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I've had the chance to experience all the following scenarios:
1) work full-time, no kids
2) SAHM full-time to 2 kids
3) work part-time with 2 kids
4) work full-time with 2 kids, and now 3 kids
I can say this, and it's based on my OWN experience; others may vary. Being a SAHM, especially to young kids (infants/toddlers) is the most physically exhausting & draining work I've ever done. granted, I've never worked in a factory or hard labor...I'm a desk-jockey (financial analyst). I've never been as exhausted as I was after staying home all day with little kids. I never sat down, literally. But, the beauty of it (besides being able to be with my kids) is that if one of them was sick or had a Dr. appointment, etc., I didn't have to worry about leaving work or taking off from work and making that morning call "sorry, I won't be in today because I have a sick child" and worrying about what I'm getting behind on at work while I'm trying to take care of my baby. I was always thankful for that.
Working part-time: This was my favorite out of the options. I just worked while the kiddos were at school/preschool and still was able to pick them up in car-line, take them to their after-school activities, etc. It was a great balance...I got my "adult" interaction at work, plus earned some extra money, without feeling like I was missing out on anything.
Working full-time with kids: By far, the HARDEST of all. First of all, your torn between being a good mom & being a good employee. I don't care what anyone says, you CAN'T have it all, unless you are an executive who is able to take off whenever & wherever you want in order to be with your kids. There's always a struggle between whether I'm doing a good job at work, and am I doing a good job of parenting. And the stress is 1000x more than being a SAHM. Not only do you have to make sure the kids are up, dressed & ready for school, but you also have to get yourself ready & presentable and be at work on time. Then at work, you are faced with deadlines, reports, deliverables, a$$-holes, and all manner of stress-makers. And then I'm always in a rush in the evening trying to get home before or after the evening rush so I can do my 2nd job....be a mom. And when one of them is sick....well, that's another day I have to take off. I never have more than 30 hours in my time-off bank because I use so much because of my kids.
So, from someone who has done all of the above, I'm here to tell you, being a full-time working mom is BY FAR the hardest job. If we didn't want to live in a good school district and be able to send our kids to college debt-free, I could be a SAHM. I would LOVE to do that again....I fantasize about it. I'm jealous of all the people who CAN do it. But then I don't know how we would ever pay our mortgage off, save for retirement, and put kids through college. I guess that is a whole different level of stress for a lot of the SAHM's.
If you all think that being a housewife is fun then you try it. I don't really even like the term "stay at home mom". Compared to what, the kind of mom that goes away and lets someone else raise the kids?
The greatest work any mom will do is in the walls of her own home raising her kids. I don't see any other work as important as the work that goes on within the home. Look at today's society and compare that to when I was a kid. Today you have women in the work force and they drop the kids off at a day care or a family member so someone else can raise the kids. When kids are in middle school they end up alone at home often. Just look to how society has turned out with that kind of system. We were way better off with mom in the home than in the workforce.
Many moms get a job because they want meaningful work. They want adult interaction and get it in the workforce. Many of these women are working, thinking that they are providing for their families when in reality they are working to make a car payment, pay for day care, pay for clothes for work, and lunch at work. I have known a half dozen women here at the hospital that could have walked away from their jobs if they would have realized that they did not need a new car. One girl explained it best when she said her pay check goes to pay for her car payment and day care. Nothing else. Why work?
Not everyone has the same situation but I am telling you that many do have the same situation as I am writing about.
Here is the cost for many to have both parents in the work force.
1. Transportation, many buy a second car or have two car payments. Maintain both cars, Insurance cost.
2. Food cost. You get off work and you are tired. Instead of spending time cooking a meal you eat out, Pizza. Or you spend more on food at the supermarket for easy to cook meals. We as a nation eat more high fat foods than when I was growing up. Back then mom was at home and she made food from scratch. Food from real food. Imagine that. It also cost less to eat that way.
3. Many people hire a cleaning service because the mom is at work and she does not have the time or energy to clean the home.
4. I have seen what women wear to work and it is not cheap. My own wife spends hundreds of dollars on shoes. She works at the hospital and when you are on your feet all the time that is a problem. Many women have office jobs and they need to look nice. That cost money.
5. Day care cost. In my area I think it can be $120 a kid on the low end a week. Many people pay more for better care. It is not out of the question to have a monthly day care bill of $800 or more a month.
I haven't read through all the pages of responses, but having been a SAHM and then going out to work when my youngest was around 7, I can tell you that going out to work was almost a vacation! SAHM's never stop, never get a break from the kids. Even when all kids are in school, that is when the school has needs - class parent, scouting, and many other "volunteer" jobs that women who work in addition to being Mom cannot do. Plus, because someone is a SAH parent, expectations of others and yourself are greater. Home-cooked meals, the other parent doesn't feel the need to pitch in or assume responsibility for many of the "homemaker" jobs that need to get done.
