Reflections on International Womens' Day

[Xantippe]

I guess I see it this way: I worked very, very hard and put in a lot of time and hard work to go as far as I could, and I’m still working. **I would find it upsetting to be told that I could just quit everything and be a “full time mom” and I would get just as much credit for it. **Um…no, I worked hard to get here and did things not everyone can do. Given the right circumstances, almost anyone can be a SAHM. The same principle applies to men. Engineers, plumbers, doctors, nurses, everyone has to work hard to get there and then work to stay current and be competent enough to get and keep a job that will support a family. I think I would rather tell working spouses “Hey, that’s great that you’re able to do that for your family” and complement a SAHM on her kids/home/cooking/volunteer work than pretend that what she’s doing comparable.

You wouldn’t.

Don’t worry about that.

When/if you have children of your own, you’ll feel differently. Here’s a piece to get you started talking about the logistics of two career families:

blog.penelopetrunk.com/2016/02/17/open-letter-to-the-guy-who-refuses-to-be-the-sole-breadwinner/

I don’t agree with every single word (and PT can be a bit of a nut), but as an experienced working mother, PT understands the logistics really well.

I’ll add to that piece that when you have a child with special needs in the family (and special needs children are quite common), it becomes well-nigh impossible to have two “big” jobs in the family and do an adequate job taking care of the children. When you have a special needs child, you’re not off the hook even when kids go off to school. Stuff keeps happening that is not compatible with full-time employment.

My oldest child is high functioning autistic, which we only discovered when she was a 1st grader and for quite a while, she had a habit of walking into doorways, falling out of chairs, throwing pencils and forks points first, and creating disturbances at school. The next two years were absolutely harrowing. But I read a shelf-full of books, I read stuff online and talked to people online, I worked with my child’s teachers and psychologists, I took her to several different kinds of therapy, I studied and practiced positive reinforcement and within two years, we’d turned a corner. 7 years later, I have a lovely and accomplished daughter who is like normal–just better.

I did that, and I’m prouder of that than of anything I’ve ever done–not my MA, not my time in the Peace Corps (“the toughest job you’ll ever love”), not anything. And nobody is going to give me a trophy for that, because almost nobody in my real life knows that about me.

 

[jmjZelie]

You wouldn’t.

Don’t worry about that.

When/if you have children of your own, you’ll feel differently. Here’s a piece to get you started talking about the logistics of two career families:

blog.penelopetrunk.com/2016/02/17/open-letter-to-the-guy-who-refuses-to-be-the-sole-breadwinner/

I don’t agree with every single word (and PT can be a bit of a nut), but as an experienced working mother, PT understands the logistics really well.

I’ll add to that piece that when you have a child with special needs in the family (and special needs children are quite common), it becomes well-nigh impossible to have two “big” jobs in the family and do an adequate job taking care of the children. When you have a special needs child, you’re not off the hook even when kids go off to school. Stuff keeps happening that is not compatible with full-time employment.

My oldest child is high functioning autistic, which we only discovered when she was a 1st grader and for quite a while, she had a habit of walking into doorways, falling out of chairs, throwing pencils and forks points first, and creating disturbances at school. The next two years were absolutely harrowing. But I read a shelf-full of books, I read stuff online and talked to people online, I worked with my child’s teachers and psychologists, I took her to several different kinds of therapy, I studied and practiced positive reinforcement and within two years, we’d turned a corner. 7 years later, I have a lovely and accomplished daughter who is like normal–just better.

I did that, and I’m prouder of that than of anything I’ve ever done–not my MA, not my time in the Peace Corps (“the toughest job you’ll ever love”), not anything. And nobody is going to give me a trophy for that, because almost nobody in my real life knows that about me.

I love to read your stories about your work with your daughter. It is like battle stories, but for moms!

 

[Xantippe]

I love to read your stories about your work with your daughter. It is like battle stories, but for moms!

Thank you!

We have been very fortunate.

 

[Allegra]

This thread is the first I’ve heard of it. I am a working mother. My mother was a working mother. Her mother was a working mother. Her mother was a working mother. That takes us back over a century. So much for the “traditional role of women”. My father’s mother was able to say home while her children were too small for school, though she took care of other people’s children for income as well. Once they were in school, she got her realtors license. All my aunts worked. (except one who “married well” and she spent half her life being a stuck up snot about it and the other half chasing her friends off with Avon, Discovery Toys, Pampered Chef, and Christmas around the World catalogues.) Working mothers are business-as-usual in my reality and I’ve never known one to expect or receive special recognition for living everyday life. What we do receive is double-edged sword of judgment from the “ladies who lunch” who assume we are not good enough mothers and from employers who assume we are not good enough employees.

