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Ivorytickler and Mass VT,
As a parent who worked from home until my youngest was in Middle school I also find your posts about mothers like me quite insulting. I did not want to work a 9 - 5 job because I wanted to be available for doing things connected to my child and volunteer. I certainly did not worship my kids or let them think that my world revolved around them. It didn't.
But I was the parent that helped raise funds so that all the kids in the elementary school could go on field trips without paying and I was the parent that organized the copying team so that teachers didn't have to make copies, I organized all of the committees that helped the teachers with bulletin boards, book publishing, etc. etc. And after school I was the parent that ran the cub scout and girl scout meetings. You know why? Because parents that "worked" were too tired to do any of that. I had a home business that paid pretty well but I always felt that my real job was my volunteering. I would not have traded that 18 years at home for anything, especially not for a "job". The only difference between working from home and working at a job is the paycheck.
Kids need chores but I don't see what that has to do with parents working or not working. I hate housework and always have. Your bon-bon eating, child worshiping housewife has no more bearing on reality then the one of the "working" parent who doles out jobs and whose child is stronger for fending for himself.
I see just as many poorly raised kids from homes where both parents worked outside the home as those that stayed home with them. Lousy parents are lousy parents. I love all of my kids but that surely doesn't mean that my goal in life is to make their life some sort of pampered paradise.
Who said anything about bon bon eating housewives besides you???
Like it or not, the BIGGEST change in the last 60 or so years is mothers with oodles of time to use to dote on their children. Before that, children were born into a family, expected to adapt to that family AND become contributing members in short order. Today, they're elevated to the status of little gods to the point, families will make major financial decisions based on what they percieve their children want/need with, absolutely, nothing to actually show the decision is better.
We have gone from the nuclear family being two children revolving around the parents to two parents revolving around the children and demanding that teachers and schools revolve around their kids too. How children are treated has changed drastically and the end results are dismal. Our children are lazy, irresponsible, inconsiderate and think the world owes them something because mommy raised them as her special snowflake.
I wish I could say that being busy with a job stops this but it, unfortunately, doesn't. Modern conveniences have reduced housework so much that even a full time working mom now has way more time to dote on her kids than is good for them. I think it helps some. I don't see nearly the number of working moms living vicariously through their children's accomplishments that I do stay at home moms. It's as if every A is their A. Every science fair prize their prize. It's as if their kids' accomplishments justify their existence.
Our kids don't need us to stay home with them. They don't need to see us derailing our careers for them. That sends the wrong message. They are not little demi gods the world revolves around. They need to be raised to be hard working, responsible, considerate and realize it is THEY who owe society not society that owes them.
This, rediculous, notion that kids NEED a stay at home mom has done way more damage than good in both camps. It has put our children on pedestals they haven't earned the right to stand on and created little monsters who think they're better than everyone else (they've been told how special they are since before they could pee in a toilet). They're used to mommy swooping in to fix every banged knee and it can't POSSIBLY be her little angels fault when they get a bad grade. She'll either swoop in to get the school to change for her child or intervene herself. Unfortunately, the lesson her little snowflake learns is that their education is everyone's job but theirs....
I see more helicopter moms than I can shake a stick at. It's like it's their life's calling to hover over their children. Problem is, children not only don't need this, it harms them. Learning how to get up after you fall down is a valuable life experience.
What does being a working parent have to do with anything? Working takes 40 hours plus commute time out of a 168 hour week. Most of those hours spent working are hours our kids are in school anyway so the loss in hours, when comparing a working parent to a non working parent is about 15 hours per week during the school year.
Well, except those of us who work other shifts like the evening or night shift.
Also, if you'll take a look at research, you'll find that today's working mother is more involved than her 1950's counterpart. This has NOTHING to do with working parents.
More involved? Then why is there even an argument about parents who "aren't involved in their child's education?"
