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"Stay-at-home moms are poorer, less educated than working moms: Stay-at-home mothers are younger, poorer and less educated than their working counterparts. For example, 34% of stay-at-home mothers are poor, compared with 12% of working mothers. They are also less likely to be white and more likely to be immigrants."
"The share of stay-at-home moms in poverty has doubled since 1970: While more stay-at-home moms are in poverty — 34% in 2012, compared with 14% in 1970 — those with working husbands generally are better off than those without. But stay-at-home moms with working husbands are not as well off financially as married mothers who work outside the home."
I was just pointing out that if someone ELSE takes care of your kids, it's considered work. But a mom (or dad) doing the exact same tasks, probably more, are considered to not be working. It can't be both ways. Either it's a job or not.
As it has been said by posters, all that you did while staying at home, working mothers do, as well. You didn't experience that, since you quit your job when you had children. All that you did not related to the kids are things that we all do (cooking, cleaning, shopping). The lack of appreciation is something we all get: I've cooked and cleaned and cared for myself all my adult life, but no one has ever "appreciated" me for that. Why should they? That's doing just what people do to care for themselves in life. We ALL cook and clean and such.
There's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. But it's not a job. It's work, for sure. Work that everyone does, not just stay at home moms.
There's no performance rating, no raises, no merit reviews, no firings or layoffs. You could do a lousy job or a great job. There's no way for others to judge....since it's not a real job. Your family would keep you around even if you were lousy at it, because they love you. And kids can't fire you. In a real job, it's not that way.
I see what you're saying, but I disagree. My house is a heck of a lot cleaner when no one is home all day. If a child spits up all over the place at daycare, you don't have to wash the couch slipcover, wash the baby, and scrub the carpets at the daycare. When your office gets messy from people being there all day, they hire a cleaning crew. You don't do it. Yes, working parents do those things on weekends and nights, but SAHMs do it on weekends and nights as well. Plus all day every day while mom and day stay clean at work.
And as I said before, if it's not a job, then why pay nannies or daycare workers? If it's not a job for mom, why would doing the same, exact thing be considered a job for someone else?
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.
Yes, a lot of kids participate in sports. But if you compare the # of kids in sports with the # of kids in school, the numbers show that most don't. Parents of sports kids may not notice that. Count the # of kids on the football team, in the band, and in the marching group, and it's just a fraction of the kids at the school. I did participate in the marching group, but that didn't involve parents doing anything. I was also in band at one point. Again, that didn't involve parents, other than buying the instrument.
Growing up, my stay-at-home mom never participated in any school function or parent thing. Neither did the parents of anyone I knew. Grown up, I've never known my coworkers to mention being involved in school activities beyond helping a child sell Christmas wreaths or Girl Scout cookies, by bringing the sales sheet to work. They simply didn't have time. Working plus commuting left little time, once you factored in the necessities of maintaining a home.
I know some do. But not most. It would be great if they would, or would have the time.
My wife is a SAHM and I work full time. Sometimes I take a day off of work to give her the day off, and I fully 100% agree that being a SAHM is a job. A hard one.
I'm an attorney/CPA working on complex cross-border M&A by day, and it's much less demanding than tending to a newborn and a 20 month old. When I get to the office the next day after being a SAHD, I cherish the silence and the control I have over my day.
Since you're an attorney/CPA, I assume you know that your secretary may be dealing with all that your wife is dealing with, while being away from home 10 hours a day, and without help at home? Hope you remember that at raise time!
I think that's the point being made. Nothing to denigrate staying at home. But the point is that SAHMs are in a position to choose to stay home, and they are doing what working mothers do, just maybe more of it, since they have more time. It's not like they are doing something special. And it is not like a job where you earn money, since there are no controls or requirements or ways to judge, like in a money-earning job (where you get raises, evaluations, laid off, fired, demoted, transferred, promoted, etc.). There are verifiable skills used at a job, and a way to tell if someone is good at that job. That's not the case with SAHMs. The family loves mom. It's okay if she can't make a cake that doesn't fall apart, since she made it for YOU. I doubt you'd feel the same if your secretary turned in incorrect work, just because she did it for YOU.
