I don't know if I'm alone in this observation, but as a CF woman, I OFTEN think that if I had just set out in life to marry a man and have kids - with the assumption that I would become a stay at home mom, my whole life would be different.
I'm not saying in any way that I would choose a different path if given a choice, I'm just saying from what I see, I often think that....I suppose with a little resentment thrown in!
It's worse now that I work in retail, in a store geared toward women, but I even see it in the people I know....SO MANY just ASSUMED they would be taken care of if they became SAHM's and they are! That is what drives me nuts!!! I NEVER assumed I wouldn't work in my marriage.....not even in this 2.5yr period where I was hoping to focus on school, I always planned to work part time as in my current status.
Even with the economy the way it is, we see all these women coming in with newborns and young toddlers and they are just spending their days strolling their kids around while their man pays the bills. I just marvel at that mentality I guess. Must be nice to assume you'll be taken care of, and then you just are! You pop out a kids, and viola! No more work....no worries...someone else will deal with making the money.
UGH....maybe I'm just very short tempered today....but I see WAY too much of this and it just bugs me.
Yes, but you would you really want to spend your days changing diapers, giving baby food, and listening to crying all day?
I could never have done this. Even when I thought I was straight, I knew it would lead to dependence and gender roles and children. I would rather go to jail, and I watch a lot of prison shows, and I have actually been incarcerated overnight. Yes, jail would be much better. In fact, what the hell is the difference?
I agree! Since I am married into the military, this mentality is huge. Almost all the women with kids that are 12 and under stay home. They bitch when their husbands don't make rank because they want that money. It is ALL about the money. It doesn't matter if they would be unhappy, the women want the cash so too bad for the military member. Then all want their husbands to stay in so they don't have to ever get a job, they can stay home and pop them out and spend their days shopping and spending the cash. They go and spend money on Longaberger baskets and Pampered Chef parties. I've seen what some of them spend - if I'm not working, and I'm not, I don't feel right about spending $500 on baskets and cooking supplies. Oh and $200 Coach purses, of course. I am not saying that you don't deserve something if you are non-working, but it is just my opinion that I don't buy things like that when I'm not.
These women get into base housing and they've never paid a utility bill or rent in their life, their medical is taken care of, everything. They've never had to really "make it" on their own. Sure they may bitch when their husband is away, as if they are "single parents" but they have the house and utilities, the paycheck, the medical, EVERYTHING and they don't have to work. Sometimes I'd love to see what they'd have to do if they had to make it on their own!
I think it's just an illusion. Yes, maybe these women are being taken care of NOW, especially if they have young children and babies -- but one day, he's going to expect her to live up to the agreement they made early in their marriage (along the lines of "stay home with the kids until they go into school, then you get your ass a job"), and then he will be shocked when she won't.
I have no doubt that inside some of these pampered families, the man has been yelling at her to get a job NOW and screw their original agreement, because the family is going down the tubes, if she won't stop her spending. In some households, he will end up stealing the credit cards out of her purse and closing the accounts. In others, he will open a separate checking account, take her name of the family's main account, and dole out an allowance. In others, he will realize she has no intention of ever working, or ever controlling her spending, and he will leave her.
There are very few MODERN men who will put up with a traditional arrangement for long. Men's salaries aren't what they used to be, and they need help -- meanwhile, the goods one wants to buy have grown exponentially, so if she wants stuff, she needs to make money to buy stuff.
These aren't equal marriages. Women can crow all they want about how they are doing the hardest job in the world, but let's face it -- it's a job anyone with a functioning brain slightly above the level of a permanent vegetative state can do with at least some success. It's not in any way equal to work in the real world, where you have to scratch and claw, where you have to deal with assholes on a daily basis, where you are judged on your work every single minute, and where you could lose your job, too. The Hardest Job In The World has tons of down time, plenty of "me" time, plenty of General Hospital and Dr Phil time, plenty of shopping time, plenty of "shut up and go away, mommy has a headache" time, and has 100% job security, if things proceed normally (he will stay with her, he will pay all bills, and the kids will not go away for at least 23 years). They DO NOT have it as hard as they complain that they do. And one day, after her husband has spent years under the thumb of the biggest asshole on the planet, when he's has to kiss one too many butts, when he's been passed over AGAIN for promotion, when he wants nothing more than to go home and put a bullet in his brain, he will realize that her laziness was in some small part (or in some large part) the architect of his misery.
My husband may one day come home and realize the same thing, but it won't be because I didn't pull my weight in the household.
This is not to say that marriages where one partner doesn't work can't succeed -- but it still requires them to think like partners and work like partners. If he works, she needs to be mindful of their financial goals, and not spend them into the poorhouse. If his working means she has leisure time, she needs to do the things that makes life more comfortable for them both (for example, perhaps that means doing the bulk of the housecleaning chores, or running errands on his behalf during the work day).
What I see in the above descriptions are women who think they are exempt from the partnership requirements of marriage, because "their job is the kids". They should probably have their fun now, because later, when their husbands wise up, their lives are going to be in shambles.
I agree with PG - being a SAHM isn't all it might look like from the outside. That said, I also indulge occasionally in wishing I'd been more "normal" and wanted to get married, have 2.5 children and go to church on Sundays. It sometimes seems like life would have just been easier all around if I could have been one of the sheeple and put my head down and followed the crowd. I'm sure there's happiness in that, but it's just not how I am engineered, I guess.
Yes, your life would certainly be different if you were a SAHM. It would probably suck!
But yeah, I don't understand that whole mentality of staying at home while the man goes to work. I was not raised like that and I would not feel good about myself if I were letting another person support me financially.
