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The data is a mixed bag. It really doesn't favor one group over the other. There are pros and cons to working and there are pros and cons to staying home.
I've been meaning to point this out for days. If the all-so-important data says that there is no difference in outcomes between SAHM and WM, then they are equal. Could we not say that because the outcomes are so similar, we choose to stay home instead of work. That makes just as much sense as choosing to work because there is no difference.
Okay, Ivory, it's buried too far back in the thread for me to dredge up your links, but I'm going to assume that the research to which you keep referring dates to 1997 from the University of Michigan. I've read it. I have no major criticisms.
Personally, I don't stay home because I think my kids will turn out better for it. I stay home because I enjoy it. It took a long time for me to successfully bring children into the world, and I had no desire to jump back into my career after they were born. If you want to paint me as lazy and irrelevant, feel free. Frankly, my career was not going to change the world for the better. As a matter of fact, I didn't think my career did much of anything positive for the world, but that's as much as I want to say about that.
I am fortunate to have married someone who has an extremely lucrative career he enjoys very much. We have managed to accumulate a great deal of financial security, including assets that belong only to me, so there isn't much risk to me staying home. Despite the research, I do not believe my family's choices will hobble my children in any way, but my kids will be who they'll be, and my husband and I will love them regardless.
I'm am tired of this incessant arguing. The Mommy Wars are STUPID! Go change the world, Ivory. I honestly wish you the best.
Regards...FC, proudly on vacation from meaningful work
What our children will accomplish remains to be seen. They are not our accomplishments.
Sorry once I start my Happy Dance I get carried away.
Actually our children are most definitely our accomplishments. Jaqqueline Kennedy Onassis pointed to her children as her greatest accomplishment. She said, (not verbatim) "If I screw them up nothing else matters."
(Personally, I always thought her acting as interpreter during the first crucial meetings between Kennedy and DeGaulle was, perhaps, her greatest accomplishment, but it would be very hard to choose. She charmed the socks off DeGaulle -with her beauty and her intelligence and her grasp of the situation in Western Europe post-WWII- and changed French foreign policy.)
Theoretically you could do both, sure. The act of working full time alone doesn't make a person less of a mother or wife. Not at all. But the mentality that, in rare cases, goes along with working full time, might cause someone to question a mother's... priorities. For example, a mother thinking that there is nothing useful to be done at home with her kids. A mother who thinks sitting on the floor playing with her kids is a waste of time.
Makes you wonder if she knows of the concept of bonding as part of loving interpersonal relationships?
I love how people just blindly believe what they want in spite of data.
I'm not debating if you're happy in your lot in life. I'm discussing the findings of research WRT whether or not what we do matters. There are lots of things I do that don't matter that I do because I like doing them. I like teaching chemistry, for example. I'll continue teaching until dd graduates and then move to something that matters (for now teaching matters because it allows my dd to attend a school we could not afford if I weren't a teacher here). We all do things we like in life. No one is arguing against that. The question is whether what we do matters in the long run. Good parenting does. SAH/WOH does not if finances are not impacted by the decision.
Well according to your "research" what I do doesn't amount to a hill of beans, because I have given birth to sons, not daughters. Only my husband can set a meaningful example in our case. Riiiiggghhht.
Teaching is not "something that matters", except as a means to an end (getting your daughter into a school you want). Mercy me.
Well according to your "research" what I do doesn't amount to a hill of beans, because I have given birth to sons, not daughters. Only my husband can set a meaningful example in our case. Riiiiggghhht.
Teaching is not "something that matters", except as a means to an end (getting your daughter into a school you want). Mercy me.
Teaching can be something that matters, depending on how you approach it. Or it can be just an income, though it seems that Ivory values income over most else.
What our children will accomplish remains to be seen. They are not our accomplishments.
When my son was first diagnosed, we lived in ND, there were no therapists. He didn't talk, he didn't sleep, and all he did was scream and have the most severe tantrums. I spend 9 months, 6 hours a day trying to reach him (the other two he was at preschool). I taught him to speak, I taught him to sit in a chair and attend. What I did for my son was irreplaceable. He was diagnosed severely autistic. Last year he was upgraded from severely autistic and mentally retarded to moderately autistic and borderline cognitively delayed. I was told by three teachers and his psychologist that he would not have gotten that upgrade in diagnosis without me working my arse off to get him talking. I humbly share in his accomplishment. Without my work, he would be much worse off, like in an institution.
There are lots of things I do that don't matter that I do because I like doing them. I like teaching chemistry, for example. I'll continue teaching until dd graduates and then move to something that matters (for now teaching matters because it allows my dd to attend a school we could not afford if I weren't a teacher here).
So you LIKE teaching Chemistry, but teaching Chemistry doesn't matter. But wait, it does matter because you need the money, but as soon as you don't need the money it won't matter anymore.
So, I guess teaching isn't a very important job, since it doesn't matter. Or maybe, just maybe, YOU do not believe teaching is a respectable profession. No wonder you are constantly running into people who do not respect teachers. You don't respect them yourself.
Of course, you could find a line of work that DOES matter (in your eyes, whatever that might be) and also pays you the money you need.
Well according to your "research" what I do doesn't amount to a hill of beans, because I have given birth to sons, not daughters. Only my husband can set a meaningful example in our case. Riiiiggghhht.
Teaching is not "something that matters", except as a means to an end (getting your daughter into a school you want). Mercy me.
Your working status is irrelevent. I don't know about the impact of fathers on sons. I know paternal involvement impacts daughters.
If I weren't here to teach this class, someone else would be. The job would get done so MY doing it does not matter except that it allows my dd to attend a higher quality school. Now, if there were a shortage of chemistry teachers then I'd matter. There isn't so I don't. If I quit this job today, there'd be a half dozen candidates vying for this job. I'm quite replaceable.
Attitude is everything, isn't it! Ivory could see her job as teaching the scientists of the future! She could see it as one of the most important jobs in the world! with passion for her subject and compassion for her students, she has the potential to ignite that passion in a kid who could go on to actually find a cure for cancer. But, no. It is just for money. Otherwise it doesn't matter. There is no way I could include enough of these to cover it.
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