NYT The Daily: The Parents Aren't All Right

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Try to understand that you are creating a false image of what SAH parents do all day and then judging real people who have many diverse situations against that vague image that you have manufactured for yourself. Classic straw man. It’s insulting really. Like a white person explaining the life of a black person.

Please. Name one task that a SAH mom does that a middle class working mom doesn't have to do as well

Volunteer at the local food pantry. How about anything that you pay others to do for you like cleaning or elder care etc?

Why do you feel superior just because you pay other people to do things for you? Why are you so dismissive? Why can’t you just respect the choices of others without belittling them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Of course not. But surely you understand that SAHMs are not just stretching out what you do between 6-10pm every night and making it last all day?

A lot of two-income families also outsource some of the stuff SAHMs do. Everything from the big stuff (childcare) to more minor things you might not even think about because when everyone you know is dual income it just seems normal. Stuff like teaching kids to swim and ride a bike (I was so surprised to discover that most families in our neighborhood just sent kids to a bike camp to learn to ride). House cleaning to some extent. Gardening and landscaping.

It's fine to note that working moms (btw I am one) also parent their kids and cook meals and keep their houses clean. But it's often said with this attitude of "I do everything you do just more efficiently." This is a nice thing to tell yourself if you want to feel superior to another person. But a good SAHM is doing a lot of stuff you do NOT do and they may be doing certain things you do in a better or more thorough way (I know this is true for me -- I halfa$$ dinner all the time in a way my SAHM sister never does). It's okay! I am productive at work and happy with my work life balance. I don't need to put down a SAHM in order to feel good about my life.

Two career family here, we taught kids how to swim, how to ride bikes, etc. We do all of the house cleaning, cooking, laundry, lawn mowing, leaf raking, fertilizing and planting the grass, etc. We do some of the weeding but I hired someone since it was out of control and I couldn’t get the thorny plants out myself. I am tired but so is everyone, with or without working outside of the home.

I do know some SAHMs that hire cleaners. I don’t blame them, if you can afford it, why not. Just never found one we liked.

Good for you, but I'll fully admit that we half ass dinner and cleaning on weeknights aaaall the time, and do zero landscaping and yard work during the work week. If I stayed at home I'm sure my lawn and garden would look much nicer, and we wouldn't eat boxed or frozen food a couple times a week. We just don't have the money to outsource any of it, apart from the minimum of required childcare (after school sitter the one day a week we can't juggle schedules to pick up, and summer camps).

So why not quit? Some people NEED two incomes. We don't have much to pare back besides retirement savings, which would be stress of a very different kind. I don't really believe parents can just avoid stress by choosing to "live simply" or whatever. That's a DCUM thing for people who make a lot of money and can "live simply" in a way that's still comfortable and secure.

That said, it's kind of exhausting and predictable that an article about parental stress as a major *national* issue has just turned into SAHP vs WOHP sniping again. Was that really the point?

I mostly see WOH parents posting wildly self righteous posts about how SAH parents lounge around Target for hours each day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone with untreated, late-diagnosed ADHD raising two ADHD kids, I find it incredibly stressful and difficult. I'm not hyper-attentive, I am just trying to get through each hour without meltdowns.

Why did you have kids? Serious question. If you cannot handle them yourself, please don't put them out in society after your bad parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone with untreated, late-diagnosed ADHD raising two ADHD kids, I find it incredibly stressful and difficult. I'm not hyper-attentive, I am just trying to get through each hour without meltdowns.

Why did you have kids? Serious question. If you cannot handle them yourself, please don't put them out in society after your bad parenting.

DP here
Wow you can just go and eff all the way off. Believe me when I say that you will certainly have imparted your own share of damage onto your own offspring that will also be “put out in society” by an ignorant person like you. Sorry that you find it so off putting that even imperfect people have a right to procreate. Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Try to understand that you are creating a false image of what SAH parents do all day and then judging real people who have many diverse situations against that vague image that you have manufactured for yourself. Classic straw man. It’s insulting really. Like a white person explaining the life of a black person.

Please. Name one task that a SAH mom does that a middle class working mom doesn't have to do as well

Volunteer at the local food pantry. How about anything that you pay others to do for you like cleaning or elder care etc?

Why do you feel superior just because you pay other people to do things for you? Why are you so dismissive? Why can’t you just respect the choices of others without belittling them?

