Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
- 50,848
- 4,828
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Hey there's a book out:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=2067008&page=1
The wingnuts are not all dead:
When I got married, I planned on it being forever. I chose not to persue a law degree, it seemed a good idea at the time. When I had children, I left a managerial position at the phone company, working on assigning future area codes to MSA's. We didn't require the salary, had set our priorities prior to marriage.
I stayed home for 14 years. I was active in politics, community work, PTA. I was lucky to have quite a circle of friends from childhood, that were also stay-at-home moms. I also had many friends that were in law, medicine, and education that chose day care for their kids. Now all of our children are raised, at least to being out of high school. Some are married with children of their own. Not one of the mom's that stayed home, all were college grads some with advanced professional degrees, regreted their choice. They acknowledge they would have gone further career-wise if they'd chosen differently.
My friends that opted day care, well 2 out of 5 have lingering problems with their adult children. They blame the schools/day care, not their choices. I empathize, but wonder about those weekend shopping trips the parents made, leaving the kids at home with a babysitter, cause it's 'hard' to get errands done with kids. I do remember at the time wondering how they could take 'couple vacations' leaving the kids with sitter or grandparents, when they had so little time with the kids to begin with?
I didn't feel 'neglectful' when I did volunteer activities or went out on a 'date' with my husband, as I spent hundreds of hours playing games, kissing boo boos, at the park, at their schools, and reading to them. Oh yeah, there were the hours of mind numbing 'nothingness' when they were squabbling, but even those hours were used to teach them problem solving.
Now the 3 out of 5 that maintain good relations with their adult children, they put a high priority on spending their after work hours, vacations, and weekends with their kids. One of them went part-time during the kids high school years, wanting to be able to keep and eye on them.
I think both working and stay at home moms can have good relations with their kids, but my guess is that a successful working mom has much less alone time, but does escape much of the 'angst' of hours of 'lack of adult' hours.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=2067008&page=1
The wingnuts are not all dead:
Lots and lots more...
When I got married, I planned on it being forever. I chose not to persue a law degree, it seemed a good idea at the time. When I had children, I left a managerial position at the phone company, working on assigning future area codes to MSA's. We didn't require the salary, had set our priorities prior to marriage.
I stayed home for 14 years. I was active in politics, community work, PTA. I was lucky to have quite a circle of friends from childhood, that were also stay-at-home moms. I also had many friends that were in law, medicine, and education that chose day care for their kids. Now all of our children are raised, at least to being out of high school. Some are married with children of their own. Not one of the mom's that stayed home, all were college grads some with advanced professional degrees, regreted their choice. They acknowledge they would have gone further career-wise if they'd chosen differently.
My friends that opted day care, well 2 out of 5 have lingering problems with their adult children. They blame the schools/day care, not their choices. I empathize, but wonder about those weekend shopping trips the parents made, leaving the kids at home with a babysitter, cause it's 'hard' to get errands done with kids. I do remember at the time wondering how they could take 'couple vacations' leaving the kids with sitter or grandparents, when they had so little time with the kids to begin with?
I didn't feel 'neglectful' when I did volunteer activities or went out on a 'date' with my husband, as I spent hundreds of hours playing games, kissing boo boos, at the park, at their schools, and reading to them. Oh yeah, there were the hours of mind numbing 'nothingness' when they were squabbling, but even those hours were used to teach them problem solving.
Now the 3 out of 5 that maintain good relations with their adult children, they put a high priority on spending their after work hours, vacations, and weekends with their kids. One of them went part-time during the kids high school years, wanting to be able to keep and eye on them.
I think both working and stay at home moms can have good relations with their kids, but my guess is that a successful working mom has much less alone time, but does escape much of the 'angst' of hours of 'lack of adult' hours.
