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WHAT ARE OUR CHILDREN THINKING?
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Motek




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 27 2008, 10:07 pm
Wow, the defensiveness ...

If these stories actually happened, who are you to denounce the mothers who heard it and shared it? Or do you think the children are horrible for wanting their mothers?

chaya123 wrote:
Obviously, it's the ideal for every mother to stay home with her children but not always possible.


Imamother was started by Yael, a SAHM. But it sounds like she is outnumbered on her own forum and lots of women don't think it's the ideal with threads started by women who are sending or thinking of sending their babies to school, not because they are in dire need of food either.

freidasima wrote:
Well here in EY almost every woman works. From the time the baby is 3 months old. Is it good? ?Is it bad? Who knows. But the kids think it is totally normal.


Maybe in your circles (and the schedule of your day that you wrote in another thread sounded inhuman). I know Israeli mothers who don't. If you don't know whether it's good or bad to have someone else raise your infant, sorry, your society is corrupt. Nebach, and I mean that.

Kids born into bad situations also think their lives are normal, since that is all they know, nebach. What you're used to is not necessarily normal.
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bebe3




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 27 2008, 10:53 pm
My older daughters finish school at separate times. The younger finishes at 2 and the older finishes at 3:40. I carpool with another mother so that we don't have to unload kids and then pack them back up again. I was the second shift until my dd would cry every time she came home at 2. This was very unlike her. I asked her why is she so sad everyday when she gets home. She told me through drenched cheeks (shes was 3 at the time) that all the other mommies pick up their own kids and its my job to come pick her up. I Don't work outside the home, I am a sahm. She knows I wasnt able to get her bc her sisters were napping at that time, and she felt that she still deserved my attention. So I did what I knew I should and switched times. She couldnt have been happier. I dont know about her kvetchy sisters who I have to wake up though.
I was so happy she told me what was bothering her. If we brush off how our kids feel and tell them why they shouldnt feel that way(ie:explain mommy works for you so don't miss her), they wont feel so comfortable to open up to us and then what do they have? If we tell them we understand why you are sad because mommy works, and mommy hates working, it might make them feel better.
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shalhevet




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 3:10 am
Motek wrote:


Imamother was started by Yael, a SAHM. But it sounds like she is outnumbered on her own forum and lots of women don't think it's the ideal with threads started by women who are sending or thinking of sending their babies to school, not because they are in dire need of food either.


Mothers don't work just because they are in dire need of food. They work to give their children books, basic toys, an education and other things needed for a good start in life. That is also part of our responsibility as parents. School books, a small number of toys needed for development, clothes that are normal for the society where the child is growing up etc are not luxuries.

Quote:

freidasima wrote:
Well here in EY almost every woman works. From the time the baby is 3 months old. Is it good? ?Is it bad? Who knows. But the kids think it is totally normal.


Maybe in your circles (and the schedule of your day that you wrote in another thread sounded inhuman).


Maybe in your circles people have plenty of money and don't have to choose between sending their child on the school trip or working.

Quote:

I know Israeli mothers who don't.

Whoopee. So do I. But it doesn't change the fact that a very large % of mothers in Israel do work. But of course - living in Israel is not a value (since you like bringing up what posters say in other threads) and other people should be living here because you believe the government shouldn't be giving back an inch of land.

Quote:
If you don't know whether it's good or bad to have someone else raise your infant, sorry, your society is corrupt. Nebach, and I mean that.


A mother who leaves her infant with a responsible babysitter 5 or 6 or even 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is still raising her own child. And life is not black or white. We make choices, and there are plenty of factors each family has to take into consideration.
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Tamiri




