Are you offended when someone says they “didnt want someone else to raise my kids”?

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

So you had kids that napped a ton, napped until they were old, and assumed everyone does preschool M-F from age 3 in order to support the idea that SAHPs don’t spend time with their kids…

Im not sure where you get that I am the spokes person for the whole nation of working parents… but my family personally spent as much time with our kids working as we would have if we had 1 SAHP. Because I definitely think there is a huge benefit to preschool and they would have gone no matter my working status.

I also never said I see my kids more than a homeschooler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not an acceptable turn of phrase.

But I am not offended because it shows the low character of the speaker. Just as if they had said they work FT because “I wanted to use my brain”

But working parents say this all the time to SAHP. "I couldn't do NOTHING." "I needed to use my brain." etc.

And it’s rude

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

Not all feds can do this. If you work with a lot of west coast or Pacific island folks in a national program, you can't get off at 2:30 (my situation). Plenty of offices have core hours starting before 9 and ending after 3. Some jobs require specific shifts (e.g. any law enforcement or customer facing job).

Shift work is perfect. No care or very little care needed.

I didn’t say everyone can do that but many feds do. The vast majority of feds and contractors who work at fed agencies. Also many time IT staff work shortened day and do upgrades after hours.

People who are doing research don’t need to read and write 9-5.

I agree don’t work for DOD.

Our core hours are 10-2.

If this is accurate, you’ll never get promoted or mange anyone. Working four hours a day is ripping off taxpayers and it’s lazy. I’m a fed and there’s no way this would fly at my agency or with me if I was your manager. Whatever you think you’re proving here about childcare you’re not. You’re just making feds look like they take advantage of WFH.

I not only got promoted but I have incentive pay.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

You’ve posted on this thread like 50 times today. Are you counting this as “working” or “quality time with the kids”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

He was in school for 3 hours (ours was 4) then he naps for 2 hours in the afternoon, that is 5 of the 8 hours for you (6for me).

So 3 hours (2for me) difference.

The idea is that working moms and sahms have similar hours with their kids is just patently absurd.

It seems absurd until you actually write the hours down and then you realize that the minuscule amount of hours that a SAHP gets with their child versus a working parent is not big enough to justify it as a reason to stay home.

I guess if you cherry pick a SAHP with a very specific schedule this is true? And then a working parent with a very specific schedule? But you are not talking about most people on either side of that equation. You're talking about very unique situations.

Here was my schedule as a SAHP:

6am: up with baby and a few minutes with DH before he left for work at 6:45. If I was lucky I might squeeze a shower in then while he ate breakfast with the baby but usually there was not time because I'd be nursing or DH wouldn't have time to sit that long without missing his train.

7am-8am: toddler up and then I'd feed the toddler while the baby either played or hung out in the carrier. Then we'd all play together on the floor until baby started to get tired.

8am-8:30am: put baby down for a nap while toddler (hopefully) played on her own in her bedroom.

8:30-10am: I'd get the toddler ready for the day and then have her come hang out in my room while I got ready for the day (if I still had to shower she'd have to play on the floor next to the bathroom because she was not old enough to be unattended -- this went okay about 60% of the time). Then I'd clean up the kitchen and maybe take a 10-15 minute break for myself (sometimes using a short video to entertain toddler) and then we'd read books and play until the baby woke up.

10am-12:30pm: This was our outdoors window. Baby would be dressed and fed as soon as she woke up and then we'd be out the door (bag packed during baby's nap) and to the park and playground or the library or whatever. Baby in carrier and toddler in stroller generally but as toddler got older she'd walk more so we'd go slower. Lots of talking to them about what we see and greeting neighbors and answering questions. Sometimes we'd meet other kids and their caregivers. If I was lucky I might get 15-30 minutes at the playground to read if toddler was playing well with another kid and baby was content to sit or snuggle. Usually not.

12:30-1:30pm: Back home for lunch and then dual naps. This was the trickiest part of the day. Kids would not go down at the same time. Usually I'd put the baby down first and then the toddler but if either fought the nap this was hard. If one goes down much later than the other you lose your child-free window. I got it down to a science but then your kids get older and stuff changes. Oh well.