Ah yes, all of those middle class families with cleaning services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Of course not. But surely you understand that SAHMs are not just stretching out what you do between 6-10pm every night and making it last all day?

A lot of two-income families also outsource some of the stuff SAHMs do. Everything from the big stuff (childcare) to more minor things you might not even think about because when everyone you know is dual income it just seems normal. Stuff like teaching kids to swim and ride a bike (I was so surprised to discover that most families in our neighborhood just sent kids to a bike camp to learn to ride). House cleaning to some extent. Gardening and landscaping.

It's fine to note that working moms (btw I am one) also parent their kids and cook meals and keep their houses clean. But it's often said with this attitude of "I do everything you do just more efficiently." This is a nice thing to tell yourself if you want to feel superior to another person. But a good SAHM is doing a lot of stuff you do NOT do and they may be doing certain things you do in a better or more thorough way (I know this is true for me -- I halfa$$ dinner all the time in a way my SAHM sister never does). It's okay! I am productive at work and happy with my work life balance. I don't need to put down a SAHM in order to feel good about my life.

Two career family here, we taught kids how to swim, how to ride bikes, etc. We do all of the house cleaning, cooking, laundry, lawn mowing, leaf raking, fertilizing and planting the grass, etc. We do some of the weeding but I hired someone since it was out of control and I couldn’t get the thorny plants out myself. I am tired but so is everyone, with or without working outside of the home.

I do know some SAHMs that hire cleaners. I don’t blame them, if you can afford it, why not. Just never found one we liked.

Good for you, but I'll fully admit that we half ass dinner and cleaning on weeknights aaaall the time, and do zero landscaping and yard work during the work week. If I stayed at home I'm sure my lawn and garden would look much nicer, and we wouldn't eat boxed or frozen food a couple times a week. We just don't have the money to outsource any of it, apart from the minimum of required childcare (after school sitter the one day a week we can't juggle schedules to pick up, and summer camps).

So why not quit? Some people NEED two incomes. We don't have much to pare back besides retirement savings, which would be stress of a very different kind. I don't really believe parents can just avoid stress by choosing to "live simply" or whatever. That's a DCUM thing for people who make a lot of money and can "live simply" in a way that's still comfortable and secure.

That said, it's kind of exhausting and predictable that an article about parental stress as a major *national* issue has just turned into SAHP vs WOHP sniping again. Was that really the point?

+1 love this post

I wish I could work part time I really do. But it’s just not feasible financially. And I’m not sitting on millions in net worth lol or living in a mansion. My house is old and non-aesthetic (putting it mildly).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Quite the opposite! We are well aware that you need to do all of those things after also working all day long, and we decided we didn't want that.

This. I watched my colleagues doing the two-working-parents with babies/toddlers thing and that looked like an awful life. So stressful. So I chose to be a SAHM until my youngest started kindergarten (and freelanced so it was easy to go back to FT work). What we got is a more relaxing life, the ability to slow down to toddler speed, the ability to get stuff done during the week so DH and I could spend family time with the kids on the weekends. I know I was lucky to be able to do that, not everyone gets the choice, and even if you can, it's not the right choice for a lot of people because they don't want to do it or they have a career that's not conducive to a break or they already have great work/life balance with their job. If I could have WAH or even just didn't have a bad commute, maybe I'd have made a different choice.

Once I went back to work we outsourced a lot more -- afterschool childcare, of course, (and usually got their homework done there so, no, I wasn't helping with homework) but also hired cleaners, got takeout more often, birthday parties at a party-place instead of planning home parties. Weekends became time for errands and house projects instead of just family time. On the positive side, the kids liked going to aftercare with their friends, the 2nd salary was needed to beef up retirement and college savings and let us travel more, and I like going to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone with untreated, late-diagnosed ADHD raising two ADHD kids, I find it incredibly stressful and difficult. I'm not hyper-attentive, I am just trying to get through each hour without meltdowns.

Why did you have kids? Serious question. If you cannot handle them yourself, please don't put them out in society after your bad parenting.

DP. This is a disgusting response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Try to understand that you are creating a false image of what SAH parents do all day and then judging real people who have many diverse situations against that vague image that you have manufactured for yourself. Classic straw man. It’s insulting really. Like a white person explaining the life of a black person.

Please. Name one task that a SAH mom does that a middle class working mom doesn't have to do as well

Volunteer at the local food pantry. How about anything that you pay others to do for you like cleaning or elder care etc?

