I feel that way very strongly for myself and my own experience, but it's absolutely a horrible thing to say to someone and I never would have. It's just being rude to be rude, and on a very sensitive topic. Anyone who says that is an ass.
Anonymous wrote:What is an acceptable reason for someone to say they decided to stay ay home? It’s all offensive to someone.
I mean, just say because you wanted to without further explanation. It’s not difficult.
But then its “must be nice” there is no right answer.
Well, I’m sorry most of your conversations on this topic are apparently with people who are poorly socialized
If people are offended by the op they will be offended by anything. We both know this. If someone says they wanted to someone will get huffy that it is presumed they didn’t want to be around their kids. Think it through.
Anonymous wrote:What is an acceptable reason for someone to say they decided to stay ay home? It’s all offensive to someone.
“I had to stay at home because I couldn’t hack it in the workplace. In fact I am such an airhead and so incompetent that the main reason I even had kids was to use them as an excuse to not work! I couldn’t possibly do what YOU do! Even without a job I don’t spend nearly as much quality time with my children as you do with yours and I will never be even half the mother, wife, or woman that YOU are!!!”
Anonymous wrote:I feel that way very strongly for myself and my own experience, but it's absolutely a horrible thing to say to someone and I never would have. It's just being rude to be rude, and on a very sensitive topic. Anyone who says that is an ass.
+1. In life there are many things you think and don’t say. Also, just because it’s what I wanted doesn’t mean it’s what another mom wants.
In 17 years of being at home, I’d never heard a mom say the title of the OP, even to a group of only SAHMs. I think this is all happening inside OP’s own anxiety.
Anonymous wrote:All these posts "I work while my child sleeps and I spend all the waking moments with them along with my DH who also works unicorn hours. When they are preschool age we choose the best school ever....."
It's not real life, 99% of jobs are not like that and both parents equally parenting is difficult to manage too. Aren't parents often complaining about getting their spouse to take on more. I don't think the unicorn perfect parents of the world realize that most people cannot just "choose" this setup
Similarly
"I SAHM with my children, I even sleep with them to maximize my time "raising" them" ... I don't shower or cook or clean or workout or run errands or take walks or go on dates or see friends or do girls weekend or vacatino with my H or visit family without them or get sick or let my H take them or let them do independent play ever so I'm never away from them. I would never spend 1 hour away let alone 3 that is reducing my "raising" time by 20%. I spaced my kids perfectly so my toddler would never take time away from my infant."
It's not real life, 99% of SAHM's are doing stuff without their children for hours a day, they are not with them 24x7. They spend at most 6 hours a day one on one with them. I don't think it would even be healthy to be this invested and involved in every breath your child takes.
This is just not true.
+1. I can’t believe how many insecure moms are responding. Working and stay at home moms are not monolithic groups. Just because you know someone who does x does not mean that applies to all individuals in that group. The idea that working moms spend 30 minutes a day with their kids is as ludicrous as the idea that sahm spend 6 hours a day with their kids.
All of the insecure posts on here mostly directed as stay at home moms (I WFH) are insane though. Someone was offended that a poster said working moms gave up time with their kids and stay at home moms gave up status and financial security. And some crazed working mom wrote that she was insulted that someone would say working moms gave up time with their kids by working. I mean, how is it an insult to (checks notes) *state facts* unless you are so insecure that you can’t handle the truth.
So many women feel insulted by the “strangers raising my kid” comment because they feel that it is a personal attack on them and they are in complete denial about the fact that by working they spend less time with their children. Initially there were the people claiming they and their spouse worked full time and their child only had a nanny between 11-12 and 3-5 (because we all know it’s super common for children to take a three hour nap in the middle of the day from birth to five while you work and run errands🙄 and that so many nannies will accept a shambolic schedule) and since those ridiculous examples didn’t withstand scrutiny then it was the ad hominem “you dumb” after every valid argument and finally it’s this ridiculous argument that stay at home moms spend 6 hours with their kids a day (because if you’re a working parent in an office and your child naps it’s like you are right there taking care of them for all [insert unbelievably high made up number] hours they nap during the day, but if you’re a stay at home mom and your child naps you are not parenting them). It’s been illogical from the start but at this point it’s farcical too.
If you are talking about my post then you have reading comprehension issues because 1) I stated that my DH and I staggered schedules so that one left late and the other one came back early, 2) it was a 2-hour nap not 3 hours, and 3) We hired a nanny for 6 hours a day but she helped with housework when she wasn’t actively taking care of our kid.