1:30-3pm: Naptime. If baby had a bad night I might also nap during this time but usually it was time to clean up lunch dishes and do some dinner prep. Usually also laundry (I tried to just have laundry going all the time so when I got a break I could fold). I'll note here that we did not have housecleaners or any outsourced help during this time. So I was also picking up toys and vacuuming and whatever to try and save time on the weekends when I deepcleaned. This was also when I'd sit down at my computer and do stuff like research preschools or plan a birthday party or text other parents for playdates or whatever. Call to check on my parents.

3pm-6pm: The hardest part of the day. Kids wake up and then I'd try to get us outside again. Often this would be an errand combined with a playground stop because I'd often need a grocery run or have to drop off an Amazon return or whatever. Hopefully they napped well and were happy. It was a juggle. I tried to be home by 5 and then I'd get dinner ready for them. Toddler might get a few episodes of Bluey (30 minutes max). Then more playing and hang out time.

6-7pm: DH home. I get a break in theory but usually this just means I finished making whatever he and I were eating (variation of toddler's meal but usually a bit more exciting). Shower if it never happened earlier in the day. If very lucky squeeze in a 20 minute workout first but let's get real.

7-7:30pm: Bedtime for kids. I'd nurse the baby while DH read to the toddler and then he'd rock the baby while I tucked the toddler in.

Here is my schedule as a working mom:

morning routine from 6-8am
drop kids off
work 8:30am-5:30pm
pick kids up
Then the 6-8pm routine was same as when I was a SAHP minus the nursing

So uh no -- I spent a lot more time with my kids as a SAHP than I now do as a working mom. They did not get much if any screentime and usually I was doing stuff *for them* if they did get some. They did not spend half the day asleep. By the time my oldest started preschool the younger was a toddler and was down to one nap anyway. I was spending 10 hours a day with them with pretty limited breaks.

This is similar to our schedule except my H isn’t absent so he is there in the am.

Obviously not counting nap time.

Yes my kids are in “other care” for 3 hours.

Then I’m home.

DP here. Many of the SAHMs have high earning spouses. Every family is different. DH earns 2m+. Once upon a time, we both earned around 200-300k and I took the morning and he took the afternoon. That was a decade ago. Since then, his income has grown tenfold.

I’m very busy with the kids 6-9am and then 2-9pm. I do get 9-2 to work out, run errands, eat lunch with my friends, get my nails done, do taxes, paperwork, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not an acceptable turn of phrase.

But I am not offended because it shows the low character of the speaker. Just as if they had said they work FT because “I wanted to use my brain”

But working parents say this all the time to SAHP. "I couldn't do NOTHING." "I needed to use my brain." etc.

I think that was this poster’s point. People say both, and both statements are flip sides of the same asinine coin.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

You’ve posted on this thread like 50 times today. Are you counting this as “working” or “quality time with the kids”?

My kids are in NY, Boston and Chicago. But I guess in your definition it is parenting if I even just talk about them or think about them. We will call it “mental load”.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

The vast majority of dual earning couples do not do this. We have a childcare crisis in America and it’s because most working couples do not have shift work that aligns like this. And if it does then you would be amongst the individuals who would say that they don’t want a stranger raising their children.

Doesn’t matter.

The question is what do I think. I think we are with our kids just as much and they get 2 parents not just 1

Also 1/5 parents do shift work.
5% are unemployed
6% are totally disabled

You should definitely stay home with your kids. I don’t think you’re qualified for any job. Keep the nanny, though. I fear your kids would die during one of their many nap times because you’re convinced they don’t require any care during this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

He was in school for 3 hours (ours was 4) then he naps for 2 hours in the afternoon, that is 5 of the 8 hours for you (6for me).

So 3 hours (2for me) difference.

The idea is that working moms and sahms have similar hours with their kids is just patently absurd.

It seems absurd until you actually write the hours down and then you realize that the minuscule amount of hours that a SAHP gets with their child versus a working parent is not big enough to justify it as a reason to stay home.

I guess if you cherry pick a SAHP with a very specific schedule this is true? And then a working parent with a very specific schedule? But you are not talking about most people on either side of that equation. You're talking about very unique situations.

Here was my schedule as a SAHP:

6am: up with baby and a few minutes with DH before he left for work at 6:45. If I was lucky I might squeeze a shower in then while he ate breakfast with the baby but usually there was not time because I'd be nursing or DH wouldn't have time to sit that long without missing his train.

7am-8am: toddler up and then I'd feed the toddler while the baby either played or hung out in the carrier. Then we'd all play together on the floor until baby started to get tired.

