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: 08-08-2004
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 4:55pm
I think the reason people go back to work when the kids are shool age is becuase they are in school. It is no longer a question of othercare vs. SAH. Unless one plans to homeschool, the othercare is a given. I think many people think that with all those free hours, you might as well go back to work.
Lilypie Baby Ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:08pm
while i would agree that not ALL kids will do well in othercare besides a parent, i do think that the vast majority of them will do just fine, as long as the parents take the time to get them into a situation that fits their needs. afterall, at age 5 most of them seem to get the hang of it pretty fast. i dont put alot of stock into someone saying my child wouldnt do good in daycare if they have never tried it, how could they possibly know. i didnt put my middle child in daycare/preschool as soon as i had thougt i would because i just didnt think she would do well there, when i finally put her in because i really felt she needed to try, she loved it and thrived there, so the reality was my thinking was totally wrong. but then that wasnt the first or last mistake i have made with my kids so i dont really worry about it.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:13pm
in my opinion, with my particular child i dont think it is too young. my middle one is 7 years old, soon to be 8 and she has come home to an empty house before, she comes in gets a drink and a snack and watches tv for 10/15 minutes until i get home - no big deal where we live.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:15pm
my 7 year old has come home to an empty house before, i just dont have a problem with her walking thru the front door without me being home to greet her. being 10/15 minutes behind the bus occassionally is not the end of the world in my world.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:17pm

I also own the book "Freakonomics", which is where she's getting all this from. What that books actually says is that the mere ownership of books- not the parents reading them- is correlated with better school test scores than bookless homes. So if the value that you want to pass on to your kids is "do well on the test", them merely buying the books will apparently do the trick.

But if you want to pass on the value that reading is an end in itself and not merely a way to study for tests, then you have to actually value reading. And people who don't read their own books don't value reading and so can't pass that value on to their kids.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2004
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:17pm

Personally, I would have no problem leaving my 8 year old home alone for 10 or fifteen minutes. I would not be comfortable however, leaving her to watch my four year old. Maybe in a year or two.

I have very distinct memories of being 4 years old and walking a few suburban blocks by myself to visit my friend. It seemed completely natural then. I can't imagine letting my own four year old do that though.

Lilypie Baby Ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:17pm
Besides just reading what the OP posted I was also considering the source. I have never read cl-Laura-W2 in any way endorse child abuse/neglect so if she did not think that it was a neglectful situation then I assumed that it was not one.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:27pm
I like to think that this is the most it's possible to clamp down. But Japanese kids are supposedly kept on an even shorter leash than ours and Singaporeans of every age are too. So it can be done. I hope they don't, though.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:29pm
i dont understand where all these free hours come from once the kids are in school. granted i still have one at home, we spend at least half of our time at school or carting the other kids around or attending school events that occur during the day. perhaps if i had never quit woh to sah i would look at it differently, but as a sahm the thought of going back to work with the kids in school i find daunting, and alot more difficult than when they were little.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Sun, 08-13-2006 - 5:35pm
for me the length of my kids leash is directly affected by where we live. my oldest is going to start driving in 3 short weeks, while i am concerned for her safety because of where we live and where she will be driving i am comfortable enough to let her go. i think if we were still living in dallas i would have a much harder time letting her take off on her own in a car. same thing with letting my kids be home alone or playing outside unsupervised, i dont worry about it as much because of where we live
Jennie

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