God!! I used to think that there were fairly intelligent people on this board and yet EVERYTIME someone mentions SAHM/WOHM out come pages and pages of insults/justifications/one-up-manship.....
Doesn't this get old???

Anonymous wrote:I am reading between the lines of your posting OP, and subliminally I am reading that since your wife decided to stay at home w/your child, you no longer see her as interesting since she no longer holds a job outside of the home.

Thus, staying inside the house all day, caring for a child makes one quite dull.

Considering that she is caring for YOUR child as well, I consider your feelings quite unfair and even borderline cruel.

I'm OP. I'm also a 32 y/o woman who is weighing the pros and cons of staying home with my child.

I am reading between the lines of your posting OP, and subliminally I am reading that since your wife decided to stay at home w/your child, you no longer see her as interesting since she no longer holds a job outside of the home.

Thus, staying inside the house all day, caring for a child makes one quite dull.

Considering that she is caring for YOUR child as well, I consider your feelings quite unfair and even borderline cruel.

Anonymous wrote:No one seriously respects SAHMS.

NP here. I don't think this is entirely true, though it may be for you. That's too bad. There is really a wide range of SAHMs in terms of what they bring to the household and family.

I've done it all - working part time, SAHM, WOHM.
The thing about being a SAHM - aside from the ones with Country Club memberships and FT nannies - is that it IS A JOB - one that I didn't get paid for.

I wonder if the lack of respect for SAHMs comes from a lack of respect of low-income workers such as nannies, daycare workers, restaurant workers.
The work of taking care of little children, planning and implementing enriching activities, and cooking meal after meal from scratch, (and all the cleaning and dirty dishes, three times a day + snacks, using no convenience foods OMG NEVER AGAIN) all while sticking to a pretty small budget - IT IS WORK. If you had to hire someone to do all of this, you would pay dearly.

I don't know why your wife being the one responsible for these tasks would make her not respectable, unless you already don't respect people who do it for a living.

Many people place little value on that work, even though it would have been prohibitively expensive (with my modest salary) to replace myself when both kids were very young.
After all, if I'd had a "respectable" high-paying career, I probably wouldn't want to be a SAHM

I doubt working has made me more interesting or more attractive. I'm tired, though I haven't gained weight I am starting to get saddlebags from desk-sitting. For me to add a daily workout into the routine would require more time away from the kids - too much already with my commute. I'm glad I had kids while I was young and not very far along in my career, so no "golden handcuffs" to keep me at work - because I would have missed out on so much. They are bigger now and don't need me so much, so it was back to work for me.

No one seriously respects SAHMS.

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Anonymous wrote:I am a husband, my wife stays at home. Kids are 3 and 6. I have utmost respect for what she does. Raising our kids properly is just as if not more important than what I do to make money. Her job on some days is just as hard as mine. I have total respect for her. I still have a desire to have sex with her.

I should add that most of my co-workers have SAHM spouses and feel grateful we can concentrate on work due to the sacrafices of SAHM wives.

Do you respect her need for personal time and personal money to spend?

I wrote the previous post. Yes, my money is her money. I constantly reassure her to take time for herself. I don't think I am unique.

But I will say, fair or unfair, if you are the non-bread winning spouse you do need to be cognizant of the value of a dollar. I think some SAHMs, from what I hear, can be guilty of being at home too often and fixating on unneccesary and expensive home improvement projects without appreciating how much effort goes into earning the money in the first place.

Anyhow, not sure if that is unique to SAHM or women in general. In any event, I totally agree with others that I could not succeed in my career without the sacrafices of my wife being at home. It's a team effort.

It's amazing that my DH and I have both managed to succeed in our careers without having the "sacrafices" [sic] of having a SAHP. We take turns taking time off as necessary to handle kids and house.

What kind of careers? Some are easier/less time intensive than others.

We're both lawyers and our HHI is $500,000.

Where? Biglaw firms? That wouldn't really make sense at $500k unless both of you work a reduced schedule, which everyone knows is the kiss of death for men. Maybe one government and one big law? I can see how that works because the gov worker can handle the kids generally and the firm worker can sometimes be flexible. We have found it easier to just have one person make more than that and have the other one at home. Different strokes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I am a husband, my wife stays at home. Kids are 3 and 6. I have utmost respect for what she does. Raising our kids properly is just as if not more important than what I do to make money. Her job on some days is just as hard as mine. I have total respect for her. I still have a desire to have sex with her.

I should add that most of my co-workers have SAHM spouses and feel grateful we can concentrate on work due to the sacrafices of SAHM wives.

Do you respect her need for personal time and personal money to spend?

I wrote the previous post. Yes, my money is her money. I constantly reassure her to take time for herself. I don't think I am unique.

But I will say, fair or unfair, if you are the non-bread winning spouse you do need to be cognizant of the value of a dollar. I think some SAHMs, from what I hear, can be guilty of being at home too often and fixating on unneccesary and expensive home improvement projects without appreciating how much effort goes into earning the money in the first place.

Anyhow, not sure if that is unique to SAHM or women in general. In any event, I totally agree with others that I could not succeed in my career without the sacrafices of my wife being at home. It's a team effort.

