College women, take heed: Prioritize marriage and family!

[Pattylt]

Something else to consider is that there’s a difference between raising a toddler and a 16 year old. At some point babies grow up.

That’s something I was very aware of and why I did children first…and stayed home…then went to school and career rather than having a career…put it on hold for children…then back to career. I knew what career I wanted but I also didn’t want debt to get it first as we had no money yet and I wanted to make sure that my children were more independent when I did go to school and began working. Plus, my working hours were crazy the first two years. I’d work two day shifts, two evenings then three nights then a week off…and that’s when the scheduler actually looked at what shifts she was putting me on! No, I can not work nights on Friday and days on Saturday…that’s back to back! Oops!

But, these were choices I made. I wanted my kids when I was younger and my career could wait. Not everyone has or makes that choice, often because it just doesn’t work out that way. This was the plan my husband and I agreed to. We married quite young…something else that rarely happens now!

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

While understanding that littles do well with their stay at home parent, I’ve often wondered what a stay at home spouse does when the kids are off at school.

Well, I use the time to start on dinner (if it needs to marinate or something like that); to get my workout/exercise in; do laundry; go grocery shopping; cleaning certain things (kids do a lot also) and of course it’s nice to be available if the kids are sick or if a pandemic happens and you need to oversee online schooling suddenly…

 

[Tommy999]

I had a female coworker whose husband lost his job and said he wanted to become a stay-at-home-dad.

Reminds me of the movie Mr Mom with Michael Keaton. He gets laid off while she goes back to work. He does his best as a stay-at-home dad but it just isn’t the same as Mom and he runs into a comedy of challenges.

 

[blackforest]

That’s one of many reasons we ended up homeschooling. Even with both of us working outside the home, Catholic school tuition would have set us back too far.

Having done both, I personally miss farming out childcare and housekeeping to other people while I go to work and do what I love. Unfortunately that no longer works out for us logistically. But honestly, the SAHM-vs.-WOHM question is one of trade-offs, not absolutes.

Which is really about the choices we can make that works best for each of us and our families. We have those choices and should appreciate the choices others make as well instead of playing a false competition over who had it best or worse!

I agree. But I fear that this message may be falling on deaf ears. I’ve actually expended a ton of mental energy defending working moms on CAF. It feels really weird to swing the other way, lol!

I am poor at multitasking so holding a job and being a mom at the same time would be too stressful for me.

Both options are stressful in different ways.

I’ve had more than one SAHM friend whose husband has pulled the what-do-you-do-all-day card. The fastest way to answer that question is to make them answer it for themselves, i.e. leave for a day or two and let them deal with the kids and chores. Believe me, it humbles the men down to size, lol! Fortunately, I was blessed with an understanding and empathetic husband and haven’t faced this issue.

 

[Pattylt]

Fortunately, I was blessed with an understanding and empathetic husband and haven’t faced this issue.

I was too. Being a working mom, especially evening shift, my husband had to fix dinners, get the kids to do homework and chores and get them in bed. It made him a better father and a better husband precisely because he learned how hard it was! I think I became a better mom, too. On my days off, I would focus more on him and the kids because I wasn’t burnt out from doing it every day. I realized how much I missed tucking the kids in when I was working. I certainly didn’t nag them as much about keeping the house spotless like I tended to when staying at home. But, you definitely sacrifice some of the, “ I’m a mommy hero” when you aren’t there every day. Though I tried to go to as many school programs as I could, I missed many of them, too. You just can’t walk out of the lab saying your daughters in a concert! I gave up a few dinner hours to attend what I could and felt terribly guilty when I couldn’t.

I do think working moms have to deal with more guilt, especially those that have to work odd or long hours. It’s always a balancing act for SAHM and working moms.

 

[blackforest]

It’s always a balancing act for SAHM and working moms.

I think we need to stop this whole Culture of Guilt for women.

Moms working in the home face guilt over, “I didn’t get enough done today,” or, “I’m not worth anything.” SAHMing is especially hard because when you do get small children out of house, people around you are judging how you’re raising them. (If children scream at check-out, for example, you’re either a bad mom for “letting” them scream or a bad mom for caving to their demands and buying that conveniently-placed-at-toddler-level candy).

Meanwhile, moms working outside of the home feel guilt for not being “there enough” for their children or feeling too tired to cook nutritious meals. (To rub salt in the wound, even here on CAF you’ll see references to “dumping” the kids in daycare. Um, no. You drop them off with a hug and a kiss).

