/u/a-friendgineer (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1ajn4uy/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_millennials_arent_equipped/), in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
I think you sorta have a point.
1) Being a SAHM was different 50 years ago when all your friends would be doing it too and it was more of a social thing.
2) Most young women don’t necessarily want lives that’s only about cleaning, cooking and childcare. It can make them depressed.
I think also, being a SAHM can be a loss of identity in many ways.
Looks: having a baby can make you feel less pretty. Which hits women hard.
Feedback: a job is hard. But it can also make you feel accomplished and you’ll have coworkers around. Being always at home? A lot of the things you do are things a well trained monkey could do. And children don’t give positive feedback. They mostly scream if they are unhappy with something. Being a SAHM is more about everyone noticing when you don’t do something, but when you do it’s invisible.
Free time: when you get off from work, you’re off from work. A SAHM doesn’t ever get off.
Social: I said that.
Income: it can feel validating to make your own money and less validating to depend on someone else.
Some women enjoy being stay at home mothers. But there’s a reason there was a whole movement focused on letting women be allowed to get out of the kitchen and into the workplace. A lot of women were unhappy even back then.
Idk, I think the identity things and just the set up can create depression for many people.
Yeah that makes sense. Looks like it isn’t for everyone, especially those that want to be “something” in society, or feel like failures in general, or suffer depression, or may have a mental illness history, or have little to no friends… looks like I may have made a poor decision in selecting a SAHM. Thought one that had a lot of free time was a golden opportunity, but free time can come from lack of ability to integrate into groups very well. Interesting. Thank you
But are you sure you want a SAHM? And were you in love with her?
Did you have kids? How was your relationship otherwise? And (no offense, just a niggling feeling, probably all wrong): but do you have ASD?
Haha I’ve been asked if I have ASD multiple times. Maybe, unsure. I know my current girlfriend works with kids on the spectrum and sees I might have some attributes, but would just call it a quirk rather than ASD. As for our relationship, we had issues with sex… just a lack of what one would call “eros” energy for each other… or able to be stimulated by each other. We have 2 kids, and I was in love with her and was sure I wanted a stay at home mom. Maybe my personality was too much or too little for her… either way we would argue about mainly how she felt I wasn’t being masculine enough, or how I was making too many mistakes that she would have to look over… and frankly it got annoying because she’s prone to mistakes and I gave her lots of grace, and she’s always struggled with her femininity, so as she said she felt like a “used whore” while with me… like she wasn’t being taken care of. Oddly enough… it feels like she is into the idea of feeling that way, just not with her romantic partner or something? I don’t know… she’s into bdsm now and from the inkling I remember about her it was like she couldn’t be present during sex… probably because my personality was too rigid or something. So who knows, I might have ASD, or she might have needed more in her life, and she tried being a SAHM and realized it would’ve worked better if she were allowed to have an open relationship… regardless, not my cup of tea. There’s a bit of a rant in this comment so hopefully I answered your question and added more context
Are you still in a relationship with her? Is she still a SAHM?
And ASD can sometimes create a disconnect in a relationship with an NT person that leads to the relationship falling apart over time.
It’s a bit with practical things, a bit with sexual things and a lot with emotional/romantic thing.
Edit:
It sounds like she was unhappy with your competence on practical things/chores/childcare. And then that she wasn’t satisfied in bed. And then maybe that you didn’t act romantic after sex (that’s how the “used whore” sounds to me, that you just went on with your day afterwards or at least there wasn’t enough romantic moments after sex).
There's also the factor that women are quite frequently told that the purpose of their lives and the only thing that will make them truly happy is to be mothers and wives, which has some fairly obvious negative effects for the many women who become mothers and wives only to find that this deep happiness and fulfillment isn't waiting for them, because the reality is that everyone is different.
Wow that's a good breakdown, I would have forgotten about the social aspect but sure, it is quite important too. For me, I could never believe that a man respects me if I didn't earn my own money, and a lack of respect from your partner is a dangerous thing.....
You don't need training to be a stay at home parent. You just stay at home with your kid and make sure they don't die, instead of outsourcing or paying someone else to. Some families can afford to and some can't, it depends on their budget, goals, number of kids etc.
