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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Gee, to think I'm a sahw and we get all this precious time with dh, the breadwinner of the family.
"IMO, neither of the extreme cases (extensive daycare hours and secluded sahing) are beneficial to the child."
What do you consider "extensive"?
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Practically speaking, however, I have to say that there was very little I couldn't get done easily during the week. The jobs that usually got left to the weekend were the ones that had logistical problems with small children: for instance, laundry facilities two floors down in a dangerous basement with no dryer (hence time needed for hanging up clothing). I simply could not take a baby or even a toddler down with me and could not leave them two floors up in an apartment completely unsupervised for the 10-20 minutes I needed to hang up laundry. Rather, I certainly could have left them alone but this is not considered acceptable supervision of small children these days. Even so, the laundry was always my task while dh did other things with the kids. Snow shoveling and lawn mowing was also tough, due to the fact that our garden was dangerously close to a street on one side and had a 6 ft drop on the other to cement. We weren't allowed to put up fences and enough near accidents with our kids when they were very young convinced us that there was no way to do work in the garden and simultaneously supervise the kids safely....it simply wasn't worth the risk. I can't remember when you went back to work with your kids, was it around 4 months or so? Were they crawling while you were still at home? I found that some tasks became easier and others became seriously challenging as the children became more mobile.
Laura
Laura
In the long run, its *much better* for employers to offer sick leave. Employees who come to work sick are not only less productive than healthy ones, but they create an unhealthy environment for other employees. By paying said employees to stay home when they are sick, they are more likely to lose 1-2 days of productivity by said employee when the alternative is for said employee to work at a much lower productivity level for 4-5 days and for fellow employees to also get sick and work at reduced productivity.
A healthy employee is a much better employee than a sick one. Its in the employer's best interest to get that employee well quickly. Taking a day or two off certainly speeds that process.
BTW, I'd much rather have my dentist cancel my appointment because she is sick than to go in, have her breathe
Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
Hollie
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Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.
Laura
If there was a SAHP in the house...would it be in her best interest to call in sick when she wasn't?
I agree with the whole "if your sick, stay home" explanation.
In general I would consider anything over 55 hours each week to be excessive for any child.
Janet
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