Numbers of SAHMs increasing

Avatar for outside_the_box_mom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Numbers of SAHMs increasing
1094
Sun, 10-12-2003 - 3:41pm
Interesting article in the Globe today about Gen-Xers, SAHMs, and how their numbers are increasing.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/10/12/stay_at_home_mothers_finding_theyre_not_alone/

Stay-at-home mothers finding they're not alone

By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff, 10/12/2003

FRANKLIN -- It's morning on Greystone Road, and the routine looks like a flashback to a 1950s neighborhood: Fathers jump into their cars for a day's work, while their wives, holding babies and toddlers, wave goodbye. But on this block of $200,000 split-level and ranch homes, the women insist they are not modern-day housewives. All of them, they point out, graduated from college and worked for at least a decade before having their first child in their early 30s.

"We are our own generation," said Rebecca McLean, 32, a former personnel recruiter who stays home with her 6-month-old son, Derek. "We're doing it our way."

These residents of Greystone Road are part of a new shift in family life: More married couples with young children rely on their husband's income. After years of increases in the number of working mothers, census figures show the first significant rise in stay-at-home moms. In 1998, 41.3 percent of mothers with infants stayed home with their children; in 2000, the figure rose to 44.8 percent.

The trend is clear on Greystone Road. Stay-at-home mothers and full-time working fathers occupy four of six homes. Retirees own the other two.

Even though the women earned more than enough money to boost their families' total income and cover day-care costs, the parents on this block chose to cope with the financial pinch. For example, they sacrificed having a bigger house to be at home with their children.

The fathers, too, say they are far from being the Ward Cleavers of 2003 -- quick to change diapers and wash dishes, and equal partners with their wives in trying to offer the best life for their children.

"We all married when we were older," said Mark Collins, 41, He is an occupational safety manager who, with his wife, Christine, 34, have a toddler, Allison. "I lived in the North End for 13 years, eating out whenever I wanted. Now it's homebody time."

The increase in stay-at-home mothers is most pronounced among college graduates as well as white and Hispanic women. There also is a rise of stay-at-home mothers for older children. Last year, 10.6 million children under 15 in two-parent homes were raised by stay-at-home mothers, up 13 percent in slightly less than a decade, census figures show.

Researchers have identified Generation Xers, now loosely defined as those in their 20s and 30s, as leading the way in taking on this more frugal -- and, they hope, less frazzled -- lifestyle. If they cannot afford to rely on one income, or both parents choose to work, many are demanding flexible work schedules or limited hours to help meet their children's needs.

Today's new mothers feel less need to wave the banner of feminism, and "staying at home is more culturally acceptable," said Stacia Ragolia, a vice president at iVillage.com, a popular website for women.

"If they work, it may be that they have something to prove to themselves, but it's not about proving something about women's role in society," said Michelle Poris, a director at Yankelovich, a national marketing research firm, who has tracked differences between Generation X and baby-boomer parents.

In addition, while some Generation X parents may leave the work force because of the nation's poor economy, many others arrive at this decision because "they're nostalgic for something they never had" in their own upbringing, Poris said.

This generation, they say, grew up with peak divorce rates, high maternal employment, and expanding day care, and are well-versed in the crushing body of literature about the pros and cons of each trend.

The Greystone Road parents also are part of a generation that has put in many years of full-time work and had a long time to think about how to raise their children. The average American woman now has her first child at age 25, compared with age 21 in 1970. In Massachusetts, the average age a woman has her first child is 28.

After watching her divorced mother raise eight children by herself, one stay-at-home mother on Greystone Road said she was determined to carve out a different life for her two young daughters. "I wanted to make sure I had a good marriage and found someone who had the same values as I did," said Julie, 39, who asked that her last name not be used.

New approaches toward family life are starting to influence the way companies peddle products. Increasingly, companies are introducing distinct advertising campaigns aimed at Generation X parents, instead of offering what one marketer called "warmed-over boomer campaigns." In launching its new 2004 Nissan Quest minivan, company officials began ads with the slogan, "Moms have changed." In these commercials, women drivers are depicted without children, using the minivan's storage space for their own guitars, surfboards, or horse saddles.

The ads don't differentiate between working or stay-at-home mothers, but are designed to get away from the "soccer mom" stereotype often associated with baby-boomer women.

"We are speaking to the woman behind the mom," said Kim McCullough, Nissan's senior manager for marketing.

Companies throughout the country are waking up to the distinctive attitudes held by Generation X parents, from how they juggle work and family to how they spend vacation money, said James Chung, who operates Reach Advisors in Boston, a youth-oriented market-research business. This past week, Chung, 37 and a father of two, started a national survey of his own generation's attitudes toward family life and children.

He has speculated that the recent shutdown of the women's professional soccer league can be blamed, in part, on marketers' failing to recognize that today's parents need fresh promotional campaigns, not ones in which they are lumped with all the other "soccer moms."

