"We don 't believe in that [WOHM]"

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
"We don 't believe in that [WOHM]"
2078
Mon, 01-09-2006 - 11:31am

On Friday, as I was driving hom from work, I stumbled across an interview with the wife of the one surviving miner from the collapse in WVa. In the course of the interview, someone asked her if she worked.

Her response was that they don't believe in that. She explained that her husband was very proud of the fact that he was the sole supporter of the family, and that he didn't need her help in supporting them. She explained that they just don't believe in women working after they have kids and husbands, and that they believe her place is at home with the kids.

My heart really goes out to her, and this post isn't about her, but about the sentiment that women shouldn't work because their place is at home. And being a real man, even if it means working in dangerous conditions, long hours, holding two jobs and being a step away from poverty at every turn, means that your wife doesn't work.

I suppose this is the first time that I've heard someone, not a movie character or a character in a book, express this sentiment. I don't understand why anyone would be proud to limit their spouse's potential. Or why be proud that you live right on the poverty line?

If they didn't see the dangers of their POV before, surely that entire community, and even the whole country, has now seen the risk that we talk about on here all the time, the risk that suddenly the SAHM will need to find a way to financially support the family. I wonder if anyone will re-think what they believe in.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998

<>


That's why it wasn't clear.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998

I don't follow you.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2005

I have read a lot of the past posts and I do apologize to you (and only you) for lashing out. I was reading posts from several different posters and got caught up after I was attacked.

I realize you were just asking me to clarify and not attakcing me. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I was on the defensive after a couple of really nasty posts from another poster.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
I think at that young age, morals and values and societal standards are the exact same thing. I can't really think of a moral or value taught at home to a <5yo that wouldn't be exactly the same as a societal standard taught by a dc provider or preschool teacher. I will also credit dd's preschool teachers with teaching her a moral/value/societal standard that I was having a very difficult time teaching her at home. Sharing. When you have only one child, the sharing lessons are pretty sparse and limited to what you happen to encounter at the playground or at playdates. It's not at the level of having to share on a round-the-clock basis with a sibling. DD didn't TRULY understand sharing until she had to do it all the time for hours on end in preschool. I suspect that even when a child isn't an only child, dc providers do far more of the primary teaching of sharing than parents give them credit for, simply because dc is when they are most surrounded by other children in the same age bracket who would covet the same things.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998

Interesting.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998

Thank you.

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2005
Okay, I am going to assume that you did not read my last post 814.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
However, a there is one lesson that a dc provider may have an easier time getting to sink in than a parent, even if the parent said it first. Sharing. Even in a multi-sibling home, a child in dc is going to be pressed into sharing more frequently than they are at home unless they are twins, simply because the average dc has so many children all the same age who covet the same things. Any parent with >1 child will have to say "share with your brother/sister" many times. But I doubt it's as many times as the child hears it in dc simply because there are just more children and the mandate to share is going to be nearly constant rather than the time-to-time nagging that a parent does when sibs have a couple years bewteen them.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-22-2005
Lol! Heheee! Know what's funny? I've heard all of those except the pacifier one (he never like the things.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2005

Your welcome. The posts are too fast on here to keep up with.

And I will definitely use my preview button more often!!

Pages