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SAHMing as default huring society's work/life balance?

7K views 184 replies 48 participants last post by  mammal_mama 
#1 ·
One of my friends was recently asserting the following --

That SAHM-ing is still the default expectation for the wives of professionals (doctor, lawyer, etc.) and the "executive" worker.

That SAHM-ing is contributing to and reinforcing the total work/life in-balance of many of those workers (as the hours requirements for those jobs are extremely high and just getting higher) -- since the expectation is that those workers have someone at home managing all other aspects of their lives (grocery shopping, bill paying, appointment making, childcare, etc., etc.) so that they can focus 100% on their career.

She feels that if the general social understanding was that the wives were continuing to work, and that the husbands would as a result HAVE to meet at least some proportion of primary responsibility for child-care and running the household, that the situation would not be as bad as it currently is. She further thinks that more women would be able to stay in those sorts of jobs full-time if the work/life balance was more reasonable.

I thought this was an interesting idea, though perhaps overstated. Thoughts?
 
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#152 ·
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Originally Posted by choli View Post
My children had contact with many trained professionals with whom they bonded in childcare situations. I consider them very lucky to have this variety of carers, rather than just one full time frazzled carer.
This struck me as a very rude comment.
 
#153 ·
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Originally Posted by Momma Aimee View Post
I
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: at the risk of being labled a hopless june clever and asked to turn over my drivers liscen -- why is this so wrong -- it allows for the best care of the children, it creats puzzle peices that are able to fit together to form a stable and workable family unit. It allows for the man and wife to be complementry rather than identical or competevie.
I have no issue with you or anyone else organizing your family in that way. But unfortunately, these gender stereotypes can cause a great deal of needless anxiety when we don't fit them. I disagree with your statement that this set up allows for the best care of children because the way the statement is phased, it is a universal. And there is NO ONE BEST WAY. Period. End of statement.

Look at it this way. One of the hallmarks of humanity is our adaptability to new environments and contexts. We are able to fine tune our responses to exactly fit the ever changing needs we face.

So of course moms and dad are going to have a myriad of responses to childcare and earning money - this is evidence of our ability to adapt. We don't want to see others doing exactly what we are doing, because it means that someone (us or them) is NOT responding to the specific circumstance that we uniquely face.

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ALso I think this is really an outdated statement. I know sahd and was raised by one. None have "issues" with the wife making all the money.
I wish this were true. The pressure that men I know personally have faced, from friends, family, potential employers, when they have made decisions which made making money lesser to family commitments is astonishing for this day and age. There is a reason why the standard excuse for a top executive being fired is "decided to spend more time with his family." It is so patently a lie, it assumes that the only reason why a high flyer would spend more time with his family is because he has no other choice.
 
#154 ·
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Originally Posted by Rivka5 View Post
It doesn't really surprise me, though, because I think it's very hard to have this discussion without it turning into an argument about whether individual women are making "the wrong choices." I think our culture encourages mothers to feel pitted against each other (or sometimes against working women without children), rather than encouraging us to ask larger questions about why our social and economic system is arranged the way that it is.
Yup. Because if we can present the problem as one of individual choice, then society bears no responsibility.

I had a conversation with a friend about the "opt out revolution" recently - the fact is that the decision about working or not working with children is directly constrained by:

* inadequate and costly childcare
* insufficient part time jobs and a workaholic culture
* rising cost of living and lack of equal salary increases
* clear and patent discrimination against mothers in the workforce
* high divorce rates
* lack of health insurance, and increasing premiums in employer based insurance
* increased recognition that social security won't see anyone through their 80s
etc etc etc

There is no one right choice, because many of us are going to get it in the neck, regardless of what we decide to do.

But if we frame all this stuff as a choice - then suddenly, the responsibility is ours to deal with the rest of the system. Free will and all that.

Yeah, right.
 
#155 ·
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Originally Posted by DariusMom View Post
But why, oh why, are WOH dads never categorized as "not raising their children"? Why is this thrown only at Moms who WOH? I never hear the SAHM talk about how their DHs aren't "raising their kids" -- only that WOHM aren't.
I think the whole thing is wrong and offensive, but I could deal with it better if it weren't so hypocritical . . .
I agree.
 
#156 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by siobhang View Post
Yup. Because if we can present the problem as one of individual choice, then society bears no responsibility.

I had a conversation with a friend about the "opt out revolution" recently - the fact is that the decision about working or not working with children is directly constrained by:

* inadequate and costly childcare
* insufficient part time jobs and a workaholic culture
* rising cost of living and lack of equal salary increases
* clear and patent discrimination against mothers in the workforce
* high divorce rates
* lack of health insurance, and increasing premiums in employer based insurance
* increased recognition that social security won't see anyone through their 80s
etc etc etc

There is no one right choice, because many of us are going to get it in the neck, regardless of what we decide to do.

