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: 01-13-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 3:51pm

<>

"I don't. I'm in favor of elevating the status of women's work by getting men to participate in it."

And eradicating SAH elevates the status of women's work how?

Do you really think that the *only* way to get men to participate is by eliminating SAH?

Gee, my dh is a very active participant and gasp, I SAH.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 3:56pm

i feel that all of the relationships my kids have bring something special into their lives, be it a relationship that lasts a lifetime or one that lasts less than a lifetime.

i was one of 4 kids, and to this day my brother tells us girls that he was perfectly content being an only child. of course he had been an only child for 7 years and then 3 girls came along in 4 years.
Jennie

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:05pm

"If parental care is always inherently 'better" then there should be some sort of expected outcome that supports it."

I don't think anyone is making such a claim. Subjective claims based on one's individual experiences and opinions, yes. But objective claims that "parental care is always inherently better," no :)

"And yet, none of those proclaiming the holiness of parental care can manage to verbalize even one future outcome of a child that is impacted by whether he had a SAHM or a provider during the hours of 9 to 5."

Actaully, I am of the subjective opinion that parental care is better than DC for my family in our personal situation and have in fact provided research/evidence that supports/substantiates this opinion. BTW, here it is again in case you missed it.

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2000). Characteristics and quality of child care for toddlers and preschoolers. Applied Developmental Science, 4.

"In this article, we use data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999) to answer 3 questions. The first question is: What structural features and caregiver characteristics predict more positive caregiver behavior in child care for 1- to 3-year-old children? Positive caregiving was assessed in 5 types of care (centers, child care homes, and care provided by in home sitters, grandparents, and fathers) when children in the NICHD study were 15, 24, and 36 months of age (Ns =612, 630, and 674). Across ages and types of care, positive caregiving was more likely when child adult ratios and group sizes were smaller, caregivers were more educated, held more child centered beliefs about childrearing, and had more experience in child care, and environments were safer and more stimulating. The second question is: What differences in caregiving are associated with the type of child care and the child's age? The highest level of positive caregiving was provided by in home caregivers, including fathers and grandparents, caring for only 1 child, closely followed by home based arrangements with relatively few children per adult. The least positive caregiving was found in center based care with higher ratios of children to adults. By 36 months of age, the significance of child adult ratio decreased, and in home arrangements became less positive. The third question is: What is the overall quality of child care for 1 to 3 year olds in the United States? Observed positive caregiving was determined to be "very uncharacteristic" for 6% of the children in the NICHD sample, "somewhat uncharacteristic" for 51%, "somewhat characteristic" for 32%, and "highly characteristic "for 12%. An extrapolation to the quality of care in the United States was derived by applying NICHD observational parameters, stratified by maternal education, child age, and care type, to the distribution of American families documented in the National Household Education Survey (Hofferth, Shauman, Henke, & West, 1998). Positive caregiving was extrapolated to be "very uncharacteristic" for 8% of children in the United States ages 1 to 3 years, "somewhat uncharacteristic" for 53%, "somewhat characteristic" for 30%, and "highly characteristic" for 9%."

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:13pm

"What's the evidence that a child in 40 hours of othercare is more likely to experience a turnover of caregivers than a child in full parental care? Even if one assumes, as they should not, that that's a big deal?"

Actually, according to the NICHD Study, "Infants in child care experienced, on average, more than two nonparental arrangements during the first year. The results reveal high reliance on infant care, very rapid entry into care post-birth, and substantial instability in care."

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (1997). Child care in the first year of life. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 43.

"Information on the use, patterning, and stability of nonmaternal child care during the first year of life was examined for 1,281 families in 10 study sites. The vast majority of infants (81%) experienced regular nonmateral child care during the first 12 months, with most starting prior to 4 months of age and enrolled for close to 30 hours per week. Fewer than one in five infants spent the entire first year at home with no supplemental care. Close to half of the infants were cared for by a relative when they first entered care. Infants in child care experienced, on average, more than two nonparental arrangements during the first year. The results reveal high reliance on infant care, very rapid entry into care post-birth, and substantial instability in care."

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:13pm
THat's your prerogative, but I do think what you said/meant is relevant to the debate. I have used words here that were later misconstrued. It happens frequently here. Don't participate if you get bent out of shape when someone questions you about what you said vs what you meant.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2004
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:16pm

Exactly, and what might be "better" at one point in your life, might not be "better" at another given point in your life.

Robin

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:17pm

Well...that's s deep subject and much of my thoughts on this would cause lots of sparks here I don't care to deal with (I tend to think about things on a much deeper level than most people and I find those who can't go there get very angry when I state some of my thoughts) so I'll stick closer to the surface.

