I take that back. I thought maybe I was being oversensitive, but upon rereading some of the posts in this thread, I see I was spot on.
No. It doesn’t. At least, not during the hours you are paying someone else to do this work.
Wrong. Should my caretaker call me, I must be available to go get my child for any reason. And I am. Hence I am “on call”. It’s not a difficult concept.
Also, not one of the comments you quoted above seemed incorrect to me in any way. Which are you disputing and why?
I’m not sure how much room there is for a dad’s input in this thread, but I wanted to add my 100% agreement to this statement. I have known several guys that have bragged to me that they’ve never changed a diaper or had to wake up in the middle of the night with their kids. Bragged! I’m of the school of thought that changing diapers, etc. are all ways that you bond with your little ones…I’d not pass on the sleepless nights or stinky diapers (well, okay, I’d pass on some of them).
From my own perspective, I am wary of any woman that lets her husband off the hook in this way. If it’s a system that works for your family, that’s wonderful…I just think that there is a lot of baggage and frankly some sexist attitudes that are perpetuated this way.
The problem is, at first glance it’s hard to discern who has made a well-reasoned, joint decision to split the household this way, and who does it because they think or have been convinced that this is a woman’s ‘place.’ So I understand why feminists would philosophically support the right of a woman to stay home, and yet remain a bit suspicious.
In my experience, sometimes it’s just easier. Women shouldering the bulk of the household care tends to be less philosophical than pragmatic, at least among the people I know. When there’s work that’s got to be done, and a guy isn’t voluntarily doing it, you’ve got two options–find some way to get him to do it, or go on and do it yourself. With a certain type of guy (and I’m looking squarely at my dad and brother on this one), it is WAY easier to just go on and do it yourself than to ask, then beg, then nag, then scream, and still have to grow old waiting on them to do it or wind up doing it yourself. Doing everything on your own is stressful, but not as stressful as a constant struggle to get someone like that to help you.
If you honestly believe this is the same as working all day as a child care provider, you are deluded.
Then you perfectly illustrate the reason sahp have a respect problem. Clearly, there are many people who, like you, believe the tasks accomplished by sahps is little more than the tasks accomplished by working parents, 'cept we take all day to do it.
You are free to believe this if you want and, as I said earlier, I really don’t want to engage in a ‘who works harder’ debate so I’m not going to spend any more ink trying to change your mind. However, I do suggest you take some time and consider your position. A full time nanny finds herself with enough duties to keep her busy for the entire day. Some of these duties are directly related to the care of the child, like diaper changes, play, and meal prep. Others can be described as secondary duties, like emptying the diaper pail, picking up after the child, and doing the lunch dishes. These secondary duties, while not exactly childcare, wouldn’t need to be done if there weren’t little ones around, but they are still in the scope of general child care and most nannies (and all day care providers) expect to do these tasks. At the end of the day, the nanny or day care provider may return to her own family and start doing these tasks for them and the ordinary tasks of running a household.
Do you dispute that this child care provider put in a full day at work?
Do you dispute that a sahp put in a full day at work?
The only real differences:
No money changed hands
The sahp didn’t switch ‘families’ at 5:00
Very good observation.
I often find myself feeling … embarrassed? no. More like feeling I have to explain our decision to have me drop out of the paid work force. That’s one of the reasons I find this topic so fascinating.
Make that:
drop out of the paid work force and take on essentially all the household/child care tasks. This leaves my husband free to work what amounts to 2 jobs.
I guess that makes 4 jobs between us 
And I said it was where? You stated that working parents were not “on call” while they were at work. Obviously, this is not true.
Good to see you can tell what I “believe” from one post. I never said any such thing, and you know it.
Nope. I disputed that a working parent is not “on call”. Forgive me if the insinuation that my children completely drop off my list of priorities when I walk into work annoys me.
Perhaps Farmwoman misunderstands the meaning of on call. For my job I am on call 24x7 almost every day. I carry a pager. If the systems I manage fail, I call or drive into work and fix them. If I’m out of town, I make sure someone else can cover. My husband has a similar type of job…he was called on Christmas day and Christmas eve (I have to dial or drive in once or twice a year). I’m obviously not at work all that time, but I am certainly on call. (My kids have heard, more than once at 6:00 at night, “be quiet dear, Mommy is talking to China.”)
