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1.)The vast majority of Stay at home moms are in middle class to wealthy households(husband is a doctor, lawyer, investment banker etc) where you can afford nannies
In my upper middle class neighborhood, the vast majority of families don't make enough to afford nannies, but they make enough so mom can afford to stay home if she wants to (assuming they live with a pretty tight budget). For most of these families, mom does all the daytime child care and household work - if they can afford it, a few families hire a cleaning service and/or a yard service - and nobody has nannies. The only families that can afford nannies are making 250k+ a year and that definitely isn't middle class or even upper middle class, that's upper class.
The lower income classes are full of just as many SAHM as the middle and upper classes because many of these moms don't have the ability to make enough working to justify the cost of daycare.
1.)The vast majority of Stay at home moms are in middle class to wealthy households(husband is a doctor, lawyer, investment banker etc) where you can afford nannies
Not in my area.
If you stay at home, you do not need a nanny. YOU are there for the kids.
If you stay at home, you do not need a nanny. YOU are there for the kids.
Nannies are for when both wealthy parents work.
Yes, this. Although nannies seem to be very common in this area, and they're not just for super wealthy people. But they are for cases where both parents work full-time.
The comparison with a non-custodial parent paying child support is perhaps excessive, but I agree with the part about a working parent not being the primary caregiver. If you're dropping your child off for 10 hours at daycare, those people are doing the majority of their care. I don't see how you can deny that. I'm not passing judgement by saying so. Parents have all sorts of reason for working and putting their kids in daycare. But it's true that you're letting someone else do a lot of raising your children, during an impressionable age.
Let's do the numbers
24 hours in a day x 7 days a week= 168 hours
10 hours a day (this is excluding holidays and sick days when the child is not allowed at daycare) × 5 days a week= 50 hours a week
168-50= 118 hours not in daycare. So NO, daycare isn't the primary childcare provider. Not in the vast majority of cases, not for the vast majority of the working parents.
And now I'm irritated you people forced me to do math
24 hours in a day x 7 days a week= 168 hours
10 hours a day (this is excluding holidays and sick days when the child is not allowed at daycare) × 5 days a week= 50 hours a week
168-50= 118 hours not in daycare. So NO, daycare isn't the primary childcare provider. Not in the vast majority of cases, not for the vast majority of the working parents.
And now I'm irritated you people forced me to do math
I'm talking about waking hours. It's also been my observation that kids of working parents are often (not always) sleep trained and tend to sleep better/more than mine did. But putting that aside, how many times has it been mentioned (even in this thread) that working parents often come home late from work and barely have any time with their young children before putting them to bed? Especially if those kids are the type that go to bed at 7:00-7:30? Sometimes parents don't see their kids at all at night. So the actual time that they might have to make an impression on their kids would be the waking hours on the weekend and a rushed hour in the weekday mornings.
I'm talking about waking hours. It's also been my observation that kids of working parents are often (not always) sleep trained and tend to sleep better/more than mine did. But putting that aside, how many times has it been mentioned (even in this thread) that working parents often come home late from work and barely have any time with their young children before putting them to bed? Especially if those kids are the type that go to bed at 7:00-7:30? Sometimes parents don't see their kids at all at night. So the actual time that they might have to make an impression on their kids would be the waking hours on the weekend and a rushed hour in the weekday mornings.
You're still responsible for your children when they are sleeping. You don't clock out when your head hits the pillow. Are we really debating this? And this is assuming the children are perfect 8 hours a night sleepers. It's ludicrous.
But I'll humor you, let's subtract 8 hours per day x 5 days a week from the 118 hours not in childcare. That's 118-40 = 78 hours not in day care or "sleeping" versus 50 hours in day care, again excluding holidays and sick days. Still, a working parents is the majority childcare giver.
I have worked since I was 14. After earning two college degrees, I worked for 15 more years as a high-level advertising executive. I quit working when my first child was born. Being a stay at home mom was every bit as hard as any job I've ever had. I never got a break, since I literally lived at work. I got no appreciation from anyone, including people like the OP who assumed it was a cake walk. My kids are older, and I am now back a work, and I still think being a SAHM was harder. And I have relatively easy kids, in the grand scheme of things.
Being a good parent is hard, whether you work outside of the home or don't. You can be a crappy mom and not have a job, you can be a crappy mom and get a paycheck. Having a job doesn't make you a good mom. Not having a job doesn't make you a good mom.
The only thing that really got my goat when I stayed home with my kids were the snide comments from "working" moms like, "I couldn't stay at home all day, I would be bored."
My reply was always, "I've never been the kind of person that needed someone else to tell her what to do for 8-10 hours a day, every day, just to keep from being bored."
You're still responsible for your children when they are sleeping. You don't clock out when your head hits the pillow. Are we really debating this? And this is assuming the children are perfect 8 hours a night sleepers. It's ludicrous.
I'm not debating when you're responsible for them. I'm just saying that during a large portion of their waking hours, they are being taught and raised by someone else. They are picking up values from someone else. They are having their diapers changed by someone else. I don't think it's wrong to say that those other people are the primary caregivers during that time. And that's a big chunk of the kids' time.
My kids' dad used to get up early, do his morning exercise routine, get ready for work (ignoring child care), leave at about the same time our son was going to school (if not earlier), come home anytime between 6:00 and 10:00; and if he got home while the kids were still awake, he was more interested in decompressing (and eating) then having anything to do with the kids. He was not a primary caregiver, regardless of technically having time with them.
Are all parents this hands-off? Obviously not. Some can't wait to spend what little time they have with their kids.
There have also been comments regarding how working parents must squish all the household duties into a compressed number of hours. If you don't hire help for cleaning or lawn care or whatever, you probably spend a lot of your time at home (including weekends) doing that stuff, and have a limited amount of time to cater to the whims of your children.
1.)The vast majority of Stay at home moms are in middle class to wealthy households(husband is a doctor, lawyer, investment banker etc) where you can afford nannies
2.) once the child/children turn 5 they go to school for 8 hours a day. So all you're really doing is getting them ready for school, Doing homework at night and send them to bed.
Classic example of someone who knows nothing about stay at home moms and what they do or don't do, yet is posting things just to get people riled up.
Ignorance is contagious.
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