 

[Allegra]

Also, a family that deposits children in daycare 8:30-5:30 is going to come home to a house that is much as they left it at 8. No toys will have been dumped out of bins and dragged through the house, fewer dishes will have been dirtied, there will be less Cheerio and Graham cracker dust, the diaper pail will be less full, there will be fewer potty misses in the bathrooms, etc.

Houses get much dirtier and more chaotic the more time is spent living in them and the more people live there.

Explain my house then! Many times I have gone into the kitchen and literally every bowl we own is in the sink. I’m pretty sure my husband brings his coworkers over during his lunch break and they have a cereal party. And my toddler can have every toy and book she owns in a soup on the floor in under three minutes.

 

[Kelfa28]

Explain my house then! Many times I have gone into the kitchen and literally every bowl we own is in the sink. I’m pretty sure my husband brings his coworkers over during his lunch break and they have a cereal party. And my toddler can have every toy and book she owns in a soup on the floor in under three minutes.

My kids are in day care about 5-6 hours a day Mon-Fri.

My house is still a disaster. Go figure!

It’s mostly because they are home over the weekend and I don’t have the time or energy to get to cleaning that kind of crazy for most of the week.

BTW…if you think your one toddler can accomplish that much in a matter of minutes…

Imagine what two siblings can do to a room in 10-15 mins (roughly the amount of time it takes for me to quickly nurse my youngest).

Especially when they are older, bigger, can reach a lot of things and are scheming together!

 

[Xantippe]

Explain my house then! Many times I have gone into the kitchen and literally every bowl we own is in the sink. I’m pretty sure my husband brings his coworkers over during his lunch break and they have a cereal party. And my toddler can have every toy and book she owns in a soup on the floor in under three minutes.

Poltergeist–obviously.

By the way, I know a family with six children that deals with this issue by having a single drinking glass out that the whole family is supposed to drink out of. Ewww! But so few dishes!

 

[Allegra]

Poltergeist–obviously.

By the way, I know a family with six children that deals with this issue by having a single drinking glass out that the whole family is supposed to drink out of. Ewww! But so few dishes!

Ha! One summer, Ma got sick of coming home to her whole sink full of cups, so she took the cups. All of them. We spent the rest of the summer drinking out of toy cups. My brother just drank out of the little spray gun that was connected to the kitchen sink.

 

[Kelfa28]

Poltergeist–obviously.

By the way, I know a family with six children that deals with this issue by having a single drinking glass out that the whole family is supposed to drink out of. Ewww! But so few dishes!

Wow.

I’d be gifting that family a huge package of disposable cups. Goodness, I’d make sure they were cardboard…or something…if they were concerned with the environment.

I’ve discovered that children as young as 14 months can easily pick up trash and dispose of it in the garbage.

Have they gotten that memo?

 

[Allegra]

As a teacher, I have two months of the year where I’m off from my job and can stay at home with my kids and I can honestly say, my kids don’t tear stuff up nearly as much when I’m home all day. I think it’s because I do the housework stuff while they are asleep or eating. When I’m working during the day, I have to get that stuff done after supper and so my daughter has unsupervised playtime which she uses to make a mess, When I’m home with her, I’m with her during playtime and so I can be the toy Nazi and make her put things away as she goes.

 

[Xantippe]

Wow.

I’d be gifting that family a huge package of disposable cups. Goodness, I’d make sure they were cardboard…or something…if they were concerned with the environment.

I’ve discovered that children as young as 14 months can easily pick up trash and dispose of it in the garbage.

Have they gotten that memo?

Now that you mention it, they are a pretty ecologically conscious family. I’m not sure they’d do paper cups…

 

[Allegra]

Wow.

I’d be gifting that family a huge package of disposable cups. Goodness, I’d make sure they were cardboard…or something…if they were concerned with the environment.

I’ve discovered that children as young as 14 months can easily pick up trash and dispose of it in the garbage.

Have they gotten that memo?

Don’t most families have a plastic cup in their bathroom that people drink from if they get thirsty in the middle of the night? We always have. I guess not every family is as fussy about germs.

 

[jlc2k2]

The job is hard to get and keep, and do, actually. That’s one of the reasons people make up fantasies about how it’s a luxury. Being a current SAHM is challenging for both husband and wife.

