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?

I'm not getting into judgement or argument here. I'm just not. But there are important points to be made that aren't about taking sides or right and wrong.

The thing about raising your girls to expect or want to be SAHMs is that this is not a choice they can make alone or independently. You can't choose to be a SAHM unless you have a partner who can support you and your kids financially or you are going to rely on the state. So I could never present this as an option for my children since neither I nor they can predict that they will have a partner (who will be willing to support them). I can only encourage them to find ways of supporting themselves (and any children tehy may have).

I think squilly is right that a lot of women do not find their jobs rewarding or interesting and do feel they are badly paid and take having children as an opportunity to get out.

This raises issues about women and work and low status jobs and lack of aspriation and bad career advise etc which are also really importatn.

I think it's great if women make a positive choice to SAHM and are financially and otherwise secure enough to do this and are then able to get back into work if and when they want to.

But where women are forced to SAHM or give up work just ebcauset they didn't enjoy it then that's obviously not so good.

YANBU

depends on the values your trying to teach your children.

i would like my dd to have the choice

My Mum was a SAHM also. but where I get out and do things, attend groups etc when I can (when boys at school) she never did, she sat home with severe depression feeling awful and taking pills. The difference between her and myself is, imo, massive.

Indeed there have to be people like me out there because the country needs volunteers to function even at the level it does. As a charity worker I recruited SAHM's all th time for homestart and the worked as ahrd as anyone, if unwaged.

And if you do things like that- a bit of voluntary work, some study- you're keeping yourself marketable and maintaining your ability to work if you do need to.

Not everybody can have a well paid job. Statistically, the vast majority of people regardless of their sex aren't 'well paid'.

Squilly, what you say is absolutely true. I'm sure if I were working I wouldn't have the time or the energy to read as much as I do.

People are very rude about SAHMs.

I think some working mums 'suffer with boredom' as though it were an affiction of some sort. My friend who works talks to me of 'climbing the walls' with boredom at home. I don't understand this. My default template is set to 'content' and I consider myself lucky.

llaregub, of course you are right. But there is plenty of research which suggests that taking a couple of years out can and does have a significant impact on a woman's long-term career prospects. It's a huge reason why women earn so much less than men over their lifetimes. Not just the loss of earningsa t the time but lack of opportunity for promtion and likelishood of coming back into the career at a lower level or dbeing forced to take up a different career. It's also things like the impact on your pension which there's not as much awareness as there could be. Of course, there'll be exceptions but women need to be made aware of long-term consequences before making their choices.

If there were no women who worked and had children, I think that would be a very poor model of society for our children to grow up with. I would not want a child of mine to grow up in such a sexist society. So working women are good role models for how a society should be.

Or are there people who really believe we would better off if all women stayed at home?

Hmm, I'm not making assumptions about SAHMs here.

But it amazes me how many people imply that if you are a WOHM it means there are things you can't/don't do.

DP and I both work school hours and term time so there is nothing we can't both do that a SAHM and SAHD could do for our kids or as far as contributing to school life or charity work etc etc goes.

We do childcare, washing, homework etc etc AS WELL as working.

No, not everyone could do this. But don't assume that being a WOHM or WOHD makes you any less able to be a good mum or dad or school governor or reader of books etc etc

oh fgs fivecandles, SAHMs aren't stupid, they know the long term consequences of their choices but they still do what they have to do.

Only a small portion of the population earn enough to cover childcare for more than one child.

Not even all educated women are well paid enough to do this.

Not all women choose to priotise money over job satisfaction/

not all women choose to prioritise a salary over their children's first years.

My mother worked full time and I'm now a single mum of two on benefits. But at least my mum was a strong character and she gave me the confidence to know that I can only sort out my own life, and other people don't know my life better than I do. I see other people juggling heaven and earth so that they can work. Do they all desperately want to? ARe they all financially better off? I don't think so.

Things aren't black and white and you shouldn't make sweeping proclamations.

Well no FC, we didnt recruit term time only volunteers, and the groups we attend (sign language singing etc) are also term time only, as are many.

I've been a WOHM and a SAHM and there are things you do as a SAHM with your kids you don't otherwise. There's only so many hours in the day, after all. Housework only takes me an houra nd DH sahres that equally when he's about so the rest is for DS4 and I in term time.

