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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please I beg of you:

Could we stop talking about staying home versus working as a "choice" that all wome make?

It's not except for a tiny sliver of very privileged women who truly can work or stay home with no financial or personal repercussions either way. For everyone else the scales tend to be heavily weighted one way or another and even when you get to pick there are major trade-offs because you don't have the resources to mitigate the downsides.

THIS is why it's rude to say things that pass judgment on what other women do. Because for most women it's not truly a choice. The majority of us are constrained by economics and earning potential and childcare availability and the nature of our marriages and the support systems we have in place (and not you cannot just "choose" to have a great support system -- some people have supportive families and communities and others don't due to circumstance not choice).

So yes please be sensitive when you talk about this issue because a lot of women are doing the very best they can with the options available to them (which are not limitless) and no one needs to be shamed or shaded for working OR staying home.

If women could just have empathy towards each other we would all be so much better off.

And let’s stop pretending most SAHM are employable.

Thank you for proving my point for me. Who does this comment help?

And guess what? There probably are people who are better stay at home parents than they are paid workers. Why is this a bad thing? Caring for children is important work (whoever takes care of your kids while you work is pretty important to you right?) so if someone decides they can be more useful by staying home with their kids than going to a job with a paycheck then why would you oppose that?

There are also plenty of women who decide to stay home for a few years because the economics of incomes in their field and the cost of childcare where they live just doesn't add up. Now you might ask yourself "well why don't more men do this?" Excellent question! There are several reasons including:

- men make more money than women on average and thus it is less likely to make sense for a man to stay home and care for kids

- people like you stigmatize staying home to care for children by making fun of women who do it and men are even more sensitive to the loss of social status that would come from choosing to stay home with their children so they won't do it because people [LIKE YOU] will think less on them

But you don't understand that fixing the above is way more important than running around making fun of sahms if you care about womens rights and equality. Tell me again who is dumbe -- you or the sahms?

I didn't say it was a bad thing but I guess you have been socialized to assume the statement "SAHM's who are not employable" are "bad", so I'd check that if I were you.

I didn't stigmatize being unemployable, I think it's important to understand that is a thing and we need to show support for that. Also about 25% of people with disabilities are employed, which means 75% are not. We need to work on that as a community.

Also you have a 10% chance your spouse will become disabled.

People like you forget that dads are part of the equation and being unemployable is a fact of some people's lives and I never mentioned IQ but you clearly imagine all unemployed people are stupid. You might want to check that too.

You also want to stigmatize men wanting to be a part of the equation... you are like go to work even if it means working 60 hours a week or 3 jobs it's cool if you never see your kids.

I said the exact opposite of the bolded actually. Also just an FYI: I'm a working mom with a partner who works a flex schedule specifically so he can be a more active dad and have better work life balance generally so maybe check YOUR assumptions.

Calling people "unemployable" and then claiming you didn't mean it as an insult is rich. In fact most disabled people ARE employable it's just that they face incredible discrimination in the workforce.

If someone can perform the job of sahp then they are employable in my book because that job actually requires a lot of useful skills that would make you successful at a range of jobs. All I said was that some people might be *better* at being a sahp than doing whatever they might do for money. That doesn't mean they are "unemployable" it means that for a specific individual staying home with kids might be the perfect fit and going to a job while paying someone else to watch their kids and take care of their house is not the most efficient or appropriate use of everyone's time and money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

Nope.

On average kids are in daycare 27 hours a week.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf

Well, not quite. Our goal is to look at kids with working mothers who use daycare. So, we have to look at research that accounts for this. The urban institute says that 41% of kids with employed mothers are in daycare 35 or more hours per week.

It seems that when parents are employed their children spend more time in daycare: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/62106/309439-The-Hours-That-Children-Under-Five-Spend-in-Child-Care.PDF

If you look at all children you end up lumping in kids who have a parent who works PT etc.

Okay … so NOT the majority. Thanks for proving my point even more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think of it this way. If you had a 2-year-old and got divorced and got 50% custody, the child would only physically be in your presence half the time. In a different scenario, if you used to stay at home with your 2-year-old but switch to working 8 hours a day, you now also only have your child physically in your presence half the time. This is math.

If the verb “raise” is what is offending people, maybe moms should just say “I want to be around my child most of the day instead of have someone else around my child most of the day.”

Agree. I SAHMed when my kid was young because I literally wanted to spend time with her. I was an older mom and knew I'd only have one so I wanted to maximize the experience of parenting since I was only going to get to do it once. The thought of paying someone else to be with her all day struck me as silly in this context.

