If your mother worked full time...

amother

Winterberry

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 2:57 am

This thread is so eye opening for me. I am literally starting a full time job come next week. My kids are in high school so I have very few worries about this, but Im glad to have read this thread to see what people thought.
When kids were younger, I always worked part time so that I was home when they got home or a few minutes after they got home.
Growing up, my mother was a teacher and worked full time. I never resented it. I was always proud that she was a working mother. I always saw the value in that.

amother

Violet

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 3:14 am

My parents divorced when I was a toddler. From then on, my mother started to put herself through school so she could be educated a get a professional job to support us (me and my sisters). I don't remember that being difficult for us when we were little and in nursery/preschool etc. I remember when she finally did get her degree and get a professional job it was okay too. But by the time we were young teenagers she was working very fulltime and wasn't home when we got back. I guess I just kind of missed her and missed spending time with her and her making us supper, instead of making our own and sitting eating it watching TV. Our family felt more like a family when we were little. I understand the necessity, though, because she was a single parent, and I also understand that she probably thought we needed her less when we were older... but she was our only parent so it was kind of sad, I guess.

dinglehopper

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 3:54 am

I didn't know anything else except for two full time working parents. How can I know if I suffered and why do I care now? Yes, I hated going to babysitters, that's true. But eventually we were just home alone after school and it was fine. Homework, after school activities at school, etc....

What I do remember is that my mother always talked down about stay at home mother's and teachers and that always annoyed me. So she obviously had guilt. I did become a stay at home mother for a number of years but that was more about that's what worked best for us vs any conscious decision on my part.

Chickensoupprof

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 5:04 am

When I was a baby my father was unemployed and my mother could work full-time it was my dad who took the most care of me, sometimes I also went to my grandparents since my father did extra schooling to get more jobs and in the meantime, he was applying for jobs in his old field and new field. My mom was more resentful that she didn't see me much during the baby period, I turned out fine I was an easy baby anyway.

Soon my mum started to work part-time and my dad again full-time but he worked in IT which meant that the money was big, but he didn't want to move to the West of the NL (Amsterdam, Utrecht area) and in the early 2000's lots of the company's moved to India so they cut him off. I saw my father only when I just was to go out to bed and once he said that he applied for another job at the ministry of law enforcement in the IT a job would could bring lots of money but it was again 1.5 hour away from us and then I cried and he choose a job closer by. He doesn't work anymore in IT since I went to high school... Suddenly the demand of chemistry professionals became high here. It's now my mom who’s profession is cut off by the government and really I hope she will still find something, she is still really depressed on that. The reason I wanted to move out was that she every day feels sorry for herself and still can cry and tell her self that she is a dumb cow that she couldn't get higher education, everyone does it better and she is dumb and she can't work and no one wants her anymore etc etc etc...
She is NOT a nice mother without the job the plans of cutting off her profession were made when I was still in high school and it was horror for her... If I could give her a full time profession I would igve it to her. I think working is a good thing.

I also resent that I don't have a job and never received and education I did 4 tracks in college and university and I also feel less, I really think having a job or something 'outside' your household chores is a good distraction and good for your development.
My friends father was a big talmid of the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah zt'l. He went for every shaila and eitza to the Rav. This man learns day and night he is a big talmid chacham, he barley sleeps and is only learning. What did the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah told him? ''Give something small to your yetzer hara otherwise you will never shteig and resent learning, give yourself a hobby which has nothing to do with torah'. So the father of these sisters I'm good friends with,has a train hobby, he has model trains and piles of trains magazines... I think that the Rosh Yeshivah had a real sense of humanity, we need to have something just for ourselves,in order to do our 'real' avoda.

amother

Seashell

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 7:19 am

A lot of this is dependent on how you manage as a working mom. My mother will say with pride that she was always home for the little kids’ school bus. However we had a lot of resentment growing up because I was a latchkey kid from 4th grade and our home was not well run. Supper would appear at 8 or 9:00, no one knew or cared if I was doing homework, my mother was just too exhausted.

I work part time, I get home with the kids, and I have a very demanding job that often has me working at night. However, I make it a point not to touch work between 3 - 7. The older kids know that once homework and supper is done, everyone told me about their day, and the little kids are in bed, I’ll pull out my computer. Maybe they’ll have different feelings but I’m very careful to have a very well run home, I volunteer for school committees - they don’t feel that my work comes first.

amother

Impatiens

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 8:01 am

I never gave it much thought.. But my mom didn't work and was always there for us. I guess it's so ingrained in me that I can't fathom working and bringing up a family. I understand my kids will lose out - and I confirm that reading this thread.
I believe I'm doing the right thing and hashem is the one who provides parnassah - so I daven he should continue sending us parnassah through my husbands workings.
I'm greatful I can bring up my kids with a full focus. For me I don't need to work for my sanity. I enjoy homemaking and being around locally in case kids aren't well, or for school events.
But I do understand if woman can't do this for wtvr reason, and I'm greatful and lucky.

amother

Latte

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 8:52 am

I am one of the middle children of a large, double digit family and my mother worked full time. Funnily enough, I do feel that my mother didn't have time for me, but more because of my place in the family. My other siblings had a different experience. Also, my siblings close in age to me had mild special needs that needed attention so I was the good easy kid who didn't need attention. For example, I remember not asking my parents to take me to a birthday party (on sunday, when neither of them ever worked). It just never occured to me that they would have time for that. I was very self sufficient.

But I truly don't think any of that would have been very different if my mother hadn't worked. I don't really recall suffering much on that account. We were (are) all extremely proud of my mother. Knowing her personality I think she would have been miserable and crushed as a SAHM. I know she contemplated leaving full time work at one time but bh stayed.

