Really? Most of the working wives I know are happy to drop their kids off in pursuit of more “intellectually stimulating” goals. Kids are just for the weekends and holidays. Perhaps not all think this way but a large majority do. Ever since consumerism and competing with the Jones’ became a big thing women have been quite happy to ditch the “lesser work” for more “fulfilling work.” I don’t know any working parent that thinks otherwise. They love their jobs and just fork money over to the kids.
I know a lot of women who feel guilty that they are not at home with their children, particularly their small children, even those who go back to salaried work because they were going crazy at home. They wish they had been “good at” being SAHMs. Even if it didn’t make a bit of difference in how the child “turns out”, they know that their children will be grown and gone before they know it. Others went back not so much because they needed the money as that they have professions that require a certain amount of regular work in order to keep their skills up. They don’t want their family to lose the option of full-time work from them, because if anything happens to their husband, they might need that earning ability to keep things going.
I also know women who have very fulfilling and high-status jobs that want to cut back their hours (and their husbands do, too) now that their children are “tweens”. They feel that adolescence is this period of such rapid change and so many challenges for the child that there simply needs more time spent with their parents. They’re quite willing to be at work while their children are in school, but they want to be there to coach their teams and to be there for their after-school world in general.
More to the point, most people in this world do not get jobs that are particularly “fulfilling”. They get jobs that provide employers with a service in exchange for a salary, and it is usually nothing like as fulfilling as raising one’s own children, because it isn’t what one would call particularly creative work, nor is it done with particularly stimulating people or particularly healthy interpersonal settings. A LOT of parents very much look forward to getting away from their tiring jobs and their more-or-less nutty co-workers and home to the sanctuary of their families!
Now, my experience may be different because I’m a SAHM. I talk to parents who actually go to their kids’ games, instead of just dropping them off for someone else to watch. I talk to parents who volunteer at their kids’ schools. IOW, I run into the parents who are making an effort to be a big part of their child’s lives every day. I don’t go to work and spend my lunch and coffee breaks with parents who spend as little time with their children as decently possible, so I’m not exposed to that as much. I realize that it is out there, but there are parents who work because of a financial need or because they’ve found they have a personal limit on the amount of childcare they can do in a week without becoming surly and depressed.
Remember in the 1960s and 1970s, how many people were getting Valium for their anxiety–men and women, salaried and stay-at-home. Psychiatry wasn’t in a position to offer help, so the patients with these high levels of anxiety got tranquilizers. These weren’t people who were just running to the doctor because life was boring. It seems silly, at any rate, to say that it is always best to have a parent stay at home when some parents who stay at home develop depression or high levels of anxiety. I can’t believe that “toughing it out” is a good response to that, in terms of what is best for the child. It is more humane to let families work out which of their options will lead to the best mental health for everyone. If a parent tries staying at home and does have access to experienced parents to help decide whether unhappiness is due to a bad fit for the parent’s temperament and overall inner resources or whether the parent is lacking some outside resource that could make staying at home a better option, it is still possible to conclude that a particular parent would do better by making use of some amount of respite care for their children. Provided that the parent is balancing the welfare of their children with the basic level of welfare that the parent also needs in order to be faithful over 20+ years of parenting, that is nothing to feel guilty about.