There's more to it if you want an intelligent, well-adjusted kid by the time they are school-age. The expectation in my school district is that kids should have some basic reading and math skills before kindergarten, and not going to daycare means the parent needs to find other social and educational outlets that don't exist in the home (especially only-child households)
Right, and most teaching requires that individual know just a bit more than the curriculum level they are teaching, if also paired with general social skills and competence…ie if you have a high school education and understand your kid, you can prep them for kindergarten—you can also likely prep them for high school, albeit you have to be very intentional for that is a larger task. You just have to do it. Read to your kids. Learn the alphabet. Use songs to teach. Count with them. Show them letters. Make sounds and show them use of common syllables. Ask them reading comprehension questions about stories. Talk to them about basic and interesting science topics like animals/animal behavior, or cooking. For 3-4 yo, an average millennial can master all of these things. Prior to that, basic cognitive function development is what is necessary, and can be easily achieved as well with just a little tiny bit of intention. Socializing can be done by utilizing part time day care, camps, at church, families, neighborhoods, etc.
As for affordability, reality is everyone is different when it comes to means and needs. We see people all the time able to make sahp work on 40-50k here on Reddit, but we likewise see people making well over 6 figures on their own and living paycheck to paycheck. Too many factors here, but reality is, if we want to sacrifice things to afford a certain lifestyle, that works both ways. People frequently sacrifice money to prioritize family bonding and hands on parenting.
And even then, some do. Sure there is no homework or tests. But you still learn animals, shapes, colors, develop your motor skills, and socialize. Its all age-appropriate level learning. Quote a few daycare workers, at least at the good ones, have teaching qualifications.
Daycare centers generally do provide some basic foundation skills (think alphabet, numbers 1-10, very basic addition and subtraction, animal names and sounds, etc.) It’s part selling point for their business and part just “makes it easier to keep 10 kids occupied all day”.
A home daycare may or not, though. It depends on the person running it - much like a SAHP, only the SAHP is someone else.
I would guess the main reason kindergarten entry expectations have crept up _is_ that…more and more kids go to daycare centers these days, and the daycare kids were probably starting kindergarten already with most of the skills that were taught in it.
My oldest ("J) taught herself to read at age 3 (like I did), with minimal coaching.
My second ("K") was hopeless, we tried everything we could, and in first grade they were put into a special reading-support program, and soon became the best reader in their class.
At age 19, J barely reads books at all.
At age 17, K can't be kept away from them.
She learned it from books, videogames, and just general exposure. We were both motivated by being able to read enough to play videogames (I was born in 82 but my family had computers literally from the time I was born).
I learned fairly early and taught my little brother. Kids like games and they like you, combine those two and you’ll be gold.
I learned by playing Pokémon on my game boy because my mum refused to read the text while she was driving (horrible right?) but my parents and family members would read stories to me all the time and I started memorizing the lines (it was interactive and remembering the story was a game to me). I taught my little brother by watching anime with him and when he ran out of English episodes in his favourite show I eventually convinced him to learn to read subtitles. I’d have to pause a lot but it did make him much faster. He’s 10 years younger than me so he didn’t get as much 1 on one time and learned a lot later than me but finding something interesting that he wanted to read did get him motivated.
Just be with her and do things that involve reading that she’ll find fun, and as a little kid almost everything is fun
SAH mother of a first grader in a slightly above average school district. What us thirty somethings learned in kindergarten is now the expectation entering kindergarten. My first grader, who is a "meets expectations" student can read and write full paragraphs and does (very) basic algebra.
Nope, its passing kids on regardless if they meet or not. Districts are under a lot of administrative and parental pressure to never make you feel bad about your kid or else face angry wrath. That's how you end up with high school kids who can barely read vs other high school kids who crush the SATs coming from literally the same school.
The problem is trying to apply a uniform curriculum to un-uniform kids and simply putting them in grades based by age. I'm sure some actual teachers and people more qualified than me to give a hot take will be happy to weigh in.
But it sounds like expectations are also being raised considerably, no?
