Unfortunately, there is still a debate about this issue. I agree with you, it should be up to the family and what works for them. Both sides think poorly of the other side sometimes hence the debate. Unfortunately our country is very judgemental. It is still not the norm to see a SAHD. I talk to my parents and in-laws about DH being a SAHD in the future and they think I am crazy. Why, I have no idea. He is just as capable as I am to take care of the children.

I think that people get very judgemental about men not working in some cases. I don’t get how people can tell women to stay at home if they are the bigger breadwinner. I can understand the one parent should stay at home, but if you took out everything but gender and put two resumes/incomes side by side and no name or indication of gender, how many women would be working instead of staying at home?

See you are still being judgemental. The difference between our thoughts is that you think a parent should stay at home and I think that whatever works for the family is just fine. My daughter has thrived in daycare and in our area I am not sure I would have been able to provide the amount of interaction with other children that she receives in daycare. The other issue is that my husband would not have enjoyed staying home while she was a baby…he just is not comfortable with babies. He is a great father and a great husband, but the baby stage was hard for him.

Not to mention that we have long term goals that we would like to meet. If he stayed home, we would not be able to fully fund our retirement and pay for our children’s college education. These are both goals that we would like to achieve and if we both need to work, then so be it. Plus there are other reasons why it is difficult to stay at home, at least financially. You are losing years of earning ability and possibly a company match for a 401K. Not to mention that most of the time when women go back to work it is for a lower pay. There are tons of things to look at when having a child and deciding whether or not to stay at home. It is not a decision that my family took lightly and I am sure that you won’t either.

Nope, I think that it’s up to the couple. I might work, I might not. I have no idea and won’t make a decision either way until the kids comes.

Do I think women should work if they are deeply in debt? Yes but that’s a moot point. I think that people make a choice as a couple, with whatever is best.

I was raised not by mother because she was working by the time I was 1 month old. So I get the working mom deal. I have to say I wasn’t hurt by it.

I feel that each couple chooses whatever works out for them. If you are going to go crazy as a stay at home parent, then work. So you don’t strangle your kids!

What I’m against is the fact that there is judgement about who should stay at home? Why isn’t it a cut and dry issue that if you feel it’s important to stay at home, it’s the person who makes less money? That resumes side by side you pick the lesser one?

For some reason people find it okay that men work even when they make less. Which is strange because women who choose the same option are cruixified.

*Sigh*This is part of the reason that there is still a debate. Am I not “raising” my DD because she is in daycare? Does the school system actually “raise” our children when they turn 5 and go to school? There is still a debate because people that are childless or SAH (and I am no way trying to bash SAHP) think that working parents don’t raise their kids. There are other reasons as well, but this is one of them. And that is just not true. Do we have help raising our kids? Yes, I would say that I do and I would also say that daycare is a huge influence on my DD. However, in the end DH and I are the ones that are raising her. We are still providing food, shelter, clothing, not to mention the love and support she needs. I would add that in our situation we are also adding a social aspect that she may not have had otherwise.

I get your argument though. Its not fair that men and women are judged differently due to their gender. I agree.

I have always said I won’t presume how I feel on the SAHM debate. Because I don’t honestly know how I feel. I might say one thing now and then flip flop next year. So it’s impossible to actually give a real answer until you are facing the decision. I know many moms who literally changed their minds during maternity leave!

My problem is the fact there are different standards for men versus women to stay at home or work. That it’s not based solely on income and benefits. That men get more leeway to work if they make less but women are cruixified for it and are actually told to stay at home.

I believe that people raise their own children no matter what. But women get the short end of the stick. We’re screwed if we want to stay at home or work.

I gotta wonder though what would happen if you put 50 couples resumes in front of a panel without any names and asked, which parent should stay at home? With their incomes, benefits on top. And would it go based on income or occupation? And it’s a fair split of bigger breadwinners being women and men.

I think that people wonder about Sarah Palin because her husband travels for work and is gone for days at a time (?), I think that is the deal anyway. DH and I have talked about this at length, and although we love the idea of caring for a baby ourselves fulltime, we just don’t think that it would fly financially. With our mortgage, car payment, student loans, etc. one of us couldn’t fully fund the IRAs, EF, other savings, PLUS all of the bills as well. In my area, and with our bills, it would take at least $85k for all of that, and neither one of us is making that much (yet). I will be closer to that soon, but DH will likely never make that much. So, it would make more sense for him to be a SAHD. It is sad, but my parents were mortified when I’ve talked about this. My dad thinks that a “real man” works for his family and has a puzzled look on his face when I tell him that I make more and have excellent benefits so it only makes sense. DHs mom is retiring next year, so she may be able to watch baby (we haven’t had one yet), but she lives kind of far from us (1/2 hour) so it would create some issues having to go 1/2 in the opposite direction during rush hour twice a day. So, it isn’t a simple decision. It is what works for each individual family, and isn’t always an easy decision.

“But she is fortunate to have a house husband to help. Thus her children do have a stay at home parent to fall back on and lean on. Yes it’s a man, but isn’t he their father?”

Is he really indeed a SAHD? I thought that he was working prior to her running for VP? I haven’t taken the time to research this, but thought that I read a newsclip about him working.

I think Sarah Palin’s husband doesn’t work much since she became governor. I could be wrong though.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me what Sarah Palin’s husband does. He can work or not and it makes no difference to me. I am sure that this was discussed with the whole family and they have decided to make it work. The kids will be well cared for I am sure of that. It actually makes me angry because if Sarah Palin were a male nobody would be talking about how he has 5 kids and whether or not his wife works. It’s what works for the family, not the rest of the country.

