BTW, this thread has reached a record of being the LONGEST ever on the Today's Hot Topics list, with being the top of the list almost everyday since its conception!
I know SAHMs here in EY, in fact my best friend with 5 kids (at one time 5 kids under the age of 8) is one of them.
And I've gotta tell you, that a working mother here is expected to do exactly the same as a SAHM around here. No "drop in standards" or even change in them.
My best friend's house was always a mess, always tons of laundry around (no dryer, only cloth diapers as with one salary of a blue collar working husband she sure couldn't afford disposables), always dirty diapers around that needed to be washed, and always crying babies.
She would get dressed only to go out of the house.
She lost siblings and therefore had no one to help her with the kids, her own mother was still working full time and she became an orphan before her kids were born.
And she devoted her life to her kids. In fact she had something like nine pregnancies only five of which ended with live children throughout these eight or nine years. When she could she shopped and cleaned and cooked but she tried to spend at much time as she could with her kids.
And BTW she has a couple of SN kids...only in our generation they weren't diagnosed too early
I was a full time working mother with five kids. My husband's expectations were no different than her husband's. Both would have liked a clean house, both would have liked cooked food, but it wasn't possible that often. Because as someone wrote a SAHM is not a HOUSEWIFE. it's a mother who stays home in order to take care of her kids.
When my best friend had a three month old she was willing to put her into a maon and go back to work. But her husband wanted her to stay home. Why? Because he wanted his children to have a full time mother. Meaning, as much as he liked a clean house and whatever because who prefers dirty to clean, he wanted the CHILDREN to come first. I had to work because when we had kids, whether I wanted to or not, my husband was still studying and I was the breadwinner for the first years. Hence I didnt' even have the choice she did.
But what was expected from us as wives and women running homes was exactly the same.
Whoever says that working mothers get a break at least here in EY don't know what they are talking about.
tamiri I see working women who are still breaking their backs to make sponja every day but are also taking care of their kids until all hours. It's very common that children of working mothers don't go to bed at 6 PM even little kids but stay up much much much later like my grandson. And remember, I keep mentioning that my daughter more often than not including now 8 months pregnant is caring for four kids under the age of five, one her own and three neices and nephew for hours and hours because her sister in law works afternoons and evenings as does her brother in law and she often volunteers to just have the kids at her place as she loves kids and can't wait to have a passel of her own. Maybe for the first month or so after the baby is born she won't have them but you can be sure that by end of September iy"h she will have five under the age of six running around in her house...and she plans to stay home a year this time.
So. I would say that during the past page or so the real brass tacks are coming out. Those women who say that you must have your children out because a SAHM is not a STAY AT HOME MOM with emphasis on the MOM but really a stay at home cook, cleaning lady, whatever who happens to have a few children that she wants out as much as possible so that she can concentrate on the house and the food and the errands.
Is that a mother? Is that what a SAHM does? As Tamiri wrote, sounds to me like a really sad excuse. At least my daughter when working is spending more together hours (7 to 8 a day) awake full time concentrating on her son and her neices and nephes than some of these women!
I actually got bored when everyone was out of the house 7:30-1:30 earliest and felt that getting a job would be a good thing, and it was! Part-time, that is. I still consider myself a housewife, albeit one with a job.
Great, that means you researched your inner peace, and hopefully found what works best for you.
For some of us, we got to the conclusion that SAHM, with our infants and toddlers, and having the rest go to a good program for a couple of hours while we run our homes, our ultimate.
Can that ever be understood?
Of course it can. It sounds like a wonderful plan - for those who can afford it. I have no problem - and I don't think anyone here does - with SAHMs deciding their older kids need to get out of the house in the mornings for whatever reason. If they can pay for it.
So back to square one --- is getting them out of the house in the mornings so important that one deserves tzedekka?
I actually got bored when everyone was out of the house 7:30-1:30 earliest and felt that getting a job would be a good thing, and it was! Part-time, that is. I still consider myself a housewife, albeit one with a job.
Great, that means you researched your inner peace, and hopefully found what works best for you.
For some of us, we got to the conclusion that SAHM, with our infants and toddlers, and having the rest go to a good program for a couple of hours while we run our homes, our ultimate.
Can that ever be understood?
Of course it can. It sounds like a wonderful plan - for those who can afford it. I have no problem - and I don't think anyone here does - with SAHMs deciding their older kids need to get out of the house in the mornings for whatever reason. If they can pay for it.
So back to square one --- is getting them out of the house in the mornings so important that one deserves tzedekka?
In-my-not-so-very-humble-opinion, it matters what the surrounding circumstances are.
And many times it is a mechayeh compared to the things that a working mom can face that a SAHM doesn't face in her worst nightmares.
1) Seksual harrasment on the job
2) Co workers from hell
3) coming home to all the chores of a SAHM but nine hours later than the SAHM, with no koyach after a commute and a full days work but having to clean, cook, shop and take care of kids with no help
4) having to shlep yourself to work sick because you don't have any more sick days
5) having to leave sick kids with a babysitter or not be able to go with your sick mother to the hospital because you have used up your sick days
So...it really depends.
But as table said, back to square one, if one can afford something, great, but if one can't...? zedoko anyone?
I'm still waiting for donations for the send Freidasima's son in law's dog to outer mongolia for camp fund.
No one? No answers? What, we don't deserve help here in EY?
