What would you give up to stay home?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2004
What would you give up to stay home?
1422
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.

Lilypie Baby Ticker

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Avatar for myshkamouse
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:17am
Not so sweet. I wish I could tell you its come easy :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:26am

maybe that is the difference between you and me i dont necessarily care if my kids have the same ideals as i have. i see my job as a parent to provide them with the education and ability to think for themselves and adopt the ideals that they are comfortable with. i think there are basic ideals that most everyone wants for kids, be kind, share, use manners, etc... but i dont think parents are the only ones who model these behaviors for children. than there are ideals that i hold as an individual that if my kids choose to go in a different direction that will be their choice.

you know one thing that always interests me is while we rate daycares you never see us rating family homes. do you really think the number of kids living in mediocre to poor homes is less than 50%. have you ever looked at the standards for daycare/in home dcps? i assure you my home would fall into the mediocre to poor catagory. do you keep your children away from pets at all time? do you sanitize your hands each and every time you change a daiper? do you sanitize your childrens toys on a daily basis? do you completely nutrious meals and snacks every time they eat? i really think if you rated homes based on the same criteria used to rate daycares there would be alot that came up lacking, mine included.

as i said before i dont find aggression in children to be a bad thing. my oldest has a very outgoing agressive personality and it has served her well on her way to being an exceptional teen who is very involved in her school, church and community.

how much time is it that these child psychologists say needs to be put in? and as parents to you really want yourself to be the only people you children mimic? my children have learned alot of things from me, but they have also learned alot from the other people in their lives. and since i think my kids are turning out to be pretty neat people i have to assume the influence of those other people is helping to form who they are becoming - i owe them a big thanks.
Jennie

Avatar for myshkamouse
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:32am

It disproved it by pointing out that there are many cases where a kid with SAHP may come home to an empty house."

Wrong. You mentioned 2 times in what you called 18 years of growing up. I can't recall any, though I'm sure there were quite a few (1/2 dozen or so maybe?).
The main difference, that you keep ignoring is this..WOHP X2 can mean the kid(s) know that there are big chunks of time where said kids are home, and parents are not. You random parent away from home is the *exception* and therein lies the big difference.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:35am
maybe i am just a throwback, i still dont understand why it is imperative that a parent be in the house every second of the day. butyou know what that is possibly in part because of where we have chosen to live. if i lived in a big city i might feel differently.
Jennie
Avatar for myshkamouse
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:37am

Here again, is what I actually said:

To say that SAH doesnt benefit kids is like saying that one on one education doesnt benefit them. Is it imperitive? No. Does it help? You bet. Can it make a huge difference in a childs life well past childhood? Yep and yep."

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 1:40am
we have very good friends who live in italy and they really dont understand why we dont let our kids have a glass of wine with dinner, especially once they hit the older years. my room mate in college was from france and she grew up drinking wine with dinner. another friend spent her high school years in singapore and drinking wine with a meal was totally accepted as normal.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:08am

Actually, I said nothing at all about the U.S. having a huge problem with underage drinking that the rest of the world doesn't have. I said quite specifically that Sweden doesn't have a huge problem with teenage pregnancy and drug abuse. As far as I know, the U.K. does have a very big problem with teenage pregnancy, for example. I was simply asking for the consequences people would expect to see in a country where children are routinely on their own for a couple of hours after school. Most usually mention something about teen pregnancy, drinking etc. This isn't something that is a problem in Sweden, so what other consequences would you expect to see given the fact that a parent isn't waiting at home every day for their children to arrive?

"And if you have lived, traveled and worked outside of the US for a large % of your life as I have (EMEA, APAC, and yes bermuda) you'd know that."

I'm coming close to the point of having lived as long outside the U.S. as I have inside the U.S. I lived to 4 years in Mexico, 1 year in Spain, several months in the U.K., 2 years in Austria, 3 years in Switzerland and 8 years in Sweden. I'm curious...how old are you? Because if I recall correctly from your last post, you lived a total of 8 years outside the U.S. I didn't realise that would constitute "a large % of your life", but maybe you are much younger than I thought?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:31am
Honestly, it just wasn't the top priority for moms back then. If a mom was at home, the kids would usually grab a snack, turn around and head out the door again. Kids had a lot of unsupervised time in the afternoons. It was the norm. I remember going trick-or-treating at night without an adult (usually with a group of friends) from the time I was 11 or 12. It truly was normal back then. I'm nearly as old as Susannah, she's also written a post describing a similar childhood.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:35am
Does her mother never step foot outside the house?
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:55am

sorry, but you left out the first 2/3's of that post:

Are you serious? I had a SAHM. The positives were...I didnt come home to an empty house. A huge thing in the pre teen and teen years. I knew there was an adult whose job it was to keep me out of trouble. Another huge positive. I also never wanted for any attention, a huge positive.

Jennie

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