But if we frame all this stuff as a choice - then suddenly, the responsibility is ours to deal with the rest of the system. Free will and all that.

Yeah, right.
: As always Siobang, you put it perfectly.
 
#157 ·
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Originally Posted by transformed View Post
Yeah, and forgive me for being a frazzled SAHM cause I didnt even think of that-It occured tome that when both parents work, the kids go to daycare at 6 AM and get picked up at 6 PM.

Sorry for assuming, I really didnt think about that at all.

(And in the case of daycares I have seen-that IS the case often-6AM to 6PM)


Well here you couldn't even find a daycare that opened at 6am and closed at 6pm. DD's current one opens at 7:30 and closes at 5:30. Her former one opened at 7 and closed at 5:30. Most kids are not there the whole time. In fact we moved from the NYC area b/c we realized if we had kids they would have to be there for 12 hours a day.

A big ditto to this

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Whether or not individual families choose to have one or two working parents, the fact remains that it no longer makes sense - if it ever did - for the workplace to be structured on the premise that workers have no family commitments or outside priorities. Across the board - across all industries and professions - there needs to be a recognition that workers of both genders are likely to have pressing commitments outside the workplace. There needs to be greater space for each individual to create the work-life balance that works best for them, whether that might involve flex time, job sharing, part-time work, telecommuting, etc. There needs to be a way to secure health care for your family without being tied to a full-time job.

The answer is not to say that WOHMs should quit their jobs and stay home, and it's not to say that SAHMs are hurting other women if they don't go back to work. The answer is to restructure the American workplace.
thank you Rivka. I really thought after 9/11 there would be a bigger switch to more family friendly workplaces at least a little b/c so many people saw what was important. But then the next day when my boss still went into the office (I worked just below 14th St and Broadway in NYC) and left her family of 3 in NJ, I knew it probably wouldn't change.

Now you read about "good workplaces" like Google where they offer a hair salon and dry cleaning and wonderful catering "on campus" and I fail to see how that's a good workplace. Frankly I'd rather be encouraged to take my full hour lunch and get out of the office to have lunch and work such hours that allow me to drop off my dry cleaning (if I had any) to or from work. How is it good to really do your best to make work the only thing in your life?
 
#158 ·
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Originally Posted by meganeilis View Post
This struck me as a very rude comment.
Yes, I thought it was rude, too -- but I think that poster was responding to some who said that WOHM's weren't raising their children. I hate when this happens, because when one person makes a below-the-belt statement -- it just encourages the attacked parties to hit below-the-belt, too.

I'm going to reiterate my belief that as long as our primary focus is on parenting our children and meeting their needs during the years when they need us -- we're ALL raising our children.

Yes, occasionally I've met some parents who always seem to be looking for a place to drop off their kids so they can have "child-free time." I've perceived those parents as not very attached to their children -- but I've met some like this who SAH, and others who WOH. And no, I'm not talking about sometimes needing a break just to do something for yourself and recharge.

I'm talking about moms and dads who'd like a block of several hours every weekend -- or about one of my friend's husbands who was always nagging at her to find someone to keep their children overnight, so she could come help him finish his work and they could have a child-free night. I think those poor children were spending at least 2-3 nights a week away from their parents.

That is really sad.
: But, as Amys1st said about the "extremes" -- these people are very few and far between, compared with the majority of parents who, whether WOH or SAH, are doing what they do out of love for their growing children.
 
#159 ·
Oh, and I heard about one couple who dropped their child off at Grandma's on Monday morning and picked him up Friday night: this was their routine EVERY WEEK. I guess because of all the odd hours they worked, and the distance, it "wasn't practical" to have him live at home during the week. When you do that with a small child, I think it creates a real confusion as to who his parents really are.

Well, at least it was less traumatic for him when Mommy and Daddy divorced. He kept living with Grandma, and Dad moved in there, too. And then he got to be with Mommy, like every weekend or every other weekend (similar to before, only without Daddy). Not such a big change for him, I guess. So maybe this arrangement really was better for this particular child and family.

Edited to add: didn't mean to go OT -- just, if we have to talk about who is/isn't raising their kids, I thought I'd throw in an example. It's clearly an unusual case: most parents -- whether WOH or SAH -- wouldn't dream of being separated from their child for 5 days a week, every single week.
 
