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Yes, I found it easier on my days home than I did on my work days. Why would you think I wouldn't? No boss, no customers, no one telling me how to spend my time, the house was spotless before the kids got up and all I had to do to keep it that way was pick up as we went. I could run errands when places of business weren't busy, sit at the park and talk to other moms while the kids played, and even nap when the kids napped. Now, I'm not saying my job was hard. It wasn't but being home was easier. Having 9 extra hours a day to get things done just makes things easier than they would be if you were working.
Ahhh.....there's the rub. This fact has been bothering me, and you demonstrated it so clearly with this post. What you continually describe as SAHM is housekeeping. I'm sorry, but running the vacuum and folding laundry has very little to with raising children. I read your posts back, and what is glaringly obvious is that when you describe your SAH experience, you never describe the hands-on parenting and everything that is associated with it. I find that exceedingly curious.
When I describe SAH to people I don't think housekeeping duties ever come into it. Number one on my list is the amount of time I have to talk to my kids. We talk for hours and hours each day about everything and nothing. Number two would have to be decompression after school. Number three, being there to monitor/assist with homework. Number four, allowing them to follow activities and interests not limited to a parents work schedule. Number five, the kids being able to spend time at home relaxing, playing outside, playing with friends during the week. Number six, taking my son to medical appointments.
Folks, please remember that this topic of this thread is how much time we spend with our kids and to what extent that affects them. The issue of working versus staying at home is tangential, because that choice can affect how much time we have to spend, but if we're going to have another debate about whether parents should work or stay at home, please open a new thread.
As a SAHM I do many things. I am NOT a very hands on parent. My big thing is talking though. I talk to my kids a lot when they are home. I don't play games or play with toys, but we do chat a ton. I provide many opportunities for them to learn and play on their own.
If someone were to ask me if I spend a lot of time with my kids, I'd say yes. But it's not the same type of activities as some other families.
I also keep house for hours each day - laundry, vacuuming, making meals, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. I help with homework.
I also have been doing a lot of volunteering in the community and at the kids' schools. It's the type of mother that *I* want to be. Others may think I have it all wrong, but really I feel more settled and happy than I have in years. My kids really seem to pick up on this too.
How do you think my time off differs from how you spend your time? I watch/play with/teach my kids, I clean my house, I run errands, I cook, I pay bills, I do projects, I do yard work.....
What do you do that I don't? You do more of what I do but you have 50 hours more per week to do it in. So the only difference is the amount of time we have to get things done.
To start with, I have a child who has a 30/hour a week therapy schedule. Managing his therapy alone is a part time job. Don't think that I drop him off at a therapists office and all that happens in a vacuum. The skills he learns in therapy I practice at home for hours.
The school system here is lacking. So when he's not in school and I am not doing the typical around the house jobs, I homeschool him and do homework with him, so that he can be up to speed with academic standard.
He has specific dietary needs, which often requires me to travel to multiple grocery stores to accomplish grocery shopping.
Besides the schooling, practicing the therapy, and managing the diet. There's the medications, the doctor's appointments, and a big one, teaching him appropriate behavior in public. In order for my son to function in public, he has to be taught. Who is going to teach him? Should I expect the school to do everything? Would a daycare teach him how to behave in a store, make a sandwich, do life skills? A school's duty is to teach him to read, write, do math, the therapists job is to help him deal with his condition, my job is put those things together and teach him about functioning in the real world and expose him to things outside of school, a doctor's office, and a therapists room. I have a vested interest in seeing him succeed. I'm not going to be around forever, so I have to take advantage of the time he is pliable (at a young age) and the time I have to teach him these things.
This takes up the vast majority of my day. After I am done doing that job with my son, I have about a grand total of 6 hours left in a day to accomplish what I need to accomplish around the house and to spend time with my daughter. I spend about 2 hours a day with my daughter, between doing homework, taking her to her activities, and just talking to her. That leaves me 4 hours a day. I work out 1-2 hours a day. The rest of the time, I'm cleaning, running errands, paying bills, and cooking. If you add it up, I get MAYBE an hour of down time at night. Usually not, because I'm so fried from the day, that I usually turn in about 8:30-9:00 PM.
The reason why I say that there is no way you could do what I do, is because there is no way I could do what I do if I were working full time. It would not be possible. And this is not speaking ill of daycare or school, but my son's future is to precarious to trust that he will learn all he needs to learn to function if I delegated everything to a school, therapy, or daycare.