Start with a patriarchial society. In order to keep men up, they must have someone they are above. That someone is women (evidenced by the rates of abuse against women and the salary gap). You don't want the women self sufficient, you want them dependent but how do you convince them to accept being dependent on men? You convince them that what they do is necessary, better, needed, etc, etc, etc...that there are things more important than money and autonomy (while you go off to work and earn more money and autonomy not having to think twice about home because the little woman is there to take care of everything and you once you get home) and that accepting this role is really the higher road in life.

How better to get someone to accept a lesser role than fill their heads with notions of what a wonderful thing it is they do? (notions that will die hard in those who desperately want to believe them) Think about it. The arguments for SAH just aren't there without making motherhood some holy graile for women. I have to ask myself here why fatherhood isn't a holy graile for men? If parenthood and children are so important, why aren't they just as important to men? Why is it just women who SHOULD stay at home (men are allowed to if they want to but certainly not encouraged)?

I think we are dealing with deeply embedded beliefs. So deeply embedded that they defy logic. If you bring up statistics that say staying at home isn't better, you're sure to be told that whomever you are debating with wouldn't stoop to making THEIR decisions based on statistics, yet what else do we have but the collective experiences of society (which is what statistics are. A collection of experiences presented in a logical manner.) Or they'll just shoot the messengeer. Like me. I laugh every time certain posters make statements about how they can't debate me because I'm too _________ (fill in the blank). If you can shoot the messenger, you don't have to listen to the message.

This is a decision often made on pure emotion. If motherhood is the holy graile of womanhood, of course you should give it your all. Nothing less could possibly do and any data that says otherwise just must be wrong. The bottom line is staying at home serves a patriarchal society well and there is no better way to get someone to accept a lesser position than to convince them it's actually the higher road. No logic or support for your arguement required.

Look how badly women react when asked to support their claims that staying home will yield better results. They can't deal with it. It requires logic to answer such a question but their decision was never based in logic. It was based in what they have been told from the time they were little girls who were handed dolls to play with. We have been conditioned to believe that our only role in life should be that of mother. Any one who says otherwise just doesn't get it, lol. Accepting that allows men to go do lots and lots of things they would have problems doing if they were held equally responsible for their own offspring.

The bottom line is, women dependent on men works. It allows men's work to be held above women's to the point we pay them more. It allows men to have a leg up in the work world because, after all, their calling is to support the their family so they should be considered first for jobs and promotions. Let's see, if I lived in a system that gave me an automatic advantage and more pay for the same work, how hard would I work to change it? How hard would I work to keep it the same?

The bottom line is, if women are equal then men lose their built in advantage in society. So, you find a way to make someone think it's actually better to take the lesser position, ala Brave New World where everyone was taught that where they landed in society was actually the best place to be.

People don't want to see that which causes them to think about what they have convinced themselves is right. Especially after the fact so you have many former stay at home moms who will still preach the message. With men preaching the message, many former stay at home moms preaching the message and young mothers who have the option of staying home (and unfortunately many who don't) wanting to beleive the message because it elevates their importance, it's no wonder it doesn't want to die.

Once the message is recieved, you have to deal with the fact that it's human nature to see that which supports our beliefs while ignoring that which doesn't support them or is contrary to them. If you think the children of working moms are aggressive, you will notice the children of working moms who fit your expectation while ignoring both the chidlren of stay at home moms who are aggressive and the children of working moms who are not. We need for our world to make sense. We need to feel we can predict what will happen. Therefore we set up rules based on our experiences but we never realize that our experiences have been filtered through our beliefs and we only saw what we wanted to see.

I was force to look at things with open eyes when I had children because I had two contrary beliefs about what was good for children. I believed that stable higher income that increased a child's standard of living was a good thing (we are taught that men who are good breadwinners are good fathers) and that mothers should abandon all for their kids. One problem, the primary breadwinner in this house is MOM not dad. If income was good when earned by dad, wouldn't it also be good when earned by mom? But then there's that motherhood should be the end all be all for women but that would require giving up what would be considered a good income if I were a father and not a mother. I had no choice but do delve into research and figure out which should be considered first. As a result, I no longer wear the blinders I was raised to wear but I do understand where they come from.

I always find it odd that a man with my job would be considered a bad father if he quit it but I'm considered a bad mom because I don't.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:38pm
And how about the ones who stayed home? Were they cared for by mom exclusively? By dad? By siblings? By grandparents? By babysitters? How often? And instability of care translates into what detriments?
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:42pm
No. I don't deny that. Key word..Better.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Tue, 02-14-2006 - 4:44pm
Well then I have no clue what reality you live in. Things are always better or worse. It just is. You don't have to admit it. That is just the way it is.

 

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