SAHM Vent

[teambeaman]

Hang on, you have a 10 HOUR workday with a 2 HOUR commute and when you get home you still do the cooking, cleaning , laundry etc. And spend time with your child? Assuming your child is in school (or daycare) for 8 hours a day (possibly 10-12 hours a day if you are not home yet) and sleeps for 8-10 hours a night....when in the world are you spending time with your child??? It just doesn't seem possible. Your child must be spending a lot more time with teachers and babysitters. I mean there aren't enough hours in the day.

There are not enough hours in the day, so basically I get by and 5 hours of sleep a night, every night. I live in a perpetual state of tired. I get up at 4am and get ready for work. I wake DS up around 5:30 so I can spend time with him before I drop him off at daycare at 6:30am. DH picks DS up somewhere between 1-4pm depending on the day (he leaves for work at 4am). I get home sometime between 6-7pm depending on traffic. I spend all of my time when I get home with DS until he goes to bed. Then I cook dinner for the following night, clean, and go to bed. I do laundry on weekend nights after DS goes to bed. I go to the grocery store at night after DS Is sleeping, or I do it on my lunch break. I used to work at a school where I had half the commute I do now. Due to an issue with the principal I was forced to leave the district (despite my perfect evals and record). I took the first job I was offered. We are trying to sell our house and move, but until then I am making the best of the situation.
I feel so guilty about the hours that I'm away from home that I do not take anytime for myself. I have never left DS overnight with anyone, never had a "girls night" with my girlfriends, and have only had 3 date nights with DH since DS was born...he is 3 1/2. I feel like you are implying that I am a horrible mom that is letting my son be raised by strangers. I never in any of my posts, questioned anyone's abilities as a mother, not did I criticize them as mothers. Just because you're a SAHM doesn't mean that you are a better mother than me or that you love your child more than I love mine.

 

[North of Mouse]

You weren't? I must have misread you.

And your point is???? Nothing there on those posts. I was answering another poster that was berating me for some reason.

Just go back and read the two posters that I quoted!

 

[StephMK]

This is not true at all. For some women, working outside the home IS putting their child first. Perhaps they are making sure they can provide the best education for their child, or give their child opportunities they could not otherwise give. Or maybe they are the type of person that NEEDS the work and the socialization with adults to make them a happier and better parent.

I just quoted the 1st paragraph and ITA! I've been all kinds of moms - SAH, P/T, FT, WAH, WOH, and different stages of life make different choices make sense at those times. I definitely kids learn when they are exposed to many people and different viewpoints. I am a teacher but still believe they get a better education from "strangers who spend hours with them".

Sometimes the truth feels offensive, but it's still the truth
Someone who makes being there for their child their first priority, and someone who leaves their child with someone else for many hours a day while doing a job so they can feel fulfilled as a person.
One puts the child first, the other puts their own wishes first.
I'm not talking about women who have no choice because they wouldn't be able to make ends meet if they didn't work. I'm talking about the women who decide child care is acceptable because they themselves don't want to stay home with their child because they need to be fulfilled by a career.

It's your truth, not everyone's. I'm not going to debate the pros/cons of putting the child first but I have seen where that is not always a positive. So no, I don't think a blanket statement like that works for all families.


Not directed at the quoted above - I know people get defensive about their choices but I don't get the attitude that there is only one "right" way. Families need to do what works best for them and I would say those choices were well thought out and planned in most cases.

I do get peeved when people comment about working parents abusing SOH parents' availability. Maybe those people need new friends. I have never used a SAH mom to help me with my kids. We both work & DH is just as involved as I am. I drop them off, he picks them up at 3:30. If one of us can't get there (rare), they walk to the Y and work out or do homework for an hour. One of us stays with them when they are sick and DH can work from home if needed.

DH is also quite capable in putting together a dinner and supervising homework - though he defers the math to me. He will vacuum sometimes and handles all yard work. I clean, make appts, pay bills, etc. We both take the kids to dr appts and activities, depending on who wants/can do it. We don't outsource any household duties other than 2x a year fertilizer for the yard. We manage to cook, clean, and raise well adjusted kids.

