PSA: don't leave a helium balloon on a string in a room where there is a fan going at night. It's likely that the string will get twisted in the fan and cause the motor to burn out, even if it's a brand new fan that you really like.
How was your ceiling fan until it's untimely death. DH just suggegsted we might consider buying one for our room. Do you think it's any better than a regular fan? We don't have AC in our bedroom (we don't really need it there anyway since a fan is enough for us at night, and we don't really use the bedroom during the day.
What kind of fan did you have?
Ora, of COURSE we have bears!
Didn't you read in today's paper that the bears in the Gan Hachayot Hatanachi were so hot that they were given lots of ice cream to lick to keep them cold?
When I told my mother today she said "my taxes are paying for bears to eat ice cream and you put me on a diet and tell me that I CANT HAVE ICE CREAM? AM I LESS IMPORTANT THAN A BEAR???"
For real. She said this.
to your mom.
Hmmm... I'm glad to hear we have bears, but somehow I doubt the staff at the Tanachi zoo will be happy if I try to set up a makeshift camp for my kids in the middle of their exhibit.
Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone (poor birds) - posters in New York can make extra money by selling us some of their bears (ice cream not included). Then we can all have camp.
Also, your list of things mothers have to do tired me out so much that I can no longer follow this thread. I must go to bed; I do so with the hope that when I come back tomorrow morning I will find this thread at 100+ pages.
Tell your mom that the lions and tigers get bloodsicles; you'll let her have one of those. But I thought the bears just got frozen fish.
Anyway, my son's camp has bear-proof trash cans, which I guess means they also have bears. My opinion? No thanks.
The bears get whole chickens. Raw. (DS#1's gannenet did the mesibat siyum at the zoo one Friday morning...and I had to change my Shabbat menu because I just could NOT serve whole chicken after that. B"H it's passed, because whole chicken is really cheap!)
For me, as a full time working mom who has always worked, a Working mom has the following jobs. And in my world she does all of them herself or with the exception of the first, to whatever extent with her dh if he is at all around to do some of the stuff:
1) full time work out of the house plus commute
2) shopping for food, sometimes at multiple stores
3) shopping for clothing, furniture, shoes, other household or personal goods
4) cleaning the house (dusting, vaccum, wash floors, sinks and toilets and bath or shower, wash outsides of closets in bedroom and kitchen, wipe down walls, do trisim and windows - all weekly at least)
5) cooking the food, serving, cleaning off, washing up dishes, drying and putting away dishes and pots
6) washing laundry, hanging, taking off the line, folding and putting away laundry
7) scheduling doctors appointments, houshold repairmen etc.
8) paying bills
9) taking care of banking, checkbook balancing, etc.
To that one adds things like
1) taking kids to doctors, treatments, dentists etc.
2) taking kids to friends for play dates in the late afternoon
3) having to go to your own doctors and dentist appointments
4) picking up clothing from dry cleaner
And of course depending on personal inclination"
1) sewing clothing for family
2) crocheting or knitting clothing for family
And then there are child related activities:
1) playing with your children
2) listening to your children
3) teaching your children Jewish and secular matters
4) teaching your children discipline and boundaries
And that doesn't even include special situations like:
1) caring for aged or ill parents
2) chessed communal volunteering
3) school, yeshiva or communal events you have to not only participate in but add to (like baking for a festival, a raffle etc.)
What about the husbands? When both a husband and wife work full time, why does all the house work, cooking and child rearing still fall on the mother?
When I worked and my husband was in kollel, my husband did more in the house than I did. Your list sounds right on the money for a single mother or a disfunctional home. A husband should take part more in the household duties if the mother is going to be working.
I agree with this. People here seem to assume the dh is totally out of the picture and I just can't fathom why. Husbands today (in my world) help A LOT if their wife works full time. It's true that women usually still do more (that infamous 'second shift'), but it really is no longer acceptable to let men off the hook so easily. If a woman works full time, she likely isn't coming home that much earlier than her dh (barring special circumstances) - and in most families I know with this set up, the dh is definitely expected to help with daily cooking/cleaning/childcare.
Otherwise - the whole feminist movement is just a huge fall back. Women aren't slaves, we didn't take up working full time only to also be left with a full time household shift.
It should be noted that even with dhs helping out (often a lot), and even with hiring cleaning help (sometimes), working women often are totally overextended. It's not necessarily the ideal way to live, and it certainly is not easy to manage all the tasks that FS listed above in your few spare hours. Not a peaceful or relaxing way to live.
