15 responses so far ↓

• 1 Rick // Jun 19, 2008 at 8:11 pm

  because you are never going to look back and say I wish i worked more. As a woman or a man you will always wish you had more time with your kids when they were young. The woman is typically staying home as they are the nuturer typically. If you choose to work to have things, a fancy car with payments, a big house with payments, clothes, etc then you should feel guilty of not being responsible for caring for your kids.

• 2 Meg // Jun 19, 2008 at 10:31 pm

  I think moms and dads miss out equally when they work, but I think moms do agonize about it more.

  There are many reasons for this, some of which are biological and many of which are social.

  Biology: Mothers form a unique bond with the infant during pregnancy and breast feeding. There are chemicals which cause the mother to feel more needed by the child and, therefore, very guilty about leaving it even for a few minutes or hours when they are young.

  It’s never the dad who is gripped by physical waves of panic upon leaving the baby with a sitter for the first time.

  Social: Men assume all their lives that they will work 8 hour a day jobs outside the home and that someone else will handle the bulk of childcare. On the contrary women generally grow up assuming they will take care of children one day and don’t assume (or even plan) that they will have careers that span decades.

  For a woman, then, working vs being “a mom” in the traditional sense of the word (i.e. taking care of kids and home in every capacity and not having a full time job) presents a big fat agonizing Decision. For men, the concept of being “a dad” always entailed working, so there’s nothing to reconcile or agonize over.

• 3 Barb1954 // Jun 20, 2008 at 1:56 am

  I honestly do not get why you “hate” this article. Did you have that bad of a childhood or experience with your mother that you do not get the bond between a mother and her children? A woman carries a baby for nine months, she feeds it with her body before and after birth, her whole life revolves around the baby. I cannot tell you how many women I know who planned to work after a brief maternity leave but who could not bear to be apart from their child and, with their husband’s income, decided to quit work and be stay-at-home moms. Men may love their children just as much, but they don’t have the same connection.

  Children are not a trendy fashion accessory. If you don’t want to raise a child, don’t have one! Daycare is fine for working parents, but don’t ever think it’s the same as being with your child yourself.

• 4 Livingalmostlarge // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:24 am

  I hate the fact that women are necessarily looked down upon for working. Why isn’t the same standards put upon men?

  I think it’s great to stay at home, but why is there only pressure on the women to stay at home?

  And nope, I never said it was the same, but if a child goes to daycare it’s only women who are looked down upon. Men never get the same talk down that even Barb1954 is giving me right now.

  That children are a fashion accessory? I never said that. And I never said I don’t want to raise my own children.

  BUT yet here I am taking heat for questioning and hating the fact the article only looks at what female’s give up. Not working men.

  So how is it fair? I like Meg’s answer than men never question working, but women have to?

• 5 Velvet Jones // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:44 am

  Why isn’t the same standards put upon men?
  The patriarchy.

  I think it’s great to stay at home, but why is there only pressure on the women to stay at home?
  See above.

  We all know the patriarchy sucks for women, but few really delve into how it truly sucks for men as well. We need to reach for a more egalitarian society. Where women aren’t accused of being “unfeminine” for being aggressive and passionate about their career, and men don’t have their sexuality questioned if they aspire to stay home to raise a family or want to be a fashion design, or whatever the patriarchy deems “womens work.”

  So yeah, I say dump the armchair evo-psych and divisive “working mom vs. SAH mom” arguements and lets really get down to the main issue, which is that our current social constructs for men and women are unnecessarily restrictive.

• 6 f.f. // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:59 am

  I hear you on this. I would love to see how the results would differ if carreerbuilder.com had thought to interview fathers. The most irritating part though, to me, was helpful tip number 3: devote all free weeknights and all weekends to family time. Right, because it’s inconceivable one would never need or want a few hours to oneself in order to maintain a grip on herself. Could Barb perhaps use such an interlude?

