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Sounds like society isn’t pleased with any setup. </p>
<p>Best thing to do: Work out a dynamic that is beneficial for your family.</p>
<p>Work out a dynamic that is beneficial for your family?
Much easier said than done.
It certainly wasn’t optimum the way we did it.
I am not domestic and needed the structure of going outside the home to work.
But with H working swing shift ( roughly 2pm to 11pm- including weekends) that wasn’t possible.
Perhaps if those with enough income to hire help ( or who had family to help) could have made it through without having a breakdown but that wasn’t in the cards.
Temperamentally, H was better suited to staying at home, but he was able to earn more money.</p>
<p>It may be much easier said than done, but what successful household doesn’t require work? It’s better to go with your own flow than to try to comply with society.</p>
<p>In my circle it was about 50/50 sahd. If there was a stay at home. Most are all working full time now with older children.</p>
<p>My point was that if companies did not force so much required overtime,( and if people did not have to work the equivalent of two jobs) then the parents would be better positioned to not only have a more egalitarian relationship at home, but have enough time & energy to be more involved in their communities including their childrens schools.</p>
<p>The real million dollar question is:
How we got through two pages of this topic without anyone mentioning the obvious–pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding???
These things can require years of physical commitment, and so far, only women can do them. So it is much more natural for the mother to stay home with her children.</p>
<p>I used to work when my oldest two were young and H was in school. As soon as he started working, I quit. We were having our 3rd child–I couldn’t afford to work anymore. H works long hours, travels at times, and we have 7 kids. Someone has to be at home. Now that my youngest kid is in school, I teach part-time just to keep my brain going. I don’t really love homemaking and I admire women who can make their homes into immaculate and beautifully decorated havens, welcoming their husbands, children, and guests with gourmet meals. Sigh. Just not me. I’d rather teach math than clean/cook/decorate/do laundry. I feel that homemaking is a lost art in some ways. But even just keeping up with financials, grocery shopping, yard work, repairs, kids appointments and activities, I’m overwhelmed and feel like I’m running a small business, solo. Few take this seriously as a real job. I don’t really hang out with other moms, and it is sort of lonely. I’ve moved a bunch of times and don’t really feel connected.
I still have elementary kids and see a lot more stay at home dads. My little daughters are friends with many of theirs and it is sort of awkward to be doing playdates with dads. I notice the moms are more scheduled/organized. Dads will call up and say, “My kid wants to play with your kid.” And I’ll ask what time to drop off, the dad will say “Whenever.” When to pick up “Any time.” Who is picking up/dropping off? “Whatever you want to do. . .” I always get the impression that the dad isn’t watching the kids either, so it makes me nervous (of course I’m not talking about any of the SAHDs on THIS thread 
One of my kids was injured during one of those unsupervised playdates. Fortunately the MOM arrived home just in time to take my kid to the ER.)
My father in law, long deceased, was a stay at home dad. He took care of a handicapped son full-time while his wife worked to support 7 kids–this was in the 60s thru 80s. He also had some mental health issues that probably prevented him from working. He was a terrible cook and housekeeper–worse than I am.</p>
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Thank you for bringing this into play.</p>
<p>In HI, most families have BOTH parents working full-time and sometimes having side jobs as well, just to pay the bills. Recently our newspaper estimated it costs an average of $78,000/year for a MODEST lifestyle for a family of 4. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.upwhawaii.org/OurUnionOurFamily/modest-life-for-families-in-honolulu-costs-78k[/url]”>http://www.upwhawaii.org/OurUnionOurFamily/modest-life-for-families-in-honolulu-costs-78k</a></p>
<p>In the US, men generally make more than women and that income gap has narrowed slightly but remains. Within individual families, this can differ. For one my best friends from HS, she was the main breadwinner and her H stayed home and worked out of their basement and raised the kids. They also hired a live-in nanny, when his work was taking more and more of his time. In our household, I was fortunate that I was able to be a SAHM, which I enjoyed. I did go back to work part-time once our youngest child was in middle school and have worked part-time ever since.</p>
<p>I think it helps to have a temperment suitable for staying and home and raising children if you are choosing to do so. My HS friend tried it but couldn’t handle it at all and MUCH preferred returning full-time to the lab and having her H stay home with their kids. It is much less isolating and more fulfilling if you develop your social network, including groups where you interact with other adults and children. I also was very involved with our kids’ schools, including running the PTA for a while.</p>
<p>I worked at my full-time job through the week before our 1st child was born and went back to work after my 3 months of maternity leave. I did resign after H’s 6 weeks of parental leave ended to stay home with our child full-time. I know other mom’s who pump their breastmilk and nurse in the morning and evening and go back to work once their maternity leave ends. It depends on the priorities and choices of the families, as well as economic choices and necessities.</p>
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I don’t know if I’d call it “natural”. It’s easier, that’s for sure. But none of these activities exclude work. Women work through pregnancy, up to their due dates, and can pump breast milk. I’m not saying women have to work while pregnant or nursing (but nursing is not a biological imperative either – it’s a choice). I believe people have choices. Once you say one choice is “natural”, that implies that the opposite choice (working) is “unnatural”.</p>