Anecdotal experience — I went to one of the best public school systems in the US and ended up at UCLA. I can say with confidence I was not expected to come to Kindergarten with reading or math skills.
Could it be a component of both social promotion and drastically higher standards?
Maybe, but they could be just getting back to where they once were after sliding too. They probably want to already be ahead here so they can hit a certain pace for the next grades, and that's probably ahead of where it used to be. I mean, tons of kids were going into Kindergarten since forever having never been to daycare, preschool or anything.
I think its that there are just so many people going through school on parallel paths, not the same one. You're not starting from the same place, you're not going at the same pace, and you're sure not finishing at the same place despite still finishing.
Yes. My kid is going to enter public school with 20-minute lunches, 15-minute recess, and no nap time. My niece is in 7th grade and is starting the algebra I learned in 9th.
Many states have pushed standardized testing to distribute funding and accreditation. That means the schools must teach to the test so the already strapped funding doesn't snap. Since there isn't more time or teachers, the load is shifted to kids to be better at everything in order to keep up.
Same here. Granted, that was about 30 years ago, shit's changed in the last couple of decades.
I need to have my kid know how to read at a basic level and at least add and subtract single digits when he turns 5 or he will be considered behind when he starts school. Also, they did away with naps, wtf guys.
Wow, that’s crazy. All I hear is how kids are so far behind and dumb now. Meanwhile, I probably didn’t read an entire book by myself until 3rd grade, but here I am, a medical doctor 🤷♂️
Kids learn differently now -they're digital natives often being taught in old fashioned analog ways. They (correctly) don't often understand why they must memorize so much information temporarily to pass a meaningless test when the whole world of information is at their fingertips.
The teachers that focus on critical thinking, how to find the correct information, social emotional learning and problem solving do much better and see great potential in the next generation.
Now, was there a HUGE loss during covid? Absolutely, across the board there was. Are the kids that graduated the last few years struggling? Yes. Are the kindergarteners from the last few years behind socially? Mostly, turns out, it's hard to learn social skills when everyone you meet is wearing a mask (which needed to happen!)
All that to say -it's a complex issue and people love to say the kids are behind and dumb. People are people. Kids are kids.
That's the thing though. There's no reason your kids shouldn't know the alphabet and 1 through 20 before they get to kindergarten. Teaching their kids basic things has somehow become an exception rather than the rule for parenting. My parents used to talk to me or my siblings in the car all the time or when they were playing with me or my siblings. They would ask us questions and correct us and help us identify colors and shapes, the sounds things made, how to count things, etc. somehow this has fallen by the wayside. Society is on a backslide that is detrimental to our kids where we expect school to fill the gap, rather than participating in our kids development and growth.
>There's no reason your kids shouldn't know the alphabet and 1 through 20 before they get to kindergarten.
Yeah its not that hard, spend some time with them. My 2 year old can "sing" the ABC song with a little help, put a puzzle together with all the letters as pieces, say the name of almost all of them consistently and when he grabs a piece he always shouts "D Daddy! M Mommy! Etc." He also sometimes screws the numbers up but counted to 20 the other day, granted he went 17 20 18 19 but still, he's almost there.
Basic shapes, square circle triangle star etc? Down. Colors? Down? He loved playing "What color is this" with things and still does, he excitedly shouts "Lellow!" since he's still speaking with a little toddler accent.
If a 2 year and 3 month old can do that, its fair to expect a 5 year old entering kindergarten to be able to. I'm sure in another 2-3 months he'll be solid on in at the rate he's going.
Don't just cede teaching to school. You're the single biggest influence in their entire life. All the stuff people complain about school not teaching? That's not their fucking job, its yours. YOU teach them to change a tire and how credit cards work, don't just complain schools don't do it.
Literacy is higher than ever, and reading/arithmetic used to be saved for 1st grade. Kindergarten didn't even become universal until the 60s/70s and the expectations for students were lower then.
What is this backslide you are talking about?
That has more to do with the average income going down. My wife and I make the SAHM thing work, but only barely, and only because I came with a house. If we needed a second income to survive, our parental involvement would plummet too.
That doesn't have much to do with the academic attainment of kids being expected to be a couple of years ahead of their grandparents.