Only a small fraction of my day is spent doing "stay at home mom" tasks that you do on your vacation time and on weekends. So while you may think that on average you could do what I do in your time off, I'm waving the definitely NOT me flag on this one. There is no way you could do this and work part time, full time or any time. FWIW, I'm a pretty hands off, non-hovering mother as well. My kids go to a park, I let them play. They have plenty of free time on the weekend, but for the most part, every waking moment that they are home, I'm teaching my child to function.
Jojo, she's not going to listen. I have acknowledged multiple times, that I support her decision to work. She refuses to acknowledge that any of us have very valid reasons for staying home. she never will. It doesn't make her right, it just makes her closed minded and stubborn. We should all stop wasting our time. Her opinion doesn't matter to our lives anyway.
Ahhh.....there's the rub. This fact has been bothering me, and you demonstrated it so clearly with this post. What you continually describe as SAHM is housekeeping. I'm sorry, but running the vacuum and folding laundry has very little to with raising children. I read your posts back, and what is glaringly obvious is that when you describe your SAH experience, you never describe the hands-on parenting and everything that is associated with it. I find that exceedingly curious.
When I describe SAH to people I don't think housekeeping duties ever come into it. Number one on my list is the amount of time I have to talk to my kids. We talk for hours and hours each day about everything and nothing. Number two would have to be decompression after school. Number three, being there to monitor/assist with homework. Number four, allowing them to follow activities and interests not limited to a parents work schedule. Number five, the kids being able to spend time at home relaxing, playing outside, playing with friends during the week. Number six, taking my son to medical appointments.
Housekeeping is not parenting.
No but it's one of the things we have to take care of when home, along with cooking, bill paying and errands. Our kids benefit from a clean, orderly house to live in (another thing that has been shown to actually make a difference) I don't consider housekeeping my main duty by any means when home. It doesn't take a whole lot of time if you can figure out how to do it without kids underfoot, hence, getting up before they do to get it done. You get creative once you have kids. I have a friend who has done her grocery shopping at 3:00 AM since she had kids. She finds it easier to do it before she gets the kids up and goes off to work.
I've always loved after day care/school talks. That's one of the more pleasant parts of parenting. I love hearing about my childrens' day and telling them about mine. It's a nice way to reconnect.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 10-16-2011 at 11:29 AM..
Jojo, she's not going to listen. I have acknowledged multiple times, that I support her decision to work. She refuses to acknowledge that any of us have very valid reasons for staying home. she never will. It doesn't make her right, it just makes her closed minded and stubborn. We should all stop wasting our time. Her opinion doesn't matter to our lives anyway.
I have never said people don't have their reasons for staying home. I would hope they do. What I said is it doesn't produce better results. SAH/WOH isn't a choice that matters beyond the financial aspects. If it did, the 40+ years of research that we have would have found differences in our kids by now. The small differences they have found don't amoun to much.
People like the lifestyle they like because they like it. That's why they choose it. I'd work even if working didn't push my family into a higher SES. It's a lifestyle I like but I don't need to claim it is better to like the lifestyle and want the lifestyle. SAH and WOH are both valid ways to raise our kids and our kids aren't going to turn out differently because you chose one and I chose the other. This choice is transparent WRT how our kids turn out if finances are not impacted.
With that I suggest we get back on topic. I've been given an infraction for talking off topic here.
According to reasearch, whether we work or not, our kids turn out just fine. From this I conclude that both WM"s and SAHM's have plenty of time with kids so any time difference between the two camps is inconsequential. I've never thought time was the issue. Today's full time working mom has more time with her kids than a 1970's SAHM yet our kids don't turn out better. There comes a point when more time is just more time. It's even possible to have too much time. The key is to find balance.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 10-16-2011 at 11:32 AM..
To start with, I have a child who has a 30/hour a week therapy schedule. Managing his therapy alone is a part time job. Don't think that I drop him off at a therapists office and all that happens in a vacuum. The skills he learns in therapy I practice at home for hours.
The school system here is lacking. So when he's not in school and I am not doing the typical around the house jobs, I homeschool him and do homework with him, so that he can be up to speed with academic standard.
He has specific dietary needs, which often requires me to travel to multiple grocery stores to accomplish grocery shopping.