#160 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by mammal_mama View Post
It's clearly an unusual case: most parents -- whether WOH or SAH -- wouldn't dream of being separated from their child for 5 days a week, every single week.
Well, just to throw out another data point. My dad was sent to boarding school at age 7. This was very common in his country (Ireland) for his class/religion (middle class Protestant Anglo-Irish). He went to a school that was less than 5 miles from his house and he spent every weekend at home with his family.

He was extremely well loved (spoiled, really) and very attached to his mother.

At age 13, he was sent to boarding school in another country (England) and he came home maybe four times a year.

My aunt (his younger sister) was sent to boarding school at age 8, to a school over 20 miles away. She also came home every weekend.

Even today, while the school my father went to is now combined day/boarding, there is still a strong tradition in particular class/groups in the UK/Ireland of children sent to boarding school by age 7-12.

Few places/cultures that I know about normally encourage support separation under the age of 5, however.
 
#161 ·
This is an interesting thread, Siobhan.

A friend from college who typically makes $400K/yr (but made $1M the last two years) stopped by yesterday and casually wondered why I (or my dh) didn't leave our jobs in public service to go into the private sector and rake it in. His wife does not work; they're contemplating having their first child (& probably only) next year; she'll definitely be the primary caregiver for their child.

The answer I gave him was that I (& my dh) want to be home at 6 to have dinner with the family every night.

But why is the default for high-powered jobs a greater than 40 hour week? I've seen headlines recently about what hard workers Americans are. What does this mean, and what does this get us as a society? I don't mean to be flip - I'd really like someone's considered response.

In my profession, the default work week in the private sector was 40 hours a week 50 years ago. Now the default work week is 8 to 8, 6 days a week; more if you're gearing up for a trial.
 
#162 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rio Mama View Post
But why is the default for high-powered jobs a greater than 40 hour week? I've seen headlines recently about what hard workers Americans are. What does this mean, and what does this get us as a society? I don't mean to be flip - I'd really like someone's considered response.

In my profession, the default work week in the private sector was 40 hours a week 50 years ago. Now the default work week is 8 to 8, 6 days a week; more if you're gearing up for a trial.
Well, I think that for high-powered American jobs, employees are compensated extremely well. You mentioned your friend who has taken home $1m over the past two years, for instance.

And then for those who aren't taking in that much, but who want to do it, they have to work those hours to get to that point (e.g., beginner corporate attorneys, beginner investment bankers). They sure aren't suffering as far as salary goes either even though it's not in the 7 figures.

Not to be too flip, but that's a heck of a lot of money, and I'm not surprised it requires more than 40 hours. In other countries elite jobs either require tons of hours or aren't nearly well as compensated, speaking very generally.

Getting back to the original question, I can't see how you'd do one of those jobs without a SAHP at home taking care of everything to do with the family. It would be very hard otherwise.
 
#163 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rio Mama View Post
But why is the default for high-powered jobs a greater than 40 hour week?.
Because that's why it's called a high powered job? Seriously, do you think someone in a high powered job is doing 20 hours a week and getting paid a million a year?
 
#164 ·
A small and meaningless caveat to the scope of the intellectual prowess of this thread:

some women do not want to be with their children all day
some do not want to stay home
some find staying home hard and beneath them
some do not want to trust their husbands for providing for the family
some do not want to live in a lower economic bracket
some do not want to move or go without things to be able to stay home
some do not want public assistance, thrift store clothes or old cars

And in kind, some women do want to do some or all of those things.

The women's movemet was to dislodge us from shoulds and inequality and into doing what we desire and with equality. It literally gave us a voice to vote, to be educated, to be seen and respected. To put down mothering at home as lesser, ignorant, frazzled, whatnot or as taking away from society's work'life balance is to negate what many of our foremothers fought for us.

I had to look up the term "opt out revolution" and found an interesting article on it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/ma...ZqXu9vpl4RzMyA
 
#165 ·
Thanks for the link, Hotmamacita! That's a good article.

It helped me think more about why I don't have to worry that there won't be a job for me, if I ever do want to reenter the workforce.

Even when I was single, my focus was always on doing work that fulfilled me -- and I've always been fulfilled by nurturing others. After my children are grown, if for some reason I need to earn an income, I feel I have lots of options to do this in ways that are meaningful and rewarding to me.

I don't forsee any reduction in the need for good foster-care parents in my state. I also don't forsee any reduction in the need for good paraprofessionals to work in our public school system. I have an associates degree in Early Childhood, and a bachelor's in Social Work.