I don't think people who work when their kids are young are no "raising" their kids but they are having a different parenting experience. But guess what? People who have kids younger or who have 2 or more kids are also having a different parenting experience. Who cares? Do what's right for you.

So people (not women, but women and men) who work literally don't want to spend time with their kids?

Her H clearly doesn’t want to be a parent.

That's so sad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

And you do? Please.

Show me the stats. I'll wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please I beg of you:

Could we stop talking about staying home versus working as a "choice" that all wome make?

It's not except for a tiny sliver of very privileged women who truly can work or stay home with no financial or personal repercussions either way. For everyone else the scales tend to be heavily weighted one way or another and even when you get to pick there are major trade-offs because you don't have the resources to mitigate the downsides.

THIS is why it's rude to say things that pass judgment on what other women do. Because for most women it's not truly a choice. The majority of us are constrained by economics and earning potential and childcare availability and the nature of our marriages and the support systems we have in place (and not you cannot just "choose" to have a great support system -- some people have supportive families and communities and others don't due to circumstance not choice).

So yes please be sensitive when you talk about this issue because a lot of women are doing the very best they can with the options available to them (which are not limitless) and no one needs to be shamed or shaded for working OR staying home.

If women could just have empathy towards each other we would all be so much better off.

And let’s stop pretending most SAHM are employable.

Thank you for proving my point for me. Who does this comment help?

And guess what? There probably are people who are better stay at home parents than they are paid workers. Why is this a bad thing? Caring for children is important work (whoever takes care of your kids while you work is pretty important to you right?) so if someone decides they can be more useful by staying home with their kids than going to a job with a paycheck then why would you oppose that?

There are also plenty of women who decide to stay home for a few years because the economics of incomes in their field and the cost of childcare where they live just doesn't add up. Now you might ask yourself "well why don't more men do this?" Excellent question! There are several reasons including:

- men make more money than women on average and thus it is less likely to make sense for a man to stay home and care for kids

- people like you stigmatize staying home to care for children by making fun of women who do it and men are even more sensitive to the loss of social status that would come from choosing to stay home with their children so they won't do it because people [LIKE YOU] will think less on them

But you don't understand that fixing the above is way more important than running around making fun of sahms if you care about womens rights and equality. Tell me again who is dumbe -- you or the sahms?

I didn't say it was a bad thing but I guess you have been socialized to assume the statement "SAHM's who are not employable" are "bad", so I'd check that if I were you.

I didn't stigmatize being unemployable, I think it's important to understand that is a thing and we need to show support for that. Also about 25% of people with disabilities are employed, which means 75% are not. We need to work on that as a community.

Also you have a 10% chance your spouse will become disabled.

People like you forget that dads are part of the equation and being unemployable is a fact of some people's lives and I never mentioned IQ but you clearly imagine all unemployed people are stupid. You might want to check that too.

You also want to stigmatize men wanting to be a part of the equation... you are like go to work even if it means working 60 hours a week or 3 jobs it's cool if you never see your kids.

I said the exact opposite of the bolded actually. Also just an FYI: I'm a working mom with a partner who works a flex schedule specifically so he can be a more active dad and have better work life balance generally so maybe check YOUR assumptions.

Calling people "unemployable" and then claiming you didn't mean it as an insult is rich. In fact most disabled people ARE employable it's just that they face incredible discrimination in the workforce.

If someone can perform the job of sahp then they are employable in my book because that job actually requires a lot of useful skills that would make you successful at a range of jobs. All I said was that some people might be *better* at being a sahp than doing whatever they might do for money. That doesn't mean they are "unemployable" it means that for a specific individual staying home with kids might be the perfect fit and going to a job while paying someone else to watch their kids and take care of their house is not the most efficient or appropriate use of everyone's time and money.

I didn’t call them disabled because most disabled people are employable.

Some people are unemployable… that is a fact.

You attached emotions to that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

This is why many people can't just get a job once their child is school age. It's cheaper and less stress to just have one parent on-call for all the p.i.t.a. kid related issues, especially if the other parent is a high earner. If we both worked, we have literally nobody to cover all the days when kids aren't in school and need care at home. I don't care who looks down on it. Half the families at my school have a SAHP because they have the same problem. Preschool is so few hours during the week we skipped it for all the children and just taught them to read and write and do math at home before they started K, also saved a lot of money there.

Before I had kids and was working, I didn't really feel I was doing anything all that important. So many of these jobs that people think are high status will be replaced by automation and AI. Might as well raise your kids and let the status obsessed folks do their thing.

And yet tons of working parents have figured out how to work and be able to care for their kids on sick days, etc. Sorry you couldn't, but that doesn't mean others can't.

