What would you give up to stay home?
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| Sat, 08-05-2006 - 8:36am |
Hi everyone.
I have always said that staying home is so important to me that I would give up many things to be able to do that. We live in a very small home, I have no jewelry and we buy all our clothes at Walmart. I know that if I went back to work, we could afford more. But I would never trade being at home for a larger house or more luxuries.
However, after reading this board I have started to suspect that there are things I would not want to give up. If I couldn't send my kids to preschool a couple of hours a day, if I couldn't afford any after school activities like ballet lessons or if I could'nt afford any kind of summer program for them, I think I would have to find a way to go back to work. So basically, I'm perfectly happy to deny myself "things." But I would not want to take much away from the kids.
Of course I would probably have to find a new career becuase I could never work the 80 hours a week my old career entailed.

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We love camping too. And I don't need to eat at a real fancy place to feel fullfilled. We prefer to cook anyway most of the time. Nice vacations can be stressful, especially if you have to fly nowadays, travelling can be so time consuming. True I would like to see parts of europe, but that is only "if we have the money to spare" scenario. I think I'll live if I dont see it. :)
I guess our lives are just simpler. And I've never liked spending money on frivolous things (or what I consider frivolous). I hardly bought any new clothes in 3 years. (mostly because I wore maternity wear off and on for those 3 years)
My DH has more clothes than I do. I have 2 or 3 pairs of pants (jeans) that I wear till they are worn out. He has like 10 pair. :) But he goes into work every day and even though its a casual office, he wants to have clean, neat pants to wear each day.
Even if kids don't "need" the income from two WOHPs, it might not influence them negatively that they don't have a SAHP.
And I readily and easily concede that some families may "need" a SAHP more than they "need" dual WOHPs.
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How do you know it's true? Just because you choose to believe something doesn't make it true. I'm sure there lots of people doing all kinds of things out there we would not approve of because they believe them to be true. Think of the situation in the middle east. That stems from people of opposing views both believing what they believe is true. Belief proves nothing unless it's rooted in some kind of proof.
My father, sincerely, believes that blacks are lower than whites. Does his, sincere, belief make him right? Would actions based on those beliefs be right? I don't think so. Belief with no logic behind it is nothing but prejudice any way you slice it.
If you're going to believe that SAH is better, even in some situations, you should have something upon which to base that belief. Exactly what is the situation and what happens if mom doesn't SAH in that situation? If you can't answer that question, you have no basis for your belief.
I don't believe research has proven in any way that SAH is of benefit. They have found differences between our children but that is cause to think about things and what we want for our kids. Most of the time, there's more than one way to achieve what we want. Or it turns out it's nothing to be concerned about. Take the aggression studies.
Personally, I would exepect to see more displays of aggression in kids who attend other care. Their environments change. They have less consistency. However, I don't think normal displays of aggression are anything to be particularly concerned about nor do I think this research says that if the mom of a bully quits working her chld will become an empathetic angel. It just says that when kids are placed in non maternal care (including dad's care I believe) that they will more of what are considered normal displays of aggression for their age group (actually I think it's more children having such displays not more displays per child). Is this really an issue to decide your working status over?
One problem with your arguement. In order for that to be true, and research to find no differences in the groups in the long run, then for every child who benefits from having a SAHM/WOHM there must be one harmed by it to cancel out the effect. You now have an equally great probability of helping/harming your children either way you go and no way of knowing which it will be.
Though we cannot rule this out, we can't conclude it either. And it doesn't matter either way. We have two possibilities. 1. That SAH/WOH simply doesn't matter so both groups apear the same. 2. That it does matter for some individuals but there are equal numbers of kids harmed and helped by either situation which sums to no net effect. So either we are not causing a difference or we are but we can flip a coin as to whether or not it's bad or good. Either way, research isn't going to help us choose which brings this back to the financial decision it is.
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