were allowed to do.
Well said Abbi. I’m so sick of this attitude that some so-called feminists have where they say that women can do anything and be anyone they want but what they actually mean is they want to set the standard instead of someone else setting it. I would love to go back to the the 1950s when being a housewife was actually a source of pride and having a nice home and being able to throw a dinner party at the drop of a hat was a respected skill. Now there’s this image that housewives just sit on their butts all day which is just not true. I’ve been out there in the workforce and I’ve worked a variety of jobs from agriculture to retail to office work and this is the hardest I’ve ever worked with the possible exception of agriculture because that was 17 hours a day and 6 days a week but it was only physically demanding. Being a housewife requires being on the go constantly, multi tasking, keeping track of a lot of different things at once, and an incredibly diverse skill set.
Really Abbi and Rhonda? You would love to go back to the 1950’s? Ok… hmmm… you want to go back to a time when women were supposedly appreciated? You really think someone who has no say… no voice… is appreciated? So let me get this straight, you want to go back to a time when women were not allowed to vote and had no say inside or outside their homes so you can be appreciated? I’d rather not have appreciation if that’s what it is. I’d rather not go back to a time when African Americans, women, asians… basically anyone but a caucasian man… were of no importance to the American Culture. They were down graded and seen only as posessions. If that’s what you want, there are many foreign, less fortunate countries who treat their women like that and you are more than welcome to go there anytime you wish. You will certainly be “appreciated” in those countries!!!!
excuse me, I meant to say where women had no say inside or outside their homes and African Americans weren’t even allowed to vote. (They technically were but were hindered by the government). But basically, it was a time where Americans were segregated because of Race, sex, ethnicity, etc. That’s no time period I care to be in.
Wow. Way to just beat on stay at home dads. Or just dads in general. My father raised my brother and I and he did a damned good job. I think if people would stop going on about this “women just are better with kids” BS then maybe dads would be willing to step up to the plate. Also, this would prevent women/mothers from making a stay at dad’s life horrible because they think so much less of him. My dad had SO many issues when he was a stay at dad because of these stupid stereotypes about a dad’s capacity to take care of children.
Plus, I hate the “women just love kids more and it’s psychological and biological and blah blah blah” because it just makes me feel like what, so I’m not a woman then? Since I, generally, do not like kids and HATE being cooped up at home.
I have to agree. In Europe stay-at-home dads are way more common than here. The person who earns more, stays working. And in Northern Europe there is virtually no difference in pay for men or women. My experience is that SAHD do the job just as well as the women do.
Sure – there are useless men. But there are also tons of useless women.
I think it also has a lot to do with upbringing and the general attitude of how men should behave towards their children.
The rules in American families are much more defined than they are in The Netherlands or Sweden.
People don’t grow up with the notion that “men have to be men” thus they get to decide what kind of person they want to be when they grow up. And some of them decide that they love being with their kids and clean the house and become SAHDs.
My dad was the stay at home parent in our family. To be honest, our homework wasn’t done, dinner was never ready and the house was always a mess.
He kept us alive and loved us, though, and that’s more than a lot of daycare centers can boast.
First off, try actually reading what I wrote because you clearly didn’t do that before responding. I have zero issue with SAHDs. As I said before I’m usually the one engaging them in conversation at the park and stuff because I think it’s horrible that so many of them get snubbed by the moms there.
I also didn’t say that women love their kids more. I said that they’re generally better multitaskers which is a biological fact and being able to multitask effectively is essential when you’re a SAHP. Men are usually better at focusing on one task and that just doesn’t work because either you’re focusing on the kids and ignoring the housework or you’re focusing on the housework and not noticing that junior is in the bathroom redecorating the walls with shaving foam and lipstick.
Nobody is saying that you have to have kids if you don’t like them, many couples choose not to have kids at all. I’ve never understood people who don’t like kids but breed anyway. I know one woman who had a baby and went back to work when the kid was 2 weeks old. He’s a teenager now and I swear she’s barely seen him since because he was raised by a nanny then sent off to boarding school and goes to camp all summer. It’s a mystery to me.
How do you know she doesn’t love her son? Maybe she just likes her job. And how do you know her kid doesn’t like boarding school and summer camp? How many kids do you know that would rather sit around the house with their mom than go outside and play with their friends
women are better at staying home? really? maybe when dads stay home for the day and the house is a wreck, as you say, is because it is only for the day and A) they aren’t used to being home B) they treat it like a vacation or C) they know the wives will fix whatever messes they make so who cares? if the dad stayed home all the time i’m sure he would get the hang of it eventually (it’s not rocket science, after all), unless these men are so dumb they can’t wash dishes or change a diaper, in which case why would you marry them in the first place?