And yes, it is perfectly reasonable to expect a child to take a 2-hour nap until age ~4 or so. Some don’t but most do.
So just call yourself a SAHM. What’s the difference?
Because I was not… I was a WOHM who made $200k+.
Why are you so antagonistic about this? It’s a good thing when working parents are able to flex their schedules to spend a ton of time with their kids. Maybe not as much as SAHPs (I didn’t claim to do so in my original post) but still a solid chunk so that they feel really connected with their kids.
Work out of home but spends the same amount of time at home. Ok.
I worked 11:15-6 in the office and he worked 8-4 in the office. I had a shorter commute, less demanding job, and lower salary than him. We both logged in for an hour or two every night.
Here’s your cookie. Nobody cares.
Maybe you think I am offended… but this comment just makes you sound petulant
You’re out of the home about 7 hours a day. Not sure why you’re engaging in arguments with SAHM about how much quality time you have at home.
Are you being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to goad someone into saying your brain has turned to mush?
My point was I (and my husband) could still work FT, with my kids in parental care the majority of their day.
So you saw your kids for like 90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes at night and your husband never saw your kids in the morning. And you both patented solo and probably got docked financially at work for your weird hours in office and then you still worked 8:30-9:30 pm with your husband every night after your kids went to bed. Sounds like a miserable situation for everyone… Maybe one of you should have stayed home or used childcare so your lives weren’t so crazy. You must be very burnt out.
I saw my kids from 6-11am and 6:15-9pm. DH saw them from 5-9pm. My point was they were in the care of a parent for all but 11-5 (during which time they were napping for 2 hours anyway) and that made us happy because we wanted to prioritize their time with a parent!
Yes we were a little burnt out a bit from doing it, but it was temporary and enabled us long-term to grow our careers while still feeling super connected to our kids. Both of us received promotions (DH got a huge one) because our companies prioritized talent over facetime.
Overall we feel incredibly fortunate that we were able to have our cake and eat it too. I would encourage any parent who enjoys working to try pushing for flexible schedules before giving up and quitting.
I am not the poster with the neighbor, or the poster calculating and comparing how much time SAHMs spend with their kids (of course they spend more!). I am just stating what *I* did. The thought of being in competition with some SAHM is actually quite hilarious to me.
Your children woke up at 6 am and went to bed at 9 pm before they were even in K?
And then you and your husband worked for an hour every night after your children went to bed, so like 9:15-10:15 pm, before you cleaned up and got everything ready for the next day before waking up at like 5:15 to shower and get ready before the kids woke up at 6? What an insane schedule for your entire family.
While many working couples do not both have unicorn remote jobs that allow them to flex time in a way that allows them to work outside of standard hours that also correspond with their spouse’s job, usually jobs like this do not allow for growth. If someone needs your spouse at 4 or you at 8 am they can’t get ahold of you for hours. This entire set up is also predicated on your toddler and preschool aged children waking up at 6, going to bed at 9, and napping for two hours in the middle of the day and you and your husband using your evenings to put your kids to bed and work. The craziness of this schedule perfectly illustrates why so many people either have childcare for a standard workday or a parent stays at home.
Our nanny helped with cooking and housework during nap time. We paid a FT salary for only 30-35 hours a week, so she was happy to do it.
Look, you can try and poke 100 holes in my story that are not worth my time to refute. If it makes you happy to believe I am a) lying about my schedule b) was miserable during that time, or c) had a career that stalled, then go ahead and believe it.
But for any open-minded WOHMs out there who enjoy working and still want to find a way to spend more time with their kids, I would strongly recommend advocating for a more flexible schedule, before giving up and quitting. Yes, it requires some sacrifice of nighttime entertainment (very limited TV or phone scrolling for us!) but it was worth it because we spent a ton of time with our young kids while still growing our careers.
I'm a DP, and I don't think you're lying. Glad it worked out for you.
But, come on, your situation and posts are irrelevant and derailing. Why? Because they realistically apply to like no one, or maybe something like 0.0001% of dual FT WOHM households where both spouses have traditional office jobs. You must understand how exceedingly rare it is to be a couple where BOTH OF YOU could have those kind of alternate schedules and flexibility and not tank your careers. Your advice is really not going to apply to anyone, so it's annoying!
