Advice for future stay-at-home mom?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I didn’t respond to this thread at first cause I thought it was a joke, but now it looks reasonably serious. I am a SAHM, although I fill out info forms with “retired attorney”. Now with the cabboose off to college in the fall, I need to find a job to fully fund my social security, and if they take it away from me after I do that, I will be steamed.</p>

<p>My motivation for wanting to be a SAHM was my own experience being raised by a single mom (my dad died), so I knew first hand how difficult that was, esplly from the point of view of the kid. But since I knew H’s can die or otherwise vanish, I decided to plan as if there would never be a H, much less a family. I married late, to another atty, and he wanted me to stay home with any kids we had, so agreement on that point. We planned for it by living on one paycheck and saving the other until I “retired”. Not only did that get us used to one earner lifestyle, it helped get the downpayment for our house. </p>

<p>Staying home has been extremely rewarding. Intellectually, I guess “helicoptering” the K-12 school system provides stimulation, as does searching for colleges, but I also tutored/taught at my kids school for 3 years, and doing that developed an intense interest in researching dyslexia and reading education, which could be a source for my “retirement career”.</p>

<p>My advice to my own Ds is this. 1) don’t plan on finding a H; count on staying single and taking care of yourself. 2) Plan on a career so find out what you’d love to do job wise, develop your talents. 3) Develop your outside interests; spend your free time doing things you enjoy, sports, cultural, hobbies, as if you will be alone forever. 4) If you develop yourself for a life alone, you will find the person who most enjoys YOU while doing so. That person will make the best spouse as they will most likely enjoy the same stuff and hence you. If you don’t find that person, you’ll get a good job you like, take care of yourself, enjoy life in general, and hopefully make many friends.</p>

<p>I agree with whoever posted that the best way to find a husband is not to look for one.</p>

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<p>About doctors. My cousin’s son married a doctor. He is now a stay at home dad. The beauty of life nowadays is everyone has choices.</p>

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<p>One other thing to consider is you may not be able to have kids. My godmother could never have children, and for some reason was never able to adopt. I think it’s a mistake to plan your life around something that may never happen.</p>

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<p>My advice to my kids is to be flexible, which involves planning for whatever life brings your way. When I was in college, I detested the idea of being a SAHM. My sorority advisor wrote a book called “Homemakers, the Forgotten Workers,” something about how women at home should be valued more. I thought it was stupid … I was sure all women should work. Years later, my H & I decided that I would stay home. Well, what do you know?! Life is funny. My good friend never found anyone she wanted to marry … her desire for a family life never materialized. Another friend was going to stay home, but she is now a very happy physician & mother of 5 with an engineer husband. Yet another friend was very happy being a SAHM & active volunteer, until her husband surprised her by leaving her for another woman. In other words, life happens. Be prepared for anything. It’s okay to <em>want</em> something. Just don’t want it so much that you are disappointed if life works out differently than you expected it to.</p>

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<p>“It’s okay to <em>want</em> something. Just don’t want it so much that you are disappointed if life works out differently than you expected it to.”</p>

<p>It’s okay to even be disappointed. But better not to be devastated, broke, or homeless. Have a back-up plan.</p>

<p>I really think that my former incarnation as a software engineer really help with the old self-esteem in the “just a mom” days. Shouldn’t have mattered maybe, but it did.</p>

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<p>The best plan is to have control of your expenses. Get your degree and go to work for up to a decade, saving as much as you can. Believe me, that extra income from savings and investments is crucial. Do invest in real estate, but keep the payments in line with what you can afford on one salary. Your husband is going to need health insurance through his job, and some retirement benefits, etc., wouldn’t hurt. If he is the type who needs to “find himself,” and can’t keep a job or stick to a budget, you won’t have the option of staying home.</p>

<p>Once you have children, you’ll have time (some!) but not necessarily the money. Learn to do home maintenance, cook and sew. This is how you bridge the gap in income - your labor. An extra ability - giving lessons, bookkeeping, computer work- will help you stay employable and bring in extra cash. </p>

<p>If you think you’ll have lots of free time, think again. You will be the sole person responsible for the housework and childcare 20 out of 24 hours. Your husband doesn’t get up at night with the kids because he has to work (and you don’t!) Whatever horrible messes are made in the house fall to you, because you will most likely be the one adult home when they happen, and you probably care more about how the house looks. The details of home life become more and more of your world unless you fight to stay connected to the outside.</p>

