What is your opinion on stay at home wives?

I think they work harder and longer being at home than they would at a conventional job.

Most women who stay home work all day… and at night, weekends too.
If it works for the family emotionally and financially, I got no issue. In fact, I applaud them for making a decision that works for them.

Very similar to my opinion of stay-at-home husbands.

It is sometimes necessary (or at least helpful) for someone to stay home, especially if there are children to care for. Stereotypically, it is the wife that does this, which unfortunately puts some pressure on them to do so. But if the husband stayed home instead, I don’t think it would make much of a difference.

If he’s working, she’s doing nothing, and they have to hire nannies/servants/maids, then I say it’s fucked up.
But if he’s winning the bread and she’s keeping the house tidied, helping raise the kids, etc. then I think it’s wonderful.

I don’t love the idea of either sex having to conform to traditional gender roles, but nowadays, a job and care for the family are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many jobs can be done from home allowing a synthesis of care for the family and care for one’s own career.

It’s a great privilege, for a mother to stay at home with her kids. Not only for her kids but also for herself. I wish more mothers would do it.

It’s not looked down upon. But what if the husband leaves for another woman? Better the wife is earning a living herself at the time (for HER OWN good).

Well I think that while women should be able to work they should not out of choice, if both parents work, who will take care of the children?

Quite frankly, as someone who quit her “real” job to stay home as caretaker to two young children and a disabled adult, I think being a stay-at-home parent is an admirable occupation and a very difficult one. Everyone else can tidy up their desk at 5 pm and leave it all at the office, but I am on duty 24/7. In addition, much of the work is time consuming or unpleasant but rarely mentally stimulating. Hence my reliance on Fluther.

However, if someone is a stay-at-home wife with a nanny, a housekeeper, a gardener, and so on, then I think it is a waste.

It’s difficult, at times. There are people that think women that stay at home are taking the easy way out; however, they couldn’t be further from the truth. There are those that think when a woman that has a secure job, a great job, that leaves to stay at home, well…they are nuts. I ran into that when I was leaving my position at a company. I didn’t really care about their opinion, but yes, some thought I was crazy.

I stay at home and manage a business, from home. When you are at home, unlike working out of the house, there is never a break. You wear many hats and you never know what is coming next. It’s a bit more than keeping the house tidied and watching the children. You do a lot of work, for no pay – unlike working outside of the home. It’s a choice that is made and yes, you are willingly opting for no pay – but sometimes, I do think some people just look at it as the easy way out. It’s not. It’s a lot of work, terrible hours…but the benefits, very rewarding.

I love my job, but frankly there are days that I wish I was a stay-at-home wife. I think it is definitely acceptable and will always be, as long as the family can be well supported with just one partner/parent working.

I think that it shouldn’t be assumed that a woman is to stay at home. That said I believe that at least one parent should stay at home with the infant until they can go to pre-school at 2 or 3 years old. Obviously, this is NOT a feasible financial option for many parents. In any case, in my family, there have been times when I was the stay at home parent and times when my husband was the stay at home parent. As we’re both unemployed now, we’re both at home taking care of our youngest while the oldest is in pre-school.

They should be given medals because they have the hardest job in the world and are (more often than not) taken for granted. Lurve to all stay at home moms/dads!

can I chirp up if I’m not married…yet a stay at home single mum…or is that a different question…just before I add my little penny :-)

@lynneblundell of course you can!

I think that it’s okay, but potentially dangerous. What if something happens to the husband and she has to work to survive? It’s not easy to get a job when you haven’t worked in years due to being at home and have very few work skills.

Thank you x

Well, I believe that you should be there for your child… (and in a ideal world – that would be both parents) in the early stages of his or her life. That not being the case for me as a single mum (and obviously not for most people as one parent generally must go out to work) but I choose to stay at home for financial and for primarily; nurturing reasons.

I am currently studying for a degree though and trying to plan a career so that I can go back to work when my son goes to school and earn us both a nice little packet of squids… but also because I feel that my life needs further fulfilment. Needless to say though that, that fulfilment will not come at the detriment of my son, hence why I study when he is asleep and I will work while he is learning too.

Maybe in some parallel world of magic I would be completely self-sufficient and not feel the pull to interact with society as we know it, not need to send him to school, not need to feel like I need fulfilling in any other way…but simply exist on the land and love one another for the rest of eternity…

? But then I wouldn’t have Fluther

@tinyfaery if that would be the case, I think mothers would try everything they can to be able to provide for herself and her children even if it meant accepting odd jobs.

If you are worried about something happening to the primary wage-earner, then the two of you need to plan ahead. Life insurance on the main wage-earner is an option, as is disability insurance. Social Security will help some but you really need to plan for the worst-case scenario, so the surviving stay-at-home parent can keep making the mortgage payments and paying the bills.

