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: 03-26-2003
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 4:56pm
I have absolutely no debatable issues with you never using othercare, wearing your dd, no bottles or cosleeping.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 5:07pm

<>

"So unless I'm horribly mistaken, you asked for "scientific" proof of the changes that occured in the past 50+ years that have allowed mothers to focus on mothering, rather than housework/farmwork."

Correction, I didn't ask for, "scientific" proof of the changes that occured in the past 50+ years that have allowed mothers to focus on mothering, rather than housework/farmwork." A point, I might add, that was totally lost to most posters here.

I was asking for, "scientific" proof that housework/work load was, "the real work of the predecessor of the modern sahm."

I was also asking for, "scientific" proof that, "It's only now in the last 50+ years that women have been allowed to focus on the mothering."

"Can you please explain how links to historical essays about the changes to women's roles during the Industrial Revolution are not relevant to the time period you were discussing?"

Because I wasn't asking for, "scientific" proof of the changes that occured in the past 50+ years that have allowed mothers to focus on mothering, rather than housework/farmwork."

I was asking for, "scientific" proof that housework/work load was, "the real work of the predecessor of the modern sahm."

I was also asking for, "scientific" proof that, "It's only now in the last 50+ years that women have been allowed to focus on the mothering."

Again a point, that was completely lost to most posters here.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 5:15pm

So it is your contention that despite women of the past doing housework/farmwork for 10+ hours a day, their "real" work and focus was mothering?

Jessica

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 5:27pm

We agree that your childrearing practices are not objectively superior. Good.

Insisting on the superiority of exclusive breastfeeding, as opposed to, for example, half breastfeeding and half bottlefeeding of EBM, is against all reason. There is NO evidence to support your theory that the former is better than the latter. Similarly, I'm sure we can all agree that lots of cuddles are better than none, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that wearing a baby is better, or even that it's a good thing to do. We co-slept for years, but there is no evidence that sleeping separately is less beneficial. As to alternate caregivers, it depends entirely on the quality of the parent and the alternate. Neither is objectively better than the other, and insisting that a parent's care objectively is better is against all reason.

If you have some evidence - not rhetoric, but peer reviewed, statistically signficant studies -- showing that your practices are better, bring them on. I'd assume that if you had any, however, we would have heard about them in one of your hundreds of posts to this point.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 6:32pm

No, it's a perfect example of *parenting*. Or at least, good parenting. Good parents don't revolve their world around the child to such a degree that they risk imprisonment, starvation or eviction. Good parents acknowledge that ALL members of the family have value and that meeting their needs (not their desires, their NEEDS) takes precedence over some perversion of parenting wherein the parent pretends to subsume self and substance in order to stroke her own ego as to her superior and selfless parenting.

I was working 55+ hours a week in those days to bring home $9,600/year. My ex contributed a like sum but spent a good part of that year on a different continent. If my life had been all about MY convenience, it sure as crap wouldn't have consisted of 6 weeks camping in the mountains of Bavaria, 50 meters from the Czech border in January, February and March of 1983.

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: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 6:44pm
The stories that you mention may or may not be "in direct conflict" with science -- i.e., there are many people that believe that the order of creation reflected in Genesis, for instance, reflects an ancient people's understanding of the process of life being created/evolving from less complex to more complex modes of existence. They are not in conflict with logic or rational thought. I have already answered the question of whether I believe that stories such as "Paul Bunyan" et alia are "real" and concede that if you do not see the "inner reality" in literature at this stage of your life, I don't think there is anything I could say to change that, and I guess this is the point in the conversation where I say that I prefer to waste my time in more amusing and productive ways.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 6:48pm
He does what kids do. He's not really smarter than average. Of course, I think everything he does is adorable and memorable, but I don't have any illusions that I am raising a genius.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 7:02pm
No, I know you don't. Perhaps you do not have the desire to understand WHY the universe is the way it is, which are questions that myth and allegory address. You are instead content to understand HOW it works, which is the set of questions that science can address. Understanding HOW is not enough for many people, and they understand the difference between HOW and WHY. Somewhere along the way, you seem to have been persuaded that they are the same question. Many people do not believe that they are.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Thu, 08-11-2005 - 7:03pm

I've told this story before, but it fits:

John was potty trained right before he turned 3, which was in the fall. he did fine all winter and spring, but by the summer (when he was about 3 and a half) he started having "I'm having too much fun playing to use the toilet" accidents and I brainstormed over various ways to try and convince him to come in to use the toilet (I'd been a miserable failure at actually training him--like a horrible, shameful How Not To--so I was REALLY motivated to find a non-punitive solution to the problem).

Finally I appealed to his desire to play and explained that having accidents took *longer* than coming in to use the potty because then he had to be changed, cleaned up and put on new clothes, while just using the potty meant pants down, pee, pants up. This really seemed to make sense to him and he agreed I was right and he would start coming in when he had to pee.

Couple days later, sure enough, I was in the kitchen and he came charging into the apartment, yelling "I'M GOING TO PEE TO SAVE TIME!!!!!!!!" as he went. I smiled, relieved and proud at myself and my parenting skills. Then he was back outside and pretty soon I'd finished up and went out to check on him. he was soaking wet.

So I called him over and asked quietly, "Hey, John, I thought you used the potty to save time."

"I did!" he beamed with pride, and his little chest rose as he explained. "*AND* to save even MORE time, I didn't pull my pants down!!!"

That was when I learned that everything he did was adorable, but he was no genius. :) (And neither was I!!!)

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,
Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 08-12-2005 - 12:39pm
<> Why are *adults* needs not important? I don't understand the "all for the child" attitude. They are not the center of the world. I'm not saying children's needs are not important, but why can't they adapt just like everyone else? Why should everything revolve around them? My children have learned that everyone is important, not just them.

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