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.

Anonymous wrote:Pp again. More than working status, I do think the education standards of the mother matter greatly. DH and I both attended top colleges and our kids expect and also want to attend a top school. I see a huge difference in kids whose parents went to an ivy or other top school and guiding their kids. An uneducated or SAHM who was never professionally successful is different than your Harvard law educated SAHM married to a big law partner.

People keep trying to claim most SAHMs fit this profile, but they do not. Successful and ambitious women want to keep being successful and ambitious. Sure, they may take a break for 4-5 years while the kids are little, if they don’t have a spouse or grandparents to share the childcare load, but it’s a sacrifice and they go back as soon as the youngest hits K. They don’t want to live that lifestyle forever.

The long-term SAHMs I know (in McLean, Arlington, Vienna, and two private schools) were average in terms of education and career but lucky enough to marry rich. Or they do fit the profile above but are dealing with medical or SN issues in themselves or their children.

Pp again. More than working status, I do think the education standards of the mother matter greatly. DH and I both attended top colleges and our kids expect and also want to attend a top school. I see a huge difference in kids whose parents went to an ivy or other top school and guiding their kids. An uneducated or SAHM who was never professionally successful is different than your Harvard law educated SAHM married to a big law partner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We walk the kids to school at 7:15, they are home by 3:15, our neighbor walks the kids home and we walk theirs to school. My husband works European hours so he is with them until I’m logging out at 5. Not sure how you being at home is so much better than our setup.

Nobody said anything about it being better or worse, doofus. I said that SAHP spends more time with the kids than WOHP, even once the kids are school aged. The biggest and most obvious example (which I listed and you ignored) is that two to three month stretch of time known to most of us plebes as summer break.

This is a simple matter of math. Stop being so ridiculous and defensive.

SAHM here. We travel more than most of my kids’ friends’ families. We have time and money. I don’t necessarily think our travel experiences are better than their friends who attend overnight camps. They also travel but just not as much. Our kids play the same sports and attend the same camps and trainings.

When I used to work, I put a lot of effort into finding the most fun and quality camps for my kids. We usually did one big summer vacation. We did a weekend or 2 at a local beach like Rehoboth. I don’t think my kids were missing out because I worked.

There are some kids who seem to generally be falling behind whether it is sports or academically. I see some parents of teens who leave them alone and the teens don’t always use their time wisely. They are too old for camp and don’t need childcare. If you want your kid to go to a top college and your kid has a lot of activities, it is a lot of work for parents. I find this more challenging than just planning an outing to the zoo or pumpkin patch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We walk the kids to school at 7:15, they are home by 3:15, our neighbor walks the kids home and we walk theirs to school. My husband works European hours so he is with them until I’m logging out at 5. Not sure how you being at home is so much better than our setup.

Kids do a mix of summer camp and grandparent camp all summer. We are lucky our parents summer on the cape and the VT mountains. The kids actually want to spend time around their peers in the summer, not at home with Mummy putting them through the SAHM paces.

Once kids are 10 and up, I do think it is possible that a working and SAHM spend the same amount of time with the kids. Kids no longer need childcare. They can walk home from the bus stop or school.

I don’t understand these parents discounting nap time. Nursing, rocking, holding your baby to nap or being the one to see them when they wake up from nap is an important bonding time with your infant or toddler. In preschool and early elementary, parent friendships determine kid friendships often. Moms do lots of play dates, hang out at one another’s homes, go to the playground together, etc. yes, your kids can just go to the playground at daycare with other kids but it isn’t exactly the same experience. You make plans with mom friends to go to the zoo, spray park, new play spaces, new cafes, etc. This was one of my most enjoyable times of my life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a reason for why one spouse chose not to work or works from home/at a flexible part time job? Or is this an acceptable turn of phrase?

It's an absolutely valid statement. Many of my friends didn't want their children to be raised by strangers, some had the privilege to do it themselves or get family to support while others had to send them to daycare or leave them with nannies.

+1. I had kids to actually be a mom. I wanted the experience and contracted out parenting as little as possible (although had to do some), whereas I know moms who want to work and were less interested in the day to day of parenting. What is wrong with acknowledging that?

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.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We walk the kids to school at 7:15, they are home by 3:15, our neighbor walks the kids home and we walk theirs to school. My husband works European hours so he is with them until I’m logging out at 5. Not sure how you being at home is so much better than our setup.

Nobody said anything about it being better or worse, doofus. I said that SAHP spends more time with the kids than WOHP, even once the kids are school aged. The biggest and most obvious example (which I listed and you ignored) is that two to three month stretch of time known to most of us plebes as summer break.

This is a simple matter of math. Stop being so ridiculous and defensive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We walk the kids to school at 7:15, they are home by 3:15, our neighbor walks the kids home and we walk theirs to school. My husband works European hours so he is with them until I’m logging out at 5. Not sure how you being at home is so much better than our setup.

Kids do a mix of summer camp and grandparent camp all summer. We are lucky our parents summer on the cape and the VT mountains. The kids actually want to spend time around their peers in the summer, not at home with Mummy putting them through the SAHM paces.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We walk the kids to school at 7:15, they are home by 3:15, our neighbor walks the kids home and we walk theirs to school. My husband works European hours so he is with them until I’m logging out at 5. Not sure how you being at home is so much better than our setup.

Just be confident in your choices. Everyone does what is best for their own family. I have met amazing people who grew up with a single mom. Some of these adults seem to have the strongest bonds with their moms. I have seen some horrible people with two very successful parents. I do think if both parents put their careers first, the kids suffer. Most people are somewhere in the middle.

What I meant was that I wasn’t really thinking about my mom when I was a young adult. I was too busy living my life. I didn’t ask or care about my friends’ parents and their moms’ working status.

When I got married, I was very ambitious and definitely did not want or plan to be a stay at home mom. DH and I decided together that we both preferred that I stay home with the kids. DH earned a high income as did I. The most important factor of mom staying home is the support of the husband. Obviously if he doesn’t earn enough or isn’t a good partner or stable, the mom can’t rely on him.

I always saw my kids Nannie’s as part of my village. We raised them together not independently.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I honestly don’t think kids really think about their moms and their moms’ working status when they are adults.

My mom was a working mom and she didn’t have any impact on my twenties. It isn’t like I went to a top college and grad school to not work. I did work and did not expect or plan to stay home. When my baby was born, I didn’t expect to change so much. I hated going back to work and leaving him. I ended up getting a less demanding job and had a second child and worked PT. I stopped working altogether when I had my third. I never thought I would be a SAHM. This maternal want to be with my kids was stronger than my previous career ambitions.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wouldn’t you be more likely to have a maid if you worked? I’m not sure what you mean.

I was a working mom before and now a SAHM. My kids loved me then and now. I do think they we enjoy our time together. We all do chores around the house, kids and parents.