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Old 07-10-2016, 10:07 PM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,126 posts, read 107,381,087 times
Reputation: 115942

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Quote:
Originally Posted by usayit View Post
I don't agree..

I am a man.

I guess I"m beyond crazy.... nutz I say.


I think raising a child is very important and difficult responsibility. If what you see in this discussion is a pissing contest of who is more important or who has it worse, then I would question whether or not one is fit to be in a relationship.
I think part of the problem is that people equate raising children (a stay-at-home parent) with babysitting. It's far more than that. A good parent is stimulating the brain to enhance learning capacity, subtly instilling values and a worldview, good hygiene habits and study habits, and other aspects of upbringing that sow the seeds for later success in life. There's a LOT more going on that just babysitting. Some European cultures value upbringing on a par with formal education.
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Old 07-10-2016, 11:56 PM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,412,743 times
Reputation: 53067
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garchompa View Post
I think it's crazy women saying what the mother does in the home is just as important as what the man does. If you don't keep up with the house chores what's the worst that can happen? The clothes may not get ironed and the husband may not get dinner, but if the man messed up at work and couldn't keep up with his job then no one would bring home the bacon, and the wife and children would go hungry. The buck stops with the man and it's insane that women think housework is just as important as working for a living.
Being a SAH parent encompasses more than housecleaning.
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Old 07-11-2016, 12:39 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,923,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Garchompa View Post
I can't believe all these women acting as if being a SAHM is oh so "hard".

How did women manage back in the day when having 5-10 kids or more was the norm and they didn't have all the nice appliances and all the other stuff that makes house work and the like far easier?
How they did it is, they had help - including their own children. It wasn't just help, actually...child labor, I mean serious work and responsibility were expected, they were non-negotiables.

A six year old was big enough to "mind the baby" or toddler for a couple hours. A five-year-old could (dangerously) stir pots on the stove, carry firewood inside, make her own bed and sweep, just for starters. In large families many years ago older children were routinely put to work caring for the younger ones, right down to changing diapers, feeding them and fixing up scrapes, because Mother was busy, and here you were on this earth and part of the family, ergo you were both grateful and extremely responsible...period.

When and where school was available, even the five-year-olds walked to school (Mom certainly didn't take them), after having completed their chores, of course. And Mom could leave the home if necessary and would expect the kids not to get into trouble or kill themselves or each other, and that's even up to recent history (at 7 and 9 my sister and I cared for ourselves entirely alone both before school and for hours after while our mother was at work in the 70s - try that today, hell, try ANY of this today, you'd be in prison and your children would be in foster care).

In addition, going back to probably the late 40s and earlier, women routinely got together in groups to help eachother with the bigger jobs. They were not all alone in an isolated nuclear family attempting to do all those chores without help.

If there was nothing at the moment for the kids to do in the way of work and they were "getting underfoot," they were sent outside for the afternoon...or the day. They were expected back for dinner time or else it was a whuppin' and aside from that threat, that was all Mom heard of the bunch the entire day. On such send-the-kids-outside-to-play-unsupervised-for-hours days, nobody was there to ask for anything, Mom got the work done unmolested, nobody even to feed, if the kids didn't think to grab some bread and cheese and an apple on the way out the door, well, they were hungry all day and let that be a lesson to them. (Again, go ahead, give this one a spin, let us know how it works out and when CPS says you can have your kids back.)

So yeah, that's how things got done old school. Many of these examples go back a century or more, but some were just a couple generations ago. I was born in 1967. My sister and I were definitely sent outside and not expected back in for hours, but when home were expected to be caring not only for ourselves but for the home. It was unheard of for any kindergartener to waste her mother's time being walked to school, we began helping cook dinner at four or five, we vacuumed and mopped at I think about seven, we started doing dishes daily and taking the garbage out daily at about seven. We were expected to figure out our own homework, pedal ourselves across town to get together with our friends, we did not bother our mother for "help" unless someone was actively bleeding, you just didn't do that.