Ok, first of all… unless you are abusive or neglectful there is no right or wrong when it comes to raising a family. I always thought that parents were suppose to motivate and help each other, not play “I’m a better parent than you because ______”. I have been going to these parent sites to find people with similar issues and support and all I find are a bunch of bickering people who thrive off of hurting others. My son is 5 months old… he is an only child… and I love him more than life itself. I spent the last 5 months of my pregnancy crying because I couldn’t figure out a way to stay home with him. My husband and I didn’t think we could have children. We bought a house, got a few 4 legged babies (2 dogs and a cat), got new jobs, and… go figure, got pregnant!!!!! We were thrilled but so scared. We were just making it on two incomes (by just making it, we were paying bills and had a little left over to bank in savings). We occasionally went out and did things but really didn’t have the extra money. I was devastated to learn how much day care cost (it should be illegal to charge that much). I am a nurse and my husband is a construction worker (I thought about doing nights but with my husband being in Construction, he could work days, evening, nights, weekends, whenever… and sometimes with only a day’s notice. Luckily, right before I found out I was pregnant, I went from a very fast paced job with an undependable schedule to a job reviewing medical records Mon-Fri, and at least able to know when I get off of work, and have all weekends and holidays off). My paychecks solely go to all bills ( every dime of my paychecks goes on bills), and my husbands are for groceries, household necessities, gas… and now day care… that’s right… daycare. A friend of the family does day care, and had an opening for an infant. She only charges us $120/wk (we have the “family” discount. After day care, we don’t have much left to buy everything else and are barely making, as opposed to just making it, but are somehow doing it. There is absolutely NO WAY either of us could quit our jobs to stay at home. I envy stay at home moms and would give just about anything to be one. We thought about selling our house but would have to pay more than we would get out of it (which we don’t have as just about all of our savings went to bills while I was out on Maternity leave) and my husband doesn’t even make enough for us to rent off of his income. I wish I could enjoy my job, and also find myself envying the working mom who loves her job. I have been back to work now for three months and cry as I leave my baby every day. I think about him every second. He’s starting to learn so many new things and I just sit at work and wonder what he is learning today. I think anyone who can sit on the other side of the fence (whichever side that is) and judge needs to shut their mouths and respect everyone for their own choices and strengths. None of you know someone else’s situation, and those of you saying that working mom’s or stay at home mom’s are better or worse than the other… I just pray that you don’t raise your children to be as judgemental as you are.
I worked out the numbers too, I like to work. This means my son goes to daycare. I make 75% of the meals homemade, I make 100% of his food and he thrives at daycare. With him being an only child, he gets the social interaction he needs to be a well rounded adult. I interviewed 15 people and found someone wonderful. We don’t have the luxury of family nearby.
Also, just giving my two cents on the classist nature of this argument. You state that not all parents can give such excellent (and expensive) care for their child while they try to live and then you go right ahead and pretty much call ‘em bad parents because they’re their CHILDREN for heaven’s sake. Seriously? Also, a person’s parents (child’s grandparent) can be just as bad as a bad babysitter. I’m so glad I never had to spend more days than I had to with my Mimi. And moms who work are taking very good care of their children by providing money so that their child can live. I know you said that, but honestly your last paragraph just completely undid any valid argument I thought you may have had. People who do not make enough extra income to hire Mary Poppins are not bad parents and should not be made to feel that way by anyone. It just does not help anything. Why not argue to make better more affordable child care for these parents instead of just bashing on ‘em for apparently not caring enough about their children to stay home and let their kids starve. :\
I think my head might explode with some of the comments here. I am going out on a limb here to throw out a thought. If we should be stay at home moms (because that is what’s best), then we should not be nurturing our children (daughters) to aim to be whatever they want? I will be more than happy to send my daughter off to higher education (if she so desires) and be whatever she wants to be. Should all the Dr’s/Nurses/Teachers/Nobel Peace Prize winners/secretaries…(you get my point) be men? Dear lord, I REFUSE to feel guilty about working. My child is as well adjusted as the next one.
and before someone rips me a new one for making it sound like i’m putting down SAHM’s, I am not doing that. I just want more options for my daughter than just one path in life.
You shouldn’t feel guilty about working. If your children are being cared for and loved, they’ll be happy and well adjusted.