So the message becomes: Work like you don’t have kids, and raise kids like you don’t have a job.

We’re internalizing unhealthy messages from society and won’t be fully liberated until we learn to disregard them.

 

[Pattylt]

We’re internalizing unhealthy messages from society and won’t be fully liberated until we learn to disregard them.

I also think women just naturally glom onto guilt. Catholics and Jews excel at it! . I had various guilts when at home and different guilts at work…and yet, the kids really turned out ok. If a kid doesn’t, then there’s more guilt about what did I do wrong! We just never seem to escape guilt!

 

[jeannetherese]

Seriously though, how do Catholic school expect parents to pay tuition if said parents do not practice contraception and have more kids than average and the wife is expected to stay at home and be a homemaker?

It would be wrong to use imoral means to achieve an end. Having said this, the issue of tuition is a serious issue. Many Catholic schools work aggressively to provide tuition support and I know people whose tuition has been reduced significantly (as well as people who have been carried through unemployment until they could, once again, afford tuition.
There are also, diocese where Catholic education is guaranteed, regardless of ability to pay. It’s been a while since I was on that thread.-I’d look into Nebraska, possibly Kansas.
In the greater Seattle area, there are at least two parishes who guarantee that their parishioners will be able to send their kids to their Catholic schools.
We have had a mullti-generational problem with quality of Catechesis which needs to be addressed.
In the past, low tuition was supported by the sisters who taught at our schools, Living simply and communally in convents, they dedicated their lives to supporting the faith lives of the children in their charge.
Students learned about vocations both through instruction and through modelling and were regularly invited and encouraged to discern whether they had a calling to marriage or religious or lay vocation.
I do not reacall any of this sort of encouragement during my 12 years at Catholic schools (1970s and 80s) - we have lost several generations of religious vocations and failed to support marriage properly by teaching it as vocation. Many of our convents and rectories have closed.
it costs a fortune to pay lay teachers enough to be able to live in or near the urban centers of the Northwest and to provide benefits for these teachers.
Solutions will take time.
We need to catechize adults well enough that they understand and applaud providing financial support for Catholic education (and that means both parents and non-parents)-dare I use the word tithing? My parents tithed while paying tuition for myself and my siblings and we were not at all a wealthy family.
We need to catechize our children and insist that voacational discernment become a standard yearly part of our children’s Catholic education-both for their sake (understanding the marital covenant if called to holy matrimony), for that of their children, and so that those called to the religious life might be better attuned to hearing this call and better equipped to respond.
Ultimately, we need to replace lay teachers with members of teaching orders (such as the Nashville Dominicans/sisters of Saint Cecilia).
But home-school Catholic co-ops can also be of use as we work to support our Catholic families who struggle with finances, and some non-diocesan schools which uphold the Catholic tradition are working to provide courses to home-schoolers who also want their kids to have specific subject instruction from a trained teacher or elective support.

 

[jeannetherese]

We’re internalizing unhealthy messages from society and won’t be fully liberated until we learn to disregard them.

I’m not so sure about dropping the guilt. When I worked outside of the home, I scheduled as much as possible to ensure that, as in my parents’ case, a parent was home so that our kids were raised by us.
This meant that, over the years I missed almost all of the sporting events because I was worked when they were scheduled. I still ache over those missed moments. I don’t think that that is a bad thing-It points to the high value of that family connection and support.
A trade off had to be made and it’s o.k. to understand the necessity of that trade off while mourning the missed moments.

 

[jeannetherese]

Maybe so, but I think that dissing on guilt is overrated. to me, If you are dealing with a bit of guilt, it just might be a sign of an active conscience.
I’m a lot more o.k. with guilt now than I was in my 20’s when I thought guilt was old fashioned. (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Tis_Bearself]

What human wouldn’t want that? To enjoy family time instead of working their fingers to the bone?

Do you have any idea how much work it is taking care of a family?

My mother had an almost 20-year career before she quit to be a SAHM and she was very happy with her choice, but there is no way she would have described her experience as “Enjoying Family Time”. She still had a ton of work looking after the house, my dad, and me. It was just different work.

Sure, it had enjoyable moments, but often they were the same enjoyable moments shared by my dad when he got home from work and me when I got home from school. Once I started school the two of us were gone all day long and she certainly wasn’t “enjoying family time” when her family wasn’t even home.