In our case, I paid off the house as soon as I could, knowing that my husband could have to stop working. I also figured out how to get a pension from work as I was vested in our pension plan and discovered I could count time worked for other government agencies towards retirement time earned. We also got disability payments from various sources.

If you want to be a stay-at-home parent then you need to make some plans.

Well, I personally believe one parent should be home with the child for at least the first year of the child’s life…be it the man or woman.
I consider myself a stay at home mother, but I am in school part time. I’ve also had two jobs since my son was born, both very part time and my son never went into daycare.
I don’t look down upon them, I know how tiring a job it can be. Yes, kids do nap…but add all the other hours in there, it’s more than a full time job. Usually stay at home mothers/fathers also manage the household, which involve the bills, schedules, cleaning and what not.
@tinyfaery That can happen, and it’s a shame when it does. I want to be home for my children when they are little, but see no point in staying home while they are in school all day. I fully expect to work full time by that point, and help the family in that way.

I think a stay-at-home mom has a really hard job. I totally respect anyone who does that job, just as I respect people in other hard-working, albeit less prestigious positions. For me, however, it’s not a very interesting job, and if that’s all a woman does or is, then I probably wouldn’t have very much in common with them.

I can’t think of any stay-at-home moms that I know in the real world. Every mother I know has an outside job. Maybe I don’t run in circles where couples can afford to have one person stay at home. Or maybe I don’t run in circles where the women want to stay at home. Or maybe I just don’t have much in common with them, so I don’t meet them and I don’t have any stay-at-home mom friends.

I can imagine having a stay-at-home mom as a friend, but, for whatever reason, I don’t have any such friends. In theory, I don’t have any opinion—for or against—stay at home moms. However, since I don’t think I know any, I can’t speak from experience.

I think I kind of wonder about them. They often seem defensive about the work they do (at least, to judge by what they write on the internet). I am a bit jealous that they have husbands that make enough money for the family to afford to have one partner stay at home. I wish I made that kind of money. However, I’d never want my wife to stay at home, unless she really wanted to. I can’t imagine her giving up her work, though. It means too much to her.

I find it fascinating people think that it means the family has money. I’m a stay at home mother now because we cannot possibly afford daycare. I know plenty of other mothers in the same boat, because what they would make would mean bringing barely any money in because of the costs of daycare. It’s pointless for some mothers to work, because there’d be no profit.

if the significant other is fine with being the one bringing in all the money, and the wife is fine with the chores, she should be able to do whatever she wants

When I worked for a paycheck I didn’t know any stay-at-home parents, either. However, I now know several.

One chose to stay home, one is a widow, and one is a divorcee with small children. In each case it was part of their financial plan to be able to maintain a household without working outside of the house. The first one has a husband who makes decent money (and who carries life insurance on himself just in case). The second one lives off insurance proceeds and social security. Eventually she will also start getting payments from her husband’s pension plan. The divorcee works from home doing medical transcription.

Then I also know several couples where one person works during the day, 9 to 5, and the other works at night, so they can have the benefit of two incomes but always have a parent available for the kids.

There are a lot of ways to survive in this world. You need to pick the one that works best for you.

I think whatever the husband and wife mutually agree is best for their family is the thing to do. Being a stay at home mom certainly doesn’t mean the family has money – many times it means we have to scrimp and save even more.

When I first had my daughter, the I would have been working full-time to bring $200—$400 home for our family each month after full-time daycare expenses. We decided we could cut $200 out of our budget, and we did. The goal was to make it at least a year, but things turned out better than expected and I am now hoping to stay home until she starts elementary school.

As for something happening to my husband, if anything happened to him even when I was working we would have been in a huge financial bind anyway. Unless you are living on one paycheck and saving the other (which would be ideal) that would be an issue for anyone in that situation.

I quit working as a travel agent to stay at home with my sons when they were 3 and 5 years old. I quit because I felt that I was missing out on something that I could never get back. I also quit for the reason @casheroo stated. I was hardly bringing in any money once childcare was paid for. It just didn’t make sense for me to not be there for my children. It paid off. My sons are now 15 and 17 and are high honors in school.

I have a 5 year old daughter to take care of now and I am happy that I can be home for her. I couldn’t get a job now if I wanted to because we only have one car (we live in a small town with no public transportation). So not all stay at home parents are well off.

I get defensive because I just don’t get the support from parents that I run into that do work. For example, my husband’s co-workers from the past could not believe that I didn’t have a job outside of the house. I guess because their partners had to work to help pay for the two brand new cars and nice clothes and all the nights out on the town. We have made sacrifices that others have not. We drive a 1996 Ford Windstar with 113,000 miles, buy most of our clothes from Goodwill and hardly ever go out to eat. These sacrifices are worth it to me.

I support stay at home parents. I wish more people did.

@casheroo – Excellent point! A lot of moms or dads stay at home due to finances. Daycare is very expensive and a lot of people find that they are just working to pay for that care; or, worse yet, they are losing money.

