Kids as an "excuse" to stay home
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| Fri, 08-15-2008 - 2:16pm |
No one would likely ever admit to this...but what percentage of women who stay at home, and have no plans to ever return to the work force, or to do more than work PT...stay home because of the kids, but also for the major fact that they simply don't want to work?
I don't love my job every second, and there's definitely jobs out there that I don't think I could get out of bed for every day. But the idea of never working again, and being completely dependent on my spouse...kind of blows my mind. I realize not everyone's of the same ilk, and one's not better than the other.
I do wonder how many of the women who go on and on about how great it is to be home with the kids, are primarily just relieved to not have to punch the clock every day in addition to being mom.

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dd: 2.7 years
I didn't get to read ka's post but I have to agree with what you wrote:
<Maybe they've offered them several times in the past..I just haven't seen it in my short time here, so yes, it appears to be lop-sided. But I can understand why it is. It *is* hard to be one person fielding a firing of questions/challenges to points and I'm sure lots of sahm's just leave.>>
I no longer even touch with a 10-foot pole the question why I think SAH accomplishes things othercare cannot.
I tend to offer "the other side" which is, you can't deny, in the minority on this board. I don't often see other SAHMs who've been here for a long time answer the questions of "safety nets" and "what it is that they can provide that othercare can't", so I do.
There are three "sides" here. There is the side that say sah is superior for all children. There is the side that says woh is superior for all children. There is the side that says both can be equally valid choices.
The posts you respond to are not posts by people arguing that woh is superior. The posts you respond to are either a. rebuttals to posts arguing the superiority of sah, which implies that you are agreeing that sah is superior or b. posts in which a poster points out why woh is better for their own family, which implies that you think woh cannot be superior for an individual family or c. anyone arguing that both choices are equal.
The supposed minority side you are trying to support is not the viewpoint that sah is a valid choice, because the majority on this board say that sah is a valid choice. The minority viewpoint you are supporting is the one that says that sah is better for all children. The posts you respond to that are the majority viewpoint are the ones who respond to "babies need to be home with their mothers" with "why? why do all babies need to be home with their mothers?". You jump in to support the viewpoint that all babies need their mothers, which is clearly a statement made in support of sah as a superior choice. If you were responding to posts that said "children didn't ask to be born, you made the choice for them to be born, therefore you should provide them with a trust fund that supports them for the rest of their lives even if it means carrying four jobs between the two of you", then yes, I'd understand that you were just trying to stick up for the sahm side against the wohm side that was denigrating their choices. but you're not. You are arguing with people who are rebutting the point that sah is better for all children. I've never seen you make a single post that supports the viewpoint that woh is superior for all children/families, and that is even more a minority viewpoint than the viewpoint that sah is better for all children/families. So I do not buy the argument that you are simply trying to stand up for the minority viewpoint.
which makes it nearly impossible for me to believe that you truly believe that both choices are equally valid, even when they are choices instead of decisions born of necessity.
So you saw a lot of the firsts anyway.
Did I? I really have no clue. I don't know whether I saw a "first" first or whether dh saw it first (he spent quite a bit of time on his own with each kid when they were little...still does), or whether they did it first on their own long before we actually saw it. It's also possible that family or friends saw the "first" before we did (trying to think back...I think my sister may have actually seen ds crawl for the first time).
As I'm sure you are aware (having somewhat older children now), lots of firsts happen after the age of 2 as well :-).
ROFLOL! I "wish" we could spent a "whole lot less" than the income we take in, but it's just NOT possible. We save $ where we can, but the kids cost money (their lessons and such -- you know, like the $250 in back-to-school supplies), the house costs money, the nanny costs money and the last time I heard food isn't free.
eileen
i don't get you. I've ALWAYS said that i NEEDED to work, that my income was needed. In fact, I've made it painfully clear that it was awful when we dropped down to living on my salary alone. Now, dh and I make, roughly, the same amount -- and each contribute 50% to the household income.
HOWEVER, even IF we didn't "need" the money, I would STILL woh.
eileen
So, taking that a step farther, either dh or I would need to get a job making what the TWO of us make together? LOL! Doesn't happen -- in EITHER of our fields. Nah, I think we'll BOTH continue to earn the money needed to run our households.
eileen
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