Are mega hours ok if you have a SAHP?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Are mega hours ok if you have a SAHP?
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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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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:05pm
By your definition of retirement, I retired last year when I cut back my hours to PT and opted out of any administrative position in the future. Well damn, wait til I tell dh that I am now retired. And wait til my boss hears! Whoo hoo! And hey, I was 43 at the time. And I never, ever worked 80 hours during my entire career.

Susan

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:07pm
I certainly did NOT say that it's "better" than all WOHP situations. What I have said is that it works for us and that "I" (personally) wouldn't have it any other way.

How do children of divorcees know what a good marriage looks like? How does anyone know what a good marriage looks like? Unless you're in the marriage, appearances can be deceiving! Isn't that what everyone keeps telling me, not to judge WOHP b/c the appearances of their lifestyle can be deceiving? Or does that argument only work under certain circumstances?

Is this the best you can come up with? C

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:09pm
Banker's hours is a common colloquailism, and as bankers are generally a rather conservative bunch, I doubt the majority of them are PC enough to care. C
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:12pm
Cute. My DH would "retire" to SA (senior advisor) status. His firm actually has that option available. You can tell your boss whatever you want. Unless your setting your own hours and doing whatever you want whenever you want to do it, it's a completely different thing. C
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:12pm
I'm only gonna address the divorcee part ...

Ds may never know what a good marriage looks like. But he sure won't have a bad marriage to emulate either.

Hollie

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:13pm
I agree! I just wanted to use some of the logic thrown at me on her... C
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:15pm
Is he an independent or is he working in the financial services dept of an investment house?

BTW, even with the 30% of your income being invested pretax and charitable contributions being tax deductable, that still leaves a large portion of salary that is taxed, your numbers still add up to more than 100%. Not possible.



Susan

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:15pm
common doesn't mean right. Nigger was once common too.

And I don't care about them maybe being offended because I'm PC. And they don't care because of PCness either. I care because its wrong to falsely indicate that someone works less than they do. To falsely indicate that they are lazy, or lucky, or less committed, or work less than someone else. It gives an air of disrespect. And being disrespected becuase its "a common colloquialism" is offenseive.

Hollie

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-1999
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:20pm
Ah, but you aren't taking out the deductable business expenses...we got a tax REFUND last year. Deductable expenses + charitable contributions=30%, living expenses=40%, pre-tax investments=30%. The last time I checked, 30+30+40=100. C
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 07-03-2003 - 2:21pm
actually, i usually refrain from the sniping, but there doesn't seem to be much point in anything else here. there are two essential points that you refuse to see here.

first, your combining work hours creates a fallacy. the child of the typical dual-income couple spends 40 hours a week more with both of his parents than your child spends with your dh (averaged over the year, my children spend about 60 hours a week more with their father than your dh, about 40 more with me, though closer to 50 over the past two years), and while what apparently matters to you is the number of hours a week put into *earning a family's support*, what matters to the posters who are so put off by you are the number of hours a week put into *spending time with family*. my children most certainly would be negatively affected were my dh to spend less, much less hardly any, time with them, and yet they are not at all negatively (in fact positively) affected by spending time with nonparents--whether that be spending the day with their grandparents, at a friend's house, at school, or at dc.

now i struggle with this angle of the debate, myself. i am personally pretty freaked-out by the thought of any parent working the kind of hours your dh does; i honestly don't understand how people can maintain a connection to their spouse and their kids when they spend very little time with them. but i've always been open to the idea that and believed people who have told me that this works for some people. certainly, even though i don't personally "get" this, i don't share your apparently psychotic need to lash out at people who live a life i wouldn't choose for myself.

second, you don't seem to grasp that even complaints to "friends" don't paint the entire picture of people's lives; for all i know, you might know with certainty that your "friend" works for "things"--not necessities (but earning enough to pay for "things" also), not for what you, yourself consider priorities (college savings, retirement, etc. but earning enough to pay for "things" also), not satisfaction (like your dh, but earning enough to pay for "things" also), etc.--but i seriously doubt it. i don't know many people whose lives are all that uncomplicated.

but above this, you seem to be willfully oblivious to the glaringly obvious point that because your dh is earning so much more than you need, by working so many more hours than he doubtless needs to, you DO know ONE PERSON who with certainty is working for "things" (in this case early retirement, rather than bmws and starbucks), and yet you rabidly defend him while equally rabidly throwing speculative and generalized criticisms in every other direction.

snarkiness aside, your posts here have been painfully hypocritical and stupidly mean spirited. that people are becoming more frustrated and less polite in responding to them seems only natural, and that someone would hesitate to come home to such mindless harping seems all but certain.

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