Also, you keep trickling in more information...like now it turns out you had to log back on for hours at night and pay your part-time nanny a full-time salary. Ugh, ugh, ugh!
FWIW, my kids are school-age now and I am able to work 7 to 3 two days a week which I arranged because those two days my one kid has an activity she is very passionate about that I need to get her to. My DH is senior enough that he can put the kids onto the bus at 8:20 those two days, getting into the office a little later, and it's ok. That's the kind of reasonable flexibility some folks should look into/test out! But me not starting my day everyday until 11:15 and him needing to leave the office everyday at 4 to relieve the nanny??? we would tank out careers no doubt! (And our jobs are not even that intense or big on "facetime".)
It’s extremely common now for parents to have flexible schedules and paternity leave.
OTOH, it’s about .000001% of the population who are SAHM who are not busy with everything but raising their kids during the day.
What’s it like to be really bad at both math and basic research? Your lack of skills in both are on display here as is your privilege.
If you and everyone you know is a fed please understand that you are not representative of 98% of the US workforce. 1.9% of the us workforce works for the federal government.
According to the NYT, 80% of working adults are at in person jobs and 20% are remote or hybrid, with those categories being roughly even. Parents do not “commonly” have flexible jobs by this metric.
24% of parents working in the private sector have access to some paid parental leave. And many men who have leave available to them do not take all of it due to stigma. 75% of working fathers take a week off and 16% take no time off.
And .000001% of the US population is 346. You think 346 people are stay at home moms?
For the sake of humanity I hope your job has zero data analysis or critical thinking requirements. My five year old is more capable of higher level thinking.
You didn't even recognize that I used your insane statistic as a hyperbole. I literally repeated your inane statement in reverse. Please I hope your job does not require reading comprehension and logical reasoning skills.
But with teachers and construction workers and farmers and nurses and cops and the plethora of workers you probably don't even know in person, not everybody is 9-5 in an office with a commute needing $330K/year to survive. There is a whole world out there in the exburbs and rural areas.
Ahhhh! I get it now. I see what you are doing ... I've looked back and realize now that you have done it many times throughout this thread. When someone makes a broad-ish statement about WOHMs that doesn't fit your narrative, you are (in your mind, at least) "reversing" it and making it about SAHMs. But in the broadest (read: delusional) sense of "reverse", ha.
So, e.g., someone will say something like, "8 out of 10 WOHM don't have flexibility to stagger her hours" and you will write, "8 out of 10 SAHM don't have time to engage with their kids amidst all their chores." I get it now -- you are being flip, not factual. Cool.
ding ding ding... lol sahm can make outrageous hyperbolas claims and it's all cool but when flipped around a bevy of irate SAHM's take defense.
I don't understand what you are saying. But what's been happening on this thread is that someone will make a statement that is literally factual -- not outrageous or hyperbolic at all. Something like, "typical office hours are still from 9 to 5 for most workers". THIS IS TRUE. And this one highly insecure WOHM will respond with something like, "SAHMs do chores for 5 hours a day with their kids in a different room". THAT IS PULLED OUT OF HER ASS. Really, which of those statements are you going to defend??? Many of the PPs annoyed at this woman are WOHM because she is making us look insecure and nuts. The rest of us know full well that SAHMs spend a lot more time with their kids than we do. Even the WOHM with the very funky schedule who started the day at 11:00 had a nanny for 6 hours a day! I honestly can't even believe this is apparently up for debate. The way she is clinging to the false reality makes it seem like these numbers matter more to us WOHMs than they do. Most of us have a point when it becomes too much time away from our child, but that breaking point isn't "I have to stay reallllly close to what a SAHM gets". That's not how most of us think. We're not going around doing the neighbor-comparing math. I know my kids spend chunks of their day with a nanny, and in preschool, and with dad -- and I know they are doing great!
Nothing that is general is the truth.
A truthful statement is specific. I work a Levine schedule as does my H and we only need 3 hours of care to bridge the gap. That is factual.
But you are completely incorrect in your statement even in general sense.
Fewer than half of full-time employees in the United States work a traditional 40-hour workweek, which is based on five 9-to-5 workdays.
What is a true statement is that 10% of SAHM have cleaners, cooks, etc. so it is a very true statement that 90% of SAHM do not spend 1-1 time with their kids all day.
Anonymous wrote:All these posts "I work while my child sleeps and I spend all the waking moments with them along with my DH who also works unicorn hours. When they are preschool age we choose the best school ever....."