I am a SAHM. I can assure you, working mothers have it way easier than I do. They have hot and cold running support networks to do on call and full time childcare and cleaning whenever they need it, usually at discount rates of a couple dollars per hour, if they even have to pay.

If I try to get those things due to health issues or logistics issues or whatever, I pay a lot more than a couple dollars an hour and mostly get turned down because it’s too shameful to work for a housewife, after all, isn’t she there to just be the daycare herself?

I seriously could just LIE about having a job and come home frequently and get access to those sweet sweet working mom support networks. It’s a real temptation to save a fortune and still mostly be at home to take care of all the things that aren’t cooking, cleaning and childcare. I could homeschool then and get even MORE support as a Supermom working! and! homeschooling!

But I flee temptation and just quietly weep with fatigue, knowing people like the poster I’m replying to don’t think I’m a full human being at all.

I have no clue what sweet working mom network you are talking about. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning, yard maintenance - we don’t hire ANY of that out. And if i did hire them out, i would be paying the same thing anyone else dies regardless of employment status. If our sitter gets sick, I come home and do my best to work and take care of 3 kids at the same time. So how exactly do I have it soooooo very much easier than you simply because I work outside the home?

To be clear, I don’t think I have it easier or harder. I just have different challenges.

 

[ThePCWife]

I have no clue what sweet working mom network you are talking about. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning, yard maintenance - we don’t hire ANY of that out. And if i did hire them out, i would be paying the same thing anyone else dies regardless of employment status. If our sitter gets sick, I come home and do my best to work and take care of 3 kids at the same time. So how exactly do I have it soooooo very much easier than you simply because I work outside the home?

To be clear, I don’t think I have it easier or harder. I just have different challenges.

I don’t know any working mothers who pay retail for childcare or cleaning. They literally have women beating down their doors to do those things for as little as ten dollars a day, if they don’t have relatives and friends elbowing those people aside to do it for free.

From the bad end, I hear from women who run in-home daycares that the discounts come the sticky-fingers way, by just never paying enough or at all and moving from daycare to daycare. Not so sweet, but also another not paying retail situation.

And separate from that, working mothers are like everyone else and put kids in school eventually, and again, people race to cover them when there’s a sick day and the kid(s) have to stay home.

They have work stresses, but I have yet to see anyone actually pay out much of their salary for daycare or babysitting like the meme goes. Even the working moms with five kids have free childcare and cleaning (grandma).

 

[Allegra]

They have hot and cold running support networks to do on call and full time childcare and cleaning whenever they need it, usually at discount rates of a couple dollars per hour, if they even have to pay.

If I try to get those things due to health issues or logistics issues or whatever, I pay a lot more than a couple dollars an hour and mostly get turned down because it’s too shameful to work for a housewife, after all, isn’t she there to just be the daycare herself?

I seriously could just LIE about having a job and come home frequently and get access to those sweet sweet working mom support networks. It’s a real temptation to save a fortune and still mostly be at home to take care of all the things that aren’t cooking, cleaning and childcare. I could homeschool then and get even MORE support as a Supermom working! and! homeschooling!

But I flee temptation and just quietly weep with fatigue, knowing people like the poster I’m replying to don’t think I’m a full human being at all.

What in the heck are you talking about? I mean really? I don’t even know what to say to this, it’s so out there! Where do you think anyone gets fulltime childcare for dollars an hour? And free housekeeping? Has slavery been reinstituted somewhere and I haven’t heard about it yet? What “support networks” could you possibly be referring to? Almost every woman I know works and I don’t know anyone who has someone else cleaning their house, for any amount of money, except maybe for special occasions like a major house party or because they had surgery on their leg. Even when the do that, it cost quite a lot. What makes you think any cleaning lady is going to say, “Oh, you’re a working mom? Well, then this cleaning job is on the house!” Cleaning ladies’ and nannies’ landlords don’t care if their clients work or not and neither do they.

 

[Allegra]

I don’t know any working mothers who pay retail for childcare or cleaning. They literally have women beating down their doors to do those things for as little as ten dollars a day, if they don’t have relatives and friends elbowing those people aside to do it for free.

From the bad end, I hear from women who run in-home daycares that the discounts come the sticky-fingers way, by just never paying enough or at all and moving from daycare to daycare. Not so sweet, but also another not paying retail situation.

And separate from that, working mothers are like everyone else and put kids in school eventually, and again, people race to cover them when there’s a sick day and the kid(s) have to stay home.

They have work stresses, but I have yet to see anyone actually pay out much of their salary for daycare or babysitting like the meme goes. Even the working moms with five kids have free childcare and cleaning (grandma).