But your example of 10-child families would have been much, much earlier in time and back then kids absolutely did do chores, adult chores, from tiny ages and cared for themselves and the younger kids. The mother of this large example pretty much NEVER had full responsibility for ANY of the chores if she had even one child, much less ten.

That doesn't mean life wasn't hard, it was hard all right, and the average woman died much younger, from too many back to back births, being overworked, poor medical care and so on, so there's that. If you feel that's exemplary and something to compare ourselves to today, perhaps you want to go back to the men's version too, when "I worked haaaaard all day!" didn't mean your oversize rear sat in a chair all day while you tapped on a computer and wore a worried frown, it meant you literally subbed for the lame horse by physically dragging the plow through thick dirt from 5:00 in the morning until sundown.
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Old 07-11-2016, 07:28 AM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,412,743 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ View Post
... On such send-the-kids-outside-to-play-unsupervised-for-hours days, nobody was there to ask for anything, Mom got the work done unmolested, nobody even to feed, if the kids didn't think to grab some bread and cheese and an apple on the way out the door, well, they were hungry all day and let that be a lesson to them. (Again, go ahead, give this one a spin, let us know how it works out and when CPS says you can have your kids back.)...

So yeah, that's how things got done old school. Many of these examples go back a century or more, but some were just a couple generations ago. I was born in 1967. My sister and I were definitely sent outside and not expected back in for hours.
Same. I was born a decade later, out on a farm with a ton of acreage, and we would basically be set loose outside all day (which we loved). Today, it's all structured play dates scheduled by parents, and people calling protective services squawking about neglect due to lack of supervision if children spend hours playing outdoors on their own, riding bikes unattended to a neighbor's house to ask if so-and so can come out and play, etc. And forget walking to school independently. I was so happy that our new house is very near the elementary my kid will eventually attend, and said to my husband,"Oh, look, he'l be able to walk to school!" (As a kid, I always envied the kids who could walk or ride bikes to school, because I lived in the country and had to ride the bus and hated it). My husband was like, "Yeah, they don't really do that anymore. Not in the suburbs."
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Old 07-11-2016, 08:09 AM
 
36,225 posts, read 30,664,456 times
Reputation: 32498
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garchompa View Post
I can't believe all these women acting as if being a SAHM is oh so "hard".

How did women manage back in the day when having 5-10 kids or more was the norm and they didn't have all the nice appliances and all the other stuff that makes house work and the like far easier?
Well, I cant believe all these men acting as if going to work is so hard either. Most jobs are 40 hrs/week sitting at a computer. How did men manage back in the day when they worked from sun up till sun down 6 days a week at physical labor without all the nice technological advances and machines and all the other stuff that makes their job easier?
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Old 07-11-2016, 08:22 AM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,412,743 times
Reputation: 53067
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2mares View Post
Well, I cant believe all these men acting as if going to work is so hard either. Most jobs are 40 hrs/week sitting at a computer. How did men manage back in the day when they worked from sun up till sun down 6 days a week at physical labor without all the nice technological advances and machines and all the other stuff that makes their job easier?
This is my thought, too. I'm pretty sure I noted this early on on the thread, but as somebody who has worked full time for years AND done a stint as a stay-at-home parent, I've got a perspective on both worlds. There are plenty of times when getting to run off to another setting, waving, "See ya!" and closing the door on childcare and housework and errands is a treat. Going to the relative peace of a setting involving specific, outlined duties, no cleaning up of various bodily fluids and substances, no picking up after other people's messes, being responsible for yourself and yourself alone, limited responsibility to respond to screaming and crying, and being around other adults can look like paradise. Oh, and getting a paycheck for it. Other times, being home with your family is the most peaceful thing in the world in relation to a hectic work environment.

