To be sick of reading on MN that you are a "good role model" to your dd if you go back to work??

[ssd]

have read this over various posts on MN over the years

usually posters give various reasons to return to work, all viable and good, but then the poster throws in the "good role model" shite

why always harp back to this?

if you love your kids, teach them to respect and care for others, learn manners and discipline THEN you are a good role model

most of us eventually will return to work at some stage and if we don't we will still be good role models unless we are lying about the house taking drugs and leaving the kids to go feral, which I;m sure not too many of us do!

I know I'll get slated on here as the going back to work to be a good role model line seems to be very poplular round here and I'm not trying to wind up posters who use it, it just seems to me people work out of necessity, not to be a role model

And BTW where's all the role models for ds's??? or is just loving them enough?

My mother sometimes employs a local woman during the school holidays when the grandchildren are staying. This woman only does casual housework and childcare jobs - just enough to buy herself some new curtains or a new sofa. And then she stops working until she wants something else for her house again! I love her frankness, and the obvious relationship there is for her between work (she is quite old) and buying nice things.

PSCMUM there is a midway though; I don't cook smiley faces and in my time at hgome have accrued a degree,and will be volunteering at schools next year, including suporting the area of curriculum my degree is in, that will begin as ds4 turns a year and can be left more easily as he has been exclusively BF.

Whereas they watch DH work and get immense pride from one job (a small Ebay shop) and wages from another.

By working together we're building a comfy-enough existence (I'm also registered as a carer) and also demonstrating a good partnership role model too.

There's nothing bad about that IMO

lots of people have a job that they love though, when I was with my ex husband I never needed to work but chose to because teaching is my passion. I worked part time and broke even for a while just so I could be at work. If I won the lottery I would be at work the next day.

I miss work when I am not there, am off il today and am missing it.

peachy that is great - i don't give a suff whether i am earning or not, or how much, just that i am diong something constructive and showing my kids there is more to life than domesticity. i also studied for the first 4 years of parenthood and it was fantastic.

Sfendona I am lucky in that I earn money from my job and I also enjoy it - the two things are not mutually exclusive. I am in that category of people who feels a need to WOHM.

So atm I am the breadwinner and my dh is the SAHP.

Tbh I find the idea of working in a job I dislike just so I can buy extra stuff I don't need very hollow.

WRT to thread title - I am narked by "good role model to your dd". It's equally important to show boys that men and women can have flexible roles. But then I am with twinset - a bit of a hairy feminist.

It's an outrageous slur.

I am a WOHM and I've never been accused of being a good role model

My mother worked when we were young very much to pay for the "extras" - nice holidays, cars, new furniture. My father earned a good salary but her extra earnings gave them a very comfortable standard of living.

It proved terribly useful that she had kept herself skilled when he left her....

i dont think is hollow. It is realistic. And honest.
Work is for money. You can find happiness and fullfilment in other areas of your life.
But of course if your job gives you money AND you like it too like you and Twinset thats fab

lol doggie I must use the phrase hairy feminist at work as I was talking to my year 11 about women and HInduism and made a passing comment about a story and one of the boys said "But that is because you are a hairy feminist"

I have done things I didnt like doing to buy things not hollow sometimes a necessity. We were broke earlier in the year instead of winging or racking up credit I went out cleaning in the evening.

PMSL Orm - the very idea of it!

Sorry my post was to doggie

I hereby accuse orm of being a good rolemodel, what with helping when rainbows are short of a leader and all.

peachy how very dare you!

och I'm sorry about the "hollow" comment - I think that was more because of the examples given - plasma tvs and holidays etc. Neither of those is important to me at all so I thought yuck.

It just depends on your priorities.

And I want to emphasise I wouldn't do something I hate for things I don't need - but if it's to pay the mortgage etc I would absolutely suck it up, and I have done on the past.

I think it's also important to model that to dc, that you sometimes have to do things you don't really want to.

in the past

i think its good for a child to see work as a way of providing for your family,however each person is allowed to raise their child the way they want,as long as the child is loved and happy.personally i went back to work for my own self esteem and to show my dd you havw to work for what you want and a good work ethic is a good way to live your life.

I think YABU OP. I think dcs should see both parents working at some point even if one does become a SAHP for a bit.

Getting decent employment is a neccessity and for many families on eparent not working isn;t a choice, it's just that a neccessity particularly if you want a decent standard of living.

The SAHMs I know work hard bringing up their dcs but they have this weird kind of sense of entitlement, like it's owed to them when they start to pro-create which I object to.

I'm a bit of a feminist too, I want dd to see that Mums can work and manage a family, and yes, have a decent standard of living and that it takes commitment and hard work.

The phrase "full time Mum" is just as galling, we don't stop being Mums cos we go out and earn a wage you know!

I didn't start this thread to object to mums working in the home or outside it

I'm just sick of hearing that going out to work is a role model for daughters as if raising a happy family and being at home for them isn't a good role model.

I think as a WOHM, I am a good role model to my dd because I do not want her to be a SAHM. I think that if she did this it would make her very vulnerable to poverty as the future of her and her children would be based on the whim of the father.

That does not mean that I do not respect SAHMs; I do believe that they are making a valuable contribution to society; I just don't want my dd to choose such a risky path.

Obviously when she grows up, it is her choice and none of my business, but while she is a child I want to set her the example I feel is right.

Of course you can be a good role model when not in paid work - for lots of different things.
But the nature of a role model is that you have to be doing that role per se...so when I was a SAHM i couldn't say I was a role model for women's equal earning power or that creative work, for instance, comes from hard graft. That wasn't part of my role thus not modelling it.

I think it is useful to show that you can turn your hand to anything. So holding down a job to pay the bills is important, as if showing that you are good at all the other things that matter in your child's life. I don't like the idea that my children would ever be incapable of coping with whatever life chucks at them.

Yes, I agree.
My Mum was a very good role model for that.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off.

It also occurs to me that this is why it is very important not to live in isolation.
We can't possibly be great role models for everything so it's great for our kids to see other people acting so.

My mum was a SAHM for her first five children, only going back to work when I (the youngest) was 6. My first 4 sisters became professionals in various fields, despite being raised in comparative poverty.

They didn't need to see my mum working, they saw my dad working. He was the role model and we all inherited his work ethic, regardless of the fact that our mum didn't work.

My mum was the backbone of our family though and we learned at her feet how to become caring, considerate adults with a sense of right and wrong and a desire to bring money into the house.

It's folly to think that all mums who go out to work are great role models and all mums who don't go out to work aren't.

Working mums are one kind of role model; SAHM's are another and we don't live in isolation. Therefore we can point to great role models and show our kids what's great and what's not.