My mom didn't have a choice since my parents got divorced. She worked long hours to make sure we were provided for.
I don't think it influences my decision because our lives are so different. I am currently working but ultimately strive to be home with my DD and hypothetical second child.
My mom was a SAH until I was around 16. She went back to school midpoint got her degree as well After thought she told me she wished she never waited so long to return. She has a lot to catch up on retirement and probably will not be retiring at 67 due to this. She was very straight forward with me, that unless DH was making the big dollars not to SAH and if I did, just for a few years, since it would have negative affects on my life later on. I am seeing those issues now with my mom, and I feel terrible for that, since really there is not much she can do at this point.
Growing up she pushed me to do better then her, work, get married, have kids when its perfect and continue to work to help out with $ in the household. I can only imagine the stress on my dad throughout the years.
My mom always worked, but she was a nurse and she did a weekend shift once a month or something when we were super young. When I was in elementary school I remember having a sitter twice a week while she worked during the summer and then by middle school she was working full time again but in research, not on a floor. So as a child I remember her staying home but she still worked.
I think it influences me in that i like the idea of staying home until my youngest is in elementary school and then going back, but it doesn't influence me hugely. I like working.
Post by countthestars on Dec 6, 2012 7:04:02 GMT -5
She worked part time at our family's business. I went to daycare some days but mostly hung out with her at work, so it was kind of a hybrid situation. Her work was next door to my grandparent's so I could go there any time I wanted as well.
I always thought I would want to SAH but now I'm not sure.
My mom worked FT until she had my sister when I was 4. Then she was home for about 3 years and started back PT. Then she eventually re-entered her old workforce full time. She always brought us up to never be dependant on a man for money and now as an adult she talks about how lean things were when it was a 1 income household and how going back to work was worth it financially (even with the cost of daycare).
So I grew up with a combination of in-home daycares, pre-school, live-in nannies and live-out nannies.
It has definitely shaped who I am, but that said, if we could easily afford me to SAH for a couple years I probably would. That said, as the breadwinner in the household there's no way we could make it work and be comfortable. We also don't have any family nearby that we would trust to watch LO, so we'll make it work with daycare and being a 2 income family.
At this point, I think I'd like to SAH for a few years, maybe not with one kid, but if we're lucky enough to have two or three. I can't see myself permanently not working, though. And who knows, I may change my mind and not ever want to SAH.
For me, it's financial more than anything else. I earn about the same as my H when you factor in bonuses, and it would be hard to give that up. I'm not really defined by my career, but it is important to me to be successful, so I might have trouble with that as well - learning to define success outside of my career goals.
she did both, there were times she worked and when we got older she stayed home...we couldn't afford when we were younger to have her stay home since she was the breadwinner, my dad was going back to college and so I never really saw either of them.
I don't want to SAH because I love working, DH and I don't feel the same about daycare, but we have managed to reach a compromise. I get a lot of intrinsic rewards from my work and the challenges it brings and what we do. If I stayed home, I'm pretty sure I'd get bored very quickly. I'm thinking I can manage maybe 4-6 months at home before I've reached my limit and go BSC.
I can't think of any women in my extended family who were really career women
This is how my family is. My mom quit working when she was pregnant with me and never worked outside the home after that. She did some home sales, but that's it. Now she works part-time for her friend's catering company (mostly to keep her busy; she loves it).
I will definitely be a working mom. No way I put myself through eight years of misery to leave my career. I have this secret hope that my mom will move down here when we have a kid and help us with childcare. She is so obsessed with the idea of a grandchild, and her family is near us, so I don't think this idea is so crazy.
Post by emilyinchile on Dec 6, 2012 7:43:54 GMT -5
My mom and dad both traveled for work when I was younger but also had somewhat flexible schedules. They both ended up working at home and eventually starting their own companies. It meant they could pick me up from school and have dinner together, so as a kid I felt like I got a lot of their time, but they also worked FT in careers that interested them.
I would love to be able to do something similar when I have kids because it seemed like the best of both worlds for both them and me.
She SAH with us until I was about 12 or 13. She went back to work because my parents needed the money.
I think so. I did miss spending time with her when she went back to work. My brother and I also got into a lot of trouble as teenagers (god we were such cliches, lol) and that makes me want to continue to SAH when my kids are in ms and hs. Just so that I'm around and can keep an eye on things. I'll definitely get some type of volunteer job that I can fit around school hours but I want to be able to be available to the kids.
My mom worked. Many because with 3 kids within 3 years she couldn't have found a job that paid well enough to cover day care costs. H and I are unsure if we will have kids but I would not be willing to stay home. I am just not cut out for it. H on the other hand would love to be a SAHD.
mom was SAH - it definitely makes me think more about SAH, but I'm a professional in an urban area and our lives are pretty different. I don't think I could afford to SAH and I'm not sure how I'll feel about it until I have kids.
Post by southerntransplant on Dec 6, 2012 8:35:56 GMT -5
Both of our mothers SAH and I think that makes us at least think about my doing it as well. We would like to provide our kids with a similar childhood. However, it seems that a lot of things were a lot less expensive back then (housing, healthcare, college, etc.) and we can't quite figure out how to make it work yet.
Both--my mom worked until I was 2.5, then stayed home until I was 10ish, went to school FT (1.5 hours away), then worked FT+ from age 13 on.
I think I've always known I would work. Like Spenjamins said, it doesn't seem like an agonizing choice. And I make most of the household income, so there's not really a choice.
