Canada Nesties
Melozia
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
F/U to my post below
Given that we all appreciate the creature comforts that money provides...what is more important to you: working to provide for your kids/family OR spending time with your kids and staying home with them? I am in a brain-picking mood today. I suppose it's easy for me to assume I could or would do something better than others...but I am not a mom so I was wondering what the rest of you thought.
Do you feel like women are now in a "can't win" situation?
Re: F/U to my post below
I guess it depends on what you mean by "to provide for your kids/family." Obviously working would be a necessity if I was providing for food/shelter. For hockey camp every summer? Not so much. I think there's a balance between "we're flat broke and can't give our kids anything other than the bare necessities but at least I'm home with them all the time" and "I work full time even though I'd prefer to stay home because my kids need the latest ipod/cell phone/clothing fashions/vacations to Europe every summer and the Caribbean every winter.
I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I want to provide my kids with more than just bare-bones basics and if that was the only way I could SAH, I would rather work. But I wouldn't work so that they could have the best of everything. I guess I'd only be willing to sacrifice so much.
I don't feel that way at all. I think that it is fantastic that we get the choice to stay home, work from home or work out of the house. With so many companies offering flextime it makes it that much easier to be a working mom.
For me it is important that I am a working mom. I want B to see that women have that choice and if they want to they be mom's and a career woman. I want him to know that we don't have to pick between the two.
Plus financially we can give him more in life if I am back at work. That is another important factor.
I think one thing that allows me to say this is the amount of work I put into my career prior to B. I am at a point where I am financially stable and able to take this time off without it having a massive impact. I am also able to have the flexibilty to be both a mommy and a career woman when I go back to work.
I definitely believe that women are in a no win situation. It is this exact reasoning that made me decide when I was really young that if I was ever going to have children it would have to be only if I could afford to not work.
Many times it makes no sense to go back to work and have more than half your salary go to daycare/raising the baby.
I think there is a way to balance both..millions of women have done it, but I do truly believe that both sides lose in the end.
Unfortunately, until workplaces become more open to women wanting to stay at home and/or working as well as raising their children and become more flexible, the plight of women will never change.
Right or wrong a fair amount of my sense of self worth is tied to my career. So I can't see ever not working because that is part of how I define myself. I've been tempted after long days to say "screw it, I'm going to work at Starbucks" but never "screw it, I'm going to stay home" so apparently I have a need to work.
Also, I fully expect my husband to be 50/50 in parenting. If someone is going to give up their career it's going to have to be discussed. We have similar earning potential and salaries, so a SAHP could be either of us.
I think you lose either way in some small way. You either lose time, or you lose money..it's very very hard to have both in an extremely balanced way. Yes we've definitely made progress, but at the same time I don't think we're quite there yet. There are a thousand criticisms for both sides but honestly who is right and why does it matter. I think women who stay home are chastized just as much as those who work. We sit, we point fingers and at the end of the day, time passes regardless and the children grow up knowing only what they've experienced. Time we can't control.
My mother stayed home and raised me and my brothers. That's what I know. So to me, I think I had a wonderful life. I didn't have fancy things, we didn't travel, but I don't think my life was any less because of that.
At the same time I know lots of friends growing up whose parents worked and in an unbalanced way who provided the material things, but not the time. Some were fine, turned out great, only knew what they had, so they were happy. Others in my mind suffered marginally, always wanting attention they weren't getting at home. I felt sad.
Who knows what the right answer is. It's definitely hard not working and staying home with William all day. Society makes me feel like less of a person because I'm not contributing financially..so in that way, it's a bit backwards. My value is only worth a monetary figure. So if I say I'm staying at home, you get nods and a "oh, that's nice" but people don't take you seriously.
Seeing William grow and play and have fun everyday is worth it, but sometimes it's definitely a struggle, just as I know every working mom who doesn't get to see those giggles is struggling as well. :-)
I think it depends solely on the individuals involved.
Honestly, I would be a terrible SAHM, I am just not motivated enough that way. That being said my expectations for my career have been significantly modified since I had DS because I also want the quality time with him.
There is no perfect solution as there are always compromises to be made but at the end of the day DS knows how much I love him and we spend a lot of quality time together and he enjoys asking about my dat at work almost as much as I enjoy hearing about what he did.