It's amazing that my DH and I have both managed to succeed in our careers without having the "sacrafices" [sic] of having a SAHP. We take turns taking time off as necessary to handle kids and house.

What kind of careers? Some are easier/less time intensive than others.

We're both lawyers and our HHI is $500,000.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know with 100% certainty that my DH is still very much interested in me.

My SAHM wife knows this too. Actually she might wish I was less interested in that latter category.

Anonymous wrote:I know with 100% certainty that my DH is still very much interested in me.

My SAHM wife knows this too. Actually she might wish I was less interested in that latter category.

Are there four people getting very worked up on this post, or are there more than that?

Also, to the guy who thinks that either SAHMs or maybe women in general are overly obsessed with home improvements - go fuck yourself, sexist idiot.

or one who had to rush into court.

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Anonymous wrote:I think it is more important to talk to H with teens.

My friends have a great amount of respect for their wives that stay home with infant and toddlers and that respect decreases exponentially once the kids are in school. they also lose respect for themselves because they feel like they are being used and have not option but put up with it or get divorced.

This is a very good point.

It's not easy to get a0 year gap in employment.

I agree. The OP needs to think about that. Also, if there is a divorce it can be devastating.

. . . says the WOHM. I know plenty of moms for whom staying at home was absolutely the best decision for their family and plenty for whom working outside the home was right. If you don't think your husband will support your decision to stay at home, that's a factor in making it less successful. But the other reasons above are petty, most moms I know who wanted to go back were able to go back, just took more effort than if they had stayed employed.

no.... actually.... says the divorce lawyer who has women sit in her office crying when they realize they won't be supported forever by their H ... it's actually very sad and scary for them, pretending it isn't doesn't help anybody make informed decisions about their life. Judges don't look sympathitically on a woman with an Ivy degree and multiple graduates degrees asking for alimony.

Or on lawyers who don't know how to spell sympathetically.

Lol

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is more important to talk to H with teens.

My friends have a great amount of respect for their wives that stay home with infant and toddlers and that respect decreases exponentially once the kids are in school. they also lose respect for themselves because they feel like they are being used and have not option but put up with it or get divorced.

This is a very good point.

It's not easy to get a0 year gap in employment.

I agree. The OP needs to think about that. Also, if there is a divorce it can be devastating.

. . . says the WOHM. I know plenty of moms for whom staying at home was absolutely the best decision for their family and plenty for whom working outside the home was right. If you don't think your husband will support your decision to stay at home, that's a factor in making it less successful. But the other reasons above are petty, most moms I know who wanted to go back were able to go back, just took more effort than if they had stayed employed.

no.... actually.... says the divorce lawyer who has women sit in her office crying when they realize they won't be supported forever by their H ... it's actually very sad and scary for them, pretending it isn't doesn't help anybody make informed decisions about their life. Judges don't look sympathitically on a woman with an Ivy degree and multiple graduates degrees asking for alimony.

Or on lawyers who don't know how to spell sympathetically.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a husband, my wife stays at home. Kids are 3 and 6. I have utmost respect for what she does. Raising our kids properly is just as if not more important than what I do to make money. Her job on some days is just as hard as mine. I have total respect for her. I still have a desire to have sex with her.

I should add that most of my co-workers have SAHM spouses and feel grateful we can concentrate on work due to the sacrafices of SAHM wives.

Do you respect her need for personal time and personal money to spend?

I wrote the previous post. Yes, my money is her money. I constantly reassure her to take time for herself. I don't think I am unique.

But I will say, fair or unfair, if you are the non-bread winning spouse you do need to be cognizant of the value of a dollar. I think some SAHMs, from what I hear, can be guilty of being at home too often and fixating on unneccesary and expensive home improvement projects without appreciating how much effort goes into earning the money in the first place.

Anyhow, not sure if that is unique to SAHM or women in general. In any event, I totally agree with others that I could not succeed in my career without the sacrafices of my wife being at home. It's a team effort.

It's amazing that my DH and I have both managed to succeed in our careers without having the "sacrafices" [sic] of having a SAHP. We take turns taking time off as necessary to handle kids and house.

What kind of careers? Some are easier/less time intensive than others.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a sahm I will add my 2 cents. We've been married 9 years. I've been at home for 3. Since being at home dh and I have a much closer bond physically and emotionally. Part of this could be that I was in a really stressful field prior to staying home and didn't have time/energy to put into myself etc. Now, I have time to run daily, I cook clean food, maintain myself in a way I hadn't before. I read a lot more since I have the time during naps, at night etc. I'm pretty sure dh would answer yes.

So you couldn't handle working and self care, so you're both happier. At least you know your limitations.

There are only so many hours in a day. If you have a job that takes up most of the waking hours, of course other things will get less attention. That is why many people with desk jobs get fat.

I work 8 to 5 but I work out 5 days a week. You just have to be organized and work hard/be efficient.

My job was never 8-5. It would have been easy to do it with that kind of schedule. Not everyone has a cushy job.

I worked hard for my cushy job. I did the 60 to 70 hours a week jobs before I had kids. Now I don't have to do that

Yay for you, have we boosted your ego enough yet or do you need so more self-congratulation!