Are mega hours ok if you have a SAHP?
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Are mega hours ok if you have a SAHP?
| Wed, 06-18-2003 - 11:00am |
This is kind a a spin off from the equalty and careers thread. I have been reading many posts from the thread about SAHPs who have spouses who work lots of hours. Is it OK for one spouse to work 80 hours a week (assuming it's his choice), as long as there is a SAHP with the kids? Is it OK to to be a workaholic or career driven and come home at 10pm and leave the house at dawn because you have career goals that require those kinds of hours? Is that fair to the kids and ultimately fair to the relationship between dad and the child to assume the position that as long as mom is home, dad can be gone all the time?
Personally, it would make me crazy to have my dh at work 100 hours a week, regardless of my employment status. Crazy because I wouldn't want to have to handle everything that pertains to home and kids and crazy worrying that the kids were not developing a close relationship with dad. There is something to be said, IMHO, for dad beng the one to show up at some of the parent meetings, events, etc.
My bro commutes to NYC daily. He leaves at 4:30am and doesn't get home til 8-9pm every night. He misses just about everything having to with his kids and does not even get to eat one meal with them during the week. That would make me nuts.
Is it ok to have an absent parent if the other parent is a SAHP?
Susan

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Andrea...
mom
And you miss the point. Your dh doesn't HAVE to work the hours he works. You said it yourself - he's a workaholic and worked those hours long before your ds was born. The fact is, he didn't cut back when his child was born. He may plan to cut back in the future, but who knows what the future holds?
The math simply doesn't work out. He works 80 hours a week now so he can cut back to 30 hours a week in a few years - but it's gonna take him till his kid is long grown to get back the hours he will have given up in the meantime.
And you know what else? All that "materialistic" travel is money we consider well invested: our children are growing up in a multicultural enviroment and are fluently trilingual....That is a gift that seems well-worth the few hours a day they spend in dc. So if you were looking at us from the outside as two WOH parents with a BMW and lots of trips, you would be pretty quick to judge us for neglecting our children in the interest of material gain. But you don't know the inside story.
Laura
Laura
BTW, how does working 40 fewer hours translate into only 5 more with ds?
As for working full time and there not being a time crunch. They've done time studies on SAHP's and WP's and found about a 24 minute a day difference in time spent parenting between the two household types. I'd hardly call that a time crunch. Normal working schedules have never been an issue because kids have never required 100% of our time.
You're not saying that there is something inherently better about a mom's care over a dad's care--right? I'm only asking because I think (think--could be wrong) that some people might think that is what you're saying.
Jenn
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