Personally, I blame the mommy wars here. Children have gone from being members of a household to being the center of the household. Everything is done for them instead of things being expected of them. It's not time away from home that is the issue. It's what we are failing to teach our kids because we're too busy teaching them they are mommy's special snowflake thinking that will boost their self esteem.
I do see this once and a while where I am, but it seems to be few and far between (especially now given the economy). Many mothers in my area have taken to working at the school. I agree that it is detrimental to spend too much time boosting self-esteem lest the child never learn how to cope with diversity, but I think the net tends to cast a little broadly in regard to the turning out of "special snowflakes."
If anything, it's parents who stay home in a day and age when that is, totally, unnecessary. Quitting your job to dote on your children sends the wrong message.
Interesting, but my kids were never actually "informed" that I was staying home to "dote" on them (the word "dote" would probably elicit a hearty guffaw from them both as well).
Up until about the 1950's, mothers worked. They just worked the family farm or business and keeping home and hearth was a full time job by itself. The modern stay at home mom with oodles of time to dote on her children and attend mommy and me classes is the new kid on the block. Mothers who spent many hours doing things other than doting on their children are more traditional. IMO, it's that doting that is the issue. I don't know when children became the center of the family but there is no doubt they are. Our children have been put on pedestals they never were put on before and we wonder why they walk around with an air of entitlement.
My mother stayed home with us. My one enduring memory of her was with a broom in one hand, and a bottle of bleach in the other. Each day I came home to something cooking for supper, laundry stacked up, and walkways shoveled. I'm sorry, but this idea of a stay-at-home mother circa 1950s Donna Reed or June Cleaver image is wholeheartedly fiction. Likewise, aside from this brief reprieve, I'm about to reload the dryer, make supper, and clear the table so as my kids will have a clean workplace for homework. I don't technically qualify as a true "stay at home" but I was for the first couple of years of my kids' lives. I can see your point with the term "doting," but I just think there are more influences that can turn out a brat than simply a doting mother.
My mother worked full-time when she was pregnant with my sister. Once, I asked her why she quit. She told me that she couldn't understand why she would have children and then hand them over to someone else to raise (with her ideology being that children spend the majority of their time with their caregiver).
My daughter's 3rd grade teacher once informed them that they spend more time with her than they do their parents. When I do the math, she's pretty much correct in that statement.
We need to stop doting on our kids. Totally agree.
We need to stop sending the message that they are SOOOO IMPORTANT that mommy can't even work a job once they're born. I don't see this happening. I guess I tend to see the flipside of them having a stable root system when they are young.
We need to get back to teaching them that they are part of a family and expected to pull their weight. That they are not more important than the next person in the family. That they owe something to society. That their elders are people they should respect and be grateful to learn from. We have created spoiled rotten brats not by being working parents but by doting on our kids whether we work or not. Totally agree.
Personally, I think this is worse when parents don't work because they have more time to dote. "Ha ha ha!" I can hear my kids now.
At least a job cuts into some of that time but it doesn't eliminate it because today's full time working parent actually still has more discretionary time than stay at home mothers in the past due to the fact that housekeeping is now less than a part time job where it used to be two full time ones. Modern conveniences like washing machings have definitely cut the time down; however, they don't load themselves. Additionally, a good number of full-time working mothers in my area spend a portion of their earnings to employ a maid.
It's not having less time with our kids that is the problem. It's having MORE. In some cases, I can agree with that, but it was a different time back then than it is today. Today's kids are exposed to far more much earlier IMO. Navigating some of those issues takes more time.
My grandmother spent 80 hours a week scrubbing clothes on a wash board, hanging them to dry, ironing everything, cooking from scratch, walking to market daily....she didn't have permanent press, no stick cookware, a dishwasher, no wax floors, Meijer Thrifty Acres to buy everything under sun in.....She WORKED and she worked harder than I do with a full time job. Modern conveniences have eliminated about 60 hours a week of housework.
Replace that with a 40 hour a week job and we still have extra time left.
Time is not the issue.
It is if you work in a retail store of other job that's open 24 hours a day and have no shift preference.
