When people say they are not SAHM material

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean that I don't like kids. I don't have the patience to deal all day every day. I feel low level anxiety when I'm alone with them for long blocks of time.

Then why did you have them? Children deserve parents who love and nuture them. You appear do do neither.

OP, they are called accessory children. Women who want the Birth experience" but also want unencumbered lives. So, they have their experience and then hire nannies. For them it is win-win and for child it is lose-lose.

Who likes the birth experience? LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean that I don't like kids. I don't have the patience to deal all day every day. I feel low level anxiety when I'm alone with them for long blocks of time.

Then why did you have them? Children deserve parents who love and nuture them. You appear do do neither.

OP, they are called accessory children. Women who want the Birth experience" but also want unencumbered lives. So, they have their experience and then hire nannies. For them it is win-win and for child it is lose-lose.

Yup, this is me to a tee. I really wanted to go through labor and have a walking petri dish in my house who destroys everything and constantly gets me sick and deprives me of sleep, but I have actually no desire to nurture a human being into adulthood. In fact, I hate children, especially my own. This is why I work, so I can be away from my own for as long as possible.

[Anonymous]

I'm a SAHM (by choice, left high-paying job) and honestly it's a mixed bag for me. I love being with my kids, BUT I do wish:
- I was doing more with my life at the moment (not necessarily professionally, but something); I miss being fulfilled in non-kid ways.
- I wasn't so bogged down by the daily grind of dishes, laundry, etc. Theoretically if we had a nanny or the kids were at school then there would be a lot less mess at home. Every load of dishes that I do kills me a little inside. It's just never ending. We might get a housekeeper over this.

So maybe if I were more "domestic" and wasn't left unfulfilled professionally I would be a happier, more satisfied SAHM. I don't regret my decision, but I will be happy to go back to work when the kids are all in school all day.

[Anonymous]

Sigh. If you say SAH is easy and you could do it no problem, you are insulting SAHMs. If you say you're not cut out for it and it's tough, you don't love your kids.

Here is the thing. I could SAH, but we would have to make a lot of financial sacrifices and I enjoy the mental challenges of working and adult conversation. But I also cherish weekend and evening time with my kid. Some days I think SAH would be easier than juggling a job and being a mom, but other days working seems easier because I can run errands on breaks, take off early for a doctor's appointment, etc. without schlepping a child around or finding childcare.

Working and SAH are challenging in different ways. It's not a competition.

[Anonymous]

Every day, I care for my child in every possible way: I feed her, clothe her, bathe her, read to her, change her/wipe her, play with her, ease her to sleep, etc., etc. I just don't do every single iteration of those things. I think I'm happier for that, and a happier mom is a better mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean that I don't like kids. I don't have the patience to deal all day every day. I feel low level anxiety when I'm alone with them for long blocks of time.

Then why did you have them? Children deserve parents who love and nuture them. You appear do do neither.

OP, they are called accessory children. Women who want the Birth experience" but also want unencumbered lives. So, they have their experience and then hire nannies. For them it is win-win and for child it is lose-lose.

Liar. You mean "mothers," not "parents." Nobody would even ask a man why he doesn't stay home with his kids, let alone say that he works to avoid spending time with his kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. If you say SAH is easy and you could do it no problem, you are insulting SAHMs. If you say you're not cut out for it and it's tough, you don't love your kids.

Here is the thing. I could SAH, but we would have to make a lot of financial sacrifices and I enjoy the mental challenges of working and adult conversation. But I also cherish weekend and evening time with my kid. Some days I think SAH would be easier than juggling a job and being a mom, but other days working seems easier because I can run errands on breaks, take off early for a doctor's appointment, etc. without schlepping a child around or finding childcare.

Working and SAH are challenging in different ways. It's not a competition.

Well said.

I was at home when my kids were young and it was soul crushing, even though I was "good" at it based on the Pinterest definition. Tons of crafts happening, lots of field trips and playgroups. My house looked like crap, though.

Work now the kids are in school.

The challenges are extremely different, it's not fair to compare.

[Anonymous]

I have done both. It hurt my heart to send my baby to full time childcare and it hurt my sanity to be home with two kids. They are both in school now and life just got good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do they really mean by that?

It always makes me scratch my head because don't you parent your kids on the weekends? It's like that but every day. And they go to school for a good chunk of it (including the preschool years)...