It's not real life, 99% of jobs are not like that and both parents equally parenting is difficult to manage too. Aren't parents often complaining about getting their spouse to take on more. I don't think the unicorn perfect parents of the world realize that most people cannot just "choose" this setup
Similarly
"I SAHM with my children, I even sleep with them to maximize my time "raising" them" ... I don't shower or cook or clean or workout or run errands or take walks or go on dates or see friends or do girls weekend or vacatino with my H or visit family without them or get sick or let my H take them or let them do independent play ever so I'm never away from them. I would never spend 1 hour away let alone 3 that is reducing my "raising" time by 20%. I spaced my kids perfectly so my toddler would never take time away from my infant."
It's not real life, 99% of SAHM's are doing stuff without their children for hours a day, they are not with them 24x7. They spend at most 6 hours a day one on one with them. I don't think it would even be healthy to be this invested and involved in every breath your child takes.
This is just not true.
+1. I can’t believe how many insecure moms are responding. Working and stay at home moms are not monolithic groups. Just because you know someone who does x does not mean that applies to all individuals in that group. The idea that working moms spend 30 minutes a day with their kids is as ludicrous as the idea that sahm spend 6 hours a day with their kids.
All of the insecure posts on here mostly directed as stay at home moms (I WFH) are insane though. Someone was offended that a poster said working moms gave up time with their kids and stay at home moms gave up status and financial security. And some crazed working mom wrote that she was insulted that someone would say working moms gave up time with their kids by working. I mean, how is it an insult to (checks notes) *state facts* unless you are so insecure that you can’t handle the truth.
So many women feel insulted by the “strangers raising my kid” comment because they feel that it is a personal attack on them and they are in complete denial about the fact that by working they spend less time with their children. Initially there were the people claiming they and their spouse worked full time and their child only had a nanny between 11-12 and 3-5 (because we all know it’s super common for children to take a three hour nap in the middle of the day from birth to five while you work and run errands🙄 and that so many nannies will accept a shambolic schedule) and since those ridiculous examples didn’t withstand scrutiny then it was the ad hominem “you dumb” after every valid argument and finally it’s this ridiculous argument that stay at home moms spend 6 hours with their kids a day (because if you’re a working parent in an office and your child naps it’s like you are right there taking care of them for all [insert unbelievably high made up number] hours they nap during the day, but if you’re a stay at home mom and your child naps you are not parenting them). It’s been illogical from the start but at this point it’s farcical too.
If you are talking about my post then you have reading comprehension issues because 1) I stated that my DH and I staggered schedules so that one left late and the other one came back early, 2) it was a 2-hour nap not 3 hours, and 3) We hired a nanny for 6 hours a day but she helped with housework when she wasn’t actively taking care of our kid.
And yes, it is perfectly reasonable to expect a child to take a 2-hour nap until age ~4 or so. Some don’t but most do.
So just call yourself a SAHM. What’s the difference?
Because I was not… I was a WOHM who made $200k+.
Why are you so antagonistic about this? It’s a good thing when working parents are able to flex their schedules to spend a ton of time with their kids. Maybe not as much as SAHPs (I didn’t claim to do so in my original post) but still a solid chunk so that they feel really connected with their kids.
Work out of home but spends the same amount of time at home. Ok.
I worked 11:15-6 in the office and he worked 8-4 in the office. I had a shorter commute, less demanding job, and lower salary than him. We both logged in for an hour or two every night.
Here’s your cookie. Nobody cares.
Maybe you think I am offended… but this comment just makes you sound petulant
You’re out of the home about 7 hours a day. Not sure why you’re engaging in arguments with SAHM about how much quality time you have at home.
Are you being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to goad someone into saying your brain has turned to mush?
My point was I (and my husband) could still work FT, with my kids in parental care the majority of their day.
So you saw your kids for like 90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes at night and your husband never saw your kids in the morning. And you both patented solo and probably got docked financially at work for your weird hours in office and then you still worked 8:30-9:30 pm with your husband every night after your kids went to bed. Sounds like a miserable situation for everyone… Maybe one of you should have stayed home or used childcare so your lives weren’t so crazy. You must be very burnt out.
I saw my kids from 6-11am and 6:15-9pm. DH saw them from 5-9pm. My point was they were in the care of a parent for all but 11-5 (during which time they were napping for 2 hours anyway) and that made us happy because we wanted to prioritize their time with a parent!
