SAHM's place in a household
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| Sun, 05-30-2004 - 4:17pm |
They don't know me well enough and I just listened but I only do 60% of the housework and almost no cooking. My dh does almost all the shopping and takes the preschooler and baby and he likes to cook. He also works a job and earns a 6 figure salary occasionally doing overtime. He does all lawn and garbarge stuff. He also bathes both the kids. I do everything else plus the bills and if we have problems with anyone about anything my dh likes me to handle it since I can pit-bull anyone and calling the attorney general or the BBB is something I am familar with. I only mention it because these women did say their dh's were the ones to take care of business conflicts and the bills.
This got me thinking what do people consider a sahm role in the house to be? Obviously these women think in order to stay home and do your share, perhaps to make up for not bringing home a pay check, you do almost everything and if you don't you are obviously lazy. I have always thought of sahm as being more for the kids and me. My main concern is doing things with my kids as a family and showing them a good/educational time with their environment. It's really not to make my dh's life easier nor mine but if it happens anyway great. My dh married me for the person I am, not for what I could do to make his life easier. He would never think of degrading me nor threatening me over houswork which is one thing that alot of women in my playgroup said their dh's did.
So what is a sahm role or job duties in your personal opinion? Do you feel a person staying home should have to do more in order for it to be "fair" to the person working?

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I was talking about MY husband's company.
Susan
Susan
How can the difference be so small? First it's averaged over time so this average includes weekends, vacations, holidays and maternity leaves when WP's have just as much time as SAHP's. Second, the theory of diminshing returns does apply here. When you have more time to do something, you tend to become less efficient at it. When you have less time, you tend to use it more wisely. Third, preschoolers sleep a lot. Fourth, dads in DWP households tend to do more (did in this study but I've read since then this gap is closing but this study measures parenting time by both parents.) so they do make up some of the difference.
Take me. I'm boringly average (Like most people, I used to think I did better than average until I actually looked up averages). My kids attended dc appx 8.5 hours a day when they were little and slept 2-3 of those so they spent appx 6 waking hours in dc on work days. I worked appx 65% of the time so they spent an average of 3.9 waking hours in dc as babies. Now, if I had those 3.9 hours, what would I do with them? According to other studies SAHM's spend more time sleeping, doing housework, nurturing friendships and on hobbies than do WM's. I'm sure I would use, at least, half of that time on other persuits so let's say it's 2 hours a day difference. Now apply limiting returns. Because I WOH, I concentrate mother/child time into the evenings and on weekends. Would my weekends and evenings be spent the same way if I didn't WOH? Not likely so I'd probably spend less time with my kids in the evenings than I do now if I SAH and gained those 3.9 hours during the day. That could easily eat up another hour of time to bring us to an hour a day difference. Not too far from the 42 minutes the study found. Now factor in that dads are more involved when moms work and you're there.
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