8am-8:30am: put baby down for a nap while toddler (hopefully) played on her own in her bedroom.

8:30-10am: I'd get the toddler ready for the day and then have her come hang out in my room while I got ready for the day (if I still had to shower she'd have to play on the floor next to the bathroom because she was not old enough to be unattended -- this went okay about 60% of the time). Then I'd clean up the kitchen and maybe take a 10-15 minute break for myself (sometimes using a short video to entertain toddler) and then we'd read books and play until the baby woke up.

10am-12:30pm: This was our outdoors window. Baby would be dressed and fed as soon as she woke up and then we'd be out the door (bag packed during baby's nap) and to the park and playground or the library or whatever. Baby in carrier and toddler in stroller generally but as toddler got older she'd walk more so we'd go slower. Lots of talking to them about what we see and greeting neighbors and answering questions. Sometimes we'd meet other kids and their caregivers. If I was lucky I might get 15-30 minutes at the playground to read if toddler was playing well with another kid and baby was content to sit or snuggle. Usually not.

12:30-1:30pm: Back home for lunch and then dual naps. This was the trickiest part of the day. Kids would not go down at the same time. Usually I'd put the baby down first and then the toddler but if either fought the nap this was hard. If one goes down much later than the other you lose your child-free window. I got it down to a science but then your kids get older and stuff changes. Oh well.

1:30-3pm: Naptime. If baby had a bad night I might also nap during this time but usually it was time to clean up lunch dishes and do some dinner prep. Usually also laundry (I tried to just have laundry going all the time so when I got a break I could fold). I'll note here that we did not have housecleaners or any outsourced help during this time. So I was also picking up toys and vacuuming and whatever to try and save time on the weekends when I deepcleaned. This was also when I'd sit down at my computer and do stuff like research preschools or plan a birthday party or text other parents for playdates or whatever. Call to check on my parents.

3pm-6pm: The hardest part of the day. Kids wake up and then I'd try to get us outside again. Often this would be an errand combined with a playground stop because I'd often need a grocery run or have to drop off an Amazon return or whatever. Hopefully they napped well and were happy. It was a juggle. I tried to be home by 5 and then I'd get dinner ready for them. Toddler might get a few episodes of Bluey (30 minutes max). Then more playing and hang out time.

6-7pm: DH home. I get a break in theory but usually this just means I finished making whatever he and I were eating (variation of toddler's meal but usually a bit more exciting). Shower if it never happened earlier in the day. If very lucky squeeze in a 20 minute workout first but let's get real.

7-7:30pm: Bedtime for kids. I'd nurse the baby while DH read to the toddler and then he'd rock the baby while I tucked the toddler in.

Here is my schedule as a working mom:

morning routine from 6-8am
drop kids off
work 8:30am-5:30pm
pick kids up
Then the 6-8pm routine was same as when I was a SAHP minus the nursing

So uh no -- I spent a lot more time with my kids as a SAHP than I now do as a working mom. They did not get much if any screentime and usually I was doing stuff *for them* if they did get some. They did not spend half the day asleep. By the time my oldest started preschool the younger was a toddler and was down to one nap anyway. I was spending 10 hours a day with them with pretty limited breaks.

This is similar to our schedule except my H isn’t absent so he is there in the am.

Obviously not counting nap time.

Yes my kids are in “other care” for 3 hours.

Then I’m home.

DP here. Many of the SAHMs have high earning spouses. Every family is different. DH earns 2m+. Once upon a time, we both earned around 200-300k and I took the morning and he took the afternoon. That was a decade ago. Since then, his income has grown tenfold.

I’m very busy with the kids 6-9am and then 2-9pm. I do get 9-2 to work out, run errands, eat lunch with my friends, get my nails done, do taxes, paperwork, etc.

You know, I'm SAHM and it's good to think of it this way. Being on 6-9 and 2-7 or 2-8 with kids, plus housework during the day is a good 9-10 hours of work!

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

You’ve posted on this thread like 50 times today. Are you counting this as “working” or “quality time with the kids”?

My kids are in NY, Boston and Chicago. But I guess in your definition it is parenting if I even just talk about them or think about them. We will call it “mental load”.

LOL. None of them wanted to stay close to you, huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

He was in school for 3 hours (ours was 4) then he naps for 2 hours in the afternoon, that is 5 of the 8 hours for you (6for me).

So 3 hours (2for me) difference.

