"Professional men whose wives are sahms tend to advance further in their careers than men with wives who woh. I don't see that as a problem. Some women who feel the need to compete with their husbands may view it as such; but since I feel no need to compete with dh I'm not at all bothered by it. "
Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
She had been dedicated to her work. Are you saying being dedicated to her work somehow meant that she should not have had the desire to sah? Does it have to be one or the other? Are you any less dedicated to your children because you work? Yes, she dedicated herself to work feeling that she had no choice but to do that. This woman is an excellent nurse and her dedication shows. However, as she was putting in the long hours at work, her sons were being cared for by a nanny whom they bonded to more strongly than they bonded to their mother. And when you figure that out of a 24 hour day, they spent 10-12 hours of it with the nanny and about 8 hours asleep during the night, that left about 4-6 hours of time she was with them. And then during that time, dinner had to be prepared, homework had to be completed and the boys had to take their baths before going to bed...how much "quality time" did the situation really allow?
She pumped herself up to go to work, telling herself what a difference she was making. I don't think any woman who has ever felt the independence of bringing home a paycheck can deny that it's a very empowering feeling just to know that you can. Because her husband didn't value sah, I understood that she just simply chose to focus on the positive aspects of woh ft rather than dwell on what she wasn't doing. Call it self justification. And like you said, in the end it couldn't be both that she was feeling on top of the world and regretting that she wasn't sah. But the mind is a powerful thing and ppl can fool themselves for a long time. So if she felt she had no choice but to woh ft, would it be more positive to keep telling herself how great it was, or constantly dwell on the fact that she she 's rather be sah?
I agree most of the problem was her relationship with her husband. They didn't have the same values and were incompatible from the start. Her employemnt was just a major hot button; their differences of opinion centered around it. I wouldn't have married a man who didn't share my values in that area, but she did and that was how her life with this man panned out. As far as the broken marriage, they didn't divorce until after the boys were grown. IMO, all those years they were probably just putting off the inevitable. But she seemed to feel that there wasn't the time to nurture their realtionship anyway
As far as my OP, I was stating what she told me during one conversation. SHE was placing the blame on her woh. She chose to focus on the feeling of independence it gave her because she felt she had no choice at the time due to her husband's opinions. I guess there were positives to focus on at the time, but as the saying goes, 'Hindsight is always 20/20.' She was telling me all that because some of my co-workers were critical of my choice to quit work and sah with my baby. One point I think she was trying to make was that ppl who criticize the most may secretly be envious. She said at 25, she would have been saying the same things as my critical co-workers were saying maybe even convincing herself that she truly felt that way, all the while secretly regretting that her kids were at home with the nanny and not with her.
Now I want to ask you a question. You obviously feel very strongly that ppl should woh ft. Suppose you were married to a man who felt that your children need a parent at home with them. I am assuming from your posts that you make a salary sufficient to solely support yourself, the husband and your kids. If your husband decided that he wanted to sah with the kids while you went to work, how would you feel about that? How supportive would you (or could you) be given your strong opionions? What do you suppose would happen eventually if neither of you was willing to compromise?
Or lets suppose you're married to a very traditional man who wants you to sah with your kids and you really want to woh. If you compromised, quit your job and sah, how would you approach every day? Would you try to make the best of things? Would you possibly need to remind yourself that there's value in what you're now doing? Maybe focus on the advantages that what you're doing (sah) has over what you'd like to be doing (woh)? Or maybe even try to convince yourself that you really don't want to woh when in fact you do? Or would you constantly dwell on the fact that you don't want to sah and make yourself feel more miserable? Would you try to look forward to spending the days with your kids? Or would you be inwardly sulking because you feel like you should instead be woh? Would it be fair to say that you would devote yourself to the full-time care of your children? And would doing so mean that you didn't want woh? And perhaps if you really felt the need to justify your decision (even though it wasn't fully your decision), you may even tell yourself or others that all mothers need to do what you're doing instead of running off to the office every day like Mary-next-door, all the while you're secretly envious of her woh status?