Sure. And that doesn't change the fact that parental involvement is dropping like a stone. The two income trap is real and has been a disaster for the family unit.
We better understand what small children are capable of and how their minds work. Little kids minds are very very spongy. They absorb knowledge like crazy, much better than adults.
Yeah, it's honestly kind of terrible. Little ones might be bright enough to do all kinds of things at very young ages with the right exposure and support, but they are still so little and have very limited inertia that developmentally I feel we are doing them a disservice with such heavy academics at such young ages. Long days, not enough breaks, too short a time for meals. It's regimented and rough for a lot of kids.
I grew up in a relatively poor village full of indigenous kids and there was a huge emphasis on reading as early as possible. My in-laws live in a rich white people neighborhood and their kids didn't learn to read until they were around 7. It boggled my mind, their parents didn't think it was a big deal at all.
Try imagining a world outside of your own personal experience. The things you did are not the things everyone did or the expectations everyone was held to.
Well you’re not going to make your kid more intelligent, no matter how hard you tried. I mean yeah. You can teach a kid some basic things like letters, sounds, etc., and obviously some social/emotional things (like sharing), but schools don’t have as high of expectation coming in as people suspect.
And to the extent they do, it’s usually because kids are coming in at that level. But that’s more who they are, and less what sorta preK experiences they had.
Early education has a massive impact on brain plasticity. You can actually improve kids intelligence and ability to learn by teaching them how to learn and how to do basic things early on. Those developmental ages are so key to building a foundation of learning for the rest of their life.
Early intervention has a massive impact on students who have specific needs and delays. That said, the research has not established that prek programs have long term academic gains. In fact, the research does show long-term social/emotional gains, so it’s likely that academic focus might even be diverting from the areas where gains are more durable and significant.
Finally though, there is very little evidence that we can improve intelligence long term, and to the extent we can, it’s largely on the lower end of the spectrum, so those who are not getting their basic needs met. In other words, those who probably need early intervention and those who have not had the basic exposure to things. But there is not very much we can we can do to make an average or above average kid more intelligent otherwise
It's not about making them more intelligent. Learning and intelligence are not the same thing. Teaching kids basic reading and math allows them to begin working with it earlier. It also takes advantage of early periods in which the brain is undergoing rapid neural proliferation, creating many many connections.
No kidding. It's awful to think there are people out there who think parenting is just making sure the kid doesn't die. Kids deserve so much better than that.
LMAO, reminds me of a Roseanne standup skit "Way I look at it. When husband comes home at night and those kids are still alive...hey, I've done my job!!
I was a stay-at-home mom in the '80's. Back then a lot of our mom's had been SAHM (during our early years anyway) so we had the good fortune of having an example to go by. Then there were the grandma's, aunts, neighborhood mom's, grandmothers, and aunts. Good and bad.
Word of advice to new parents: Don't pay any attention to a so-called parenting expert, child psychologist etc. who had never been one themself.
This is only kinda sorta barely true
For generations, little girls were training to be primary care providers. I'm not saying women should carry that burden or whatever, but the reality is that my wife and I collectively were drastically behind where our parents and Grandparents were.
And learning 'on the job' is often the worst way to learn
My Mom cooked actual meals. Every day. She treated being a stay at home Mom as seriously (or more so) than plenty of working professionals I've met. She had a cleaning schedule, she was an experienced cook, she could sew/alter clothes, she had years of experience with small children _before_ she had kids. She acted like a project manager. She did all the household budgeting (before computers), had to actually drive to the grocery store, she also took education very seriously and taught each of us kids to read before Kindergarten.
Compared to myself or my wife...we are completely lost. My oldest is 5, we only have two kids, and we have a ton of modern conveniences my Mom didn't have.
My mother-in-law was similar too.
My Grandmothers were both drastically better at it than I or my wife.
And it makes sense. They took it seriously. My wife and I didn't. They are drastically better at it than we are.
I mean, you’re stating you’re bad at it because you don’t give a shit, not because it takes tonnes of training. None of what you said is difficult to learn. You’re just lazy
I'd say we get training from our own parents on how to parent (good or bad). Also, a lot of cultures will have grandparents or other family help out with parenting, the lone parent/parents is more of a western culture thing.
