My mom was a SAHM, but I could tell (and if I could tell, it means it was bleeding obvious to anyone else) that she wasn’t happy being one. I wish she had gotten a job, especially by the time my sister and I were older, and it seemed her main activity was trying to live vicariously through us.
I think there’s vitriol both ways because this issue cuts to the heart of our life decisions. And no matter what you choose, there’s an immense weight of culture that tells you that you made the wrong choice. As dangermom mentioned, it’s incredibly hard not to get defensive when one of the core aspects of how you live your life and raise your children is under attack.
I’m confident that the choice I made was right for me and my family in our circumstances. Still, I remember that time the daycare called me to tell me that one of my children had just thrown up – and I was in a meeting 500 kilometers away. Intellectually, I know that they then called my husband, who picked up the child, and I know that he’s just as capable a caretaker as I am. Emotionally, I still hear that niggling voice of “You’re his mother, and you weren’t there for him!” I’d guess that many mothers on both sides of that choice also have similar occasional moments of guilt, which this debate then feeds into. (And yes, I think this issue cuts harder at mothers than at fathers – we’re pretty far from gender neutral norms and expectations here.)
My personal choice was 6 months at home with each child after birth, and then one year for each working 50% (I love Norwegian parent leave!). After that, I worked 80% for several years, and would still have done that if I hadn’t had to give up some significant worker’s rights to do so. When I was home with our second child, our oldest (2 1/2 years old) still spent several hours every day in daycare. That was at least as much for his sake as mine – he’d be bored out of his scull with just mom and a baby at home, not being able to play with his friends at the daycare.
What I would like is laws and regulations that promoted more flexibility, to make it easier for more parents to be able to choose to work part time. I do think that it’s extremely healthy for most children to be around different people some of the time, preferably of diverse ages. Of course, this can happen with SAHP too, if there are enough other children around.
I love being a SAHM.
I know where all my children’s bad habits come from ( me) and I know what they are thinking before they think the thought.
I know all their friends and their parents friends real well and chat leisurely with the staff at school where I volunteer at on my terms, not a real job work schedule.
If I had an actual paying job in the cold cruel world I would have to work south of here and commute 45 at least daily. And I would bring that home with me, all the cubicleville crapola that comes iwth a real income. If I take a brain dead job like working at the local grocery store, everyone says it is beneath me and my intelligence ( mind you, I was a travel agent before hand, so all my previous job skills are no longer needed because of the web.) I don’t have a degree and think college is pretty much a waste of time for real life experience outside of Doctors and lawyers. T
here is no way I am going to go back to school to spend 25K that we do not have on an education to get some dreck job 45 minutes away from here that I will probably hate because it is an obligation to take the job to pay off the college bills and not waste my brain/degree and have to pay for latch key (and loads more medical bills as my daughter is very sensitive to colds as she is borderline asthma and her meds are always RX, not OTC.) and be harried all of the time when I can take some low level job that works around my kids schedule and take summers off to go fishing, swimming, walking and a houseful of kids on my terms and giving them fun memories of childhood.
Besides, with one brother left and not looking good and a near 80 year old mother who worries herself to death, the minute I do get some decent job and get in a rythm of goodness and money flowing in, my brother will get really sick ( and then die after a long laborous process) and then my mother will decide it is time for herself to go to pot and I am the only one to take care of her. So I will have to quit that job pretty much the moment after I start it. Trust me on this. I read the future real well.) So, really, it is all for the best.
Yeah, money is tight at times, especially with gas prices so high cutting into all of the PIN money that I use for xmas. Thankfully, I had everyone else in the family shopped for by June and just have to buy for our kids.
Yeah, I’ll probably be a greeter at Walmart to make ends meet down the road.
( Please shoot me.) but I have no regrets and wouldn’t have it any other way.
(And who else is there to be the doorwoman for the dog all day? Won’t someone think of the Labradors?)