  To your list of questions, I’d add: And what about single dads, or two-dad couples? Are they just swimming in bliss since it’s seemingly only women who fret about about spending time with their kids?

  This leaves a lot to be desired on so many levels.

• 7 Barb1954 // Jun 20, 2008 at 4:14 am

  Does every article need to address equally the parenting by and sacrifices of both the father and mother? This article addressed just working moms. What’s wrong with that.

  LAL, I know that you never implied that children are a fashion accessory but I was trying to make the point that your life is not truly your own after you have children. Hell, spending just 4-1/2 hours with my two nieces today had me craving a drink when I got home. Talk about sucking the energy out of a person!!

  I just sometimes gather from the tone of your comments that you don’t want to be inconvenienced at all by having kids. That may be the furthest thing from the truth. However, one parent usually takes on the role of being the primary caregiver, even if that parent also works. There are only so many hours in the day and something has to give. Like so many other things in life, it’s not fair.

• 8 Meg // Jun 20, 2008 at 5:22 am

  To the other Meg — you should have seen my dad when he dropped me off for the first day of kindergarten!!! They practically had to escort him out, and then he ended up volunteering there frequently.

  Until he passed away when I was in 1st grade, my dad was the stay at home parent while my mom worked. He was older and retired, so it was up to my mom to make the money. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it’s what worked best I guess. And remember, that was about two decades ago, before things like family restrooms (at least around here) — though not much else seems to have changed in terms of society’s expectations. I don’t believe we’ll truly have equality for women until society believes that men can do things like housework without feeling emasculated or stay at home with the kids without being called lazy bums. Until then, women can have it all but only so long as they’re willing to do it all.

  I certainly wished that I had more time with my mom growing up, but I would not have wanted to sacrifice any time with my dad, either — especially looking back since I didn’t have much time with him before he passed away. I also appreciate that growing up in that arrangement, it seemed perfectly normal, which has no doubt allowed me to challenge a lot of societal gender expectations.

  The way I see it, both parents make sacrifices whether they stay at home and give up careers or stay working outside the home and give up time with their kids. And single parents make perhaps the greatest sacrifices of all — goodness knows, my mom did. However, you do what you have to do. We rarely have perfect choices.

• 9 Jim ~ mydebtblog.com // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:20 pm

  This is a matter of priorities. Does family come first or career? Some people actually would put their career in front of their family, yet they would say they’re only doing it for their family. Society trends used to be that most women stay at home and raise the kids, which is a job in itself, and the men would do the daily grind at work. Today there isn’t a defined role anymore because sexism, equality, and political correctness has destroyed these roles. I heard a survey that today 1/3 of married women earn more than the guy. If there is a divorce it is the men who were stay at home parents asking for child support and manimony (alimony — spousal support). It’s one thing to make everything more equal, but as they say be careful what you wish for.

• 10 Mrs. Micah // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:54 pm

  One of my friends barely knows her dad because he spends so much time working. He was gone for the first year of her life and was barely home for the rest. She feels a real loss there.

  But I think people expect dads not to be as close to their kids.

  While some have pointed out that moms do bond through breast feeding and the like, there’s no reason that dads can’t strongly bond with their kids either. A SAHD doesn’t breast feed, but he may bond just as strong with a child if the mom is working.

  @Meg #1, I think you’re right about moms agonizing about it more. I think that while they should consider careful their family’s best interest, dads need to as well. The best interest may be both working, mom working, or dad working…it depends. For my in-laws, it’s best if my MIL works and my FIL takes care of the kids.

• 11 Kristy // Jun 20, 2008 at 3:49 pm

  Wow….this is a heated topic. I work full time and while daycare does take care of my daughter during the day, DH and I are still raising her.

  Not every mom works to have the big SUV, McMansion, etc. either. I work for a few reasons: I love my job, I make really good money, my job is flexible, we need health insurance which my job provides, etc.