(My brother in law has a cool job in this respect as a nurse anethestist. He works two weeks on, some scheduled surgery, but is on call 24x7 for two weeks. Obviously, he spends most of it at home with my sister and nephew, but if his pager goes off, he has to be able to be at the hospital in ten minutes (which sometimes means in his jammies). Then he is off work for two week.)
For my kids I am “on call” for 24x7x365 - just as any parent of minor children (and most parents with adult children) are. Am I there to take care of the “operational duties” of housekeeping and motherhood from 8-5 Monday through Friday? - Nope - you are completely right…I hire out about forty five hours a week worth of “operations.” No one calls me to wipe noses, get juice or clean up spilled milk from 8 to 5. But if something outside of “operational norm” happens, do I get called? - you bet - my cellphone rings and I’m out the door in less than five minutes - I’ve walked out of meetings with “sorry, sick kids, I’ll reschedule.” And it happens a lot more often than once or twice a year. Just as my kids are occationally put in “be good for a bit while Mommy talks someone through fixing their schema” mode, work often gets told “sorry, I’m leaving for the day, ear infection…call me if anything blows up.” I MAKE time from my job (skipping lunch, comping those 6pm phone calls) to take my kids to the dentist and doctor, no one does that for me.
Is this the same as being a SAHM?, of course not. Not even close. Personally, its apples and oranges. Is it harder or easier…I find it easier, but I find being a SAHM to be very challenging and talking someone through a schema rebuild easier than a toddler with a tantrum. However, I know more than one mom who left the rat race and became a SAHM in part because she found being a SAHM easier and less frustrating than what she did as a paid gig (obviously there is the whole “we thought it important that I stay at home with the kids” purpose as well). But it is rather insulting to imply that when my kids are “out of sight” they are also “out of mind” and if they REALLY needed me, I wouldn’t be there for them. Of course working parents are on call.
Oh, and fessie, don’t worry about it. It was intended as a compliment and I took it as such. I thought it funny that you were trying so hard, and ended up saying something like that to someone with an adopted kid. You look cute with your foot in your mouth.
Well, duh. The same is true for kids…there’s not a thing in my house that my kids can do better than me, with the exception of cleaning under their beds. that doesn’t mean that I don’t expect them to make their beds, clean their rooms, unload the dishwasher, and a host of other small chores. It’s a pain sometimes, but in the long run, it’s better for me as they become adept, and it pays for them to have some self-sufficiency.
Unfortunately, a lot of husbands are the same way, and should be treated as such. I can’t imagine a grown man that can’t do for himself, but they exist, and I am frustrated by the number of women I know that have a ‘big kid’ living with them. And never forget- kids learn all sorts of lessons from our example- and what you tolerate from your mate is what you should expect your child to tolerate from theirs. When I met my oldest stepson, he wondered why I was doing ‘a girl’s job’ by cooking dinner. Now he wants to be a chef.
Well, I’m through pontificating. Sorry…it’s just frustrating.
And while I’m on a roll, I’ll run back to the OP again…
Society is really threatened by SAHMs. If being a SAHM is so important, than its important not only for someone who has a spouse to support them, its important for that “single welfare mom who abuses the system by having twelve children” (who, in our racists demonizing of the welfare system, is always a black urban women, and never a white teenager in North Dakota. )
I think society doesn’t value children. Not only do we devalue children by devaluing SAHMs, we devalue all jobs that work with children. Teachers and childcare workers are also devalued. I’ve heard my GP say that peditricians are underrespected in the medical field. When you have the “nasty” SAHM/WOHM debates (which we are not having), someone on the SAHM side always brings up childcare professionals as the “strangers” who raise your children - which really devalues someone who has chosen childcare as their career. Most of my daycare teachers have degrees in early childhood education. We don’t value children because we don’t guarentee medical insurance for them - we misfund our school systems - we target market crap to them instead of target marketing things that are educational or nutritious.
Undervaluing what SAHMs do is only another symptom of this.
I understand perfectly what it means. Since I never said (let me look back to make sure…) nope, never said working parents aren’t on call – never EVER suggested out of sight out of mind – It would have been rather odd if I had, since that’s not the way I feel about wage earning parents. Yet these words are being attributed to me. Why? All I did was point out the distinction between being on call 24x7, and being the primary care giver 24x7. Since wage earning parents also spend a fair amount of their day also acting as the primary care giver, this distinction shouldn’t be such a hard one to grasp. There is a big difference, and on this I think we can all agree.