Thanks a lot, fessie. I acknowledged that that was ONE part of it to me, but I also acknowledged that I don’t have what it takes to be a SAHM PERIOD. I think it requires a lot more self-motivation than I have - I can motivate myself to get up and go to to work because I have a schedule, but I have a very hard time motivating myself to be self-sufficient in terms of setting my own schedule.
I don’t think I deserved to be singled out like that. And yes, I DO get the jist of being a SAHM. I have friends who are SAHMs, and I know what their day is like - I have the utmost respect for them because I know that they don’t have it easy - hell, I can go to lunch when I want to, go to the bathroom when I need to, etc. But the fact is, we have neither the means nor the desire for me to be a SAHM, but I am fully behind everyone else who is able to (because it’s not always about choices, you know…).
If I were at home, I would expect myself to keep a decent house - and by decent, I don’t mean spotless, I mean passable. I’m referring only to MYSELF, if I haven’t made that clear enough. I’m not trying to make anyone else feel guilty here - I already do a pretty good job of that on myself.
I don’t care what other people do - I know that I could not do it, and that won’t make me a worse mother for it. I envy those who CAN do it, financially and emotionally. But right now I have a very flexible job, I work close to home, and we’re doing everything we can now to make sure that the children that we do have will be loved and well-cared for when they do come.
E.
After Anne Neville quoted me, I realized I was unclear - she took mat leave, then worked part-time for a few years, but by the time I was 4 she was back to working full time, as she does now.
But really, if ever I was sick, she stayed home with me. Stupid kindergarten plays? There for every one. We had a family dinner, the four of us, at 6 pm every day. It’s possible to prioritize your kids even when working full-time.
Elza, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be mean or shame you. Truthfully I just ran out of time and couldn’t find the rest of the posters who were expressing the same thoughts.
I hope you read the part where I said that NOBODY knows what it’s like until they live it. It’s impossible. I can’t think of a single analogy that comes close to describing what it’s like to be a mother.
It’ll be interesting to read what you have to say about the whole thing once you get there yourself. I hope you’ll share your thoughts.
I’ve stayed out of this for 2 pages because I don’t self-identify as a SAHM. I always call myself a housewife, because I think that better identifies what I do, and have done for the past 19 years. Yes, folks – I’m a genuine non-producing parasite – a housewife whose children are grown. My son is 19 and in the Navy, so he no longer lives at home; my daughter is 18 and a senior in high school. I don’t really mind if people think I’m a non-productive parasite (although it would be pretty rude of someone to say it to my face), so long as my family doesn’t feel that way – and I know they don’t.
My husband does have quite a good job now, BTW, but when we started out he earned a lot less – he was, in fact, an enlisted person in the Navy when we married and had our babies. So it was a bit of a financial sacrifice for me to stay home, but it was what we both wanted. Our kids are very close in age (less than 11 months apart) and our youngest is disabled (cerebral palsy) and had special needs. And my husband had, and has always had, a very high-stress, time-consuming job with a lot of traveling required. My staying at home was really a no-brainer – although, if I had really wanted to work I could have, and would have. Despite having 2 babies so close together, I took my responsibility to the house as seriously as my responsibility to the kids. I have a hard time understanding people who say the don’t have time to cook or do housework with a baby in the house. My house was always clean, I cooked dinner every night, did the grocery shopping and neccesary errands, paid the bills and kept up with the kids. Our house was small, of course, and our dinners not escoffier, but still. My daughter (due to her disability) had extra doctor’s and therapy appointments, and she didn’t regularly sleep through the night or become potty-trained until she was four. And I’m as far from being a Superwoman as it’s possible to be. I am, in fact, fairly lazy and try to do as little as I possibly can at all times. But I couldn’t expect my husband (who was working a very demanding 12 -14 hour a day job) to come home and clean the toilets. Some days were worse than others, of course, but overall, by ignoring my natural inclination to disorganization, I was able to keep up. And my time, for the most part, was my own – I could set my own schedule. I was able to read a great deal (when my kids were small, I read 6 - 10 books a week plus the newspaper every day), and spend a bit of time on hobbies. I put my kids to bed early, so my husband and I could have time to ourselves in the evenings.