Along Greystone Road in Franklin, residents said they don't see themselves as trying to make any collective statement. They had never met until they each moved, one by one, onto this small residential street.

In fact, when Christine Collins first moved into the neighborhood in 2000, the 31-year-old teacher worried she would be lonely when she would finally stay home after her first child was born. There was no one in the neighborhood in her age group.

But by the spring of 2001, the McLeans and then the Cunninghams -- married couples in their 30s with no children -- had moved in. Within the last three years, each couple had a child, and Christine Cunningham is expecting a second. During this time, another couple, who had two toddler girls, moved in.

In their morning chats in the yard these days, the mothers occasionally talk politics, though mostly they talk about who slept through the night and other family topics. The husbands also have gotten to know each other. Scott McLean, 35, a controller at a Boston advertising company, is getting home renovation tips from contractor Colin Cunningham, his 32-year-old neighbor.

Each couple says they expect they may someday want two incomes to help support the cost of a larger home and more vacations, as well as their children's college educations. The women hope their decision to stop work doesn't set them too far back in their professions.

For now, however, they save money watching for store sales, and sometimes going to secondhand children's clothing stores. They see their division of labor -- mom staying home, dad going to work -- as the right decision.

"For this generation, it's a choice," said Jill Cunningham, 33, a former executive assistant who lives in her two-bedroom ranch with her husband, Colin, and their 22-month-old son, Luke. "My husband and I are both conscious of that. He doesn't come back at the end of the day, stick his feet on the couch, and expect dinner."

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.




Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 10:55am
i have to disagree. i really think it impossible to break these things down to undividual members when you are working with a group, such as a family. the well being and happiness of the family has to come first. how would you put the individual members above the whole if you have multiple children of different ages? i know in our family while we try to meet all the needs and wants of the kids we have to do so within the situation we have, which is multiple kids spanning 13 years. and the reality is that there are times when the wants and needs of one person have to be put on hold for what is better for another member of the family or the family as a whole, even if it causes that person some unhappiness.. and what i hope my kids are learning is that self sacrafice is sometimes necessay to accomplish what is best for the family and i hope that they will realize that the needs and happiness of the family as a whole are vitally important to every member and takes work and sacrafice from every member, not just mom and dad.

Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 11:07am
If it was important to my parents that they never perfer going to work to being at home with me...would my childish mind have picked up on that - and by extension - would I then have felt guilty that that I really didn't wish I could stay home with my parents rather than going to school where my friends were? Trust me, it wasn't like everything would have been "perfecter" at school if only Mommy and Daddy could have been in my Gr 4 class too! No, my desire to be at school with my friends was composed of a complimentary desire to be not hanging out with my parents, and to be away from the homelife rules, regulations and obligations. I didn't want to spend every waking minute functionning as someones little daughter. I had other roles to fullfill even at that young age. I thank my lucky stars, my parents forgot to give me any idea that this was a substandard daughter mindset.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 11:09am

Your welcome.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 11:12am
This is obviously a transgenerational issue. I personally spent very few of my pre-kid years having anything be all about me. My parents would have called that alot of years of spoiling-the-child, for one thing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 11:16am
I don't know, I guess it all depends on your perspective on things. I don't think any parent should be miserable with their life, but I also think that a lot of parents spend wayyyyyy too much time worrying about themselves and very little time worrying about their children. I don't think this is really a SAH/WOH issue though. (In other words, it's important for the parent to be happy, but not to the detriment of the child. Noc hild should suffer for their parents happiness. I would never say that alternate care makes a child suffer, but I think there are many situations where too much alternate care can be bad.)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 11:21am
I guess we'll just agree to disagree. If it comes down to me being happy and my kids are not, or kids are happy and I'm not, I know damn well which I'm going to pick.
Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 12:28pm
So what if your child is unhappy that you're going out because you need time by yourself for an hour or so? What if he's unhappy and having a tantrum, even though Dad is staying with him and he's perfectly well cared for while you're out? Do you cancel your plans because DS is having a tantrum and is unhappy about Mom going out?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 12:45pm
"love" and "home all day" aren't the same thing. "education" and "education" are the same thing. The comparison makes no sense.
Avatar for mjdphd
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 12:52pm
But kids are unhappy for a variety of reasons, some of which are legitimate but many of which are just plain because they are being ornery. For example, my daughter wants to play a game but I have to get to the drugstore to pick up medicine for another child. She gets unhappy because I won't play with her at that exact moment, but she doesn't get what she wants all of the time. Or even if you have to work because you are a single mom but your kids would prefer you home, well, that isn't even a choice now is it. I wouldn't make my child unhappy just because I wanted a day at the mall, but I wouldn't let my family suffer financially because one child was unhappy.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 10-22-2003 - 2:38pm
Don't be ridiculous. We are talking unhappy/happy in the greater scheme of things, not in any given moment, and we have been this entire subthread. My son may be unhappy that I sent him to his room for misbehaving, but I'm still going to do it. Did you *really* think I meant that, or were you just trying to spin it?

Pages