You keep harping about SAHMs, but miss the fact that they **are** working and providing very real benefits that have financial value. They are not *paid,* but they ARE working.
How much do you think it would cost to have someone watch/teach your kids 24/7, do all your cleaning, shopping, cooking, bill paying, managing the schedule, etc.? Even if you get the cheapest full-time nanny/maid/personal assistant, you’d be paying many tens of thousands of dollars per year. To get a very competent person (or multiple people, most likely) to do this 24/7 would cost nearly $100K/year on the open market.[/quote]
Actually, I have nothing against SAHM’s. And I recognize the value of all those “services” and I also know that some of these “services” are just “eliminated” when there is no one at home to oversee them and life goes on. Unfortunately, a SAHM is not salaried and thus, does not accumulate a SS record in her own name. And I recognize the value of a former teacher, such as yourself, wanting to teach their own kids but also realize that your property taxes already pay for someone else to do the job, which will only cost you transportation expenses and possibly uniforms (I’m eliminating “lunches” because you already prepare them and that costs time and money). If you want to teach your children a curriculum that is not taught in the public school system, then that is your personal choice.
I realize that I was never qualified to teach school to my kids. ESPECIALLY the critical A-G requirements needed for college admission in CA. An eighth grade math book is over my head and out of my skillset. I’d rather stick with what I know and do best and let the pros at school do their work … as they were trained to do. I have the utmost respect for what they go thru, both to obtain their jobs and keep them. But this is just me.
What I was trying to say here is that it doesn’t take 50 years to raise children. A typical working life could occur between 16-66 years old (or any years in between). All it takes to qualify for SS is ten years of a solid work history. Perhaps you, CAR, already have that. I don’t know. It’s not even about education. There are many jobs one can do for ten years that only require a GED.
So many women of generations before me did NO PAID WORK their entire lives and thought their place was in the home. When their spouses died or they divorced, they were positively “destitute.” It is not a good life plan for a young woman of today to think they don’t need skills to work. One never knows when they will HAVE to work in order to survive. And it never wise to stake your entire future on another individual (your current “partner”) whether you are male or female. There are so many variables and you don’t know what the future will bring.