It is possible to stay involved with the kids and work outside the home at the same time. I don't feel like we give up anything in our choice. I have SAHM friends who feel the same way in their choice and that's how it should be. As long as you are comfortable with your choice, then what difference does it really make?

 

[Colleen27]

I don't have an issue with SAHM...But, as I said in a PM today...I will ALWAYS hold to the belief that working moms, moms that have to work, have it worse. We just do. We have to juggle so much more. We do. We go to work when our kids have the sniffles and our houses our a mess, and the dogs look like they just killed something. We don't volunteer...but we still cook dinner and do homework with our kids, and we all manage to wash our hair.

I really don't get this competition of "who has it harder" or the attitude that only those who have it the hardest are allowed to vent/complain from time to time. The challenges are different for everyone, not just based on role but also on the rest of the family circumstances, and everyone has the occasional need to vent about some annoyance in their life.

Bingo! Well said.

There is a new term called motherism coined by Dr Aric Sigman and our society is rife with it. Women who choose to stay home and put child rearing and home making first are looked down upon and often seen as lazy, not contributing to society and wasting our lives. It's a sad state of affairs when raising our children is basically seen as the least valuable work one can do. It's something one can delegate to a nanny, day care centre or the school. Stay at home moms decide that child care is not a task to be delegated. They believe that it is of utmost importance that they be the single strongest guiding force in their child's life. They are looked down on for this? How crazy is that? We are the only mammals that encourage separation of mother and child before the child is self sufficient. Ever consider that perhaps the animal world has it figured out? We obviously don't as evidenced by this discussion.

Both sides of the debate make tough choices with consequences. Shams give up financial gain, independence and lose ground in the workforce. They often do without material possessions. Wms miss out on time with their kids, miss milestones and often have to juggle when life throws them a curveball. We need to own our choices and acknowledge the shortcomings of those choices.

The absurdity of this really hit me when I went back to school a few years ago, and had the same people who criticized my choice to stay home suggesting early childhood development as a "perfect" career path for me "because you're so great with kids!". Um, okay. So staying home with my own kids was a bad choice, a waste of my potential, but making a career out of caring for other people's kids (and for pathetic wages at that) is commendable? And FTR, I'm not that good with little kids. I was good with mine when they were small because I love them but the idea of being professionally mired in the toddler/preschool years forever is enough to give me nightmares.

It's really obnoxious to play the "don't complain since others have it worse than you" card. Everyone has things they complain about, no matter how wonderful their life is. As a fun little discussion board mostly about vacationing in Disney, there's nothing wrong with venting about those things here.

Exactly. We're all living in developed countries, we're all literate, we're all affluent enough to have computers, electricity, and internet access. That puts us in a better position than most of the world's population. However, even the most blessed life has frustrations and challenges and there is nothing wrong with expressing them.

Not sure if you just worded this weird or if you're recommending it for everyone. For me, this would have been the absolute WORST of both worlds. An income small enough not to be of significant benefit to me or my family AND a time commitment that curtailed my flexibility in other areas. No thanks.

For me too, especially since professional positions are seldom suited to part time scheduling and the sorts of jobs that do offer part time hours demand a lot of flexibility on the employee's part (working holidays, changing shifts, etc.). That would be the worst all the way around - enough to interfere with my availability to my kids and my flexibility to travel around my husband's crazy schedule, but not enough of an income to provide a significant boost to our family's financial circumstances.

I'm uneasy with women being defined by the fact that they are mothers - whether SAHM or WM. Raising our kids is perhaps the most important thing we'll ever do, but it's still something we DO, it's not an identity. I think the fact that it has become one is what makes these discussions so intensely personal and contentious.