Why do you feel superior just because you pay other people to do things for you? Why are you so dismissive? Why can’t you just respect the choices of others without belittling them?

Ah yes, all of those middle class families with cleaning services.

I know tons of middle class families with cleaning services. For some families it's considered a necessity because if both parents work full time and you have 2-3 kids, there is just no other way to say on top of it.

If they can only afford once a month or every other week, they'll do that. But I know families that prioritize this over vacations or saving for a bigger home because it's such a fundamental quality if life issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Of course not. But surely you understand that SAHMs are not just stretching out what you do between 6-10pm every night and making it last all day?

A lot of two-income families also outsource some of the stuff SAHMs do. Everything from the big stuff (childcare) to more minor things you might not even think about because when everyone you know is dual income it just seems normal. Stuff like teaching kids to swim and ride a bike (I was so surprised to discover that most families in our neighborhood just sent kids to a bike camp to learn to ride). House cleaning to some extent. Gardening and landscaping.

It's fine to note that working moms (btw I am one) also parent their kids and cook meals and keep their houses clean. But it's often said with this attitude of "I do everything you do just more efficiently." This is a nice thing to tell yourself if you want to feel superior to another person. But a good SAHM is doing a lot of stuff you do NOT do and they may be doing certain things you do in a better or more thorough way (I know this is true for me -- I halfa$$ dinner all the time in a way my SAHM sister never does). It's okay! I am productive at work and happy with my work life balance. I don't need to put down a SAHM in order to feel good about my life.

Two career family here, we taught kids how to swim, how to ride bikes, etc. We do all of the house cleaning, cooking, laundry, lawn mowing, leaf raking, fertilizing and planting the grass, etc. We do some of the weeding but I hired someone since it was out of control and I couldn’t get the thorny plants out myself. I am tired but so is everyone, with or without working outside of the home.

I do know some SAHMs that hire cleaners. I don’t blame them, if you can afford it, why not. Just never found one we liked.

Good for you, but I'll fully admit that we half ass dinner and cleaning on weeknights aaaall the time, and do zero landscaping and yard work during the work week. If I stayed at home I'm sure my lawn and garden would look much nicer, and we wouldn't eat boxed or frozen food a couple times a week. We just don't have the money to outsource any of it, apart from the minimum of required childcare (after school sitter the one day a week we can't juggle schedules to pick up, and summer camps).

So why not quit? Some people NEED two incomes. We don't have much to pare back besides retirement savings, which would be stress of a very different kind. I don't really believe parents can just avoid stress by choosing to "live simply" or whatever. That's a DCUM thing for people who make a lot of money and can "live simply" in a way that's still comfortable and secure.

That said, it's kind of exhausting and predictable that an article about parental stress as a major *national* issue has just turned into SAHP vs WOHP sniping again. Was that really the point?

I mostly see WOH parents posting wildly self righteous posts about how SAH parents lounge around Target for hours each day.

+1. There are so many things my husband and I don’t do because we do not have the time or energy after work and caring for our kids. And we outsource and are incredibly privileged. I keep telling myself that I’ll have more time in a few years but I’m actually not sure that’s true. We are treading water a lot and moving forward slowly. I have had so many health issues pop up in the past 18 months that seem stress driven (eye pain/vision issues, multi-week flu, six bouts of mastitis, multiple muscle strains in my back).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Quite the opposite! We are well aware that you need to do all of those things after also working all day long, and we decided we didn't want that.

This. I watched my colleagues doing the two-working-parents with babies/toddlers thing and that looked like an awful life. So stressful. So I chose to be a SAHM until my youngest started kindergarten (and freelanced so it was easy to go back to FT work). What we got is a more relaxing life, the ability to slow down to toddler speed, the ability to get stuff done during the week so DH and I could spend family time with the kids on the weekends. I know I was lucky to be able to do that, not everyone gets the choice, and even if you can, it's not the right choice for a lot of people because they don't want to do it or they have a career that's not conducive to a break or they already have great work/life balance with their job. If I could have WAH or even just didn't have a bad commute, maybe I'd have made a different choice.

Once I went back to work we outsourced a lot more -- afterschool childcare, of course, (and usually got their homework done there so, no, I wasn't helping with homework) but also hired cleaners, got takeout more often, birthday parties at a party-place instead of planning home parties. Weekends became time for errands and house projects instead of just family time. On the positive side, the kids liked going to aftercare with their friends, the 2nd salary was needed to beef up retirement and college savings and let us travel more, and I like going to work.

