Affording to Stay at Home
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| Wed, 12-12-2007 - 12:20am |
Ever notice that those moms that SAH are usually (although not always) more well off than mothers who WOH? It seems to me, based on what I have seen, that while most women enjoy working their jobs and having a professional life outside of the home, some women prefer to stay home with their kids for a certain amount of time - whether it be 1 year or 10 years - and those women have the option to do so, while other women wouldn't even consider the option because they feel they can't afford it.
Well, it has been my experience that most women who do stay at home have
1) husbands who support the idea
2) Husbands who probably earn enough (or almost enough) to support the family.
3) Enough money to support themselves without working.
**Now I am not talking about people who get help from government agencies, I am speaking about women who do it with no outside help - just seems like most women can't because of financial reasons. So, is being a SAH mom now an "upper class" phenomenon - in general? Of course there are many SAH moms that are middle class, but if they chose to have paying jobs, they'd probably move right back up into that higher income bracket.

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I agree & disagree....
<<Ever notice how hardly any parents ever PLAN their lives? It seems so *normal* to just have babies before marriage, have babies before financial stability, have babies before knowing if your marriage will work or not...>>
I plannned.
I've alreayd answered this several times over.
You don't give women much credit do you?
But increasing one's buying power (thanks currieri for that term) and increasing one's SES are two different things. My daughter's SES would not be significantly impacted by DH working full time. Would we have more money? Sure, but not enough that the things SES predicts would be much different. DD would still be likely to graduate high school, go to college and grad school, not become a violent criminal, not get pregnant in high school, etc. We'd still live in basically the same area, she'd attend the same schools, etc.
What definition of SES are you using? And more importantly, what definition do the studies you keep citing use? I don't deny that SES does make a difference in children's lives, I just don't think that both parents working really makes that much of difference in SES outside of people who live at the poverty line.
And I don't think I'm the one who continually fails to give women credit.
"You don't give women much credit do you?"
OMG thanks for the laugh -- you have had exaclyt zero good things to say about women individually or as a whole since you've been posting here -- every woman you write about is scheming, lazy, manipulative, flirtatious, duplicitous etc.... you may think y ou're the big champion of women but if they don't live exactly like you think they should then you have no use for them.
- Jeane "Dear Abby" Phillips, in an interview with Lisa Leff.
Yes. We. Did.
So money effects how well your children are going to do in highschool and college?
- Jeane "Dear Abby" Phillips, in an interview with Lisa Leff.
Yes. We. Did.
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