Forum Index
»
Off-Topic
Did your mom WOHM? If so, do you?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
This. |
Anonymous
|
Mom - helped Dad with his business, but had tons of flexibility b/c of it
Me - yes |
Anonymous
| It would be a total waste of my education for me to be a housewife and a horrible example for the kids. WOH. |
Anonymous
I did do sports, music, drama, and had homework for my mostly AP classes as well as a part-time job or volunteer service, all at various times during high school. But there were still plenty of afternoons to get into trouble. I agree that the kids who want to smoke pot and drink will do it regardless of their parents' working status (including me with my SAHM), but reducing their opportunity makes a big difference, in my experience, between experimentation and addiction. These days it is possible to schedule every minute of kids' lives with hours of homework and lots of extracurriculars, so the "latch-key kid" doesn't really exist anymore. I personally would rather preserve unstructured leisure time AND parental availability for my kids. |
Anonymous
| I work outside the home, but in a different set up than my mom. She worked nights as a waitress until I was seven or eight, so in a way she was both at home full time and working. I have a more regular office schedule. |
Anonymous
| Mom WOH and so do I. Now that I am, I cannot understand how my mom did everything that she did - classes, house stuff, driving us around, maintaining her own friendshipts, finishing a masters. And without wearing a "super mom" shirt. And (for most of my childhood) as a single mom. Always thought she was a great mom. Now I'm in awe. |
Anonymous
| My mom worked, I work. Grew up poor. DH's mom was SAH, he would prefer I SAH, but makes me too nervous -- I don't want to be out of the workforce if he gets killed in a car wreck and I need to be the sole provider for the family. |
Anonymous
| My mom, who died 6 months ago, was an M.D. with a very demanding practice. Although I loved her very much and was always proud of her professional accomplishments (she went to med school in the 1950s and was truly a pioneer in her field), I missed having her presence at home. I'm close to my dad, who's still living, and always have been (he's also an M.D.), but particularly as a teen, I would have liked to have seen more of my mom. My sisters and I all have grad degrees (2 J.D.'s, 1 MBA and 1 PhD -- all from top schools), and we all have been SAHMs for extended periods of time. At this point, with our kids all in their tween, teen or young adult years, we all work PT. The decisions we've made -- with out spouses-- about work/family balance have all been influenced by the choices my parents made, and by the feeling we all have that it would have been great to have had more time with her, especially in our adolescent years. |
Anonymous
|
Statistically, if your mother WOTH, you are very likely to as well. Also, men tend to marry women who will assume work/SAH status much like their own mothers (i.e, if their moms didn't work, they are likely to be in marriages where their wives don't work as well). Don't have time to cite the studies right now, but these can be found in sociology journals.
|
Anonymous
| I did exactly the opposite of what my mom did. So did several of my friends from high school, and quite a few of my friends here. My mom was a SAHM and I'm a WOHM. I said from an early age I'd never be a SAHM and I never would - I'd get too frustrated. Do wish I had a couple more hours a day with my daughter, but not a full day, every day. |
Anonymous
My kids have down time too, but DH and I work our schedules so we are around for it. They don't have a lot of between school, sports, volunteer and other activities though. I'd love them to do less but they aren't cut out that way. I disagree on the comment about experimentation and addiction. My kids and their friends see that it is a competitive world and they couldn't make good grades, excel in sports and other areas, etc., if they were addicted to drugs. I just don't believe that if they had more free time they'd be druggies. I think parents have to lay a foundation through childhood of love and security, and work ethic. You just can't expect to be home for a few hours and keep them off drugs. I know you weren't saying that, but these arguments against working when kids are older also reduce it to such a simple equation. I don't think for my kids it is as simple as staying home or working. I also worry that if the only thing keeping kids off drug addiction is parents watching them, what will become of them when they go off to college? Fail out. I think kids need some structured independence before college or else we all know the kids who went crazy freshman year. |
Anonymous
troll: fail. |
Anonymous
|
My mother, both my grandmothers and three of my great-grandmothers all worked outside the home, in demanding, traditionally male professions. This was in the Soviet Union, and for its many faults, that system did stress equality between the sexes in the workplace, encouraged women to get degrees and assume positions of leadership, and made it all a bit easier to manage with affordable childcare and generous maternity leave. I can only think of one classmate whose mother stayed at home.
I know some wonderful stay at home mothers, and I would never speak of them as dismissively as some of the posters on this thread, but it does feel "weird". It still shocks me sometimes when I see evidence of how many people my own age were brought up by stay-at-home parents and how much it was still seen as the norm here 30 years ago, when it definitely wasn't in my own childhood or even my parents' childhood. |
Anonymous
| We did the same. Stayed home for a time and worked for some time. |
Anonymous
| My mom worked outside of the home full time.. I SAH full time. I think my parents judge me for this decision but our circumstances and situation are very different than theirs was. |