Yup. I also discovered after having a baby that my partner would simply not be sharing certain duties that I'd expected him to. It was disappointing but I have to be realistic in my choices. He is loving and loyal but he was never going to participate as fully in parenting a baby/toddler as I expected him to. So to spare myself a really brutal double shift, I stayed home the first couple years and then have stated working only as much as my kid is in school since she started preschool (so initially just contract work a few hours a week when she was in a part time preschool and now working a flexible PT job that allows me to adjust my schedule to her school and activity schedule.

I am incredibly lucky to have been well established professionally before becoming a mom and having a great network, which has enabled me to work out these PT arrangements -- I have a skill set certain orgs really need so people will compromise on my schedule.

I would never have expected this from my DH and I can see others being blindsided. DH has gotten more involved as our kid gets older and it's more equal now but still not equal. Our kid also has some specific special needs and I pretty much have to handle those on my own.

You have to make choices that work for your reality, not some ideal. I'd rather my DH has stepped up. He didn't. I had to adjust and I wanted to preserve my sanity.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Seriously! Do SAHMs actually think we don’t cook dinner, help our kids with their homework and clean our homes just because we work?

Quite the opposite! We are well aware that you need to do all of those things after also working all day long, and we decided we didn't want that.

This. I watched my colleagues doing the two-working-parents with babies/toddlers thing and that looked like an awful life. So stressful. So I chose to be a SAHM until my youngest started kindergarten (and freelanced so it was easy to go back to FT work). What we got is a more relaxing life, the ability to slow down to toddler speed, the ability to get stuff done during the week so DH and I could spend family time with the kids on the weekends. I know I was lucky to be able to do that, not everyone gets the choice, and even if you can, it's not the right choice for a lot of people because they don't want to do it or they have a career that's not conducive to a break or they already have great work/life balance with their job. If I could have WAH or even just didn't have a bad commute, maybe I'd have made a different choice.

Once I went back to work we outsourced a lot more -- afterschool childcare, of course, (and usually got their homework done there so, no, I wasn't helping with homework) but also hired cleaners, got takeout more often, birthday parties at a party-place instead of planning home parties. Weekends became time for errands and house projects instead of just family time. On the positive side, the kids liked going to aftercare with their friends, the 2nd salary was needed to beef up retirement and college savings and let us travel more, and I like going to work.

Yup. I also discovered after having a baby that my partner would simply not be sharing certain duties that I'd expected him to. It was disappointing but I have to be realistic in my choices. He is loving and loyal but he was never going to participate as fully in parenting a baby/toddler as I expected him to. So to spare myself a really brutal double shift, I stayed home the first couple years and then have stated working only as much as my kid is in school since she started preschool (so initially just contract work a few hours a week when she was in a part time preschool and now working a flexible PT job that allows me to adjust my schedule to her school and activity schedule.

I am incredibly lucky to have been well established professionally before becoming a mom and having a great network, which has enabled me to work out these PT arrangements -- I have a skill set certain orgs really need so people will compromise on my schedule.

I would never have expected this from my DH and I can see others being blindsided. DH has gotten more involved as our kid gets older and it's more equal now but still not equal. Our kid also has some specific special needs and I pretty much have to handle those on my own.

You have to make choices that work for your reality, not some ideal. I'd rather my DH has stepped up. He didn't. I had to adjust and I wanted to preserve my sanity.

+100 I had a lot of SAHM friends when I was home with little kids. A lot of us went back to work when the kids got into ES. Those that stayed home generally were some combination of kids with special needs, local parents with health problems, a spouse with intensive/travel-a-lot job, or 3+ kids with intensive extracurriculars that they prioritized over a 2nd income (that one obviously has a spouse with a great-paying job). Some of those women would have liked to go back to a FT job but their reality was that life just worked better with an at-home parent, whether those circumstances were by choice or necessity.

[Anonymous]

We have one kid and we're planning to have a second but the found ourselves totally alone with navigating the pandemic with a 3 yr old -- no family help at all, the public PK program we'd been counting on evaporated (went "virtual") just as our kid was supposed to start, and the availability of private care options was insufficient because so many families were in the same boat. So at the time I might have been looking to get pregnant, we were barely getting by as a family and those plans got shelved. By the time it shook out, I was exhausted and burned out and just didn't have the energy for another pregnancy.

