tammy77 said:Very well said, Amc. I'm not even wasting my time responding to that demeaning post. Everyone from Circe to Amc summed it up for me already.
amc80|1372272400|3472738 said:TC1987|1372120791|3471692 said:read http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/done-baby-boomer-reveal-deepest-financial-regrets-225707221.html
I recommend getting a nanny and not giving up your career to stay home with children fulltime. Perhaps scale back the hours but I would not give up a lucrative career to be some homemaker. Never in 300 years. Never. Too much of a step down. My mother worked as a teacher and we only had partJun-Jul-partAug with a fulltime homemaker at home. And we didn't need one, either. Motherhood is a thankless job, and one should not give up one's entire identity and career just to do motherhood. Homemakers often delude themselves that their kids need them more than those kids actually do. Whatever you do, definitely don't martyr yourself to do homemaker stuff. You will totally lose the respect of kids and spouse if you do. A lot of that role, the other members of the household can and should do for themselves.
missy|1372286439|3472845 said:My mom was a SAHM and I am forever grateful. It's time you cannot ever get back and I know she doesn't regret it and my sister and I were lucky she could be a SAHM. After my sister went to college she went back to the work force. Anyway, Circe said it best and thank you to her for doing that. I was disheartened to read TC's post and I am glad most PSers here don't feel that way. Motherhood is perhaps the most important job that ever existed. And I am in awe of good mothers because it is also one of the hardest (though hopefully one of the most rewarding).
TC1987|1372120791|3471692 said:read http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/done-baby-boomer-reveal-deepest-financial-regrets-225707221.html
I recommend getting a nanny and not giving up your career to stay home with children fulltime. Perhaps scale back the hours but I would not give up a lucrative career to be some homemaker. Never in 300 years. Never. Too much of a step down. My mother worked as a teacher and we only had partJun-Jul-partAug with a fulltime homemaker at home. And we didn't need one, either. Motherhood is a thankless job, and one should not give up one's entire identity and career just to do motherhood. Homemakers often delude themselves that their kids need them more than those kids actually do. Whatever you do, definitely don't martyr yourself to do homemaker stuff. You will totally lose the respect of kids and spouse if you do. A lot of that role, the other members of the household can and should do for themselves.
marymm|1372345201|3473170 said:Very surprised and disappointed to see the lack of tolerance showed to fellow Pser TC1987's dissenting opinion.
marymm|1372345201|3473170 said:Very surprised and disappointed to see the lack of tolerance showed to fellow Pser TC1987's dissenting opinion.
Circe|1372346291|3473177 said:I think the problem is less with the opinion, and more with its manner of expression. It's one thing to argue for the merits of being a working mother: it's another to do so by denigrating women who make different choices. I think a lot of people will resent the implication that their decisions are worthless and their families secretly hold them in contempt.
Circe|1372346291|3473177 said:I think the problem is less with the opinion, and more with its manner of expression. It's one thing to argue for the merits of being a working mother: it's another to do so by denigrating women who make different choices. I think a lot of people will resent the implication that their decisions are worthless and their families secretly hold them in contempt.
I've always thought the SAHM vs. WM debate was just another red herring to keep women fighting amongst themselves so they wouldn't, oh, shatter the glass ceiling and come to expect equal contributions from their partners during the third shift ....
marymm|1372345201|3473170 said:Very surprised and disappointed to see the lack of tolerance showed to fellow Pser TC1987's dissenting opinion.
distracts|1372194114|3472218 said:Circe|1372191201|3472198 said:TC1987|1372120791|3471692 said:read http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/done-baby-boomer-reveal-deepest-financial-regrets-225707221.html
I recommend getting a nanny and not giving up your career to stay home with children fulltime. Perhaps scale back the hours but I would not give up a lucrative career to be some homemaker. Never in 300 years. Never. Too much of a step down. My mother worked as a teacher and we only had partJun-Jul-partAug with a fulltime homemaker at home. And we didn't need one, either. Motherhood is a thankless job, and one should not give up one's entire identity and career just to do motherhood. Homemakers often delude themselves that their kids need them more than those kids actually do. Whatever you do, definitely don't martyr yourself to do homemaker stuff. You will totally lose the respect of kids and spouse if you do. A lot of that role, the other members of the household can and should do for themselves.
This is surprisingly insulting to a broad spectrum of women - mothers in general, SAHMs, nannies, the works. Don't generalize from your anecdotal experience.
One of the reasons that traditionally "female" tasks tend to be devalued is because of this idea that they're worthless, don't require any skill, anybody could do them. So women are either expected to perform this for free as mothers (and I don't just mean the at-home stuff: I also mean all of the community volunteerism which keeps the system functioning, from PTA on out) or they're expected to perform it for peanuts. Call me crazy, but I think somebody watching my kid should be earning more than minimum wage. I'm a lot more concerned with their skill level than I would be with just about any other profession.
And so it becomes a vicious circle: because traditionally female tasks are seen as worthless, women themselves become tarred with that same brush, and then carry its stigma out to professions in the broader spectrum. Did you know that until women took over the professions of secretary and teacher, they used to be considered higher-skill, and be recompensed at an appropriately higher level?
At any rate. For some people, there's a lot of pleasure and fulfillment to be found in devoting their time to their children - not necessarily for the rest of their lives, but frequently when their kids are young. It definitely carries a professional penalty, but, a) sometimes it's worth it, and, b) that's a problem with the system, not with the individual women who make that decision for themselves.
NakedFinger, could I ask ... are you planning for a distant future, or are you at that kind of cross-roads where maternity leave is almost up, or ...? Are you thinking of quitting altogether, or maybe going freelance part time?
My situation is pretty close to the one you outlined initially: as a professor in the humanities, I made a fraction of what my husband did. So, when his company transferred him the week I found out I was pregnant, I gave up a tenure-track job. I now earn a smaller fraction of his income teaching part-time, and take care of our son the rest of the time. Once he and potential future siblings are in school, I'll return to full-time, but for now, it's worth it. I think one reason it was so doable for us is that my husband is very much an each-according-to-his-needs, each-according-to-her-means type. He absolutely regards all the household money and labor as being communal: it's just a question of who's doing what at any given time. In fact, it took him a while to convert me. Initially, I wanted a pre-nup so it wouldn't ever appear that I was taking advantage of him, felt guilty about earning less, the whole shebang ... now, I'm just glad to have had this model of fiscal sanity to emulate! We have joint everythings - bank account, cards, the works - and while we'll discuss bigger purchases with one another, that's less because of money and more because we both want input into new furniture and the like. I think it's doable, so long as you guys talk everything through. Maybe some preemptive couples counseling, just to cover all the issues, even the ones that might not occur to you right now?
What Circe said.