Who has influenced your sah/woh

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Who has influenced your sah/woh
2912
Thu, 02-09-2006 - 2:39pm

opinion to DIFFER. What I mean is--is there anyone on this board or in real life whose opinion/reasoning/debating/facts started to make your thinking more to the middle? As in if you thought sah or woh was best & then after some discussion/thought, you began to think that whatever is best for each family--really there is no one best way, etc.

We just really needed a new thread here!!!!!!!!

VickiSiggy.jpg picture by mamalahk

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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:48pm
Not clear enough? Okay, I'll put it like this: A child whose care is fully provided by a family member is not necessarily any better off than a child whose care is provided in a different manner. IOW, to be fully cared for by mom or dad isn't inherently "more ideal" than any number of alternatives.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:49pm
Not especially. But I would prefer to focus on *the universe of babies and toddlers* and not only mine or yours.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:50pm

But, I thought you said dh wouldn't make an ideal sahp?


PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:51pm
Common sense and maternal instinct are great, but hey, common sense used to dictate swaddling 24 hours per day, daily doses of cod liver oil, "sweating out" a fever, bleeding, you name it. We still need research.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:53pm

"Actually, the solution lies in getting men to SAH. When men SAH in equal or greater numbers than women, THEN it will be considered to have value."

Are you serious! "When men SAH in equal or greater numbers than women, THEN it will be considered to have value." Sorry, but your views are extrememly degrading to women.

How dare you suugest that it is MEN who soley dictate what is and isn't valuable. I must say, quite disturbing. Shame on you!

"As long as things are classified as women's work/men's work there will be differences in the value."

So basically what you are saying here is that you think women's work is more or less degrading and of less value than men's work. Again, quite disturbing!

"But how do you get men to want to do what is traditionally thought of as women's work?"

Well, you can start by not marrying a bigoted husband who thinks of women in such a blatantly degrading fashion."

"One way is to get men to see the value in their wives paid employment. If men want their wives working, then men will work to change corporations to make that happen. If they want the value of her paycheck, they will be willing do to more of the child care in order to get it. The trick is to make them want what we want. Equality."

And another way is to get both men AND women to see the value in unpaid work such as SAH. FOr the life of me, I simply don't understand why you prefer to beat around the bush and resort to all sorts of tricky including outright degradation in order to promote equality. Why not just try practicing what you preach? Equality is not something I wish and hope for sometime in the future. It's something I've always expected and thus had. There is no bartering for or compromising my sense of equality. Sorry, but in my book, it just isn't negotiable. Equality simply is.

"What we need is leverage. Something men want that they're willing to trade child care and house cleaning services for. I think the closest thing to that something is our wages."

Leverage??? For equality??? I truely cannot comprehend your POV. Do you, as well as your dh honestly hold such archaic views wrt to equality? I don't even know what to say.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:55pm
Based on what I was up to as a teen, I'm pretty sure my mental health couldn't stand knowing all the details of my 16yo and 13yo's day-to-day existence. And, sorry, but you still haven't explained the "undeniable, universal benefit" part. To repeat, it's only important if you think it's important. I WOH; I have the "opportunity" of cheating on my dh every day during my lunch hour if I want to. But I wouldn't necessarily consider it a benefit unless I was in a cheating mood.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:56pm

"Of course it's possible to think one thing is ideal without thinking the alternatives are bad. But I still want people to explain when they claim one thing is superior to another in any sense beyond their own personal situation."

I think you hit the nail on the head :) Such a claim is clearly inapproriate.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 3:58pm
You don't need a graduate degree to be a SAHM.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 4:00pm
I'm happy to stick closely to your terminology, not that I don't think there might be other ways to express it. Not only that, but I don't think it's strictly correct to use "ideal" as anything but a superlative. There probably isn't any such expression as "less ideal" or "more ideal". But regardless, where's the proof that parental care is more ideal than dc for babies and toddlers? All you've pointed to are your personal preferences regarding things like individual attention as well as factors such as caregiver turnover, which may or may not be germane.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2005
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 4:00pm
I am not against research. But common sense tells me that me sah was the best decision for my family.

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