Nurturing Magazine.

[pie]

Deep deep breaths, mamapie, deep deep breaths. Okay. I just found a new magazine while doing an engine search to see what other AP Resources are out there. I am LIVID... are these people SERIOUS? And I notice as well as being sexist and ass backwards some of the magazines employees and contributers are obviously hypocrites as well, seeing as the have Ph.D.s and JOBS... grrrr..

This rag makes Dr. Laura look good. Here is a link...

http://www.nurturing.ca/

here are direct links to the articles that got my panties in such a wad...

How Cleaning the Bathroom Can Make Your Marriage Happier

http://www.nurturing.ca/clean.htm

And the Family Came Tumbling Down

http://www.nurturing.ca/tumblingdown.htm

Look, I stay home. But THIS is OUT OF CONTROL.

[laralou]

I was not shocked to read that Beverly LaHaye wrote the second article. Who publishes the damn thing? Pat Robertson?

The tag line should be Yesterday's Ideas for Today's Parents.

[dfoy]

Mamapie,

The fact that the first link I clicked on took me to an article by Beverly LaHaye says it all to me....Conservative Right Wing Christian fundamentalists:

My father, being a minister, used to get all kinds of propaganda from these people.

This woman is always bashing feminists. She and Robertson have the same agenda.

[dfoy]

Lauralou...we must have posted at the same time! LOL! Pretty much the same response!

[laralou]

Too funny, dfoy! Beverly LaHaye raises my hackles. I worked in a Christian bookstore in college and I read her and her husband's literature. YUCK!

[pie]

I had never heard of her. I do my best to tune out this kind of nonsense. However, this just really pushes my buttons... using AP to further this kind of drivel is SICK!

It smacks of the Handmaid's Tale to me.

[steph]

pardon me while i go throw up.....

[Irishmommy]

Well I'm a sahm who does 95% at least of the housework (including the bathroom!!) and 100% of the cooking, which in general I don't mind (dh does other stuff), so why is my marriage a mess and we're verging on a breakup?

[pie]

Boy, NM, when I get this baby down are you and I gonna be having us a talk.:

[OceanMomma]

What a crock! it's so insipidly condescending "...... And remember, men like coming home to a clean house. That means they look forward to coming home, and feel like being at home. " Gosh my life is to please my man ( who is of course really male & we are properly married ) Stuff the kids & work & all those other little things that keep us lowly women home all day. I'm surprised it didn't tell us to remember to do our hair & redo our makeup shortly before the man of the house was due home coz men do like to see us in lipstick. Of course while we're warming his slippers & putting his pipe out. Yuck!!!!!!!!

Sorry this is a pet hate of mine. dh has shades of that kind of attitude at times, interspersed with rants about how I should go back to work full time & leave him at home with the baby coz I earn more money. ha I'd like to see him in lipstick & a frilly pinny when I come home to a clean house at night. My guess is it would all still get left me coz it's "woman's work". I also cracked up about the manly occupations like building garages & glistening sweat. What a mills & boon novel. btw guess who's currently building a garage ? Anyone up for a sweat glistening manly male ? lol!!!!!!!!!!

& NM I am surprised at you! I would expect you of all people to value yourself far more than that twaddle

[Hilary Briss]

Oh Mamapie...

You need to study history. The Germans had an expression: "Arbeit macht frei", or, work will set you free.

More housework is the solution for improving your marriage. You should start by going out and getting one of those little French maid's outfits, which you can wear while you work. This will immediately make you more appealing to DH, it will help improve your self esteem, and it will make housework a lot more fun.

Thanks for sharing the links, and the good ideas!

[peggy]

I don't agree entirely with the articles, but I found a grain of truth to them:
My Dh works 50+ hours a week, I enthusiastically volunteered to stay home with the children. Should I expect my DH to do half the house work? I don't bring in half the icome. I don't see this as a man/woman issue more a matter of who has time to do it. If I worked full time and my DH stayed home I would expect him to cook and clean... I also agree that coming home to an orderly house is a good feeling, although I have to say I do it for my own satisfaction rather than my husband's.
Of course I thought it ridiculous to say that men love their wives less when the husband helps with childcare or house work.
The article on the traditional family was mostly bull. Although getting more involved in the community and school system is good advice.(but not for the same reasons stated in the article)
All in all ...two thumbs down


peggy

[pina la nina]

Oh boy - where to start????:
What the heck does this mean?????

"Women need to live up to their full potential as the biologically equipped provider of future generations. Once a woman accepts this difference, cleaning the bathroom brings with it domestic tranquility. "

OK sorry I can't stay and rant as I'd dearly love to - I'm late to work (while my sahd dh sleeps on - geez I hope I come home to a clean bathroom, no wait he's not biologically equipped to clean it. Maybe he'll have built me a garage then....)

[Mommiska]

Honestly - men love their wives LESS if they (the men) are involved in cleaning the house and looking after the kids? How about, I'd love my husband less if he DIDN'T help clean the house and look after the kids?! If he had the attitude that all of that was 'my' job and he wasn't going to be involved.

I agree with Peggy - my dh is working full-time and I'm not working at all at the moment. So I do almost all of the cleaning (he does the ironing and some laundry; will vacuum and unload the dishwasher if I ask), and the majority of the childcare (he's working, after all, and isnt' there to do it).

But when dh is home and available, he spends time with his daughters. He WANTS to have a good relationship with them, for goodness' sake. Looking after the kids isn't JUST a job (although it is that)...we are getting to know our children, teaching them, learning from them, developing relationships with them that will hopefully be positive ones for both of us throughout our lives. Do most dads not want that? And if they dont' want that, there is something seriously wrong with this picture....

