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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I’m a SAHM now, but worked for many years (had nannies / Au pairs). SAHMs, please stop using this phrase! It makes you sound so dumb!

Maybe there’s a disconnect on what “raising” means here. I think some people are using it interchangeably with “caring for”. To me, “raising your kids” means:

- financially providing for them (as a family unit, not that a mom needs to have an income)
- overseeing their education
- overseeing their health needs
- overseeing their social development
- celebrating milestones / holidays with them
- being there for them emotionally and physically
- making sure their needs are met

So yeah, I think most moms are “raising their kids”.

Everyone knows what someone means when they say they didn’t want a stranger providing at least half or the majority of care for their kids (I did the math and if you take 25 vacation/sick days a year, all 11 holidays off, and spend every weekend with your child - no time away - and you have a nanny or use daycare 9 hours a day and your child sleeps for 11 hours every night you are providing care during 49% of daytime hours; this is based on the assumption that most people work an eight hour day and national commuting avg of 26 min commute each way). Sorry, if someone is with your child for 51% of the time between 6:45-7:45 during the day they are doing a lot or actually the majority of many of the things bulleted above. I work and I’m genuinely not bothered by this because I’m not super defensive and I’m self aware. I also know how to do math. You should try all of the above.

[Anonymous]

I’ve raised two kids and a third is almost through high school. I can’t believe that working moms and moms who are full time caregivers to their kids are still fractured like this.

I worked (part-time in a high stress, high pay job for many years, now a work from home mom) used daycare, used aftercare, had a lovely sitter, and a husband who became a full time caregiver. I self-imposed limits on hours in care - max of 30 hours a week, less when they were younger (like 25 hours). That worked for our family, any more was exhausting and counterproductive.

My husband and I definitely raised our kids, we just had help that’s all. It was never easy. Working from home is a huge improvement though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I’m a SAHM now, but worked for many years (had nannies / Au pairs). SAHMs, please stop using this phrase! It makes you sound so dumb!

Maybe there’s a disconnect on what “raising” means here. I think some people are using it interchangeably with “caring for”. To me, “raising your kids” means:

- financially providing for them (as a family unit, not that a mom needs to have an income)
- overseeing their education
- overseeing their health needs
- overseeing their social development
- celebrating milestones / holidays with them
- being there for them emotionally and physically
- making sure their needs are met

So yeah, I think most moms are “raising their kids”.

Everyone knows what someone means when they say they didn’t want a stranger providing at least half or the majority of care for their kids (I did the math and if you take 25 vacation/sick days a year, all 11 holidays off, and spend every weekend with your child - no time away - and you have a nanny or use daycare 9 hours a day and your child sleeps for 11 hours every night you are providing care during 49% of daytime hours; this is based on the assumption that most people work an eight hour day and national commuting avg of 26 min commute each way). Sorry, if someone is with your child for 51% of the time between 6:45-7:45 during the day they are doing a lot or actually the majority of many of the things bulleted above. I work and I’m genuinely not bothered by this because I’m not super defensive and I’m self aware. I also know how to do math. You should try all of the above.

Just pointing out that your math is off, since kids sleep when the nanny is there too (say 2 hours).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question for working moms: if you ask a non-working mom "what do you do?" what do you prefer she says? Is there any response we could give that you would approve of? Just curious.

“I stay at home with my kids.”

Why is this a complicated question?

I feel like SAHMs make things super complicated, maybe because they are out of practice in planning and executing complex things. A week’s worth of dinners can’t get cooked without 5 harried trips to the grocery store…

So you get offended that a stay at home mom says she stayed home so her kid didn’t have to be raised by strangers in the early years - probably saying that your chosen community of your daycare was super intentional - and then you go and put down women who choose to stay home with their young children? It’s actually really hard to provide full time care to young children well every day. It’s emotionally and physically and intellectually taxing. And what your comment tells me is that you actually didn’t care about the likely brown and black underpaid women watching your children every day while you worked (your “community”). It tells me you thought the work of taking care of children, including your own child, was beneath you. I’m a full time working mom and I have a ton of respect for the people who provide care to my three children between the ages of 1 and 5 every day and maybe that’s why I’m standing up for stay at home moms. Because it’s hard work and I respect it and I respect them and their decisions.

Posts like this are so bizarre to me. The first nanny we hired worked for us for 7.5 years and grew up 10 minutes from our house. (She also happened to be white, though I'm not.) We must have paid her okay, since she managed to buy a house during that time period.

We are still in touch with her, and I have nothing but respect for her abilities and her intelligence. I'm good at my job, and I think I'm a pretty good parent. But I'm bad at managing a household and some of the day-to-day of childcare. I hire people who are better than me at this. And if DH said this, no one would bat an eye.