And, somehow, as the kid’s grew up and my husband’s career grew more demanding, they all came to depend on me being home. I helped with the kid’s homework, once they were in school, and went with their classes on field trips. My daughter’s special needs continued as well – therapy appointments and so on. When the kids were in school, I also went to college part time myself – always with the plan that, once the kids were in high school, I would go back to work myself. During this time, my husband was also getting his degree and I helped him with that as well – I’d go to the library and do his research for him, and type and proofread his papers and so on. And so the months turned into years and I continued as the general go-to person in our family.
When the kids were in middle school, I went back to work for a year – I worked at a bookstore and enjoyed the job enormously. But we found that, even though the kids were old enough to be home alone, things just didn’t work as smoothly around our house as they did when I was home running things full time. So, when I quit my job for us to move across country, I never got another one.
I started a business this year with a friend (wedding and events planning), and if it takes off, I’ll be working full time after my daughter leaves for college. I’m excited about the idea and my husband is supportive, but it wouldn’t break his heart if the business doesn’t work out. He’s back to traveling a lot in his new job and he likes the idea of my being able to go with him, after our daughter’s gone. He has had an extremely productive and successful career, and gives a lot of credit for that to my management of our home. He was always able to give his work his full attention because he never had to give any thought to how things were going at home.
So I guess if some people view my life’s work (and I do feel that efficiently running a home is a vocation) as non-productive, I can live with that. My husband and children (whose opinions matter far more to me) don’t agree.
I will. I’m looking forward to it, and I know I won’t really know what it’s like until I’ve been sleep-deprived for hours on end ('cause I am not a happy camper when I don’t get enough sleep). Regardless, I really can’t wait. I want to know why my friends seem so excited that we’re doing this ('cause right now, it’s a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ every month).
I just get frustrated watching my SIL and cousin’s wife already getting guilt over needing to go back to work. In my case, it’ll be a need, too, so part of it is preparing myself to go back to work after maternity leave, because I won’t have the choice of NOT returning to work - we’re already in a house that’s less expensive than just about any house that we looked at, we’re trying to keep our bills down to save money and to make sure we can pay our gas bills this winter (because I get the feeling we’re going to be nailed). For me to be home simply isn’t an option, and if we waited until I could stay home…we’d probably never have kids. And I get a little defensive because my mom worked my whole life as a kid, but I don’t ever remember her not being there when we needed her - and as an adult, I have an incredibly close relationship with her. So being a WOHM isn’t the kiss of death and I have a great role model.
I definitely don’t look down upon SAHMs - I know they work hard. I just feel like there’s always a competition as to ‘who works harder’, and if the kids are happy and healthy, who cares? Let people do their own thing.
E.
I have to take issue with this. I have a few problems with this entire concept. First, and most importantly, I see NO reason for it to be on Mom to be at every Kindergarten play OR to have dinner on the table every noc at 6 pm. Supposedly there are two parents in this household–I think the family tasks and meals should be shared.
I know PLENTY of SAHM moms who recruit Dad to go to the play because they are just too tired d/t making the costumes or tending to ill younger sibling or whatever. I know plenty of Dads who are not inept in the kitchen. Grrr. I have had Dad stay home with sick baby or even Grandpa stay home. Was it hard? You bet–but if you only have so much sick time available, you do what you have to do.
Second, it is NOT always possible to “prioritize” your kids–what a notion! as if they’re on a to do list–when mixing work with parenting. Talk to any noc nurse–try finding babysitting for off shifts like nocs or even 3-11. Mom’s not home for dinner, there. I work day shifts, but 12 hours–I leave the house at 0615 and get home around 8:30pm. When my youngest was a baby–I would not see or talk to him the whole day. Flight attendants, firefighters, nurses, mechanics–there are a myriad of jobs that don’t allow for all 'round the table for Mom’s famous meatloaf stuff.
