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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Ok then... why do you have nothing positive to say about SAHM's you know IRL? Are you this disdainful to them in person?
I'm sure everyone here has stories both positive and negative about SAHM and WOHM they know. Why are your stories that include SAHM's (and their spouses who barely tolerate them) all doom and gloom?
I personaly think *that* adds nothing to the debate and find it rather humorous.
When my grandfather was in a similar position to your friend's mom, my dad hired a private nurse to look after him. He did this because he had several kids and therefore didn't have the time to fly across several states to administer medicine. I don't criticize your friend for taking care of her mother when her mother is sick. It's what my own dad did by hiring a private nurse. But I stand by calling it a cop out to blame her mother for the fact that she's single (if in fact she's actually done this- that could just be your projection). People with sick parents get married and have kids all the time. People who are ALREADY married with kids deal with their own sick parents. Having a sick parent is not a deal breaker to having spouse and kids of one's own.
edited to add; on a more compassionate note, there are probably support groups for people dealing with sick parents. If your friend doesn't date because she doesn't think she can find a man who would understand this responsibility, a support group would be a good thing to join. There, she would be statistically more likely to meet an understanding man- or meet somebody who would introduce her to an understanding man and she could date w/o fear that "sick mom" would make him break up with her.
Edited 8/9/2006 9:00 pm ET by susannahk2000
So does that mean that people who don't make a lot of money are not REALLY smart? Well tell that to all the teachers and professors and pretty much anyone on the public payroll. I work in the public sector and will probably never outearn my dh, who works in the private sector. I guess that makes dh REALLY smart and me just so so.
Susan
"if you consider that ds's of WM's consider women more equal to men"
I must have missed the link for this one--was this in the Harvey study as well? I find this statement extremely surprising based on my own observations. My teenage students who had SAHM's were extremely respectful of me and my position as their teacher, so I would be more inclined to believe either there wasn't a difference in how DS's of WM's vs. SAHM's considered women, or just the opposite, that DS's with SAHM's (at least in the early years) would perceive women as more powerful, since their mothers would be their authority figure during most of their waking hours. I'm inclined to believe it depends on the mother, working or not, and if you have found research with this conclusion I would certainly suggest you look closely into the researchers' agenda.
I mean, first we were saying there was no difference between children of SAHP's v. WOHP's, then we were asserting that DD's benefited from a WOHM and DS's acted out more when mom WOH, so it was a wash, and now we're saying SAH is detrimental for both boys and girls?
Wake me gently
If you can
Wake me gently
Just touch my hand
Wake me gently
Pull my sleeve
'Cuz where I'm at
Is where I wanna leave
"Wake Me Gently" Alice Cooper
I know what you mean. Must really get old. Yeah, those poor men who have to come home to a home-cooked meal at night. Makes life SOOO hard for them to have someone at home doing the bulk of childcare, cooking and housework.
Just think about all those lucky men who have WOH wives not only making more than them, but rubbing it in their faces by telling their kids it's a source of pride. I can just imagine what that does for their self-esteem. I wonder why they tolerate it, because I'm sure it gets old.
You are really starting to crack me up, because it's getting more and more obvious that you are just throwing out bait at this point.
Oh, and maybe you should slow down and think carefully about what you type because you've contradicted yourself several times already.
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