I never ended up getting a degree in special education, though I was interested, but I hear there's somewhat of a demand for paraprofessionals to assist in meeting the needs of the special needs children in public school classrooms. I'm not sure exactly what would be available to me some 15 years from now, but I'm sure I can find someone who will hire me, if and when the time comes that I'm looking.

I guess I've never really been on a "career-track" -- so I never got off one, either -- and I have no interest in getting on at this phase of my life. Which is probably a good thing, since I'll be well into my 50's when my children are grown; it's good I'm at a place where I can be content with a job, and don't feel a need to build a career. My "career" has been a life of nurturing, both with and without pay.

I can't see myself regretting, when I'm 80, that I didn't build a different sort of life.
 
#166 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rio Mama View Post
This is an interesting thread, Siobhan.

A friend from college who typically makes $400K/yr (but made $1M the last two years) stopped by yesterday and casually wondered why I (or my dh) didn't leave our jobs in public service to go into the private sector and rake it in. His wife does not work; they're contemplating having their first child (& probably only) next year; she'll definitely be the primary caregiver for their child.

The answer I gave him was that I (& my dh) want to be home at 6 to have dinner with the family every night.

But why is the default for high-powered jobs a greater than 40 hour week? I've seen headlines recently about what hard workers Americans are. What does this mean, and what does this get us as a society? I don't mean to be flip - I'd really like someone's considered response.

In my profession, the default work week in the private sector was 40 hours a week 50 years ago. Now the default work week is 8 to 8, 6 days a week; more if you're gearing up for a trial.
There has been some research into this, and when men work those hours not as many are working hours as when women do it. It seems that women know that they have to be somewhere else and work when at work. So those "high-powered" more than 40 hours guys are often not working efficiently.
 
#167 ·
"There has been some research into this, and when men work those hours not as many are working hours as when women do it. It seems that women know that they have to be somewhere else and work when at work. So those "high-powered" more than 40 hours guys are often not working efficiently."

Can we all say "Face Time" together?

Anyway, if you get a lot done, but no one sees it (via your presence at work at 10:30 at night) don't you just get more work?

Of course there are all the fun techiques to make everyone convinced what a hard worker you are -- never turning your office light off, leaving stacks of paper on your desk, drafting emails earlier in the day and then sending them out late at night -- all sorts of "office theater".
 
#168 ·
You both bring up a more intriguing and perhaps more fruitful thread for discussion....the realities of inefficient employees/positions and even entire businesses that actually hurt the workplace and our economic system. Also, there is a huge waste of resources and much employee apathy in our work environments that, imo, have NOTHING to do with staying home to take care of your children/whether you are a man/woman/single/married, etc...
 
#169 ·
All really good points.


I think a lot depends on the field. Mine (publishing) is pretty results oriented but there is a certain amount of - maybe not "face time" but "availability time" that you need, often to look at photo spreads and things which is still somehow a LOT easier to do in person than electronically. As I've said, the new piece since I went back, to me anyway, is the expectation to respond to email from home at night.

Also, like many creative fields, coming up with ideas sometimes takes time outside the 9-5 world - going to industry events or even non-industry events, getting out and talking to people, etc. For me that is something I would want to do anyway... but it is a balancing act with a toddler, for sure.

I had two days a week working from home written into my contract, which helps cut down on commuting time too, and also is less prone to interruption, and I leave at 4 every day. I have found that being firm about it hasn't hurt so far, but we'll see.

My husband's field, however, (IT consulting) is the reverse in many ways. His team actually spans three countries and two continents and face time is often nil. But the amount that they are expected to produce and their availability to deal with problem that come up is to my way of thinking unreal. And people who protest really are let go, and although there are some alternatives for sure, his particular passion/area of expertise is mostly just like that at this point in history.

And the reason companies make those demands is the marketplace - if they won't do it for X dollars and be available 24/7, someone else will. So it's way beyond just a corporate culture.

And frankly, it's even a societal thing - how many of us would be able to cope if, say, the credit card/debit card network was shut down for two days during the day for maintenance so that people don't have to miss weekends or work overnight... not too many. And yet in the past banks closed on weekends and people coped.

So yes, interesting times.
 
#170 ·
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Originally Posted by GuildJenn View Post
And the reason companies make those demands is the marketplace - if they won't do it for X dollars and be available 24/7, someone else will. So it's way beyond just a corporate culture.
Good point. If the neighborhood grocery store closed at 5, and I called dh on his way home from work to say, "We're out of milk: it's after 5, you'll have to stop at Walmart" -- that's some $4.00 the neighborhood store just lost that went to Walmart because Walmart decided to make some of their workers do a night-shift.