<p>Would I trade my years at home for a different job? Absolutely not. I love my kids and am proud of the job I did. I have no regrets. But being a SAHM is one of those journeys that takes you places you didn’t intend to go. It’s not an outlet from reality - it’s about as real as you can get, with life’s triumphs and disappointments played on a very small, personal stage.</p>

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<p>be hot. if you’re ugly, there’s basically no chance.</p>

<p>but seriously, requiring your husband to be smart is not much different from shallow guys only wanting to date/marry hot girls.</p>

<p>don’t be so quick to discount the other 99% of people who may not be as smart as techers</p>

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<p>Agree w/geomom—the parent who stays home can (& should) help the wage earner by doing all the ‘stuff’ (doctors’ appts, cleaning, cooking, shopping, ironing, errands, social planning) that frees up the working spouse to engage w/the kids when they get home. </p>

<p>When I used to work, both of us would run around doing errands on the weekend, and it was a juggle to see who would take off time to go to the doctor w/the kid or stay home when they were sick. </p>

<p>That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you do have the one-income scenario, hopefully it’s possible to enable the wage-earner to engage as much as possible w/the family…</p>

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<p>I have a really naive question: Do twenty-somethings date anymore?
Some people tell me dating is old fashioned. Just curious.</p>

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<p>Read “The Feminine Mistake.” At will get you out of the bubble you seem to be living in.</p>

<p>(I’m not even going to discuss how depressing it was to see that sort of post in this day and age, and it was also incredibly selfish of you to take a spot at Caltech from someone who might have actually appreciated it).</p>

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<p>I’m a work-outside-the-home mom and have been since my kids were 10 weeks old. I work by necessity, not by choice, and I have hated it every day. For me, that alternative was no work-no kids. So here we are. Hubby has worked nights while I’ve worked days for 20 years. This is not a plan I recommend. The thing I always tell my girls is that no one can take your education away from you, so I push them hard for college and the ability to make a living. Whether they choose to is their decision, but I want them to always be able to take care of themselves. Also to have choices because the uneducated don’t have choices.</p>

<p>I’ve worked in recruiting at a top law firm for years and the evolution of female attorneys in those firms has been fascinating. when I first started working, female assocates were few and far between, while female partners were more rare still, and were often women without families who seemed to work harder and longer to show their loyalty. Over the years, women have become the majority of candidates hired. Initially, female associates followed the model set by earlier generations of female partners by working harder and longer, but there came a point when it became common for those women to just step off the partnership track. Spectacularly qualified women opting to not return from maternity leave or stopping work soon thereafter, leaving the upper ranks to be more male. This has been a quandary because many firms have tried to find family friendly ways of accommodating women, but many have just decided that there is no substitute for time with their children and so can’t be accommodated. In the last 3 years or so, some of those women have begun to return and the firms have let them. Instead of the historical “up or out,” there have been some female associates (admittedly this isn’t common YET) who have worked for a few years, left for a few years to have families, and then come back with their experience, wisdom, drive and loyalty to take their places on the partnership track. I think this is awesome and would love to see more of it. For that to happen, there has to be a lot of give-and-take between female attorneys and law firms. But really, who’s to say that a woman can’t be an associate in her 30s or even 40s and then make partner later on and be productive later in her life. Maybe the 8 year partnership track and age 60 retirement models don’t work anymore.</p>

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<p>I’ve worked and not worked since becoming a mom 18 years ago. I love not working and just being able to focus entirely on kids, husband, home, dog, cat and me. Don’t worry about what profession your future mate is in - just find the soul mate who feels as you do about home and hearth. No matter what field he is in, he will enable you to be at home with your kids. It’s all about motivation. I’ve known house painters with SAHMs and doctors who claim they can’t afford for their spouse to be a SAHM. It’s all relative. The richest families are the ones who live in HOMES, not trophy houses.</p>

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<p>Binx, your thoughts resonated with me:
“My reason for staying at home was that I did not believe anyone else was capable of raising my children as well as I could. I felt that raising intelligent, well-adjusted children required intelligent, loving, involved caregivers. I did not believe I could find a daycare that would provide these things at the same level I could. Frankly, I know many children raised in daycares who have turned out fabulously, and some raised by helicopters, who seem “damaged”. So my theory has flaws, but it was what motivated me at the time, and I have no regrets.”</p>

<p>I like this from Midwesterner:</p>

<p>“But being a SAHM is one of those journeys that takes you places you didn’t intend to go. It’s not an outlet from reality - it’s about as real as you can get, with life’s triumphs and disappointments played on a very small, personal stage.”</p>

