Reply to When is the most impactful age to SAHM?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The benefits of being a SAHM are to the parents, not the child’s development. It is more for convenience/scheduling/flexibility which can be incompatible with work expectations in American culture.
Not judging, because a parent’s mental health is very important to raising children, and if staying home is what you need to do, then that’s totally OK. But recognize it’s for you and not to give your child some developments edge.

With that said, considering that the purpose is primarily for convenience, the school age years are definitely the hardest on working parents scheduling-wise. I’m in the thick of it now so I don’t know when it gets better. [/quote]

Disagree, both of my parents worked. I was basically a latch key kid. When I was younger I was bored, and then as I got older, started getting into a lot of trouble. I was depressed and had anxiety due to having to deal with some situations that should have been dealt with by my parents. My husband's mom was SAHM and his experience was completely different. He always had someone waiting for him at home with a snack, someone to talk to, someone to attend all of his school events, etc. There was a lot of stability in his life. Having a parent that's always there makes a big difference, especially when it comes to the middle school years.[/quote]

I'm not invalidating your two experiences, but my parents both worked and I was never a latchkey kid. Both parents drove me to school, my mom generally picked me up but sometimes it was my dad. We had family dinners together every night. Weekends were family time. I was never bored and never had to deal with something that wasn't appropriate for my age. My sister-in-law is a SAHM and her kids basically fend for themselves. She doesn't keep house, cook, do laundry, and the kids are definitely doing things that my husband and I would never let our kids do (things we think are inappropriate for their ages). My point is simply that "working" looks different for a lot of parents and "staying home" looks different, too. So I don't think you can say that one situation is absolutely better than the other.[/quote]

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