Besides the schooling, practicing the therapy, and managing the diet. There's the medications, the doctor's appointments, and a big one, teaching him appropriate behavior in public. In order for my son to function in public, he has to be taught. Who is going to teach him? Should I expect the school to do everything? Would a daycare teach him how to behave in a store, make a sandwich, do life skills? A school's duty is to teach him to read, write, do math, the therapists job is to help him deal with his condition, my job is put those things together and teach him about functioning in the real world and expose him to things outside of school, a doctor's office, and a therapists room. I have a vested interest in seeing him succeed. I'm not going to be around forever, so I have to take advantage of the time he is pliable (at a young age) and the time I have to teach him these things.
This takes up the vast majority of my day. After I am done doing that job with my son, I have about a grand total of 6 hours left in a day to accomplish what I need to accomplish around the house and to spend time with my daughter. I spend about 2 hours a day with my daughter, between doing homework, taking her to her activities, and just talking to her. That leaves me 4 hours a day. I work out 1-2 hours a day. The rest of the time, I'm cleaning, running errands, paying bills, and cooking. If you add it up, I get MAYBE an hour of down time at night. Usually not, because I'm so fried from the day, that I usually turn in about 8:30-9:00 PM.
The reason why I say that there is no way you could do what I do, is because there is no way I could do what I do if I were working full time. It would not be possible. And this is not speaking ill of daycare or school, but my son's future is to precarious to trust that he will learn all he needs to learn to function if I delegated everything to a school, therapy, or daycare.
Only a small fraction of my day is spent doing "stay at home mom" tasks that you do on your vacation time and on weekends. So while you may think that on average you could do what I do in your time off, I'm waving the definitely NOT me flag on this one. There is no way you could do this and work part time, full time or any time. FWIW, I'm a pretty hands off, non-hovering mother as well. My kids go to a park, I let them play. They have plenty of free time on the weekend, but for the most part, every waking moment that they are home, I'm teaching my child to function.
Okay, YOU do have things to do that I don't. I'm really speaking in general about SAHM's given that I don't know your personal situation. Until revealed, I'll assume you're average as most of us are.
I said earlier that some women are not given a choice in this matter and those who are should count their lucky stars they got a choice.
Okay, YOU do have things to do that I don't. I'm really speaking in general about SAHM's given that I don't know your personal situation. Until revealed, I'll assume you're average as most of us are.
I said earlier that some women are not given a choice in this matter and those who are should count their lucky stars they got a choice.
I have posted the same thing multiple times on this thread and others. And I think I'm more the norm than most people realize. Most SAHMs I know don't spend the majority of their time not doing "stereotypical" SAHM things. At least the majority of mothers I know who stay at home don't spend much of their time cooking, cleaning, and doing the womanly things. Many of them volunteer at schools, homeschool their children, some of them lead groups of women.
I have posted the same thing multiple times on this thread and others. And I think I'm more the norm than most people realize. Most SAHMs I know don't spend the majority of their time not doing "stereotypical" SAHM things. At least the majority of mothers I know who stay at home don't spend much of their time cooking, cleaning, and doing the womanly things. Many of them volunteer at schools, homeschool their children, some of them lead groups of women.
UGH....When talking about how people spend their time, it's customary to talk about norms not individuals. Your life is your life and my life is my life. I don't make it a point to memorize everyone's situation here. I have more important things to do (unlike others, I don't carry information from one thread to another because I think posters should decide how their information fits the current topic due to the fact that THEY know details of their life I don't that may change how something is viewed in context.). Sorry, I should have asked what do SAHM's do that I don't do. As a WM I do the things most SAHM's do when I'm off work. I spend my time at home in a very simpilar fashion to that of SAHM's. My mistake for asking YOU instead of talking about the generic YOU.
I have said, many times here, that unless you have some special reason to think otherwise, you're probably pretty average. If you have a special situation, you have a speical situation. That's not debatable. I have a cousin who spends 10 hours a day, 7 days a week on therapies for her son. She doesn't have a choice. The discussion here is about choices (yes, choices such as SAH/WOH have to do with time as they impact time availablle and it is relevent that studies find little difference in our kids so that is on topic, IMO). If you don't have one, your personal situation isn't part of this discussion. The question is, in general, does time make a difference. Given that studies find few differences between the children of SAHM's and WM's, we can conclude that the difference in time that results from working doesn't make a difference.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 10-16-2011 at 12:04 PM..
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I watch/play with/teach my kids, I clean my house, I run errands, I cook, I pay bills, I do projects, I do yard work.....
