Posted on 06/14/2004 6:54:52 PM PDT by summer
Re your post #92 - I think you're only the 2nd male on this thread to have said you prefer the wife to stay home. Thanks for your post.
Hmm. Good questions.
My wife has been a stay-at-home-mom since we were married. She loves it, and I have no complaints whatsoever.
Sure, financially it can be a stretch at times, but it's worth it to have a well-adjusted daughter who wasn't raised by strangers at a day care.
Although, I don't get NEARLY as many apple pies as I think I should! I'll have to have a talk with her about that...
:-)
I am so happy that my husband is so nice about the house not being perfect. Actually, I'm harder on myself about it. If I don't have everything done on my mental checklist, I mentally beat myself up. I homeschool with four children in the house. I would love to have a perfect house and everything spotlessly clean, but as I clean I also have four other people making messes. Now, I need to go finish up the rest of the laundry, do the dishes, mop, and vacuum.
All dads read to their Kids.
Conservative - Yes. Fat - 6' 160 lbs. Stay at home wife - Yes, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
My thoughts on this are that if she works, she'll wish she was home with the kids. If she's home with the kids, she'll wish she was working. So, guys take the path of least resistance/most payoff.
Personally, if I were married, I would want my sons mother to be at home with him. But, I would also want some preschool or other organized kid interaction for him.
There were times when I worked TWO jobs, just so my wife could stay home and take care of the domestic front.
Not that I would have my wife go to work. She is just a product of her lazy, nasty, baby boomer mother who thinks heating things up is all cooking amounts to and housework is beneath her.
She is improving by leaps and bounds though. There is no greater censure I can give her than to come home and in an hour clean the house, do the dishes, discipline the kids, and prepare a meal that she puts in her mouth and says "Wow."
It's all about "I can" vs "I can't." Contemporary culture feeds women a steady diet of "You can't."
This is the kind of behavior husbands are afraid of. However, a well-adjusted wife/mother who shares work in the home and raises children in the home is a real blessing. Remember the days when mamma made us dress up when daddy came home from work? : )
"Too bad. You guys who insist on working wives don't know what you're missing."
How about a compromise? Nowadays, there are hundreds of opportunities to start a business at home, and still have time for pie baking and child rearing. And guys, don't forget that it costs a lot of money to have a career outside - clothes, child care, commuting costs, lunches, makeup, nylons, workplace parties and collections for babies, etc. Not to mention AFFAIRS. Maybe I'm being naive but I really think it's best that the mother be there to look after the children and take care of the house.
IF my wife were home schooling our children, I would be much more understanding (particularly if we had 4). But we do not have 4 and they are not being home schooled. I would not expect a "perfectly" clean house but I do not think it's unfair to expect the same effort that I give both at my office and when I get home and "work". Put it this way, I have offered my wife on countless occasion for me to stay at home and her to go back to her job where she made money than I. Care to guess what her answer was to that?
"I think there are a lot of younger married women who want to stay at home and not do any work. They get a housekeeper to clean, day care for the kids, and they go to the gym, shopping, and social engagements all day."
This is a bullseye. The post boomer generation of women in America have been raised with a totally different set of expectations than previous generations. The "work and make money and have it all" expectation was not all it was cracked up to be. So, for those whose husbands make enough, why bother with the toil of the house and kids?
Brag away! An A+ for you! :)
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