But is there a better determiner of identity? The other alternative in our culture is definition based on what you do for a living, which may not be a bad thing for those with a "calling" that is part of who they are but certainly falls short of a satisfying identity for cashiers, burger flippers, janitors, factory workers, and all the other people in our society who do "just a job" strictly for the paycheck. It also leaves a real void during times of unemployment and makes changing fields feel like a much more seismic shift than it objectively is for many people.

I'm not sure having your self-worth and identity tied up in how you earn your money is all that great either. I'll be a mother for the rest of my life; my husband won't always be a carpenter.

 

[Coonhound]

There are not enough hours in the day, so basically I get by and 5 hours of sleep a night, every night. I live in a perpetual state of tired. I get up at 4am and get ready for work. I wake DS up around 5:30 so I can spend time with him before I drop him off at daycare at 6:30am. DH picks DS up somewhere between 1-4pm depending on the day (he leaves for work at 4am). I get home sometime between 6-7pm depending on traffic. I spend all of my time when I get home with DS until he goes to bed. Then I cook dinner for the following night, clean, and go to bed. I do laundry on weekend nights after DS goes to bed. I go to the grocery store at night after DS Is sleeping, or I do it on my lunch break. I used to work at a school where I had half the commute I do now. Due to an issue with the principal I was forced to leave the district (despite my perfect evals and record). I took the first job I was offered. We are trying to sell our house and move, but until then I am making the best of the situation.
I feel so guilty about the hours that I'm away from home that I do not take anytime for myself. I have never left DS overnight with anyone, never had a "girls night" with my girlfriends, and have only had 3 date nights with DH since DS was born...he is 3 1/2. I feel like you are implying that I am a horrible mom that is letting my son be raised by strangers. I never in any of my posts, questioned anyone's abilities as a mother, not did I criticize them as mothers. Just because you're a SAHM doesn't mean that you are a better mother than me or that you love your child more than I love mine.

So it sounds like you spend one hour with your child in the morning and one or maybe two hours with him in the evening.

 

[Styx Fan]

I am a SAHM and there are parts I totally love and parts that are no so great. But overall it is best for my family. Since my son was born in'96, I have worked fulltime for a bit, part time for a longer bit and been home for about 10-11 years.

I have been asked what I do all day and I have been judged poorly because with kids at 10 and 17 I still don't work out of the home. You know what? There are days I don't do a whole lot...there I said it and I own it. And I am OK with that, as is my DH. Other days I go like a bat out of sunday school from dawn to dusk. That is the nature of my job. With the kids older, many times the bulk of my work day starts at 3:00 when school ends. It gets nuts sometimes and I am go-go-go until 11:00. Not complaining, just stating a fact. So I take time for myself during the day then. I feel like I have a great arrangement. Love the flexibility of my days. But I do miss the ego boosts I got from hearing others say I did a great job and knowing I rocked it. I also get lonely (just not many of us around), but have found the internet to be the worlds best water cooler

Honestly, my house is not that clean and organized. Not scary bad, but far from what it could be. Again, we are OK with that...we chose for me to stay at home to make life work better for us and the kids, not for my housekeeping skills....Thank Goodness My kids like me being home, despite the lack of money. Well actually DS would rather I worked so there was more money for him and less supervision of him for the last few years. But he needed me here.

When we were making decisions years ago, I knew that I would be a stressed out mess if I worked full-time and had kids. When I was part-time I never felt fully in either world and that bothered me. My great part-time job went away or I probably would have kept working though.

But while I chose to share all that here, I do hate to be judged as "less than" because don't bring home a check. And I refuse to justify my life to anyone who asks out of nosiness or superiority what I do all day. Oh, and by the way...I do watch a soap but hate bon bons!

 

[mom2rtk]

So it sounds like you spend one hour with your child in the morning and one or maybe two hours with him in the evening.

What is your problem with this poster? Not everyone is in a position to be home full-time. It sounds like she's making the most of a challenging situation. And it sounds like Dad is picking their son up fairly early every day. Does that not count for something?

