Is it just me, or does it seem that people have a warped sense of what a woman "should do" or how a mother "should act"?
I don't know which bothers me more: the fact that people try to place women, and specifically mothers, into these "roles" or the fact that mothers try to conform to these roles and become upset about perceived failure.
What am I talking about? The age-old debate of whether or not women should be working, or should they be home with their kids?
People are under the impression that you have to have a two-income household to survive; this is not true. Yes, a two-income household does make things more comfortable - especially when there are no children involved - but 9 times out of 10 once a child is born that house can survive just fine with one income and one parent staying home to care for the child. Especially with the instability of gas prices now a days - you never know how much you're going to be paying for gas. Tack on the price of day care ($75-100 a week here per child, plus you provide any food for meals or snack). Wow, two children later you could be paying up to $800 a month in day care expenses? That still astounds me.
Anyway, so women who make the choice to go to work under this assumption that they will need the second income fall under fire for not being at home with their children. What? People are blaming the absence of a parent in the home for when children act up, misbehave, or experiment with things we don't want them to go near. Women who choose to work are called bad mothers, or selfish, and they are accused of putting their own lives in front of those of their children.
Then, on the other side of this issue, women who do choose to stay home and be with their children are called antiquated and subservient; they're called week for staying home and are accused of, somehow, being less of a woman because they are not working.
Personally, I would like to see a few more Mr. Moms and and I would like to see a man speak up and say "I stay at home with the kids while my wife works" and not see other people giving him strange looks;
Maybe what really needs to happen is a man and a woman need to talk these things out together and decide what they think is best for them and their children - and every one else needs to shut the hell up and leave them alone.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
"Personally, I would like to see a few more Mr. Moms and and I would like to see a man speak up and say "I stay at home with the kids while my wife works" and not see other people giving him strange looks;"
I agree with this statement completely. Everyone assumes the mom should stay hom but never the dad. I think if one of the parents wants to stay home and they can afford it then they should be able to. Honestly I don't think I could handle staying at home seeing as how when I babysat this last summer I was so ready to go back to school after spending everyday with the kids. But parents shouldn't be critizied because they do one or the other.
Jenna
"Honestly I don't think I could handle staying at home seeing as how when I babysat this last summer" LOL - it's a lot easier when they're your own kids...
---------------------------
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I agree. Different solutions come in different households. Sometimes families cannot survive on one income, depending on the amount of income and family needs.
I want to be able to have children and stay at home to raise them, but I guess I'll have to wait to see what the monetary situation is in my marriage.
Though I like the "Mr. Mom" idea, I somehow feel that most of the time it is more appropriate for the mother to take the lead role in raising the children. It's just something about being a woman that feels for the needs of a child. Motherly instinct is something most women are born with. They exhibit motherly behavior even before motherhood.
I do realize that for many families having two incomes is a must. And some are able to do so without adding extra expenses that would make it worthless.
But for example, if you're married and the husband grosses, say, $2300 a month, and you find a job that would pay you $1200 a month - that seems like a decent income overall. But adding in the expense of a second car, gas and insurance for both cars, and daycare for the children - it would soak up the secondary income and probably still dip into your husband's income; so a lot of times it doesn't benefit to have both parents working.
At least not on the lower-middle to middle class workers. Now, you get a doctor and a lawyer who are married and both want to work - they could probably afford every thing anyway.
---------------------------
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis
It might be true that women are better equipped emotionally to take care of children;
But if a man wants to stay home then I believe he should be able to make that choice without the rest of us looking down on him for being different or looking down on the wife for "abandoning her kids".
---------------------------
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
While it is true women are more emotionally equipped to raise children, that certainly doesn't mean men can't have the equipment if given the chance and actually take the time to learn! If everything else in this world has evolved, it is high time the men evolve far enough to take care of their children, not only monetarily but, emotionally, mentally and, physically (babies, and sports alike)as well. I too have played both rolls both separately and at the same time. I have been a stay-at-home mom, a working mom and, a stay-at-home working mom! I can tell you this. . going to work is a far easier job than staying at home. You can always leave the work at work but being a mom...it's a 24/7 job. And you don't get any sick days!
I do believe that a women needs an education and a way to take care of herself and her children if the need ever arises. These are not the times of yesteryear where men stuck around for a lifetime. Let's face it. . . divorce rates are out of this world. Women do need something to fall back on for the 'just in case'. This is why I have insisted that my daughters get an education, learn to take care of themselves and not depend on a man to take care of them.