My kids' day camp ends this Friday. I hope we can extend the thread beyond that, so that I can post how I'm feeling after they are all home for a while. Keep at it, moms.
Actually most SAHMs dont rejoin the workforce when theyre older. Theyre either rusty/out of practice in the workforce, or they dont need it. It's also very hard to suddenly become committed to a job, when youre 50 yrs old and tire much more easily. You still have yougn kids who sometimes dont feel well; there's still before pesach, when the bochurim are home for a month; etc etc etc. these women do a lot of volunteer work, and usually end up taking care of their elderly parents, too. they are veyr, very busy. not to mention marryig off kids, taking in their kimpeturins, babysitting a grandchild... theyre still doing their SAHM 'job'.
Everyone, we're IYH moving tomorrow and those boxes wont pack themselves. I wont have internet access in my new place for at least a week. So, have fun fighting among yourselves. I'm outta here. I am a SAHM after all! I'm not getting 'paid' to chat with you:D lol. bye!!
Well here most younger SAHMs do join the workforce later on simply because they can't make ends meet on one salary with older children and the expenses of older children! Mamabear, when she speaks about Bochurs being home for a month is thinking of the American charedi community maybe. Here, when a bochur is home bein hazemanim he can definitely babysit for his younger brothers who are home while mommy is at work, and Bein Hazemanim usually comes out at times that most of which working people are off - Pesach, Sukos, and during the summer after Tisha Be'av is most people's vacation time anyhow, in fact some places of work close all together and you have a "mandatory vacation" for a week or two of those three weeks until Rosh Chodesh.
As for rusty skills, you are certainly right, but when you need the money and aren't paying child care anymore then you are working minimum wage and you try to pick up your basic skills.
It's nice to babysit grandchildren, take care of elderly parents etc....but as all the other threads show, with the cost of caring for older children, teenagers and school costs, you need a second salary to pay for it. And SAHMs who go back to the workforce often don't do it at 50 but rather at 40ish having finished their childbearing years by 40 and putting their youngest child into childcare and counting on older sisters to make up the slack on off hours
My youngest is turning 5. I am still very much a SAHM, but I am doing teaching and writing work at home using the internet. I see myself working more hours as my kids get older.
Why not MamaBear, what's he going to do? Watch [filth] on the internet? Well if his family is modern enough to have internet he can watch [filth] any time he doesn't have to sait for being hazemanim, and if he is so frum they don't have internet what's the problem? To be home "alone" he would have to be the youngest with all his siblings married off and by then he would have neices and nephews to care for...so it's a win-win situation.
Before pesach one can ask a bochur to clean. He can even clean for money like my boys used to do. Never at home but outside...they were experts at ovens actually....Before sukkos he builds the sukka and there are always old people whose families are far away who need help putting up their sukka so it's a mitzva...and during the summer that's the vacation that most people are off anyhow...so where's the problem?
FS, it is a well known point mechanchim have been telling parents of teenagers NEVER to leave teenagers, especially bochurim, home alone on a regular basis. If a bochur knows that his parents are out of the house at the same time every day, he has every great opportunity to wander off physically, or cyberly with a friend. Today's gadgets are so advanced and pocket sized, you'd never know what your son was doing while you toiled away at work hoping he's behaving.
While none of my children has ever been alone in the house for any length of time (attributed to being a SAHM), I fail to see the connection between that and "doing bad things". There are street corners, libraries, friend's houses, bars, etc. for kids who want to get into something bad. Mechanchim can say what they want, but the fact is that kids are creative and will get into trouble if they want, even if the parents are at home.
FS, it is a well known point mechanchim have been telling parents of teenagers NEVER to leave teenagers, especially bochurim, home alone on a regular basis. If a bochur knows that his parents are out of the house at the same time every day, he has every great opportunity to wander off physically, or cyberly with a friend. Today's gadgets are so advanced and pocket sized, you'd never know what your son was doing while you toiled away at work hoping he's behaving.
That sounds kind of awful .
You're talking about someone who's just 0-5 years away from being an adult. You're really going to supervise them every minute, not give them privacy? Once they're 18 they'll probably be living away from home, but at 15 they can't get half an hour alone?
What about leaving kids alone not because you believe with blind faith that they'll always do the right thing, but because it's important to show them that you trust them at least that much?
FS, it is a well known point mechanchim have been telling parents of teenagers NEVER to leave teenagers, especially bochurim, home alone on a regular basis. If a bochur knows that his parents are out of the house at the same time every day, he has every great opportunity to wander off physically, or cyberly with a friend. Today's gadgets are so advanced and pocket sized, you'd never know what your son was doing while you toiled away at work hoping he's behaving.
Wow, that is nuts. And I expect it can only come from a community where others are paying for their mothers to be SAHM. What happened to chinuch anymore? Now it's been replaced by the police? Do you have close circuit cameras installed in their bedrooms? What, exactly, can a bochur do in the living room at home when his mother is out shopping that he can't do in his bedroom with the door closed or on a park bench with his friends?
One problem sounds like a double standard - the mother allows herself to watch all kinds of things on the internet/ computer, search out the juicy news stories, but her tzaddik'l can't. If you are going out, lock the computer up physically or cyberly.
And if you are worried about other gadgets - why does he have them? Who bought them for him? And if he got them some other way you need to put rather more efforts into chinuch than policing him.
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