It's that we have elevated our kids to the status of little gods.[/quote]
No child should be "elevated to the status of little Gods" but by the same token, it is a parent's job to make sure that they are being treated fairly. It's not always simply the "kid's fault" anymore than it's the teacher's.
True, those who work evening or night shift are not working during school hours, however, that's not the majority of parents. Night shift wouldn't be bad. You'd just sleep when your kids were in school. Afternoons could be a bear. The kids would be in school during the day and you'd be gone in the evening.
No, it's not the parents job to make sure kids are treated fairly. Life isn't fair and teaching our kids that it should be does them no favors. What we need to teach them is that life isn't fair and they have to learn to deal with that and work to make their own lives better. By swooping in and trying to make things fair, they learn nothing other than mommy will swoop in and make everything that they think is unfair all better. Problem is, that doesn't happen in adulthood and they won't have learned to deal with it in childhood. IMO, this kind of behavior is why we have kids and adults going postal (or is that automotive now?). They never learned to deal with life's disappointments as children and came to expect life to be fair and couldn't deal with it when it wasn't.
I LOVE having my dd in Yamaha piano. Competition is real there. Life experience is real. Sometimes, you practice your butt off and the other kid wins anyway. Then you learn to lose gracefully, congratulate the winner with a smile on your face, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with your life. School used to be a place to do that but not anymore. Even sports are giving every child a trophy. We are really handicapping our children here.
As to Donna Reed....She's fiction. Before the 1950's moms worked and worked hard. Just keeping home and hearth was a full time job. Now we have no wax floors, permanent press, washing macines and dryers, super markets, refrigerator/freezers, non stick cookware, indoor plumbing (my grandmother's personal favorite modern convenience)...today we have about 60 hours less housework per week than my grandmother had. That's why today's full time working mom spends more time with her kids than a 1950's stay at home mom. She has that much more time. The world has changed. The mountain of work that kept women tied to the home is gone. Personally, I'm glad. I don't think I could have lived my grandmother's life. The woman spent more time just on laundry than I do on everything I do at home.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 11-09-2010 at 05:13 PM..
True, those who work evening or night shift are not working during school hours, however, that's not the majority of parents. Night shift wouldn't be bad. You'd just sleep when your kids were in school. Afternoons could be a bear. The kids would be in school during the day and you'd be gone in the evening.
No, it's not the parents job to make sure kids are treated fairly. Life isn't fair and teaching our kids that it should be does them no favors. What we need to teach them is that life isn't fair and they have to learn to deal with that and work to make their own lives better. By swooping in and trying to make things fair, they learn nothing other than mommy will swoop in and make everything that they think is unfair all better. Problem is, that doesn't happen in adulthood and they won't have learned to deal with it in childhood. IMO, this kind of behavior is why we have kids and adults going postal (or is that automotive now?). They never learned to deal with life's disappointments as children and came to expect life to be fair and couldn't deal with it when it wasn't.
I LOVE having my dd in Yamaha piano. Competition is real there. Life experience is real. Sometimes, you practice your butt off and the other kid wins anyway. Then you learn to lose gracefully, congratulate the winner with a smile on your face, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with your life. School used to be a place to do that but not anymore. Even sports are giving every child a trophy. We are really handicapping our children here.
As to Donna Reed....She's fiction. Before the 1950's moms worked and worked hard. Just keeping home and hearth was a full time job. Now we have no wax floors, permanent press, washing macines and dryers, super markets, refrigerator/freezers, non stick cookware, indoor plumbing (my grandmother's personal favorite modern convenience)...today we have about 60 hours less housework per week than my grandmother had. That's why today's full time working mom spends more time with her kids than a 1950's stay at home mom. She has that much more time. The world has changed. The mountain of work that kept women tied to the home is gone. Personally, I'm glad. I don't think I could have lived my grandmother's life. The woman spent more time just on laundry than I do on everything I do at home.