Raising children is one of the most important jobs in this world. We are raising the next generation of leaders. And by the sights of the youth of today, something needs to change or the aged of this society is in for a world of trouble. I applaud all mothers out there who are trying their best to do their best where their children are concerned. Dad's need to continue to step up to the plate, get rid of the tunnel vision and, do some nurturing of their own.
They wouldn't go to play football with their buddies without their gear or go to work without their computer's or whatever tools they need. So, they need to make sure they have the right tools in their 'family toolbox' in order to take care of their children as well.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Truths Are The Roots To Trust"
My sister is a single mom. She stays home with the kids and people automatically think she's either a) too lazy to work or b) milking my husband and myself. Both beliefs are so much hogwash (did I actually use the term hogwash? Yeesh). People continually pester her about when she is going to get a job. Hells bells folks. It's our decision. We all decided together how we were going to work it. Until said complainers are the ones responsible for the kids, they can kiss off to my way of thinking. Our arrangment work for us and as Fanaile said, are no one else's business.
The bickering about if a woman stays at home or works is ridiculous. And what makes it even worse are that women are dividing on the issue and throwing big fits about those that choose "the other side", as if the other side is plague ridden. Absolute idiocy.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
"May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the warm rays of the sun fall upon your home."
Right On! I remember the first time I told my mother that when I grew up I wanted to be a homemaker, and she about freaked. All I heard for weeks was that she didn't go protesting so her daughter could fall subservient to some man.
Finally I said "didn't you protest so I could make the choice for myself"? ANd she calmed down. But to some women, it's anti-feminist to stay at home.
I just don't get it!
---------------------------
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I fall under a lot of criticism from teachers and classmates alike because I do intend to become a housewife. Teachers tell me I have "too much potential" to waste on that sort of thing, as though they want me to perfect cold fusion before I'm thirty or I've failed. The truth is that I'm not weak or subservient (and I plan to rule my home with an iron fist), I just love family and would love to raise my kids the way I wasn't. I've been in day care from infancy to third grade, and don't want that for my children.
Just because I say I want to be a housewife when I grow up doesn't mean I expect my girlfriend to take care of me the second we're out of high school. I'm going to work. I'm going to college, and I'm going to get a job as an editor to support us while my girlfriend is in law school. Then, when we're read to have children and have a stable enough finacial situation, I will stop working so that I can be home with my kids.
A lot of times I think that people imagine housewives as people who didn't have any better plans when they got out of high school, so married quick so that they wouldn't have to do anything. Seeing how planned out I've made my future, I'd like to argue that this isn't the case.
I used to want to be a housewife when I grew up, so I see nothing wrong with that ambition at all. If you ask me, it seems to be a dying art.
But, one thing I was going to say, there is never a "good time" to have kids, LOL. Something is always there, just keep that in mind :)
---------------------------
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
I have rode both sides of the fence:
I am a stay at home mom, I love it and would not trade it for the world. I am not mousy, reserved, or solitary. I handle my business in all areas. Some teachers are losing their minds, they are half teaching children, they complain about their jobs, how much they hate children and such, so I will take a load off of them, I will teach mine at home. My first grader is on a third grade level right now, my child that is supposed to be in kindergarten is doing first grade work, and my 15 month old is saying his ABC's. Things that would not happen if they were in school.
I have been labeled as being resticted because I am at home and I dont make money and I must be lazy. I love what I do.
I have also been a single mom, and it is a hard job.
But I do think that mothers in general should look and present themselves in a certain way. Shorts and skirts that cut off circualtion, loving the Paris Hilton slut look ect, are not the way to go. No matter what side of the fence you are on, you should represent all good mothers everywhere.
I agree that you shouldn't be looked down upon just because you stay at home with your kids. My mom stayed home with me until i was in the 3rd grade. I never once had a babysitter my entire life. If my mom wanted to go do something on her own when i was back from school, my dad would leave work early and stay with my brother and I. When I was older my mom got a part time job that let her work from the time i left for school at 7:30 and the time she picked me up at 2:30. Now that I'm in highschool she has a full time job but is still home before I am. I think that you can do both if you really want to without having to give up anything. And if you don't want to to both then who cares? Its your family.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-