Is staying home with the kids high risk behavior?

[MonkeyMama]

Stay at home mom/ spouse are lazy. I work, go to school and take care of my household while trying to study for my board. It hits a nerve that some woman stay at home all day watching soap and state that they have the world toughest job.. ok they have to cook, clean, care for children yada yada yada. But I do cook, clean and will care for my children all this while working.

I guess most haven't found this warranting a reply but had to say does not sound like you have children???? I went to school and worked full-time and thought those were my toughest years until I had kids. If only they were so easy. Staying home is an extremely tough job.

Of course this is my pet peeve of society of late, that children are given so little regard. It truly does take a village to raise a child. Doing it alone, as many women do, is a tough and often thankless job.

If there are women just sitting around watching soaps and neglecting their children, sure they are lazy. But what an awful stereotype. & the idea that raising children is not worth a full-time effort is what is wrong with society today.

With a full time "maid" and "cook" (my spouse) I work much harder as a working mom than I ever did as a childless adult myself. My husband would say the same - he has never worked harder in his life. There is no comparison. You don't get a vacation from kids, you don't do the work when and how you feel like it. You can't just quit when you get exasperated or worn out. There is not a lot of room for error. There is nothing lazy about it.

[MonkeyMama]

Kind of interesting topic.

We have life insurance and disability but I am not sure how to protect ourselves from potential divorce.

I can take care of myself and my family just fine. I can not imagine putting myself in a position of not being able to. My aunt was left with 4 children and had no skills to take care of herself finanically in the least - never had a bank account in her life. The effect was so profound on my family I was raised to be able to take care of myself. It was REALLY important to both my parents after seeing what my aunt went through. Whether staying home or not was important to me I would make sure I always had a plan or strategy if my marriage indeed went sour.

On the flip side, for us, rasing kids is a very important, time-consuming endeavor. For the long-term we would both like to work part-time and share all the duties rather equally, and has a side benefit of leaving us with much less financial risk individually. For the short-term we have found it necessary, to reach all of our goals, non-financial and financial, to rely on one wage for a number of years. It is a risk my spouse takes being home but with a college degree and all I know he can take care of himself all the same. But taking the risk, as to why? BEcause we really value family. I think we have found a good balance not sacrificing either of our financial futures though - took great care and planning though.

I know many SAHMs who could take the bull by the horns and care for themselves just fine, who have kept up certain skills over time, etc., or could even do it on sheer strength and will alone. I also know a lot of women who wanted to leave their spouses but didn't want to leave the financial comfort of marriage, as they relied too heavily on their spouse financially. I think as a SAHP you can approach it many different ways.

[PrincessPerky]

...you take a risk when you get married PERIOD..it is a risk to agree to devote the rest of your life to one and only one (adult) human being...along with the obvious risks of emotional trauma should you have chosen wrong, there is also the risks financial, proffessinal and honestly physical, you are after all agreeing to live with someone, while you sleep they may be awake..what might they do?

One in four women in the U.S. will be assaulted by their partner over their lifetimes.wiki

When you have children the risk is even greater, what might they do to your kids?.... (worse what might they do without you knowing it?)

Marriage IS risk, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, I didn't marry my husband because I trusted he would financially support me, nor because I felt he would never hurt me, I married him because he completes my life.. I need him the way I need water...(and chocolate!)

This doesn't mean I sit here helpless, nor that I watch soaps . Simply means to me that wondering into a marriage all afraid of wreck and ruin is a good reason to skip the marriage!

On the other hand, everyone should endevor to be competant capable, and willing to adapt to situations. Boy/girl, married/unmarried, no one should rely so heavly on anyone as to have their whole world come crashing down should that someone not awake one day...only a child has to suffer that, and they only so long as you leave them skilless. (hence why I EC so early, not just cause I hate changeing diapers, but because children do not deserve to wait for the whim of an adult for any longer than neccesary)

[Gruntina]

I seen a few cases couples grow apart because they are both working fulltime and raising kids that they dont spend enough time together as husband and wife and result in divorce. But in today's time, I am sure with our souring divorce rate that there is long long long list of reasons for divorce.

[Snoopy2645]

Lazy sorry but that hits a nerve I am anything but lazy I have never been lazy a day in my life!!! Thats why at age 30 I own 2 houses outright without the help of a man I paid them off & raised one dd on my own.