I can see where it would drive a person crazy after a while, though, being in a non-adult world most of the time. Not having the social environment of a job, the productivity of a job. And of course making money.
Its ridiculous, it is nowhere near as hard as a real job and a real career. They think its hard, but only because the stay at home moms don't have anything to compare with. Easiest job in the world.
When I was a kid, I caught the bus before 7:30 a.m., or left walking, and I got home about 3 or 3:30. That's 7 1/2 - 8 hrs.
Most mothers don't participate in PTAs, class parties, school activities, community outreach any more than working mothers do. I didn't know any mother who did any of those things at all.
Mothers don't participate in extracurriculars. The kids do. To get out of their mother's hair. Some moms who are into sports will go to sports games when the kids are older, but most don't. (Most kids don't participate in sports.)
As some posters have said, all the things that stay at home mothers do, mothers who have jobs outside the home also do. And some of the things they do are things that all adults in America do (shopping, cleaning, cooking).
Not too many mothers have heart attacks on Monday mornings from the stress of dropping the kids off at school. Or get fired because she burned dinner. Or get kicked out of the house because the breadwinner has to cut costs. Those things happen to people who have jobs.
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.
Its ridiculous, it is nowhere near as hard as a real job and a real career. They think its hard, but only because the stay at home moms don't have anything to compare with. Easiest job in the world.
You don't think SAHMs have ever had outside employment?
These forums make us feel like every choice is picked apart and judged, but in real life I know very few people who are so rigid in their opinions. KWIM? No stay-at-home-moms are actually judging you for working...if anything, we're secretly jealous that you get out of the house everyday and get to go to the bathroom all by yourself
So true, and you're right...
It just irks me to read stuff like that at times. I respect SAHM moms, totally. AS a previous poster stated, each has its own challenges. The way I see it, it's great to live in a country where women can choose to stay at home or work, have kids or don't have kids. I'm happy that my own daughters will have these choices available to them when they come of age.
But it's wrong on so many levels for certain people to derisively say that other people raise the working parent's kids. Or guilt trip a woman for doing something totally normal as getting up and going to work. The working mother is called selfish, a lousy parent, you name it. The kids of the working parent are more ill behaved, as if there's a corner in that market. It reeks of sexism because don't these same people think fathers would like to spend a lot of time with their kids as well? Why is it that some rake women who work 9-5 over the coals, yet nothing is said about the man who goes to work? Once again, that gender role thing comes into play.
I believe in quality time moreso than quantity. Yes, I come home tired. But some extended snuggles on the couch sure goes a long way in forging bonds. Weekends are totally family time. Kids adapt, and for ours, mommy and daddy working is totally normal. I work at a law firm. I have a trial I'll be participating in next week, so I've been working beyond standard working hours. And I explained to my nine year old daughter, in clear matter-of-fact language, that I would be working late much of this week. She understood and asked me what exactly I do at a trial. Actually sparked a good conversation.
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.
I am American and live in America. I know no one who participates extensively in school activities. They don't have time. They are working or commuting to work, or grocery shopping, or cleaning house, or cooking, or calling repairmen. They may go to an occasional event on an evening or weekend. But that's it. They have jobs.
Dropping kids off somewhere isn't very exacting on a person. Come on, now.
However the kids get to school, is how they get to band practice. Usually it's after school, so the kids just stay after school Maybe the moms take turns dropping them off. But the moms I know are at work, so they can't do it. It all works out somehow. I knkow when I was a kid in jr. high and high school, school activities were scheduled after school, so we just hung around for it. On weekends for practice, I would get an older teen sibling to drop me off.
I've never heard of activities on weekends for foreign language classes. Must be a private school thing. My French and Latin classes...we just sat in class during school hours.
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