Is the SAHM the new status symbol?
Find a Conversation
Is the SAHM the new status symbol?
| Tue, 09-23-2003 - 10:36pm |
In the 70's and 80's women fought to get into the workforce (the whole Ms. magazine generation)...and then the tide turned in the late 1990's when more women started to stay home by choice. Now, it seems like being a SAHM is a status symbol....and superior to being a working mom.
Kat

Pages
Why do you refuse to tell us how many children you have, what you did for work (how long you did it)? It might shed some light on your views.
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
My children are 8 and 4. I have a degree in business. I returned to college so that I could teach elementary education. I worked in hotel & restaurant management. Never taught school as I became a wife before I pursued a career in that field.
I never said one had to cook, clean and do laundry in order to contribute. I asked you for examples of "contributing" since you said one can contribute without volunteering or working.
Are you saying that "by being available by having all the time on your side, for your husband and kids" this is a contribution?
One can still "contribute" to their own personal immediate & extended families without doing any of the above. IMHO
Yes, dh & I feel it is a great contribution to have me available with tons of time for him and the kids. Thankfully, we are able to live as we desire.
The cheque tends to represent reward for passed effort on the part of the individual. He put in his time, and earned the money. One way or another. He traded some of his overall life-alloted time, for example, for the money. He now is giving away what he has previously used his time and effort to earn. The time he originally put in for the money, has now turned into time he put in to the charity. Or it might as well be. Whether you are rich handing over millions, or poor handing over pennies, that is what the money represents. It is difficult for people to part with what they have earned and with what represents lifestyle available to the themselves and those they love.
When a person donates time to a charity - they aren't loosing the time. Its still exits, and it still belongs to the volunteer. No charity has availed themself of this time in order to use as they see fit. Most volunteers choose to put their time in where they want, when they want, how they want, according to what is convenient to them. There is nothing particularily difficult about it. The typical volunteer is doing something they enjoy, or even something they have decided will benefit themselves or their own family. Its often even "nothing better to do time". Its not usually time, that if not put into the volunteer effort, would have resulted in some other monetary reward, or other reward. Ask any school volunteer if she'll give up the stint at her childs school in the suburb, and volunteer instead at the school down in the city, an hour away, that really needs extra help. See how far that gets you.
People who do things with their lives to put them in a position of really, really being able to help people in special and unique ways - eg doctors - and who then go on to volunteer their time in that capacity are particularily admirable. As are the people who do things with their lives to put them in a position of really really being able to help people in special and unique ways - eg financially successful people - and who then go out and donate their money to achieve just that.
Everyone else just never put in the time and effort required to aquire the kind of skill or cash that could make their donations of time or money, all that valuable.
But in the end, all the volunteers in the world won't negate the need for charitable cash donations. But all the money in the world can negate the need for charitable time donations. Because what you could then have is paid help. And the help didn't just get any less valuable because it was paid.
Edited 10/2/2003 10:51:08 AM ET by silverunity
Pages