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What are the best years to stay at home (SAHM)?
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Anonymous
Tons of us work and drive our kids ourselves. She just uses that as an excuse not to work rather than just saying she doesn’t want to work and I guess her husband is fine with it. But I hate when those types butt into these conversations and try to make it sound like working is “impossible” for them. |
Anonymous
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Baby to toddler years 100%.
I quit working when my oldest was born and eventually eased back into work (for myself) as a WFH FT so that I could stay with the kids. This was back in 2009. By the time the kids entered ES, I was ready to be back at it and had built up enough business to do so. My kids are MS and upper ES now. I couldn't imagine a need to be SAHM at these ages. |
Anonymous
Not the pp. Some of our best conversations are in the car. This is where kids share the most. I like to watch my kids play sports. |
Anonymous
| We have 4 kids and for each of them I would say grades 4-9. This is when challenges in academics showed up but could still be overcome with parental support and when social hurdles were also the biggest. The middle school years are also when they need the most supervision when using electronics. When I was at work all day I would often barely have time to talk to my kids between sports and clubs before it was time for bed. I work from home now and being present after school has made a big difference. |
Anonymous
None of that has anything to do with working or not. I do all the driving and I work. I’m home more than my children are - literally. If people don’t want to work, that’s fine but has absolutely nothing to do with being present for teens. |
Anonymous
It's a message board. On a thread about SAHM's and their experience. In what way is a SAHM giving her perspective "butting in?" |
Anonymous
DP - agreed (and I work FT and do most of the driving). I’m so tired of the insistence that working precludes the ability to provide needed support for tweens/teens. It doesn’t. |
Anonymous
But that was a response to somebody who said that somebody just needed to find somebody else to drive around her kids. |
Anonymous
It’s a thread about a SAHM who wants to do it for a finite period of time. These women are popping to say they have never worked and never will. Their opinion is not really relevant here. Also, after school driving is not in conflict with working (as many of us have attested) so their point is also not rational. |
Anonymous
I have not seen the bolded written in this thread at all. Can you please help me find it? Thanks! And I would say that someone who has been a SAHM of all ages actually has the MOST relevant opinion for the question posed. You really think that if someone says, "which is best: A, B, or C?" that the person who has only experienced "A" but not B or C has the most relevant opinion? Please explain that logic. After school driving might not be in conflict with YOUR job, or the jobs of many posters here. It WOULD be in conflict with a parent who works 12 hour shifts as a police officer, or 24 hour shifts as a paramedic, or 6 month deployments as a military member. It can also be a conflic for people that work in hospitals, in the entertainment industry, in schools, and many other places. You have a very limited world view if you truly believe that everyone else's experience is exactly like yours. |
Anonymous
I haven’t read all the comments carefully, but I don’t think anybody is actually saying that’s universally true. It is in my case (unless you count the very low-paid part time work I do 10 hours a week) because of a variety of circumstances that I am sure don’t apply to you. When somebody says that teens need more support and time than we assume they do, that doesn’t mean they need more support than you are giving yours. It sounds like youre giving your teens all they need and then some. But many people think that once kids are in high school, they can sort of be put out to pasture and basically raise themselves. That’s the idea people are pushing back on. And I’m not the PP who mentioned driving, but I do get frustrated when people insist I can get a job, and the idea of the kids needing schlepping is a mere excuse. People who say this typically established a decent career before said schlepping was necessary. I did not (I’m the poster who has said I wished I had worked when the kids were little). My job prospects are not the same as yours. There are many many reasons I am still a SAHM and yes, driving logistics are one of them. |
Anonymous
Why shouldn't what works for the parents matter? With kids now in and about to go to college I can see that in our family and among friends, families had a lot of different arrangements -- full time daycare, SAHP, nannies, nanny share, grandparent care, etc. During MS-HS some continued to have a SAHP, others had flexible jobs, others kept on the nanny for all that afternoon driving. I really don't see a notable difference in the kids based on how parents chose to balance work and home. Some kids are doing great. Some kids have problems. But none of that seems aligned with when/if their parents were at home. Only correlation is that kids with significant health issues or other special needs, not surprisingly, tended to have SAHP longer or permanently. In that case, yes, the child's needs came first regardless of the parent's career desires. I was at home for the birth-younger in K years (7 years total) and I loved that time. It was the way DH and I wanted to live our life. That doesn't mean it's the right thing for everyone or that it was the absolute best thing for my kids. I have no idea, maybe they'd have thrived in a full time daycare. But I personally would not have so I lived the life I wanted and hopefully did a good job raising my kids in that way. |
Anonymous
I think all this driving talk came from me. I was asking about Ubers for kids. My oldest is 14 but I also have a kindergartner. |
Anonymous
Yes, but you asked about Ubers on a different thread. I'm the one that mentioned your thread here, so it's my fault! 
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Anonymous
I think this is a question that is impossible to answer, especially when it comes to older kids. So much of that will depend on the specific personalities and needs of those kids when they get to that stage. Choosing to stay home with babies-preschool is the most common answer here because that has the most direct payoff -- reduced childcare costs, the needs of babies and small children and quite obvious, and since they need to go to bed early the clash between parent commutes and respecting sleep needs can lead to feeling you don't have enough time with them at an age when they really want to be with you and you really want that time with them. I was at home until my kids were in early ES. At one point I was doing well getting freelance work and figured I could make that my regular job so I'd have that time to be the volunteering-at-school, driving to activities mom. Then my kids started ES and I learned we happened to be at a school that prided itself on being super supportive of working parents (long-time principal was a single mom). There was little need or request for volunteers, parents were rarely asked to come to anything during the school day. Most kids went to extended day and once my son figured that out he wanted to be there too and said it was "not fair" that I didn't work. So, that made it really easy for me to decide to go back to work FT. If we happened to have been in a very SAHP-oriented school I might still be focused on freelancing. Then you get into MS and HS and whether you are "needed" as a physical presence depends so much on what your kids are going through balanced with how flexible your jobs are. Are they having social or academic problems, do they need to get to tutors or therapies, or are they doing great at school but want to dedicate their time to an extracurricular that will require a dedicated chauffer to make it happen. If you or spouse have a flexible or WAH job, maybe this requires little adjustment. Maybe you live close to the HS so they don't have to rely on you for sports-practice transportation. Or it's a long commute with no bus and you have inflexible jobs. Those later years are a lot harder to predict vs. the basic needs of a baby and the parent's desire to be the one there for the cuddles. |