Yes we were a little burnt out a bit from doing it, but it was temporary and enabled us long-term to grow our careers while still feeling super connected to our kids. Both of us received promotions (DH got a huge one) because our companies prioritized talent over facetime.
Overall we feel incredibly fortunate that we were able to have our cake and eat it too. I would encourage any parent who enjoys working to try pushing for flexible schedules before giving up and quitting.
I am not the poster with the neighbor, or the poster calculating and comparing how much time SAHMs spend with their kids (of course they spend more!). I am just stating what *I* did. The thought of being in competition with some SAHM is actually quite hilarious to me.
Your children woke up at 6 am and went to bed at 9 pm before they were even in K?
And then you and your husband worked for an hour every night after your children went to bed, so like 9:15-10:15 pm, before you cleaned up and got everything ready for the next day before waking up at like 5:15 to shower and get ready before the kids woke up at 6? What an insane schedule for your entire family.
While many working couples do not both have unicorn remote jobs that allow them to flex time in a way that allows them to work outside of standard hours that also correspond with their spouse’s job, usually jobs like this do not allow for growth. If someone needs your spouse at 4 or you at 8 am they can’t get ahold of you for hours. This entire set up is also predicated on your toddler and preschool aged children waking up at 6, going to bed at 9, and napping for two hours in the middle of the day and you and your husband using your evenings to put your kids to bed and work. The craziness of this schedule perfectly illustrates why so many people either have childcare for a standard workday or a parent stays at home.
Our nanny helped with cooking and housework during nap time. We paid a FT salary for only 30-35 hours a week, so she was happy to do it.
Look, you can try and poke 100 holes in my story that are not worth my time to refute. If it makes you happy to believe I am a) lying about my schedule b) was miserable during that time, or c) had a career that stalled, then go ahead and believe it.
But for any open-minded WOHMs out there who enjoy working and still want to find a way to spend more time with their kids, I would strongly recommend advocating for a more flexible schedule, before giving up and quitting. Yes, it requires some sacrifice of nighttime entertainment (very limited TV or phone scrolling for us!) but it was worth it because we spent a ton of time with our young kids while still growing our careers.
I'm a DP, and I don't think you're lying. Glad it worked out for you.
But, come on, your situation and posts are irrelevant and derailing. Why? Because they realistically apply to like no one, or maybe something like 0.0001% of dual FT WOHM households where both spouses have traditional office jobs. You must understand how exceedingly rare it is to be a couple where BOTH OF YOU could have those kind of alternate schedules and flexibility and not tank your careers. Your advice is really not going to apply to anyone, so it's annoying!
Also, you keep trickling in more information...like now it turns out you had to log back on for hours at night and pay your part-time nanny a full-time salary. Ugh, ugh, ugh!
FWIW, my kids are school-age now and I am able to work 7 to 3 two days a week which I arranged because those two days my one kid has an activity she is very passionate about that I need to get her to. My DH is senior enough that he can put the kids onto the bus at 8:20 those two days, getting into the office a little later, and it's ok. That's the kind of reasonable flexibility some folks should look into/test out! But me not starting my day everyday until 11:15 and him needing to leave the office everyday at 4 to relieve the nanny??? we would tank out careers no doubt! (And our jobs are not even that intense or big on "facetime".)
It’s extremely common now for parents to have flexible schedules and paternity leave.
OTOH, it’s about .000001% of the population who are SAHM who are not busy with everything but raising their kids during the day.
What’s it like to be really bad at both math and basic research? Your lack of skills in both are on display here as is your privilege.
If you and everyone you know is a fed please understand that you are not representative of 98% of the US workforce. 1.9% of the us workforce works for the federal government.
According to the NYT, 80% of working adults are at in person jobs and 20% are remote or hybrid, with those categories being roughly even. Parents do not “commonly” have flexible jobs by this metric.
24% of parents working in the private sector have access to some paid parental leave. And many men who have leave available to them do not take all of it due to stigma. 75% of working fathers take a week off and 16% take no time off.
And .000001% of the US population is 346. You think 346 people are stay at home moms?
For the sake of humanity I hope your job has zero data analysis or critical thinking requirements. My five year old is more capable of higher level thinking.
You didn't even recognize that I used your insane statistic as a hyperbole. I literally repeated your inane statement in reverse. Please I hope your job does not require reading comprehension and logical reasoning skills.