I would call myself a sahm I make 1/5 of what my dh makes but I work 2 pt jobs that could easily go FT anytime I want plus I am staying in the workforce keeping up my skills. I control quite a bit of the money so I know whats going on & we live in my house so thats not much of an issue & I still have my own savings from before we met. I run 3 kids 3 different directions all day every day & do my WAHM job late nights & then sleep 5hrs & I work my outside the home job on weekends. My dh works 12-15 hrs a day 7 days a week by his own choice. I have begged him to quit for the kids he wont. I have told him we can do it without this job. HE IS TOO SELFISH HE WANTS A MOTORCYCLE & NEW TRUCK EVEN THOUGH MY KIDS NEED A DAD

So I am doing what works for us I have sent my kids to daycares & its not all that. I dont remember the last TV show I watched besides the news. And I rarely have free time online usually its only when I am working in between calls which is rare.

TOO BAD THEY DONT TEACH LIFESKILLS IN COLLEGE HUH???

[PrincessPerky]

Teach those life skills NOW..don't ask a college to do it please, kids are capable of so much if we simply offer the opportunity, be there to catch them if they fall, be there to break it down easier, but don't wait for some magical government to teach them or some fancy billion dollar college to teah it, you have the skills, share them!

Not very nice, but my opinion..(and I haven't had chocolate for 5 days, so I am in no mood to be nice....)

[PetMom]

I knew this thread would get interesting.

I had been reading just last week about this topic and
there are so many books about this.

My favorite: "Two Incomes and Still Broke" and "The
Second Shift" show how working moms really have
not such a great deal and how families are not doing
better and the stress forces some into divorce (the
authors' theory).

Then on the other hand there are: Linda Hekker (she
has her own website and was mentioned in this post)
who did devote her life to her family and regrets it now.

And "Go To Work' by Linda Hirshman who tells women
to work and leave the house messy.

I do wonder how profitable working is when one has
two kids under Kindergarten age. And I know what
work a baby or toddler is. Sure they might corral
them pretty good in daycares, but at home they get
into everything and must be monitored and cared for.
But men sometimes do opt out to care for kids.

And insurance? I love reading about this, but no one has
mentioned how hard the insurance companies battle
paying out a policy! They do not just fork over money
in every case.
Court battles for years wage on as people learn this
very fact. Read the policy on circumstances they will
not pay on, all the fine print.

Maybe we need an insurance thread.

[TBH]

For the long-term we would both like to work part-time and share all the duties rather equally, and has a side benefit of leaving us with much less financial risk individually.

This is our dream, too. Our solution has been to have 1.5 incomes since our son was born (he's 3 now). For the first 20 months or so, I worked 25 hours a week and my partner worked FT. Then he worked 21 hours a week and I worked FT. Now, we're just about to switch back, and I'll be down to about 15 hours a week and he's FT again. (At the moment we're overlapping--we're both working FT for a few months. How do people do this? I'm exhausted all the time).

I've found that working PT is a great compromise for me. I did not like working FT and having a toddler, even though my partner was home with him a couple of days a week. But working PT and having a couple week days at home with the kid--that's my favorite. I've had good PT jobs with benefits. My career hasn't been exactly on the fast track since it's hard to go to conferences and take on extra work. But my skills are fresh, my professional contacts are fresh, and there are no gaps in my resume. If my partner and I split up, it would be hard financially, but it would be equally hard for both of us. Neither one of us would be dependent on the other to get by.

To the person who said SAHPs are lazy--don't you know all generalizations are wrong? Seriously, come back here when you have kids and see if you still say the same thing. Kids are no picnic.

[LuxLiving]

Wow - Starving Student, I'd say you paint with one of the broadest brushes I've ever seen. Sure hope you didn't get any on yourself as you were slinging aspersions! I take it you've never raised a child???

SAHM here. I was home before I had kids because of an auto accident whiplash that kept being aggravated by my self-employment workload, but then I stayed home to homeschool my kiddos. I can tell you it has not been a bed of roses, nor have I stuffed myself w/bonbons, nor plugged into the idiot box.

I have done lots of volunteering, fund-raising, building a library from the ground up (yes a real building and books), headed a large non-profit as the President and started a food bank, put on week long workshops and do keep my skills up for my profession. I could return to work this very afternoon w/a single phone call - maybe not the ideal job, but still a viable means of earning a paycheck.