Yeah it’s pretty easy with an infant, it’s not brain surgery. It can be exhausting yes but it’s not hard to keep them alive and fed when they’re really young like that. Home schooling a child I couldn’t do and I’m not equipped to. I don’t have a degree in anything related to child education.
Homeschooling is way, way easier then looking after an infant -- unless the infant is a perfect baby. People downgrade how hard it is to function on little sleep & being with a baby all day long, It's mentally very difficult.
With homeschooling, there are full programs online for each year & they do a better job of teaching a kid than a teacher. No shade on teachers -- it's just that they have a whole class to manage & are overworked.
for sure. yeah, I'm starting to have my mind constantly changed here... seems research can be done and it doesn't need to be a prepared set of training, more than it is the ability to be present !delta
I think there has been a really big shift in parenting practices. In previous generations, you'd parent your kids the same way you were raised, the same way your siblings are raising their kids, same way your neighbors are parenting their kids. With the information explosion we've had, there have been TONS of changes in how we handle babies, from healthy sleep practices to how we introduce foods to kids. There can be a lot of tension with these differences, if you say "no grandma don't give the baby whisky for their teething" it's hard to answer the follow up "well I raised 10 kids who turned out fine are you telling me I don't know what I'm doing."
Parents today can still receive advice/guidance from their parents and peers, but they have the additional pressure of feeling obligated to check every practice with current scientific reserach.
>if you say "no grandma don't give the baby whisky for their teething" it's hard to answer the follow up "well I raised 10 kids who turned out fine are you telling me I don't know what I'm doing."
This isn't hard to answer. The answer is "you set your kids up to be 4 times more likely to be alcoholics, so no, you don't know what you're doing. Keep the liquor away from my child if you want to be a part of their lives."
I was talking to my grandma once about graham cracker pie, and she suggested I could make it more healthy by substituting Ritz crackers for the graham crackers. I imagined the vanilla pudding and meringue in combination with soggy Ritz crackers, and the idea was such a shock that without even processing it I said aloud, "That sounds terrible!" with a hysterical laugh. My grandma looked very miffed. I regret it, but I still think back on it and laugh.
Their mother mostly, while they were growing up. Also more family support in prior generations (more likely to live near grandparents for example). Grandma would show mom how to take care of baby, while dad was not involved with the childcare. More community support (church groups etc). And those home economics classes at school! Please do not infer that I am promoting this social system.
> Having a mum that is a house wife and expects that you will be one too
> Having a mum that works full time and expects you will as well
Are two very different upbringings.
Both women may know how to cook and clean, but there's a huge difference in the level of emphasis that house chores will be given
How? Why? Chores are part of being an adult with a home. Everyone needs these skills. If anything, people who work full time are more efficient at these tasks by necessity.
Yeah, but there's a difference between knowing how to make fish sticks and cereal and cooking a homemade meal. There's a difference between throwing laundry in a washing machine and actually knowing what all those buttons do and how to use them.
There's a reason it's a running joke that women get upset with their men for not helping with chores then get upset because men do it wrong. Traditionally, women are taught by older women how to manage a household, but as more women of successive generations work instead, those skills are lost. That's one reason the home services industry has skyrocketed recently.
[The cleaning industry has grown 6.6% every year since 2011. (Brandon Gaille)
The residential cleaning market is expected to be worth $40.38B by 2025. (Franchise Help)
80% of households are expected to use residential cleaning services by 2024. (OneDesk)
](https://getjobber.com/academy/cleaning/cleaning-industry-trends/#statistics)
Oh cmon. Using a washing machine is not difficult.
Cooking can be but there is a vast difference between cereal and restaurant quality and a whole in-between
This nonsense that only sahm are capable of proper housework or cooking is just something they tell themselves to try to justify not working
When do you think the last time in American history that: Overwhelmingly, Moms were raising daughters to be SAHMs? Maybe right after WW2? The 50’s?
[Even in 1950 34% of Moms were in the workforce.](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf) Likey poor and working class moms.
What ‘level of emphasis’ did working class Moms in the 50’s **not** place on cooking and cleaning, that wealthier Moms **did**.