Maybe you didn’t mean it that way–but I suggest you find another way to demonstrate a mother’s dedication to her family. It may have been the best for you, but there are plenty of other ways to show that your kids are a “priority”.
Another post upthread brings up another issue I have. The bit about teens not needing an adult around after school. That is true for SOME teens. And maybe after they learn to drive (and have access to a car here in suburbia)–but I am needed as much by my 8th grader and sophomore as I am by my second grader–just in different ways.
The second grader needs me as a touchstone that his little world is secure and he is safe. I ferry him to soccer and after school rehearsals for choral concerts and playdates(not usually done on a school day because of the other 2 children). I am there to explain things, help with homework, remind him of his tasks etc. I am there to oil the friend process by gentle reminders that we do treat guests with politeness; we do indeed share etc. To take the time to read aloud to him every day (except the days I work, because he is in bed by the time I come home–he refuses to have Grandpa read to him, it’s our special thing).
The 8th grader: I am there to be his chauffeur to games, bar and bat mitzvahs etc, his prod to do his homework (he gets no help from us at this point), to do his chores, to act as a brake on some of the crazier schemes he and his friends dream up, to vet his new friends, to answer questions about politics, issues of the day, how the micro chip processor was developed (fielded that one to Dad), etc.
The sophomore is a trickier issue all together–with her, I need to seem like I am not watching her like a hawk, while watching her like, um, a hawk. She is learning to drive (a whole new level of parental terror–makes croup look like a cake walk, believe me!), she has had one boyfriend,she has suffered the slings and arrows of adolescent girlness for the last year. I am there to be her driving tutor(ha!), her confidant when she feels the urge to spill her guts (always after 11pm, and I am sooo damn tired then), her shopping assistant, her bastion of get her off the hook-ness when her compadres want to do something assinine and she doesn’t. I am also there to build her up and reassure her when she hits snags-or reinforce that she has to face the music because of an eff up that she did.
There is no way that teens can just be let loose. I am not saying that parents can’t work at all–not even close. I think that the ideal is PT for one parent–so that little things with teens that might skate under the radar with FT working parents can be caught. Just MHO.
FT WOHM’s can do all this, too–but something’s gotta give. That something is usually housekeeping and/or cooking. I think that if a house cleaner can be afforded, go for it–ditto the take away meals. Yes, it’s nice to all sit together and eat a family dinner, but what with athletics, after school stuff, and commutes, I just don’t see it happening real often–certainly not in this house. Is it important? Sure–but it’s not crucial to my mind. Communication and keeping connections open are more important to me. Some get that thru family meals, we don’t.
And fessie --I enjoy your posts, too. This is such a touchy subject! I do hope for all our sakes, that mutual respect is found and that all parents are expected to step up and fulfill their parental duties first.
Seconded.
Enjoy,
Steven
I don’t know about other working moms, but I survive by having a husband who views our marriage and family as a full partnership. I can’t think of anything we don’t split 50/50. I cook, he does dishes. He mows and trims, while I weed and prune. I bathe the child, then he fixes snacks. He drops the child off at daycare, and I pick him up. Sometimes the partnership skews to 60/40*, but we’re always in this together. When our youngest was a newborn, we split the night between us. I was “on” from 10pm until 2am, and my husband had 2am to 6am. The spacing fit our son’s feeding needs (mostly), and by following that schedule, we both got at least four hours of uninterrupted sleep a night (plus whatever we could catch while we were on duty). When I took maternity leave from work, so did my husband, although he only took about 2 full weeks, then went back to work for half days for about 2 weeks.
I was a SAHM with my first two children (and my first, insane husband), so I have lived both sides of the fence. One of the reasons I have always felt bad for SAHMs is that I feel many of their husbands may have the same attitude of my first, which was “You’ve been home all day while* I worked*. Why should I help with anything around here?”