I can't say with certainty that it wouldn't be the case for the majority of parents; however, I do believe you'll find in the lower-economical tier of society it plays a large part. Depending on demographic, as has been pointed out here before, poverty plays a huge part in the success or failure of a school.
My main point is that every area is different.
As far as spending more or less time with today's mom vs. a 1950s mom, cultural shifts are hard to compare as well. It was still very much a "man's world" back then, but that's off topic so I'll leave it at that.
I can't say with certainty that it wouldn't be the case for the majority of parents; however, I do believe you'll find in the lower-economical tier of society it plays a large part. Depending on demographic, as has been pointed out here before, poverty plays a huge part in the success or failure of a school.
My main point is that every area is different.
As far as spending more or less time with today's mom vs. a 1950s mom, cultural shifts are hard to compare as well. It was still very much a "man's world" back then, but that's off topic so I'll leave it at that.
The time factor is well documented. We just have way less work to do now and fewer children to spread our time among. Moms needed something to fill that time. Unfortunately, we made that something our children but they didn't need the time. They were doing fine without it.
What children have benefitted from, as women have entered the work force, is more time with dad. While increasing time with mom seems to have no impact (conclusion is that working or not, mothers figure out how to spend enough time with their kids), increasing time with dad has is positively correlated with academic success, lower drug use rates and lower rates of teen pregnancy. One plus of mothers working is it forced fathers to become more involved.
No, every child should not learn to read before first grade. It would be nice, but there's such a push towards trying to get teach kids everything at a younger and younger age. Many other industrialized nations are moving towards a later, not early, entry into school, while here in the US we seem to think that if something is good for a child at age 7 then it must be better at 6, or even 5 (or so on -- just look at those "My Baby Can Read!" commercials!) Good parents will certainly read to their kids from an early age, and kids should enter first grade fully prepared and ready to learn to read, but I'm not about to call a parent deficient just because his or her child isn't able to read BEFORE first grade.
Do you agree that they should at least know their letters and numbers?
Sorry Ivory, I think you are connecting dots that aren't there. As someone else said, I chose to stay home because I felt I was the best person to raise my kids. My career was something I no longer liked and I gave it up joyfully. But this pedestal, doting, child worshiping thing was NOT ever in the plan. Why do you think that those of us that didn't have some 9-5 job think our kids are any more special then the working out of the house parents? I know helicopter parents too (not me) and most of them work. That's not a SAHM mind-set, that's a prevailing attitude and I am also not in favor of it.
Do you have any idea how patronizing it is for you to say that we SAHM create
Quote:
little demi gods the world revolves around.
Of course children need
Quote:
to be raised to be hard working, responsible, considerate and realize it is THEY who owe society not society that owes them.
I showed them to give back to society by volunteering! My kids have all spent quite a bit of time volunteering themselves and my oldest is an Eagle Scout.
Again, what does this
Quote:
This, ridiculous, notion that kids NEED a stay at home mom has done way more damage than good in both camps. It has put our children on pedestals they haven't earned the right to stand on and created little monsters who think they're better than everyone else (they've been told how special they are since before they could pee in a toilet). They're used to mommy swooping in to fix every banged knee and it can't POSSIBLY be her little angels fault when they get a bad grade. She'll either swoop in to get the school to change for her child or intervene herself. Unfortunately, the lesson her little snowflake learns is that their education is everyone's job but theirs...
have to do with whether one works outside the home or not? Did you ever tell your child anything like that? Me neither.
I agree, Ivory, that you're not connecting the cause and effect correctly; the work status of a parent has NOTHING to do with whether or not a child is spoiled, or whether the parent will "swoop in" or act as a helicopter parent. Parents who CHOOSE not to work are generally NOT doing so because they want to treat their kids like "gods." How patronizing and offensive. I think it shows a complete lack of understanding about why parents sometimes choose to stay at home instead of working (for pay), as well as what exactly most of those parents actually DO with their days.