So I can understand why a SAHM would feel it necessary to have her mornings childfree in order to accomplish all the tasks needed to run a household. Such a SAHM probably wants to avoid the hectic schedule detailed above, which is pretty much what she will experience if she has toddlers and babies at home and still needs to do all those chores. However, what needs to be understood is that having one's mornings free to run the household calmly is a LUXURY. A wonderful, sanity-saving luxury in some cases, but a luxury nonetheless.
As for spending time with the kids, I can only assume that if a SAHM has her mornings free to do all the chores, then she will be more able to concentrate on the kids in the afternoons/evenings, without hysterically multi-tasking. So it's not like such a SAHM doesn't want quality time with her kids - the free mornings might even help with that. But again, the whole set-up is a luxury most of us (certainly not working moms) don't get to enjoy. Tzeddeka is not for providing regular people with luxuries.
Table, thanks for your eloquent post which expressed my thoughts perfectly. For the record however, I dont think or advocate babies ir toddlers be away from home if the mother us a SAHM; thats the whole point of staying home! They are manageable on most errands; they nap, sit in strollers, etc. When they reach a certain age - closr to age 3 - it becomes impossible to keep them out of trouble, constructively occupied, etc, while doing everything else, including taking care if the younger ones!
Welcome Saw, you hit the nail on the head over and over IMHO.
OK more on topic stuff.
All the things I'm reading on this thread, combined with what I read on others, leads me to one big question of which "sending to camp" is only one part..
How do you ladies (in plural) define your "job" of being a SAHM?
Mamabear wrote something along the lines of that even with a lot of her problems being solved she needs her kids out of the house to perform her household duties, or in her words: "I still need my daytime hours childfree to be able to accomplish my day's work." Meaning the emphasis here is on House and not on Kids during the daytime hours.
Similar sentiments were posted by a few other posters.
Other posters wrote differently, that for them the daytime hours were for Kids and the house either didn't get done or got done late at night or haphazardly with the kids around. Same for food.
So here is what I don't get.
For me, as a full time working mom who has always worked, a Working mom has the following jobs. And in my world she does all of them herself or with the exception of the first, to whatever extent with her dh if he is at all around to do some of the stuff:
1) full time work out of the house plus commute
2) shopping for food, sometimes at multiple stores
3) shopping for clothing, furniture, shoes, other household or personal goods
4) cleaning the house (dusting, vaccum, wash floors, sinks and toilets and bath or shower, wash outsides of closets in bedroom and kitchen, wipe down walls, do trisim and windows - all weekly at least)
5) cooking the food, serving, cleaning off, washing up dishes, drying and putting away dishes and pots
6) washing laundry, hanging, taking off the line, folding and putting away laundry
7) scheduling doctors appointments, houshold repairmen etc.
8) paying bills
9) taking care of banking, checkbook balancing, etc.
To that one adds things like
1) taking kids to doctors, treatments, dentists etc.
2) taking kids to friends for play dates in the late afternoon
3) having to go to your own doctors and dentist appointments
4) picking up clothing from dry cleaner
And of course depending on personal inclination"
1) sewing clothing for family
2) crocheting or knitting clothing for family
And then there are child related activities:
1) playing with your children
2) listening to your children
3) teaching your children Jewish and secular matters
4) teaching your children discipline and boundaries
And that doesn't even include special situations like:
1) caring for aged or ill parents
2) chessed communal volunteering
3) school, yeshiva or communal events you have to not only participate in but add to (like baking for a festival, a raffle etc.)
Now we working moms do all of this from the time we get home anywhere between 4 to 6 PM until we go to sleep. Many of us with no help at all and only very little assistance from our dh. And for many of us I would venture to say that our biggest "juggling" is that we want to spend more time with our kids but in the limited hours that we have, we have to do many things at once like listening to our children while doing laundry, playing with them while we are cooking, trying to teach them something while we are cleaning at the same time. We do get it all done and what "gives" is usually our sleep and our exhaustion.
For many of us working women, the concept of being a SAHM is the emphasis on the MOM part. Wow, if we had nine extra hours a day (yes!) where we are working outside the house (not to speak of our travel time) that would be free, we would use at least half or more just to be with our kids and have time to teach them, play with them, enjoy them without having to multitask all the time. After all, we manage to get everything else done somehow from 4 or 6 PM onward anyhow...so those hours can be devoted solely to the kids (with maybe half an hour or an hour for ourselves while they nap) and still do everything else.
That's what I don't get. That there are women who have those 9 hours which we dont and they want them to be "childless hours" so that they can get done what every working woman gets done anyhow in the afternoon and evening with the kids up and around.
What happened to the concept of being a mother? What is SAHM? Stay at home to clean your house and cook and this and that while you DONT spend time with your kids for whom you were ostensibly staying home in the first place?
