What's wrong with being a SAHM/Housewife?

[sweetgirl]

Not from me.

[Schmoopie3928]

Back on the subject...
I am also a SAHW. We have been married about a year and a half and I moved About 800 miles away to be with him. His job allowed hi
 To move to the city, I was laid off from my job so here we are. I don't have any human kids, I'm terrible at housework but DH makes enough for both of us to live on comfortably. For the first year, we agreed I wouldn't work so I could set up house and get used to the major move away from all of my family and friends. It was fun for a while but now I'm looking into working so I can meet new people and not be so lonely. Totally my choice and no ones business, but it is amazing how many people comment on it. If I'm not working apparently I'm supposed to be making babies.
OP, all I can suggest is to bean dip and hope she gets the hint.

[Rohanna]

If being a sahp was "employment" the gov't would regulate and tax it. It nay, in some places, make you eligie for benefits - but disability and "un"employment, and in some places student status makes you eligible for benefits too. To me that is proof it is not employment not that it is.

[Kittymama]

I don't need for anyone to call homemaking a job. I just want people to mind their own business, rather than acting like I'm doing something wrong because I don't have a job.

[Shoo]

I'm a SAHM, and I have to tell you all that no one, EVER, has said boo to me regarding my choice to not work outside the home.  Frankly, it shocks me that this is a problem for some people.  I'm thinking that I do not have this issue because I am quick to disarm anyone who asks me what I "do" for a living.

First of all, I do not ever refer to staying home as a job. It's not a job for me.  It's just my life.  I'd be doing what I do now even IF I worked somewhere.  So, when asked, I am absolutely completely and 100% honest.  I tell them I take care of my home and my family, but mostly I just play all day, doing whatever I like, whatever pleases me at that moment.  And I say all this breezily and with a shrug, because it's the truth and I am not ashamed of it.  In fact, it's a great way to live, IMO, and I think my honesty is disarming.  And my husband is the same way about it.  He wouldn't have it any other way!

So I don't get the snark or judgment that I hear about so often.  No one has ever condemned me for my choice (that I know of, and if I don't know about it, why would I care?).

Maybe it's when we try to make something out to be what it's not that people start getting critical.  I don't know for sure, certainly.  But I do know it has not ever been an issue in my life and I have never tried to convince anyone that what I do is anything like having a job.  Because for me, it isn't, and that is OKAY!!  In fact, it's great!

[Veronica]

I think I must be a pretty self-absorbed person because I just don't care enough about other people's life choices (unless it's dangerous/affects me etc.) to even have an opinion about whether they are a working parent/SAHP/Housewife(husband). 

I am a working parent and I'm really happy with my choice.  My mom asked me this weekend if my DH got a big raise where I didn't "need" to work would I still want to and I realized that I would prefer to continue working.  I might do volunteer work instead of working for a company, but I just don't think I'd be happy staying at home.  I know plenty of people, like Shoo above, who prefer to stay at home and neither her choice nor mine invalidate the other. 

[Brentwood]

I think I must be a pretty self-absorbed person because I just don't care enough about other people's life choices (unless it's dangerous/affects me etc.) to even have an opinion about whether they are a working parent/SAHP/Housewife(husband). 

That doesn't make you self-absorbed. It makes you live-and-let-live.

[Danismom]

DH and I have 2 young children.  Originally, we both worked.  But with #2, we began to realize that it was costing more for daycare than if we juggled schedules so that we could stay home with them.  Now we both work outside the home and we both parent our children.  Our children no longer go to daycare as they are under our direct care (no nannies or anything like that).  We've both found that it is much more incredibly challenging than we had expected.  BUT we agree that it is definitely worth it to be there for our kids. 

I grew up in the feminist culture that says you can have it all.  Others choose to continue to live that way.  I regularly be in tears with the truth that someone else was doing the majority of raising my children when they were in daycare.  I would drop them off by 7:30a.m. and pick them up after work by 5:30 p.m.  Every morning I was waking them up before they were really ready to get up so that we could rush to get dressed and eat breakfast in the car.  It was a quick drop off and then off to work.  I would be exhausted by the end of the day and dragging to pick them up.  They'd be hungry and need to eat fairly quickly.  There was barely enough time to get them fed, bathed, and into bed.  There really wasn't any time for play as they needed to be in bed by 7:00p.m. if they were going to be in any kind of decent mood the next day.  My kids would be with a parent for roughly 2 waking hours/day.  To me, that wasn't raising my children.  Why on earth did I have them if I was going to barely ever see them?  So DH and I really looked at our options and decided that it was worth it to us to be more old-fashioned. 

Truthfully, we've found that there is a lot of benefit in the male and female archtypes.  We are both strong and individual.  I'm not criticizing how anyone else handles their life.  For us, we found that we are traditionally motivated and gender specific.  I cringe when I hear others talk about feminism like it is a wonderful thing.  I think that in many ways it may be but that for many of us, it denigrates our reality by saying we should be more gender neutral or liberal. 

[Spoder]

Truthfully, we've found that there is a lot of benefit in the male and female archtypes.  We are both strong and individual.  I'm not criticizing how anyone else handles their life.  For us, we found that we are traditionally motivated and gender specific.  I cringe when I hear others talk about feminism like it is a wonderful thing.  I think that in many ways it may be but that for many of us, it denigrates our reality by saying we should be more gender neutral or liberal. 

I think you and I have a completely different understanding of feminism, then.

Feminism means that women get to vote, that they (theoretically) get paid the same as men for doing the same job, that they can't be treated like chattels by their husbands. Why on earth would that make you 'cringe'? It has nothing to do with being more 'gender neutral'.

You had me nodding my head right up until your last two sentences. Fact is, I would not want to leave young children in daycare, either. If I had children, I would prefer that my husband worked and I stayed at home with my children until they were old enough to be in full-time school. But that's not my reality .