[laralou]

Here are my objections:

In "Mommy Wars," the author implies clearly that women who choose to work are not raising their own children and are self-centered. She also calls day-cares "part-time orphanages and paid surrogate mommies." I would quote these sections but they are copyright protected.

In "And the Family Came Tumbling Down," the author, Mrs. LaHaye gives the expected drivel about how homosexuals daring to want a legal partnership is eroding the "family." What I personally took offense to is the implication that women working outside the home singlehandedly is responsible for the rising divorce rate.

And in "Cleaning the Bathroom," OMG! The author states that women who have a job outside the home are "abandoning their infants to feel they are "equal" to men." She compares men helping with housework to men trying to breastfeed an infant. I am seriously concerned about the study she refers to where men love their wives less if they have to help with the housework. Maybe if they were taught by moms like her. What I am most angered by this article is the implication that all women should quit their jobs and get to cleaning with a smile on their face. I am a sahm too and I do a majority of the work because I have the time, but I do not believe that every women's place is in the home nor that we should all frantically clean so our husbands don't quit loving us.

This kind of material does not empower women, it demeans them. It pits sahms against wohms. It insults any woman who "chooses" to work. It implies that there is only one right way to be a woman. I find it insulting and (a word I won't say here).

As someone who in the last year went from wohm to sahm, I can tell you that there are lots of reasons I would go back to work. I don't feel as intellectually stimulated homeschooling on a 2nd grade level, cleaning toilets and cooking chicken 30 different ways. I was a hospice admissions counselor and marketing rep. Everyday I helped families get the help they needed for their dying loved one and helped educate doctors and nurses on when and why to refer to hospice. I miss that. I miss having my own money that I could spend any amount exactly as I pleased without consulting with dh. I made huge sacrifices and left a really wonderful job because ds wasn't functioning well in the ps system, but I do not believe that it is the right choice for everyone. I want to be clear that I love being with ds all day, but I was a GREAT ap mommy before I quit work too. I realize that my feelings about woh are not mainstream ap, but I think it is evil to be so insulting and condescending. I have NEVER read anything said by or about Jesus that condoned this kind of crap!

That is JMHO.

[daylily]

Well, I asked dh to take off his shirt and chop me some firewood, but he prefers to sit in his easy chair reading The Atlantic Monthly.

I think that it's only fair for SAHMs to do a good portion of the housework--whatever they can during dh's work day. But once the husband comes home, remaining chores should be split up. My dh does come home to a clean house and a hot dinner most days, and on the days when the house is a disaster, he knows we've just had a crappy day and helps me out.

[laralou]

Not to mention, daylily, that our dh's are on their jobs for a limited amount of time a week. Our jobs never end. I notice this most when dh gets a couple of weeks off between placements. If he sat around while I cleaned and cooked for 3 weeks, I would have a fit (and did just a month ago).
I also forgot to say, peggy, thanks for pointing out that the study didn't say whether women felt more or less love for their husbands based on the help around the house they get.

[pie]

NM, yes, I know you are a Christian. But this is ridiculous. Jesus did not tell us to serve our husbands hand and foot. Those articles were anti-homosexual as well. I haven't much time as my child is sick still, but it is just completely out of line to defend either of those articles. My husband works and still cooks dinner and does the laundry. He also changes the sheets for me and every so very often he CLEANS the bathroom. Maybe twice a year but you know what? He wants me to be happy too. And I am obviously very lucky. Then, I would never have gotten married if all men thought like that.

Really, ladies, come on!! Those of you who stay home: if you worked outside the home, I am willing to bet you would STILL be doing most of the housework. Tjose of you who do work outside the home, when you get home, do you pitch in w childcare/dinner etc or is your husband standing there wrapped in saran wrap holding a martini???????????? %$^@ ME!!


Mothering (nurturing...grrrr....) is VERY hard work. Couple it w running errands, caring for the ill in the home, planning parties, and in my case, volunteer work, and guess what? Housework can be the straw that breaks the camel's back! This has NOTHING to do w feminism... it has to do with the fact that anyone who lives in the house should help care for it. And "manly" work??? Most women I know, myself included, do an awful lot of that nowadays.

Fair is fair and condescending is condescending. DO ALL OF IT IF YOU LIKE TOO! Your husband will like that, I am sure? But HAPPIER? My mom did everything and my dad cheated on her her whole life. I think he was BORED when he came home.

Hilary, I have a french maids costume. What do you think I wear, jeans? Please. even feminists have standards.

Oh and wasn't "Arbeit macht frei" over the entrance of Auswitz or Bergen-Belsen or somewhere?

[Hilary Briss]

Yes, it was at Auschwitz. I knew I could count on you to pick that up.

[Lucy]

Yes, but since I am a SAHM, if I wasn't the one doing the washing, cleaning, cooking, childcare, homeschooling, what would I be doing? I agree with a lot of the housework articlle (the only one I read). I think my dh's job is very stressful, and he is starting up his own co. He has to come and go at all hours, very unpredictable schedule, and to top it off always worry abt $, bc we don't make that much. When he comes home, I enjoy having a nice hot meal waiting for him and a clean house. I would not expect him to cook dinner or wash his own laundry, just as he doesn't expect me to go run a load of cars from the auction to FL!

Doing these things and doing them well makes me feel really good abt myself, my role as a mother, and a wife. I try to approach housework,ect with a servants heart. It does make ME happy. Ok so I am very old fashioned, but I thank GOD daily thast I do not have to wake up at 6 am, drag dd out to daycare, & work 8 hrs.

I don't feel it makes me any less of a person, it makes me feel good abt myself to be able to take care of my family. I also think it is avery good role model for dd, to see mothering as such an important goal in life. I hope she sees how much I love her, to enjoy doing these things for her, and dh.

JMO! Flame away if you need to.