Sometimes there's a big difference in what we tell ourselves and what we actually feel. And sometimes we can convince ourselves that we believe things we don't, which explains the discrepancies in my former supervisor's comments pertaining to her situation. Interestingly, I ran into one of my former co-workers at the park yesterday. She was one of the ones who had been critical of me for quitting work to sah. Now six years later, what is she doing? You guessed it; she's sah. She remarried, had two more kids, husband is a pediatrician and she now is a sahm. Her former husband had been a manager of a fast-food restaurant and lacked the income to allow her to sah and back then she was very vocal in telling others how wrong sah was. Apparently she no longer sees it that way. I mentioned this online debate, and she pretty much told me that what she said to me six years ago stemmed from bitterness and jealousy. I found this interesting. Maybe it's the ppl who scream the loudest and are the most indignant who are the most insecure in their positions.
That's why I broke things off with him. I knew I could do better and I did. As stated before, I now have a supportive husband and a wonderful family. After my ex-fiance I pretty much gave up on getting married and then I hit the jackpot. I did come to my senses. Quit being so judgemental. There are plenty of divorced moms on this board. Ppl make mistakes. Luckily I never had to go through a divorce because I came to my senses and it didn't take long after really discovering what he expected of me and how clueless he was about childrearing in the first place. Did I ever say in the OP that I thought his expectations were reasonable or that I thought I could do all that? NO!!
What I do find interesting though is that you have never been married. So while you claim it's so easy to raise children and work full-time, there is one aspect that you don't know about first hand and that is strengthening and maintaining a positive marital relationship and balancing it with working and childrearing. The best marriages don't just happen--they require work and you can't take your spouse for granted, put the relationship on the back burner and not nourish it and still expect for it to thrive. You as a single parent can focus on what YOU want from life and how YOU will help your children adjust, but you don't have any experience when the YOU becomes "WE" and when YOU are no longer center stage.
It doesn't sound as though you are immune from mistakes either. I'll respond to your judgemental questions with one of my own. How is it that you, never having been married, ended up with not one, but two kids out of wedlock? Did you not learn anything the first time around?
I think you might be a tad bit confused. Cyducks is a divorced mother of one grown son.
As for this, "You as a single parent can focus on what YOU want from life and how YOU will help your children adjust, but you don't have any experience when the YOU becomes "WE" and when YOU are no longer center stage. ", it seems to imply single parenting is selfish.
Single Parenting is not selfish. I think most people come to single parenting after much hearbreak and heartache. I have been a single parent when I had my first child out of wedlock and didn't marry the father until our child was fourteen months old. I am now a single parent because I was widowed on 12-27. I don't think either of those things make me a selfish parent. I would prefer, with my dying breath, to not be
Very well said. Good point. I'm glad to see posts such as yours that encourage objective thinking regarding others' lives rather than bashing the "other side". I'm inferring from your post that you and dh are very supportive of one anothers aspirations. Sounds like you have a great relationship. IMO, having it all in a marriage = finding the appropriate balance of "I" and "WE". You seem to pride yourself on your independence and at the same time you seem not to view your marital relationship as a threat to it. Your sons and your future daughters in law could really benefit from that example.
If you look at the post I was responding to from Cyducks, she said she was 43 years old and NEVER married. That statement is why I responded as I did.
No, being a single parent doesn't make you a selfish parent. I think if you read the post by Cyducks I was responding to, my response will make more sense. She did say that she haad never been married.
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"Well, know what? You just can't "drop" out of parenting and expect to get that time back to give to your kids. "
FT
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"Professional men whose wives are sahms tend to advance further in their careers than men with wives who woh. I don't see that as a problem. Some women who feel the need to compete with their husbands may view it as such; but since I feel no need to compete with dh I'm not at all bothered by it. "
LOL, I'm sure that's true in general.
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Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
She pumped herself up to go to work, telling herself what a difference she was making. I don't think any woman who has ever felt the independence of bringing home a paycheck can deny that it's a very empowering feeling just to know that you can. Because her husband didn't value sah, I understood that she just simply chose to focus on the positive aspects of woh ft rather than dwell on what she wasn't doing. Call it self justification. And like you said, in the end it couldn't be both that she was feeling on top of the world and regretting that she wasn't sah. But the mind is a powerful thing and ppl can fool themselves for a long time. So if she felt she had no choice but to woh ft, would it be more positive to keep telling herself how great it was, or constantly dwell on the fact that she she 's rather be sah?
