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
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 7:59am

***Did I say that the verses showed how the children were cared for? It's about a wohm.***

If we're going to go down that road, virtually EVERY mother, then as well as now is a WOHM. Or are we talking only of women earning their own income? Because before we were talking of WAHM's rather than SAHM's due to the huge manual work load that our forebears had to contend with...

***23 Her husband is respected at the city gate where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. "This is an unpaid position. So therefore the wife is earning all of the money."***

Please provide your sources as to historical evidence that this was, as you say, an unpaid position and that his wife is earning the family's income.

***Right and with a dh who doesn't earn a living...where do you think she is getting that money? She is also planting a vineyard which is a field she considers and buys it. Now she has a vineyard, another business along with selling linens and trading.***

Again- please provide the source for the idea that her husband is, shall we say, "unemployed". As for the vineyard, are you suggesting that because she owns it that she also labors in it? Or is ownership enough to be considered WOH even if she has others overseeing/laboring etc.? (If that is your view, that's fine- we just need to nail down the definitions of terms associated with this discussion :) We could be agreeing but disagreeing only on the terms we're using after all :)

http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/poet/prov31.htm

***Where do you think she sells them but in the local marketplace or the local mall as you call it? Children have to be in othercare in order for a women to be a wohm?***

Perhaps we are having a disagreement regarding semantics. I am using the term WOHM as we tend to use it in our culture- a woman who works outside of her home for pay- in almost all cases, with rare exception, this being a situation where her children are not present with her. In our culture WAHM generally denotes a woman who provides the primary care for her offspring while doing a job that allows her to care for them rather than have them cared for by someone else during her working hours. (I see this Biblical woman as very similar to a woman who makes crafts from her home and sells them via the internet or in a local shop etc.)

***I am not sure why the location of the children is important to your distinction.***

Simply to differentiate between our modern idea of the WOHM (who is *rarely* able to be with her children during her working hours and that of the ancient WAHM (as I would define her).

***I was a wohm for almost a year each time with my children and took them to work with me....did that make me a wahm/sahm or wohm?***

It made you exceptionally *lucky* is what it made you. Certainly you don't think that that is the common reality for most WOHM's?

***What do the location of the children have to do with the definition of a women working outside of the home?***

It defines the idea of the modern WOHM who, with rare exception, is unable to have her children with her while she is working. Granted, the wealthy class would have been priveledged enough to afford servants to help look after the children, including wetnurses, however, in the case of a surviving mother (which was still the more prevalent situation- maternal mortality was definately high, but more survived than didn't, even if it was enough of a risk to be quite worrisome...) she would most likely be required to feed her own offspring (necessitating her being able to take them with her wherever she went during the day). Or do you believe and have sources that show that others caring for and nursing children of other (living) mothers was the norm, or even common among the working class? (Since I am trying to address the majority and not the exceptions.)

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 8:16am

"In our culture WAHM generally denotes a woman who provides the primary care for her offspring while doing a job that allows her to care for them rather than have them cared for by someone else during her working hours."

Is that how you define WAHM? I thought the definition of WAHP is someone who....works at home and is a parent. I didn't realise that one also has to care for the children simultaneously during her working hours in order to be considered a WAHP. Other than home-based dcp, I can't think of very many professions or jobs that truly allow this. Out of curiosity, how do you define parents who work from home and still use some kind of othercare, be it dc or school? Mondomom, for example, uses othercare and works pretty well exclusively from home. Mom writer gets her work done while her child is in school (also from home). I WAH most of the time and use a combination of school and some other care. I guess I thought that we were all considered to be WAHPs.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 8:47am

***If not guilt....then are you suggesting shame? or pride?***

Neither. Although, if anything, one should be proud, regardless of others opinions, if one is doing what they feel is best for their family. (Insert issue here- feeding methods, working status, parenting 'philosophy' etc. :)

***I find no pride or glory in doing things only the biological way.***

Never said (or even thought) that you should.