Sorry Ivory, I think you are connecting dots that aren't there. As someone else said, I chose to stay home because I felt I was the best person to raise my kids. My career was something I no longer liked and I gave it up joyfully. But this pedestal, doting, child worshiping thing was NOT ever in the plan. Why do you think that those of us that didn't have some 9-5 job think our kids are any more special then the working out of the house parents? I know helicopter parents too (not me) and most of them work. That's not a SAHM mind-set, that's a prevailing attitude and I am also not in favor of it.
Do you have any idea how patronizing it is for you to say that we SAHM create Of course children need I showed them to give back to society by volunteering! My kids have all spent quite a bit of time volunteering themselves and my oldest is an Eagle Scout.
Again, what does this have to do with whether one works outside the home or not? Did you ever tell your child anything like that? Me neither.
Please don't put words in my mouth. You are hyper sensitive about this subject. I didn't say anything about SAHM's not giving back to society. Some do, some don't. That's a personal choice and not one I'm debating here. I'm looking at the impact on our children of making them the center of the family. I said that making major financial decisions based on what parents think will make their children happy is a symptom of the disease. If you take a serious look at this issue, you will find that what has really changed is our attitude about children. They have become the center of the family. Life is now structured around them. Every decision peppered with hand wringing over how it MIGHT affect the kids. My grand parents never gave one iota of thought to how their decisions impacted their kids. Kids were expected to adjust. Being able to adjust to changes in life (especially unfair ones) is a valuable life skill and all of my aunts and uncles grew up to lead happy, healthy and prosperous lives (except for the uncle who served in Veitnam...he was never the same after that).
We are hurting our kids by catering to them too much. We are raising them as if they are the center of the world and they are struggling dealing with a world that does not treat them that way. We are teaching them that life should be fair when it isn't. We should be teaching them to help make life fair for others. We are swooping in to fix banged knees we should be letting them fix themselves. We go talk to the other kid's parents instead of letting our kid figure out relationships on their own. Instead of sending them to talk to the teacher (sending the message their educations are THEIR responsibility) we go talk to the teacher and make special arrangements just for our kids because they are, after all, our special snowflakes and deserve more than the next kid.....IMO, were are sending our children the wrong message. We require too little of them and help them too much. We need to get back to the time before they were the center of the family and treated like little demi gods. While there are many children not raised this way, there's enough of this in our society that they expect it. My own kids have gotten upset with me for NOT talking to the teacher and fixing things. I consider it my job to teach them how to get out of the messes they make on their own. I've never bailed them out but they see enough of their friends parents doing so that they keep hoping I will. I figure my kids are one up on the other kids even if they don't have as high of grades. Sometimes, you learn more getting an E than an A.
My first year teaching, I failed 5 kids who returned to my class the following year. Strange thing. Same teacher, same material, same student...totally different outcome. Three of those students got A's the second time around. None failed. Two came to me at the end of the year and appologized for how they behaved their first year. Childhood is about falling down and learning how to get up. It's not about grades mommy can post on the refrigerator. It's about learning to get along with others, learning that learning is YOUR job, learning how to contribute to your family and society, learning that it is you who owes others not others who owe you. It's about learning that life is NOT fair. It never will be. Deal with it. Work to make it better. Life will eat kids alive who don't learn young how to deal with adversity, work hard to get ahead (even if it doesn't get you to the gold plated prize you wanted....silver can be a decent life too...).
You really should come to parent teacher conferences with me tomorrow. I'm going to deal with parent after parent who is convinced their child's low grade is my fault or who will try to negotiate a special deal just for their child because their child is their special snowflake and, obviously, a personal reflection on them.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 11-10-2010 at 03:32 AM..
I give up. You are saying the same thing over and over. I agree with you about parents swooping in and trying to fix everything. What I and a couple of other posters are saying is that this child doting/special snowflake parent has nothing to do with whether the parents work outside of the home or not. I work at a library now and see those same parents doing their kids homework, sometimes they'll come up to the front desk and complain about the teachers giving their kids books to read over the summer (oh my!).
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