A working parent who claims to have the same responsibilties and duties as a sahp simply because they’re on call 24x7 is a little like the sahp claiming to work 120 hours a week, no?
Again, belladonna the posts I quoted, although tame by the standards of this debate in general, all support the position that the work of a sahp is little more than what is done by working parents in addition to their paid work. You seem to support this position, since you didn’t find anything incorrect in any of the quoted passages. While I realize I can’t glean your entire ‘belief system’ from a post on a message board, I think you made very clear your opinion of the work done by sahps.
Absolutely.
Since my profession is also child centric, I’m hypersensitive to this phenomenon.
comment: The “on call” nature of being a parent applies equally to parents with jobs outside the home.
tell me again how you never said that?
Are you really suggesting that being on call as a parent of a child in someone else’s care is the same (applies equally) as being the person actually caring for the child?
Those were comments by people answering the question why some people undervalue SAHMs. Again, if you could point to which comment was factually incorrect, I’d be happy to reevaluate my stance. But from where I’m reading, each seems a completely understandable response to the OPs question.
As I understand the meaning of “on call”, yes. Perhaps we’re just arguing semantics here. Even a SAHM doesn’t follow the kidlets around every second. She’ll do cleaning/cooking/laundry/etc. while the child plays or naps or eats and is also “on call” should she be directly needed, right?
Actually, no. At least not at 13 months, which is all I know about.
My twins have contact with me, physically, visually, or verbally, at least every five minutes while they’re awake. I don’t follow them around, it’s more like an invisible bungee cord that keeps us connected.
I’ve pretty much stayed out of this so far, because I really don’t like it when people fight about who does more. I know everyone is trying really hard not to do that, but it feels like it’s been teetering on the edge the whole time.
Well. I’m a SAHM, and I must say that while I do work pretty hard, I like it a lot, and I would never claim to work “120 hours a week.” That’s ridiculous. I have no idea how double-income families function; I don’t think we would do well. I really like it that I can get a lot of chores done during the week, so that we have evenings and weekends to relax or do projects. When do two-income people relax? Do they get to have hobbies or interests outside their immediate priorities of “take care of kids, go to work?”
What I think is a great thing about being a SAHM is that you set your agenda, and you’re your own boss. You can set the focus of your home (music, sports, books, etc.), and it’s your responsibility to keep yourself doing worthwhile things, your brain working, and your body healthy. There’s plenty to do, but you need the imagination to decide what you want and the decision to do it, because no one is going to tell you what to do. SAHMing is probably the most self-directed job around (besides things like artists), and that’s probably one reason why it’s not as respected. It’s not hard to become a lump on the couch; a SAHM can do that if she wants, and person who isn’t used to “self-directing,” for lack of a better term, will find it hard not to fall into that trap. But it’s also possible to do a lot of really neat stuff, and get a lot accomplished, if you’re willing to carve out the time and effort–which isn’t so possible for a working parent. (I hereby except fessie from this statement, as it is far harder to do with infants and twins. She can, and I’m sure will, go all energetic and creative later on. Heh.)
As an example, I am a serious quilter, and I don’t get enough time to do that. I go to the gym and work outside, for pleasure and exercise. I read a lot to keep my mind working; I have certain ‘reading programs’ that I’ve set up for myself–I practice my second language by reading in it every day, and I have a ‘classic’ book to read and take notes on every day (right now, I’m doing Plutarch). I read for pleasure too, and I do volunteer work as well. I wish I had more time and resources for gardening more seriously. And most of my friends do a lot too.
I don’t need a job to fill up my time, though I do enjoy the small amount of paid work that I do. I can come up with plenty to do on my own (for those who wonder how to keep from being bored without a job). And I’m not saying that I won’t go back to work when the kids don’t need me all the time. But I do reject the idea we have now that a person’s worth is commensurate with their salary, and (as dangerosa said so well) that working with children isn’t as good as other jobs.
Um, so what was the question again? Why SAHMs aren’t respected. Well, mostly because of the money/kids thing, and the assumption so many people have that life with children=brain dead. However, I am lucky enough to live in an area, and belong to a subculture, that still thinks that staying home is a worthwhile and valuable thing to do. I have actually met very few people who didn’t respect me on the basis of my SAHMness. I am also lucky enough to have a husband who has said (in all seriousness) that my work is more important than his, and who supports me in doing this for quite some time to come.