SAHM of teens — Crucial responsibilities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I still see that you say nothing about your father. Why do people make this all about the mothers as though fathers have no hand in outcomes for their children?

Not the PP you responded to. You bring up a very good point. Both parents play a crucial role in the raising of the child. My DH is a better parent in a lot of ways than I am. He is the one who makes breakfast, packs the lunch box and drops them to school. My kids are not happy when he is not at home. However, there are times that they need me emotionally and want me to be physically close to them, even though, both DH and I are available and present for them.

I don't know why it is so that children in some situations prefer the moms? However, in other situations, they absolutely want their dads. I think children who have intact families with loving and involved parents are very lucky and blessed. This seems like a small and ordinary thing, but this is not a circumstance that is a given to all children.

I think the title of the thread says SAHM but it can be just about a SAH parent. Maybe even a SAH grandparent or an adult sibling? I am very close to my parents and siblings. My grandma spent a lot of time raising us. I still needed my mom for certain situations and my dad for different situations. They both were important but I instinctively knew when only my mom would do for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well I can give you the flip side. I developed what became a life long eating disorder at 14 (eating disorders are a form of addictive behavior that you never really "get over" completely but you can learn to manage it to live functionally). At that time, it was really really bad. I'm 5'7 and I got down to ~ 90 lbs. Looking back on it now, I probably should have gone into an inpatient facility but there were none around where we lived. Therapists specializing in eating disorders were also nonexistent.

I really needed my mom at that time but she had just gone back to work at a very intense, time consuming job.

I'm sorry this happened to you. That was about your particular mom and your particular dynamic with your mom, not about the fact that she worked.

My point is that many teens have mental health issues and need their parents at that age. She went back to work when I was 13 because they needed the money. But ideally she would have stayed home with us during those years because her kids could have benefited from it.

My younger brother also got into a lot of trouble (drinking, drugs, girls) in those years. It can't even be blamed on me and my issues because I was away at college by the time he was in middle school.

Sound like your family was a disaster. This has nothing to do with employment. Your mom when she was home, nor your father, clearly didn't lay a very solid foundation.

[Anonymous]

Folks, this is a silly arguement. Studies don't support that outcomes are any worse for working moms than SAHM. And if you really want to nitpick, the studies show that outcomes are a bot better for kids of working mothers.

As a SAHM, I can tell you that I've seen my fair share of bad kids from bad families with bad outcomes. Outcomes are good when kids come from healthy families. Employment status is irrelevant. Quite honestly the depressed, pill popping anxiety ridden SAHM that I often came running in circles with is tiresome and tedious and I feel sorry for those kids. Some women simply don't work because the emotionally can't, but you'll never see them admitting it on this site. I have no idea of working moms are as unhinged as the UMC moms I know because that's not my circle. Maybe they are too and for those kids I feel sorry for them as qell.