And some mamas prefer to do all their grocery shopping late at night when dh's are home and little ones are asleep.

You're right: the more we talk about changing society and the workplace, the more complex it all becomes. Rather than saying, "All wives should work," we could just as accurately say, "We should all limit our business transactions to 9 to 5, Monday through Friday." That'd probably improve things more than a few additional women going back to work after giving birth.
 
#172 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by bczmama View Post
"We should all limit our business transactions to 9 to 5, Monday through Friday."

And then - how do single people, or families with 2 working adults ever get any errands done? Its an ugly cycle...
Exactly! Limiting everyone to 9 to 5 transactions would be just as constricting as pressuring all women to return to work after giving birth, whether they wanted to or not.

It's ugly when we try to shove everyone into the same mold -- regardless of the ideology behind the mold.
 
#173 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by bczmama View Post
"We should all limit our business transactions to 9 to 5, Monday through Friday."

And then - how do single people, or families with 2 working adults ever get any errands done? Its an ugly cycle...
When I moved to Holland 7.5 years ago, this was kind of how it was, except that the store hours were 10-6. When my DH was little, the schools sent the kids home for lunch! All these things virtually guaranteed that a parent, almost always the mom, had to pretty much be a FT SAH.

things are slowly changing. most stores still aren't open on Sunday, especially in smaller towns and villages. more stores stay open longer on saturdays and stores are open on thursday evenings till 9:00 PM.

Still, the whole country is still set up for one parent to work full time and the other parent to work, at most, part time. As someone who works PT myself, I see a lot of advantages to it. However, Holland is on par with Pakistan (I kid you not) for the number of women who are in board level positions in the business world and the public sector. one reason is that women have a very hard time working FT OH, even if they want to, because nothing in the society is set up to encourage that. Yes, things are changing, but not very quickly.

so . . . as PPs said, be careful what you wish for, because it's usually the woman who gets shafted! (not to be cynical or anything . . . )
 
#174 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by DariusMom View Post
When I moved to Holland 7.5 years ago, this was kind of how it was, except that the store hours were 10-6. When my DH was little, the schools sent the kids home for lunch! All these things virtually guaranteed that a parent, almost always the mom, had to pretty much be a FT SAH.
That's exactly how it was when I visited friends in Macau, South China in 1997 (not the store hours: the school lunch arrangements). Macau was still under Portuguese rule at that time, and my missionary friends sent their children to Portuguese school. The 5yo stayed all day and had lunch with her class, but the 7yo had to go out with a parent for lunch.

I think the teachers just kind of sent the kids out the door, and it was the parents' responsibility to make sure they were there to meet them, not the teachers' to make sure they were met.

These friends knew one single mother who worked full-time, and she had arrangements with her job to get that segment of time off every day. Still, she seemed kind of harried sometimes and was grateful on days when my friends offered to care for her son along with their own.

I think it's probably nicer for the kids to have that spot of contact with a parent in the middle of the school day. Of course, it's kind of complicated if the school's not "right up the street," where the child can easily walk home on his own -- and also in this day and age we don't always feel it's safe for our children to walk even short distances unsupervised.
 
#175 ·
I'm late to the thread, but will add.

I think the responsibility for work-life balance rests on the shoulders of the workers and their employers. While your friend makes a valid connection between how a stay at home spouse can help one's career, it's not accurate to blame a non-working individual for the difficult conditions within a workplace.

However, women tend to get blamed for everything, so I understand why the argument was attempted.


Because so many are willing to work gruelling schedules in exchange for big bucks, or even a shot at big bucks, that's why things are the way they are. If people refused those jobs and those hours, then it would change. The long work schedules have much more to do with ambition and competitiveness than anything else.
 
#176 ·
I work in publishing too. Specifically magazine publishing. I like the cycles of it. There might be a day or two an issue where I might be needed later than normal but the then impending shortfall in work makes it easier to actually take comp time.

I do think sometimes proving that you're overworked is some kind of ego trip. Not that we aren't. But I sit across from a woman where I swear her job is high pressured to begin with but she makes it 10x worse by not delegating, or delegating and then getting reinvolved for no good reason or just starting out every conversation with how overworked she is. Like the rest of us do nothing or something.

I also had a boss that felt it was more important that you were in the office than doing actual work. Specifically you should stay late. So all of my peers and I would set the timers on our lights and computers to turn off 30 min after we left. I'm in circulation which can be very task oriented. I've never met a circulation person who didn't mind going the extra mile to get the job done. Or if I did they didn't last very long. But we're also very cynical people who don't like busy work and won't go the extra mile for nothing or should I say to appear busy.
 
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