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I won't quote people, because I am so sick of the mean girls club attacking me but. I will say if I was getting home at 6 and my kids were being put to bed at 8 (or earlier), and in that time I had to feed, bathe, do homework, tend to my own needs and say hi to my husband...no they would not be getting the same amount of attention from me. And yes, I think more attention is better.
It isn't just quality time, its also quantity time.
But you do you, I will do me. As I have said all along.
I won't quote people, because I am so sick of the mean girls club attacking me but. I will say if I was getting home at 6 and my kids were being put to bed at 8 (or earlier), and in that time I had to feed, bathe, do homework, tend to my own needs and say hi to my husband...no they would not be getting the same amount of attention from me. And yes, I think more attention is better.
It isn't just quality time, its also quantity time.
But you do you, I will do me. As I have said all along.
Not all parents get home at 6, and not all kids go to bed at 8. Which brings me back around to last night's argument about the US vs Finland. If the US had a system more like Finland or many other European countries, working parents would be getting home at a much more decent hour.
I will continue to do me, and make no mistake, I don't want or need your back-handed blessing.
I won't quote people, because I am so sick of the mean girls club attacking me but. I will say if I was getting home at 6 and my kids were being put to bed at 8 (or earlier), and in that time I had to feed, bathe, do homework, tend to my own needs and say hi to my husband...no they would not be getting the same amount of attention from me. And yes, I think more attention is better.
It isn't just quality time, its also quantity time.
But you do you, I will do me. As I have said all along.
Gah. I hate this "well, I spend more time with my kids and give them more quality time than you...but that's okay! We're all different! We all make choices! You do what works for you!! "
I guess it might be difficult for someone who can afford all the extras on one income to really understand what I was saying.
How would you feel if your child was gifted in a certain sport or activity, but you didn't have the money to send him to lessons, or camp, or have him play on the travel club team?
I'm not sure who you are talking about, or to, or who you expect to answer this question.
But I'll play!
When I was raising my kids, we were too poor for my gifted children to get very involved in sports, or take lessons, or go to camp - and certainly too poor for them to play on any travel club team. I take that back - my mom and dad did pay for several years of piano lessons for my daughter. But that was it.
Our biggest vacations were road trips down to the Schlitterbahn a few hours away. That was a really, really big deal. Or we'd go camping up in the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. But mostly what we did was get together with family as often as possible, go to the local lakes, that sort of thing.
I stayed home with them for eleven years and then worked after getting divorced. So I can see the pros and cons to all sorts of angles of this issue. I know that the years I got to stay home with my kids before they entered school were amazing, precious and absolutely irreplaceable. For all his faults, I have to give my ex husband credit for cooperating with me on making that gift possible. And it did require a LOT of financial hardship and sacrifice. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat (if I didn't have to be married to that particular person.)
Then I entered the workforce and at first I worked retail, then outside sales and eventually I moved into a sales manager and then corporate trainer role. I had a good career going - but I was also working 50 or more hours a week and I felt my children were slipping away from me. Life was extremely hectic and I know for a fact that I was unable to give each of my children the undivided attention that they needed. But I was able to provide a roof over their heads, good food in their stomachs, clothes on their backs, and I was able to pay the bills. We didn't have anything extra, but we didn't go without the basics.
When they were in high school, I decided to go into real estate in order to try to scale back my hours at work. And I was able to do so successfully, but by then they were in high school (and one was already in college - community college, working part time), and by then they had already grown up for many years as latchkey kids.
To this day, I wish I had been able to structure my life and work more around their needs - but I had to work. I had to pay the bills. We did not live lavishly at all - but I wanted to be able to give them as much of a middle class upbringing as I could.
I had a special needs child on top of everything else, by the way, so I really was stretched to the max financially and emotionally. Thankfully, his special needs weren't catastrophic - but they did complicate things, and still do for him though he's long grown.
Now, I'm remarried, and I don't have to work outside the home. Unfortunately, this is too little too late when it comes to my kids, but I try to make it up with my grandkids. And one way I do that is being 100 percent supportive of my daughters and their husbands and their young families - in whatever they're doing well to provide for their families. When my youngest daughter worked full time with three small kids, I supported her and her career because I knew she was doing what she needed to do for her family. When she decided to quit work and stay home, have a baby, and homeschool, and her husband was able and willing to step up to the increased demands on him, I was supportive of that too.
I don't see any point in criticizing mothers who are working, or mothers who aren't, or mothers with wealthy husbands or mothers with no husbands, or anyone in between. I know that good mothers - and less than ideal mothers - come in every variety. Happy childhoods happen, and children flourish, in every income bracket - and there are broken hearted, neglected children in every income bracket as well.
One thing is for sure though. We all have limited time with our kids. Time marches on and there's simply no getting it back. Once it's gone, it's gone for good. So what I want to do is encourage every mother out there to make the absolute most of her time with her kids. Get as much of it as you can, and still keep your overall goals in sight. Re evaluate where you are and where you spend your time and money regularly. Make the extra effort to really think through all the costs of every choice and be sure you're willing to pay that cost - not just for yourself, but for your children as well.
But back to your original question. I don't think that travel club teams, or years of private lessons, or summer camp, would have made as much of a difference in my kids' lives as more daily time and attention from me would have. I think if I had had to choose, or had the luxury of choosing, I would have chosen the time together over time spent away from home. But ideally, kids need both, and my kids needed more of both and got less of both, which is why I am going to make sure that my grandkids don't have to do without things like lessons or camp if that's what they need and their parents simply can't afford it.
But who knows - not everyone needs Little League or travel club teams, of summer camp or (fill in the blank). Most parents think their children are gifted in some capacity, and I do think that we should encourage personal growth and talent, but most kids are pretty average and pretty simple to keep entertained and engaged and curious and active.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 02-18-2016 at 05:01 PM..
I won't quote people, because I am so sick of the mean girls club attacking me but. I will say if I was getting home at 6 and my kids were being put to bed at 8 (or earlier), and in that time I had to feed, bathe, do homework, tend to my own needs and say hi to my husband...no they would not be getting the same amount of attention from me. And yes, I think more attention is better.
It isn't just quality time, its also quantity time.
Can we all keep in mind the author of the quoted article works from home?
I won't quote people, because I am so sick of the mean girls club attacking me but. I will say if I was getting home at 6 and my kids were being put to bed at 8 (or earlier), and in that time I had to feed, bathe, do homework, tend to my own needs and say hi to my husband...no they would not be getting the same amount of attention from me. And yes, I think more attention is better.
It isn't just quality time, its also quantity time.
But you do you, I will do me. As I have said all along.
See, this is the crap that keeps people giving you a hard time. Some 44% of salaried employees are on flex time, another 10% work from home, some work hybrid schedules and others work night shifts. Stop portraying working parents (moms really) as being gone 12 hours a day and not seeing their children. It is a myth for the majority of people.
How about we stop portraying working moms at one extreme since most people have stopped portraying SAHM as bon bon eating lazy slobs. Both extremes are about as meaningful, which is to say not at all.
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