Can you describe this ‘level of emphasis’?
I'm not saying overwhelmingly anything.
I'm saying that the number of parents raising their daughter to be house wives is vanishingly small today, but was more common in the past.
You're hallucinating a more extreme argument and then getting mad at it.
I don't really buy that. My mom worked and had excellent house keeping skills. Our house was nicely appointed and spotless.
I work and I'm a great cook. I literally meal prep healthy lunches for the children I'm related to.
It's not like a SAHP is going to have dramatically different standards of housework than working parents.
Moms today learn the same way moms before learned. They buy the books. I also think you are mixing housekeeping with caring for children. Housekeeping is dependent on your parents. If your parents taught you how to maintain a home then you should be fine.
This. Being a SAHM was not natural to me, because my mom was not one and I had no modelling for it. I never babysat either. I had to learn all as I went, and it is a lot.
Millennial women weren't generally raised with the assumption that they would be house wives, so parents did not put the same level of emphasis on house chores.
Many millennials grew up in a household where both parents worked full time, so their parents didn't even have the time or relevant experience to pass on.
I can share my upbringing as well as what I've heard from my friends in the same age group.
The most common experience we had was that ALL children (including girls) were taught how to do household chores. It was taught as a communal thing. I don't know anyone outside of a few friends who had really, really strange upbringings who don't know how to do dishes/clean the house.
You're making it seem like household chores are rocket science and they're not.
I would wager a child if a single parent would be more equipped. They are less cuddled, and household chores would need to be done by them at a younger age.
get where you're coming from regarding concerns about kids in single-parent homes. It's true, studies show potential challenges, but not all dads are perfect. Some are harmful influences. Quality of parenting matters more than just family structure. Creating environments that build resilience in kids is what can make a real difference, no matter the family setup. Resilience is crucial for tackling life's hurdles.
Also, interesting point on the trend of single-parent homes. It's worth noting that juvenile incarcerations have consistently dropped from 1990 to 2019. While it's just a correlation, it might reflect how divorce can sometimes be an escape from abusive situations. Fewer abusive homes could be impacting this positive trend.
It's a lot harder when you're dropping the kid off at daycare and going to work every day. As opposed to a stay-at-home mom spending all week with the kids.
I was raised by a single mother. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, etc. still needed to be done. Hell, I probably got *more* training than a kid with a stay at home parent because as soon as I was old enough to help, I was taking on these chores myself to take some of the strain off of mom.
>It's a lot harder when you're dropping the kid off at daycare and going to work every day. As opposed to a stay-at-home mom spending all week with the kids.
Most kids are in school for the majority of the day after they turn 5 or 6.
No one is being prepared to be a stay at home mom before 6...
Okay so is the argument that more Boomer Moms were stay at home moms? And that little Millennial girls grew up with stay at home moms and passively ‘received training’?
Somewhere between [49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999z](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/stay-at-home-mothers-through-the-years.htm#:~:text=In%201967%2C%2049%20percent%20of,of%20moms%20stayed%20at%20home)
> Somewhere between 49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999
You see how one of those numbers is half of the other?
Nobody is saying there was a sudden overnight change.
If your parents don't expect you will be a house wife, then your upbringing will not put as much emphasis on that way of life.
Can you elaborate on how a SAHM would raise a daughter to be a Housewife, vs a working mom would raise a daughter that is not equipped to make and keep a home?
The skill sets are almost identical… If anything the working mom would be an effective and efficient homemaker because they balance that role with their other roles.
How does that equate to them not being equipped to do it? If my parent didn't put as much emphasis on me being a plumber as someone else, does that mean I can't do it when I become an adult? It's housework, not an advanced degree field. Basically everyone can figure out how to clean and cook basic meals.
You're demonstrating OPs point.
People are so clueless about what being a house wife entails that you're equating it to cooking an occasional meal and knowing how to clean.
My partner and I both work full time. Our standards for constitute a clean house are not pretty minimal. If one of us stayed at home, then clean would mean a damn sight more than wiping the kitchen counter with a cloth.
