will prib regret this, and won't be here all evening to discuss, but just want to knbow why i am not a good role model for the kids if i choose to stay home with them

[mrsjohnsimnelcake]

i am interested in why certain people think that staying home with the kids is not a good role model.
I am university educvated and post grad qualified and have had a professinal role for 20yrs. I have managed and i have taught undergraduates.
I think staying at home for a while with my children is what i want to choose now.
I don't feel that i am teaching them not to expect the best from themsleves in any way- could you explain how I am doing this?

I feel it is the best for me and my kids and i may well change later when they are at school full tjme.
Surely your job is not the only thing that identifies you as a strong role model to children??
i can't really believe this to be the case.... it would seem a somewhat narrow minded way to exist in the world.
I think it is interesting that when you meet people they often ask what you do for a living. The shallow people are not interested if you are a SHAM, the more interesting and dynamic and less conventional people accpet that at some points in one's life different priorities take precedent.
I am still ME and i am still a strong and powerful woman whether or not I go out to work outside the house... and why would it be otherwise ?

I have always regarded myself as a feminist. I worked in a male-dominated area and was taken by surprise when I became pg, then stunned myself & everyone else by becoming a SAHM.

I remember once being at a dinner-party when a young girl who had a baby and a full-time job said that she wasn't a feminist. I was so angry I gave her a lecture about the suffragettes & valiant women pioneers, without whose forging the way for her she wouldn't have the freedom to choose, and ended up shouting that of course she was a bloody femeinist... the table went quiet, oops!

Er, 'retire early'? 'Responsibility'? What's not responsible about keeping children looked after, teaching them right from wrong, ansering their questions,feeding them, bathing them, wiping their bums, reading wiht them, keeping them safe, shopping, cooking, keeping DP in clean clothes & generally smoothing things at home to make life easier for the wage-earner?

SAHMs might have put earning on hold, but I wouldn't call it retiring. Many work pt, & I for one intend to go back at some stage. My SAH friend has just landed herself a job in the City!! She loves it, even though she's away from home 7am to 7pm.(Her DD1 left home in Sept.)

we were talking abot financial responsibility, and I have sole responsibility for most of the things on yor list, as well as earning money.

if i have disapointed or short changed anyone by not having the glittering career i vaguely imagined as a child... it is not all womankind, nor society at large (i have quite enough of a guilt complex without adding those to the list, ta v much).

In answer to the OP (because I'm sorry I can't be bothered to read the whole inevitable debate), being a SAHM is one of the most important jobs in the world and I wish I was doing it. Anyone who says otherwise is talking cr*p IMHO.

This is for all the mothers who froze their bottoms off
on metal benches at soccer games Friday night
instead of watching from cars, so that when
their kids asked, "Did you see my goal?"
they could say, "Of course, wouldn't have missed it for the world," and
mean it.

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night
with sick toddlers in their arms,
wiping up sick laced with that days dinner and
juice saying, "It's OK honey,Mammy's here."

This is for all the mothers of Kosovo who fled in the night and can't find
their children.

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And
the mothers who took those babies and made them homes.

For all the mothers of the victims of the Beslan shooting,
and the mothers of the murderers.
For the mothers of the survivors,
and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs
in horror, hugging their child who just came home from
school, safely.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween
costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.

What makes a good mother anyway?
Is it patience?
Compassion?
Broad hips?

The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all
at the same time?
Or is it heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or
daughter disappear down the street,
walking to school alone for the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread,
from bed to cot at 2 a.m. to put your
hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear
news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?

I think so.

So this is for all the mothers who sat down
with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the
mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.

This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then
reading it again.
"Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who mess up.
Who yell at their kids in the grocery
store and smack them in despair
and stomp their feet like a tired 2 year old
who wants ice cream before dinner.

This is for all the mothers who taught their daughters
to tie their shoelaces before they started school.
And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

For all the mothers who bite their lips-
sometimes until they bleed-when their
14 year olds dye their hair green.

Who lock themselves in the bathroom
when babies keep crying and won't stop.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work
with sick in their hair and
milk stains on their blouses and nappies in their purse.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons
to cook and their daughters to shoot pool..

This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically
when a little voice calls "Mam?" in a crowd,
even though they know their own offspring are at home.