The idea is that working moms and sahms have similar hours with their kids is just patently absurd.

It seems absurd until you actually write the hours down and then you realize that the minuscule amount of hours that a SAHP gets with their child versus a working parent is not big enough to justify it as a reason to stay home.

I guess if you cherry pick a SAHP with a very specific schedule this is true? And then a working parent with a very specific schedule? But you are not talking about most people on either side of that equation. You're talking about very unique situations.

Here was my schedule as a SAHP:

6am: up with baby and a few minutes with DH before he left for work at 6:45. If I was lucky I might squeeze a shower in then while he ate breakfast with the baby but usually there was not time because I'd be nursing or DH wouldn't have time to sit that long without missing his train.

7am-8am: toddler up and then I'd feed the toddler while the baby either played or hung out in the carrier. Then we'd all play together on the floor until baby started to get tired.

8am-8:30am: put baby down for a nap while toddler (hopefully) played on her own in her bedroom.

8:30-10am: I'd get the toddler ready for the day and then have her come hang out in my room while I got ready for the day (if I still had to shower she'd have to play on the floor next to the bathroom because she was not old enough to be unattended -- this went okay about 60% of the time). Then I'd clean up the kitchen and maybe take a 10-15 minute break for myself (sometimes using a short video to entertain toddler) and then we'd read books and play until the baby woke up.

10am-12:30pm: This was our outdoors window. Baby would be dressed and fed as soon as she woke up and then we'd be out the door (bag packed during baby's nap) and to the park and playground or the library or whatever. Baby in carrier and toddler in stroller generally but as toddler got older she'd walk more so we'd go slower. Lots of talking to them about what we see and greeting neighbors and answering questions. Sometimes we'd meet other kids and their caregivers. If I was lucky I might get 15-30 minutes at the playground to read if toddler was playing well with another kid and baby was content to sit or snuggle. Usually not.

12:30-1:30pm: Back home for lunch and then dual naps. This was the trickiest part of the day. Kids would not go down at the same time. Usually I'd put the baby down first and then the toddler but if either fought the nap this was hard. If one goes down much later than the other you lose your child-free window. I got it down to a science but then your kids get older and stuff changes. Oh well.

1:30-3pm: Naptime. If baby had a bad night I might also nap during this time but usually it was time to clean up lunch dishes and do some dinner prep. Usually also laundry (I tried to just have laundry going all the time so when I got a break I could fold). I'll note here that we did not have housecleaners or any outsourced help during this time. So I was also picking up toys and vacuuming and whatever to try and save time on the weekends when I deepcleaned. This was also when I'd sit down at my computer and do stuff like research preschools or plan a birthday party or text other parents for playdates or whatever. Call to check on my parents.

3pm-6pm: The hardest part of the day. Kids wake up and then I'd try to get us outside again. Often this would be an errand combined with a playground stop because I'd often need a grocery run or have to drop off an Amazon return or whatever. Hopefully they napped well and were happy. It was a juggle. I tried to be home by 5 and then I'd get dinner ready for them. Toddler might get a few episodes of Bluey (30 minutes max). Then more playing and hang out time.

6-7pm: DH home. I get a break in theory but usually this just means I finished making whatever he and I were eating (variation of toddler's meal but usually a bit more exciting). Shower if it never happened earlier in the day. If very lucky squeeze in a 20 minute workout first but let's get real.

7-7:30pm: Bedtime for kids. I'd nurse the baby while DH read to the toddler and then he'd rock the baby while I tucked the toddler in.

Here is my schedule as a working mom:

morning routine from 6-8am
drop kids off
work 8:30am-5:30pm
pick kids up
Then the 6-8pm routine was same as when I was a SAHP minus the nursing

So uh no -- I spent a lot more time with my kids as a SAHP than I now do as a working mom. They did not get much if any screentime and usually I was doing stuff *for them* if they did get some. They did not spend half the day asleep. By the time my oldest started preschool the younger was a toddler and was down to one nap anyway. I was spending 10 hours a day with them with pretty limited breaks.

This is similar to our schedule except my H isn’t absent so he is there in the am.

Obviously not counting nap time.

Yes my kids are in “other care” for 3 hours.

Then I’m home.

DP here. Many of the SAHMs have high earning spouses. Every family is different. DH earns 2m+. Once upon a time, we both earned around 200-300k and I took the morning and he took the afternoon. That was a decade ago. Since then, his income has grown tenfold.

