I also work full time, am PTA treasurer, run many events at school, am a girl scout leader and am at every single sporting event, concert, etc that my daughter has.
Yep, I do all those things too, and it's been wonderful for our family. We've been fortunate to get to know so many of our daughter's friends' parents, and we've been very involved in their activities over the years. Now that mine are teens, we're letting go a bit and letting them take part in more activities on their own. It's been hard for us to do that, but it's age-appropriate; after all, the oldest will be heading to college in only three years, and we certainly want her to have had experiences with independence in safe situations before she heads out to live in a dorm!
Uh oh. I guess I better tell my son we need to take his braces off, we have to sell our house (with a yard
) and move into an apartment, our Disney vacation is off, neither of of them can go to summer camp they've been looking forward to for months, and our summer vacation to a historical site is off.
Not all families that have a SAHM are poor.
ETA: For the poster that mentioned one income families are usually buried in debt, the only debt we have is our car loan and our mortgage.
Good for you, but surely you know that everyone isn't managing so well -- especially in light of our country's recent economic climate. Just take a look over at the Budget Board on this site, and you'll find questions/answers concerning LOTS of families who are having trouble with basics like groceries, insurance, and mortgage payments. And how many times have we heard the statistics about how the average American family is two paychecks away from not eating? Sadly, I've seen it personally a couple times in the past year: I know several people who've lost jobs, and almost immediately their lives were thrown into chaos. How about the statistics about how the average American family has a negative savings rate?
If these things are really a surprise, pop over to the Budget Board. There's ample evidence that "we" as a society are not doing too well financially -- regardless of the number of incomes in the household. Does that mean that EVERYONE'S in trouble? Of course not, but an awful lot of people ARE too close to the financial edge, and even more are not preparing for their family's long-term needs.
I admit that I don't understand why moms would work if they didn't HAVE to.
The obvious question is, "Where do you draw the line at "have to"?
Just about all moms could manage to quit our jobs IF we wanted to do so badly enough. Just about all of us would be able to continue to eat, live indoors, have medical care and electricity -- the basics. If we were willing to live like people did in the 1950s/1960s (smaller houses, one car, cooking from scratch, sewing clothes, growing and canning vegetables, and other similar choices), then everyone certainly could live on considerably less. In fact, cutting back to one car would make a monumnetal dent in most family's budgets.
But what are the other goals for our families? The long-term goals. For me, I can't imagine raising my children for years, then saying, "Wow, it's time for college. Guess you'd better hope for some scholarships and/or go into debt for the rest of your life." I can't see choosing between retirement for me and college for the kids. It's important to consider the bigger picture, which
has to include finances. It's important to me to know that we live in a paid-for house, that we've been able to take our kids on loads of educational trips, and that we've been able to do the things for them that we wanted to do. Don't mistake this for spoiling them; they rarely have new clothes, they don't have fancy phones, and they won't get cars at 16. But there have been lots of "extras" -- experiences mostly -- that we've wanted them to have. They wouldn't have had those without my income.
I have seen a number of my son's classmate's mothers try to go back to work once all of the children are in school and they all had to start over at the bottom after being out of the workforce for 5 to 10 years. Most of them couldn't even go back to the same profession they were in before children because they were competing with new college grads. So it is unrealistic to think you will take so many years off and then just step back in.
I've seen this too. As a teacher, I've seen people in certain subjects end up subbing (even for years!) before a full-time job becomes available. It's not so bad for people who teach "the big four", but for other people, it's tough. And then, those women end up at the bottom again: floating instead of having a real classroom, waiting a while 'til they can get the classes they prefer to teach, etc. And some people end up being placed at schools across the county instead of at the school next door.
There's a "cost" to staying out a couple years. You may deem it worthwhile when compared to the benefits, but coming back isn't always as easy as you might hope.
The harsh reality is that, all other things being equal, prospective employers prefer to have someone with a recent, stable work history rather than one with a large gap, regardless of the reason . . . unfair, unjust, wrong . . . if I have 2 resumes in my hand and one persons most recent job ended in 2008 and the other was 2003, who do you think I'm calling first?
This makes me think about a friend of mine who NEEDED to get back into work a few years ago (divorce situation). I helped her get her foot in the door at my school, and even though she had experience, she was absolutely not "up to par" anymore -- she was not used to staying on a schedule, and it was awful for her. It took her a very long time to get back into the swing of teaching, and she wasn't re-hired for the next year.
As you said, I know other people will write in that they started up right where they left off, and certainly some people do -- perhaps it's easier in some professions than in others -- but all women should be sure that they COULD go back to work IF it became necessary. It just seems like common sense and self-preservation to me that we all be ABLE to take care of our families. After all, I have a rock-solid marriage and no reason to think I'll ever be divorced, BUT my husband cannot promise me that he'll never become disabled, nor can he promise me that he'll still be alive and employed this time next year. If he were suddenly to stop bringing home a paycheck, we would have to cut back on things, but we would be fine. There's a great deal of peacefulness that comes with knowing that.
Most mothers spend time as SAHMs and WOHMs during their child-rearing years.
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