Doesn’t matter but they still aren’t prime parenting material! Certainly not role models when compared to other parents.

So what are you saying? That dual working parents are not prime parenting material? I would have to call BS on that as I know tons of dual working parents that are better parents than their stay at home counterparts. Work status makes no difference in parenting, the person does.

No, I am saying they are not prime parenting material because they have a teenage daughter who is unmarried an pregnant. I did not say they are bad parents because they both work. I am classifying them in the same category as Brittany Spear’s mom, just like how conservatives blamed her when Jaime Lynn Spears turned up pregnant.

STOP trying to classify me as someone who hates working parents. My mom worked before it was popular. AND she raised me alone. SO I have definitely less biases than you. Plus I was probably poorer than most. So I feel that it’s up to the couple/single parent.

But I will classify the Palin’s as bad parents because if I say mama spears i a bad parent, it’s for the same reason. Poor involvement with their children. And it happens to stay at home parents.

Sigh. I had a long post written out but it was deleted! I will try again. Sorry if I classified you as hating working parents, but it was not clear in the last post what you were saying. I have not come off as biased in any way in this debate. Can you stop telling me how poor you were? So was I and I was raised by a single mom for a few years as well. Big deal.

You are more biased than I in this situation and its because you don’t have children. Before having children I always thought how I would raise mine and what I would do in certain situations. Then you have kids and everything changes. You will find that you can not control what kids do all the time.

I do not think that just because Palin’s daughter is pregnant means that her and her husband are bad parents. I am sure that they taught her what they believed in, whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. Kids (as you will learn) do not listen to their parents. If you said, don’t jump off that bridge just because your friends are doing it, then your kid is going to jump. Palin’s daughter made her own choices and now she has to live with them, just like all the other teens that have gotten pregnant. As a parent you teach your kids and at some point they do make decisions on their own. As a teen, my parents didn’t have input on whether or not I was having sex or drinking or doing drugs. They had input on who I hung out with, who I dated, what time curfew was, etc. But in the end it was my decision to not do drugs or to not have sex, not my parents.

I classify a bad parent as someone who starves their children, leaves them home alone at a young age, abuses them, drinks and drives and has their kids in their car. Not someone who’s teenager is pregnant. How do you know Palin had poor involvement with her children? Do you know anything else about their relationship with her kids? Palin appears to be a woman that spends as much time as possible with her kids. That is a judgement/bias because they may or may not have taught their kids what you would. That is a difference of opinion, not bad parenting, IMO. The Palin kids appear to be well mannered, well fed, and well clothed. We do not know what goes on in their house.

My mom paid alimony to her ex husband. She had a great job. My mom consciously made the decision to not leave where we lived because my grandparents helped her immensely and so did my uncle. I did not have any new clothes until I was about 10. I wore only boy clothes as pictures have shown. I had a lot of hand me downs, unfortunately my uncle only had sons. My grandparents watched me for free so my mom worked a lot. I am closer to my grandma as my “mom” because of it.

I know my mom regrets it, but we’re like best friends because of it! It’s a strange relationship. My grandma can censure me like no one else. And because my grandma had my mom so young and my mom wasn’t that old when she had me, my grandmother could be my mom, especially considering many women had kids in their 40s.

My grandfather was an avid gambler and would gamble away the family money. My mom actually was supporting my grandparents because of this habit. My great-grandmother lived in the country where I used an outhouse and an outdoor bathhouse. I used to use wood to heat the water when we went out there. My grandparents had a small farm 1 acre and also had an outhouse where I was raised. I now understood why my mom demanded indoor plumbing. I guess I was poor.

I ate spam and rice for the majority of my life. My grandparents raised veggies and went hunting and we always had food. Problem? My mom worked like a dog. She would pick up overtime like no tomorrow always making ends meet. My uncle worked from age 11 picking pineapples to support the family. My mom worked from age 14 pounding hamburgers and her younger siblings all worked from early on. They would pick up cans for money to eat. One major failing in my family is gambling and alcoholism. So while some of them worked, many gambled and drank away their money leaving their families in poor shape. My grandfather gambled, his brother was an alcoholic. I had no alcohol at my wedding because of the alcholics in my family.

And my great-grandmother worked 2-3 jobs because my great-grandfather died (after going to the Japanese concentration camps Manzanar, he came back to die) and left her with 8 children at home. Her mother lived with her and watched the kids while she worked. My grandmother was the eldest and just out of the house so there was no where for her to get any help. They had the outhouse and outdoor bathhouse.

So I think we were pretty poor. I felt middle class though because we had a home and weren’t on welfare. My mom working with those really poor and abused women and children made it a point to emphasize how good I had it. I always thought I was middle class growing up, until I got older and realized what middle class really was.

But I think I was lower middle class. CERTAINLY I was better off than the woman and children my mom helped. We were not abused ever. My mom did not bring home random men. My biological father was not involved ever. I would not recognize him. I think we were luckier than most because my mom was strong.

Do I think Palin is a bad parent? Yes. But she’s in the same category of everyone else who is condemned for their kids behavior. I think because of my field, my kids like myself growing up will be told sex is okay. But realize these are the consequences, pregnancy, AIDS, STDs. Are you ready for the consequences and this is how and why it happens. My mom was very frank with me and I meet many people who had STDs. At age 14 I began working. I meet someone at 14 who had AIDS, one of the earliest diagnosed women and she spoke at my school about the consequence of her actions.

There is more than teen pregnancy from unprotected sex. And the consequences really hit home. Yes my mom preached it, but going with her to women’s shelters hit home more than anything she said. I hope to pass that on to my children. Consequences of things like casual unprotected sex.

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