SAH IS HARMFUL!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2002
SAH IS HARMFUL!!!
2888
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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Avatar for outside_the_box_mom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 6:53am
I do agree with O123 for the most part. I was raised to be responsible for myself financially. I certainly saw what happens when a woman is 1) uneducated and 2) dependent on a man. It takes alot of trust to quit working and be completely dependent on someone else for your financial well-being. It's not a choice I'm willing to make.

However, where I disagree with O123 and militant SAHMs is that I don't think it's a black and white picture -- that either you work or you don't. The one thing women have today is opportunity. Today women can TIME their families to their own timetable and desires. A woman can have her children later in life, after she has built up a significant nest egg, or she can have them early and "get it over with" so to speak and then go back to her career. A woman can have one child or many. Due to birth control and the feminist movement, we aren't at the mercy of biology. And, thanks to technology and other factors, women can devise work schedules and jobs that suit their families.



outside_the_box_mom

Avatar for outside_the_box_mom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 7:55am
May I quote your words back at you? "You need to think of your daughters, your sister, your cousins . . . " I would also add, your female co-workers.

You are quitting a demanding male dominated field because you can't hack it. You can't hack the politics, the time involved, and the ageism that you think is direct at you. I believe you are 48 years old. You are probably mid-level. Which means you are getting a certain amount of flack directed your way, which is indicated by the venom in your posts whenever you talk about your job.

You also want a more flexible schedule that accommodates your children, and reading all your posts about your lazy butt husband, he has no inclination to help you with child rearing.

So you're basically on your own. Hence, you have opted for a less demanding field (time wise and politically) -- teaching. This will allow you the flexibility you need to do what you perceive is best for your daughters.

BUT! You can't admit to any of this BECAUSE you have spent years here telling us all how women MUST work and raise children too. That we MUST be a demanding fields -- like engineering. You have told us repeatedly your daugthers are in music simply so they learn math concepts which in turn will them turn out just like you. An analytical, logical person.

You take to task every woman who "opts out" because she is negatively impacting poor little you. Since women quit to become mommies, your stature is lowered in your chosen profession.

And yet, you are adding to this lessened stature by quitting to teach. You are moving from a male dominated profession to a female dominated profession. Ever heard of the "pink collar ghetto"? You are at its doors.

I don't care how many male engineers quit to teach. They can do that because they are men and men still rule the world. I know quite a few male consultants and uppper managers who take their children to meetings and people fawn all over them for being a "good parent." Let a woman do that and she would never be called back.

I personally don't care what you do. But please don't come here and take women who desire the same as you -- a flexible schedule that suits their families -- as a shot at your and your "career." You are in the same boat with the woman you have been skewering all these years.

outside_the_box_mom

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 9:29am
Oh WHERE is the standing ovation icon when you need one?

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 9:40am
Other than the 5 yrs between birth & all day K I work. I am educated, I'm a school teacher & started working when I was like 21 right out of college.

My dh & I decided to use my salary, when I'm working, for other things & not let it contribute to actual living expenses & bills.

I don't mind being dependent on my dh & if the roles were reversed & he stayed home for those 5 yrs he feels the same about being dependent on me. Which would be harder since he makes a great deal more than I.

I think each family has to decide if they want a SAHP & if they do, can they afford it. That is what we did. I don't believe all should provide SAHPs for their kids. That seems to me to be more of a case by case situation.

Being a teacher gives me the flexibility I wanted with motherhood. I get summers & holidays off with my dd & other days through the calendar and if it snows or gets icy I get to snuggle in with her rather than go to work & leave her with a sitter.

Paige

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 9:58am
You hit the proverbial nail on the head!
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-29-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 10:59am
Paige,

I'm glad you're not my kids' teacher! Sounds like it is something you do for all the wrong reasons(be off for holidays, weekends, summers)! What part of the states do you live anyway :>)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 11:03am
Well thank you for putting in words what I was thinking! LOL.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 11:12am

Paige,


I think what you've done for your family is just fine. But remember there is fairly large contigency of us who find things have gone very differently than we intended, when we saw that line on the stick.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 11:13am
I'm sorry you feel that way. I love teaching. I feel I was born to teach. I give my whole heart & sole to my kindergarten kiddies & I'm there for the parents. I've come away from several years making good friends that we now bbq together, exchange gifts with one another.

No, I didn't go into teaching for the wrong reasons but I am doing something I love and reaping the benefits you get with teaching (the days off, the long weeks & summer vacations).

Many women & men have went in to teaching for the right reasons as I have but also to reap the rewards. Why can't you have both?

We now live in Georgia. We have moved a few times but even bought a house this time so we are calling this home.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 11:20am
Where did I say it couldn't be another way? By choice or by just fact of life?

I can't help that it makes it harder for women as a whole. I'm not going to stick in the workforce when it isn't what we want to do in our lives.

I could take the 'heat'. I don't want to do it. My mother is in the nursing profession & raised us while being a WOHM. She still works today FT.

I can (and do currently) woh & raise my dd fine. But during the years btw birth & K I do not wish to work, dh & I agree we should have a sahp. So we do without the extra money for a period of a few years during that time.

If I was never going to marry and/or never have children I would have still became a school teacher because that is what I wanted to do in life career speaking.

I'm also making a great example for my DD as is my mother for her. I don't feel I'm doing something that is going to show her a way she shouldn't go.

I care about others, but not to the extent of changing my life & being a WOH continiously to benefit YOU or anyone else. Why should I live my entire life & have regrets of not SAH to benefit YOU or other women? That isn't right. We have the freedom to make choices that are best for our lives and I'm doing just that.

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