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Thus the nature of a package deal. We have many things to consider. When people try to distill results into ONE factor (SAHM vs WOHM, SES, school district, neighborhood, nutrition, sleep patterns WHATEVER beef you have)
Some research is going to be easily useful. One can see direct and measurable benefits to breastfeeding. (Not in any way to diss bottle feeding. I am glad for the advancements that have been made. It used to be made out of corn syrup!) Medical research is just different from sociology research.
The research/decision link wrt medical research is pretty easy. Research clearly shows that breastfeeding offers these possible advantages to my child. Decision is that I try my best to breast feed my baby. Pretty straight forward.
What exactly does the research about SAHM vs WOH parents? And how do we use those conclusions to make a decision? How do these studies even isolate for THAT factor? It just isn't helpful.
Not to hijack but "medical" research is exactly like any other research using humans in that you cannot control for all variable so you need an enormous sample size. Breast feeding is controlled for the exact same way various socioeconomic factors are, huge, aggregate samples.
But when a person purports that children with one sort of mother turn out BETTER than children with another sort of mother then the comparison is across families.
So I ask again, in the context we are discussing, what does it mean for a child to turn out "better"? My oldest son is almost an adult. So what attributes should I be measuring to see if he turned out "better" than someone else's child? I worked until he was around 10. Then I was home for a while, then I worked again, and now I am home. How might he have turned out "better" if I had continued to work? Or if I had stayed home for his entire life? What is "better"?
Well then I guess I raised a loser. He will be attending the Naval Academy in the fall and we all know that military people do not make that much money.
Not to hijack but "medical" research is exactly like any other research using humans in that you cannot control for all variable so you need an enormous sample size. Breast feeding is controlled for the exact same way various socioeconomic factors are, huge, aggregate samples.
I wonder if those who reject research on parenting choices also reject medical research for the same reasons?
Funny thing about that. How much money does one need anyway?
Whether you need more depends on whether having more will make a difference and even then, it's moot if you can't actually provide enough to make a difference. There's really no sense discussing this unless you are actually in position to provide more AND it would make a difference if you did. If you can and it does, you provide it.
It would be interesting to see what the optimum family income would be. It does appear that there comes a point when more is just more. Perhaps even a point when more is determental but perhaps that's only due to perspective. Most of us are nowhere near that.
Some of the kids I teach come from wealth and privilidge. They'd be in trouble if they didn't have mom and dad's money to fall back on. Fortunately, it appears their parents know this and have set them up for life. So, while it appears, from my vantage point, that they are ill equipped to deal with the world I've had to navigate, they have parents who have made sure they won't have to navigate it. Perhaps for the world they grew up in, they are well set.
But when a person purports that children with one sort of mother turn out BETTER than children with another sort of mother then the comparison is across families.
So I ask again, in the context we are discussing, what does it mean for a child to turn out "better"? My oldest son is almost an adult. So what attributes should I be measuring to see if he turned out "better" than someone else's child? I worked until he was around 10. Then I was home for a while, then I worked again, and now I am home. How might he have turned out "better" if I had continued to work? Or if I had stayed home for his entire life? What is "better"?
We can only look at what researchers have looked at because we need large sample sizes to have any kind of meaningful data. They have looked at things like, health, attitudes, educational success, teen pregnancies, drug use, crime rates, to name a few. I think most of us would agree you can define better when looking at things like this. SES impacts all of these. Having an involved father positively impacts teen pregnancy rates and drug use rates (I want to say school grades too but I'm not sure on that one). Having an educated mother impacts educational success.
What bothers me about those who reject such research, because they don't fit into the group with the advantage, is that if we were to look deeper into why those advantages exist, we might be able to find a way to impart the same advantage to our kids even though we're not in the group. The research isn't saying "You need to join this group" so much as it's saying, "You need to look at what this group does to see if you can learn anything." Or we may find that the difference doesn't matter because there was some secondary characteristic actually causing it (think of Belsky) and find it's nothing to worry about at all.
For example, if we can identify why it is that dd's of WM's appear to have higher educational goals and attainment than the dd's of SAHM's, perhaps we can level the playing field or maybe we'll find out that it's really due to some other characteristic that tends to travel with working status.
It's funny, few people would think it's ok to ignore research on smoking and cancer rates because they won't apply to everyone but they'll do it WRT research on how to best raise our kids.
I think the part you're missing is that they want (whoever wants it, not every SAHM) to be recognized for the work they do, over and above parenting the kids - just like some people who work outside the home want to be recognized (and frequently are) for the work they do outside the home, over and above parenting the kids.
If you have a career outside the house, with colleagues and bosses and even incentives and rewards, there's an inbuilt sense that people are recognizing and respecting your contribution to your job.
Not really so on the whole for SAHM's. Now I don't think it bothers every SAHM, but for Moms (and Dads) who were formally in the workplace and were used to some kind of recognition, it may be a difficult adjustment to exist in the somewhat invisible world of SAHParenting. Plus there's a certain perception that any old person can do it, that it doesn't take any special talents - which is not true IMO - and that also may be difficult for somebody who's excelled above their peers in some way or another.
I don't think they want to be honored "above other parents". Where do you get that idea? I think they just don't want to be treated like they don't matter at all.
Which is just human nature. People do want a pat on the back, for the most part. To be appreciated is to make all the mundane worthwhile.
Best post. And frankly, I have seen too many of the op's posts putting down the choice to SAH and saying it's worthless (in terms of outcome of kids, etc) to believe she's not trying to make another point.
It's funny, few people would think it's ok to ignore research on smoking and cancer rates because they won't apply to everyone but they'll do it WRT research on how to best raise our kids.
You pull out one piece of research (or two) that supports what you want to believe...do you look at the research that says the opposite? Because it exists.
That's the thing about research on social topics...it is EXTREMELY agenda-driven and easy to bias.
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