What you seem to be talking about is hitting the lottery so that people can just hang out with their families all day long and have somebody else do the chores and pay the bills…and even then, families don’t want to spend time with each other 24/7. Sometimes people, all people not just the kids, want to go out and have experiences outside the family circle. My mother did this by being involved in church work, by playing golf, and by spending time with some of her friends.

I have nothing against family time and enjoyed spending time with my mom and dad while growing up, but your comment is really overly idealistic and frankly makes me wonder if you ever were married or took care of a family, especially when things weren’t going so peachy keen and the funds were low or someone was sick or there was some other problem or hardship.

Not to mention the fact that a lot of people, men and women, enjoy the work they do at work. Sure, it has bad days and not everybody gets to do a job they like or love, but there are plenty of people in professional careers who genuinely enjoy what they do and feel it adds value to society. They also love their families and they strike a balance between the two things.

 

[Lifeisbeautiful3]

Do you have any idea how much work it is taking care of a family?

As someone who works full-time and takes care of my family, yes, I do have an idea.

Surely you don’t think it’s reasonable for a man to leave his job while the wife financially supports the family and have him suggest that their children should remain in daycare? What actually would this person do from 8-6 every day?

 

[stacie]

I can see this working for me.

Wait until I am established and then around 30 find a safe nice man who is not interested in a career and we can have kids and I can work and he can stay home with the kids. If that’s the only kind of men available to 30+ women I do not see the problem.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Surely you don’t think it’s reasonable for a man to leave his job while the wife financially supports the family and have him suggest that their children should remain in daycare? What actually would this person do from 8-6 every day?

These types of decisions need to be made by individual families. I do not dictate to other families what I think is “reasonable” for them to do. I have known men who were/ are full-time caregivers for their children while the wife supports the family on her paycheck, and they are all very happy with the situation and find it to be very reasonable. I have known couples who utilized day care or some other kind of child care (having an extended family member care for the child, for example) while one half the couple worked and the other half of the couple was in school, or trying to launch a business from home, or dealing with personal illness or personal problems.

All of these situations are the business of the couple and family involved. Not anybody else’s business. And one size does not fit all. So I’m not going to opine on what some couple does who I don’t even know.

If you have a family and you work, I’m mystified about some of your remarks on this thread, unless they somehow reflect some personal desire that you yourself have for more “family time”. I’ll bow out now as this thread seems to have deviated from its original topic into something else and I don’t know where you’re going with it. Good day.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Wait until I am established and then around 30 find a safe nice man who is not interested in a career and we can have kids and I can work and he can stay home with the kids.

You might find a “safe nice man” who is retired or about to retire, especially from certain professions such as police work where men often retire early. I know two couples where the husband is retired from his career and is able to handle much of the child care while the wife works.

 

[Sarcelle]

You might find a “safe nice man” who is retired or about to retire, especially from certain professions such as police work where men often retire early.

I do have friends who married in their mid-30s to men who just retired from the military. These men were in their late 30s.

 

[DarkLight]

Some blogs I’ve read too have commented that we’re expecting women to pick up the slack from societal changes. We live in a society where the nuclear family is expected to bear the whole weight of its own care, without many of the communal supports we used to have. Historically women often shared the burden of childcare among each other. Plus schooling ended much earlier, if there was any at all, and daughters typically remained at home until marriage - frequently providing much additional labor to the family.

Also prior to the industrial revolution, the idea of even one member of the family going out to work while another stayed home was simply not how things worked. Most of the family’s labor was done in and around the family home.

The idea here where the husband goes out to perform paid labor for someone else, while the wife stays at home and does all the domestic labor by herself, simply isn’t a historical reality except for a small class of people in a narrow field of history. Women have always used some form of assistance, whether that be a paid servant or family or friends.

 

[Sarcelle]

Spot on.

If you go anywhere else in the world, especially the more agrarian type of countries still has large extended families living together.

Here in the US, it’s hard to put down roots in one community. The extended family has become fragmented due members leaving to get jobs. There’s no such thing as job security any more and people have had to move several times to chase opportunities.

 

[VonDerTann]

If you go anywhere else in the world, especially the more agrarian type of countries still has large extended families living together.

—Yeah, but in fairness isn’t that really because of poverty? Much of the world crams multiple generations of extended families into one dwelling not out of some belief in “let’s all be a big happy family,” so much as it’s necessity. The USA by contrast is rich beyond measure.

 

[Sarcelle]

No not really.

If that were the case then it will be only the poor people who will live in extended families.

Turns out, even the well to do, live in large extended families.

Not everyone in a developing country is poor.