Anonymous wrote:My mom's best friend had three kids at expensive colleges all at once - the eldest and a set of twins who were a year apart. She'd married young and even though she was married to an IBM engineer, the tuition was a lot. Since she felt her only job skills were taking care of little kids, she started a preschool. It was a meaningful and profitable venture.

The family's finances eased up a bit and by the time the fourth and youngest child went to college, she went too and earned an art degree. Today she is a successful artist with gallery shows under her belt.

Why does society feel that the care of small children is a menial task?

To answer your question in one word, misogyny.

That is awesome for your mom's friend. Well done!

My mom's best friend had three kids at expensive colleges all at once - the eldest and a set of twins who were a year apart. She'd married young and even though she was married to an IBM engineer, the tuition was a lot. Since she felt her only job skills were taking care of little kids, she started a preschool. It was a meaningful and profitable venture.

The family's finances eased up a bit and by the time the fourth and youngest child went to college, she went too and earned an art degree. Today she is a successful artist with gallery shows under her belt.

Why does society feel that the care of small children is a menial task?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are lazy. Duh. Hard to work after hanging out for a few years.

Most SAHMs are useless and unemployable. I can’t tell you how many are in our neighborhood, yet still have cleaning services, lawn services, nannies, and countless other contracted services to avoid doing any work.

I am going to take you seriously. When you go to work, you do one job maybe two and yet you expect SAHM or ( dads) to do all the jobs) you mentioned. How is that fair? We are not slaves! I assume you have nannies, yard service and cleaning service too? Why can't SAHM's? They stay home to raise the children, not mow the lawn. And if you can afford cleaning service why not?

Raising a child isn’t a full-time job. Don’t pretend that it is.

Yes it is or why would one need a nanny.

Right? How are people paying a nanny for 40+hrs/week and also insisting it isn’t a full time job? Like it very literally is for your nanny and it would be your job if you weren’t paying someone to do it.

Probably the same people who write about how they're so smart they can do their own "real" jobs in only 20 hours a week and still get full time pay. Basically they're slackers and assume everyone else must be too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are lazy. Duh. Hard to work after hanging out for a few years.

Most SAHMs are useless and unemployable. I can’t tell you how many are in our neighborhood, yet still have cleaning services, lawn services, nannies, and countless other contracted services to avoid doing any work.

I am going to take you seriously. When you go to work, you do one job maybe two and yet you expect SAHM or ( dads) to do all the jobs) you mentioned. How is that fair? We are not slaves! I assume you have nannies, yard service and cleaning service too? Why can't SAHM's? They stay home to raise the children, not mow the lawn. And if you can afford cleaning service why not?

Raising a child isn’t a full-time job. Don’t pretend that it is.

Yes it is or why would one need a nanny.

Right? How are people paying a nanny for 40+hrs/week and also insisting it isn’t a full time job? Like it very literally is for your nanny and it would be your job if you weren’t paying someone to do it.

Anonymous wrote:Because they are tired of raising children?

As a SAHM of 2 college kids (plus one at home) I have no desire to watch anyone else’s kids. I’m done

Our nanny had a degree in early childhood education. Most SAHMs don't know how to raise kids.

I stayed At home because I cared and loved MY KIDS. I don't care or love YOUR KIDS. I'd rather work at ann Taylor loft for 40k a year than wipe your kid's butt.

I think they have other options. I work at the restaurant for example. I think it's much easier than taking care of someone else's child. I'd only do it part time, for higher pay than restaurant, and with just enough effort to keep the kids safe.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are lazy. Duh. Hard to work after hanging out for a few years.

Most SAHMs are useless and unemployable. I can’t tell you how many are in our neighborhood, yet still have cleaning services, lawn services, nannies, and countless other contracted services to avoid doing any work.

I am going to take you seriously. When you go to work, you do one job maybe two and yet you expect SAHM or ( dads) to do all the jobs) you mentioned. How is that fair? We are not slaves! I assume you have nannies, yard service and cleaning service too? Why can't SAHM's? They stay home to raise the children, not mow the lawn. And if you can afford cleaning service why not?

Raising a child isn’t a full-time job. Don’t pretend that it is.

Yes it is or why would one need a nanny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are lazy. Duh. Hard to work after hanging out for a few years.

Most SAHMs are useless and unemployable. I can’t tell you how many are in our neighborhood, yet still have cleaning services, lawn services, nannies, and countless other contracted services to avoid doing any work.

I am going to take you seriously. When you go to work, you do one job maybe two and yet you expect SAHM or ( dads) to do all the jobs) you mentioned. How is that fair? We are not slaves! I assume you have nannies, yard service and cleaning service too? Why can't SAHM's? They stay home to raise the children, not mow the lawn. And if you can afford cleaning service why not?

Raising a child isn’t a full-time job. Don’t pretend that it is.

Because they are tired of raising children?

All five of mine are grown and gone. I'm 55 years old and done with that part of my life. I have two grandchildren whom I adore. I love spending time with them. But other people's kids? Absolutely not.

I love how being a nanny is just considered an anyone can do it, kind of job. We literally get no respect.

I’ve worked as a professional nanny for 25 years and earn over $100k. If you want to be a high earning nanny, you need to devote yourself to the job, and most people don’t want to do that. I invest thousand every year in continuing education. My training (beyond university) includes ECE, Montessori, doula, newborn care specialist, advanced first aid and cpr, emergency medical care, child nutrition, ADHD, autism, and special needs coursework.

Being a nanny is a job that some of us take quite seriously and no, just being a stay at home mom doesn’t necessarily qualify you to earn above average wages.

Op again, a few posts asked if I would hire a woman with the same ses or education as me. Are you kidding, of course I would, assuming that I could afford her. I have a PhD and would love to hire some Teachers College child development PhD. But uh, that’s not very realistic for multiple reasons so good thing that our current nanny is still pretty awesome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most families who can afford a SAHM are high income. That means the women probably left a lucrative, prestigious career to SAH. Why would she become a nanny?

I don't think you can generalize. I am middle class (like, real middle class, not DCUM middle class) and many, many women I know decided to SAHM solely because their take home pay would've been pretty much nil (or even negative) after paying for daycare for their kids.

This, I agree totally. Op here, haha as usual this thread has imploded to show off a wide array of insecurities…

Congrat to all the rich SAHMs out there. But thanks to this poster who is actually more in touch with the real world than most of us. My point being, for someone in this situation, nannying might make a lot of sense to help cover something like college costs. I like to think that if I were in this type of position, like my kid got into Harvard or wherever grad school and say our HHI was too high for a ton of need based aid, that I would step it up to wipe butts again so my kid could have that type of opportunity. That’s all.