Tons of parents have figured out how to care for their kids without needing two incomes. Sorry you couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean others can’t.

Many parents want two incomes and after learning there really isnt any long term negative impact of daycare decided that their kids having more money gave them more of a leg up in life than being constantly cared for and hovered over by a parent.

The idea that the only way to properly care for your children is to do it every hour of the day is deluded.

[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:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

And you do? Please.

Show me the stats. I'll wait.

NP

I posted the stats and another person (trying to prove me wrong) posted another study showing the majority of kids are in daycare < 8 hours a day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:tangents about scandinavia are missing the point. it's rude to say this to someone and intended purely as an insult. anyone who says this is an ahole.

I agree that it’s rude to say it, but picture someone being in the position to need to answer a question about why they are staying home with their kids. I think making people answer that question is asking for a rude answer.

No one asks someone why they stayed home. Come on. You're creating a strawman because you can't just acknowledge that this is a rude thing to say. Give it up.

None of any of this actually happens anywhere but the interwebs. Including the entire OP. I've been a SAHM for 17 years. I've never heard another SAHM use the quote in the OP (or anything close or similar) nor have I ever been asked why I SAH. I think its pretty self explanatory. If someone judges or feels judged by me, that is none of my business.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is why many people can't just get a job once their child is school age. It's cheaper and less stress to just have one parent on-call for all the p.i.t.a. kid related issues, especially if the other parent is a high earner. If we both worked, we have literally nobody to cover all the days when kids aren't in school and need care at home. I don't care who looks down on it. Half the families at my school have a SAHP because they have the same problem. Preschool is so few hours during the week we skipped it for all the children and just taught them to read and write and do math at home before they started K, also saved a lot of money there.

Before I had kids and was working, I didn't really feel I was doing anything all that important. So many of these jobs that people think are high status will be replaced by automation and AI. Might as well raise your kids and let the status obsessed folks do their thing.

And yet tons of working parents have figured out how to work and be able to care for their kids on sick days, etc. Sorry you couldn't, but that doesn't mean others can't.

Tons of parents have figured out how to care for their kids without needing two incomes. Sorry you couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean others can’t.

Many parents want two incomes and after learning there really isnt any long term negative impact of daycare decided that their kids having more money gave them more of a leg up in life than being constantly cared for and hovered over by a parent.

The idea that the only way to properly care for your children is to do it every hour of the day is deluded.

And found dads can be and are way more involved in their child’s life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most sahm who aren’t wealthy (still the majority) would openly admit they wished job reentry was easier or that both parents had European style leave options.

The problem is that most wohm will not admit anything is wrong because doing so suggests their own child was in a less-than-ideal setup. They need to give an inch and admit that these choices we’re left with are bad for children and for most mothers!

There is no reason why a typical professional woman shouldn’t be able to take a year off (keeping current with occasional shifts if necessary) each kid and re-enter. None. Same for dads. But it will take bridging this enormous gap and working together.

This. It's me.

I now work part time in a flexible job but I wish I had a more stable career and I do feel somewhat stuck due to having taken time out of my career to stay at home. But it was the only way for us as a family to get the level of childcare we wanted for the price we could afford. We didn't have access to really high quality care and when we were looking for childcare we got pretty frustrated and depressed at the quality of what we could afford. It was incredibly hard to make that decision and not one I or my DH took lightly. It was very much a tradeoff.

I still hope to have a "second act" career-wise and am figuring out what that might be.

I wouldn't say I stayed home because I didn't want someone else to raise my kids. It's more like "I stayed home because I wanted the person taking care of my kids to be really good at it and highly invested in their well being." I couldn't find someone else who would do that for what we could afford so it wound up being me. I know I'm not alone.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is why many people can't just get a job once their child is school age. It's cheaper and less stress to just have one parent on-call for all the p.i.t.a. kid related issues, especially if the other parent is a high earner. If we both worked, we have literally nobody to cover all the days when kids aren't in school and need care at home. I don't care who looks down on it. Half the families at my school have a SAHP because they have the same problem. Preschool is so few hours during the week we skipped it for all the children and just taught them to read and write and do math at home before they started K, also saved a lot of money there.

Before I had kids and was working, I didn't really feel I was doing anything all that important. So many of these jobs that people think are high status will be replaced by automation and AI. Might as well raise your kids and let the status obsessed folks do their thing.

And yet tons of working parents have figured out how to work and be able to care for their kids on sick days, etc. Sorry you couldn't, but that doesn't mean others can't.

Tons of parents have figured out how to care for their kids without needing two incomes. Sorry you couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean others can’t.