Since I was home, mowing the yard was my responsibility, taking cars for service or doing the repairs myself, dropping/picking up dry cleaning, doing maintenance/repairs on house - including plumbing issues. I was so happy to go to work - for a few hours, I could actually sit and have a cup of coffee in peace - enjoy lunch, have a discussion about adult things, and not feel that every meal had to include homemade bread, homegrown veggies, homemade yogurt and mayo.
If you all think that being a housewife is fun then you try it. I don't really even like the term "stay at home mom". Compared to what, the kind of mom that goes away and lets someone else raise the kids?
Uh yeah actually to be personal that did happen in my family. There was a deadbeat mom that did just that. He was raised by his father and his paternal grandparents.
Reality check for those who deem SAHM worth so little. Our country has long devalued SAHM. A SAHM Mom/Dad...even a working Mom/Dad..should know their worth in the market place. Here is an article from Forbes Magazine....dated 2011.....So, the salary might be worth much more in 2015. Forbes Welcome
I knew somebody would post a link to one of these silly articles sooner or later.
"In the tenth annual Mom Salary Survey, researchers examined 6,616 mothers and attempted to value their work by breaking down motherly duties into 10 separate titles: Day Care Center Teacher, CEO, Psychologist, Cook, Housekeeper, Laundry Machine Operator, Computer Operator, Facilities Manager, Janitor and Van Driver"
Could a SAHM qualify for any of the above jobs using just her stay at home experience on a resume? I don't think there's a single job listed here that a SAHM would be qualified for with no other prior work experience.
(1)Day Care Center Teacher - Not unless she's got training and certification as a teacher. Now could she be hired as a day care helper, probably, but that would be a lower salary than any job with the title of "teacher".
(2) CEO - Uhh, how does running your own household qualify you to be the CEO of a business? Ridiculous.
(3) Psychologist - Requires college degree and certification. Just counseling your own family is not even in the same ballpark.
(4) Cook - Cooking for your own family in no way qualifies you to prepare hundreds of meals an hour in a restaurant.
(5) Housekeeper - Maybe, but just because you can run your own household doesn't automatically mean you can run someone else's. An employer will have much higher standards than your own family - some SAHM would be good enough, most wouldn't. This is the most comparable job on the list to what a SAHM actually does so why wouldn't they just use the salary of a live-in housekeeper for this article?
(6) Laundry Machine Operator - I'm guessing there's more to this job than just pushing a couple of buttons on a machine and just doing the family laundry with your residential machines would not qualify you to work in a commercial laundry.
(7) Computer Operator - Uhh, no don't think so unless some company will hire you to google the phone number for your kid's dentist and log into your bank account to pay the bills. Plus they're saying a SAHM does this for 9.5 hours a week, which means most of the time they're counting is the time spent posting on Facebook, writing emails and surfing the internet which of course would not prepare someone to do any kind of a real computer job.
(8) Facilities Manager - Really? Finding a repairman to come fix my leaky sink and keeping track of how often my windows need to be cleaned qualifies me to be a facilities manager? Tell this to an actual facilities manager who runs a commercial office building and see how how long it takes before they're ROFL.
(9) Janitor - Just because someone can clean their own house in no way qualifies them to be a janitor.
(10) Van Driver - Doesn't being a commercial van driver require training and maybe a CDL license? Driving kids to school and soccer practice in a mini-van doesn't qualify someone to be able to drive an airport shuttle or delivery van.
Last edited by patches403; 11-11-2015 at 11:05 AM..
It does indeed drive me crazy when people want to talk about how hard being a stay at home parent is and makes the claim that it's much harder than working.
I did it for about a year when I first started college and was only taking evening and online classes. Guess what, it's not a job at all! I got to hang out with the kiddos all day. Had much more time for chores, shopping, etc.....
And guess what else. Those of us that do work full time still do ALL the other things you stay at home parents do. We still do chores, go grocery shopping, cook, pay bills, make and keep appointments, and all the other stuff involved with keeping house. We still also raise our children, help with homework, run back and forth to dance class, sports etc. Just because we choose to work does not make us terrible parents.
If you knew a ton of investment bankers who did nothing but complain, complain, complain about it...only to turn around and tell you that your job is nowhere near as important or hard as theirs is...you might have an opinion.
Funnily, the only collective group that actually does that is...*gasp*...stay-at-home moms.
