I believe that everyone - parent or child-free, employed in the workplace or not - has an obligation to think about the world beyond themselves, ask hard questions, and try to make a net improvement to the world. To me this means, among other things, that: (a) if you have kids, for Og’s sake do everything in your power to ensure that you can take care of them not just today, but tomorrow; and (b) you ought to practice a little introspection from time to time, and ask whether everything you do is only for yourself, or whether you, in some small way, care about others.
You are free to disagree and say so. I am free to suggest that Socrates was right – to me, the unexamined life is not worth living. YMMV.
I feel the same way about stay at home parents of either gender–unless there is a very small child involved (too young to go to kindergarten), then the SAHP should be doing something economically useful–a part time job, going to school, whatever. Really, once the kids are in school for part of the day, there’s no call to have one of the parents just at the house all the time.
The unseen problem is that dads have the same problems returning to the workforce as moms.
If you have a high-turnover unskilled job, you will effectively have to start over at the bottom, your “experience and seniority” washed away like so much flotsam.
Very well, if simply being in the workforce doesn’t equate to your ideals regarding contributing to the world, why do you automatically question SAHM/SAHDs and not everybody else? It seems unfair to me that you would more closely examine the choice of a mother to spend her time in the home with her children while giving the single male who works and goes home every day a free pass. In my experience parents who have time available to devote to child rearing contribute in any number of ways and are more likely to do so than working parents or single working adults. In my daughter’s school for example, the children would not have nearly as positive a place for learning were it not for the very active and involved PTO organization in which the lion’s share of work is done by full time parents. Essentially the school system is benefiting from a large network of unpaid labor, something which keeps the county’s taxes lower than they would be if they had to pay for equivalent services. Also, in many families it is the adults who are full time home makers and/or parents who must take on the largest share of the burdens of elder care/hospice care when that time comes. Since our nursing home and elder care facilities are notoriously understaffed and overworked… this could only be a benefit to society at large. I think your critical examination of SAHM/SAHDs is misplaced.
I can relate to this feeling because I’ve seen too many parents who’ve stayed at home who ended up being “helicopter parents” with children who were helpless to do much for themselves. Sometimes having some sort of activity outside of the house, like a part-time job/hobby/book club/volunteer position, keeps them from having really awful empty nest syndrome and a need to drown their already floundering adult children in attention/unneeded “help”/criticism/nagging.
I question everyone, myself included. I did say working parents should ask themselves the same question.
He doesn’t get a free pass (from me – of course, he/she/it, working/nonworking/whatever, is welcome to give themselves a pass.)
People in the workforce may be engaged in socially valuable activities. Even that file clerk that was disparagingly referred to in a former post, – how the heck do you know they aren’t doing file clerk work at a mental health center that serves indigent, desperate people? Or doing it so they can attend night school to study law and become an advocate for abused children?
Working people may have more income so they can contribute to charity. By contrast, stay-at-homers may have a compative advantage as well: namely, more time to volunteer. In fact, that is a perfect idea, and I commend the SAH moms and dads who give time at school, in hospices, etc. I think that “I have more time to volunteer, and I do” is a superb answer to my question #3.
Truly, I am amazed that the proposition that “stay-at-home parents might valuably give some thought to how they can contribute to the world” is controversial. I thought this thread was about SAH parents – did I miss something? Gimme a thread about other kinds of people, and I guarantee you, I’ll suggest they give some thought to how they can contribute as well. But the idea that “I am a parent! Behold my child and how well I care for him! Therefore I have no obligation to think about doing a damn thing for anyone else in the world” is just … sickening.
One last time, in summary: I believe everyone should think about how they can contribute to the world. This includes but is not limited to SAH parents. SAH parents tend to have different advantages/disadvantages relative to working parents, and I congratulate them if they exploit their opportunities. I do not believe that taking care of your own children lets you off the hook in terms of social responsibility. (If you have no time, money or other resources and are struggling merely to survive, THAT lets you off the hook. Parenting per se does not.)
The idea that people should examine their lives and try to make a difference in the world is not controversial. The way you set yourself up as the judge of who is worthy or not, on the other hand, is presumptuous and uncalled-for. The idea that you would grill every SAHP you know with your list of questions, as if you were some sort of governing board over qualifications for parenthood and personal life choices, strikes me as a trifle intrusive.
People should examine their own lives, not others’. Examining other people’s lives is called nosiness.
Absolutely. Only a “trifle?” It would be horribly offensive. But where did you get the idea that I “grill every SAHP with [my] list of questions?” I have never done so, not even once. I said:
Now, since I then went on to say or at least imply that some SAHMs don’t seem to have good answers to those questions, you can perhaps be forgiven for thinking I run around grilling SAH moms. But I don’t. I’m basing that statement on what I read in the press, on chat boards, etc., where people volunteer their justifications for being a SAHM.
IMHO, the standards for discourse on a message board – one that prides itself as being a forum for the free exchange of ideas – are a bit different than they are when I’m having coffee with a SAHM friend who has never expressed any desire to explore the issues. Here, I feel free to express what I think is important about the whole SAH parent phenomenon because this is a thread about the subject. And what I think is important is … oh, I told you that already, didn’t I?
I didn’t mean it literally, though. I meant it more existentially – I question just about everything, inside my own head. However, this may not have been clear. Though I did say afterwards that:
“working parents should ask themselves the same question,”
Well, yes. I think in the context of this thread, you implied that you are automatically suspicious of SAHMs because they don’t live up to your standards. And I certainly got the impression that you would tell them that (after all, plenty of people do have open contempt for us). I think it would have worked better in a more general context on “how people should live.” You have evidently never tried the SAH lifestyle yourself, so it comes off as a bit presumptuous to single us out and tell us how to live (rather like wealthy people who talk about how sad it is that poor people don’t know how to feed themselves, and why don’t they just buy healthy food, without ever having tried to work two jobs and feed a family of 6 at the same time).
I don’t actually disagree with your standards; but I try to live up to my own high standards, not yours. And it’s my own business how I do that.
Anyhow, I’m glad you don’t actually grill people about their life choices. Pax.
