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What are the best years to stay at home (SAHM)?
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
I agree with you 100% that “Dad brings home the money, Mom wastes her education doing Target runs” is not the example I want to set for my children. But two FT working parents with challenging jobs, even if WFH, still have stress in their lives. I myself have a looooong checklist of things I keep putting off bc we would rather spend my time outside work bonding with our young children rather than doing admin stuff or home repairs. I would love to go PT (maybe 4 hours a day) and do all of that stuff during the day. Unfortunately there are few jobs that allow that while still allowing for career progression. |
Anonymous
Do you disagree that the financial responsiblities, child related responsiblities, and the household related responsibilities should be shared? You feel it is fair for 100% of one or more of these to fall solely on one parent? I know there are some very traditional people who think it is the man's job to provide and protect and the woman's job is the childcare and the home but most people I know think that responsiblities for the home and the children should be shared between parents. |
Anonymous
| Even in our traditional scenario my husband shares in the responsibilities. We do it in part to we model the type of marriage we hope the kids aspire to, and Partly it’s the right thing to do, plus hubby enjoys helping at home and being present w the kids. It’s a win win. |
Anonymous
Do you share in the financial responsiblities? Or he has all three responsibliities and you don't? In traditional homes it is modeled that women are dependents like children who can't take care of themsevles and need a man to provide housing and food and clothes and all their basic wants and material needs. That women are kept by men and that men are the plan as women aren't capable or competent or able to financially provide for themselves or their children. That may be your values and what you choose to model but it isn't mine. Just like I believe men are more than capable and competent to be involved fathers and to contribute to the rearing of children in a hands on way and to have household responsiblities. That they don't need a woman to take care of them by cookign all their food, cleaning everything for them, taking care of all their doemstic needs, and parenting their children for them. |
Anonymous
Ha, thank you! It’s one of those things where it could be a grass is greener issue but I really don’t like trying to stay productive while the kids are at school. I’m a former Mormon so I have a lot of friends who are SAHMs and fill their time with things like DIY remodeling a crumbling bathroom, writing novels, couponing so their grocery bills are absurdly low, etc. I wish I had the energy and organizational skills for all that, but I don’t. So instead I substitute teach a few times a week which at least makes me feel like I’m contributing to the community and covers the cost of cleaners. All in all it’s not a bad setup. But again it’s not something id recommend. |
Anonymous
I am a WOHM and you are ridiculous. Stop imputing your weird assumptions on every family. There is at least a 50/50 chance I will take a break from work sometime in the next 10 years, and if that happens I will still make the financial decisions for our family as I always have. |
Anonymous
My husband and I both work full-time and always have. We have two children in elementary school and no longer have a nanny. We do have a cleaning service that comes every two weeks. We also have a gardener. Our kids both play a time-consuming sport and my husband and I also both play a sport. In addition to that, we go away with friends for the weekend (I just went away with my girlfriends at the end of last month and he is going away with his guy friends next month), we do things as a couple without our children, we do things as a family, and we do things with one parent and the kids. We also both work out every day, he plays poker once a month, I'm in a book club that meets once a month. We have no family near us to help. I wouldn't say our situation is hard to sustain. Also, we have many friends in similar situations. We planned carefully and made choices that allowed us to have this set up. Maybe it meant things you aren't willing to do and we were but we both have plenty of personal time, lots of time with our kids, and a healthy marriage. We also have an elder care issue as my mother lives locally and has dementia so I basically have another child. I get that there are things that haven't happened to us, like a life-threatening illness with a child, but we have dealt with mental health issues, the death of the best parent between the two of us we had, job changes, financial difficulties, and more. So it's not like we're just blissfully unaware of things that life can throw at you and we don't live a perfectly charmed life. All that to say, I think some people just buy into the idea that you spout - that there's no good way to have two working parents and a good life - and it just isn't universally. Maybe think outside the box and consider the things you'd need to change to make your life be the way you want it to be. And then work to make it happen. |
Anonymous
There are 15 families whose children live in our neighborhood and take the same bus our kids do. We all have elementary school kids, from grades 1-5. Two families have children who aren't yet in K. In 14 of the 15 families, both parents work full-time. In only one of the families does only the husband work, although the mom used to have her own business but sold it when they moved here for his work so she is working a bit now to try to get another shop up and running. Our kids do all the things you mentioned above and then some. Point is, our kids all do sports, music, theater, academics, etc. Their schedules are all over the place and their activities are all over the map. The parents are lawyers, doctors, military, HR, IT, teacher, engineers, financial advisors, executives, veterinarians, and orthodontists/dentists. We all make it work. Some have nannies. Some have part-time sitters. Have some local family. Some work at home. Some are in the office every day. Some are deployed for extended periods of time. My point is that of course not all activities are going to cater to working families' scheduled. Some will, but many will not (and most in summer time will not, like camps from 9-1). Between flexible work schedules, help from friends, hired help, family, and good planning, all of us have kids going all over the place all the time. That's 15 families with varying set ups and issues all making it work with two working parents. Of course we're all in the same socio-economic bracket because we all live near each other, and we're all UMC, which of course helps immensely when it comes to being able to throw money at certain problems. But I have to say I do roll my eyes at the SAHMs whose husbands make seven figures who say "oh I just can't work because there's so many places I have to shuttle my school-aged kids." Just acknowledge that you don't want to work. That's fine. But stop acting like so many of us don't make it happen without losing our minds. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Sure, you successfully fill your day with activities that make you busy. Those of us who work have the whole family clean up after breakfast by actually having people put their dishes in the dishwasher when they're done eating, we do laundry in the morning before work and in the evenings after work and on the weekends or outsource it, we have cleaners or the family chips in and does cleaning throughout the week, we keep things organized as we go or take some time when we have a minute to dedicate it to a particular task, we do food planning as a family after dinner or we do it while on a conference call or sitting in traffic, we shop on our way home from work or place an order during lunch and have it delivered when we're at home, we cook as a family or plan accordingly by having easier meals during the week and making some things ahead on the weekends, we organize kids sports and activities and all kid-related things in the evenings or while on calls or while with our children, we manage items for our elderly parents during the day or on the weekends, we also manage our rental properties at the same time, and somehow we manage to do home improvements tasks when we're at gome. I get it, you want to say you're so busy, but I just can't help but laugh and wonder what you think families with two working parents do. We literally do everything you do, we just manage to also work while doing it. |
Anonymous
Keep these posts coming, DCUM. They're gold. |
Anonymous
I'm not saying there's no way to have a good life, but DH and I have given up some hobbies and personal time because of all of our work and family obligations. I can see why some families choose to have a SAHM. Most people agree that in the DC area, kids are excessively busy with extracurricular activities. |
Anonymous
| Back to the OP, I would do it now, right away, while your kids are little. I work part time with tweens/teens but I wouldn’t trade those early years at home for all the money in the world. |
Anonymous
You have to admit that everyone having WFH jobs is a relatively new development. A lot of people started SAH before this was widely available. |