I’m very busy with the kids 6-9am and then 2-9pm. I do get 9-2 to work out, run errands, eat lunch with my friends, get my nails done, do taxes, paperwork, etc.

Your H makes $2M+ and you don’t use a tax accountant?

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

The vast majority of dual earning couples do not do this. We have a childcare crisis in America and it’s because most working couples do not have shift work that aligns like this. And if it does then you would be amongst the individuals who would say that they don’t want a stranger raising their children.

Doesn’t matter.

The question is what do I think. I think we are with our kids just as much and they get 2 parents not just 1

Also 1/5 parents do shift work.
5% are unemployed
6% are totally disabled

You should definitely stay home with your kids. I don’t think you’re qualified for any job. Keep the nanny, though. I fear your kids would die during one of their many nap times because you’re convinced they don’t require any care during this time.

Stay angry that I figured it out.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

NP. But your quoted number of kids spending only 3-4 waking hours in others' care is still totally wonky. How old are your kids? Only about 1/3 of the kids in the 3-4 yr old room at my DD's daycare/preschool still took naps, and in her pre-k room for 4-5 year olds, there was literally only one kid who napped. I have a very flexible WFH job, so I dropped my DD off at about 9 and picked her up at 3:45 both of those daycare years...but she was one of the kids who napped neither of them. So, she was in others' care for like 6.5 hours those two years. (Which at that age was fine by me.) I know I was one of the latest to drop off and earliest to pick up in her room.

I’ve had many schedules at different ages that worked out to little care.

Our private school K even had nap time (or rest time) 1 hour every afternoon.

I’ve shown a schedule from 1/2 yo who naps most the day and one for 3/4 yo who are mostly in preschool or napping .

I’m just talking about my experience but you act like no parents work 2 nd shift 3-11 or midnights… doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cooks, security guards, retail managers, etc.

My H worked 3-11 for about 10 months with our last child and we only needed someone from 2:30-4 .

There are tons of options besides the ones you mentioned.

Most people don’t even count time with dad as being with a parent which is what is the saddest part of this thread.

You’ve posted on this thread like 50 times today. Are you counting this as “working” or “quality time with the kids”?

My kids are in NY, Boston and Chicago. But I guess in your definition it is parenting if I even just talk about them or think about them. We will call it “mental load”.

LOL. None of them wanted to stay close to you, huh?

Yes that’s it I was so involved in raising them they decided to go to flee me! lol!

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

Not all feds can do this. If you work with a lot of west coast or Pacific island folks in a national program, you can't get off at 2:30 (my situation). Plenty of offices have core hours starting before 9 and ending after 3. Some jobs require specific shifts (e.g. any law enforcement or customer facing job).

Shift work is perfect. No care or very little care needed.

I didn’t say everyone can do that but many feds do. The vast majority of feds and contractors who work at fed agencies. Also many time IT staff work shortened day and do upgrades after hours.

People who are doing research don’t need to read and write 9-5.

I agree don’t work for DOD.

Our core hours are 10-2.

If this is accurate, you’ll never get promoted or mange anyone. Working four hours a day is ripping off taxpayers and it’s lazy. I’m a fed and there’s no way this would fly at my agency or with me if I was your manager. Whatever you think you’re proving here about childcare you’re not. You’re just making feds look like they take advantage of WFH.

I not only got promoted but I have incentive pay.

no one working 10-2 doing the work day is getting this. This is your personal fantasy because you can’t stand that someone is a SAHP but instead of accepting that you are masquerading as a fed working a 20 hour week getting promoted. I’m sure you’re the head of the FBI. I’m sure you’re doing it all. Whatever you need to hear that you didn’t hear as a kid here you go.

[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:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

He was in school for 3 hours (ours was 4) then he naps for 2 hours in the afternoon, that is 5 of the 8 hours for you (6for me).

So 3 hours (2for me) difference.

The idea is that working moms and sahms have similar hours with their kids is just patently absurd.

It seems absurd until you actually write the hours down and then you realize that the minuscule amount of hours that a SAHP gets with their child versus a working parent is not big enough to justify it as a reason to stay home.

I guess if you cherry pick a SAHP with a very specific schedule this is true? And then a working parent with a very specific schedule? But you are not talking about most people on either side of that equation. You're talking about very unique situations.