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 4:04 am
I am totally a SAHM. I love being home, I love that my kids know there is someone home all the time. I am very sorry that I left my 1st when he was 5.5 months old, because I did not know about the choice of staying home. I learned how to stay home in the U.S. From what I am reading, it's changed there..
I think it's a great thing to stay home, you don't have to be stupid to do it and if you are properly trained and have a good social support system (other mothers in the same boat) - it's totally doeable and you don't go insane. Also, you don't have your self-worth to ponder.
I realize that in some families that is not an option.
I realize that in some families it IS an option but Mom does not feel she's worth anything if she's not out working. This is a very Israeli approach: women here are defined by their work. In practically every segment of society they say they "must" work in order to feel worthwhile. THIS is the brainswashing mentioned.
I am sure that my mother, graduate of Columbia University back in the 50s!!!! never felt worthless being home with us as opposed to continuing her career. I thank her for being around for us. When she went to work when the youngest was in 1st grade, we felt her absence, even though our father was around a lot for us. She went to work because we needed the income. I know that the quality of life at home dipped once she went back to work, we still remember telling her the meals were not so good anymore (she was very hurt) and we remember her coming home smelling of smoke (people smoked on the bus in those days) and not understanding what she went thru to get to and from work. This is the part that relates to what are our children thinking.
From what I have seen, across the board, the children of SAHMs and working moms come out the same, meaning: at a later age, you can't say that one group is more successful than the other. OTOH, as little kids, there are, many times, marked differences. It's think it's more an inyan of chinuch at home, how your child will turn out. The biggest diff I see is in the early years: - when a child is acting "off", how do you handle it?
SAHMs that have seen handle things differently than a lot of the working moms I have seen.
The "guilty" working mothers will placate their children and buy them off to show their love. They sit on the floor and play with them for a while, thinking that makes up for the hours they are gone. They give in to the child's every whim. Whenever the kid whines or begs, they let the child have what he wants.because of how the feel about leaving their kids all day - whether it's choice or necessity.
The working mothers who believe in what they do AND in chinuch, will treat the child as needed, but not by bribes or empty promises. The chinuch is what makes the diff in my opinion. If there is chinuch, the child feels secure and loved. You don't have to sit on the floor and play with them to attain this. You have to be firm and loving and a good parent.
SAHMs (and I don't think the mall rats come under this category) approach parenting with a lot less guilt. They are giving what they think is the best, to their children. A working mother with this approach will probably attain the same results as a good SAHM (I realize not all SAHM are good parents, the two are not mutually exclusive).
So, what do the children think? They think whatever you project! (that was the point here).
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 5:14 am
freidasima wrote:
Other women go crazy sitting home with babies. They need to get out on a part/full time basis with adults to keep their sanity. What can you do...some women just aren't built psychologically to be at home with infants year after year. But to pay for the childcare they have to work, not take an exercise and crafts class every day. So they work. Better they should stick their head in an oven? I deal enough with those young mothers at work. Their kids see a frazzled mother at home and a happy mother coming back from work who stays happier than when she was at home full time. The kids understand.

"Sit at home all day" and "go to work" aren't the only two options, you know. The term is "stay at home mom" but that doesn't mean you have to actually physically be in the house all the time, like a prisoner. If you don't put in the effort, yes, being a SAHM will be boring. On the other hand, if you do everything you can to meet and befriend other SAHMs, if you make the effort to find baby-friendly activities and things you can do in the community, if you make the effort to keep reading and learning instead of using the baby as an excuse to let your brain go unused--being a SAHM will be an interesting and stimulating experience. Not a reason to stick your head in the oven Rolling Eyes .

The idea that some women aren't psychologically able to be with their babies all day is disturbing, IMO. Yes, people need different levels of stimulation and adult interaction, but to say there are people who feel their choices are leave their baby or harm themselves??? If that's a woman's reason for going to work ("I have to get away from you kids or I'll kill myself"), how can her kids feel anything but unloved?

Yes, there are women who prefer working, but that doesn't mean they are truly psychologically unable to do otherwise. The idea that being around babies all day can literally drive a woman insane is a very modern and not healthy idea, IMO.
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Imaonwheels




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 5:21 am
I live in EY.
I have a large family and never had a dh that made much money. I never sent a child out before 3.
I never worked outside if a small child was at home and only for a small time as a single parent did I get home from work after the kids.

I have no family in EY and definitely no financial help from them.
In one of the most expensive cities in Israel we had more than necessary most of the time. That included a one family home in the green area with a fence and our own lemon and pomegranite trees.

I do not bake good cakes. They are usually hard and dry. If it is good it is a fluke. When I worked in Y-m I would bring a cake on Thursday from Angel bakery, an expensive good cake. When I quit that job to work at home a gain my son was so happy that I quit because "Now you can make the Shabbos cake". Every week for years I baked a cake for Shabbos.

When I speak of chinuch for girls I state as one of the biggest failings is the ability to deal with 25, 30 and even more girls in a classroom and an inability to be with your own kids. There is no gene that makes us have an inboard need to have a job. I also have the need to see something outside of my four walls. Because I have no boss I can arrange my schedule totally around my family.We became business owners so that we could make our own priorities.