That sounds more like a SINGLE mom than a working mom.
Yes, I'm home more than DH during the week so I am in charge of the house during the week, but I don't shop for food (DH does), and usually other things that need to be shopped for we would do together.
On Friday, we split the work I cook he washes floors, I do bathrooms, he does dishes, etc.
We don't have cleaning help, we are both overworked, and our home does suffer (I don't think I did trisim before Pesach), but it is OUR home, not mine.
I'm just wondering here. Assuming a mother wants her school age kids out of the house in the morning so she an be a coping, calm, and collected mother when the kids return home later, how much is the price tag on that? In other words, if any SAHM is extremely overwhelmed by having her kids underfoot 63 consecutive days of the summer relying on her entertainment while she also tends to the house and its needs, if tzedakah is considered unethical int his case, what's such a mother to do?
For me, as a full time working mom who has always worked, a Working mom has the following jobs. And in my world she does all of them herself or with the exception of the first, to whatever extent with her dh if he is at all around to do some of the stuff:
1) full time work out of the house plus commute
2) shopping for food, sometimes at multiple stores
3) shopping for clothing, furniture, shoes, other household or personal goods
4) cleaning the house (dusting, vaccum, wash floors, sinks and toilets and bath or shower, wash outsides of closets in bedroom and kitchen, wipe down walls, do trisim and windows - all weekly at least)
5) cooking the food, serving, cleaning off, washing up dishes, drying and putting away dishes and pots
6) washing laundry, hanging, taking off the line, folding and putting away laundry
7) scheduling doctors appointments, houshold repairmen etc.
8) paying bills
9) taking care of banking, checkbook balancing, etc.
To that one adds things like
1) taking kids to doctors, treatments, dentists etc.
2) taking kids to friends for play dates in the late afternoon
3) having to go to your own doctors and dentist appointments
4) picking up clothing from dry cleaner
And of course depending on personal inclination"
1) sewing clothing for family
2) crocheting or knitting clothing for family
And then there are child related activities:
1) playing with your children
2) listening to your children
3) teaching your children Jewish and secular matters
4) teaching your children discipline and boundaries
And that doesn't even include special situations like:
1) caring for aged or ill parents
2) chessed communal volunteering
3) school, yeshiva or communal events you have to not only participate in but add to (like baking for a festival, a raffle etc.)
What about the husbands? When both a husband and wife work full time, why does all the house work, cooking and child rearing still fall on the mother?
When I worked and my husband was in kollel, my husband did more in the house than I did. Your list sounds right on the money for a single mother or a disfunctional home. A husband should take part more in the household duties if the mother is going to be working.
Yes/No. Not all husbands are capable. Seriously. My DH had the following responsibilities this past year:
1. Get DS#1 and DS#2 to hasa'a/gan respectively. They missed the hasa'a about 10 times this year.
1a. Make sure they're dressed. I lay out the clothes the night before, and both DSs are old enough (and able) to get themselves dressed, so this really should not be complicated, right?
1b. Make sure their backpacks have everything they need before they leave the house. Except for food, I pack them the night before so again, should not be complicated.
2. Get himself to work, on time.
On his day off I expected him to wash whatever dishes he used and yes, start a single load of laundry (which I had already sorted and put into a laundry basket so he'd know which clothes needed to be done). He is responsible for his own appointments and following them up. The kids had a chug once a week; I would drop him off with the kids and pick them up at the end. That hour and a half a week is my break. Oh, and Monday afternoon, when he's also home, I take one kid grocery shopping and he watches the other two. Shabbat afternoon we alternate 1 hour naps (one each). That's it.
If I wanted to be in debt up to my armpits he could do the banking, pay bills, and do the grocery (and other) shopping. But I don't want to be in debt up to my armpits so I do it myself.
And yes, realizing DH's physical limitations, his GRANDPARENTS pay for a little bit of cleaning help. Usually two hours a week...before Pesach as much as I want. (I am self-conscious about the cost, however, and generally limit my pre-Pesach usage to 15 hours...) For the first time since we moved into this house 5 years ago, all the windows got washed before Pesach this year. (Usually it's one or two windows, and whenever I get to it, and only if I can do it easily...which means that the bedroom windows had NEVER been done...) Don't even talk to me about the trissim...
For some women, having a DH is like having another child to care for, not having a helper. (All that said I would NOT trade in my DH for a newer model...)
I'm just wondering here. Assuming a mother wants her school age kids out of the house in the morning so she an be a coping, calm, and collected mother when the kids return home later, how much is the price tag on that? In other words, if any SAHM is extremely overwhelmed by having her kids underfoot 63 consecutive days of the summer relying on her entertainment while she also tends to the house and its needs, if tzedakah is considered unethical int his case, what's such a mother to do?