I find it odd that people always assume that you must be wealthy to afford this option. Sometimes, it’s the only option.

If you have the right to choose to stay home, others have the right not to. Not everyone wants to be around their kid 24/7.

@tinyfaery Exactly! I know that without school, I’d be going crazy. I actually like working part time, it keeps me sane. If I could find a job around my husbands hours, that’d be wonderful. I know plenty of mothers that want to go back to work before their baby’s are six weeks old, and I don’t judge them. Staying at home is not for everyone, neither is working full time.

different strokes for different folks. if you want to be a stay at home mom or dad, go right ahead, there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with not wanting to be one.

I would love to have the human contact provided by a job, but I then wouldn’t be able to afford the nurses to look after my husband.

As a stay-at-home worker, I can only answer for myself. I think I’m the luckiest person I know. I love it.

My wife and I knew she would never get a job that paid her well, so we committed ourselves to being a one income family. She stayed home with the kids, and took care of the house. She works hard!

Interesting. It’s hard for me to imagine that having only one salary would put you in a better financial situation than having two, but I suppose if you make less (after taxes) than daycare costs, it really doesn’t make sense. I guess that’s why people come up with creative ideas like having childcare coops.

I know people have all kinds of ways of getting their kids cared for that makes it possible for them to work. There’s a whole set of different daycare types—all with different legal requirements about standards of care.

We are fortunate enough that we could send our children to a very well regarded daycare program. I think that a lot of mothers in this situation (and some fathers) do feel a little guilty that they aren’t living with their kids 24/7. I know my wife did. We take a little comfort in research that shows that children in daycare socialize better and this gives them an advantage (on average) in school. Obviously, there is a wide variation in individual experiences, so many people will have different stories to tell.

Of course, double-income families also have to scrimp and save, too, in part, due to the cost of daycare. And both parents do double-duty, unless the traditional pattern happens, and the husband leaves it all to the wife even though they both work. Personally, I like it when we share the work of child-rearing and home-taking-care-of more equally. Like tonight, I have to iron in a bunch of labels for my son’s upcoming summer camp experience. When I was a kid, that was something only mothers did.

Every family is different, and we all have different solutions to our problems. I don’t think any of us deserve to be looked down on because of our choices to put our kids in daycare, or because we choose to have a stay-at-home parent. However, I’m aware there are prejudices against both solutions. I guess I’m wondering why we have to have opinions (which sound like judgments) about this. I doubt we can say that one is better than the other as a generalization. Each works better than the other, depending on circumstances. In my opinion, we should respect all these choices.

if that’s what they want to do, and that’s what works for them, i don’t see a problem with it.

If the adults in the relationship are satisfied with the arrangement, then yay! for everyone.

Women who stay at home rock. Women who work rock. Therefore and hencetooth women rock either way.

Having been both (I stayed at home for the first 2½ years of my daughters life) I can honestly say I miss being a stay at home mum!

I got a job where my hours fitted in with the time my daughter attended play school at 2½, I felt it was important that she socialised with other children and not just me. Then when she started school my hours increased to her just beyond her school hours, I am lucky I have very a supportive family with children a similar age to look after her. My daughter is now ten and I work (ed) full time and found it VERY HARD when I couldn’t go to assemblies/ sports days etc.. (I am a teacher so time off isn’t an option)

I am now looking at unemployment and although the prospect of not having a job is terrifying I am secretly enjoying being able to have a meal ready for my husband when he gets home form work and being able to spend time with my daughter (as she is off school for the 6 week summer hols)
I am usure how long this feeling will last when she returns to school as I keep a pretty tidy house and will have no children to care for during the day when she is at school. Who knows where life will take me, but for now I love being at home !

What do you think about stay at home dads?

@NaturalMineralWater Stay at home dads… why not my dad is a stay at home dad and he’s FAB!! Wouldn’t swap him for the world, in fact don’t think anyone can come close to being like him!! My hubby is fab by the way, but a dad is a dad for me and always will be xx

@sakura – If having no children to care for during the day bothers you, I am sure you can find some neighbors who would love to find a reasonable and trustworthy person to watch their kids while they work. Then you would have the best of both worlds: income plus staying at home.

My neighbor across the street did that once her girls started elementary school, and now that they are all grown up she watches her grandbabies.

@Darwin My parents were registered childminders soI grew up with a house full of children :) It may be something to think about until I get a full time position! My only concern is that over here in the UK you have to be registered, jump through loads of hoops to be able to look after children as a main income, and by the time I had done this I should hopefully (fingers crossed ) have a job!

Thanks again lurve to youx

It is no different in the U.S.. Daycare providers are strictly regulated. However, private agreements between two families are exempt.

You could do it formally so you could make “real” money and take in all sorts of children, or you could do it informally as a way to keep children in the house, help out your friends, and make a bit of pocket change.

@Darwin thanks xx Will definatly have a good think about that!