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UGH. I said, IF you want to find out how important a job is, take it away. If you take away breadwinner, you have no house or food. If you take away SAHM, you have the equivalent of a WM household. It's an exercise to determine the importance of the job. Yes, you can get anohter job. THAT's not the point. The point is to show that the job of breadwinner is MUCH MUCH MUCH more important than the job of SAHM. SAH isn't important. It doesn't accomplish anything you can't accomplsih with a WM. Good parenting is important. Child care is important but you don't have to SAH to be a good parent or to make sure your children are cared for.
If your DH lost his job would you be able to support your family on your teacher's salary?
Regarding housekeeping. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Cleaning with kids around is like shoveling snow in a blizzard". There is a lot more cleaning to be done when you are at home with your kids. The cleaning load is not the same for a working mom and a stay at home mom because your kids aren't home as much to mess everything up. Sorry.
Hang on. You've just spent umpteen pages telling us how much more equal WM's are, and that they share all of those chores with their husbands, because they are on so much more of an equal footing. If everybody in the house is equal, or appears to be equal, to our daughters, then the WM's household load should be way lighter, no?
But this is what I suspect. I suspect mainly what happens, is that WM's, in a lot of cases, spend many exhausting hours on top of the hours working outside the house inside the house, while husbands, although well intentioned, probably don't contribute nearly as much.
I think what our daughters see in that case, is a Mom who is even more disadvantaged than the Dad, who is twice as exhausted, and who is being taken for a bit of a mug, trying to do everything.
And it probably models the idea that it's better for women to not get married or have children at all, if that's how life was going to end up. That's what I took from it, and that's why I didn't ever want to do it.
Changed my mind eventually. But only because I found a man who treats me like his wife and not his maid, no matter whether I'm at home or not.
That's equal, to me.
Interesting point I had never thought of it that way.
It maybe that whatever gains are made to showing equality between the sexes by showing both as earning an income could be completely undercut if the housework is not equally divided. That would actually be a very interesting thing to study. I would also be really interested in knowing how having a dad who models equality through doing housework would effect the attitudes of their sons in the same regard.
I have never consciously done anything to equalize things between my bf and I but it naturally shakes out that whoever is working less on any given day does more around the house, including my daughter. Though truthfully he just will not do laundry, ever. Also he will do things in a sort of as they need to be done method and I am more of a routine using person. So I wonder how much of that communicated as gender roles vs. personality difference.
Right. My cousin used to work at a day care. She barely had a high school diploma. She eventually quit that job to move on to greener, higher paying pastures working as a stripper. That is part of the reason I'm afraid to use day care.
I don't know where you live but my maid makes much more than $10.00 an hour and housekeeper/ nannies would be almost impossible to get for $400.00 a week --unless you are employing an illegal and not paying Social Security and workman's comp.
All that aside--I think working mom's are great--I think stay-at- home mom's are great, but you are on a high horse and completely insulting.
You'd be surprised. $400/week to watch two kids and clean house is doable. That's $8/hr for a 50 hour work week some of which is down time when kids are napping. It's better than minimum wage and many day care centers don't pay much above minimum wage and you'd watch more like 6 kids at a time AND clean. You can pay even less if you include room and board.
I prefer not to hire out my responsibilities as a Mom.
Now I know a lot of people have their backs up at this point, which I completely understand, but I do not remotely think it is fair to say that people who use housekeepers, nannies or day cares have "hired out their responsibilities as mothers".
Personally, I see housework as a chore and I am only responsible for making sure it is done. Whether that means making sure my family are doing their parts, I am doing mine, or dream of dreams, paying someone else to do it (!!!) I am still being responsible for it.
As for day care or a nanny, if someone is working outside the home, making sure their child is well cared for during that time, is meeting their maternal responsibility. I mean you have used babysitters? I am fairly certain that you wouldn't think a WM with a SAHD is shirking their responsibilities, right?
Right. My cousin used to work at a day care. She barely had a high school diploma. She eventually quit that job to move on to greener, higher paying pastures working as a stripper. That is part of the reason I'm afraid to use day care.
And what was she paid???? Most day care centers have child care development experts on staff running the program. That's one of the things you're paying for when you pay your tuition.
UGH. I said, IF you want to find out how important a job is, take it away. If you take away breadwinner, you have no house or food. If you take away SAHM, you have the equivalent of a WM household. It's an exercise to determine the importance of the job. Yes, you can get anohter job. THAT's not the point. The point is to show that the job of breadwinner is MUCH MUCH MUCH more important than the job of SAHM. SAH isn't important. It doesn't accomplish anything you can't accomplsih with a WM. Good parenting is important. Child care is important but you don't have to SAH to be a good parent or to make sure your children are cared for. Breadwinner matters. SAHM doesn't. (That is not to say MOM doesn't matter. MOM matters. It just doesn't matter if she's a SAHM or a WM).
Please don't UGH me. I simply asked for clarification on why you can replace one but not the other in your hypothetical example.
You are twising things to your liking here. I didn't say anyone died. The death of a parent cuts deep. I'm talking about removing the breadwinner's income or removing the SAHM not killing off parents and you know it. You're just grasping at straws because you can't counter my argument.
You can replace what a SAHM does, rather inexpensively after the tax break, but you can't replace mom. You can't, however, go out and hire someone to earn a living for you if it's dad whose job is gone.
If you are talking purely dollar value, I still beg to differ. A SAHM may not bring in an income, but she saves the family money and time. If she quit doing everything that she does and you started having to pay someone else to do it, it would cut deeply into the other single income. DH and I discussed this when we were getting life insurance. If I died it would have been a huge financial burden on him to have to pay for full time daycare for 2 kids. Not to mention he'd either have to pay a house keeper or do all that after work, taking time away from the kids.
If your husband makes enough money to support the family, then maybe you working is redundant and worthless
Yeah, when do you think working moms clean?? This is what moms do. It's not unique to SAHM's.
Do you honestly think a house where Mom and Dad are at work and the kids are at day care 10 hours a day gets just as messy as a SAHM's house that has toddlers and preschools playing all day? There is way less cleaning to do because you are paying the day care provider to clean up after your kids while your house sits empty all day.
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SAH isn't important. It doesn't accomplish anything you can't accomplsih with a WM. Good parenting is important. Child care is important but you don't have to SAH to be a good parent or to make sure your children are cared for.
This is what moms do. It's not unique to SAHM's. 