True feminism is about women not suffering discrimination simply because they are women: in domestic life, public life, the workplace, society, the education system and the legal system.

I consider myself a feminist, and I 100% support and respect your decision to never work outside the home again if you so choose. As a single woman, I don't have that choice. I would like to think that other women would applaud the feminist movement for bringing about changes that support *my* right to be respected and valued as much as a man in *my* workplace. So I am sorry that you feel the way you do.

[Rohanna]

Without feminism, if your husband died, or ran off on you - then your idyllic little life you had before would do you precious little good- you would have few rights or ability to rebuild your life again. You would have few rights if your husband decided that really, he thinks ehell is a waste of time, so he's cutting off the Internet tomorrow- and by the way, no more going out to the mall, because he doesn't trust you...

To say that feminism is a bad thing is a crime to me as bad as saying slavery is a good thing - because the reality is pre feminism many slaves had more privileges and freedoms than a bad husband gave his wife... And the two words could pretty much be exchanged.

[Ms_Shell]

Truthfully, we've found that there is a lot of benefit in the male and female archtypes.  We are both strong and individual.  I'm not criticizing how anyone else handles their life.  For us, we found that we are traditionally motivated and gender specific.  I cringe when I hear others talk about feminism like it is a wonderful thing.  I think that in many ways it may be but that for many of us, it denigrates our reality by saying we should be more gender neutral or liberal. 

I see your point.  But you both have a choice to be traditionally motivated and gender specific, which wouldn't be a choice for either of you without feminism.  And you wouldn't have been able to work outside of the home, regardless of what worked best for your family. 

There are pros and cons to feminism, like with anything.  If you and DH don't choose to be gender neutral or liberal, then you don't have to be - and you have the choice only because of the feminist movement.  So yes, I believe that feminism is a wonderful thing overall. 

[sparksals]

Truthfully, we've found that there is a lot of benefit in the male and female archtypes.  We are both strong and individual.  I'm not criticizing how anyone else handles their life.  For us, we found that we are traditionally motivated and gender specific.  I cringe when I hear others talk about feminism like it is a wonderful thing.  I think that in many ways it may be but that for many of us, it denigrates our reality by saying we should be more gender neutral or liberal. 

I think you and I have a completely different understanding of feminism, then.

Feminism means that women get to vote, that they (theoretically) get paid the same as men for doing the same job, that they can't be treated like chattels by their husbands. Why on earth would that make you 'cringe'? It has nothing to do with being more 'gender neutral'.

You had me nodding my head right up until your last two sentences. Fact is, I would not want to leave young children in daycare, either. If I had children, I would prefer that my husband worked and I stayed at home with my children until they were old enough to be in full-time school. But that's not my reality .

True feminism is about women not suffering discrimination simply because they are women: in domestic life, public life, the workplace, society, the education system and the legal system.

I consider myself a feminist, and I 100% support and respect your decision to never work outside the home again if you so choose. As a single woman, I don't have that choice. I would like to think that other women would applaud the feminist movement for bringing about changes that support *my* right to be respected and valued as much as a man in *my* workplace. So I am sorry that you feel the way you do.

POD!!! 

[Cheesy Dane]

I must admit I don't personally understand the appeal of being a SAHM/SAHW - but I would never critisize someone for that choice!
One of my closest friend's biggest dream is to be a SAHM, but their family can't support themselves financially without her income, so she goes to work every day and is miserable because of it.
I totally don't understand it, but I empathize with the fact that it makes her feel bad.

If it works for that particular family, then all the more power to them!
(It can, however, make me feel slightly frustrated if someone chooses to be a SAHM and then whines about the husband having to work so many hours to make up for the wife not working.....)

[Larrabee]

Huge PODS to Spoder, Shu and Ms_Shell, well except I disagree with Ms_Shell that there are any cons to feminism in its true sense rather than the way some people incorrectly interpret it. 

Feminism doesn't really care what choice you make, just that you get to make a choice and that there aren't so many gender biased exernal influences affecting that choice.

Of course, that hasn't happened yet, one of the reasons why far more mothers stay home than fathers is that women on the whole still have lower paying jobs, so theirs is the salary the family can afford to lose.  I bet there are quite a few dads who would like to at least have the possibility of staying home too!

[Danismom]

I agree that feminism as it was originally conceived and implemented was a wonderful thing.  I work in a professional setting, hold one master's level degree and am working on another.  I agree with equal pay for equal work. 

This thread is a great example though of how our society has forgotten the value of the traditional roles.  Choices and options are great.  The problem is that some presentations of feminism have construed it so that the only valuable contribution is working outside the home.  That's not what feminism originally meant.  I find it sad that so many are faced with the attitude presented in the OP.  Making a house into a home and running it smoothly, raising children, preparing meals, etc is work.  It may or may not be what some would call a job, but it is definitely work. 

I do take issue with the tone in this:

Without feminism, if your husband died, or ran off on you - then your idyllic little life you had before would do you precious little good- you would have few rights or ability to rebuild your life again. You would have few rights if your husband decided that really, he thinks ehell is a waste of time, so he's cutting off the Internet tomorrow- and by the way, no more going out to the mall, because he doesn't trust you...

To say that feminism is a bad thing is a crime to me as bad as saying slavery is a good thing - because the reality is pre feminism many slaves had more privileges and freedoms than a bad husband gave his wife... And the two words could pretty much be exchanged.

You are welcome to your opinion about life before feminism.  I'm not arguing that there was a time when women were essentially property.  However, you know precious little about my life or the sacrifices we make for it.  Don't presume that you do with statements about my "little life" or it's idyllic nature. Your condescension is neither appropriate not welcome.