Many parents want two incomes and after learning there really isnt any long term negative impact of daycare decided that their kids having more money gave them more of a leg up in life than being constantly cared for and hovered over by a parent.

The idea that the only way to properly care for your children is to do it every hour of the day is deluded.

The post to which you replied neither said nor implied the bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please I beg of you:

Could we stop talking about staying home versus working as a "choice" that all wome make?

It's not except for a tiny sliver of very privileged women who truly can work or stay home with no financial or personal repercussions either way. For everyone else the scales tend to be heavily weighted one way or another and even when you get to pick there are major trade-offs because you don't have the resources to mitigate the downsides.

THIS is why it's rude to say things that pass judgment on what other women do. Because for most women it's not truly a choice. The majority of us are constrained by economics and earning potential and childcare availability and the nature of our marriages and the support systems we have in place (and not you cannot just "choose" to have a great support system -- some people have supportive families and communities and others don't due to circumstance not choice).

So yes please be sensitive when you talk about this issue because a lot of women are doing the very best they can with the options available to them (which are not limitless) and no one needs to be shamed or shaded for working OR staying home.

If women could just have empathy towards each other we would all be so much better off.

And let’s stop pretending most SAHM are employable.

Thank you for proving my point for me. Who does this comment help?

And guess what? There probably are people who are better stay at home parents than they are paid workers. Why is this a bad thing? Caring for children is important work (whoever takes care of your kids while you work is pretty important to you right?) so if someone decides they can be more useful by staying home with their kids than going to a job with a paycheck then why would you oppose that?

There are also plenty of women who decide to stay home for a few years because the economics of incomes in their field and the cost of childcare where they live just doesn't add up. Now you might ask yourself "well why don't more men do this?" Excellent question! There are several reasons including:

- men make more money than women on average and thus it is less likely to make sense for a man to stay home and care for kids

- people like you stigmatize staying home to care for children by making fun of women who do it and men are even more sensitive to the loss of social status that would come from choosing to stay home with their children so they won't do it because people [LIKE YOU] will think less on them

But you don't understand that fixing the above is way more important than running around making fun of sahms if you care about womens rights and equality. Tell me again who is dumbe -- you or the sahms?

I didn't say it was a bad thing but I guess you have been socialized to assume the statement "SAHM's who are not employable" are "bad", so I'd check that if I were you.

I didn't stigmatize being unemployable, I think it's important to understand that is a thing and we need to show support for that. Also about 25% of people with disabilities are employed, which means 75% are not. We need to work on that as a community.

Also you have a 10% chance your spouse will become disabled.

People like you forget that dads are part of the equation and being unemployable is a fact of some people's lives and I never mentioned IQ but you clearly imagine all unemployed people are stupid. You might want to check that too.

You also want to stigmatize men wanting to be a part of the equation... you are like go to work even if it means working 60 hours a week or 3 jobs it's cool if you never see your kids.

I said the exact opposite of the bolded actually. Also just an FYI: I'm a working mom with a partner who works a flex schedule specifically so he can be a more active dad and have better work life balance generally so maybe check YOUR assumptions.

Calling people "unemployable" and then claiming you didn't mean it as an insult is rich. In fact most disabled people ARE employable it's just that they face incredible discrimination in the workforce.

If someone can perform the job of sahp then they are employable in my book because that job actually requires a lot of useful skills that would make you successful at a range of jobs. All I said was that some people might be *better* at being a sahp than doing whatever they might do for money. That doesn't mean they are "unemployable" it means that for a specific individual staying home with kids might be the perfect fit and going to a job while paying someone else to watch their kids and take care of their house is not the most efficient or appropriate use of everyone's time and money.

I didn’t call them disabled because most disabled people are employable.

Some people are unemployable… that is a fact.

You attached emotions to that fact.

No one knows what point you are trying to make because you have yet to clearly articulate it. No one is "emotional" -- they just think your comments are dumb.

If you have a point try actually making it instead of just saying inflammatory things and then getting condescending when people argue with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hate the SAHM and WOHM debates because in my circles living in multiple places, I've had a good mix of friends. I've also been both a SAHM (7 years) and a WOHM (now divorced). For me the big debate is whether people are judgmental v nonjudgmental and if they can handle the fact that people are free to make choices that best suit their families.

Saying that someone isn't raising their kids because they have a job isn't true, and is rude to boot.

You are twisting the words. If someone said they stay home because they didn’t want someone else to raise their kids, that doesn’t mean a person with a job isn’t raising their kids. I can’t imagine a scenario where someone would so rudely say that to a working mother because it is rude to say. I say this as a sahm who used to be a working mom and will probably one day again be a working mom.