Well sadly there aren't many professions with the hours and holidays teachers get. I know you have loads to do at home such as marking etc. but at least you are able to leave the premises before 5 which most other people can't.

I sometimes have pangs of wanting to go back to work but then I remember how depressing it was having only 4/5 weeks hols a year and the years just flying past in a blur as work and stress took up so much of it.

Wish I could imagine myself changing career to teaching but I just can't!

Hmm. I think that DH and I probably more comfortable with the gender roles we model for our children now that we are both working full time, but that is quite possibly our own hang up, as we were really pretty happy with what we were doing when I was a SAHM. I think modelling a happy and equitable relationship is one of our priorities, and showing that that doesn't have to fit any particular narrow model is a good thing.

Obviously those of us who work will take exception to the suggestion that by working we are prioritising a salary over a child's first years. You're assuming children are better off if the mother is home which isn't true. I have a reall interesting job and earn a lot and I do volunteer things and I spend a lot of time with the children.

I was looking at my grandfather's scrap book from 1929 - year after the stock market crash - his local council on which he sat passed a resoultion to sack all women doctors if they were married or did marry so that there were jobs for men in hard times because women's income wasn't needed Do those who think stay at home mothers are best for children think we should do the same sort of thing - return to the days when we banned married women frmo working? Surely if you think chdilren are better off with a mother at home then that's a logical result so that your children woudl never see a womwn with children work, never ever see that example. Is that a good thing? And if you don't agree then surely every single woman who wimps out to go home and bake cakes and become in effect a domestic servant to a man reinforces that model - that women serve in return for their bed and board and men go out to work.

MBG

I don't think knowing how to sort out your own life makes any woman a role model. That is the bare minimum someone ought to do.

Surely being a role model involves showing your children that it is important to make a contribution to society outside of your own family, either through paid work or volunteering or both?

I am a teacher and need a dp who works part time so he can do everything for dd because of my working hours. But you are right about the holidays , weekends and holidays are the only time I have with dd.

I took five years out and am certainly now behind in my career, I would probably be a deputy head by now if i had not taken time out.

"I see other people juggling heaven and earth so that they can work. Do they all desperately want to? Are they all financially better off? I don't think so."

Maybe some people do that as they want to provide for their own family and be proud that they can/are rather than living off the state.

I don't see myself as my husband's domestic servant at all. He works full-time and runs a business, with the eventual aim of working on his business full-time. I iron his shirts, do his washing but only because I like to run a full washing machine and don't mind ironing. On the other hand, I hate cooking so he does that. I'd say the domestic chores are pretty evenly split. I don't spend a great deal of time cleaning or doing housework. Most of the time I am doing things with my son. I don't see that as domestic drudgery at all.

Having said that, when my children are in school I'll find something rewarding to do that will utilise my skills.

I juggle heaven and earth so I can work, we are financially comfortably off, or would be f we could sell our house but I do it because I love my job

Happymummyofone - you can be a SAHM without living off the state...as a household paying higher rate tax I take objection to that.

Some people make a lot of money before having children and are able to take a few years out of their career.

I see providing for my family as being there for my children when they are young and giving them a happy home environment. If my DH did not have a decent job to cover the bills I would of course seek paid employment.

If every parent worked full time at my DCs school there would be no Mums to help out with the reading and some children would never be listened to.

Xenia if that was to me I amnot assuming anything- different doesn't mean worse, just- well different.

I too juggle heaven and earth to work. My DH works in the City so I don't need to ie we can comfortab;y pay for everything on his salary.
But I want to do it for so many reasons.

1. I love it.
2. Others enjoy my work so I see it as useful
3. I do think it's important that my children see both their parents doing something other than family business iyswim.
4. I like to make a financial contribution to our family .

I don't know why people have such a problem with doing their washing and cleaning their homes. We probably could afford a cleaner but I'd rather do the cleaning myself. Washing is not that hard given that nearly every household has a washing machine.

I suspect that people like to have a cleaner as a status symbol as much as anything.

Personally, I just go to work so I can finish a cup of tea in peace

I would not prefer to do the cleaning myself. My problem with it is that I would rather spend my time doing something else. So I do.

Status symbol?

I would imagine many people just do not have time.

I work from 7 in the morning until around 10pm every week day, unless dp worked parttime we would need a cleaner.