A rebetzin with a very large family who has been teaching for over 20 years once told me that all the schools and childcare means she spends more to go to work than to stay home. She just doesn't relate to staying home with a bunch of babies. She continues working for 2 reasons. One is to keep her seniority so she can work full time at the highest rate when they are all out and because the school is her social setting. She works with friends and teaches their dds. It makes her not feel out of the loop. Unfortunately she made the decision that she would be up on world surrounding the school where she teaches and her dh would be up on the kids concerns, fears, grades, successes, etc. B"H he is the type of Tatty who does it b'simcha.
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freidasima




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 5:47 am
In my circles all mothers worked when their kids were 3 months old. You know why? We were in almost all cases the SOLE financial provider for the family. Our husbands were in kollel, or learning torah and studying a profession at the same time. We, as women, had not been in the army and even if we did sherut leumi, by 23 we had finished with sherut, school, and were married and most with a baby. Our husbands only got OUT of the army at age 22 and were learning still, or studying day and night, they also had absolutely no profession while we did (teacher, social worker, secretary, ganenet, etc.). Now if we didn't go back to work when maternity leave was over at 12 weeks, how exactly were we supposed to eat? None of us had parents in those days who could support us.

And the babies came year after year...my best friend is the only SAHM that I know and she lives in dire poverty until today, her husband was older, earning a living and he refused to let her go back to work - a macho thing totally - today he is tearing his hair out - and with 8 pregnancies in 10 years and no profession (she was a computer card punch typist which was phased out years ago) they went from bad to worse. I would bring food for the kids, take a bunch of them for shabbos to make sure that they would have at least one day of really good meals a week.

Yeah, tell me about SAHMs. At least those of my generation. They didn't exist.

Now for childcare. EY b"h has excellent childcare. Wonderful frum older women who take care of kids like a bubbie. Even in a maon. I didn't use a maon because of the number of kids, but I had the same metapelet for almost 10 years, a neighbor whose kids were grown, frum just like us, and she gave the kids a terrific chinuch that was identical to that which I would have given had I been home. No problem there. Her kids and she (her husband nebich was niftar a few years ago) are family for us. Not "like family" but family. When she went to visit her brothers and sister who lived on a moshav next to kfar chabad where she had studied, she would take my kids there for a week! An incredible, wonderful woman to whom I owe so much and I hope that my hakaras hatov was and is felt in our relationship and what we have tried to do for them as well.

Lots of my friends child care was just like that. Is mommy better? Who knows, but mommy is not an option when you have to put food, schoolbooks, tuition, medicine, etc. on the table.

More to come...Taking a break to go back to work.
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yummydd




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 8:59 am
although my children are still very young and dont undersatnd yet my husband doesnt want me to work he claims a mother belongs at home! I said to him they wouldnt understand or be affected but he claims that you say one more year and so on and you end up being a working mom and being that his mother and my mother both worked and we felt it so he prefers I stay home.
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bebe3




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 9:41 am
shalhevet
Quote:
A mother who leaves her infant with a responsible babysitter 5 or 6 or even 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is still raising her own child.


And how is it humanly possible for a woman to raise her child...whens shes not there? [/quote]
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 10:04 am
Quote:
Imamother was started by Yael, a SAHM. But it sounds like she is outnumbered on her own forum and lots of women don't think it's the ideal with threads started by women who are sending or thinking of sending their babies to school, not because they are in dire need of food either.


What does that have to do with anything? Is this a forum specifically for SAHM? Who cares if Yael is outnumbered on her own forum? She is probably outnumbered in many other ways too. For example, this forum was started by a person from Montreal. Most people on this forum are not from Montreal and so Yael is outnumbered on her own forum.
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Kinneret




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 2:58 pm
bebe3 wrote:
shalhevet
Quote:
A mother who leaves her infant with a responsible babysitter 5 or 6 or even 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is still raising her own child.


And how is it humanly possible for a woman to raise her child...whens shes not there?


Because they are there. Working women are not permanently absent from the home. Also, children know the difference between childcare providers and parents. My mother worked because she had to work, and while I had the most wonderful babysitter, who I love very much, I always knew it was my parents who raised us. We never had the slightest confusion about that, and I doubt we're very different from other children of working moms.
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shalhevet




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 3:08 pm
bebe3 wrote:
shalhevet
Quote:
A mother who leaves her infant with a responsible babysitter 5 or 6 or even 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is still raising her own child.