But, yeah, I'm willing to bet money that the "Me work hard at big workplace and deserve peace, rest, and quiet home with wifey serving dinner" types, given their posting on city-data in the middle of the workday, are not doing manual factory floor labor or lumberjacking in the north woods. Crap, my husband assuredly works hard and deals with stressful stuff at both his civilian and military jobs, but he'll be the first to admit that it can be feast or famine, and there is also a fair amount of time he's hanging out in his office shooting the **** with people who stop by and ordering deal of the day t-shirts off woot.com.
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Old 07-11-2016, 08:34 AM
 
7,235 posts, read 7,021,234 times
Reputation: 12265
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garchompa View Post
I can't believe all these women acting as if being a SAHM is oh so "hard".

How did women manage back in the day when having 5-10 kids or more was the norm and they didn't have all the nice appliances and all the other stuff that makes house work and the like far easier?


So you found being a stay at home parent easy? How long did you do it for?
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Old 07-11-2016, 08:53 AM
 
36,225 posts, read 30,664,456 times
Reputation: 32498
Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa View Post
This is my thought, too. I'm pretty sure I noted this early on on the thread, but as somebody who has worked full time for years AND done a stint as a stay-at-home parent, I've got a perspective on both worlds. There are plenty of times when getting to run off to another setting, waving, "See ya!" and closing the door on childcare and housework and errands is a treat. Going to the relative peace of a setting involving specific, outlined duties, no cleaning up of various bodily fluids and substances, no picking up after other people's messes, being responsible for yourself and yourself alone, limited responsibility to respond to screaming and crying, and being around other adults can look like paradise. Oh, and getting a paycheck for it. Other times, being home with your family is the most peaceful thing in the world in relation to a hectic work environment.

But, yeah, I'm willing to bet money that the "Me work hard at big workplace and deserve peace, rest, and quiet home with wifey serving dinner" types, given their posting on city-data in the middle of the workday, are not doing manual factory floor labor or lumberjacking in the north woods. Crap, my husband assuredly works hard and deals with stressful stuff at both his civilian and military jobs, but he'll be the first to admit that it can be feast or famine, and there is also a fair amount of time he's hanging out in his office shooting the **** with people who stop by and ordering deal of the day t-shirts off woot.com.
Yup. I have always worked and became a single mom when my kids were little so I've been the breadwinner and single parent and chief cook and bottle washer and somewhere in there finished my BS. IMO both jobs have their moments. What I do know is that having a partner sharing the load be it working or a SAH or both beats the heck out of having to do it all by yourself. Both partners have equal value in a functional and well maintained marriage. Sometimes maintenance requires communication, re-evaluation and restructure.
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Old 07-11-2016, 09:14 AM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,412,743 times
Reputation: 53067
I think that's key. The load of raising a family (actively, presently raising a family, not just bringing in funds that are applied to the household and calling it good) needs to be shared no matter who is working and when and where and for what compensation, if any.
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Old 07-11-2016, 11:03 AM
 
2,362 posts, read 1,915,502 times
Reputation: 4724
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tryjeff View Post
This is the quagmire a lot of men are in and I just don't see how we can win. Either the man works to provide all that he can for his family or he works a lot less and spends more time with family but is working paycheck to paycheck. How can a guy win here? As I said I had told her beforehand that me getting this job would help out the family as a whole but I would have to be working crazy hours and she was fine with that, but now that she isn't it's me that's the bad guy for not being able to just stop whenever she wants like she could do being a SAHM?

Her taking revenge on me for something we had discussed previously and SHE was all happy about me getting sounds very petty. As for the new car she had been asking for one for a while so I got it for her. As for a family vacation we did take one to Alaska three months ago for two weeks.
you BOTH work
you BOTH split the household stuff


if ONE parent/spouse has to work 80 hours a week to provide enough income to live, then the sacrifices made elsewhere are too much


I refuse to work myself to death, not see my kids grow up, have no life other than a career, so my wife can stay home, watch oprah, and get cozy with the cable guy...no way
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