My mom got married at 18 and started having babies immediately, so she SAH. She really pushed us to go to college and have a career first, I think partially because she feels like she missed out on that.
She was home when we were small then started working PT retail in the evenings. By the time I was in 4th grade or so she was working FT as an administrative assistant and my brother and I were latch key kids. My brother had lots of friends over after school and was using drugs by the time he was in Jr. high. I can't say whether that would have happened even if someone had been home with us but it certainly didn't help that we were unsupervised for three hours every afternoon.
I don't know if her experience has influenced my choices so far. I worked FT until #3 was about 18 months old then I switch to PT. So far that's working out really well. I may go back FT at some point but it's not on my radar right now. And obviously the latch key concept is troublesome to me so we'll see what happens as they get older.
Both of my parents are attorneys. My mom worked PT for most of my childhood. She was diagnosed with M.S. when I was 2, and then when I was about 9 she was diagnosed with Crohns disease. Because stress can be a huge trigger for auto immune diseases she retired at that point, she was about 43 years old then.
I like the idea of working PT and that's what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future.
All four of my parents worked full-time. I know my mom once said that she'd wanted to be able to SAH, but it wasn't financially possible. Looking back, I'm glad she didn't. I'm super social, and it was probably for the best that I was always around other kids at daycare and was in full-day preschool at age 3. Also, she was a teacher, so we got a lot of time in the summers.
Honestly, my mom working didn't shape my views on being a working mom so much as my parents' divorce did. If my mom had been a SAHM when my dad left, she would have been in far worse shape. And things were pretty tight as it was. For a while, we bounced around the idea of H being a SAHD when we have kids, but I actually wanted him to at least work part-time teaching a community college class or two.
Just for financial security reasons, I don't want either one of us fully removed from the workforce unless we have accumulated significant wealth first.
My mother SAH until I was 3 when she left my dad. SAHMs are very rare where I am from and she only did it because we bounced around islands where she was not legally allowed to work.
I don't think it was my mother per se that influenced my decision to be a working mother it is more that working moms are the norm where I am from. In HS I knew one person who had a SAHM and one person who had a SAHD.
The guilt that surrounds many working mothers in the US is foreign to me and I can't really relate.
I don't feel guilty that I work. Not at all.
I feel guilty that I work as much as I do. I got home at 10 last night and DD was still awake bc H isn't good with bedtime and DD is a sneak. I feel guilty I wasn't home at a normal hour to spend time w her and make sure she gets enough sleep.
Post by littlemermaid on Dec 6, 2012 9:39:37 GMT -5
My mom was a sahm until I was about 10 and my siblings were 15 & 14. My MIL was a sahm. I am currently a sahm. I quit my corporate job after my first child was born. Me being a sahm was something my husband and I discussed prior to having children and it's what we both wanted for our family.
My mom was a SAHM and it has definitely influenced my opinion in that if I ever have kids, I will not SAH. The decision for her to SAH and refusal to work actually has bred a ton of resentment in me towards both of my parents. Money was really, really tight when I was growing up. It just was not the right choice for my mom to SAH. Even a low income retail job would have helped tremendously. I understand the desire to be at home with your kids, but I can never understand the "just make do" attitude towards it. Sometimes it really is to the detriment of the kids for a parent to SAH. I feel like it was a very selfish decison on the part of my parents, and I am actually still paying for it. Once my dad died, my mom was unable to find full-time work, worked PT for several years, was laid off from that job and has been unemployed since. I have to pay most of her bills. She has no marketable job skills, no work ethic and no savings or retirement of her own to fall back on, not to mention the adult and social interaction that she is missing out on. It sucks to have be 30 years old and still paying for her bad decisions.
My mom was a SAHM until we were in 3rd grade or so. She worked for a few years as a director of religious education in a church, and then went back to school to get a master's, became a counselor, and opened her own practice when I was in college.
I think more than seeing her work or SAH, it had a huge impact on me to see her going to school. That really shaped my values on education and the idea that you are never done learning. If I did SAH, I think I would like to go back to school and hopefully give my kids the same message.
My dad also worked a TON while we were growing up, and I think that it was an issue between them. He didn't resent my mom not working, but he did resent the fact that she always expected him home at 5:30 and energized to do stuff with the family on weekends, while he was worn out running a successful growing company. I don't particularly want to stay home, but I especially don't want to stay home if that choice for my own/my kids' happiness comes at the expense of my husband's quality of life.
My mom mostly stayed home with all four of us (she waited tables PT in the evenings when I was little).
She felt isolated and overwhelmed throughout most of my childhood. This makes me never want to fully SAH (I think PT day work where I'm gone 3-4days/wk would work best for me). I also think it's important to know your limit re: how many children you can comfortably care for - four was too many for my parents. Finally, their situation really made it clear to me how important it is to have an equal partner for parenting and running the house.
My parents both worked off hours / shifts my whole life. I SAH with my 2 boys. My mom's decision didn't influence my choice at all. I never had any issues with my mom working. It was just normal to me. I plan to go back to work in a year or 2. My oldest is 3.
My mom has always worked, even before my parents divorced. She definitely encouraged me (and still does) to pursue education and a career with a fiery passion. I guess based on this alone, I never even considered being a SAHM. I was one for 14mos because of circumstance, mainly due to our location at that time. When we moved, I got a job pretty quickly. Now I just need to figure out what type of career I really want and go from there.
I will say, I am much more willing to adjust my career plans based on our family's needs just from my short stint as a SAHM. I was willing to make it work forever if I needed to and I surprised myself in a lot of ways.