Do you think the SAHM "model" is the one to which parents (& parents to be) aspire?

[lizinthesticks]

Is mum at home w/ the baby the ideal that most people are hoping to realise? And if not, what is?

Obviously in the absence of a large scale survey it's impossible to answer this question. But what's your impression?

Me, I don't know. I think the ideal SHOULD be a 50 / 50 arrangement - both parents sharing childcare and work. But I don't think others in general share this idea. And I suspect the SAHM is still pretty popular - as an ideal, i.e.

But it's really hard to know.

Whatever HMC, you are making yourself sound like a prize bitch and totally undermining any point you were attempting to make.

princesspeahead- ironed shirts? clean house? that's where your thinking is going wrong -

if to be a SAHM is someones ideal it's because they don't even have a clue if the iron works let aloone know how to use it!

FindtheRiver - I am university educated and hated my job. My DH left school at 16 and loves his job and he is very successful. You have come across as very judgemetal.

50/50 would be good for us I think but it isn't realistic. There's no way dh could go part-time. I'd like to stay part-time if possible (2-3 days/week). I don't want to SAHM - not for any other reason but it just doesn't suit me. If it did, I would, and would not bother about other aspirations. I think if mother is happy to SAHM it probably is a very good situation for the dcs - but if mother is not happy to SAHM then dcs are probably better parented if mother works. I don't think I would be a great SAHM - and I do have some guilt about that. I may not be able to go part-time in future and I dread having to make the choice between FT or nothing.

I'm bored now - you sound a bit of bitch yourself, although I don't normally lower myself to name calling

handlemecarefully - I have a Masters degree too, and yeah, I could afford to stay at home if I wanted but I am good at my job and enjoy it!
Your assumption that people who work in interesting careers must be jealous of people who stay home is bizarre to say the least!!

i'd rather eat my own arse than stay at home with kids all day

And your assumption that SAHMs left crap jobs and had little education is bizarre to say the least

yes I was just thinking that my ideal wife, if I were a man, would be almost nothing like me

oh well, dh doesn't seem to mind, helps that he isn't an unreconstructed chauvinist I guess

hmc you are a little touchy today... I say this most affectionately. you sound like me with pmt. is it too early for you to pour a big glass of wine?

I think this idea that there is an army of Dads just desperate to take on their share of childcare if only freed from the demands of the work place is a bit wishful thinking on our part.

It isn't right but it's the way it is unfortunately.

Incidentally I am not a SAHM and do not aspire to be one. I love my ds dearly but I found being a SAHM boring and isolating.

Sorry.

I am not assuming that all WOHM are jealous - I'm sure very few are. But I imagined that you might be jealous because I was trying to fathom out an explanation for your ideological bias

however i thing that i disagree with findtherivers university =career= wahm

i would assume that a majority of university educated are middle class = lentil weavery = gorwingherbs and doing baby yoga

pph - I'm hot! Perhaps it is early menopause

stupid article in the daily mail. The first woman wrongly assumes that all women have the choice to continue working. It can depend on how much they earn, cost of childcare etc..

The second woman is a prat for saying that she said to husband "don't let me return to work"... why can 't she jsut say that that's what they decided was best for the family? why act like a puppet/maid in the family, with husband at the helm.

They both made me gag to be honest. I'm a sahm but I'd love a part-time job for the change! Being at home does not bore me, but I don't try make working mothers see 'my' side. who cares.

Pull together sisters, feeel the love, and down with the daily mail and stupid journalists like lowri turner who is always trying to 'stir' it. Esther bloody Rantzen and Anna Pasternak are another two 'stirrers' who are given space in the DM)

lentil weavery at home i meant is a mc aspiration i think

Ooh it's kicked off hasn't it!
Who assumes that SAHMs had crap jobs and little education?
It's simply more likely that people who are educated to a high level and have interesting careers which they are good at, will remain in their career rather than give it up. To draw the conclusion from that, that 'all SAHMs had crap jobs and poor education' shows a lack of intelligence in reading the posts!

it's comments that one can be too "highly educated and intelligent" to be a SAHM .. implying that it's a position that is beneath one that piss me right orf

More educated = more likely to have a professional career = more likely to be a high earner = more likely to be able to afford childcare.

Some SAHMs are forced into it by financial necessity.

custy - can't we do lentil weavery (whatever that may be ) and grow herbs AND have a career?!!

Roccoco - I would certainly join a organisation the had the hatred of Lowri Turner in its mission statement.

I think I'll get to have most of my ideal, but its complicated.

I will have at least a year of almost full time SAHM. (been working 3-4 hours a week from 3 months). From a year or so DS is hopefully going into nursery (may be later if I've missed out on the one I want and have to wait). IMO this will be best for both of us as I will get to spend plenty of time with him (he'll be in nursery 2 days a week) but also have a little time to do something where I'm not just mummy - and he'll get to play with other kids of a range of ages.

On top of this, I'd really like to be able to job-swap half a day a week with DH so I would work at our business, and he would look after DS. DH would like this too - quality time on their own (on top of the sacred bath time) but with the way our business works, it probably wouldn't work out.

ahhh twig I didn't say too intelligent to BE a SAHM, I said too intelligent to ASPIRE to be a SAHM. I have been a SAHM for a few years, because it worked for me (working out what my next job was going to be, having another baby, enjoying a few years off), but it wasn't an ASPIRATION. It was a decision taken, an acceptance that it was a good idea.

Anyway I'm back at work at a job that I ASPIRED to do, which more than satisfies me intellectually and which has the side benefit of only troubling me about 50 days a year .

Thisismynewname - absolutely. Part of the reason more people in professional jobs choose to work is going to be because they can afford good quality child care and still earn enough to make it worth their while.
I don't understand why some people are getting so hot under the collar about what are simply facts!!

It's bollox written with one aim, to sell the dailymail to working women to read while they eat their pret a manger sandwich. Most of them don't yet have children anyway! so it's all academic to them. Women with kids probably too busy to read a paper during their lunch hour!

Don't let this hatred for women peddled by the media and Heat magazine culture make us all turn on eachother.

Who do I blame for this alleged sahm/wm battle??

I blame magazines, I blame bitchy journalists who sells their 'sisters' for a quick buck with no thought to the misogeny they feed. I blame the price of child care and that the government doesn't properly subsidise childcare.

oh and I haven't read the DM article

matter of principle, dontcha know.