That may be your situation but the PP is correct about many families-- 99% of the nannies in my area are immigrant women and none of them are buying houses on their salaries. And the salary issue is interesting-- nannies here make around 50-60k per year, which families view as highway robbery (and indeed it's an incredible amount of money for a family to spend annually on childcare) yet it's also nowhere near enough for someone to be able to save a down payment on a house because housing here is do expensive-- their rent will eat up a lot of their income and what is leftover for savings is not enough to help buy even a modest home. Daycare workers make even less.

Within that context, for a parent to denigrate the work of caring for children as unimportant and dull is incredibly insulting to these women as well as to SAHMs (many of who SAHM specifically because they cannot afford this kind of high quality care do choose instead to perform it themselves). It betrays a troubling attitude about the labor of raising children.

It sounds like you likely live in a different sort of area, one with less expensive housing and overall cost of living, which may change these dynamics.

+1. And anyone who points this out to PP gets brushed aside because we all know that a nanny or caregiver at a daycare isn’t taking care of a child’s physical or socio-emotional needs for nine hours a day five days a week like a parent is taking care of those needs for a few hours every morning and evening during the work week and two days a week. No, they are just executing stupid tasks like getting kids animals crackers and opening doors and getting them band aids, but at the same time how dare anyone say that these valued individuals were not intentionally chosen because they are the best at doing the really stupid work of caring for small children every day which we all know is really important yet so stupid. And that’s why they rarely have benefits or get paid living wages. Because their work is so valued.

Is this all right PP? I doubt seeing your ugly worldview laid out for you will make you change. You sound so racist and classist and ignorant that it will probably take your children distancing themselves from you as an adult because you are so ugly to make you change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I’m a SAHM now, but worked for many years (had nannies / Au pairs). SAHMs, please stop using this phrase! It makes you sound so dumb!

Maybe there’s a disconnect on what “raising” means here. I think some people are using it interchangeably with “caring for”. To me, “raising your kids” means:

- financially providing for them (as a family unit, not that a mom needs to have an income)
- overseeing their education
- overseeing their health needs
- overseeing their social development
- celebrating milestones / holidays with them
- being there for them emotionally and physically
- making sure their needs are met

So yeah, I think most moms are “raising their kids”.

Everyone knows what someone means when they say they didn’t want a stranger providing at least half or the majority of care for their kids (I did the math and if you take 25 vacation/sick days a year, all 11 holidays off, and spend every weekend with your child - no time away - and you have a nanny or use daycare 9 hours a day and your child sleeps for 11 hours every night you are providing care during 49% of daytime hours; this is based on the assumption that most people work an eight hour day and national commuting avg of 26 min commute each way). Sorry, if someone is with your child for 51% of the time between 6:45-7:45 during the day they are doing a lot or actually the majority of many of the things bulleted above. I work and I’m genuinely not bothered by this because I’m not super defensive and I’m self aware. I also know how to do math. You should try all of the above.

Just pointing out that your math is off, since kids sleep when the nanny is there too (say 2 hours).

My third is 15 months and never napped. My two older kids stopped napping for more than 45 minutes by 12 months. If you take an hour away for napping, you’re still edging toward 50%. But please do all the math yourself and write out your assumptions. It’s eye-opening. I work from home and our nanny still works nine hours a day. Maybe it’s because I live in NYC and the vast majority of working moms are RTO or have jobs that require longer hours, but our nanny works way less than most nannies. Most of our friends have nannies from 7-7. But we all acknowledge how difficult the work is and how important it is. None of us are delusional enough to think that the task of caring for children, including our children, is stupid or mindless. And if that’s how you feel when you’re parenting your kids will feel that too. Our nanny makes $75K and my oldest is in school from 7:45-2:55 during the week and my middle child is in school from 8:00-11:30.

[Anonymous]

I couldn’t have lived with myself if I would have outsourced my motherhood. My sons didn’t know what processed food was when they were kids, and didn’t sit and watch TV until probably age five except for the occasional “Sesame Street”. We spent days at the library, and they came home and devoured piles of books. They are now both very successful, and may have ended up the same way regardless, but raising them is just not something I could have let someone else do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t have lived with myself if I would have outsourced my motherhood. My sons didn’t know what processed food was when they were kids, and didn’t sit and watch TV until probably age five except for the occasional “Sesame Street”. We spent days at the library, and they came home and devoured piles of books. They are now both very successful, and may have ended up the same way regardless, but raising them is just not something I could have let someone else do.

First of all, cut the histrionics. Secondly, do you think kids at a reputable daycare or preschool are sitting there mainlining cocomelon all day?

[Anonymous]

Yes I am offended. I can’t afford to stay home and this comment is classist and insulting.