My mother never made fancy food, but I think she is just not into cooking. We had cleaning help. My older siblings babysat if my mother was home late from work, although she worked remotely some days long before it became a popular thing since she had a crazy commute, so 2 days a week she was home at 7pm the other days home all the time. She was a very present mother, I don't recall her ever telling me to go away and leave her alone, even when working, she always had time for us. We always went on family trips on sundays or during vacation, even now, if I go and visit with my kids she will clear her (still busy) schedule to go out to fun places with us.

My mother is a brilliant person who has made important contributions in her field, I am very proud of her. I am happy she modeled being a mother who also worked.

amother

Yarrow

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 8:57 am

I was never resentful but I did "suffer"

Basically 2008 my father lost his high paying job and my mother went from becomng a stay at home mom to a very full time worker

Her career is intense and I picked up a lot of the slack - mainly cease I was a teen and couldn't handle what I now see as my mother lowering her standards so she could survive. She never asked or expected it from me and I wasn't resentful - I understood why this was happening - but I missed the comforts she had provided previously so took them on my self.

Things like baking, fancier suppers (she was doing a lot of frozen pizza and croc pot dinners), washing the floors every night, bathing the little every night (she moved to every other)where things I picked up.

I think I wasn't resentful because I saw how much she was investing in being 100% emotionally present for me and my siblings. I was super resentful of my father for putting her in this position (he got other jobs but none like the one he lost).
In a way I am still resentful of him because I see the physical toll her job has placed on her (it s very high stress), although he is working and does a lot at home too.
I guess I still live in the dream world where the dad should provide and if he cant he's a failure

amother

Pansy

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 8:59 am

Both my parents worked and I never had an issue, but I became very independent I even went to the dentist alone🙊...never bothered me, I think thats what built me up and im very independent today as well...

I think I wasn't resentful because:
1. I always had supper when I walked into the door...full supper in the oven, salads/drinks ready in the fridge.
2. My parents made sure to celebrate each of our birthdays by making a huge deal
3. Every once in a while I got "alone" time by going with my father to work...please don't laugh but I still have the best memories!! (On Sunday when I had no school)
4. My parents made sure that I had fulfillment to keep me busy. I always took courses

amother

Impatiens

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 9:25 am

amother Yarrow wrote:

This story sounds like a cousin of mine.. Interesting to hear how this affected the children. (it makes sense.. Just I never thought of how they felt)

miami85

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 10:12 am

Did I love it? No. But did I "suffer"? NO.

My mother did her best to pick me up from school when it worked with her schedule, my father brought me to school when he was able to. When I was in high school I had to take a city bus, which I didn't like, but I did it.

My mother chose a career that meant she could be available most of the time. She did have to work some nights and often on Sundays but we worked it out.

Kids don't have to love everything that their parents do, but that doesnt' mean that they are "suffering" or "abused"

Alternative

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 10:13 am

I was not resentful. It was a fact of life and I never questioned it. It made me a feminist early on, I realised that if the mother works the father needs to do half the household stuff. This was decades ago, before everyone caught on to the concept.

More than half the moms I knew worked. Those that didn’t were too involved in their kids’ lives, not in a good way. I definitely was not jealous, and enjoyed my space and quiet time.

It may have helped that my mother did not work overly long hours. Also, most moms I knew had two or three kids. Having ten kids totally changes the equation.

amother

Ultramarine

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 10:32 am

I was born in the 80s.
My mother was heavily into the "anti-feminism, choose to be a SAHM" that was going on.
She proudly pinched pennies, scrimped to raise 10 children on my father's average salary.
Frankly, growing up I wished she would work at least pt so we could have money for normal clothing that was from that decade and had no holes.
She loved badmouthing all our friends mothers who "didn't love their children as much as she loved hers". She loved talking about what an amazing mother she was, always available and all.
But all my childhood memories are of her on the phone gossiping, or complaining about cleaning.
My best friends mother worked around 25 hours a week and we used to bake and paint in her house and it was "too messy" at mine.
Additionally, when my youngest siblings started school, my mother got very very depressed and clingy. Her whole identity was Mommy. I was newly married, and she'd call me crying daily for reassurance that she is still a good Mommy and to update me on how many grey hairs she now has.

Balance is what's important.

giftedmom

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 10:40 am

amother Ultramarine wrote:

Um
Your mother clearly had issues that had nothing to do with her staying home

amother

Sienna

Tue, Dec 06 2022, 1:13 pm

I didn't read the responses yet, but I'll just say my own experience. My mother didn't work, and I wish she did. She stayed home even though our family needed the second income, and she did it in the name of "being home for us kids", but she didn't exactly keep the house in order (understatement), we didn't get proper meals, have normal/healthy food in the house that we liked, and she was on the phone or in a bad mood most of the time. She would buy one box of fruit roll ups for the entire week, for all of us, and be upset when they ran out by Tuesday and would blame us that we have no snacks to take to school. I dont have hard feelings to my mother and even then I understood she had alot on her plate, but this was our reality. My siblings and I left to school usually after being yelled at for something, with empty lunch bags.
I cant say I'm the worlds best mother, and I work full time because I have to, but I make sure to be home when my kids are home - besides when they're babies and need to be sent out- I keep the house clean, have foods they like, have supper they they'll all eat, lots of snacks for school, don't yell and get frustrated with my kids, and keep a goal of making sure the mornings and evenings are pleasant, even though it's hard sometimes. I also am able to give my kids kids everything they need, and alot of what they want (within reason, without spoiling them), due to the 2 incomes coming in.
My point is, that sometimes the non working moms can be neglectful and useless, and sometimes working moms can try hard and do their best for their kids, who might end up being happier (I truly hope).