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| Mon, 05-01-2006 - 5:18pm |
For all the stay at home moms, yes I'm one of them. I have one question, do you plan on going back to work once all of your children are in Elementary school? Or do you like staying at home and have decided to never work again? I am just curious, my husband and I have talked about it. I am mainly home just for my kids, to be here when they come home from school is nice, but, I tend to get bored easly, so I have decided once my 3 year old enters into Elementary school, I will be going back to work. I have thought and thought about this, my husband is fine if I decide not to work or if I decide to go back and work. We are financially stable so I can choose to stay home if I want. I would be working so i won't be bored, while the kids are at school all day long. I do plan on working part time, so i can be home when they get home from school. I'm not the type to sit around and do nothing all day, right now my kids are home half the day at least my 5 year old is, so I have her, and my youngest to be home for. I just can't envision myself sitting here all day long with no children around, going gee what do i do now, ain't gonna happen.
I'm done rambling, waiting for replies!!!!

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I am SAHM of a 3yo and 9mo and feel very fortunate to be able to be at home with them. I have been thinking about this a lot...our situation is that DH is military and with his crazy training schedule, workdays beginning at 5:30 or 6:00am and not ending until 6:30-8:00pm, and add to that deployments, I feel that I am the one consistent thing to my babies and need to be there.
I keep very busy volunteering on post and at our church keeping kids (that way I can spend time with my babies, make sure they get socialization, and give back to our church community). I think I will end up starting back part-time when both kiddos are in school so I can have the best of both worlds (and so I can finally finish paying off student loans, lol)!
Because sometimes as they get within visualizing distance of that pinnacle, they realize that the price they'll have to pay to reach it isn't something they want to pay. And they apply their drive elsewhere than in pinnacle-reaching. It does seem to hapen in the arts and entertainment field. Filmakers realize that in order to reach a Spielberg level of success they will have to create several blockbusters but they much prefer small, character-driven movies with almost no special effects so they turn their drive and intelligence to those, knowing they will NEVER be as succesful at the box office (Wes Anderson).
Or they realize that to reach a Britney Spears level of success (heh!) they will have to sing songs that an enormous number of 14yo girls will adore and they just don't want to, so they don't. (Fiona Apple.)
In my own hospital world, some people see that the pinnacle of success will actually take them away from the work they love and suck them into a higher level where more time is spent in meetings than with patients or in the lab and they just can't bear the thought of that. They'd rather keep seeing lots of patients and apply their drive to figuring out what;s wrong with them than become the head of X and spend the rest of their lives in endless meetings about hospital budgets and policies.
Perhaps because they are not slaves to their own ambition?
You, as well as your DH - have taken sidetracks in your careers so that you can better support what is the highest priority to you - your family.
Does that mean you are less intelligent/driven than the person(s) who took those higher paying jobs? Or does it mean you know when enough is enough and you're perfectly fine caring for your household with the income you have?
Or does it mean you're more driven wrt caring for your family, than driven wrt becoming a private practice high earning lawyer? Since there are some women who no doubt ARE high earning private practice lawyers who are successfully raising families - does that mean somehow they are better than you?
I do not deny that I feel women as a group are still underachieving wrt higher pay jobs. It drives me nuts, too. However, I have far too many girlfriends and also, friends of my mom's I'm close to - to belittle their intelligence. And how do you define drive and intelligence? My mom's IQ is near 150 and she has a master's level education - yet she sewed, canned, baked, gardened/ did home repairs, did all the paperwork/bills/vacation planning, exercised hauled 4 kids EVERYWHERE, managed to have 4 kids who (if I recall) read by age 4 and graduated at the top of their classes, and oh yeah - participated many hours/month in vollunteer work - taking those 4 kids with her when she went on the weekends.
She landed in legal work eventually, BTW, a while after our dad died.
Was her IQ somehow lower during those years she SAH? What about when she was a teacher, janitor, a secretary? Did it only go back to 150 once she was doing legal work (albeit not a lawyer)?
Mondo
ITA!!!! All 3 levels of management above me, are abroad right now. They can only function with a SAHP, and each one of them expresses regret about how little time they have with their kids.
It's JUST NOT WORTH IT TO ME.
My DH can make insane $$ with 1 1/2 OT right now. But he doesn't. My working buys him the ability to come home on time, and to have leisurely mornings with the girls (he's here till 8:30 or so depending).
It's a cost/benefit analysis that isn't all about $$.
Mondo
Women need to *truly* support choices that other women make, and not just pay lip service to being all about choice.
Not exactly. My undergraduate degree is in marketing management and English communications w/a concentration in PR. After doing the corporate thing for a year and a half and hating it, I went back to school to get my Masters in teaching and my certification. When I went back to school, I was going to be certified at the secondary level in English or history. However, I started subbing while I was in grad school and fell in love w/early childhood SPED. As I had every intention of working for our local school district (in which EC SPED teachers are compensated just like every other educator in the district), the salary would have been a livable wage. No one becomes a teacher for the money, but "supporting a family" on my wages was never an issue b/c DH and I both knew we wanted me to SAH when we had kids. As it turned out, I started SAH sooner than that...but, no. I did not want a high paying job I hated (BTDT). I wanted a job I enjoyed, which in my case was working w/special needs preschoolers.
It's kind of a moot point now though, isn't it?
It's the "he knew he wanted me to SAH" thing that bugs me, although it certainly does seem to work for you guys.
I hear quite a bit of that type of thing - being somewhat privy to a handful of execs. It usually goes hand in hand with "women can manage but men lead" and "men are biologically programmed to be breadwinners, women nurturers" and "be sure to hire a good looking receptionist" and my personal favorites...."make sure your wife looks good on your arm" and "too bad you can't upgrade to the newer model every 10 years".
It just all goes together in the back of my head - I want a woman to support me and make me LOOK good.
I realize that not all guys think that way, it's just that when I hear someone who WANTS to have a SAHW (so they don't have to be worried about those you know - TRIVIAL matters - better suited to women) - I just have a knee jerk reaction.
Edited 5/12/2006 4:52 pm ET by mondomom
Mondo
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