Besides which as others have said being there for our children is an important gift that some of us are blessed to have the privilege of participating in. Let us not forget that many times it is the stay at home neighbor who steps in and takes working folks kids to the doctor, cares for an aging parent or disabled child at home, fixes the meals for the funerals, decorates the halls for the weddings, etc., etc. Not that working folks don't do these things as well, but we do provide vital services for the community.

Shoot, some of us even do the occasional part-time scut work and clean houses for those who are working or going to school full time. It takes ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE doing all kinds of things to make a community work - some jobs are just paid and others are looked down upon, but that does not make them ANY less important. Nor those of us who can fit them into our day lazy!!

Disneysteve, I do agree about the need for term life insurance and disability insurance. It isn't always inexpensive, at least not in my case as the Hubster is a smoker which puts his premiums up quite high for us on the one income. It is something I am shooting for though. When/If I return to workworld it's right at the top of my list of things to spend the income on.

Staying at home risky? Yes it can be - financiallly speaking. Folks who do this should probably try to have their own separate account of some kind (can you say spousal IRA?) and be VERY mindful of funding it! And to try to keep their finger on the pulse of the family finances as well. Do not go blind into the night. Stay Informed and keep planning for your own personal fiscal well-being!

[jodi]

[QUOTE=TBH;112335]I've found that working PT is a great compromise for me.
QUOTE]

Ditto here. I planned to stay home after ds1 was born, until a great half-time state job literally fell into my lap - too good to pass up. Good thing I took it too, as a year later DH lost his job completely out of the blue. Having my income and benefits enabled him to take the year off to return to school (I was able to get insurance through my job). If I was not working, DH would have taken the first job that came along, probably in another dead-end ungrateful agency with low pay and long hours. Now, he has his teaching degree. In addition, I got my real estate license several years back in preparation for staying home more when I had kids. I didn't do any of this because I thought I would end up single, but to supplement our income without a 9-5 job. It seems that sometimes planning for the future with your spouse could protect you as well should something happen to him. It never hurts to have a back-up.
This is not to say that I think all moms should or should not work. When we decide to have more kids in a year or two, I plan to stay home for a few years. I guess my point is that it is such an individual decision that there are no rights or wrongs. In my case, I have my own Roth and I work in a field where there will always be opportunities. Also, I have left every job I ever had with glowing references, which I believe (some may say foolishly, but I don't think so) will speak louder than any gap of a few years that I have in my resume. We both have a good amount of life insurance, although I do admit that we don't have disability insurance (I'll put it on my to-do list).
I am not even going to address the "lazy mom" comment...it's not even worthy of discussion, and completely irrelevant to the point of this post. Let's not dissolve into which option is "the best" and keep to the original intent of the post.

[JanH]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned that many SAHMs volunteer at schools. Many volunteers put incredible amounts of time into helping do so many things including tutoring kids. I know I helped out a lot before I got too sick. Believe me, volunteers are needed and appreciated! I remember spending days (almost all day) copying and putting together massive amounts of paperwork for one grades' state tests practices. It took several of us. I know the teachers and aides wouldn't have had the time. There have been a couple of years around here where I was responsible for keeping track of three separate households in our family. I am Hubby's personal manager around here. I keep track of all things personal so he can focus on his stressful and time consuming job. He has said that he couldn't have done it without the contribution I make at home. I do know that my skills for the workplace have not kept up with the changing times, so I might have to go back to school if I want to reenter. That is if I can get my lazy, tv-watching, bonbon-eating self off the couch....lol. I can't believe that someone seriously believes that is what SAHMs do. I haven't met one yet that does.....

[starving_student]

bye bye

All the stay at home mom that I know were on the lazy side and vulnerable (affraid to go back to work after the kids were in school). I totally understand extended maternity leaves (1-2 years?). But a stay at home mom with a lone 7 years old??.. Come on give me a break. My sample size is rather limited but of the at least 10 stay at home mom that I can think of most were not doing much beside cooking, cleaning (too much) their house and running errands. all things that I get to do myself. I am way older than most people assume I am (must be the name..) and I used to foster kids. They were a lot of work and I totally understand the comitment that mother have to put in their children to ensure that they grow up into healthy sane happy human beings. However working mother have the same work load and they do clean and they do cook etc...

For all of you doing all this volunteering you wouldn't really qualify as a stay at home mom in my opinion. You are more like an unpaid worker. Also working from home is working too!