But with teachers and construction workers and farmers and nurses and cops and the plethora of workers you probably don't even know in person, not everybody is 9-5 in an office with a commute needing $330K/year to survive. There is a whole world out there in the exburbs and rural areas.
Ahhhh! I get it now. I see what you are doing ... I've looked back and realize now that you have done it many times throughout this thread. When someone makes a broad-ish statement about WOHMs that doesn't fit your narrative, you are (in your mind, at least) "reversing" it and making it about SAHMs. But in the broadest (read: delusional) sense of "reverse", ha.
So, e.g., someone will say something like, "8 out of 10 WOHM don't have flexibility to stagger her hours" and you will write, "8 out of 10 SAHM don't have time to engage with their kids amidst all their chores." I get it now -- you are being flip, not factual. Cool.
ding ding ding... lol sahm can make outrageous hyperbolas claims and it's all cool but when flipped around a bevy of irate SAHM's take defense.
I don't understand what you are saying. But what's been happening on this thread is that someone will make a statement that is literally factual -- not outrageous or hyperbolic at all. Something like, "typical office hours are still from 9 to 5 for most workers". THIS IS TRUE. And this one highly insecure WOHM will respond with something like, "SAHMs do chores for 5 hours a day with their kids in a different room". THAT IS PULLED OUT OF HER ASS. Really, which of those statements are you going to defend??? Many of the PPs annoyed at this woman are WOHM because she is making us look insecure and nuts. The rest of us know full well that SAHMs spend a lot more time with their kids than we do. Even the WOHM with the very funky schedule who started the day at 11:00 had a nanny for 6 hours a day! I honestly can't even believe this is apparently up for debate. The way she is clinging to the false reality makes it seem like these numbers matter more to us WOHMs than they do. Most of us have a point when it becomes too much time away from our child, but that breaking point isn't "I have to stay reallllly close to what a SAHM gets". That's not how most of us think. We're not going around doing the neighbor-comparing math. I know my kids spend chunks of their day with a nanny, and in preschool, and with dad -- and I know they are doing great!
Nothing that is general is the truth.
A truthful statement is specific. I work a Levine schedule as does my H and we only need 3 hours of care to bridge the gap. That is factual.
But you are completely incorrect in your statement even in general sense.
Fewer than half of full-time employees in the United States work a traditional 40-hour workweek, which is based on five 9-to-5 workdays.
What is a true statement is that 10% of SAHM have cleaners, cooks, etc. so it is a very true statement that 90% of SAHM do not spend 1-1 time with their kids all day.
You seem very invested in the notion that SAHM’s don’t spend much time with their kids.
I’d say anyone who makes the claim that they stay home because they didn’t want someone to raise their kids wasn’t really cut out to advance in a career. They believe they can’t manage others to do what they want and they have to do everything themselves for it to be effective. This mentality is effective early in careers, but management is selected from the group who can trust their team, lead, and delegate. Someone who believes their lack of presence means they aren’t doing something are too insecure to be a good manager. So perhaps their DIY skills and micromanaging approach are better applied managing a household.
We’ve focused our energy to hiring good help and putting our children in high quality centers. We’ve quickly made adjustments when things aren’t working and we trust the people/orgs we’ve vetted and hired until we have a reason not to.
I also think people who find either child rearing or maintaining employment the most challenging are the most likely to pick one or the other. Some people just don’t find it that hard to raise kids while working. It can certainly be hard at times, but from what I’ve observed there are certain types of people who are incredibly challenged and some aren’t challenged at all. And many people along the spectrum in between.
Anonymous wrote:I feel that way very strongly for myself and my own experience, but it's absolutely a horrible thing to say to someone and I never would have. It's just being rude to be rude, and on a very sensitive topic. Anyone who says that is an ass.
+1. In life there are many things you think and don’t say. Also, just because it’s what I wanted doesn’t mean it’s what another mom wants.
Right this is just basic social graces. Not really a WOHM vs SAHM but just being a rude, either clueless or intentionally.
Anonymous wrote:I’d say anyone who makes the claim that they stay home because they didn’t want someone to raise their kids wasn’t really cut out to advance in a career. They believe they can’t manage others to do what they want and they have to do everything themselves for it to be effective. This mentality is effective early in careers, but management is selected from the group who can trust their team, lead, and delegate. Someone who believes their lack of presence means they aren’t doing something are too insecure to be a good manager. So perhaps their DIY skills and micromanaging approach are better applied managing a household.
