Men, how do you feel about SAHM?
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My thing is this...by the time I was three I was in preschool all day. Before that, I have hardly any solid memories to speak of. So, in my memory it makes no difference whether my mom stayed at home or not because I wouldn't remember that part either way. What would she have done all day while I was in school? I saw both of my parents every evening and weekend, so I'm wondering how exactly it is that anyone can claim they "outsourced" my upbringing more so than a SAHM/SAHD because they worked.
And I can't help but notice that no one gives fathers half as much crap for having goals outside of raising their kids.
i have never heard a man say 'i want to grow up and raise my own children forever'
We will ignore that fact that you probably haven't spoke to .001% of the male population worldwide.
That doesn't mean a woman saying it is somehow wrong.
Why do you care what other people's goal's are? People who give that make craps about other people's lives really don't have enough going on in their own world.
Srs.0 -
So this is not some kind of vegetarian "ham" substitute?
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3) Everyone that keeps saying 'being a stay at home mom is a career' and that it is the 'hardest job in the world' made me lol because really, a harder job than that would be being a mom AND working. Just choosing to be a SAHM feels like a crazy goal to me...but I already said that. Everyone that is going on and on about all their accomplishments while staying at home...I already said 'more power to you', so point redundant
How would you know? Unless you've done both, you can't definitively say which is harder, and the answer is going to vary from person to person. Both SAH and being a working outside the home mom have advantages and disadvantages, and are both difficult in their own way. I could actually list out reasons why for each, but I suspect you're not really interested in gaining a better understanding of the complexity of the issue. I suppose if looking down on others for making choices that do not impact your life in any way is your thing, more power to you.0 -
3) Everyone that keeps saying 'being a stay at home mom is a career' and that it is the 'hardest job in the world' made me lol because really, a harder job than that would be being a mom AND working. Just choosing to be a SAHM feels like a crazy goal to me...but I already said that. Everyone that is going on and on about all their accomplishments while staying at home...I already said 'more power to you', so point redundant
How would you know? Unless you've done both, you can't definitively say which is harder, and the answer is going to vary from person to person. Both SAH and being a working outside the home mom have advantages and disadvantages, and are both difficult in their own way. I could actually list out reasons why for each, but I suspect you're not really interested in gaining a better understanding of the complexity of the issue. I suppose if looking down on others for making choices that do not impact your life in any way is your thing, more power to you.
adding responsibilities increases workload leading one to believe it is harder. Logic.0 -
Not sure why you feel the need to attack SAHMs. An attack of hate aimed at women with their children, how incredibly disturbing. It's been a long time since I have seen such hate coming from a person. Wow!
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Not sure why you feel the need to attack SAHMs. An attack of hate aimed at women with their children, how incredibly disturbing. It's been a long time since I have seen such hate coming from a person. Wow!
these memes are jokes....the first one representing irony, the second the nanny is in the background caring for the baby! You people are soft, especially for suck hard working stay-at-homers.0 -
My mom left her engineering career to take care of me when I was a kid while dad worked and I grew up handsome and pretty damn smart.
Now I can easily provide for them with a six figure income. I'd say it was a good investment on their part.
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I don't expect or want my kids to provide for me; it is not their job. They have their own families to feed and their own mortgages to pay. My husband and I can take care of each other; we both worked hard and made sure that our savings help us in our golden years.
I don't consider my children an investment.0 -
and this is my last reply to this stupid thread: everyone 'defending' SAHM while saying bs that puts down the idea of preschools, nannys, babysitters, strangers watching babies, and moms that work that *kitten* off 8 hours a day after getting the kids ready, driving them to their daycare, and then picking them up on the way home, making dinner, doing laundry, bathing, cleaning, helping with learning and developmental issues, taking them to activities, etc....all the while having to spend a huge proportion of your salary on childcare. Well, I would say that that is judgmental because those moms work their *kitten* off. Those moms have been my family members that want the best for their kids, coworkers that have to leave early to pick their children up because their is a sick kid at the daycare. If you want to defend your lifestyle do it without bringing other people down because working moms work their *kitten* off. SAHMs aren't the end all be all of hard work. What a joke. Prehistory women were having and rearing children, they didn't throw a ****ing awards ceremony for it.