Knowing that the divorce rate is above 50% it seems to me like an extremelly risky behavior which present too few advantages to be worth it.

People reactions got me to think though... I probably don't belong here. I have been on SA once in a while but I don't think I really fit in. I got smashed a few times for stating very common sense opinion (THe infamous Children should not be fed RAMEN threads) and now this one. SA I enjoyed my time here but now time to let it go....

Bye bye everybody Have fun in whatever you do.... I will try to pay more attention to my books and less to Ramen-fed children

ss

[JanH]

I just got to thinking of how confusing it sounded when I said three households. We've had kids in different households in college and one year Hubby worked out of town for the year and lived in an apartment. So we've had rotating households for a few years.

I've also been thinking about how much people volunteer. I didn't even realize how much is done by volunteers. Kudos to those men and women who are SAHpersons and workplace persons who volunteer in all areas of service!

[jodi]

They were a lot of work and I totally understand the comitment that mother have to put in their children to ensure that they grow up into healthy sane happy human beings. However working mother have the same work load and they do clean and they do cook etc...
For all of you doing all this volunteering you wouldn't really qualify as a stay at home mom in my opinion. You are more like an unpaid worker. Also working from home is working too!
Knowing that the divorce rate is above 50% it seems to me like an extremelly risky behavior which present too few advantages to be worth it.

ss

ss - if you are still around -
I think if you had started with this statement rather than the inflammatory "SAHMs are lazy", we could have continued this intelligent debate. One of the best things about this site (that I haven't seen elsewhere) is the ability to have thoughtful debates about just about any topic, even when the debaters are on completely opposite sides of the fence. We do it here because most everyone respects everyone else and knows that everyone has a unique perspective to contribute. Unfortunately, when you start a post like you did, it immediately puts everyone on the defensive. Just thought I would explain one point of view (though others may disagree).
Your perspective and opinions are important and I enjoy hearing debate, even if I don't agree. However, if you are going to make inflammatory statements, I doubt anyone will beg you to stay.

[LuxLiving]

Nanamom and other SAHerss who are looking outward towards retirement or the possible loss of a spouse, it may be time to take a look at the planning calculators over at the S.S. website:

Benefits Planner: Your Future Benefits

If you are a SAHer & not yet 60 years of age and/or don't think you'll be that age when a working spouse might conceivably pass (I know, we could all go at any time), then you likely NEED some term life insurance on that person. I had a question about this and talked to a financial planner at Fidelity who advised me because of specific age differences I needed 15 years of term coverage on The Hubster to make those gap years between now & when I would be eligible to collect on his SS survivor benefits. Before that I couldn't figure out how many years of coverage we would need. Brain block!! It finally made sense to me!

This is especially important if you don't see yourself entering/re-entering the workforce. Our kids are past the age limits for them to get survivor benefits and I'm not of an age to receive them either...so if I hope to have an income w/o working I better buy that term insurance! Otherwise it's back to the saltmines for me!!

Starving Student, stick around. I, for one, am open to the debate if you are. We need common sense thinkers too! What would happen if we all remember that we have all age groups and all belief systems here??? Some may be of religious convictions SAHers or old enough to be part of the generation that most women never worked in at all and comments about their lifestyle can be hurtful if they aren't well-balanced. Sounds like you may need a larger sample base of data for comparison purposes.

Hahaha, I stayed home after mine were 7, I was homeschooling them, so yeah, we live in a multi-generational/multi-cultural world where there are all types of living situations. I'm still home instead of back to either part or full time work as I have a child w/a disability that (although grown) can't drive himself to work YET. Darn that parallel parking requirement!! We're working on it! Anybody know of a micro-mini car we might rent to squeeze in between those poles???

Right now it is more important to me that HE be the one to find his place in the world as he is able. I can rustle for myself a bit later if need be.

But, you are correct, with divorce rates so high it might be important for everyone to consider their own bottom line and earning power! Still comes to down to mostly choices we each must make based on our consumption appetite on the needs/wants scale. For instance I NEED to be working NOW in order to qualify for SS on my own work record, but because I want to support my son in his efforts to fly free, I choose to stay at home - for now. Soon to change - if we can ever get that parallel parking down! I choose this not only for him, but for society at large not to have to support him if he can earn his own way.

And, cool beans that you fostered kids. That's great.