NYT The Daily: The Parents Aren't All Right

[Anonymous]

It’s not that I wouldn’t like cleaners but I can’t afford them.

My 7 year old can manage a cordless vac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that I wouldn’t like cleaners but I can’t afford them.

My 7 year old can manage a cordless vac.

I also can't afford cleaners but my 7 yo cannot handle a cordless vacuum. She can dust, mop, wipe down bathroom surfaces. Even sweeping isn't really realistic-- she is not tall enough to do it efficiently.

I do 70% of the cleaning in the house. DH handles the kitchen list days and will do a discrete cleaning task if asked. DD contribution does not substantively lessen the load, it's more that I think it's good to have some chores growing up and to learn responsibility for your living space. But it's not a time saver for me.

[Anonymous]

Nobody should be talking sh*t about another family just because they make different choices when raising a family. What kind of example does that set for your kids? That they are superior to others who may do different things in life than a narrow set of behaviors?

[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.

That describes my own situation very well. I am a man. Please remember that SAHD’s exist and also struggle with these same issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

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.

That describes my own situation very well. I am a man. Please remember that SAHD’s exist and also struggle with these same issues.

Fair.

I thing the important reality is that having two parents with jobs can be really hard in families because of the cost and inadequacy of childcare combined with modern expectations for parenting. But also our economy makes it hard to get by on one income AND makes it hard for parents to exit the work force for periods of time to focus on parenting.

It really feels like the deck is stacked against us. Add in the skyrocketing costs of housing and college and it's hard not to feel like culturally there are almost no incentives to have kids outside of your own desire to be a parent. Yet unlike other lifestyle choices, there are very big consequences to society if people stop having children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

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.

That describes my own situation very well. I am a man. Please remember that SAHD’s exist and also struggle with these same issues.

Fair.

I thing the important reality is that having two parents with jobs can be really hard in families because of the cost and inadequacy of childcare combined with modern expectations for parenting. But also our economy makes it hard to get by on one income AND makes it hard for parents to exit the work force for periods of time to focus on parenting.

It really feels like the deck is stacked against us. Add in the skyrocketing costs of housing and college and it's hard not to feel like culturally there are almost no incentives to have kids outside of your own desire to be a parent. Yet unlike other lifestyle choices, there are very big consequences to society if people stop having children.

Yes! It’s truly a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. I think that explains all of the knee jerk reactions to these fraught choices we all have to make about how to structure our lives. It makes people feel defensive and like they have to justify their decisions even when unexpected life circumstances don’t allow for a perfect outcome. We need to spend more time supporting one another rather than debating the “right” way to be a parent.