<p>In some countries SAHD are not even welcome, period. I know a number of professional women who were denied a work visa for an overseas job assignment in the Middle East, because the gov’t rejected the notion, explicitly, of the husband being a SAHD.</p>
<p>On the topic of breastfeeding, GMTmom expressed milk at the office for nearly a year for both kids. It’s doable.</p>
<p>More than twenty years ago, while I was not a SAHD, because my schedule was more flexible, I was the one who was primarily responsible for taking our young son to swim lessons, etc. The moms who were at those activities were perfectly pleasant, but there was a clear line. No one was going to invite me to a one on one coffee, probably in part because of the possibility that the relationship might be misconstrued in some way.</p>
<p>Fast forward to the present. Twenty years ago, W left her very successful career to become a SAHM, punctuated by periods of part time paid work. Our social circle includes a number of women who, like my wife, left high powered jobs to stay at home, but only a couple of SAHDs, neither of whom I would classify as extraordinarily successful in the business world. My observation is that almost universally, the egos of highly successful men are inextricably tied up with their jobs, while a larger number of women are able to simply walk away (assuming the finances can be worked out). The situation changes only when men get older and I think just get tired out.</p>
<p>This observation is just that–an observation. I make no value judgments, nor do I make any claims about the relative importance of biology and socialization in creating this phenomenon.</p>
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Sorry if my mani-pedi quip came off wrong. I meant it as synecdoche. Lots of SAHMs are interested in things that are of little interest to me. </p>
<p>Did you want one, emerald? Maybe I could send you a gift certificate or something.</p>
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<p>I think we got as far as we got without anybody mentioning them because they’re only relevant when they’re relevant–and unless you have a whole lot of children, that’s a fairly small fraction of a family’s child-raising years. I quit my day job when my kids were 3 and almost 6, and those kids are now 17 and almost 20. Pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding were not on our radar screen when I left the work force, and they haven’t been during the intervening 14 years.</p>
<p>I think it’s interesting, and not often understood, that there often is no really ideal situation. When we mention that it is our plan for me not to work, people often will make comments about how lucky or “spoiled” I am. And it’s true, I am lucky that we are able to work towards what we want to do. We also bought a house that was half what we could afford, sold my fiance’s car, cancelled cable, didn’t do a lot of the home upgrades we planned, and generally live without a lot of things our peers take for granted so that we can do this and do it comfortably enough. My fiance is also working a second job with my dad for extra cushion, and if necessary I may end up doing so from home as well. Not working is a lot of work. A lot of people could do what we are doing if they chose to, but they wouldn’t want to-- that doesn’t make me more lucky than them. It’s just different lifestyle choices.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, both my parents always worked. When I was very young my parents staggered shifts-- dad worked his day job and came home at 5, then mom left to work evenings at Kohls. I doubt they ever saw each other for more than a minute or two a day. Eventually my mom transitioned to working full time from home. That was enormously difficult at times, too. My mom worked full time but because it was from home, my father-- and indeed the rest of the family-- tended to treat her as if she wasn’t working and had unreasonable expectations of her time and energy. Everyone always thinks, “well you’re home all day, you have time for this, don’t you?” My mom never slept.</p>
<p>My husband always had a flexible schedule or worked nights, so he was the parent at home. Which is good because he drove to all the sports, events, appointments because I am the worst driver in the world. THe downside for me is that he is actually friends with all the moms, the service providers, the people in our neighborhood shops and I am invisible. In a small and petty way, I always envied those friendships because I didn’t have them. But in the big picture, he was the right person to be at home because he has a huge personality and I don’t.</p>
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<p>What about it? My mom took a week off when I was born and then was right back to work.
I wasn’t breastfed but several of my coworkers who had kids only took a week or so off when they have kids. They store their breastmilk so anyone can feed their kids (if they’re breastfeeding).</p>
<p>[Home</a> Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality - Stephen Marche - The Atlantic](<a href=“Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality - The Atlantic”>Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>a sahd article</p>
<p>romanigy: the longer you do it, the easier breastfeeding gets. It is, however, a whole lot of work. And for many, it takes a physical toll. For me it felt like a full-time job for the first several months. I absolutely support women pumping while working outside the home, but this isn’t necessarily an easy task. We need to recognize and support and applaud the effort.</p>
<p>imho</p>
<p>adding:
I absolutely don’t see breastfeeding as a necessity. Some women aren’t successful for reasons beyond their control. Some just aren’t interested. I don’t want anyone to feel pressured about this issue. I supplemented with formula at times. Otherwise my children would have starved.</p>
<p>alh, I get that. I’m just saying that A) it doesn’t apply to everyone and B ) that it isn’t a strain on everyone.
It doesn’t need to be a reason that women should “naturally” stay at home though.</p>
<p>I don’t believe women ever “naturally” stayed home. In olden days, (most of history) women worked at one thing or another. They brought nursing babies along with them to whatever work they were doing.</p>
<p>Aren’t you doing anthropology?</p>
<p>I graduated with a degree in Anthropology. Why?
My “naturally” comment was responding to what ato said.</p>