SAH IS HARMFUL!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
SAH IS HARMFUL!!!
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Thu, 07-08-2004 - 11:32am

Or at least this woman thinks so.

Okmrsmommy-36, CPmom to DD-16 and DS-14

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 2:32pm
Oh but the men seem to manage to retain a sense of responsibility for supporting their families regardless of their "time of life" needs - don't they. Even when they stop doing that - its generally very temporary and in order to prepare themselves to do it more effectively in the future...or maybe to enable them to do it with more life enjoyment. But they rarely just toss in the towel and *need* to dump their responsibilty because they lost a job.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 2:43pm
I am not sure how your post relates to mine. I was originally trying to speak to the fact that many women DON'T throw in the towel permanently. They need to stop for a while and so they do. Some pick it back up and others don't. It doesn't necessarily follow that all women who stop working to care for their kids have permanently left the workforce.

And men have nothing to do with it. The life needs discussion for men would be totally separate.

Jenna

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 3:34pm
Statisticly maybe.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 3:41pm

Simply, men will not even be able to consider being sahps until they end up in marriages where such a move would represent a financially sound decision.


30% of working women outearn their husbands.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 3:51pm
The statistics address groups, not individuals. While statistically more SAHMs are less educated than WOHMs, I am absolutely sure that plenty of SAHMs are very well educated as well. In fact, from the link I posted, the differences are probably not that huge since only 5% more under educated women in lower paying jobs are likely to leave the workforce than well educated women.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 3:57pm
Was your mom a SAHM permanently after being a teacher till you were 4? Or did she just stay home for a short time and then resume teaching? If she became a SAHM from the time you were 4 through the remainder of your childhood, then you were quite exceptional if you managed to think of her as a teacher for all those years. But if she stayed home for ONE little year and was a teacher for all other years of your childhood, why would you think of her as anything but a teacher?

Suppose your mom had gone from teaching into engineering when you were 4? Would you still think of her as a teacher? Or would you think of her as an engineer? Because that would be a closer analogy to what grimalskin's kids will see. They won't see mom be a teacher for one year and then go back to engineering (unless she changes her mind). They'll see mom as a teacher and have distant memories of her as an engineer. But "teacher" wuill be her defining role, a stereotypically feminine job.

Did you see your dad as a student for the remainder of your childhood? I bet not. You have memories of him in school but "student" was not his role. Whatever job he then took was his role.

I wasn't saying grimalskin's kids will have no memories of her being an engineer, they will, especially the 10 year old. What I was saying is that her role as a teacher will be more IMPORTANT in their minds than her earlier role as an engineer, and have more role-model force.

And I highly doubt that even highschool students really give a rat's behind what their teacher's did before they became teachers unless it was something viewed as cool, like pro-football player. Her prior role as an engineer will not affect kid's view of her as an engineering role model. It will hardly register at all, even if she says it repeatedly in class. Kids really just don't care. (There will be exceptions, but most don't.)

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 4:18pm
I had a chemistry teacher in high school who was actually a PhD chemist who had worked for years in R&D in a major research company...all the kids just thought of him as a boring old high school teacher. They weren't in the least interested in the fact that he had actually been a research chemist and worked with some cool stuff in the past. The only reason I happened to pay attention is because, by some bizarre coincidence, my father had worked with him in the same company at some point and had talked about some of his projects. I've known a few engineers turned teachers...after a few years, they were known as teachers only and their engineering past had gotten completely lost.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 4:52pm
Where do you work? That's not what is thought where I work. It is not uncommon for enineers to leave the profession early for a different career and it sends no such message. In my dept alone there are three men, all within 5 years of my age preparing to leave for other careers right alongside me. One is opening his own lawn service, one is going to law school and one is opening a motorcycle dealership. The message leaving engineering early for other careers sends is that engineers like to try new things and we do. Companies don't discourge this kind of attrition unless we have some special talent because they'd have to downsize out older engineers if we didn't decide on our own to persue other interests.

BTW, I am one of three engineers, in my lab, who left/are leaving to teach. It's common enough that no one thinks twice about it. Heck, both me and the engineer in law school have flexed our days to take daytime classes. Some leave, some stay. The ones who leave provide job security for the ones who stay because companies don't need to keep all of their older workers and they don't want to. When the four of us leave, the company will be able to hire 6 younger engineers in our place for the same money. Years from now, some of those will move on and the cycle repeats. Early retirement to another career is not at all unusual for engineers. Scientists are another story. They often have a knowledge base worth hanging onto and companies do what they can to keep them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 4:53pm
The day it is stereotypical for women to have a successful career as an engineer and then take an early retirement to teaching will be a day I will celebrate. The day it is sterotypical for women to teach chemistry, physics and engineering will be a day I will celebrate because we will have come a long way.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 4:55pm
LOL. Both of my girls are now questioning why I want to teach since engineers make good money. They'll remember. Besides, I'm 2 years off from making the change. They'll be 12 and 9 when I take my first job as a teacher. Yes, they will remember that I was an engineer. I also plan on teaching college classes in engineering so I'm sure they'll remember.

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