Funny, I've never had a single SAHM harp on how hard it is. The only place I see that is on C-D and only after they've been attacked and criticized for it.
I believe that being a housewife and mother is a full time job, because there are real duties involved like managing the household budget, shopping, cleaning, cooking fresh homemade meals, taking the children to school, doctor appointments, teaching the children to care for themselves, etc. Women who do all of those things and more are amazing and probably rare in these times. But if a woman only stays home and cares for the kids (who eventually go to school) and is not making a clean and healthy home and managing a budget, diets, or teaching the kids how to do the same, I don't know what she's doing that would constitute a job. I'm actually not sure what a stay at home mom is other than a woman who is a mother and stays home because of it. I can only guess she's not a true housewife which is a better term in my opinion for a woman who makes a home for her family.
This seems very strange to me. I recently went along on a field trip. There were a lot of other parents there. I can't imagine that very many of them took five hours out of their work day to visit the pumpkin patch. I also have a neighbor who is a very active PTA member, and I know for a fact that she stays home. Also, my mom, a SAHM, went on all my field trips and was a "home room mother" (came to parties and such) during a couple of the years I was in elementary school (which granted, was a while ago).
A lot of kids do. Or they go to swim lessons, or band lessons, or drama club, or lots of other things that require shuttling around town. And often, as a parent, you can't just drop off your kids and leave, unless it's actually right at the school. You sit there and observe what they're doing (or chat with other parents, or whatever). It's not like a break to go do whatever you want - so as a working parent, you wouldn't be able to do that, unless you had a flexible schedule.
Working Mom's take days off ALL the time to participate in their kid's school activities. I worked full time, traveled during the day and still did all the outings, PTA Board, Boxtop Chairperson. I did more that most of the non-working Mom's at our school.
So please don't think that only SAHM's are helping out.
There is a whole nother dynamic for those Mom's who hang out at the school 24/7 but that's a separate issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AfternoonCoffee
I don't know where you're from, but here in America, yes, moms are overwhelmingly the adult volunteers at the local public or private schools. Of course some areas of the country have lower parent participation, and, sadly that correlates with lower incomes and worse outcomes for the kids.
Also, here in modern day America, kids can't drive until the age of 16 typically. And only a small percentage of citizens live close to reliable public transportation. So kids who participate in extracurriculars are usually driven in car by their parents. Also, "extracurriculars" includes a great deal more than sports. Such as: art classes, music lessons, foreign language, robotics classes, dance, science team, debate team, academic bowl...Believe it or not, some parents don't want their kids "out of their hair" rather, they want their children to have opportunities to be involved in a variety activities for the children's own personal growth and development.
Again, I did ALL of that while working full time. All of it and then some. School, travel teams, swim team parent, PTA, and shuttled my kid to a club practice 45 minutes away 6 days a week.
So please do not insinuate that only kids of SAHM;s can 'be involved in a variety of activities for their own personal growth and development."
Because that is just ridiculous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wevie
It does indeed drive me crazy when people want to talk about how hard being a stay at home parent is and makes the claim that it's much harder than working.
I did it for about a year when I first started college and was only taking evening and online classes. Guess what, it's not a job at all! I got to hang out with the kiddos all day. Had much more time for chores, shopping, etc.....
And guess what else. Those of us that do work full time still do ALL the other things you stay at home parents do. We still do chores, go grocery shopping, cook, pay bills, make and keep appointments, and all the other stuff involved with keeping house. We still also raise our children, help with homework, run back and forth to dance class, sports etc. Just because we choose to work does not make us terrible parents.
That is about the only thing that bothers me. My cuz stayed home, slept till 10 every day; had someone to clean her house and thought taking her daughter to the pool was just exhausting.
I know Im gonna get **** for this.
But oh how I wish I could have the luxury of a husband going out and punching a time clock, working hard and making good money for me to be able to watch my babies grow up and be apart of their special moments/milestones in the comfort of my own home.
Im not a mom, but I currently work full time and work in a very hard industry, commute 1.5 hours each way, and usually work 50 hours a week. I see girls on my facebook give themselves all of this credit that being a stay at home mom is the "hardest job in the world". Yet they have never earned a degree/worked a real intensive job that requires critical thinking/hard physical labor.
Just wondering if this bothers anyone else. My sisters were stay at home moms for a while but then went back to work. They told me it was the most amazing thing to be at home with the kids though and they loved every minute, saying it wasnt that hard because it was rewarding and they could do it in their pajamas.
My personal favorite is when people put being a stay at home mom as a job on their resume.. Maybe im young and naive but to me that just sounds odd.
All I will say is that being a working mother is much more difficult than being a stay at home mother.
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