This article implies stay-at-home parenting has been given plenty of lip service. But the omnipresent old assumptions someone is at home mismatch with reality: school summer hours, lack of affordable child care, or trying to get something serviced or installed. The article claims that in 2/3 of families, all the parents work.
Is this your view? Is stay-at-home parenting disrespected, or only honoured in the breech, since housework is not included in GDP calculations? Have things changed or improved? Your opinion requested.
Maybe. I was more thinking of society. But drag what you want to in the debate: prices, values, feminism, expectations, childcare, education, relationships, economics, productivity yada yada. Or discuss your own experiences.
Given the academic and social results (from unpunished bullying to allowing strangers on campus to unload their firearms) coming out of public schools I would say stay-at-home parenting and home schooling should be absolutely applauded. Similarly, money spent on daycare services which are perfectly safe until they are not (abuse, disease, missed/misunderstood behavioral observations, etc.), scheduling conflicts complicating the installation/repair of important household features, and countless other reasons, a single-income household is fantastic. Stay-at-home parents are heroes. Further, the more single income households there are, the lower the unemployment rate, the more leverage finds the hands of the individual worker, and the lower the overall cost of living. Couples where both work while trying to have kids, pets, functional house, etc. are sellouts who cause a terrific number of our society’s financial and social problems.
My oldest will be 19 this year. When my wife was pregnant, she was quite certain that she wanted to be home with the kids to be named later. We decided that this is what we wanted to do as a family, and so it was done. She decided to go back to work full time two years ago, after working for a startup with her sister and taking a year to write a book which has since been published.
She is enjoying the work, but is frustrated by the fact that people much younger than her are ahead along the career path and that being a SAHM is viewed as wasted years. We in no way agree with this, but it is having an impact on her work life as she tries to find a director level role that is commensurate with her skills.
The true shaftees are working women. It is well documented that working women are discriminated against because managers (usually male) presume a woman will eventually end up pregnant and will take time off to take care of the children.
This also happens with people who switch careers, a situation that is more common than in previous decades. I switched careers from public history to human resources, and I do have a few coworkers who are 20 years my junior and are about as far along in their careers as I am in mine. Realistically speaking, most companies aren’t going to consider a person to be a good candidate for a director position if they have less than five years of experience. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a good rule of thumb.
And I think you’ve summed up one of the problems with being stay at home parent who decides to enter the workforce. When I’ve played recruiter, I never viewed being a homemaker as a waste of time, but at the same time I can’t really say it ever helped a candidate get hired. But anyone who stays out of the workforce for a number of years is going to find themselves lagging behind those who did not.
I completely forgot about that thread! I don’t remember why I wrote it, but my feelings have evolved a bit since. I wrote that thread shortly before I had kids and now my eldest is almost 18; my youngest is almost 15. I’ve worked the entirety of their lives with the exception of a 4-month hiatus between leaving an intolerable working situation and finding a new one.
From a social point of view, it really depends - I don’t think that SAHMs or SAHDs are respected any more than they used to be, though it’s more common in men than it ever used to be. Men are seen as “lesser than” and not providers if they’re home with children, while women…we just can’t make anyone happy. I am the remaining mom in my cohort of college friends with a full-time job. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked if I felt guilty farming out raising my kids to strangers or had been criticized for not being there with my kids every single minute. I did want to be a SAHM for a hot minute until I was a SAHM while I found a new job. When I was home, I was asked, “Oh, you’re just a stay-at-home mom?”
Ultimately, while having kids seems to be encouraged, I totally understand why the population is falling in the U.S. I think parents are under-supported and that not only is childcare increasingly unaffordable, the U.S. as a culture looks down on models that would create additional supports, such as multi-generational living situations, flexible scheduling, etc. We’re all expected to boostrap it or be considered failures. And heaven help you if you make the grave mistake of being poor and/or having an hourly instead of salaried job. Then you should’ve thought twice before you ever opened your trousers or spread your legs.
From my experience working and parenting, as the woman, I still do the lion’s share of the unpaid labor in my household. From what I can tell, that’s very common. Most women I know who work and parent still take the “night shift,” whether they work four hours per week or 40. I don’t think it’s fair, but I do think it’s something that can be addressed with clear communication.
People should do what is right for themselves, but I question whether a child’s best interests are served by relying on one spouse’s income and good graces. If you are a stay-at-home parent and your spouse dies, is disabled, or leaves you, what provisions have you made so that you’ll be able to maintain an economically stable family unit without that parent? I think that question needs to be answered before choosing to stay out of the paid workforce. A parent who has zero paid work experience for the past ten years and no work references will be at a severe disadvantage if they should suddenly find themselves needing employment.
I also am personally uncomfortable with SAHM’s reinforcement of outdated gender stereotypes. When my son was young, one of my magazine articles (on traveling with young children) included a photo of him with the Gaza Pyramids in the background, so his school put copies of the article up on bulletin boards all over campus, because it had a photo of one of their students. My son, bless him, was completely indifferent to his own temporary fame, but oh my was he ever proud of his mother and her job! To this day I am grateful that I was able to set an example for him that way, and it remains one of my most lovely memories of parenting a young boy.
I was that parent. Don’t think I was home much.
I volunteered at schools. I volunteered at alot of things.
I’m an artist
I painted murals. Thankless and poorly paid, if at all. I did a show of canvasses, that was disappointing.