<p>There have been some thoughtful comments on this thread.</p>

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<p>Yes, many insightful comments, here.</p>

<p>I like you post mammall—
“just find the soul mate who feels as you do about home and hearth. No matter what field he is in, he will enable you to be at home with your kids”</p>

<p>That’s very true. I live in a neighborhood w/lots & lots of lawyers & engineers & doctors … several have 2 incomes & feel they ‘can’t’ afford to have one spouse stay home. Then I know people w/more modest incomes (& more modest homes) who have a mom who stays home for years.</p>

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<p>* I know people w/more modest incomes (& more modest homes) who have a mom who stays home for years.*</p>

<p>There may be another side to it Jolynne.
My H spends the same amount of time on household chores/errands & child related duties whether I am working or attending school full time/part time or not at all. ( which is to say not so much)
We have a modest income in our starter house, but I have not stayed home full time for most years out of choice- but because they( girls) were my priority & I knew I could not handle full time parenting with a full time outside the home job. ( although I did try)</p>

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<p>My hubby did most of the at home parenting because he always worked nights. He also does and always has most of the housework. I can’t articulate to you how much I appreciate that. It was actually hard for me at first to allow him to be a full co-parent, rather than me being Queen Mommy. In hindsight, his full participation was the best thing that could have happened to our kids.</p>

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<p>That sounds great zoosermom-
the thing is- my generation didn’t have a lot of working moms- and while men may have thought they were " liberated" from gender roles- it’s amazing how quickly some reverted to stereotypical dad behind the newspaper with two martinis.</p>

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<p>It’s funny that I found myself in an opposite situation. Both my parents worked (and no one did housekeeping!) All my sisters worked. I took a lot of grief for “wasting” my degree. I had quite a supportive H. I hate yard work, so we agreed early on for a division of labor. But we are both willing to cross the line when needed. I also admit that neither our house nor our yard will be featured anytime soon in any magazine. (Maybe “Mad”?) I did NOT stay home to clean.</p>

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<p>EmeraldKitty, it’s only in hindsight that I’m ok with it because Staten Island is very traditional and when ZG was growing up I was the ONLY working mom. I can’t tell you how many things she was excluded from because I wasn’t in the mom clique. I have got to give credit to my husband, though. He was raised in a very traditional family where his father wouldn’t even get up to get a glass of water, but hubby took a baby first aid class in my pregnancy and jumped in with both feet. He may not be the most educated father, but I bet he’s the most involved father in our group. Even now that they’re older and his job has changed, he still does most of the housework because my work week is so much longer than his. I tell him often how much I respect and appreciate that.</p>

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<p>OP: You get to go to school for FREE and only doing it to find a good husband? I’m sorry, but EVERY KID I KNOW WOULD KILL FOR THAT POSITION!</p>

<p>That said, you’re looking at marriage and the ‘stay-at-home’ mom thing really superficially. When you have kids, you will love them and want to be with them -that’s a given. But, here’s the dinger, they will have MANY needs. You do realize that having kids mean more than just ‘mentoring’ them right? They need constant love, support, attention, etc. And that’s just before they become teenagers -then that’s a whole new ballgrame.</p>

<p>And the whole ‘what do I do to find a good husband’ things is WAY off track. You want to date an older man, just to have him take care of you financially? Way, way off track. </p>

<p>Marriage means more than ‘finding a good husband’. Most any man, when they are ready, can be good husbands. You have to find someone that you truly want to be with and will share the same ideals as you. For example, I want a future husband who would take time to spend with his kids and me. You know that having a father figure in the house is important to a kid’s developement right? </p>

<p>50% of marriages don’t work out. It takes a lot of effort to keep a family going and family dynamics is MUCH different today than the 1950’s. It may seem good to stay at home and look over the kids while your husband is paying the bills -but it’s NOT EASY. It’s not even close to the trials and tribulations that mothers go throw on a daily bases -I know this just from day one of babysitting. </p>

<p>My advice to you is to just enjoy college. Sure go ahead and date -just don’t be so single minded and focused on finding THE ONE. That’s just as bad as going to college with the only intent of majoring in [insert major here] when you only like the suject. Explore and find yourself -cliche but true. Everything works out in the end.</p>

<p>Also, I totally skipped the rest of the posts after the OP -sorry if I repeated anything/all of any other’s post.</p>