Did your mom WOHM? If so, do you?

[Anonymous]

My mom stayed home and I work part-time. I have thought about working full time once the kids are all in school, but 19:24 confirms my reason not to: I remember high school too, and how after school we would go over to the houses of the kids whose moms worked so we could smoke pot and fool around. In retrospect I'm glad my mom was at home so that was an occasional, instead of daily, experience for me.

[Anonymous]

Just because a mom WOH, doesn't mean the kids are going to smoke pot and fool around after school. I was too busy with sports to have all of that "extra" time after school.

[Anonymous]

Sure, not all do. But if you think that many don't, you are living in la-la land.

[Anonymous]

This is 19:24. Yeesh, I was a hardly a J.D. in high school. What I meant was, right at the time when I started wanting independence, I got it. She didn't "hover" over me. Her returning to work wasn't as easy on my younger brother and sister, I know. I was something of a bookworm in HS... I think I smoked pot maybe three times (college, however, was another story; but she was far from me anyway by then).

[Anonymous]

This is an interesting question and one I've thought about as I start having a family of my own. Our mom worked part time while we were in elementary school; Dad was military so when we posted overseas she didn't work (but volunteered when she could -- at the local Planned Parenthood of all places); I never got the sense she wanted to work (and she didn't have a degree for the longest time. I think she managed an AA in Business when I was incollege), but then again her mom worked full time and she was essentially raised by her grandmother.

I work for a living and have never considered staying home (unless I won the lottery. lol). I always assumed I'd be in a two working parent family but here I am a year after our child was born with my spouse a SAHD and another (unplanned) kiddo on the way next Winter. I hope with him staying home it will change some of the assumptions of how families operate and gender roles although he has also run into the Mommy cliques of the other SAHD poster from last week.

Interestingly almost everyone in my peer group (early fourties) has a working wife with a SAHD or a Dad with a freelance career (or no kids at all). So there goes the cycle I guess.

[Anonymous]

My mom WOH FT, and took and taught additional classes at night some years. I am no a SAHM, but I've also been regular FT, intense FT, and PT WOH at different times.

[Anonymous]

My mother did not work outside the home after marriage. I work full time. She had a high school education and no career. I have a master's degree and a big mortgage.

[Anonymous]

My mom fluctuated between SAHM, working PT and working FT. Mostly FT by the time we were all in elementary school. My dad worked FT too, but went in to work early and got out early, so he was home about 30-60 minutes after we got home from school. So, while we were "latch-key kids" we were never home alone for all that long. I work full time and also have the option of going in early/getting out early, which is what I will probably do when my oldest enters elementary school. I never had any issues with my mom's working status at any given time, it really wasn't that big of a deal to me. I think whether a mom works or stays at home isn't that big of a deal to most kids provided there is balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom stayed home and I work part-time. I have thought about working full time once the kids are all in school, but 19:24 confirms my reason not to: I remember high school too, and how after school we would go over to the houses of the kids whose moms worked so we could smoke pot and fool around. In retrospect I'm glad my mom was at home so that was an occasional, instead of daily, experience for me.

I really don't get this. Why weren't you doing sports? Extracurriculars? PT job? I know no one who just went home after high school. Unfathomable to me. I think the kids who do would be smoking pot anyway. My mom stayed home, but all the trouble I got in was Friday and Saturday nights (and not that I got into that much trouble, but that's when I hooked up with boyfriends, drank, and got in the car with kids who weren't the best drivers). Both my parents were home then anyway!

[Anonymous]

Not the PP you are questioning, but I came right home after school most days/seasons. I did sports before school, so I needed to be in bed by 8 pm, 9 pm at the absolute latest, and by high school I usually had about 3 hours of homework per night.

[Anonymous]

My mom WOH and had a great job traveling all over the world; we had great nannies/houskeepers. I want to travel for work too, but can't leave my babies for as long as would be needed.

[Anonymous]

My mom WOHM, PT, for my entire childhood and I SAHM.

Now I'd like to go back PT

[Anonymous]

Yes and I'm a SAHM. My mother is a brilliant woman who had a high powered career. Rarely saw her growing up. Was raised by nannies. Rarely see her now. She is too busy doing god knows what and rarely sees her grandkids. I had a first class education, all ivy including law and grad schools, and I stay home and raise my kid mostly b/c of the way I was raised by my mother and happy to do it.

[zumbamama]

My mom worked FT but was always home for dinner. I worked FT also for 12 or so years, but eventually craved more flexibility than the 9-5. So, now I work PT out of the home and PT in my home. So although it equals FT, I have a bit more flexibility than my mom did, i.e., I can pick up the kids from school, take them to practice, etc. most of the time.

[Anonymous]

My mom was a SAHM. She will say that she always intended to have a career, but the truth is that she likely could not have kept a job. I am a FT WOHM and my mother silently judges me every day for working.