We’ve focused our energy to hiring good help and putting our children in high quality centers. We’ve quickly made adjustments when things aren’t working and we trust the people/orgs we’ve vetted and hired until we have a reason not to.
I also think people who find either child rearing or maintaining employment the most challenging are the most likely to pick one or the other. Some people just don’t find it that hard to raise kids while working. It can certainly be hard at times, but from what I’ve observed there are certain types of people who are incredibly challenged and some aren’t challenged at all. And many people along the spectrum in between.
This is simplistic and incorrect.
It ignores the fact that some people (PR bavly the majority of SAHPs actually) stay home with kids because they want to, not be abuse or is the only way to ensure a certain quality of care. They want the experience of being with their children instead of paying someone else to get that experience.
Also even among SAHPs who stay home to ensure a certain quality of care, the issue is not an inability to manage a childcare worker but financial or an opportunity issue-- they may believe it even know if childcare they believe is high quality, but they can't afford it or don't have access to it.
As someone who SAHMed for 3 years between stints in management, I also find your premise deeply flawed. I am a capable person who is good at problem solving, delegating, prioritizing, and communication. These skills have served me well as a manager but they were also very useful as a SAHM. I used to joke that my kid was nowhere near the most difficult client I'd ever had-- I spent years managing colleagues and internal and external clients who were emotional, petty, immature, and highly demanding. My DD was easy in comparison and bonus: in liked her company better.
Since returning to work I have found that I've carried certain lessons with me from my years as a SAHM, largely around using empathy and listening as tools to build trust.
I think people who have never been primary caregivers for someone totally helpless often don't actually understand what it's like or what tools are required. Much of the criticism of SAHMs on this thread simply reflect ignorance.
Anonymous wrote:I’d say anyone who makes the claim that they stay home because they didn’t want someone to raise their kids wasn’t really cut out to advance in a career. They believe they can’t manage others to do what they want and they have to do everything themselves for it to be effective. This mentality is effective early in careers, but management is selected from the group who can trust their team, lead, and delegate. Someone who believes their lack of presence means they aren’t doing something are too insecure to be a good manager. So perhaps their DIY skills and micromanaging approach are better applied managing a household.
We’ve focused our energy to hiring good help and putting our children in high quality centers. We’ve quickly made adjustments when things aren’t working and we trust the people/orgs we’ve vetted and hired until we have a reason not to.
I also think people who find either child rearing or maintaining employment the most challenging are the most likely to pick one or the other. Some people just don’t find it that hard to raise kids while working. It can certainly be hard at times, but from what I’ve observed there are certain types of people who are incredibly challenged and some aren’t challenged at all. And many people along the spectrum in between.
I wasn’t cut out to advance in a career and I can say that openly and without embarrassment or shame. I was cut out to be a homemaker and caregiver. You may feel those terms are derogatory or insulting, but for me it is the greatest privilege of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything and I’m eternally grateful to my husband, who was fine with my working or not. He left it up to me and still does.
Delegating what’s been done by mothers for millennia—the soothing, feeding, washing, connecting, responsiveness, calmness—is not the same thing as hiring a competent plumber or IT specialist. Especially when your budget for this work is minimum wage.
Anonymous wrote:I’d say anyone who makes the claim that they stay home because they didn’t want someone to raise their kids wasn’t really cut out to advance in a career. They believe they can’t manage others to do what they want and they have to do everything themselves for it to be effective. This mentality is effective early in careers, but management is selected from the group who can trust their team, lead, and delegate. Someone who believes their lack of presence means they aren’t doing something are too insecure to be a good manager. So perhaps their DIY skills and micromanaging approach are better applied managing a household.
We’ve focused our energy to hiring good help and putting our children in high quality centers. We’ve quickly made adjustments when things aren’t working and we trust the people/orgs we’ve vetted and hired until we have a reason not to.
I also think people who find either child rearing or maintaining employment the most challenging are the most likely to pick one or the other. Some people just don’t find it that hard to raise kids while working. It can certainly be hard at times, but from what I’ve observed there are certain types of people who are incredibly challenged and some aren’t challenged at all. And many people along the spectrum in between.
Glad we heard from the resident middle manager who is quick to claim credit but slow to do any of the actual… work. Either at her job or at home, apparently.
Bet she gets paid a ton to “delegate” while adding little to any actual value, and the size of her paycheck makes her think her opinion matters
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