What line of work are you in?

[reinbeau]

You all don't know what a blessing you have in getting to stay home with your kids. I am a single parent and every day spent at work away from my kids was torture....still is and they are teens and older. I guess I never felt like I was 100% at either place, as when I was at work, my mind was on my kids at home and, when I was home, I was always trying to get ready to go back to work.

I hear you. I had to go back to work when ex-hubby took off, to provide benefits for my then 15 year old (the 19 year old wasn't going to college so I couldn't get any benefits for him). I have to say, I think it is important to be home with your kids from the git-go, but it's critical to be home with them through their teen years. Of course you build a good foundation with them beforehand, but even the best kid can go astray under the peer pressure of the teenage years. I hated having to leave the younger one home alone, I had been home throughout their lives, the older one had me to drive him to whatever, and youngest didn't - and I know he resented me not being home. Angry teenage boys can't see the forest for the trees! But that's a long story....

For all of us who simply had no choice, well, we would have given just about anything to have HAD a choice. It is the single most important job on the planet~ being a good mother, and the world needs many, many more of them. To mold the future with your very hands...can their be anything more important? I applaud all the SAHMs who go against social pressure and norms, and have been made to feel "less than" in any way....keep up the good work and enjoy every last second of it! I would if I were you....

+1, Beekissed!

And BrookValley, you are far better off away from that awful, toxic, narrowminded woman! Some people un

 

[miss_thenorth]

I am blessed that I had a choice, and that hubby supported it.

That said, I have seen sahms who plopped their kids in front of a Tv all day, and I've seen working moms who were, as Beekissed said in a previous post--supermoms--ones I really admired.

There's good and bad all over, It is our responsibilty to do the best we can with the situation we are in.

 

[enjoy the ride]

Raising decent, hardworking children is the highest good- and I honor anyone who does it no matter how they go about it.

The stress of having to meet demands of children and work is very, very hard. And again, I always have been amazed that there are women who can successfully do this from whatever their motive is. A good mother resides in the mother and much less in the circumstances. Their children have the opportunity to understand hard work and hard choices.

Those who can devote the mass of their time by not working may have simplified their lives. But that certainly doesn't mean that they are not working very, very hard and making sacrafices too.

Blessed are the Moms of this world!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Raising decent, hardworking children is the highest good- and I honor anyone who does it no matter how they go about it.

The stress of having to meet demands of children and work is very, very hard. And again, I always have been amazed that there are women who can successfully do this from whatever their motive is. A good mother resides in the mother and much less in the circumstances. Their children have the opportunity to understand hard work and hard choices.

Those who can devote the mass of their time by not working may have simplified their lives. But that certainly doesn't mean that they are not working very, very hard and making sacrafices too.

Blessed are the Moms of this world!

Well, said.

 

[Beekissed]

Reinbeau, I, too, was amazed at how much my kids seem to need me in the teen years and beyond! It seems they have more problems with me being at work, resent my time away more, seem to know that their time with me is drawing to an end and want to have me home as much as possible. I feel the same way, so it may just be an instinctual thing with the approaching adulthood and leaving the nest thingy. I guess I am just starting to see how much I've missed over the years, and have been trying to store up every last memory for the times when they will be gone from my home. I think they are doing the same thing!

I don't want to leave my 16 yr. old boy home alone now either as he's just at the age when leaving him unattended will only encourage his bad judgement!

 

[the simple life]

I stay home with my kids as well, when the older kids were small I stayed home, when they were in school I worked during the day and picked them up after school.When I got pregnant with my 4th child I quit right before he was due and stayed home with him and the younger ones that followed.
I have no regrets and I love being home with them. I am always so busy and fulfilled.
BUT I HATE when people say to me "so you don't work"
"you stay home right" You would think that after all these years it wouldn't bother me anymore but it drives me crazy.
They have no idea how busy I am or they do and just say it to give a dig.

 

[Beekissed]

They are just jealous...I know I am!

 

[reinbeau]

Yea, Natalie, you don't work

Anyone remember the joke e-mail that was circulating awhile ago about the guy who comes home from work one day to find stuff strewn all over the house, kids parked in front of the TV playing video games, with empty food containers, plates, dishes, cups everywhere, clothes all over the place - he couldn't find his wife. He went upstairs kicking clothes out of his way. When he got to the bedroom there she was, laying on the bed in her bathrobe, watching TV and drinking a cup of tea. He demanded to know what she thought she was doing? And she replied "Nothing, dear, just like you say I do all the time".

Yea, a SAHM doesn't work. Right.

 

[BrookValley]

I stay home with my kids as well, when the older kids were small I stayed home, when they were in school I worked during the day and picked them up after school.When I got pregnant with my 4th child I quit right before he was due and stayed home with him and the younger ones that followed.
I have no regrets and I love being home with them. I am always so busy and fulfilled.
BUT I HATE when people say to me "so you don't work"
"you stay home right" You would think that after all these years it wouldn't bother me anymore but it drives me crazy.
They have no idea how busy I am or they do and just say it to give a dig.

Well, for those with enough gall to say that kind of thing just for the purpose of being a horse's rear, I'd love to see them live one day in your shoes and try to make those kinds of comments again. I give a lot of credit to parents of large families. One toddler knocks me on my rear! I really would like to know where people ever got the idea that people who stay at home with their children are lying around doing nothing all day.

Here, this is a fine occasion to use this smiley...

 

[the simple life]

Ya know whats even more annoying is that people will ask me to run their errands while they are at work.
One "friend"was mad at me for not wanting to go stand in line for her at the registry of motor vehicles to put her car on the road for her while she was at work, she only works three days a week so she could have done it on her day off.
So I would have had to pack up all my little ones and spend hours at the registry, I don't think so.
I have people ask me to watch their kids for free so they don't have to pay daycare and think I am a jerk for not helping them out.
Even at church some of the committee members will say, while we work so you can deliver the food to the pantry again this month can't you?
I don't mind doing volunteer work, but these people join a missions committee and then say they are too busy to do the mission work and since I am apparently home doing nothing all day I should do their share as well.
My husband gets really furious when people call me for stuff like this, I had one person that would always ask me to go pay her bills for her and go get her money orders.
I refused to do it but she would still ask every time.
I am a notary public and one friend told her friend that I would come to her house three towns away and notarize something for her no problem.
Then when I said no she was all upset because she promised this person I would do it.
The worse one ever was the person that called me while I was in the middle of painting my living room to ask me to go to the store and pick her up cigarettes and a pack of beer and chinese food because it was raining out and she didn't want to take her son out to the store herself.
Oh and by the way did I have any money she could borrow too to pay for all this stuff.
I told her I was busy and she called me two more times saying she couldn't believe I wouldn't do that for her and that she worked all week and she wanted to relax on her day off (she only works three days a week) and I am home all the time.
I stopped talking to her two years ago now.
I started telling people that I charge $25.00 an hour to do their errands and I was serious about it too.
Thats when most of them all got the hint.
All of these people had either no children or one child and they are asking me with all my kids and projects to do their running around like I had nothing to do because I stayed home with my kids.
They all know that I have been spending huge amounts of time restoring this old house of mine, I always have a project going on.
I just finished painting my daughter's bedroom at midnight tonight, and I am always doing stuff like that.
I am lucky to find two seconds for myself with all the housework, yardwork, cooking, home repairs, sports, school meetings, doctor appointments, errands etc. and these people act shocked when I say that I am busy.

My best friend is a lawyer and she told me that on the days she works her life is a piece of cake, its her days off with her kids that she is the most busy.