I still have hopes of being famous after death .
My husband worked out-of-state mostly. He was gone for weeks on end.
4 kids. I was their only driver, cook, cleaner, nurse and responsible for every need. I had to be stay at home.
I did consider it work. Work I enjoyed and loved.
I actually miss it.
When my baby left I was depressed and miserable. And lonely.
This is when I came to the Dope. I have to say it’s been a great source of therapy. I love it.
Yes, the stay at home parent is shafted by society. Denigrated and look down upon.
I don’t expect, never did, the government or any organization to applaud me or pay me and put me in any category that I would benefit from.
I just wanted respect, sorta.
Or just some understanding that this was how my life was.
I know someone who was a single parent, and she could not just stay at home for years. She brought her kid to work sometimes. Occasionally her mother was able to visit and help her out.
When we relocated about 24 years ago to a less expensive area we decided to go to one income (from two) and my wife would stay home with our 2 year old. About a year later we added my son. Having her stay at home allowed me to more easily travel for business at the time. I also turned-over most of the financial management of the household to her. Of course we split much of the “in the trenches” household chores about equally. In that time, she has been able to run a small craft business, and then work for the city a few hours a week, as well as attend/volunteer at a lot of the school functions where I was not able due to work.
Both our kids haven’t needed a SAHM in many years (they’re both young adults in their early/mid-20s), yet she has shown no interest in rejoining the full-time/salaried work force (even with my support and, frankly, my urging), so it’s really too late now. IMHO, far from getting shafted, she has been enjoying a semi-retired life for quite a few years. I know my experience is not universal, but just adding a data point.
I worked til my son was about 2 or 3. It killed me to leave him to go to work.
My parents were my sitters.
When I quit, they financially supported me for a while.
Yes I still have to work til I am 70 to be qualified to collect the minimum of social security but time with my son was better than any money I could have made.
I mean the SAH lifestyle, as it applies to childcare for instance, is one worth pursuing and making sacrifices for, and that those who find ways to make it work are quite alright, IMHO.
One minor thing. I recall when our kids were young, the schools gave preference for choosing a.m. kindergarten to working mothers. My stay home wife and I didn’t agree with that.
More seriously, when/if a stay home parent decides to re-enter the workforce, they are given no respect by potential employers. It struck us as odd that employers would prefer a new grad over someone who has bought/sold several cars/homes, managed a household, raised kids. Oh yeah - and consistently worked pt-time in related field.
When our 3d kid was born, we decided we preferred to have a stayhome parent. Wife was making more than me at the time, but we both realized she would be a far better stayhome parent.
From personal experience, I am not crazy about the concept. Because of finances.
I am divorced. When there is a divorce in a SAH situation, the person who wants the divorce typically winds up ripping off the other partner. Gender does not matter, whether the person is the worker or the SAH does not matter. Whoever wants the divorce tends to be already leveraging or interested in leveraging the position for their own benefit. Whereas dual working couples, the splits tend to be much cleaner and fairer. In the year 2024 I do warn people to be very wary of SAH situations.
To be more specific, my ex left me for someone she knew before we ever met. Her true love I suppose. As soon as he was ready to be a stepdad, she was gone. I expect she used the money from me to build up capital for her small business which she now owns. Personally, I think if you’re staying at home you should maybe be doing more kid centered things. But somehow I’m the one doing more of the extracurriculars. Except for medical care; she seems to want to have very narrow interests. She won’t need to go back into the workforce due to her money and the two incomes she gets from me and her current husband.
One result of my helicopter parenting is my kids are very interested in me and my needs now. They are helping me now with all my needs.
My Mid-dau and Dil…are basically SAH. They are at home employed. Mid-dau lives here with her two boys. She does computer drafting for a Architect firm. She’s head cook and bottle washer here. Divorced. Receives child support from her ex.
DIL has the 4 kids and does Insurance investigation by computer. My son is medically disabled. Actually does everything I ask of him. They live close. I love having him around here.
The younger daughters are both employed. The Lil’wrekker lives here at home. Working on her higher degree and employed at the College.
Youngest doesn’t live at home. She checks in and comes home as needed.
I appreciate everything they do for me. It swells my heart.
Sometimes it gets hairy and expensive to manage them. I wouldn’t change anything. In fact it scares me when I think of them being far away from home.
My wife was SAH from the time our first was born until the last was around 10, about 17 years. But she would not have it any other way. But she started retraining (she has a translator’s certificate) earlier by taking night courses. Of course, I babysat for that. When she got a job, the personnel man said something like, “17 years is a long time to be out of the workplace.” But she got the job, loved it and then she and the manager of the French to English module (there was another in the opposite direction) quit and went free-lance for a number of years until she retired. So basically I agree with what others have said.
One DIL is a SAHM and wouldn’t have had it any other way. In fact, my son, a MicroSoft millionaire, left for a few years to write a book, but also to help with the 4 kids. The other DIL is a family physician, but her mother was ready and willing to act as a nanny and did so until their son was about 12. At that point, the pandemic hit and it was deemed better for her to go off to her own apartment.
My daughter got two months leave and took four more without pay and then, regretfully, put her son into daycare. But he did well there, although it cost about $2000/month, not a whole lot less than her net income. Then she went free-lance (she does copy editing for scientific journals) and works from home. Although she was happy in her job until the journal she worked for was taken over by a predatory publisher.
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