And again, though some of you have either a learning disability, can't read, or have a visual impairment, kudos to you for making it work and achieving a ton of other goals if you are a SAHM.0 -
I know....I have an idea. Serious offer here, OP. Friend me, I will interact with you and you can be my online daughter. I'll be a SAHM to you, in an online manner. Manners required, though. And I am serious, I am actually not a sarcastic person.0
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3) Everyone that keeps saying 'being a stay at home mom is a career' and that it is the 'hardest job in the world' made me lol because really, a harder job than that would be being a mom AND working. Just choosing to be a SAHM feels like a crazy goal to me...but I already said that. Everyone that is going on and on about all their accomplishments while staying at home...I already said 'more power to you', so point redundant
How would you know? Unless you've done both, you can't definitively say which is harder, and the answer is going to vary from person to person. Both SAH and being a working outside the home mom have advantages and disadvantages, and are both difficult in their own way. I could actually list out reasons why for each, but I suspect you're not really interested in gaining a better understanding of the complexity of the issue. I suppose if looking down on others for making choices that do not impact your life in any way is your thing, more power to you.
adding responsibilities increases workload leading one to believe it is harder. Logic.
Your logic is flawed. Each has their own unique set of obstacles. SAHMs don't need to worry about deadlines regardless of a sick kid that has kept them up all night and missing work the next day. A working mom can't say "screw it" and take a nap after a rough night. A SAHM doesn't worry about finding time to pump between meetings or a new daycare provider or nanny last minute. A working mother doesn't spend her entire day planning and cleaning up activities. Cleaning paint off the table, making lunch, refereeing fights, enforcing time out, changing diapers, reading books, teaching letters, numbers, and lesson plans etc. the daycare provider is doing that for her while she is working on something else. The absence of a paycheck is not necessarily the absence of work. There are lazy SAHMs just as there are lazy employees. The only difference is you can't fire a SAHM and it's not politically correct to call a truly lazy mother lazy.
Your perception of SAHMs is skewed. I guarantee if you see the schedule I keep and the demands it places on me you would change your way of thinking. And when a mother goes to work, she hands off responsibilities to a daycare provider and replaces them for a different set of responsibilities, temporarily.
But I do agree with you. I don't want my daughters only aspirations to be a SAHM. If she gets married, has children and THEN chooses to be a SAHM, great! But it's not something I would want her to aspire to before she is married and certainly not before she finishes her education.0 -
http://faithandcomposition.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/when-mothering-is-hard-and-no-one-sees/ Just saw this, and had to share. Just an idea of what stay at home parents deal with. Not even the entire reality, but just a glimpse.0
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IMHO, I do not base my decision to stay at home while my children are yet to enter school on whether or not it would be harder to work outside of the home. I chose to stay home because it is the best option for my children. All of my major decisions, like this one, depends on how it will affect my family. I believe I provide my children with a better benefit than if they were in daycare. I work from home and have a graduate degree in the education field. I have been told by some that I am wasting my degrees, but I am using what I learned to teach my children. They are only little for five years and then they are off to school. I want to be there for as much as I can when they are little bitty. I would hate to miss out on everything they do each day. I am cherishing these times, because I know it is fleeting.
I don't feel like SAHM is the hardest job in the world. There are moments when it is difficult because there can be enormous repercussions for my parenting decisions and how that affects my children short and long term. I think the hardest job would be anything requiring me to leave my children every morning and not see them until night, every day, five days a week. That would be a million times harder.0 -
...moms that work that *kitten* off 8 hours a day after getting the kids ready, driving them to their daycare, and then picking them up on the way home, making dinner, doing laundry, bathing, cleaning, helping with learning and developmental issues, taking them to activities, etc....all the while having to spend a huge proportion of your salary on childcare. Well, I would say that that is judgmental because those moms work their *kitten* off. Those moms have been my family members that want the best for their kids, coworkers that have to leave early to pick their children up because their is a sick kid at the daycare. If you want to defend your lifestyle do it without bringing other people down because working moms work their *kitten* off.
^^Yes.
I can't even be bothered to waste my time or energy debating the nonsense in this thread -- but, I agree 100% that I have done what is best for my child, in our situation, with the means and resources available to us at this time. Working full time is necessary for both my husband and myself. We found a loving, wonderful, caring woman who cares for our son the majority of his waking hours during the day. She comforts and soothes him. She feeds and cuddles him. She loves him, and he loves her. I have struggled with my choices in the last 18 months more than once.
We could potentially sell our home, downsize, sell a car and have only one (even though one is paid off already) and spend our savings and monies we have begun putting aside for his future in order to afford for one of us to stay at home. We choose not to. And, that is ok. I used to get angry when people critisized my choice to work instead of staying home to raise my child. But, they do not live my life. I don't have room in my life for hate or concern for what others think. I do me and they can do them. Are you being a the best parent you can be?! Then you are alright in my book.