Here was my schedule as a SAHP:

6am: up with baby and a few minutes with DH before he left for work at 6:45. If I was lucky I might squeeze a shower in then while he ate breakfast with the baby but usually there was not time because I'd be nursing or DH wouldn't have time to sit that long without missing his train.

7am-8am: toddler up and then I'd feed the toddler while the baby either played or hung out in the carrier. Then we'd all play together on the floor until baby started to get tired.

8am-8:30am: put baby down for a nap while toddler (hopefully) played on her own in her bedroom.

8:30-10am: I'd get the toddler ready for the day and then have her come hang out in my room while I got ready for the day (if I still had to shower she'd have to play on the floor next to the bathroom because she was not old enough to be unattended -- this went okay about 60% of the time). Then I'd clean up the kitchen and maybe take a 10-15 minute break for myself (sometimes using a short video to entertain toddler) and then we'd read books and play until the baby woke up.

10am-12:30pm: This was our outdoors window. Baby would be dressed and fed as soon as she woke up and then we'd be out the door (bag packed during baby's nap) and to the park and playground or the library or whatever. Baby in carrier and toddler in stroller generally but as toddler got older she'd walk more so we'd go slower. Lots of talking to them about what we see and greeting neighbors and answering questions. Sometimes we'd meet other kids and their caregivers. If I was lucky I might get 15-30 minutes at the playground to read if toddler was playing well with another kid and baby was content to sit or snuggle. Usually not.

12:30-1:30pm: Back home for lunch and then dual naps. This was the trickiest part of the day. Kids would not go down at the same time. Usually I'd put the baby down first and then the toddler but if either fought the nap this was hard. If one goes down much later than the other you lose your child-free window. I got it down to a science but then your kids get older and stuff changes. Oh well.

1:30-3pm: Naptime. If baby had a bad night I might also nap during this time but usually it was time to clean up lunch dishes and do some dinner prep. Usually also laundry (I tried to just have laundry going all the time so when I got a break I could fold). I'll note here that we did not have housecleaners or any outsourced help during this time. So I was also picking up toys and vacuuming and whatever to try and save time on the weekends when I deepcleaned. This was also when I'd sit down at my computer and do stuff like research preschools or plan a birthday party or text other parents for playdates or whatever. Call to check on my parents.

3pm-6pm: The hardest part of the day. Kids wake up and then I'd try to get us outside again. Often this would be an errand combined with a playground stop because I'd often need a grocery run or have to drop off an Amazon return or whatever. Hopefully they napped well and were happy. It was a juggle. I tried to be home by 5 and then I'd get dinner ready for them. Toddler might get a few episodes of Bluey (30 minutes max). Then more playing and hang out time.

6-7pm: DH home. I get a break in theory but usually this just means I finished making whatever he and I were eating (variation of toddler's meal but usually a bit more exciting). Shower if it never happened earlier in the day. If very lucky squeeze in a 20 minute workout first but let's get real.

7-7:30pm: Bedtime for kids. I'd nurse the baby while DH read to the toddler and then he'd rock the baby while I tucked the toddler in.

Here is my schedule as a working mom:

morning routine from 6-8am
drop kids off
work 8:30am-5:30pm
pick kids up
Then the 6-8pm routine was same as when I was a SAHP minus the nursing

So uh no -- I spent a lot more time with my kids as a SAHP than I now do as a working mom. They did not get much if any screentime and usually I was doing stuff *for them* if they did get some. They did not spend half the day asleep. By the time my oldest started preschool the younger was a toddler and was down to one nap anyway. I was spending 10 hours a day with them with pretty limited breaks.

This is similar to our schedule except my H isn’t absent so he is there in the am.

Obviously not counting nap time.

Yes my kids are in “other care” for 3 hours.

Then I’m home.

DP here. Many of the SAHMs have high earning spouses. Every family is different. DH earns 2m+. Once upon a time, we both earned around 200-300k and I took the morning and he took the afternoon. That was a decade ago. Since then, his income has grown tenfold.

I’m very busy with the kids 6-9am and then 2-9pm. I do get 9-2 to work out, run errands, eat lunch with my friends, get my nails done, do taxes, paperwork, etc.

Your H makes $2M+ and you don’t use a tax accountant?

You have paperwork to give to the accountant. Do you not have an accountant? People here are so odd. We own a few properties I manage as well. My days are plenty busy as I also do a lot for my kids and their schools.