Be extremely overwhelmed, like alot of us who aren't living on tzedaka (BH). That's life.
For some women, having a DH is like having another child to care for, not having a helper. (All that said I would NOT trade in my DH for a newer model...)
:-(
I think a DH should be a partner, not a helper (ideally).
Marion, he really isn't capable of sorting the laundry or choosing kids' clothes?
Even if it doesn't take you long, just having a couple less things on your "list" might make a difference.
For some women, having a DH is like having another child to care for, not having a helper. (All that said I would NOT trade in my DH for a newer model...)
:-(
Marion, he really isn't capable of sorting the laundry or choosing kids' clothes?
Even if it doesn't take you long, just having a couple less things on your "list" might make a difference.
It isn't helpful to me to have him sort the laundry. I don't fold/put away his laundry, he just gets it in a pile. He doesn't manage to fold/put it away either, just uses it from the pile. When he has had to choose the kids clothes they have been dressed inappropriately for weather, or missing things like tzitziyot because they weren't where he expected to find them. (The fact that the kids know EXACTLY where to find everything is beside the point...they're good at messing with him and he allows it.)
I agree with previous posters re: men helping when their wives work.
I also think that in general, when there's a lot to do, some of it just doesn't get done. When I have a long day at work, I often go to bed with several messes not taken care of, my studying not done, there may not have been time to take the kids to the park a second time like they wanted, etc.
I mean - dusting? wiping down the walls? doing the trissim? Around here, you're lucky if the floor is a. visible and b. not sticky.
For some women, having a DH is like having another child to care for, not having a helper. (All that said I would NOT trade in my DH for a newer model...)
:-(
Marion, he really isn't capable of sorting the laundry or choosing kids' clothes?
Even if it doesn't take you long, just having a couple less things on your "list" might make a difference.
It isn't helpful to me to have him sort the laundry. I don't fold/put away his laundry, he just gets it in a pile. He doesn't manage to fold/put it away either, just uses it from the pile. When he has had to choose the kids clothes they have been dressed inappropriately for weather, or missing things like tzitziyot because they weren't where he expected to find them. (The fact that the kids know EXACTLY where to find everything is beside the point...they're good at messing with him and he allows it.)
Fair enough. (There are also women out there who are totally incapable of running a household). But the average man can handle this stuff. Most men I know load and unload the dishwasher, cook basic meals or more, many have speciality dishes they do for Shabbat, many, many do all the grocery shopping, many, many do all the finances, etc.
It's not nuclear science, and while men in general may have less of an affinity for running a household, most of them can manage to play a major role when needed.
I agree with previous posters re: men helping when their wives work.
I also think that in general, when there's a lot to do, some of it just doesn't get done. When I have a long day at work, I often go to bed with several messes not taken care of, my studying not done, there may not have been time to take the kids to the park a second time like they wanted, etc.
I mean - dusting? wiping down the walls? doing the trissim? Around here, you're lucky if the floor is a. visible and b. not sticky.
The park a second time? You've got to be kidding. Around here, you're lucky if you go a first time on a regular weekday....
I agree with you that some things just don't get done if you are too busy. This should answer Kitov's question - a regular, healthy SAHM who is too overwhelmed and can't get things done with her kids at home, and can't afford camp - well, she remains overwhelmed (so many of us are) and she just doesn't get a lot of things done. C'est la vie.
1) Ceiling fans are great for some people, my mother has three, saves on electricity (no need for a/c most of the time there)
2) Never keep any kind of baloon in a room with standing fans unless they are tied and even then be careful if the fans are going. Helium baloons? do you have a death wish?
3) and most important - I was NOT describing the life of a single mom but certainly that of all working mothers I know married to FRUM men.
Why?
Because those men have lots of responsibilities that we as women DO NOT.
1) they get up very early, for me always earlier than me at my worst days, to daven with a minyan. That means that they for example are up at 5, at shul at 5:30 or 5:45, back home at 6:45 and they do what was not on my list
a) wake the kids
b) go to the makolet on the way back from shul to bring fresh bread and milk daily
c) make the sandwitches for the whole brood to take for the day
d) make their own breakfast or sandwitches to take for the day
Then, at 7 aM they are already gone, out of the house to work.
In the years where my husband worked farther away, he went straight from minyan to work and I had to do the above. B"h for a number of years he worked closer.
