Does anyone else get annoyed when people say being a stay at home mom is a full time job? (2013, accountants)
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I am not a mom, but I grew up with a stay-at-home mom. And I have to say, I don't think being a SAHM could be considered a full time job.
My mom is a cleaner and even with three kids, that house was so clean you could eat off the floors. Not only that, but she didn't have us kids do any chores either, something I regret now. Her excuse was she'd rather do it herself than have to do it over after we did it. Yeah, she's still like that, too. Nobody ever does anything as well as she does.
So she did all the cleaning, cooking, bed making, and laundry (hung clothes outside, we didn't have a dryer). And I know when I was about 5 or 6, we had one of those old wringer washers, where you feed the clothes through the wringer to get the water out. She also did spring and fall housecleaning every year, too.
But she had time to go over to the neighbors' houses for a coffee klatch at least 3 times a week for an hour or two, and she always spent a couple hours in the afternoon watching her soaps. This was after she made lunch for herself (and us kids if we were home in the summer) and did the lunch dishes. The only thing she did in the evening was cook dinner and do the supper dishes and we never had a dishwasher. If I had to guesstimate, I would say she probably didn't work more than 5 or 6 hours in a day.
In defense though, my mom didn't (still doesn't) drive. That took a lot of chores off her shoulders. My dad would drive her to the grocery store once a week to shop. He would have to come home from work early if we needed to go to the dentist or doctor.
I think one of the big things moms do today is drive their kids everywhere and I think that eats up a lot of their day. When SAHMs complain about being so busy and then talk about how much time they spend chauffering their kids around, at that point I lose sympathy for them myself. If a mom feels overworked in that respect, I say it's because they do it to themselves. Either tell the kids to get a ride with another parent, take a bus, walk, or stay home.
My mom hasn't worked since the year she got married and that was in 1952. She can't understand how people can be so stressed today or why a long commute to work is such a big deal or what it's like working with the public and dealing with fruitcake bosses or how hard it is to get a job or why you need a computer to apply for jobs or why wives need to work or why it's so hard to save money. She doesn't understand people in debt and says she always paid all her bills (I bit my tongue and didn't point out my dad paid all her bills).
I'd give a lot to be a stay-at-home wife after watching her while I was growing up. But I'd never want to stay home to raise kids. Yeah, I'm bad.
That just isn't realistic at all, at least not where I live. Carpooling happens, but no one is going to put their 7 year old on a bus to get to soccer practice, it's too far to walk, and I teach my kids that they have to show up when they've made a commitment.
Yes, you could and should limit the number of activities, but even with 2 kids each in one activity, that's 6 practices/week. You start off rather naive when they're 4 or 5, with one practice/week, not realizing that, in a few years, practices will get longer and more frequent, and your kid will really love the game and want to keep playing.
Sorry, I'm off topic now, but no, you don't just put your kid on a bus or make them walk over 5 miles because you feel like driving them is just too much work.
I did both. I did computer contract work for many years, and would go for months with no work. It's much easier to be a stay-at-home mom than to have to go to work each day. For one thing, I could decide how clean my house needed to be. If I didn't do dishes for a day or so, that's fine with me, and my kid didn't know any better when she was little. Laundry is a snap with a washer and dryer in the house. Taking Kiddo out for a walk and play in the playground is NOT WORK! There are responsibilities, of course, but it's not like holding down a 40 or 50 hour a week job, with commute , day care, and then having to get all my maintenance work done in the off-hours.
Anyone who says being a full-time mom is harder than going out into the world to earn a paycheck is either Full Of It, or has had a very privileged work life.
No. Obviously if being a stay at home parent was worthless then no one would pay anyone else to do the tasks for them (housekeeping, cooking, child-care, other home-management tasks).
In some cases, it's actually financially smarter to for one parent to stay-home because day-care is worth more than a job that pays less than $15 an hour, which is where I'd put the over/under for one spouse's staying home viability.
My mom stayed at home with me until I was about 4, when she took a part-time job, added a few more hours each year and went full time when I was 8. As another poster said, taking care of the house and the kids takes time and work... but my mom had down time. I remember the 1980s soap operas like General Hospital and One Life to Live because my mom watched them. We lived out in the country so she didn't need to ferry me here and there all the time.
Once the kids can go to pre-school, if it has a day-care (like the one I went to), working part-time and staying at home is very viable if my mom's experience is any guide. She worked 20-25 hours a week as a music teacher for a private school and still had enough time to keep house and make meals. The advantage of staying at home over working is control and choice. We lived close to the coast, so part of my mom's "taking care" of me was taking me to the beach 1-2 times a week. I guess it wasn't all fun and games, but she wasn't wage-slaving it at some cube. She was at the beach making sure I didn't get eaten by sharks or something.
