SAHM/WOHD Issue
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| Thu, 07-13-2006 - 4:35pm |
My husband came home the other day with this story:
His coworker, J and J's wife, K just had a set of twins born via in-vitro after 17 years of marriage and infertility. Anyway, the end of the pregnancy was difficult and K was on bedrest and the babies were born (I think) 6 weeks early - one of them had to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks after birth. OK - that's the background.
K got a lot of attention during pregnancy - not being able to move around on her own. Now the babies are 4 months old, but although she is a SAHM, she expects (yes, expects) J to leave work every day at 4. That's the normal time, but at times they are required to work overtime if something has broken and needs to be fixed before the next shift comes in. According to my husband, J comes home every night and fixes dinner, washes bottles, takes care of the babies, and then gets up with them in the middle of the night. The only time K is bothered with them is during the day when she's home alone. (I know, this account is how J related it to my husband, so the story is probably more one-sided than the situation really is.) And K may have post-partum depression and that can explain needing J so much....
K's mom and sister both lives within a halfmile of her and can come to help with the babies, but she expects J to leave work everyday at 4 to do it. She also calls a lot during the day. Anyway, the other day something had broken and J needed to stay past 4, but he tried to leave - my husband's and J's boss told J that he needed to decide what is more important - him taking care of those babies or him working to provide for those babies? Sounds to me like J's job is starting to be in jeopardy and he makes pretty good money for the area of the country we live in. Replacing that income would be very hard.
Just wanted to see what y'all thought about this.

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yes,yes she does. why would i make up something like that anyway jlkuhnke? sure,i love oprah but i don't make up things she says. heck,i don't make things up. period..........she's appeasing her audience with that line because her audience are mostly sahms and i agree with it 100%!
>>but how someone who has never had kids would know im not sure. <<
you know,thanks for bringing up something i have always wondered since the last time oprah's line was mentioned......no oprah isn't a mom. in fact,she has adamantly (sp) said she would never be one because of what she acknowledges as very wrong with her own upbringing. but tell me,why should her opinion be dismissed because she *isn't* a mom? are you suggesting that therapists or motivational speakers in general are phoney too unless they've walked a mile in your shoes? i just don't understand that logic.
>>a teen like mine to relate my expereince is not false hope <<
glad to hear you rely on your teenager to define what is difficult or not for you.......i can't say i always do that. while my kids are pretty much happy kids and help me find joy and happiness in little things, my responsibility as a parent is to set the rgiht example which *isn't* always easy. but you knew that already! ;)
I read her posts also. My understanding was that if she had to nurse the baby, something her dh couldn't do, he would laugh at the idea of getting out of bed for the sole purpose of "delivering" the baby to her in bed. I didn't take that to mean that her dh would laugh at the idea of getting up with the baby if the reason for the baby's crying was something besides the need to be nursed.
Robin
Yes, that's probably partly true....but then so do lawyers...and I don't really have an opinion on them.
and no, sorry I didn't see a link.
I am in math, and I guess I'm partly jelous, that I do some similar courses to engineers, and no body wants to hire me! Every career fair I've been to is basically only for those in eng or business. So sorry that i worked my butt off for four years in math, so i can't do the same stuff they do...
I also just admire them. They have "geer week" which is just their faculty, they have the best cheers at orientation, the best buildings in the school, the newest computer labs, the coolest sayings on their t-shirts, the iron ring, the inside jokes. And then they get all the career opportunities.
My faculty is hardly a community at all, everyone competes all the time (won't help you because you're in their class, so they make excuses). Science cheers are bad, there's no centrality, like t-shirts, or sayings, our exec sucks, and the buildings aren't as nice (but they are building one right now). In science everyone is in their little groups...Math, physics, biology, neuroscience....too segmented.
I agree. When did it become ok to take personal calls at work? Emergency calls, fine, but to spend 5 minutes of every hour on personal calls...great work ethic.
Robin
***What I am trying to get you to admit that IF you DID need his help him missing a few hours or minutes of sleep would NOT be the WORST thing ever right????***
No it wouldn't be the worst thing ever. Nor have I ever said it would be.
***I understand in these kinds of debates it is hard not to bring your personal experience in but why because you NEVER it is so horrible to admit that some need their DH's help???***
I am not really understanding these statements. I haven't said that a woman doesn't need her DH help at night. What I have said ALL along is that I think it is lazy for the SAHP to make her DH get up every night at every feeding just because she doesn't want to when he has to work tomorrow. Just like I think it would be ridiculous for a WOHP to tell the SAHP to get up in the morning when they do. Seems silly. There is a difference between help and laziness.
I don't understand what other meaning "tough" could have...how is it not "hard" or "difficult"?
I've always thought of them as synonyms.
Ever hear of school? I believe I stated that her DS was born during tax season. (Her dh is a CPA) The only child I had at home was my youngest. Her oldest was 4, and her other DD was 2.5. My DD was 3. The three girls play beautifully together.
***I thought it was really tough to watch three (so much that you thought it was pretty close to the equal of rearing twin 4 month old preemies***
I believe I said that having 3 (sick infant, a 2 yr old and a teen) at times was pretty close.
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