Many men during the earlier years here, at least the dl ones, who went to hesder and the like, only start university later, hence you are already having kids when they are still quite in school. If they have to go on for an advanced degree, they have to do this after work, and usually five or even seven years (if they studied in yeshiva for another year after finishing hesder) after the wife has finished her schooling, hence even if they both are working full time he is home later as he is also in school.
Men are required to learn, daven with a minyan, etc.
So while we working mothers were busy running around with kids etc. to doctors, cooking, cleaning the house etc. they went to mincha and maariv, and either studied or in my husband's case, gave a shiur in shul (for free of course).
Some men, particularly in chinuch, klei kodesh, administrators, etc. are always "on the job" and therefore had much less time even when they were physically at home, to do household things and kid things (unfortunately) but it is an expected part of the job. It's just the way it is. If both a man and a woman have those kind of jobs it's a real problem. We have that around here, both of us being "on call". As someone said, there are just things that aren't urgent that dont get done.
Same goes for professional men. who are "on call" at home. My son in law, the resident. When he gets home his phone is on 24/7 shabbos yuntif yom kippur. And he gets calls about his department. All the time. And has to answer. We were out with them last week and he spent 2 hours of the 4 we were together on his smartphone seeing photos of an operation that was ongoing real time to give advice. He should maybe be running after his toddler as he watches the operation? Who are we kidding? Lawyers are same, also other professionals. Not all men have a job selling or somethingblue collar or a desk job that when they leave it, they also leave their work behind.
Things that husbands do that weren't on the list
a) do household repairs
b) fix broken things
c) take out the trash
d) deal with public issues like va'ad habayit, getting moetza ishurim, etc.
e) teaching the boys "boy things" in learning etc.
f) any heavy lifting in the house
No the list isn't equal. The day that I have to go to minyan three times a day rain or shine (not that much snow around here lately) and learn gemoro and other things like that...that's when we will have "equality" and nothing will get done with the kids.
As long as he has to do that, unless I am collapsing I will wash out the toilets and sinks and when he comes home at 10 PM I want HIM to take out his gemoro or whatever and learn another blatt while I (capital) will do the economica roles. If I am after giving birth, collapsing or whatever that's a different story but everyone has their job and Jewish men, if they spend all day on parnosseh, have to spend their late evenings LEARNING (and this from a shtark MO!!! All you chassidish ladies whose husbands work, dont you push them to learn for an hour or two every evening? Every single DL/MO man of my generation in my circle - the one some of you scorn as being "half frei" - went and learned at least an hour every night - I remember my husbands chavrusas when we were younger - and every woman I know who worked full time was HAPPY to have her husband learn as WE get sachar from that too...
For some women, having a DH is like having another child to care for, not having a helper. (All that said I would NOT trade in my DH for a newer model...)
:-(
I think a DH should be a partner, not a helper (ideally).
Marion, he really isn't capable of sorting the laundry or choosing kids' clothes?
Even if it doesn't take you long, just having a couple less things on your "list" might make a difference.
Last year I saw my 8 month pg DD pushing a heavy vacuum cleaner and her DH lift his feet off the ground so she could hoover under his feet, he was busy texting his brother at the time and her other 4 kids were fighting and wrecking the place, he didn't even notice or care. The noise and chaos were gevaldig He is such a big help in times of stress Even she says he is the worst of her children.
Ora, can you imagine that in my house we actually wash the outside of closets and brush down the walls. Why? Because I have severe asthma and at least two of my kids have bad allergies. Hence we have to be "dust free". Once upon a time before there were hepa filters that and washing the floor and dusting often and washing bedding at high temps and changing pillows often was all one could do. Its not that hard and when it gets cleaned regularly it's about fifteen minutes of work if you do all the walls, all the closets including kitchen ones and that includes dragging the ladder from room to room. There are advantages to a small apartment!
PSA: don't leave a helium balloon on a string in a room where there is a fan going at night. It's likely that the string will get twisted in the fan and cause the motor to burn out, even if it's a brand new fan that you really like.
How was your ceiling fan until it's untimely death. DH just suggegsted we might consider buying one for our room. Do you think it's any better than a regular fan? We don't have AC in our bedroom (we don't really need it there anyway since a fan is enough for us at night, and we don't really use the bedroom during the day.
What kind of fan did you have?
This was a regular stand fan, not ceiling (we rent, remember?) with a big diameter so it cooled both the top and bottom bunks in my kids' bedroom. I LOVE ceiling fans and we had them even when we rented in the U.S. but to make a long story short, DH got sick of installing them and taking them down when we thought we'd be moving. And ended up staying.
Anyway, it's under warranty so I'll take it to the shop today.
to your mom.
He is such a big help in times of stress 
Even she says he is the worst of her children.