I would not look down on it. Day-care can be prohibitively expensive. Not only that, but how much of a premium do you put on raising your kids as you see fit? My wife and I don't have kids... but I have to say that unless she has a good job, staying at home might be a viable alternative to letting minimum wage day-care workers raise our children. If she got a job that was more stable and higher-paying than mine, I would actually consider staying home. A job is just a damn job, you are easily replaceable; but kids only get 1 set of parents.
[SPOILER[/spoiler]I grew up with sisters that are amazing moms and they said they would stay home with their kids over working in a heartbeat. It's a luxury.
That is incorrect . I did both. Worked , had kids and back a work again at age 53. I was totally exhausted at home. Am so glad my kids are grown that I am not really even into seeing my grandkids for fear they will leave them with me .. One did and I LOVE her but just couldn't take it .
I live far away from most of them now , We all get along good, they are all educated and have good jobs and I know they will be OK .
Now I am back doing what I love and that's currently tending to 15 Thoroughbred race horses a the track for a VERY demanding trainer who has very demanding clients with horses worth 100,000-1,000,000. I have to be there at 3 am in all weather and dont go home usually until 12 hours later sometimes longer and the work is tremendously hard .( I'm in great shape though !)
Still the stay at home mom job was the hardest .
In my old neighborhood (20 years ago), there were many stay at home moms who really criticized and picked on us working moms. They accused us of working to "set the world on fire" (exact words), "be LIBERATED" (exact words), and "have a career" (true for some of us, but they made it sound like we wanted to be prostitutes). Me, and most of us, worked because we HAD to, because our budget needed two incomes. And we lived in tiny three bedroom townhouses, not exactly a McMansion.
I did both. I did computer contract work for many years, and would go for months with no work. It's much easier to be a stay-at-home mom than to have to go to work each day. For one thing, I could decide how clean my house needed to be. If I didn't do dishes for a day or so, that's fine with me, and my kid didn't know any better when she was little. Laundry is a snap with a washer and dryer in the house. Taking Kiddo out for a walk and play in the playground is NOT WORK! There are responsibilities, of course, but it's not like holding down a 40 or 50 hour a week job, with commute , day care, and then having to get all my maintenance work done in the off-hours.
Anyone who says being a full-time mom is harder than going out into the world to earn a paycheck is either Full Of It, or has had a very privileged work life.
Sure, staying at home is easier if you do a crappy job of it. The difference is at work you have to stay to a particular standard. Sounds like you're the kind of person who requires outside influence to have standards. We don't pick and choose which day is our household runs properly. It runs properly every single day.
I think this is the essence of the difference between people who think it's easy to stay home vs work. You lower your standards bc you aren't held accountable. Well, sure, if my house was a sty and I just did crap whenever I felt like it, it would be easier to stay at home.
Run it like a well-oiled machine? Different story.
I had the privilege of being a stay at home Mom. It was a 24/7 job. Working in an office was easier. Co-workers were kind & polite. People actually said please & thank you without being told to. And...at the end of the week, I was given money.
Going to work is necessary for some. And there are other benefits as well. Being able to afford travel for example is very educational for children.
I was fortunate my husband earned enough that I could be home with our children. I was particularly thankful for this when our son died at age 30. My memories of our time together are precious. So glad my thoughts of him aren't of dropping him off & picking him up at daycare.
This is not an "either/or" scenario. Many things, including being a stay-at-home-parent, can be a luxury AND hard-work.
Let's be adults here. There are pros and cons to working vs staying home. There are risks involved with both. And honestly, most people I know who "stay home" actually do some income-earning work part-time or on the side.
In my old neighborhood (20 years ago), there were many stay at home moms who really criticized and picked on us working moms. They accused us of working to "set the world on fire" (exact words), "be LIBERATED" (exact words), and "have a career" (true for some of us, but they made it sound like we wanted to be prostitutes). Me, and most of us, worked because we HAD to, because our budget needed two incomes. And we lived in tiny three bedroom townhouses, not exactly a McMansion.
And I had the opposite experience as you. I was looked down on because I chose to stay home when my kids were small. I chose not to keep up with the Jones' and a few working mothers used me as a babysitter afterschool and on weekends. You can't win either way. I never judged working mothers... I went to work part time or as needed. My older son wishes I would have worked because he feels he was "robbed" of all the luxuries that his friends had. We all make choices in life and everybody sacrifices something. Maybe I should have worked and I wouldn't have an ungrateful, arrogant son. The one that always appreciated me always being there died. There are no certainties in life and we should be more accepting of choices each other makes.
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