And how is it humanly possible for a woman to raise her child...whens shes not there?
[/quote]

7 x 24 = 168 hours in a week. Say a mother is absent 5 x 6 = 30 hours a week, that means she is still with her child, 138 hours a week. Not only that, but during the 30 hours she is absent, a responsible mother is still making a good % of the childcare decisions, by communicating them to her babysitter. She chooses a babysitter consistent with her beliefs.

Many mothers leave breastmilk, or make other requests based on the chinuch they want to give their children. Actually I think as a mother who left her children with women with values similar to my own, I am raising my child much more than one who sits them in front of a TV/ DVD and have them absorb other values while I do my housework.

Kinneret, Thumbs Up.
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Frumom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 3:42 pm
shalhevet wrote:
bebe3 wrote:
shalhevet
Quote:
A mother who leaves her infant with a responsible babysitter 5 or 6 or even 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, is still raising her own child.


And how is it humanly possible for a woman to raise her child...whens shes not there?


7 x 24 = 168 hours in a week. Say a mother is absent 5 x 6 = 30 hours a week, that means she is still with her child, 138 hours a week. Not only that, but during the 30 hours she is absent, a responsible mother is still making a good % of the childcare decisions, by communicating them to her babysitter. She chooses a babysitter consistent with her beliefs.

[/quote]

A lot of those hours you are talking about are nighttime (I.e. sleeping) hours. Just pointing that out, not noting my opinion here.
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freidasima




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 4:07 pm
How many SAHMs actually devote all their time to their children? I'm not talking about the infant stage where truthfully, for most of the time when babies are eating, sleeping and having their diapers changed, it really doesn't make a difference who does it as long as it is done with care and there is a mother around some of the time. But most of the SAHMs I heard of spend their time being very busy with household, cooking, cleaning, shopping, errands etc. and hessed projects and it doesn't exactly look like they are actually spending time with their children...in fact, from my one SAHM friend, I remember he so overwhelmed with household and little babies every year that her older children were totally neglected, to the point that their grandmother had to come and give them time and help...

And while we are at it, why is it considered ok by the same people who bash working mothers, if the baby's bubbie is taking care of the baby as so often happens when a mother is working, but they bash the mother if she takes a "bubbie" for pay? Because a "real" bubbie will love them more? Will give them family values? I don't know...seems to me that lots of the metaplot that I know love their charges, care for them so lovingly, and give them good Jewish family values..same as their mothers.

As I wrote earlier, this entire discussion is demeaning. And BTW, why is it so important what our children are thinking? Isn't that buying into the postmodern American or rather Western system where the child is in the center and dictates what he/she wants to his/her surroundings, basically putting everyone jumping through hoops, instead of dealing with a more Jewish and normal reality where a situation exists, parents make the rules and children conform to the situation? Why are we putting what our children think in the center of things which is so unJewish while we are so busy trying to emulate what we consider to be the "best" Jewish system ever in terms of anything...what existed in pre-war and pre-wwI europe...tznius...men learning...women knowing their place...

Yeah sure. In reality women were running the store while men were sitting in the back learning and kids were running wild. Just read memoirs of the pre WWI shtetls...
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 4:37 pm
freidasima wrote:
Yeah, tell me about SAHMs. At least those of my generation. They didn't exist.

What generation are you talking about? I know my MIL and many of her friends were SAHMs, and that was 20-something years ago.

I'm sorry that your friend who's a SAHM is having such a tough time, financially speaking. OTOH I'm not sure how that's relevant. A woman who has 8 kids in 10 years and an obsolete profession is going to have a hard time no matter what she does. It's not like going out to work as a punch card typist was going to cover the cost of gan for 2-3 kids anyway.

Quote:
Now for childcare. EY b"h has excellent childcare. Wonderful frum older women who take care of kids like a bubbie.

It's great that you were able to find that and afford it. However, not all working moms have that option. Believe me, many of the daycares I see in my neighborhood are not excellent childcare and are nothing like bubbie.

Quote:
How many SAHMs actually devote all their time to their children?

Since when is that the point of being a SAHM? Those who support SAHMs don't think mothers need to devote every waking moment to entertaining their children (or that mothers did so historically). They believe a mother's presence is important even if she's doing laundry and mopping floors while baby plays.

Quote:
...in fact, from my one SAHM friend, I remember he so overwhelmed with household and little babies every year that her older children were totally neglected, to the point that their grandmother had to come and give them time and help...

How would this situation have changed if she worked out of the house? Either she would ask the babysitter to clean, cook, etc, so then the kids would be "totally neglected" by the babysitter instead of the mother--or she'd just have to do all that work when she got home, leaving her kids with absolutely no attention anyway.