 

[mjkacmom]

What is your problem with this poster? Not everyone is in a position to be home full-time. It sounds like she's making the most of a challenging situation. And it sounds like Dad is picking their son up fairly early every day. Does that not count for something?

Don't waste your time - this poster's 13 year old son got someone pregnant, she ended up in prison, and instead of giving the baby up to a loving, financially stable two parent home, chose to let the teen keep the baby, even though he was still a child himself.

And yet judges others for supposedly not putting a child's best interest first.

I'm a SAHM, and have nothing but respect for WOH parents. Some women want and/or need to work. I know many highly successful women, many with advanced degrees, who make their children very proud, and who are wonderful parents.

 

[jodifla]

I worked FT from 10 to 7, so I was gone from 9:30 to 7:30 when my child was little. We got up together about 6:30, so I was with him for 3 hours in the morning. He normally went to bed about 8:30. I typically got home, did his bedtime routine with him while my husband cooked dinner. So even working FT, I was with him for 4 hours where I was just concentrating on him. And I spent all weekend with him.

At that point, DH was working from home, so DS spend his time with my dad with assist from DH.

Working moms can still see their children.

 

[Saimaeve]

Don't waste your time - this poster's 13 year old son got someone pregnant, she ended up in prison, and instead of giving the baby up to a loving, financially stable two parent home, chose to let the teen keep the baby, even though he was still a child himself.

And yet judges others for supposedly not putting a child's best interest first.

I'm a SAHM, and have nothing but respect for WOH parents. Some women want and/or need to work. I know many highly successful women, many with advanced degrees, who make their children very proud, and who are wonderful parents.

WOW! Did not know all of that.

 

[NewRVLady]

Don't waste your time - this poster's 13 year old son got someone pregnant, she ended up in prison, and instead of giving the baby up to a loving, financially stable two parent home, chose to let the teen keep the baby, even though he was still a child himself.

And yet judges others for supposedly not putting a child's best interest first.

I'm a SAHM, and have nothing but respect for WOH parents. Some women want and/or need to work. I know many highly successful women, many with advanced degrees, who make their children very proud, and who are wonderful parents.

 

[dsny1mom]

My youngest started Kindergarten last week and I also have a 4th grader, so both my kids are in school "full time". Already, I am so tried of the "what are you going to do with ALL your time" questions and the "I would be so boooored" comments from other people. Really?!

I have a college degree and worked FT when my youngest was little. I chose to stay at home when my 2nd daughter was born, and I don't think that just because they are now at school 6 hours a day, I have to justify what I do with every minute! Even my husband is making little obnoxious comments. The laundry doesn't wash itself, and the food doesn't miraculously deliver and cook itself, and would it be OK if I just washed my hair once in awhile without hearing someone scream?! I know those are all things that working moms have to do too, and I honestly don't know how they do it, but my husband's job requires long hours, and most of all that is on me. I'm fine that, but a little credit would be nice.

I realize I'm being a little defensive and maybe I could clean out some closets or the garage or scrub the tile floor, but when is just being a mom (even if they're at school) good enough? I am the co-chair of the book fair at school, I volunteer in the classroom and lunch room, and I have a small (but sometimes busy) etsy shop, so I don't feel like I'm doing nothing, but the little comments are starting to get to me.

Anyway, just venting...thanks for listening

Care not what others think. I never did and I was a SAHM from the time my youngest was 2 until she turned 20.

All that mattered to me was how being there for my kids 24/7 benefited them.

The look of pride on faces when their Mom was room Mom and the field trip Mom and the Girl Scot Leader and how their house was the go to house after school because Mom was home to supervise and the hundreds of other moments that they loved.

To this day my children tell me they had to best childhood any kid could ask for! I'd ignore any rude questions a thousand time again for my children to feel they had the best childhood a kid could ask for!

dsny1mom

 

[teambeaman]

What is your problem with this poster? Not everyone is in a position to be home full-time. It sounds like she's making the most of a challenging situation. And it sounds like Dad is picking their son up fairly early every day. Does that not count for something?