*For instance, I’m in grad school right now, so he picks up the slack. When I graduate in August of next year, he will head back to grad school again, and the 60/40 will swing back my way.
Same here. Working and commuting are my excuses for letting my apartment be as messy as it is. That way, I can tell myself that, if I didn’t work and commute, maybe my apartment would be passable for more than a few days after the cleaning person comes.
This probably has something to do with the fact that my mom was a SAHM, didn’t have a cleaning person, and did keep the house spotless (certainly by my standards, if not by her own).
My dad was at all the kindergarden plays, too. And while my mother coordinated the meals - she’s very type A and my dad is very chill - we had a full time housekeeper/babysitter who usually made dinner or warmed up what my mom had cooked and frozen on the weekend. And while my dad isn’t a prime example of being responsible around the house, where did you get this idea I was dissing dads? As I said earlier, I think my boyfriend would be a much better SAHP than I.
Yes, that’s my point. My mother deliberately, and has always advised me to do the same, picked a career path and a job that gave her the flexibility to do all these things. Sure, some nights she went back to the office after dinner or brought work home, but to her her job had to work around her family, not the other way around. Her educational and career choices reflected that. I’m not really sure what else you thought I meant.
Forgive me for not having the prescience to pick a profession that would dovetail neatly with future children. WTH? Is your entire life plotted out by sophomore year in college? I need to find a job that requires me to be there from 0900-3pm M-F, no weekends or holidays? How could that work for every mother? It’s not even possible for society to function on those kind of hours. 
I quit working and stayed at home for 6 years–and then we had a severe financial set back–so I needed to get a job THAT week. What would you do? Re-enter your field, go where you are known and were respected, where you know you can get a job in a hearbeat that pays well for PT work, or insist on finding something that matches up with your child’s needs/household demands, and pays maybe slightly more than minimum wage?
I don’t think your notions are practical.
I did not interpret your post as you dissing Dads–I took it mean that it was up to Mom to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan etc–and Dad got to just float along, so to speak. Dad went to the Kindergarten plays as well? Who was at home with the younger ones or the sick ones? Or were you an only child? That would make a big difference.
Why this insistence on the way your parent’s did it as the standard by which all others are measured? There are many ways to approach these issues. Perhaps someone has a calling for a career that doesn’t fit with parenting needs–what to do then? Do you put your life on hold for the next 20 years or do you do the best you can? Maybe the world isn’t full of employment ops for a particular mom, d/t location or level of education etc–it’s nice if you can pick and choose, but most of the world doesn’t get that luxury.
I think the answer lies in that YOU HAD A FULL TIME HOUSEKEEPER–a luxury that most Americans cannot afford.
My Dad was a doctor-5 kids. My mother had household help for cleaning and was a SAHM for years. She worked damn hard. It’s much more possible to schedule Kindergarten plays or whatever when your house is clean and meals are cooked for you.
Whatever did the housekeeper’s family do without her all day, every day?
Bully for you and yours–that solution worked for you. It is not a practical or even achievable solution for most people. How I would love to have Mary Poppins in the closet for whenever I needed her. Who wouldn’t?
What is your issue? Of COURSE I wasn’t advocating this for everyone, and I have no idea where you got that. I was saying what worked for us. Like everyone else in this thread has been.
As to job choice, obviously it’s not possible in every circumstance. But my mother thought that was an important consideration in choosing a career, and I have given thought to it as well.
And we could afford a housekeeper because both my mother and father worked, and worked very hard, at that. It’s not like money fell out of the heavens into our lap.
And, since you asked, I have a younger brother, and all of our babysitters had not yet started their own families.
That’s where most of us learn most of what we know about being parents.
