SAHM's place in a household

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-17-2003
SAHM's place in a household
929
Sun, 05-30-2004 - 4:17pm
At the last playgroup meeting I went to, all sahm, the conversation turned to how much everyone did in their house. More to the point everyone started talking about one of the members that wasn't in attendance that day. Apparantly her dh does 50% of the household chores and everyone else was basically saying how lazy she was. The rest gave examples of how they did "everything" in the house down to mowing the lawn and taking out the trash and the main concensus was "what does she do all day", and "her poor dh". They also lamenated how their dh's didn't know how to bathe the children, how they would forget to feed the kids dinner on the rare event they were out and dh was watching the kids, and how the dh's didn't know how to go out with the kids (like grocery shopping).

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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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:11am
Why does a mother's work status affect how involved dad is? Are you saying that because I stay at home, my husband is no longer allowed to come to t-ball? Is there an unwritten rule that only I can go to the school play? Darn, I was not aware of this, of course I will rush right back to work so he can be involved. OH WAIT, he does come to all that stuff, even though I stay home, weird huh?
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:22am
Dh is very involved & I'm a sahw. He is home most every morning of the week from the time dd gets up around 6:30am until noon-1pm. Nature of his work. We even get couple time during the afternoon if he has no clients & everything is caught up on with his job while dd takes her long nap.

Gee, to think I'm a sahw and we get all this precious time with dh, the breadwinner of the family.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:30am

"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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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:34am
Well, now I was going by grimal's numbers: she calculated about 40 hours a week working time for the WOHP, giving 40 hours per week for the SAHP to accomplish all the housework that she figured took about 15 hours per week to accomplish. If one is out for 30 hours per week, one technically does not have that 15 hours she calculated that one is even at home to get the housework done.

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

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:36am
It may equally well imply a lot of moving around but not necessarily long hours. For careers that require a lot of moving, trying to balance and develop two careers simultaneously can be extremely difficult and it may make more sense for one parent to SAH.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-18-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:43am

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.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-18-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:44am

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.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:47am
I really think that the best bonding happens during the grunt work and less than perfect times. Dealing with dirty diapers and throw-up shows a child just how much a parent is willing to do for that child, how much responsibility they took for that child.


Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:54am

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.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 06-03-2004 - 11:56am
It is non-beneficial to the child if the hours spent in daycare are interfering with his/her relationship to his/her parents. Non-beneficial to the child if it causes him/her to be generally unhappy. The amount of time is dependant upon the child. For my first son, 45 hours a week in daycare was an acceptable amount. When I went part time, he was in daycare 10 hour days three days a week - he was fine and thrived there. He would probably have been fine and still thrived with 50 hours a week - but I think that would have been the upper limits for him. With my second son, 10 hour days (no matter that it was only three day a week) was not fine. He survived but he wasn't a happy camper. He thrived in being at home and having limited preschool hours.

In general I would consider anything over 55 hours each week to be excessive for any child.

Janet

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