SAH doesn't support change,

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
SAH doesn't support change,
3723
Sat, 08-26-2006 - 4:58pm

"SAH doesn't support change, it supports going backwards to the 1950's,"

Statement in a post below.

I wholeheartedly disagree. To me, SAH is a choice. How is that going back to the 1950s, when a lot of women didn't have much of a choice.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:24pm
It was certainly the case when I lived in the Silicon Valley area -- the most wealthy men tended to have SAHM wives. It's also the case in the DC area, I am sure. It's also the case that in Cleveland, the Bay Area, and the DC metropolitan area, dual professional couples are not rare. Some people have funny ideas about the midwest.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:24pm

"I've forgotten, is your DH on an 75% or 80% schedule also?"

He's not. But I was thinking more that he tends to put in, more or less, an average of 40 hours per week (which is officially 100%) and takes his full 7-9 week vacation every year. That's probably positively slacker work hours by most people's standards :-). We talked about him going officially to 80 or 90%, but he'd still end up working more hours because he does a lot of research and reading at home and tends to work a bit longer when I'm home. So we figured it wasn't worth it since he would just end up being paid less for the same amount of work.

I'm officially 80%, but I probably work closer to 100% too, so we probably end up putting in similar hours. Part of our problem with work is that neither of us is very good at defining the end of the working day. I'll often spend extra time on the computer when the kids are in bed or busy doing homework/practicing piano just because there's stuff that needs to be done and the work is in front of my nose. Dh is quite similar: he does go in at nights or weekends sometimes if that works best with the experiments he's planned, and he's always got some reading to catch up on in the evenings.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:27pm
Who says it's either/or? WOHMs don't scrapbook? I missed the memo. And frankly, it's such an expensive hobby, I don't think I'd be able to do it without a job. DH, bless him, thinks you really do use scraps to create the pages he sees.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:27pm

Since when did being a SAHM mean that you must be "working with them" all day long? I think we've posted what we do on a daily basis several times on this board that you don't really need another run down.

On a typical day in our house, my preschool age kids have a lot of free play, indoor and outdoor, playdates, we read together, they nap (occasionally my 3 y/o does, but my 18 m/o always does), we are in the car doing drop off/pick up at the older ones school, eat breakfast, lunch, snacks. During the school year, my 3 y/o is at school twice a week in the morning. He doesn't have much of an attention span right now, so reading his favorite books is about all we do in terms of learning the alphabet, colors, etc. He is taught that at school, plus we have a variety of toys that encourage that type of learning (puzzles, shape sorters, etc). I have never really "worked" with my kids on that type of stuff.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:28pm
No savings for anything though.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:31pm
It is, to me.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 4:33pm

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I see; as a WOHP, I wouldn't be able to do any of those things.


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Why would you or anyone do that if you didn't want to?

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 7:31pm

It's unlikely that your children would understand that you were "mommytracked". They'd just see you going to work, and know that you are an attorney. If you worked at a company, you would probably work pretty normal hours for the company. Your children might come to understand that attorneys at that company work less than attorneys at your DH's firm, but as they would see men and women working at both places they would be unlikely to realize that you had "mommytracked" yourself. If you were of-counsel at a firm instead of partner, they probably wouldn't have any idea what that means. Lots of adults don't know the distinction of titles at a law firm.

Do you really believe that the only way to model working is by working very long hours?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 7:50pm
Agree on role satisfaction.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-30-2006 - 7:53pm
I personally would be infinitely better off in the event of a divorce because I WOH.

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