Is is "hard" being a sahm?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-06-2004
Is is "hard" being a sahm?
2242
Sat, 04-24-2004 - 1:25pm
For many years now, I have heard the claim that being a sahm is the hardest job in the world. I never chimed in, because I didn't know first hand. I stayed home for 6 weeks when my twin daughters, Sophia and Stephanie (almost 4) were born. And that was hard, because I had 2 newborns. Now, almost 4 years later, I have resigned my job and am staying home again. I can god-honestly say that I don't know what's so hard about this. I personally feel like I am on easy street, but maybe that's because I haven't been at it that long. I feel like I am on vacation. It takes no longer than a couple hours a day to do the housework, and the rest of the time is free time for me and the girls. We have gone to the park, the zoo, chuck e cheeses, and I know not every day is going to be like this, but I feel like I am making up for lost time. My children seem happy and relaxed. The only hard thing about this is that they have gotten into some pretty raging fights with each other, but the fights have ended with quick intervention. I guess I am just wondering how long before this becomes "The hardest job in the world" and I start looking like a zombie, complaining that my husband doesn't help me, and so on? Or do I seriously have the choice not to turn into that? Also, do you think that at the rate I am going, I am at risk for getting bored staying home?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 4:55am
LOL. thanks, i love the part about the cheating idiot! I could add a few more descriptors to that myself.

however, i was only commenting on that ONE small aspect of what was mentioned -- i.e. having the kids in activities and having a dh who does not really help in any meaningful way. It was absolutely a valid contributing point. I said nothing about the book or its message.

eileen

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 5:41am
No, I'd be staying in the marriage and declaring the conditions. I don't play that game. Either it's over or it's not. I'm not going to threaten to get my way, which isn't even my way because I never asked for help here. I don't consider it dh's responsiblity to to what I want done just because I said so. However, I will not do what he wants me to do so we go our separate ways. I refuse to do to him what he's done to me. I will not sit here and tell him what he WILL DO to please me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 5:43am
That is no longer an option because I will not do what dh wants me to do. He is not my boss and I am not his. This isn't a case of dd quits piano and all is right with the world as you keep trying to paint it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 5:53am
She's been through extensive testing. There are REAL issues with her education that have to be addressed. They are not being addressed by the school. The school will do nothing until they result in failure. When your educational foundation is weak, eventually the structure collapses. Dd is headed for such a collapse.

For example, dd reads in true whole language fashion. She uses cues like the pictures and the story line to figure out words she doesn't know so it appears she reads fine, however, she cannot decode words. Her performance on the phonics tests was dismal. Give her a word used in a story and she can likely figure out what it is. Give her the same word on a piece of paper by itself and she's clueless. I now understand how kids get to high school unable to read. I kept telling the school something was wrong and they kept telling me she was doing fine. If I had listened to them, we still wouldn't know that dd simply never learned to decode words. She'd be limping along until some day in the not so distant future when someone would say to me "What kind of idiot parent are you that you never figured out your dd can't read?".

Her issues with math stem from the fact they use the Everyday Mathematic progrsm which leaves kids unprepared for higher level math. It is lacking SERIOUSLY in some areas (ie, the handling of long division and fractions to name two). Dd is in Sylvan to get what she won't ever get in school because of this program. Unfortunately, Everyday Math doesn't allow dd to do things the tried and true methods so she often fails in math at school now but I don't care. She really doesn't need to learn the egyptian algorithm for multiplication or the lattice method of division. She's much better off just learning how to multiply and divide with out tricks. In the long run, dd will be out in front of her peers because she's being taught with a better program at Sylvan.

For dd#2, we've taken on phonics at home because it will not be taught in school. She will follow her sister to Sylvan to make sure all the holes left in her math education by this program are adequately plugged and for enrichment but I don't expect she'll need anywhere near the amount of tutoring her sister does. I regret that we didn't do something for dd#1. I listened too much to dh's mantra of "let a kid be a kid". Now that kid has to spend two evenings a week in tutoring. Live and learn. The schools DON'T know what they're doing. They just take the path of least resistance. Whole language is much easier to teach than phonics so that's what they teach here. Problem is, eventually, you have to know how to decode words. That's the part dd just wasn't getting and the school simply doesn't care about.




Edited 5/19/2004 5:59 am ET ET by grimalkinskeeper

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:02am
Have at it with your dh. My purpose in life is not to be dh's ego stroke and it shouldn't be. Apparently, I'm married to a gerbil who has been taken out of his natural habitat and is now incapable of taking care of himself. I think it's time to just release him into the wild where he can fend for himself. My dh is not a pet I have to take care of.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:06am
It isn't but that doesn't mean there aren't logisticstical problems to what you suggest. Tell you what, you go do it and tell me how it worked out.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:09am

bhbwwwaaaahhhhhaaaaaa.....you don't know who you are talking to.


And I stand by the fact that there are other things that will create the same outcome.

Misty

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:12am
I think you may be right. Though it's not an issue of me not giving him money. Everything is joint. He wanted to retire and expected me to simply support him doing so a couple of years back. The finances simply are not there. Dh tends to look at finances through unrealistic rose colored glasses. Under the best case scenario, he could retire now and I could still retire at 65 so, in his mind, he should get to retire because my retirement at 65 is in the bag. I'm the realist in the family. I'm thinking, flip a coin to find out if I'm downsized out before I'm 55 and flip another one for 65. I've got about a 1 in 4 chance of actually being able to stay with my employer until I'm 65. If I stay where I am, finances have to be set up to handle retirment at 55 because that's that longest I can expect to have my job before those coin tosses. Now add in that the market doesn't always go gang busters right when you're ready to retire. I see MAJOR red flags to his retireing early. You have to remember for him to retire now means NO income comeing in from him. He has nothing for a pension because he never stayed anywhere long enough to get one. He defintely suffers from grass is greener on the other side syndrome.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:13am
Never said there weren't but this one is working. Why change what is working? Why trade one activity for another that may or may not work as well when I'll still be running to the new activity?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 05-19-2004 - 6:22am

Nah, you just happened to be married to a husband who feels that you have no interest in him other then what he can do for you and sent you a message the wrong way about how he feels inferior in your presence.


Read between the lines.

Misty

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