***Except of course when there wasn't a mother to breastfeed the child to do death in childbirth which of course was quite common.***

Common, yes, but more survived than didn't. And we're (or at least I) am referring to the difference between alternative methods of feeding due to necessity and that of convenience (although I should differentiate between historical necessity which encompassed true survival and our pampered modern idea of necessity which includes the idea of college/retirement/bigger homes etc. as "necessary". While it may very well be according to our culture/socio-economic status, (or our perception) there is a gross difference in the idea of "necessary" then/now.)

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 9:24am

***Heck, most of what she says is homeschooling, the rest of us just consider active parenting.***

The only real difference is that it's categorized and documented etc. If you were engaged in "active parenting" during the hours that the child were in school, so long as you made sure to balance out the educational needs and requirements of their age/grade equivelant, you *would* be homeschooling.

***I am a homeschooling most of the time based on her definition and my children go to school much more than for primarily social reasons.***

I'd be one to go with the more traditional definition of homeschooling as an *alternative* to public/private/formal schooling, not 'in addition to'. (As I know you've agreed with in posts past...)

***It's not adding up in my head.***

Sample Day (from my own schedule in high school)

Get to school 7am.
7-7:50 homeroom
7:50-8:00 Between classes
8am- 8:50 (first class)
8:50-9am Between classes
9am-9:50 (second class)
9:50-10:00 Between classes
10:00-10:50 (third class)
10:50-11am Between classes
11am-11:45 Lunch (or study hall)
11:45- 11:55 Between classes
11:55-12:40 Study hall (or lunch)
12:40-12:50 Between classes
12:50-1:45 (fourth class)
1:45-1:55 Between classes
1:55- 2:55(fifth and final class)
2:55 (last bell of the day and study hall until your bus came in).

***How long are these classes and how long is the school day?***

Our classes were appx. 55min long, and the day ran from 7am to 3pm.

***and some 1 hour 20 minutes.***

Wow- I never had that until I went to college ;) The longest classes we had were an hour. Unless you chose to schedule something back to back with the same instructor (example- science and lab which you could take the same year or consecutive years depending on how you worked your schedule- which would have made it essentially a 2hr class if taken in the same year...)

***We had 6 minutes between classes x 6 classes which is 36 minutes and then I think 35 minutes for lunch....a little over an hour a day.***

We had a pretty big school to get around from class to class, so 5/6 min just wasn't enough to pack up, hit the locker, unpack and repack for the next class and then get *to* the class. Especially if you had to hit the bathroom as well ;)

***Of course most elementary schools don't have this at all since the majority of public schools have most of the classes within a class, with the exception of art, gym, music.***

Right- which is a far more effective system- although it doesn't prepare you for the college scene of class changes etc. if used in the upper grades. Either way- it's interesting to see how different schools handle scheduling. :)

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 9:30am

There's the problem- we're talking of different time periods. I've said in various places that I've been talking of other-than modern history. I thought I had made that more clear than I apparantly had.

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 9:38am

...I guess the reason I had to comment was because it was taking up SOOO much of the thread and it was making it difficult to wade through. Like I said- everyone has their limits ;) Including me ;) She reached hers and posted, I reached mine and did the same. *shrugs*

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 9:51am

You have a good point there. I'll have to think on that a bit and get back to you. For the sake of the whole WOH/SAH debate, I suppose my definition may be a bit simplistic. However, isn't it the issue of childcare that is the most contentious regarding this particular debate? I mean- who really gives a rip whether someone is earning money etc. the arguments I see around here are those of who does what when with the kids... Who spends more time etc. etc. etc. And it seems that childcare is central to that debate- not merely that the parent is or is not employed for pay.

Wytchy

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 10:14am

I went back and looked, her links are in post 1129, I misread one of the links.....the infant mortality rate was 30% not the women's in child birth which was one in 10 births.


Her period and time reference, although most of us were talking about the time around

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 11:06am

The women earned money outside of the home.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 11:13am

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See...here in lies the difference......I was only

PumpkinAngel

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