[Anonymous]

I would never voluntarily step away from the workforce and lessen my earning potential. What if my husband dies or we get divorced?
That is worse than my kids having different caretakers for 1/3 of the week when they are young. Also the kids eventually go to school so what do the SAHMs think then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never voluntarily step away from the workforce and lessen my earning potential. What if my husband dies or we get divorced?
That is worse than my kids having different caretakers for 1/3 of the week when they are young. Also the kids eventually go to school so what do the SAHMs think then?

As for me, I will be in the situation of having at least one in the pre-school years for a few more years because we spaced them out about 3.5 to 4 years apart. So that phase lasts quite a while. After that I will probably consider working part time. My degrees are in education and psychology, and the brain development during the first years is what was the deciding factor to me. Homo Sapiens are wired to learn from a variety of environments, so I wanted them to spend as much time as possible working and playing and growing things outdoors, plus reading traditional paper books. And also having a ton of quiet time with dolls or legos, without the mental stimulus of other people’s children around them during the important mornings and afternoons when they aren’t tired. I believe a lot of our social ills with epidemics of over-diagnosed mental illness and social ineptitude are a result of the rearing in the first few years.

My DH has enough of a term life policy that I could pay off the house. And we are people who were careful about choosing mates, and honor our vows, so divorce is not a risk. I could always go back to teaching for “OK” pay and good benefits, but after the stock market performance of the last year, a comfortable retirement is actually a distinct possibility. LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never voluntarily step away from the workforce and lessen my earning potential. What if my husband dies or we get divorced?
That is worse than my kids having different caretakers for 1/3 of the week when they are young. Also the kids eventually go to school so what do the SAHMs think then?

Why does everyone always bring up school as though it’s the great equalizer?

Stay home or work, I don’t care (and I have done both) but does summer vacation not exist in your worlds? School breaks? Snow days? Teacher workdays? Before and after care because the school day isn’t as long as work day?

Tl;dr Even when the kids start school, they are still spending significantly more time with a SAHP than they would be with a WOHP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t have lived with myself if I would have outsourced my motherhood. My sons didn’t know what processed food was when they were kids, and didn’t sit and watch TV until probably age five except for the occasional “Sesame Street”. We spent days at the library, and they came home and devoured piles of books. They are now both very successful, and may have ended up the same way regardless, but raising them is just not something I could have let someone else do.

You let your kids watch screens? I never could have lived with myself if my child had a drop of screen time while I was raising him. I would say my grown child is extremely successful; I am so glad I didn't settle for "very successful" by letting him watch occasional Sesame Street as a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t have lived with myself if I would have outsourced my motherhood. My sons didn’t know what processed food was when they were kids, and didn’t sit and watch TV until probably age five except for the occasional “Sesame Street”. We spent days at the library, and they came home and devoured piles of books. They are now both very successful, and may have ended up the same way regardless, but raising them is just not something I could have let someone else do.

I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t shared parenting responsibilities equitably with my husband. My sons didn’t think women were maids when they were little, and didn’t understand that in many marriages, men view their wives as their servants. They are now very successful, with happy marriages of their own, and their own kids that are also ambitious. We are all very close. They may have ended up the same way regardless, but modeling a marital model with an in-built power imbalance and an expectation that women act as maids was not something I could do.

[Anonymous]

I sincerely believe that Jeff created posts like this to churn comments and increase DCUMs desirability to advertisers.

He knows it will guarantee at least 20 pages of vitriol.

High five Jeff, you did it, all the Bi$$ches have gone crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I’m a SAHM now, but worked for many years (had nannies / Au pairs). SAHMs, please stop using this phrase! It makes you sound so dumb!

Maybe there’s a disconnect on what “raising” means here. I think some people are using it interchangeably with “caring for”. To me, “raising your kids” means:

- financially providing for them (as a family unit, not that a mom needs to have an income)
- overseeing their education
- overseeing their health needs
- overseeing their social development
- celebrating milestones / holidays with them
- being there for them emotionally and physically
- making sure their needs are met

So yeah, I think most moms are “raising their kids”.

Everyone knows what someone means when they say they didn’t want a stranger providing at least half or the majority of care for their kids (I did the math and if you take 25 vacation/sick days a year, all 11 holidays off, and spend every weekend with your child - no time away - and you have a nanny or use daycare 9 hours a day and your child sleeps for 11 hours every night you are providing care during 49% of daytime hours; this is based on the assumption that most people work an eight hour day and national commuting avg of 26 min commute each way). Sorry, if someone is with your child for 51% of the time between 6:45-7:45 during the day they are doing a lot or actually the majority of many of the things bulleted above. I work and I’m genuinely not bothered by this because I’m not super defensive and I’m self aware. I also know how to do math. You should try all of the above.

Just pointing out that your math is off, since kids sleep when the nanny is there too (say 2 hours).

Cuddling with my napping toddler was my favorite. I miss those days.