I mean, as much as any human is…
“I wish to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom while continuing my writing career and publishing A Great American Novel”
That is my dream job too….probably won’t happen for a long time, though!
I had an amazing babysitter, we were kicked out except for the last 15 minutes before we were picked up, in the summer we were taken to museums and waterparks when we were with her 5 days a week every week all day. they found her after going through several people and honestly I still love her to this day. I knew her from the time I was three she took me to my first day of pre-school. My mother went back to work when I was six weeks old, she got three off from work and then took three weeks off from sick leave/vacation. I love my mother, and I loved that babysitter.
Guys –
It *is* possible for families who are not “wealthy” or anything close to it to survive on one income. Yes, I’m sure it does make a difference where you live, but I do know more than one family who do it. Some have husbands who make alot, but my best friends, for example, do not – in fact the guy of the couple does not always have steady employment because he’s an artist (not really successful yet,) and pursues that, and yet his wife stays at home and they are able to live happily – no, they don’t get “fancier haircuts” and rarely pick up food because “they are just too tired to cook” but they just have set their priorities.
*stop right there! I’m not getting high and mighty and saying that 2-income families don’t love their kids! But THIS family made the decision that it was more important to THEM to have a parent home*
I really do not understand at all people who say things like “I want my kids to have more options,” etc – if you mean things like extracurricular activities: ballet, soccer, etc, etc, etc – there are a TON of great things through YMCA, your library, or through the city near you. Many programs that *do* have a fee will either subsidize or waive it if your income is below a certain amount. So your kids don’t have to miss out. Suburban Turmoil (www.suburbanturmoil.com) is a great example of someone who finds amazing things for her daughter to do, all for free- and she doesn’t even look like she *needs* it to be free, but she’s taking advantage of her city and community programs.
Regarding higher education – you don’t need two parents working to get that either. My father was the only breadwinner in my family, and since I was part of the 2 car, private-school going middle class, you might think we were well off enough to pay for my and my siblings’ college. Oh no. Here is what we did/ do: study hard in highschool and apply for scholarships. And get student loans. With all the government programs, subsidized loans, Pell grants, and merit- and need-based scholarships out there, or really just going to a state school, it’s not impossible, and tons of people do it! These things can cover your living expenses, books, school supplies, etc.
I got a job while I was in college so I could keep up with the Jones’ to satisfy my (now kicked) designer habit, but I didn’t need to do that at all – I could have had a normal college lifestyle all without working or being supported by my parents.
Of course there can and will be exceptions to every rule, but that’s my two cents. I’m not making a sweeping statement about what anyone should do, but I just don’t understand people saying things like “he must be the best bricklayer in the whole world” or “I want my child to have options.”
*Rhonda- I think you make your argument weaker including in your budget of working moms “fancier haircuts, lunches out, picking up fast food when you’re just too tired to cook, etc” those are all luxuries and in fact even a working wardrobe can be picked up cheaply at discount clothing stores and on clearance racks. I know two-income households too, and it doesn’t mean that these women are necessarily choosing a fancy career, they are honestly doing what they think is best and they are not working to pay for fancy haircuts or throw away their money on fast food. they make do.
I understand your point but you seem to be qualifying it with things that are just specific to apply to most.
I am glad I don’t have kids. It just seems like that no matter what choice a woman or a man makes on this topic, someone is going to get pissed off.
Half of what’s been said here sounds like all the disturbing facts and stats that The Feminine Mystique brought up 40 years ago: women are better at being home, they’re more nurturing, men make more money, and on and on. In other words, feminism hasn’t really moved forward all that much in 4 decades of struggle.
Where is our unity? Why haven’t we progressed?
It has to be more than just the fact that they are staying home. There are a lot of shitty mothers that don’t work. I see them all the time. Someone spending their days making food from scratch, growing a garden, volunteering at school, washing cloth diapers, cleaning the house, etc. is not spending time with her kids.
I make my own food and wash cloth diapers. I do it all with my son right there with me learning talking to me and learning how to do it all too.
Once he’s in school, I’ll volunteer at his school, which will actually give me time spent with him when normally we’d be apart. My daughter loved when I volunteered in her class, because she got to see in the middle of the day twice a week.
I don’t have a garden, because we live in an apartment, and I don’t clean much because I don’t feel like it. But I could do those things with him tagging along beside me talking to me just like I do everything else.
Why do you think that stuff can’t be done while you’re spending time with your kid? How else is a kid going to learn how to do that stuff?
