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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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:36pm
I agree it's more about how financially savvy you are.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:39pm

No. I believe in looking behind the numbers to see why things appear as they do. This stat neither supports my argument or attacks it. All behaviors seen were normal and differences appear to disappear once kids are in school. If it doesn't create a long term issue and the short term issue isn't creating a particular problem (normaally aggressive children would not), then what's the problem? It's just a difference they can measure at a snapshot in time.

It's not an issue of simply finding a difference. The difference has to actually matter enough to warrant changing behaviors to correct it. In this case, it's self correcting. The question becomes, based on this research, does my child have an aggression problem that might stem from being in non maternal care and is that problem worth changing my working status to correct? Not is there a measureable difference. In my case, my kids were not aggressive to a point I'd consider a job change to correct the situation. In fact, my little one is a push over. I don't think she has an aggressive bone in her body. My older one could lose her temper and that's something we had to watch out for but it wasn't a serious enough problem that drastic measures were needed. Time outs seemed to work just fine.

Plus I don't think my working status had anything to do with this. She has a personality type that runs in our family. It has it's issues but it's genetics and we all know it. For her, it probably was a benefit to be in group care and to have started learning how to deal with her temper before school started.

You don't just grab a number and run with it, you have have to dig into it. You can't say that all moms should SAH because they found more (higher numbers of children exhibiting the behavior not higher levels of aggression) aggression in 3yo's of moms who work. All this research tells us is that for some kids (9% if memeory serves me correctly) you will see aggressive behaviors earlier if they spend time out of maternal care. Now, if my child has aggression issues, when do I want to find out? When they're 2 or when they're in 1st grade and it's creating issues with their learning? I'll vote for 2.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:40pm
Yes, I can see that would make SAH more appealing.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:42pm
That's it right there.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:45pm
That is my personal take on it, however, that's not how society sees it. Society seems to accept the baby years as the difficult ones as evidenced by the common belief that mom should go back to work once the kids are in schoool/middle school/whichever. If mom couldn't handle WOH with babies, I think she's in for a surprise with school aged kids. There's a lot more going on in their lives, but they do require less hands on care. Just more coordination. That's my take on it. If I were inclined to SAH, I'd quit when my youngest started school.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:45pm

True. However, you dont seem to be "looking behind the numbers" to see anything that may support any individual family chosing to have a SAHP. That is where you are contradicting yourself.

You can't simply state the results of a study as a fact when it suits your agenda, but refute them when they dont. It makes for a poor debate. If you actually looked behind the data in the Michigan study, you'd see that SAH/WOH *can* make a difference for some families. You, however, keep insisting it doesn't, probably because of your obvious bias against SAH.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:49pm
How did you avoid sleep deprivation when your second one was an infant?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:54pm

I'm aware of the recommendations. However, that doesn't change that's not what they're finding when they compare simply owning books to reading them. I don't think reading to kids is a bad thing at all, however, that's not where the bang for your buck is if you look at the research. What the research tells us is that parental values matter more than parental actions. Sometimes, actions are just going through the motions.

Another stat is that parents who volunteer more than 40 hours at their children's schools have children who do better in school. It's not the hours though. It's the beliefs that result in the hours. If random parents were assigned to work 40 hours at the school, I doubt you'd see much in the way of an increase in their kids performance.

Another one I like is gleaned from the Chicago school of choice data. More parents wanted the better schools than could be accomodated so they went to a lottery. The kids who won and went to the better schools did indeed do better BUT so did the kids who were entered into the lottery but didn't get to go to the better schools! It wasn't what school you got but rather whether or not you had parents willing to inconvenience themselves for your education. Again, not parental actions but parental values.

This one bugs me because it indicates that it may be wasted effort to have removed my kids from the neighborhood school. They may not end up doing any better than they would have otherwise. However, on the bright side, they do have that which predicts success. Parents willing to move them.

BTW discussion of all of this can be found in the book "Freakenomics" for those who want to know more.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:57pm

Statistically, I'm sure that's a great comfort to the 1st grader who has spent the last week and a half in a pediatric psych ward after he basically shut down emotionally in the wake of his Mom's desertion.

You'll pardon me if I'm not all that impressed by the idea that men might have a slight statistical edge on familial desertion.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 3:58pm

Not sure I said working is a means to an end but it is one. However, this isn't about liking your job or loving your career but rather your actions WRT taking care of your career that show it's relative importance in your life. Did you get an education? Do you strive to keep your experience up to date? Do you do things to help you advance or things that hurt your career?

I don't think it's simply the act of having a job. You can have a job but not be serious about your career. You can be a slacker who only goes to collect a paycheck, then your children will learn that all a job is is a paycheck. Not that that's bad. That's what it was for my mother but I understood that it was also her freedom and that having her own paycheck empowered her. Hence I have a career where she only had a job.

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