Quote:
And while we are at it, why is it considered ok by the same people who bash working mothers, if the baby's bubbie is taking care of the baby as so often happens when a mother is working, but they bash the mother if she takes a "bubbie" for pay?

Because your positive childcare experience is unfortunately not the norm. Many kids go through several hired "bubbies" throughout their life, switching as often as once every few months. Many people aren't able to find a "bubbie" figure and have to settle for a non-frum or non-Jewish caretaker who isn't interested in passing on Torah values. Many people can't find or afford a nanny at all, and their babies are stuck vying with 4 or 5 other babies for the attention of a single metapelet.

I don't think that when people "bash" childcare as being inferior to a parent's care they're saying that every single childcare provider is bad... but as a general rule, if a family member is caring for baby that family member is going to stick around and be a consistent part of baby's life, while that's just not the case in most other situations.
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freidasima




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 4:51 pm
Ora, let me answer a few of your points.
In my circles, between thirty to twenty years ago, there were almost no SAHMs. We all had to work, as I wrote previously, our husbands were young, just out of army, studying for a profession or learning full time. We were the sole supporters of the family. Most of us has mothers who were still working full time as well. Life was not easy in EY at that time and salaries were low.

As for my one SAHM friend, had she stayed in her office she would have been retrained. And for every year (it was a government office) she would have gotten more money, the pazam as we call it. So her problem comes from having had to leave the workforce. She would have been eligible for a reduced rate maon and gan. The issue was her macho husband and his macho background who said that if his wife worked it would emasculate him in front of his work friends in the mifal.

Regarding the form of childcare, I can only judge by my own experiences and those of my numerous friends. Some had metaplot, some put three month old babies straight into maon, especially on yishuvim where that was the only choice thirty years ago. The kids thrived and the care was usually excellent. True, some women changed metaplot every year, I remember one friend who fired her metapelet at the end of the year - I could never understand that - as she didnt' want her getting "too comfortable in the job" but she was an anomaly.

Well I see SAHMs today in both America and EY, children of friends and colleagues and those who are frum and are SAHMs have lots of kids and are frazzled from full time child care, they snap full time at their kids because they are always under pressure while I see the working mothers making much more of an effort to be nice to their kids and give them time and attention.

Back to my friend. Had she worked, why do you think that a maon or babysitter would have neglected the kids? She probably would have put them into gan or maon, they wouldn't have been home all day to mess up the place and when they all got home together, mother and children, at four PM, there wouldnt be a full day of child mess in the house to clear up as she had...

As for childcare, maybe it is different in America but I don't know a single frum woman here in EY who has a chiloni childminder. It's not done and there are enough frum women who want to be metaplot or take care of children in their homes.

Besides, by the same rule of a childminder not sticking around I assume you don't believe in full day or at least until one or two pm nursrey school for three year olds which most Israelis send their children to. And that childminder isn't around the next year, nor is the one from age four around at age five, etc.

Children adapt very well to that kind of change. We no longer live in a world with a little red schoolhouse and the same schoolteacher for children ages five to fourteen...a childminder is there for the same hours that a child would be in school. I'm not talking about professional parents, whom I know as well, who need childminders until eight PM. Most of those get full time live in help, who don't change that often and basically raise the kids. I am not saying if that is good or bad, the people who do it have to do it, but that isn't the same as a regular working mother.
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cassandra




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 5:16 pm
ora_43 wrote:

The idea that some women aren't psychologically able to be with their babies all day is disturbing, IMO. Yes, people need different levels of stimulation and adult interaction, but to say there are people who feel their choices are leave their baby or harm themselves??? If that's a woman's reason for going to work ("I have to get away from you kids or I'll kill myself"), how can her kids feel anything but unloved?

Yes, there are women who prefer working, but that doesn't mean they are truly psychologically unable to do otherwise. The idea that being around babies all day can literally drive a woman insane is a very modern and not healthy idea, IMO.



Thank you for saying this. I stay home and it is very difficult for me as my default is to crave intellectual stimulation. I stay home because it is a value to me and I think it is what is best for my children and our family situation and we can afford it.

