[quote=UCGal][quote=CA renter]
Try to find someone who will take care of your kids seven days a week, and take care of your house, pay bills, manage all of your family’s business, etc. for $30K/year. [/quote]
This is the specific quote that set me off. (I added the bolds.) It implies that working parents don’t manage tasks outside of work…. because you imply that you’re trying to hire a 7 day a week, babysitter, financial advisor, business manager, housekeeper.
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to your other points
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I agree that our professions gave us enough income to get by on 3 and 4 day work weeks. If we had lower paying jobs we might have had to work full time. Just like if your husband made less, you would have to consider working, or living in a lesser neighborhood than you do. Each family makes decisions in the context of their own financial situation.
We also made choices not to buy new cars, install pools, send the kids to private schools, buy designer clothes. Heck I even cut my own hair and rarely eat out. By spending less (being a cheap b*tch) I was able to work less – and eventually pay off my mortgage, and save enough to stop working while my kids are still tween/teenagers. So, in effect, I’m a SAHM now. The difference, I guess, is I don’t feel that the world needs to value my choices – only my family’s opinion matters.[/quote]
All of this work does have value — a monetary value — whether it is done by the SAHP, the wage-earner, or a third party.
Many SAHPs really do work seven days a week, and they sacrifice their friendships, careers, personal interest, etc. in order to do so. These sacrifices would NOT be made if they had chosen not to get married and have kids. The person who could provide all these services if they were outsourced (at the same level, with the same dedication, and same quality as the SAHP) would have to be someone who is totally unencumbered and who was willing to dedicate their lives to this family. How much would that cost?
Even today, there are a number of “unenlightened” wage earners who refuse to do any domestic chores, including taking care of the kids. A friend of ours just told us the other day that her husband had never changed a single diaper in all the years that her two kids wore diapers (they are now in their tween/teen years). You have a good husband who wants to work *with* you, and while many men are starting to grasp the fact that working in the home IS work, and that it doesn’t ever stop, there are men out there who think like BG does — that they are doing their wives a “favor” by letting them get a “free ride.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
I couldn’t care less about the world valuing my choices, but I DO care when people use every opportunity to publicly take unjustified and uninformed potshots at people who make a lot of sacrifices and do this work for their families.