This is for mothers who put flowers and teddy bears
on their children's graves.
This is for mothers whose children have gone astray,
who can't find the words to reach them.

This is for all the mothers who sent their child to school with stomach
aches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get
calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please pick them
up. Right away.

This is for young mothers stumbling
through diaper changes and sleep deprivation.
And mature mothers learning to let go.
For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.
Single mothers and married mothers.

Mothers with money, mothers without. This is for you all. So hang in there.

NadineB -- thanks for the laughs.

EllieK was the ringleader....

As long as you and your family are happy stuff what others think. Mums are intresting or otherwise this site would not be running. Mums are criticised whatever they do, so stuff it. As long as we are happy and our children are happy, to hell with everyone who disagrees!

is it for all the mothers who slack off and put their child before their nation AND for all the mothers who don't slack off and put nation before their child?

I thought feminism was about fighting for women to have equal rights - not about equal rights but no choice in what they do.

And why is staying at home to look after your children so valueless but being paid to look after someone else's not?

Not sure about women running the world and not creating wars - Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands spring to mind.

You have a neutral choice about these things when as many men as women stay at home and it's as likely the board of BP is 100% women as 100% men etc. Once we are then then I will let you all relax back into your caring and supportive and voluntary roles. In fact all working mothers and fathers do a huge amount of the caring and support anyway. Most women work who have children and most and their husbands also care for their children.

I thikn I see a bit like in WWII. You might well like to escape to the hills but in fact your country needs you to continue to forge on until we get proper equality at the higher levels. The cleaning service staff of the NE and other areas have done a huge great service by the way in getting all those local authority jobs re-valued to ensure men just because they have a penis don't get extra bonuses women don't. Now we need to ensure the real power is in the hands of women as much as men. Once we are there you can go back to choice and being at home but not before.

Er, no. I have a choice about it now, I've made it and I'm happy with it.

I couldn't give a stuff about half the stuff you twitter on about. This is my life and I'll do what I like with it.

Thanks.

Oh bollocks. This isn't a fight where all women are conscripted. We all have a choice and millions of us choose not to be a slave to the notion that we have to be doing everything that men do.

There are women who are on the boards of companies, just as there are women who are politicians and financiers and lawyers, etc. They have chosen to do that, just as others have chosen not to do that.

There are a lot of women who "have it all", i.e. children and a high-flying career, and loads of them are leaving work because they've discovered that it just isn't worth it.

I think I am at least as good a role model to my children by saying (implicitly, not explicitly) that they are important enough for me to give up outside the home work for a while to look after them rather than paying another woman a pittance to do it for me.

has this thing kicked off yet?

this reminds me of the scene in "The Life Of Brian" where he's addressing the crowd from the balcony

"we are all individuals"

why are we still going on about this?

if you're happy with your life, thats enough

BarbielovesKen - thank you for your long post, I read it even if the others are too busy slugging it out!!

Oh FGS, what has the world come to when looking after your own children has become so unimportant and undervalued? It really is so, so sad. I feel so incredibly sorry for some children. I see them walking in a big line to afterschool club and, honestly, my heart breaks for them. Why is that so acceptable but being around to take them home and do things with them yourself is not.

I just don't get it, I honestly don't.

what gets me is that we beat ourselves up so much about this - if we feel we represent good role models for our kids, that we support and nurture them in a way that is morally and physically responsible what does it matter what everyone else thinks? DH is the SAHP, he's fantastic at it and cares not one jot what people say nor do I particularly care when the SAHMs I encounter think less of me for working.

Why can't we simply support a woman's right to choose - surely thats what feminism is about? I live and work in a society where the female role is traditionally restricted, (but admittedly where huge strides are being made daily), these are women who'd love the right to choose to work after marriage, to choose where to work and how...

Why are we wasting so much energy judging and criticising each other's choices? I'd bet any money that DH isn't having this conversation on his discussion board, nor are other male SAHPs.

I don't beat myself up about it at all. I have not one iota of doubt that what I'm doing is perfect for my family, and the way my children are growing up and our family runs is justification enough.

I do think it's sad though that it's so universally acceptable to pay someone else to look after your children but not to look after them yourself. I don't understand it at all.