I agree most of the problem was her relationship with her husband. They didn't have the same values and were incompatible from the start. Her employemnt was just a major hot button; their differences of opinion centered around it. I wouldn't have married a man who didn't share my values in that area, but she did and that was how her life with this man panned out. As far as the broken marriage, they didn't divorce until after the boys were grown. IMO, all those years they were probably just putting off the inevitable. But she seemed to feel that there wasn't the time to nurture their realtionship anyway
As far as my OP, I was stating what she told me during one conversation. SHE was placing the blame on her woh. She chose to focus on the feeling of independence it gave her because she felt she had no choice at the time due to her husband's opinions. I guess there were positives to focus on at the time, but as the saying goes, 'Hindsight is always 20/20.' She was telling me all that because some of my co-workers were critical of my choice to quit work and sah with my baby. One point I think she was trying to make was that ppl who criticize the most may secretly be envious. She said at 25, she would have been saying the same things as my critical co-workers were saying maybe even convincing herself that she truly felt that way, all the while secretly regretting that her kids were at home with the nanny and not with her.
Now I want to ask you a question. You obviously feel very strongly that ppl should woh ft. Suppose you were married to a man who felt that your children need a parent at home with them. I am assuming from your posts that you make a salary sufficient to solely support yourself, the husband and your kids. If your husband decided that he wanted to sah with the kids while you went to work, how would you feel about that? How supportive would you (or could you) be given your strong opionions? What do you suppose would happen eventually if neither of you was willing to compromise?
Or lets suppose you're married to a very traditional man who wants you to sah with your kids and you really want to woh. If you compromised, quit your job and sah, how would you approach every day? Would you try to make the best of things? Would you possibly need to remind yourself that there's value in what you're now doing? Maybe focus on the advantages that what you're doing (sah) has over what you'd like to be doing (woh)? Or maybe even try to convince yourself that you really don't want to woh when in fact you do? Or would you constantly dwell on the fact that you don't want to sah and make yourself feel more miserable? Would you try to look forward to spending the days with your kids? Or would you be inwardly sulking because you feel like you should instead be woh? Would it be fair to say that you would devote yourself to the full-time care of your children? And would doing so mean that you didn't want woh? And perhaps if you really felt the need to justify your decision (even though it wasn't fully your decision), you may even tell yourself or others that all mothers need to do what you're doing instead of running off to the office every day like Mary-next-door, all the while you're secretly envious of her woh status?
Sometimes there's a big difference in what we tell ourselves and what we actually feel. And sometimes we can convince ourselves that we believe things we don't, which explains the discrepancies in my former supervisor's comments pertaining to her situation. Interestingly, I ran into one of my former co-workers at the park yesterday. She was one of the ones who had been critical of me for quitting work to sah. Now six years later, what is she doing? You guessed it; she's sah. She remarried, had two more kids, husband is a pediatrician and she now is a sahm. Her former husband had been a manager of a fast-food restaurant and lacked the income to allow her to sah and back then she was very vocal in telling others how wrong sah was. Apparently she no longer sees it that way. I mentioned this online debate, and she pretty much told me that what she said to me six years ago stemmed from bitterness and jealousy. I found this interesting. Maybe it's the ppl who scream the loudest and are the most indignant who are the most insecure in their positions.
What I do find interesting though is that you have never been married. So while you claim it's so easy to raise children and work full-time, there is one aspect that you don't know about first hand and that is strengthening and maintaining a positive marital relationship and balancing it with working and childrearing. The best marriages don't just happen--they require work and you can't take your spouse for granted, put the relationship on the back burner and not nourish it and still expect for it to thrive. You as a single parent can focus on what YOU want from life and how YOU will help your children adjust, but you don't have any experience when the YOU becomes "WE" and when YOU are no longer center stage.
It doesn't sound as though you are immune from mistakes either. I'll respond to your judgemental questions with one of my own. How is it that you, never having been married, ended up with not one, but two kids out of wedlock? Did you not learn anything the first time around?
I think you might be a tad bit confused. Cyducks is a divorced mother of one grown son.
As for this, "You as a single parent can focus on what YOU want from life and how YOU will help your children adjust, but you don't have any experience when the YOU becomes "WE" and when YOU are no longer center stage. ", it seems to imply single parenting is selfish.
Single Parenting is not selfish. I think most people come to single parenting after much hearbreak and heartache. I have been a single parent when I had my first child out of wedlock and didn't marry the father until our child was fourteen months old. I am now a single parent because I was widowed on 12-27. I don't think either of those things make me a selfish parent. I would prefer, with my dying breath, to not be
&nbs
No, being a single parent doesn't make you a selfish parent. I think if you read the post by Cyducks I was responding to, my response will make more sense. She did say that she haad never been married.
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