My nanny gets $10 an hour and she is paid at the beginning of the week or she won’t work! I can’t afford a cleaning lady, but I’m pretty sure I’d have to pay at least minimum wage for that as well and probably considerably more. My mother continues to work for a living as well, so she isn’t available to beat down any doors. While she does babysit on occasion if I have a special event on a weekend or if my husband and I want to go out, I couldn’t even imagine asking her to do my cleaning! I suppose some women out there have mothers or inlaws who have the time and inclination to help out, but do you really think theiremployment status is the common denominator?

 

[Xantippe]

What in the heck are you talking about? I mean really? I don’t even know what to say to this, it’s so out there! Where do you think anyone gets fulltime childcare for dollars an hour? And free housekeeping? Has slavery been reinstituted somewhere and I haven’t heard about it yet? What “support networks” could you possibly be referring to? Almost every woman I know works and I don’t know anyone who has someone else cleaning their house, for any amount of money, except maybe for special occasions like a major house party or because they had surgery on their leg. Even when the do that, it cost quite a lot. What makes you think any cleaning lady is going to say, “Oh, you’re a working mom? Well, then this cleaning job is on the house!” Cleaning ladies’ and nannies’ landlords don’t care if their clients work or not and neither do they.

I suspect ThePCWife may be talking about rural conditions.

I’m from a small rural town (I believe in more or less the same area as ThePCWife) and I have heard in the past that in-home caregivers in my hometown charge $2 an hour ($3 if they’re something special). I believe you can also get cleaning help for $10 an hour in my hometown.

I also find that somewhat science fictional (as in my new area, cleaners are $40-$45 an hour), but that’s what I hear from back home.

 

[Allegra]

I suspect ThePCWife may be talking about rural conditions.

I’m from a small rural town (I believe in more or less the same area as ThePCWife) and I have heard in the past that in-home caregivers in my hometown charge $2 an hour ($3 if they’re something special). I believe you can also get cleaning help for $10 an hour in my hometown.

I also find that somewhat science fictional (as in my new area, cleaners are $40-$45 an hour), but that’s what I hear from back home.

I charged double that when I was 13! That’s really hard to believe. I could imagine the cleaning being $10 an hour as that’s at least minimum wage, but how could anyone afford to pay their bills on $24 a day?

 

[jlc2k2]

I don’t know any working mothers who pay retail for childcare or cleaning. They literally have women beating down their doors to do those things for as little as ten dollars a day, if they don’t have relatives and friends elbowing those people aside to do it for free.

From the bad end, I hear from women who run in-home daycares that the discounts come the sticky-fingers way, by just never paying enough or at all and moving from daycare to daycare. Not so sweet, but also another not paying retail situation.

And separate from that, working mothers are like everyone else and put kids in school eventually, and again, people race to cover them when there’s a sick day and the kid(s) have to stay home.

They have work stresses, but I have yet to see anyone actually pay out much of their salary for daycare or babysitting like the meme goes. Even the working moms with five kids have free childcare and cleaning (grandma).

Again, if there is a sick day for our sitter, we basically have no backup care. So I stay home to take care of the kids but being salaried, my work still has to get done. So I end up trying to do both simultaneously. No one beats down my door to take care of my kids. My mom and MIL are the only ones who actually do and they work Monday through Friday full time as well. So they can’t help.

House cleaning is always done by myself or my husband. As a Christmas present, a friend once worked on cleaning the house and enlisted the help of my MIL. That wasn’t because I work though. It was the Christmas when the twins were 6 months old and we still had 3 kids under 3.

If I want cleaning done by someone other than myself or my husband these days, I’ll have to either hire a professional company or hire off of Craigslist. In neither case is there assume super duper special price that I get to pay just by being employed.

I find it laughable that you think that you know the financial situation of every single working mother well enough to declare that you absolutely have it harder than all of them based solely on the people you personally know.

 

[jlc2k2]

I suspect ThePCWife may be talking about rural conditions.

I’m from a small rural town (I believe in more or less the same area as ThePCWife) and I have heard in the past that in-home caregivers in my hometown charge $2 an hour ($3 if they’re something special). I believe you can also get cleaning help for $10 an hour in my hometown.

I also find that somewhat science fictional (as in my new area, cleaners are $40-$45 an hour), but that’s what I hear from back home.

If I moved back to my rural hometown, I would have far less resources and would likely pay more for them. So again, painting a broad brush over a large group of people based solely on personal experience doesn’t really show the true picture.