  I worked and nursed my DD for a year…yes I pumped but when I was home we breastfed. I do feel like I have it all because of the flexibility of my position and a very supportive husband who is a great father as well.

• 12 Livingalmostlarge // Jun 20, 2008 at 4:06 pm

  My mom went back to work 30 days after giving birth. Did she need to? Yes if we wanted to eat. Did she want to? No, but again we needed to eat, or we could have gone on welfare.

  But that’s not my mom. And I think articles like are extremely unfair. Do I think less of my mom for working? Heck no! I think more of her. Superwoman!

  Also I know many women I work with who don’t need to work for $$ but solely like Kristy for health insurance. Two women are married to independent contractors and without their jobs they couldn’t have health insurance for their families. So they don’t earn much but they provided the employer sponsered insurance. If we lived in a country of socialized medicine I bet they wouldn’t work.

  So not all working mothers do so for fashion, bigger homes, and fancy cars. Some do it because they can’t get insurance otherwise that is affordable.

  I also have friends who enjoy what they do and make good money. Most make quite a bit actually even after daycare. So financially it does make sense to work.

  I’m not sure where I stand in this case, but I think questioning of women working is always happening while it never happens to men.

  And Jim-mydebtblog, my mom paid my biological sperm donor alimony and 50% of the house we lived in in the 1980s. She kicked him to the curb asap and we were fine. And the bum never held a job so there was no child support and she didn’t care. And she worked a lot of overtime to make sure we had enough.

  So yep I call for feminism and equality. And I know it cuts both ways. I’ve seen my mom’s divorce decree because I wanted to see the guy give up all parental responsiblity. And now 30 years later he expects me to talk to him?

  Children are not toys or fashion accessories as Barb points out. And I think I get that.

• 13 KCS // Jun 24, 2008 at 8:39 pm

  What I don’t understand is why a mother is looked down upon if she works when she doesn’t like her job and doesn’t necessarily “need” the money. My father makes enough money for us to live a middle-class lifestyle without my mother’s income. And my mother hates her full-time job, but has worked her whole life to make sure that should my father ever die in a car accident or get laid off, the family would never need to worry about having enough money to send my sister and I to college and for retirement. With my mother’s income our family is able to live in a good neighborhood, take nice vacations, and have some free money to spend – all of which she never had when she was young and wanted for my sister and I. But despite her working, I never felt as if I wasn’t loved or raised by her rather than nannies and daycare helpers. She was always there for me. Instead, she serves as a role model for me, proving that you can work full time in your career and as a mother.

• 14 SP // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:21 pm

  “The woman is typically staying home as they are the nuturer typically. If you choose to work to have things, a fancy car with payments, a big house with payments, clothes, etc then you should feel guilty of not being responsible for caring for your kids.”

  I didn’t read all the comments yet, but this makes me want to throw up. Give me a break. Men and women can both nurture. Not everyone chooses to work to have thing, but rather to have a life that isn’t 100% dedicated to children. I think that is reasonable, but I’m child-free so maybe I just don’t understand.

• 15 jj // Jul 30, 2008 at 2:41 pm

  Everytime I read articles like this or read blog comments implying that you shouldn’t have kids if both parents work, I get so angry. My mom stayed home for a few years and then went back to work. She is the best mom ever. I hope to be like her someday. My husband’s mom returned to work soon after he was born. She is also an excellent loving mom. These articles imply that only SAHM are good. That’s so far from reality.

  Also I noticed that fruality blogs often imply that a spouse (woman) can/should stay home if only they cut out extravagances like purses, vacations, mcmansions , cable etc.. That’s also a very simplistic way to look at things. In my case, our incomes are fairly equal and not having one would make it impossible to save for retirement. Plus what’s wrong with wanting to eat out, buy clothes and travel once in awhile? I have a friend who stays home and hasn’t spent on any extravagances in years. She and her husband cannot save any $ for retirement. If she worked, they could stop living hand-to-mouth but like many, she thinks she’ll be a bad mother if she worked.

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