how do i convince my husband

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2004
how do i convince my husband
1841
Mon, 07-18-2005 - 4:09pm
how do i convince my husband to let me at least job-share so i can take care of our 3 month old dd? he grew up with his mom working & all his friend's moms working. we can afford it if we cut back on some things, but he doesn't want to cut back & just doesn't understand someone wanting to be a stay at home mom...it doesn't help mycause that the grandmothers will babysit. i'm so unhappy about having to go back to work...he wants me to work full time 1 more year & just doesn't get it! i feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest every time i hink about it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 10:34am

Like I said- snarky. Just look at your post. You've perfectly exemplified the point. And dear, if I cared one whit whether anyone agreed with me or not, do you really think I'd take what seems the minority view on the subject? ;) But to explain, what sparked me to comment was the point that I considered you the more level headed and logical and rather than going into your positions and maintaining a level head, you stooped to the bait. Really, I'm disappointed. I expected more of you given your style.

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 12:04pm

***I'm not a history expert but I believe it's been practiced throughout history by the wealthy and when out of necessity.***

Necessity isn't convenience. As for the wealthy- what are you basing that belief on (sources- or are you just guessing?) and in regard to what period(s) of history? *curious*

***It would not surprise me to find that women nursed each others babies in tribal communities where women were needed to gather food.***

It wouldn't *shock* me, but it *would* surprise me. Given the nature of milk supply and the natural response to want to preserve the supply for ones *own* child... In tribal communities it is more likely that they would carry their infants in slings and nurse as needed- probably while doing whatever work was being done. (Early multitasking if you will ;)

***I don't know that that is the case but it makes sense given that babies were often cared for by others***

Again- what are you basing this on (not necessarily disagreeing completely- just wondering at your sources regarding the common nature of other-care. :)

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 12:30pm

At some point the straw breaks the camels back. Rather than encouraging it by keeping it going, I would expect *someone* to take 'the higher ground' and either leave it to rest, realizing that's all they're going to get or at least keep pegging their position with logic and intelligence rather than stooping to the bait. But whatever. I guess we all have our limits. ;)

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 12:57pm

<

How can you compare your life with modern technologies to sahm of 100+ years ago?>>

I wouldn't even compare the "sahm" life of today to that of the "sahm" life of my grandmother. My grandmother certainly wasn't reading to my mom and her siblings all day, taking them to the library, or to "Mommy & Me" groups. She worked on the family farm-- gardening, milking cows, canning and freezing everything possible, and cooking dinner for the kids and her husband from scratch every night. Not to mention cleaning (no swiffers) and laundry for seven people with a ringer washer and no dryer. Heck, even when I went to visit in the summer, she was "working" the whole time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 1:18pm
I don't guess it's any more reprehensible than standing silently by giving tacit (and occasionally overt) approval to all the initial needling, and then slamming the person who finally "stoops to the bait." Interesting; I've never experienced anyone who subscribed to the notion of blaming the fish.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
flat in others,
and really annoying when it's stuck in your head."

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 1:33pm

Here are some links about the changes in women's lives due to the Industrial Revolution:

"Pinchbeck's most controversial conclusion is her claim that the Industrial Revolution made women better off. Jane Rendall (1990, p. 7) claims that "Most modern historians would see her interpretation . . . as unduly optimistic." Many historians see the period as one during which women lost rather than gained. The disagreement seems to be mainly one of interpretation. Pinchbeck notes that many women withdrew from the labor force, and she interprets this as a gain. Women had more leisure, and more time to devote to their housework. Other historians, observing the same change, have interpreted it as a decline in women's position as they were forced out of the labor market. Women may have gained leisure, but they lost independence and bargaining power. Davidoff and Hall (1987, p. 273), for example, note that "the loss of opportunities to earn increased the dominance of marriage as the only survival route for middle-class women."

http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/burnette.shtml

"In the preindustrial culture of colonial America, most unpaid household labor produced goods and services to be used by household members. Few households produced everything they used; most made occasional purchases of ironware, pottery, and salt, and wealthier families bought imported textiles, tea, and other luxuries. But the fundamental household chores--cleaning, food preparation, the manufacture and maintenance of clothing, the care of children, the aged, and the infirm--involved a considerable amount of productive labor. Women spun wool and flax, wove cloth, sewed it into clothing, grew food and prepared it for eating or storage, and made soap and candles. Other family members shared those tasks and (usually according to a gendered division of labor) worked in adjoining fields and small crafts shops. The colonial household, then, served as the central institution of economic production. . . . Between about 1890 and 1920, mass production and mass distribution brought new products--gas, electricity, running water, prepared foods, ready-made clothes, factory-made furniture and utensils--to large numbers of American families. Even energy could now be consumed at the flick of a switch or the turn of a knob. The new utilities literally connected the household to the public sphere with wires and pipes. Standardized uniform goods that cost money replaced the various makeshifts most people used. This dealt a blow to the satisfactions of home production but brought about a general end to the arduous labor of the household and a rise in the standard of living. Some poor farm families, however, still produced most of what they used, did without plumbing or electricity, and consumed few industrial products other than tools. Housework increasingly assumed the new economic function that Beecher had noticed among the urban and suburban upper classes around the end of the Civil War: no longer primarily producers, American housewives became consumers."

http://www.answers.com/topic/housework

"Before industrialization the family was the basic social unit. Most families were rural, large, and selfsustaining; they produced and processed almost everything that was needed for their own support and for trading in the marketplace, while at the same time performing a host of other functions ranging from mutual protection to entertainment. In these preindustrial families women (adult women, that is) had a lot to do, and their time was almost entirely absorbed by household tasks. Under industrialization the family is much less important. The household is no longer the focus of production; production for the marketplace and production for sustenance have been removed to other locations. Families are smaller and they are urban rather than rural. The number of social functions they perform is much reduced, until almost all that remains is consumption, socialization of small children, and tension management. As their functions diminished, families became atomized; the social bonds that had held them together were loosened. In these postindustrial families women have very little to do, and the tasks with which they fill their time have lost the social utility that they once possessed. Modern women are in trouble, the analysis goes, because modern families are in trouble; and modern families are in trouble because industrial technology has either eliminated or eased almost all their former functions, but modern ideologies have not kept pace with the change. The results of this time lag are several: some women suffer from role anxiety, others land in the divorce courts, some enter the labor market, and others take to burning their brassieres and demanding liberation."

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/r_uth.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 2:04pm

Hmmm- I think you might be mistaking one having similar views as another person with that of 'giving approval' of the manner in which they present them. Further, one expects more from a person when they view them as capable of more.

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 2:06pm

Thank you.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 2:43pm

Is this what you mean by snarky questions/responses?

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 3:04pm

Did I say that the verses showed how the children were cared for?

PumpkinAngel

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