Remember that scene in "Rosemary's Baby" when she wants to escape the house and grabs a little money that she has stashed in the linen closet? That scene frightened me, because I'd never want to be so dependent on a man that I couldn't leave if things got abusive.
If half of all marriages end in divorce, that means that one day half of your SAHM friends will be single mothers and they won't have a clue how to support themselves.
Not everyone sets out to be a SAHM as their main goal, and they don't always stay that way either. For a lot of people, the cost of daycare eats up the second income. Plenty of SAHMs (and SAHDs) go back to work when the kids are all in school. There are also plenty of women who don't have kids who still stay home while their husbands earn the money.
Personally, I wouldn't do it because I like having my own money, but that's just me.
I couldn't cope with being a mother but I totally know what you're thinking...
When I was in school and suffering from sleep deprivation and stress I would sometimes look at my fellow female students and we would say to ourselves "Why couldn't I be the type of woman who would be willing to do what it takes to marry rich?"
In reality, I'm not that person because I graduated and got a good job and I happily support myself, but some days... I never really believed it but sometimes I thought about it!
I could NEVER be a SAHM. A) I would go out of my mind with boredom and B) I would not feel right about a mad paying for me and supporting me. I'd feel guilty and I know I'd end up resenting DH for being free and able to do what he wants, when he wants.
BTW, I work with tons of men who LOVE their SAHM wives. LOTS of guys totally dig being whipped, and love handing over their paycheque completely to her while she gives him a pittance of an allowance and she takes care of paying all the bills. I shit you not. It's way way way more common than you think.
I nearly spit when I first met them and still whenever I meet guys like this, but I swear to you they are out there, and not in their 80s either, but 30s and 40s.
You'd be shocked at how distasteful a lot of people find independent living to be. The guys love not having to do anything except mow the lawn now and again and the women love getting a big fat paycheque handed to them to do with what they will, all for the low price of doing what they'd be doing anyhow without him (changing shitty diapers and paying the bills on time... even single moms do that).
Sorry if I sound misanthropic, but yeah, that one really chaps my ass too. I can't really stomach the concept.
I don't work... so I'm just a stay-at-home... because I'm not a mom.
paris04 Wrote:I don't work... so I'm just a stay-at-home... because I'm not a mom.
I have a friend that is a stay-at-home and she gets a lot of grief and a lot of SHIT for it! People act like she doesn't have a "right" to stay at home because she isn't breeding like a rabbit and raising litters of kidz.
When people ask her (in a totally puzzled and amazed tone of voice),
"What do you do all day?", she calmly answers, "The same thing that other women that stay at home do all day...cook, clean, run errands, pay bills, grocery shop, hobbies, etc...."
I mean seriously, once kidz get into grade school, they are gone
all day anyway! Then when kidz have after school activities, they are gone even more hours. So, what do these moos do all day? The kids are gone from 7am until 4-5 pm!
Nobody gives these moms shit for not being out there in the workforce while the kidz are away.
When I was young, my mom never even got out of bed in the morning. I didn't see her until I got home from school which was anywhere from 3pm-5pm. My mom never worked and we were assigned tons of chores to help out around the house and yard. Nobody ever gave her a difficult time for choosing not to work.
My dad took care of anything financially related, 100%. My mom was happy with that. My dad liked the control.
I guess it worked for them, in a way....although my mom did quit her job that she LOVED because my dad was so demanding about household expectations.
I stay at home too. I don't live in the US, and I tried to get a job a time or 2 but it didn't pan out. We move again next year and we have one car and DH works crazy hours that change all the time so I gave up. I got some free money for college so that is what I do a lot, and I doubled my course load for the fall due to the money.
In the military world, because the men work SO much (women too if they are in) the women typically stay home and take care of everything. Of course once they have kids the women most ALWAYS stay home. I didn't before, I stay home now due to our situation. I can't wait till I can work again though, I don't care if it's low-pay I would just like to bring home a check again. Hopefully at our next base, I told DH I want two cars and I will try SO hard to get a job.
I admit I do have a decent amount of lazy time.
Dana Wrote:I admit I do have a decent amount of lazy time.
And you know what? I don't think there is
anything wrong with that. As long as
you are happy, that is what counts!
Funny, I have a friend that stays a home and I have another friend at the opposite end of the spectrum. By choice, she does so much, her life (to me) it appears very chaotic and rushed. But she is happy with it, so that is what counts!
Well I do like my down time, I don't understand how someone can deal with 2-3 kids 24/7, toadlers and babies, esp on top a job outside the home - how do you not get so burnt out and tired and feeling like crap all the time? How do you stay sane?
Dana Wrote:Well I do like my down time, I don't understand how someone can deal with 2-3 kids 24/7, toadlers and babies, esp on top a job outside the home - how do you not get so burnt out and tired and feeling like crap all the time? How do you stay sane?
I really don't think you can unless you are in denial about how miserable your life really is.
I'm grateful for my path in life. I think the occasional "bingos" and grief are worth the freedom and happiness. When I see moos pushing around strollers looking so proud, I know they look happy on the outside, but one can never tell what is going on inside them. The grass always looks greener...
I once did an essay on how SAHMs are worth so much by comparing their duties to my life.
I don't have the file but as I recall, as a single male who lived alone and was unemployed I deserved six figures. I remember that being a financial planner (aka I read my bills and wrote checks) was alone worth 30 grand a year. I know that the total was over 100 grand and I'm just a single person living alone. It amazes me that mothers think they are equal to professionals.