Sure we’re spending time with them. As a general rule I try to do most of my chores in the morning. My son goes to preschool 3 mornings a week now because he’s 4 so I can do a fair amount in that time. When he’s home he either helps out or he’s close by so we can talk e.g. playing in his room while I clean the bathroom or doing crafts at the table while I clean the kitchen. If I’m cooking he’s usually helping and he’s an excellent cook for his age. He’s been helping with laundry since he was a baby, learning about colors and counting. Now he’s in charge of sorting socks and underwear while I do the pants and shirts and we’re usually done putting stuff away about the same time. After we’re done with chores we read and play and go places or we have friends over for play dates.
I spend 10-13 hours a day with my son because those are the hours he’s awake minus the 9 hours a week he spends at preschool. I know some moms who are lucky to see their kids awake at all during the week and then they spent the weekend frantically trying to catch up on housework too. Some of them let their kids help but more often than not they’re sticking their kids in front of the TV or having one parent play while the other parent works. I can think of one mom I know who drops her daughter at daycare sound asleep, picks her up in time for dinner then puts her to bed. On weekends she’s in a couple of church groups and needs to catch up on housework so she often sends her partner out with the kid to run errands. All together she’s lucky to spend as much time with her child in a week as I do in a day.
most of the sahm’s I knew growing up didn’t spend much time with their kids so all the kids used to come over to my parent’s house. One of my friends moms used to sit on the couch and watch soap operas all day and couldn’t even gt up herself to get her bob-bons and would send us to the kitchen to get them for her. she never cooked or cleaned so my friends had to cook their own ramen. and when her dad came home after working all day he had to clean the house. i think if you stay at home you should put in an 8 hour work day just like the other spouse whether it is the man or woman staying at home and that should include spending time with your children not just putting on a disney movie
i guess my point being that women are not necessarilly better at being stay at home parent. i knew one of my friends dads and he spent a lot of time with them and took them to museums and art galleries and did the whole cooking cleaning thing and the mom worked outside the home
Ok, first of all… unless you are abusive or neglectful there is no right or wrong when it comes to raising a family. I always thought that parents were suppose to motivate and help each other, not play “I’m a better parent than you because ______”. I have been going to these parent sites to find people with similar issues and support and all I find are a bunch of bickering people who thrive off of hurting others. My son is 5 months old… he is an only child… and I love him more than life itself. I spent the last 5 months of my pregnancy crying because I couldn’t figure out a way to stay home with him. My husband and I didn’t think we could have children. We bought a house, got a few 4 legged babies (2 dogs and a cat), got new jobs, and… go figure, got pregnant!!!!! We were thrilled but so scared. We were just making it on two incomes (by just making it, we were paying bills and had a little left over to bank in savings). We occasionally went out and did things but really didn’t have the extra money. I was devastated to learn how much day care cost (it should be illegal to charge that much). I am a nurse and my husband is a construction worker (I thought about doing nights but with my husband being in Construction, he could work days, evening, nights, weekends, whenever… and sometimes with only a day’s notice. Luckily, right before I found out I was pregnant, I went from a very fast paced job with an undependable schedule to a job reviewing medical records Mon-Fri, and at least able to know when I get off of work, and have all weekends and holidays off). My paychecks solely go to all bills ( every dime of my paychecks goes on bills), and my husbands are for groceries, household necessities, gas… and now day care… that’s right… daycare. A friend of the family does day care, and had an opening for an infant. She only charges us $120/wk (we have the “family” discount. After day care, we don’t have much left to buy everything else and are barely making, as opposed to just making it, but are somehow doing it. There is absolutely NO WAY either of us could quit our jobs to stay at home. I envy stay at home moms and would give just about anything to be one. We thought about selling our house but would have to pay more than we would get out of it (which we don’t have as just about all of our savings went to bills while I was out on Maternity leave) and my husband doesn’t even make enough for us to rent off of his income. I wish I could enjoy my job, and also find myself envying the working mom who loves her job. I have been back to work now for three months and cry as I leave my baby every day. I think about him every second. He’s starting to learn so many new things and I just sit at work and wonder what he is learning today. I think anyone who can sit on the other side of the fence (whichever side that is) and judge needs to shut their mouths and respect everyone for their own choices and strengths. None of you know someone else’s situation, and those of you saying that working mom’s or stay at home mom’s are better or worse than the other… I just pray that you don’t raise your children to be as judgemental as you are