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: 01-18-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:04pm
Do you feel the same when others here slam a poster for saying that parental care is ideal over DC? I don't think that is a slam at WOHP or DC.

 

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:08pm

Well, all I can say is that I couldn't possibly have given the same amount of attention to four babies as I did to one.

You say that with 3 at once, you did *nothing* but take care of kids (and one of yours was 16 months younger, so presumably the twins were past the bottle stage when you had #3). Yet you think a dcp could handle 4 infants at once and give them as much attention as somebody who had only one to care for. Sorry, but this just doesn't compute for me.

And as I recall, you didn't use a dc center when yours were babies anyway. Why not, if there's no difference?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:19pm

Unfortunately, 4:1 is the ratio for under 2 in VA - at least it was when I was looking. However, there are some centers that cater to higher ratios.

J

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:29pm

My kids need a lot of unstructured time, especially my older dd. We don't do a lot of playdates after school now because I work late two days a week, and they have afterschool activities two days a week. That only leaves one day for playdates, and sometimes I would rather just come home and have the kids to myself. We also have piano and gymnastics on Saturday mornings. More than that feels like too much to us.

Yes, my older dd would live in her pjs if she could. If the weather is nice, she goes outside after we get home, but this time of year, she goes up to her room for awhile when she gets home. She has about an hour of homework most nights, plus piano practice if she hasn't done it in the morning, so on days we have activities and don't get home until 5:30 or 6:00, that can be a rush. They go to bed around 8:15 on school nights.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:36pm

No you can't. You can only prove that something does happen and you prove it with an example. All you can say about things that have never happened is that, until now, we believe they've never happened. We can't even be sure they haven't happened and we missed it.

When it comes to our kids, I don't think we can be sure of anything. We can look at what statistics tell us and what experience tells us but we cannot know that A will produce B. Nor can we be sure that if B does happen to happen that A actually caused it to happen. There's a lot of guessing here.

You can look to experience for answers (what are statistics but a bunch of documented experience?) but that can only show you tendencies. For example, my family tends to be very adaptable while my husband's fiercely independent. I believe the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree so I had no reason to think that having a working mom would be problematic for our family. This, by no means, means that it was absolute. Only that the indicators were that working could be expected to not be a problem and it hasn't been. In fact, I'd say it was actually a benefit for my older daughter who has a little problem with being self centered. Learning to wait her turn and share from a young age was good for her.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:49pm
In our society work is worth what you'd pay someone to do it. If everyone has the skills to do certain work, it is, usually low paid (unless it is difficult or undesirable). If few have the skills, it is highly paid.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:52pm

Let's see, um, fathers are less involved than mothers? Why is that? Could it be that society tells them that their job when they become parents it so earn a paycheck while their wifes job is to care for the kids? There's a definite gender division here and a perception in the work world that a man whose wife stays at home "needs" his job more than someone else. His work is center stage because the entire family needs his income.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 8:58pm

"We certainly are. Especially, women such as yourself, who actively further the devaluing of women's work"

Thanks for the belly laugh.

Sorry dear but nothing changes if you keep everything the same. Yes, I think that women working furthers progress. Of course it does. You have to change something to get the system to change.

And no, I'm not trying to devalue women's work. Just the opposite. We live in a society that values what men do. The way to increase the value of something is to get men to do it. One way to push that change is to have mothers working. Men then must pick up, as least, some of the slack. As they do, the tasks they take on have more value because men do them too.

You need to take a hard look at the society you live in. It is not one that values women or what women do. It values men and what they do. If you get them to do what you do, you increase it's value.

When men want the work world to change to accomodate parents, it will happen. When men are as likely to stay at home as women, staying home will have equal value to working. Getting men to participate in child care isn't just good for children, it's good for women because it elevates something that is, traditionally, thought of as women's work.

Given a 50% divorce rate and a high rate of married women needing to work, I'd say that pushing for equality in opportunity, wages and participation in child rearing is in the best interest of both women and children. Women are their own worst enemy when they cannot see that they have the power to improve their daughters lives through their action now.




Edited 2/13/2006 9:51 pm ET by kbmammm
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 9:08pm

Let's see, women quit in greater numbers than men when they become parents? If women quit when they become parents and men don't, who can't handle both and who can?

"Then why do you devalue women's work and/or SAH so incessantly"

I don't. I'm in favor of elevating the status of women's work by getting men to participate in it. Of course the flip side is women have to participate in mens work too. That's what makes men doing women's work necessary.

"Wow! So all we have to do is to become just like men and do the same work"

No we have to be like PEOPLE and do the same work PEOPLE do. There is very little that one gender can do that the other cannot yet there is a lot that is divided along gender lines.

Um, dear, for the most part we are androgenous. Ignore the reproductive organs and what goes with it and there isn't much difference between us. Especially now that we have birth control and don't get pregnant every time a man looks our way and society has evolved to a point where you don't need brute strength to survive. Intelligence works quite well in our society and, fortunately, we have just as much of that as men.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Mon, 02-13-2006 - 9:16pm
It's not that they don't matter. It's whether one amount or degree of them is in any way superior. Once a person has all the Vitamin C they need for the day, does more benefit them? Research says probably not.

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