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Working Moms
KathrynMD
member
why do so many women feel guilty for working?
KathrynMD
member
in Working Moms
Most working parents today spend more quality time with kids than SAHMs did 30/50/100 years ago - those momd might have been home all day w/ their kids, but they certainly weren't interacting w/ them all day long like daycare or SAHMs are today. I hear/see alot of SAHMs complaining about boredom, how to entertain their 1 mo old (gawd!) and money. I miss DD, but I am fairly certain she's getting a lot mroe out of daycare than I could provide for her intellectually.
Is our culture really pushing SAHMs that hard? If the culture or government really supported and wanted to encourage it, don't you think there would be more incentives for a parent to stay home?
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Re: why do so many women feel guilty for working?
I don't think it is the culture pushing us as much as women against women and both groups wanting to be super woman in a sense.
I work and yet I do feel guilty. I make a good living and if anything happened to DH I can support the family.
At the same time DH makes enough to support the family so I could stay at home if I wanted to but of course i want to yet I still don't. I enjoy working most days but other days I want to be home with my 2 year old saying mommy stay home with me today.
There is a feeling that if we have kids then we should raise them but is daycare that much different then sending a child to school (working moms just do it sooner then non working moms)
i personally don't feel guilty and never truely did. i had one momnet two weeks prior to me coming back to work where i broke down crying as i was rocking Carson at that thought of not being there every.single.day for every.single.moment and then i got over it. it was just the thought of missing him so much i think that made me cry (oh and hormones lol). but i am very happy that he is engaged in so much at daycare and il's (they watch him 2 days a week) that i feel perfectly fine with our situation. plus, we could not afford for me not to work so i never looked at it look i had an option. but i was just talking to my mom about this today b/c sil is preggers with #2 and planning on quiting and staying home and honestly -number one i don't know how they are going to afford it and number two with her personality (she is less then motivated in many aspects of her life) she is going to go crazy with a 5 year old and a new born at home.
but anywho, i have no issues with coming to work and i don't get the guilt that others have about it but to each their own.
I have moments of guilt, but they mostly come when I'm supposed to be working but not working (like now) because then I think that my time would be better spent with DD rather than at daycare. BUT, I also see how much she's thriving at daycare, and I honestly don't think I could give her that at home. I'd also be afraid she'd be much more of a momma's girl than she already is because I'd probably give in to her much more.
I work from home and do sometimes find it hard in the summer to see all the SAHMs on my block out playing with their kids while I'm working and DD's at daycare, but only because I'm missing out on the time visiting with neighbors not so much because I feel that DD would be better at home.
I might also feel guilty if DD didn't like daycare, but she loves it. In fact, most days when I pick her up, it's almost impossible to get her to leave! She has to show me all the toys she loves, and says good-bye to everyone.
Ducking in from 2nd tri - I just have to say, why are MEN never expected to feel guilty about this? I think even when men make less than their wives, they never feel guilty about working. So why should women feel guilty? I mean, it's one thing to feel like gee, I wish I could be home with them, but another to actually feel like you're doing something wrong or harmful, which you arent.
I don't think I'll feel guilty - I do think I will miss my baby and that I'll feel stressed because I will STILL be expected (by DH and myself) to carry more of the childrearing/household burden even though we will both be working.
It's true that men and women are unfairly held to different standards, but this can go both ways. My friend, a SAHD, says he sometimes feels guilty for not being a "bread winner." Of course, it's what works best for their family, so they do it, but he says he catches flack from his friends for being a SAHD. So you just can't win, I guess.
I really don't know. I am the child of a 2 working parents & my mom is my best friend to this day.
There is really no reason to feel guilty for going to work & providing for your family. Do I miss DD terribly? Sure do. Especially today when she had to go home sick with her daddy. I want to be taking care of her but couldn't leave work again. Do I feel guilty for it? No.
I don't feel guilt. I am VERY confident in my choice to work - knowing it is the best choice for my family for various reasons. nothing someone says or thinks about it will change how I feel about my situation.
I think women need to be more confident -period- and then they wouldn't care so much what other people think- and then wouldn't feel such guilt.
Why? Do you think it will feel "unnatural" to send your DS to kindergarten, because he'll spend a lot of time with another woman there? Doesn't it feel good at all to know that there are multiple people in your DS's life who have connected with him and care about him, rather than just you?
Bingo. At least in my case. I always thought I would be a working mother, because that's what my mom did, so it's all I knew. It wasn't till I got pregnant and started hanging out on places like The Nest and reading all the hurtful things that SAHMs say about working moms that I started feeling guilty about wanting to work. It helps having places like this board, where I can see that I'm not weird and I'm not an awful mom for the decisions I've made.
Oh, and I agree with Goldie's point about confidence. I occasionally think mean thoughts about SAHMs, and I recognize that I do that when I'm feeling less-than-confident in my own decision to return to work. I try to remember that when someone says something hurtful about working moms -- they're probably either clueless, or less-than-confident in their own decisions. (Or some combination of the two.)
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
I don't think sending DS to kindegarten will have the same feelings for me. (And please, before the flames start, I am talking how I feel, not how anyone else should feel.) The older DS gets, the less it stings to send him to daycare. But when he was a tiny infant, it felt terribly unnatural for me to hand him off to a surrogate mother for the day. Of course, I am incredibley grateful that we love our DCP and that she is a wonderful woman who cares immensely for DS. But it still feels unnaturual for me, and this is why I don't like working when I have a young child.
I agree. I only feel "guilty" when I go a few days without seeing my kids because I've been working late, and even then, it's not really guilt -- it's more that I miss them.
I have very little guilt, as well. I am the product of two working parents, and I never really considered not working. There was a brief time (way before marriage and kids) where I watched my sister SAH and thought that was the life I wanted. When DH and I got pregnant, I realized it just wasn't in the cards for me to stay home- fianancially. After about week 6 of maternity leave (when DH was back to work and family had stopped coming by), I realized I would not hack it as a SAHM.
The only times I feel guilty are when DS is sick or on a day where he is in daycare for longer than usual. But he is healthy and happy and so am I. My sister still stays at home and she is so miserable. I know that would be me. Plus, I like the fact that I don't have worry if the house is a mess and DH is just as responsible for getting up with DS in the middle of the night. I like that the balance of power and responsibility is split 50/50 between DH and me.
On a side note, I went to daycare from age 2-5 and I have almost no recollection of it. Then, I had a babysitter that I went to after school. There were lots of kids there and I loved it! If I had just gone home after school with my mom, I would have been so bored!
My mom and I have a healthy relationship and I have no resent toward her at all for working. She probably would have been miserable, too.
I like stories like this. I wish I heard them more.