Edited for typos...0 -
I totally respect parents who work and do the best the can to support their kids, I was there and totally get that. It's a tough life and there's no question all SAH parents are fortunate to be in such a situation. Where this thread loses me are the people who feel the need to minimize the role of a full time parent, like it's something easy and simple.
I will take some exception to the post about about working and raising kids are adding responsibilities - those parents (who do a great job) are paying someone to take away some responsibility of raising and educating their kids so they are able to work and provide for their family. Obviously no shame there. SAH parents aren't partying during the day (well the good ones aren't) while other people are working - they are working on being a caretaker and educator of their children. Both roles have plenty of responsibilities during the same times of the day.
anyways, I'm done with this thread - I deal with enough people IRL who can't deal with the societal change of my role as being a dad.0 -
This topic is ridiculous because people try to turn everything into a big deal. If someone said, "the trees are taller than the grass," someone would be mad that they were judging grass.
That's probably because you're trying to infer judgement and then figure out how best to be offended. You also seem to think it is an all-or-nothing situation where "replace" is a permanent 24/7 thing.Then I really don't understand your first comment.
Yeah, I'm pretty lost myself.
A child needs things from its parents. When it spends 9 straight hours at a day care, it either:
A- has those needs met by someone else
B- stops needing those things
C- goes without having its needs met
You're welcome to figure out which of those are true in which situations, so that you can cherry pick all the ones where you think the answer was B and be offended by the judgement you imagined to have taken place. But to argue that A never occurs would be quite ridiculous.0 -
This topic is ridiculous because people try to turn everything into a big deal. If someone said, "the trees are taller than the grass," someone would be mad that they were judging grass.
That's probably because you're trying to infer judgement and then figure out how best to be offended. You also seem to think it is an all-or-nothing situation where "replace" is a permanent 24/7 thing.Then I really don't understand your first comment.
Yeah, I'm pretty lost myself.
A child needs things from its parents. When it spends 9 straight hours at a day care, it either:
A- has those needs met by someone else
B- stops needing those things
C- goes without having its needs met
You're welcome to figure out which of those are true in which situations, so that you can cherry pick all the ones where you think the answer was B and be offended by the judgement you imagined to have taken place. But to argue that A never occurs would be quite ridiculous.
LOL. Breathe...it's going to be ok.0 -
Your hung up on the job word - ok use RESPONSIBILITY. Yes it was a choice and it is a privilege - our situation dictated that we wanted to have a parent involved and if we both kept our jobs I would see the kids off to daycare and only see them after they were in bed or at night on the weekends. My wife would see them on the weekends and essentially have to put them right to bed when she arrived home from work at 7:30. We did that for 2 years and it wasn't working well. We didn't know each other well then and we definitely didn't know our son well.
For us continuing down that path wasn't an option, so we sacrificed a *lot* to make sure one of us raised the kids. I don't need anyone's affirmation that what I do is important - because I KNOW it is. My kids are better off, my relationship with my wife is better off, and our family as a whole is better off. Having this balance, for our situation, is more valuable than my second income.
I applaud you for being able to work 2 jobs and raise your kids, I know it's not easy and many terrific parents do that. I'm not saying that my way is the best way, I'm saying my is the best way - for us.0 -
As a child I had to go to daycare, and had to be babysat by grandparents, etc. I saw how hard it was for my mom/dad to work all day, and to also have to come home and take care of the house and kids. I've also lived with my aunt who is a STAHM and had a brand new baby a year ago, I see how it truly hard it is to also stay home. And as an adult, I do have schooling and could choose the career route, but I am going to be a STAHM. DF and I mutually agreed that it would work for us. I can without a biased opinion see the struggles of both sides. But I could never bash one more than the others.
The thing I see often is one side getting offended that the other side bashed them, proceeding with bashing in return.
Having kids shouldn't be a competition. How you raise them also shouldn't be a competition.0 -
I don't disagree with or dislike the idea, but it's becoming much harder and a lot less realistic in the modern world for one person to be able to get a job that will allow them to support a spouse and children. The days of the single income family are coming to an end, except in cases of those who are very financially fortunate.0
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You're so right. With all the problems in the world this is the one that gets me worked up. Can I facepalm you?i just can't stomach a child saying "I want to be a stay at home parent when I grow up". If it happens for the right reasons of nurturing and behavioural development concerns, then awesome. But having it as a goal. Can't stop facepalming.0
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