Who has influenced your sah/woh
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Who has influenced your sah/woh
| 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!!!!!!!!


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"Again, this is a subthread."
I'm with you, but then again I thought both the OT and this subthread were about individual subjective opinions rather than blanket statements that objectively apply to everyone in all situations. Silly me :)
"I agree that nothing is ideal for everyone."
I'll second that !!!
My we do jump to extremes. Who said anything about eradicating anything. I said that when men start doing more child care then it will gain importance and it should. Can you actually argue that taking care of their children should have less importance for men?
I said that when men are equally likely to stay at home as women, then it will be respected. I didn't say no one should stay at home.
Yes, women working furthers progress. You can't very well expect men to take on more child rearing and women just do what they've always done. It doesn't work that way. Children benefit from two involved parents and we should be striving for two involved parents not one and a paycheck.
Like it or not, we live in a patriarchal society. What men do has more value than what women do and the way to elevate the value of something is to get men interested in doing it. You will never elevate it's value by keeping it as something that women do. That only makes it less valuable and yes, in a patriarchy, what men say is important is what is important. If it were a matriarchy, then what women said had imporatance would have importance. That's the way it works when one faction is seen as superior to the other. You pay them less for the work they do and generally devalue them and what they do.
Go study anthropology for a while and get a grasp of how different societies work. It is our reality that we live in a patrairchy. Don't believe me? Then tell me why the equal rights ammendment hasn't passed yet? Answer: Because men, who hold most of the political power in a patriarchy, don't want it.
Look around you. The majority of the power and powerful positions belong to men. That's why they get to say what has value and what doesn't. The fastest way to increase the value of something in such a society is get men interested in doing it. To do that, you have to give them something they want in return. My suggestion is our wages and the increse in lifestyle they can have because of it. Simply because it's an easy way to do it and there's a double kick here in that it will also increase our earning power if men want our wages.
Why are you so against men taking equal responsibility for the care of their children? (Remember, reality is that men aren't going to take on more child care if we don't take on more of something they want to give up) Why the insistance we keep this a girls only club? What do you think you gain by that?
Do you realize that most of the children who live in poverty in the U.S. live in households headed by women? Increasing the value of women's work will help such children and give their mothers a fighting chance. Do you realize that with autonomy comes power? Look at how many women live in abusive situations. Why do you think that is? Because they don't think highly enough of themselves? Because their boyfriends/husbands don't think very highly of them? Because they lack tbe ability to take care of themselves and their children if they leave? All very good reasons to increase women's ability to take care of themselves.
I can think of lots of reasons to change things and none to keep them the same. What are your reasons for wanting them to stay the same? Afraid of something?
Edited 2/14/2006 6:17 pm ET by kbmammm
"Okay, if you insist, here's why there's no difference: kids who were raised exclusively by SAHPs are no different than kids who were in othercare and who had WOHPs. Now please explain to me why I'm wrong."
What evidence do you have for that? I see lots of individual differences in kids.
"Your insistence that ratios matters makes no sense. There are different ratios in different kinds of families and in different forms of othercare. Kids are quite naturally in groups throughout their lives as kids. That's just the way it is."
Your insistence that ratios don't matter makes no sense. Every parent I know who uses group care, including me, cares about ratios. And no, that's not just the way it is--you don't have to put your kids in group care at a young age.
"What evidence do you have for that? I see lots of individual differences in kids"
Yes and this proves that othercare makes a difference how? Care to post your evidence that there is a difference between kids who are in other care and kids who are not?
Of course there are individual differences but they stem from the fact we're all individuals not from whether or not our mothers worked and used other care.
What percentage of parent care situations would be rated high quality if you applied the same standards applied to day cares?
Very few.
Look at society. Look at the average wages for women. Look at education levels. Yes, on average, stay at home moms aren't very likely to be self sufficient. Heck working moms often aren't. But that's because our work is devalued in society.
"My children are my responsibility"
And mine are my responsibility. Do you really think the only way to take that responsibility is to not work? If so, what do you think about your husband not taking responsibility for his chldren or is his only responsibility a financial one? And why woudln't your responsibility also be a financial one? Parenting responsibility should not be gender specific. We are all responsible for both the care and support of our children.
I'm fully aware I'm dealing with humans. Making a point would be much easier if I wasn't. Humans have this way of hanging onto ideas without any reason for doing so.
" Logic tells me that I am my children's mother."
And this means what besides you are their mother? Children do not need a SAHP. They don't turn out differently if they have one. That being the case, how does your being their mother mean you should be home with them? My being my children's mother means I am responsible for their care but that doesn't mean I have to be the one providing hands on care 24 x 7. I can meet my responsibility to care for my children by hiring good care for them too. So the fact I am their mother has nothing to do with my choice to work or not. It just is.
So what is your reason for thinking you need to be the one providing care during the preschool years? What do you expect to be diffenent than it would have been if you had worked and used other care? What is the logic behind your feeling on the matter? Do you have any?
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