It means that I don't know how to interact with children, including my own. It means that my toddler is exhausting, and I need to be around adults who talk about more than diapers and milestones. It means that the tantrums make me anxious to the point where I went in my car and screamed last weekend. I look forward to Mondays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It means he can't stand not to have an important job to go to every day and think big, important thoughts that will save the world Because don't you ever forget, he is WAY smarter and more important than you. You're barely in his range of sight from up there on his high horse.

fixed that for you

So clever.

I have this lovely SAH neighbor and her husband has no idea how to talk to me. At a birthday party I happen to hear his say something derogatory about women, he caught my eye and just stopped his sentence mid-stream. It was funny but made me sad for her. She is wonderful but her husband doesn't respect her or think she has braincells.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It means he can't stand not to have an important job to go to every day and think big, important thoughts that will save the world Because don't you ever forget, he is WAY smarter and more important than you. You're barely in his range of sight from up there on his high horse.

fixed that for you

So clever.

I have this lovely SAH neighbor and her husband has no idea how to talk to me. At a birthday party I happen to hear his say something derogatory about women, he caught my eye and just stopped his sentence mid-stream. It was funny but made me sad for her. She is wonderful but her husband doesn't respect her or think she has braincells.

My point was more to draw attention to how ridiculous it would sound to mock a man for going to work, even though (in 2015!) people still feel free to demean women's careers. The sentences above, in their original form (referring to women) were written to shame mothers for working outside the home -- its just blatant sexism hiding under the sheep's clothing of concern for the well-being of children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do they really mean by that?

It always makes me scratch my head because don't you parent your kids on the weekends? It's like that but every day. And they go to school for a good chunk of it (including the preschool years)...

They mean "You're being rude by raising the question and I'm trying to deflect you politely in a way that you can't take as an insult."

YEP! That's what I meant when I said it! The truth was that I would have loved being a SAHM (and did love it for a year when i did it) but that we have aging parents we need to support and I have a low tolerance for financial risk, so I felt like i needed the security of two incomes. Was I going to say that to some rando mom at the playground? Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean that I don't like kids. I don't have the patience to deal all day every day. I feel low level anxiety when I'm alone with them for long blocks of time.

Then why did you have them? Children deserve parents who love and nuture them. You appear do do neither.

OP, they are called accessory children. Women who want the Birth experience" but also want unencumbered lives. So, they have their experience and then hire nannies. For them it is win-win and for child it is lose-lose.

I did not have accessory children, nor did I want the birth experience. My husband wanted kids very badly, and I wanted my husband very badly. Thus, we now have two kids. I love them. I just don't love spending hours on end playing with them. I've noticed I do better with them when we're out of the house. You'll have to trust that my kids are very loved and nurtured. (You would never give a father this level of shit if he said he wasn't SAHD material.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It means he can't stand not to have an important job to go to every day and think big, important thoughts that will save the world Because don't you ever forget, he is WAY smarter and more important than you. You're barely in his range of sight from up there on his high horse.

fixed that for you

So clever.

I have this lovely SAH neighbor and her husband has no idea how to talk to me. At a birthday party I happen to hear his say something derogatory about women, he caught my eye and just stopped his sentence mid-stream. It was funny but made me sad for her. She is wonderful but her husband doesn't respect her or think she has braincells.

My point was more to draw attention to how ridiculous it would sound to mock a man for going to work, even though (in 2015!) people still feel free to demean women's careers. The sentences above, in their original form (referring to women) were written to shame mothers for working outside the home -- its just blatant sexism hiding under the sheep's clothing of concern for the well-being of children.

Oh. I didn't quite get it. We were both, however, referencing institutional misogyny. And it sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. If you say SAH is easy and you could do it no problem, you are insulting SAHMs. If you say you're not cut out for it and it's tough, you don't love your kids.

Here is the thing. I could SAH, but we would have to make a lot of financial sacrifices and I enjoy the mental challenges of working and adult conversation. But I also cherish weekend and evening time with my kid. Some days I think SAH would be easier than juggling a job and being a mom, but other days working seems easier because I can run errands on breaks, take off early for a doctor's appointment, etc. without schlepping a child around or finding childcare.

Working and SAH are challenging in different ways. It's not a competition.

+1