Um, that's exactly what it implies. Otherwise you wouldn't have to stay at home in order to raise your kids...

It should not be said but can you concede that there might be an instance of it not being meant as an insult. The speaker may be reflecting on raising as spending time with while not intending to imply others are not raising their kids.
One person is equating it to spending time with, playing games, running errands more than if they didn't stay home.
One person is latching onto the insult and using it to twist the knife so you'll feel bad. They are being defensive or just mean.

I'm the PP and no, this is insulting every time it is said. By saying you stayed home in order to raise your kids you are saying that parents that don't stay home aren't raising their kids.

You can say you wanted to spend more time with your kids, of course. I don't have a problem with whether women choose to work or stay home but I do have a problem with people making rude comments about their "choice" and then playing dumb about how they didn't MEAN to be rude (except they did, because if you asked them they would say they fundamentally disagree with the other person's choice).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the main reasons I was grateful to sahm is that I could encourage much more risk from a young age. If I were a nanny I would never feel comfortable allowing so much intense climbing, exploring out of my sight, etc. It always made me nervous but I think it’s one of the best things I did and I wish I’d had that as a kid so I could be more confident in my body.

The nannies I knew were caring and committed but their charges weren’t allowed to play with sticks, jump from rocks or even go into the sandbox half the time. Most were borderline hypochondriacs and passed that to the kids. I can only imagine the level of control in a daycare setting with high ratios. It’s not good for kids when the constant message is “be careful” and everything is padded for your protection.

I would never say this to a wohm friend since it’s rude and there’s no point. But there are many areas like this where a sahp can make a difference.

Interesting take. I’m a SAHM and I find kids with nannies often take more risks (at the playground at least) because the nannies often aren’t paying close attention.

Yes. SAHMs are always attentive to the children but nannies aren't.

SAHM gave a ton of tasks to do besides care for their child and are distracted by all of that. Nannies only watch the children… less distracted.

But yes Nannies are more trained and helicopter less to allow kids to learn from
Play.

Nannies aren’t trained unless you’re paying at least 80k a year plus benefits. All I ever see is 20 year old foreigners or older women taken care of the kids. There are no Mary Poppins.

Older women like...women who have had their own kids? How are they not trained?

Also, we've had three nannies throughout our kids' lifetime and none of them were foreign or old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a huge difference to the kids though to have a more relaxed morning and to be able to come home and rest after school instead of staying in aftercare.

I stopped working when I had my kids, went back part-time when they started school and now that they are in high school I am increasing my hours close to full-time. I have always worked from home and have an intellectually stimulating job.

I realize that I am very lucky and not everyone has the same options as I do. I have no judgment, only sympathy, for those who would prefer to stay home with kids but have to work due to financial reasons.

I will never regret staying home with the kids when they were young. I truly believe that having one lovung and engaged parent stay home is the very best for the children. Those were also some of the best years of my life and I am forever grateful that I had the opportunity.

My husband and I both work full-time and our kids have never done aftercare, they come home right after school because one or both of us is home. Good for you and your set up, but stop acting like either kids who do aftercare are going to end up in group homes or that many working parents don't have their kids in aftercare.

First of all: she’s not doing that.

Second: you don’t get to say this AFTER making sure to point out that YOUR kids have NEVER done aftercare. Hypocrite.

My point is that I have no dog in the aftercare fight because I've never used it so I'm not sensitive/offended.

Saying there's a HUGE difference in kids who do aftercare and those that don't is ridiculous at best and disgusting at worst. But go ahead and call people names when you don't understand. It really helps get your point across.

Yeah coming for aftercare is crazy. My five year old loved daycare, which we put him in early on, and now loves aftercare. He’s social and well adjusted and loves to play. Kids have a ton of energy that really can only be matched by other kids. I’m hearing a lot from these parents on this thread that sound like it was good for *them* to be at home parents but sounds also like there are dependency issues.

The kids I’ve seen that have mostly been raised in a bubble at home until being dropped in a school situation have been spoiled, entitled brats, that think the world revolves around them and all they need to do is ring a bell and mommy will show up with a tray of food. They also watch too much TV because no matter how much these full of it stay at home moms pretend, they’re not filling 12 hours a day 7 days a week with planned activities, while they clean the house, make dinner, etc. It’s all bullshit.

All these moms cant imagine “abandoning” their kids at daycare or aftercare.

Well, I cant imagine depriving my kid of opportunities to interact outside the house and have fun rather than be cooped up at the house and only having human contact with their parents.