Instead of looking at staying home as something that is hard for me I look at it as a challenge. I have become a much better and stronger person as as a SAHM because on a daily basis I am challenged to go outside of my comfort zone and do things that I may not want to do at the moment. I really think more women could challenge themselves in this way but they have been fed the notion that it's okay to work just for fulfillment because that is what is most important in life. How sad that they can't set aside a few years to devote to the kids they have brought into this world.
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 7:45 pm
Quote:
The idea that some women aren't psychologically able to be with their babies all day is disturbing, IMO. Yes, people need different levels of stimulation and adult interaction, but to say there are people who feel their choices are leave their baby or harm themselves??? If that's a woman's reason for going to work ("I have to get away from you kids or I'll kill myself"), how can her kids feel anything but unloved?


I am going to have to disagree. Vehemently, in fact. It is quite possible to love someone but not be able to be with them all day. I probably would go nuts if I had to work with my husband or stay home with him 24/7 all day for years at a time. And yet we still manage to love each other. Niddah is good for the same reason that working part time may be good. We develop a better appreciation for the ones we love when we have a break from them for a bit.

People need to develop themselves on many different levels so they don't see themselves in one dimension only and over-rely on that area for self esteem. If I am very well developed only in one role, that of a mother/wife/professional then I will define myself by that alone and if something goes wrong in that area, I will have it much harder and not have anything to fall back on. Conversely, if I see myself as a mother and a wife and a professional and fill-in-the-blank, then I can take strength from one of my other roles when something is weaker in one area.
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cassandra




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 7:52 pm
marina wrote:

I am going to have to disagree. Vehemently, in fact. It is quite possible to love someone but not be able to be with them all day. I probably would go nuts if I had to work with my husband or stay home with him 24/7 all day for years at a time. And yet we still manage to love each other. Niddah is good for the same reason that working part time may be good. We develop a better appreciation for the ones we love when we have a break from them for a bit.


You cannot compare the husband and wife relationship to the mother/child relationship. They are not analogous at all. It has nothing to do with love either.

There are also ways to get breaks from your children that do not require having a job. Having a jobs means you have dueling responsibilities and your kids may sometimes feel that they do not come first.

Quote:
People need to develop themselves on many different levels so they don't see themselves in one dimension only and over-rely on that area for self esteem. If I am very well developed only in one role, that of a mother/wife/professional then I will define myself by that alone and if something goes wrong in that area, I will have it much harder and not have anything to fall back on. Conversely, if I see myself as a mother and a wife and a professional and fill-in-the-blank, then I can take strength from one of my other roles when something is weaker in one area.


I don't define myself by what I do, whether it is a mother or a worker or anything else. That is what is bad for self-esteem. You are who you are and you do what you do and those things are not the same. I'm not quite sure what you mean that working allows you to feel stronger in both areas, that one compensates for the other. Most women with families find that they can't do both well, and that both areas suffer. Please elaborate so that the rest of us can learn the secret to having it all, the thing that has eluded all women since the dawn of the feminist era.
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marina




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 28 2008, 8:08 pm
Quote:
and your kids may sometimes feel that they do not come first


Actually, I really don't want my kids to think they ALWAYS come first. In my experience, that's how I will get bratty children, if I teach them that their needs and wants supercede everyone else's. Of course, my children know that all decisions that I make, from what I buy for supper to where we live, are based on what is best for them. But to worry that they might think they do not come first because I have a report to work on tonight or a phone conversation that I need to take care of? That is part of life. You are not going to always come first and you should not expect to. (This does not apply if you are under one year of age.)

Quote:
I'm not quite sure what you mean that working allows you to feel stronger in both areas, that one compensates for the other. Most women with families find that they can't do both well, and that both areas suffer. Please elaborate so that the rest of us can learn the secret to having it all, the thing that has eluded all women since the dawn of the feminist era.


I am happy to elaborate. No, I do not mean we will all turn into superwomen. I just mean that if something is not okay in, say, motherhood, you will draw strength from the other area to help you in motherhood and vise-versa. So say that my 7 year old is going through a rough patch at school and has been suspended from school. If my estimation of myself as a person is intimately tied into my success as a mom, I will be very upset. I will feel like a total failure as a person. On the other hand, if I am also nurse and helped a new mother deliver a healthy child that day, I will consider myself capable and not fall into a funk. Instead I will brainstorm and problem solve what to do with my 7 year old just like I do when problems come up at work. Same with wife roles and other roles. I have seen this with my friends often. Those who put all their eggs in one basket often lose it when some of the eggs don't work out as well as they hoped.

And yes, I agree that developing many facets of your personality does not have to be accomplished by going to work and can be done through other means, volunteering, hobbies, etc. But all of these require time away from the children, usually.
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