It’s this(“deliberately”) that just sticks in my throat. As if any and all of us can just pick a profession or job that will suit our lives in an ideal fashion. I read that to say that those women who do otherwise didn’t make good choices for their kids,
because if she really wanted to be there-she would have gone into other work. Work is more than wherewithal to support kids (or it should be–that’s a whole 'nother thread!).
I’m not meaning to pick on you–it’s just that I have come up against this attitude so often. It’s nonproductive and narrow, to my mind. It puts the onus on the woman, not the man or society. You can’t be home to cook dinner for your family? and you call yourself a mother? etc–and yet it was the housekeeper(in your example) who was keeping the household going.
IMO, our society and our workforce needs to change focus. There is an article about this in this week’s Newsweek–about “mommy” friendly companies. Frankly, I hope it’s the beginning of major change.
There is no accomodation made in my field for sick kids or even sick elders. Ironic that it’s health care, no?–made up of 80+% women of childbearing age. You can take FMLA, but you don’t get paid for that. You can call in, but unless you have the vaca time, you don’t get paid etc. So far, this is the norm. I cannot leave early, unless I can find someone to come in early, and only if that person isn’t making OT by coming in for me is it approved. It makes it difficult to get to school functions and on holidays the hospital doesn’t close.
Perhaps my resentment comes from the general assumptions that I run into in RL and here that the world runs on a M-F 9-5 schedule. So much of the world does NOT run on that schedule–and because I don’t, I have missed alot in terms of games (I work every other weekend), holiday gatherings (I either work Xmas Eve or Xmas Day, every year, as well as Thanksgiving, Memorial and Labor Days. July 4th). So, that’s a personal bugaboo for me. I am not saying that you touted that at all.
Again, I am not taking you to task per se, Laurange --I am questioning the thought process of “gee, I really want to be an astro-physicist, but Mom told me to get a degree in something where I could balance the kids’ schedules etc”. It seems so, well, odd. If it worked for you, more power to you. I just can’t see telling any woman to NOT do X because it might possibly interfere with junior down the road. No offense meant to your mom or you.
Nitpick: if you were an astrophysicist, you’d probably be able to schedule your time around your kids more than some of us other working stiffs can. Professors of astrophysics really do get to set their own hours, and some of the ones I knew arranged their schedules so they could pick up their kids from school at a specific time. (Now, before you got tenure might be a different story)
Well, I do see what you mean to some extent. And of course if what I really wanted to do didn’t jive with it, I wouldn’t give up my life’s goals.
And what this actually amounts to is that my mother chose a very high-powered career (she has four university degrees) so that she could book off time when she wanted, it didn’t hold her back in any way. I plan to do something similar and work in academia if I can, which also gives me flexibility of schedule.
Sorry I responded like that before, but I felt a little attacked. And I really don’t think a housekeeper is such a luxury of affluence. If the housekeeper/babysitter is paid less than each of the parents, and performs a function that, if she/he were not present, one of the parents would need to stay home, it’s actually a money-saving proposition.
**Anne ** and Laurange --ok, ok. 
I hear ya on the astrophysicist thingy–but how likely is that woman to get tenure IF she has kids and wants to be the one going and doing for them?
To me, that is the core question that our society is just starting to wrestle with. How to mix career advancement with parenting-and also parenting your parents, like so many “sandwich” generation women do? Good help is not always easily found.
I have no easy answers–I wish I did. Working PT works for me, for now. I hope to go back and get my master’s soon, in order to segue out of this life draining job and into something else that while FT, isn’t so hard physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Believe me, if I had it to do over again–I wouldn’t pick nursing. I would go down in flames on a nursing board for this, but I would suck it up and go into medicine. Truly. It also appeals to me, but I would have had so much more power and choice, really. But that’s another thread, too!
But that is not really an option I want to explore now. I have other goals in mind.
I hope that all the women here get to pursue their dreams and aspirations as well as truly partake of their kids’ lives. There has to be way to balance both. Right now, each woman finds her own ways to balance things, which is OK(meh), but I think so much more could be done.