But now I'm glad. Yes I sometimes mourn not having another child-- I love being a mom and I would have loved another child every bit as I love the one I have. But everything is easier with one kid and the further I get into parenting the more "easier" becomes a priority.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Try to understand that you are creating a false image of what SAH parents do all day and then judging real people who have many diverse situations against that vague image that you have manufactured for yourself. Classic straw man. It’s insulting really. Like a white person explaining the life of a black person.

Please. Name one task that a SAH mom does that a middle class working mom doesn't have to do as well

Volunteer at the local food pantry. How about anything that you pay others to do for you like cleaning or elder care etc?

Why do you feel superior just because you pay other people to do things for you? Why are you so dismissive? Why can’t you just respect the choices of others without belittling them?

Ah yes, all of those middle class families with cleaning services.

I know tons of middle class families with cleaning services. For some families it's considered a necessity because if both parents work full time and you have 2-3 kids, there is just no other way to say on top of it.

If they can only afford once a month or every other week, they'll do that. But I know families that prioritize this over vacations or saving for a bigger home because it's such a fundamental quality if life issue.

Side note from 3 kids and no cleaners. It’s ok to give your kids cleaning and laundry chores. My house is acceptably clean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article is such BS, it’s not about intensive parenting. It’s about having two working parents required to just get by, and then really expensive housing which makes everything else harder to manage and afford. There was a lot easier lifestyle where without intensive parenting, when you had a parent, who was home to take care of everything related to the kids as well as clean and cook.

But what parent really wants to give up everything to stay home cooking and cleaning? I know some people are happy to do it, but it shouldn’t be an expectation for good parenting.

Why are you devaluing SAH parents?

I don't think that PP was devaluing SAH parents at all. Just saying that good parents can WOH as well as SAH.

Let me quote the person who is admitting to devaluing SAH:

“Because everything a SAH parent has all day to do still needs to be done by working parents, just without a lot less tome to actually do it”

It’s not devaluing what a SAH parent can do. As a working parent, I still cook, but I do it at 8-10 pm and cook for 2-3 days so I don’t have to do it daily. I still help kids with homework and that’s also after I get home from work, so sometime between 7-8 pm, or after 8 (if I don’t have to cook / prep for next day). If I didn’t have to work, I’d be doing these things between 9am - 2 pm while kids are at school, I would be able to dedicate a bit more time and maybe get nicer food on the table, and I’d help kids with homework around 4-6 and be less stressed when I am helping them.

It’s not devaluing what someone else does, just highlighting the reality of working parents. We still need to squeeze significant house / child care into pre/ and after work hours.

Try to understand that you are creating a false image of what SAH parents do all day and then judging real people who have many diverse situations against that vague image that you have manufactured for yourself. Classic straw man. It’s insulting really. Like a white person explaining the life of a black person.

Please. Name one task that a SAH mom does that a middle class working mom doesn't have to do as well

Volunteer at the local food pantry. How about anything that you pay others to do for you like cleaning or elder care etc?

Why do you feel superior just because you pay other people to do things for you? Why are you so dismissive? Why can’t you just respect the choices of others without belittling them?

Ah yes, all of those middle class families with cleaning services.

I know tons of middle class families with cleaning services. For some families it's considered a necessity because if both parents work full time and you have 2-3 kids, there is just no other way to say on top of it.

If they can only afford once a month or every other week, they'll do that. But I know families that prioritize this over vacations or saving for a bigger home because it's such a fundamental quality if life issue.

Side note from 3 kids and no cleaners. It’s ok to give your kids cleaning and laundry chores. My house is acceptably clean.

That's fine if it works for you. But realistically it doesn't work for everyone. While older kids can do laundry no problem, younger kids have to be carefully taught that task and generally need oversight to do it. Kids can tidy their rooms but under the age of 10-12 they aren't going to be dusting and vacuuming-- same with common areas. You can teach kids to help with cooking and cleaning after meals but please assign tasks like cleaning out the fridge or r cleaning the oven to an 8 yr old and tell me if this is a time saver?

It's good to give kids chores and teach them life skills like cooking and laundry. But until you have teens the idea that your kids will be able to pitch in and keep the house clean without you either doing most of it or spending 3x as long doing things is a fantasy.

Which is why plenty of middle class families with two working parents hire cleaners.