Thank you for sticking up for me. I don't know what her problem is with me. Not once have I criticized a SAHM in my posts, but I guess attacking me is making her feel better about herself.
coonhound: I may only spend a few hours a day with my son, but I am with him the entire weekend, every weekend, and every other day that I'm not at work. DH also spends a lot of time with him during the week and on the weekends, so he is not always with "strangers".

 

[Coonhound]

Thank you for sticking up for me. I don't know what her problem is with me. Not once have I criticized a SAHM in my posts, but I guess attacking me is making her feel better about herself.
coonhound: I may only spend a few hours a day with my son, but I am with him the entire weekend, every weekend, and every other day that I'm not at work. DH also spends a lot of time with him during the week and on the weekends, so he is not always with "strangers".

For the record I'm not a "she". My wife stays home and home schools the kids and I made sure I would have a career where I would be able to support my family. Years ago we didn't homeschool, I spent maybe an hour if even that with my son a day, and wasn't involved at all. Now I realize there is nothing more important than involved parents, being in charge of your child's education, and having a mother at home. In ten years you will probably regret having 12 hour workdays with a 2 hour commute to spend your time with other people's kids.

 

[cjbcam]

For the record I'm not a "she". My wife stays home and home schools the kids and I made sure I would have a career where I would be able to support my family. Years ago we didn't homeschool, I spent maybe an hour if even that with my son a day, and wasn't involved at all. Now I realize there is nothing more important than involved parents, being in charge of your child's education, and having a mother at home. In ten years you will probably regret having 12 hour workdays with a 2 hour commute to spend your time with other people's kids.

It doesn't sound like she has a choice. The amount people have to spend just to have food on the table and a roof over their head is crazy for what most people make. It sounds to me like she is doing what she can to spend time with her child and actually be able to feed her.
Like a lot of people have said sometimes it isn't about wanting to work, it sounds like she has to.
Shaming the working parent is just as bad as shaming the SAHM. What one family does is no one else's business.

 

[Planogirl]

For the record I'm not a "she". My wife stays home and home schools the kids and I made sure I would have a career where I would be able to support my family. Years ago we didn't homeschool, I spent maybe an hour if even that with my son a day, and wasn't involved at all. Now I realize there is nothing more important than involved parents, being in charge of your child's education, and having a mother at home. In ten years you will probably regret having 12 hour workdays with a 2 hour commute to spend your time with other people's kids.

Please don't go there. I suspect that you might question someone even having kids if they can't raise them the way you've decided is the right way. Not only do we all see this differently but it's hard to judge others when we don't even know what their stories are.

 

[mom2rtk]

In ten years you will probably regret having 12 hour workdays with a 2 hour commute to spend your time with other people's kids.

You just don't seem to stop yourself. I really think you are crossing a line here and need to stop.

I know working mothers with regrets. I know stay at home mothers with regrets. It seems you had some regrets with how your family was initially handling things. Who knows, maybe your wife has regrets of her own.

In ten years maybe the poster you have been attacking will just be proud she did what she had to do to provide for her child.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Don't waste your time - this poster's ...........

I'm not going to defend Coonhound's comments, but that was out of line.

 

[NewRVLady]

For the record I'm not a "she". My wife stays home and home schools the kids and I made sure I would have a career where I would be able to support my family. Years ago we didn't homeschool, I spent maybe an hour if even that with my son a day, and wasn't involved at all. Now I realize there is nothing more important than involved parents, being in charge of your child's education, and having a mother at home. In ten years you will probably regret having 12 hour workdays with a 2 hour commute to spend your time with other people's kids.

I was able to work from home, years ago.
Most Moms aren't so lucky and most men cant MAKE SURE they make enough $$ to keep the wife at home.
really?
In today's world most families need 2 incomes

 

[jrmasm]

I'm not going to defend Coonhound's comments, but that was out of line.

I don't know. I think that poster's background goes a long way to explaining his views.