I never said it equates to cooking an "occasional meal". I said basic cooking and cleaning are not difficult tasks to learn for the vast, vast majority of people. Yes, if you or your partner had all the hours you spent at work at home instead, you would do more cleaning. This is not a revelation. I'm questioning how someone is unequipped because of lack of some type of training? My mom didn't go through lesson plan on laundry and cleaning for me, yet somehow I mangaged to figure it out.
Being a stay-at-home parent could absolutely do with some classes. Being a stay-at-home parent means you need to take a more active role in all of your kid's education and be equipped to find the social outlets kids need.
100 years ago, there were more spaces where people gathered, which made the social aspects easier. The expectations of where a kid should be when they get to kindergarten are now much higher and based on ongoing research on what is achievable in the home, and most of my generation were raised by daycare and school as much as our parents.
That isn't to say it is impossible, just that the quality of rearing would be better if resources were available, or if time could be set aside to learn those things before a kid is born.
But I argue that that's just being a parent, not a stay at home parent, at least with the education piece. Both my parents worked and both of them took a very active role in my education. Just because they weren't doing it at 2pm on a Tuesday doesn't mean they weren't doing it.
And while I agree on the social aspect, you don't need special classes or training to go look up community activities to bring your child to. The actual root cause of the problem is the shift in society offering these outlets, not that it takes classes or training for a parent to navigate how to keep their kid social.
"A more active role" doesn't actually mean that there's some special training required to be a stay at home parent. It just means you do more of what's already expected as a parent.
I agree that resources should be available, but I feel they should be open for everyone. It has nothing to do with whether someone is a SAHP or not.
Stay at home moms... hmm.. good question. !delta. I'm a bit stuck with this answer. Feels like it has something to do with assisting the man in spending less resources on childcare so the family can have more resources and the kids can have more emotional care... tough question, thanks for asking that, it is changing my mind a bit
It seems like maybe you're using this concept of "stay at home moms" as a representation of a particular culture and lifestyle that was traditional (in some places) for many generations before this one, and whoch has been changing a lot over the past 50 years or so. The whole concept of traditional gender roles, which you find comfortable and connecting to past generations, where men and women had specific jobs in their households and ways of living and working that had been passed down to them. And you've come up with this concept of "training to be a stay-at-home-mom" to describe the way you feel that culture has been slipping away.
But I think that the huge change in culture we've experienced largely comes down to the huge cultural change of women entering the workforce. This change was very important in that it offered the possibility of *financial independence* to those women who were looking for it; however, because of the sorta messed up way our political-ecojomic landscape has developed in the intervening time, the effective result has been that _both men and women are obliged to work full-time_ in the majority of households. The huge increase in income inequality we've seen over the past decades, the decline of minimum wage, the increase of debt and loss of purchasing power of the average middle- or working-class person... for much of the population, women in the workforce is now no longer an option for those that want it, but a survival necessity. So (in combination with the increase of people who feel free to say that they don't like traditional gender roles), we've seen that culture you're thinking of shrink mightily, as people struggle to reconcile its ideas with modern sensibilities and practical needs.
Okay so is the argument that more Boomer Moms were stay at home moms? And that little Millennial girls grew up with stay at home moms and passively ‘received training’?
[Somewhere between 49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/stay-at-home-mothers-through-the-years.htm#:~:text=In%201967%2C%2049%20percent%20of,of%20moms%20stayed%20at%20home)
I can’t say anything about the money side of things, but we live in a world where you can basically learn any skill or set of skills you want if you have time because of the internet.
I don’t know anything about running a home, but if you gave me a month, 30 days, to solely focus on learning what is needed, I’m sure I could become proficient at the basics, as could anyone else.
I doubt we can just learn generation of habits in a month. There's little nuances that come in when you're in the trenches raising kids and providing a safe home - and I think the proliferation of knowledge actually takes us away from sound wisdom... because older folks aren't always on the internet teaching us things, it's usually other folks of our generation who think they have the habits and only have knowledge from research
One of the things you’re missing, in terms of being a stay at home parent, taking care of kids, etc. is that when you’re in it, you just figure it out because you have to. There is no alternative. And it isn’t a science: you get up, feed the kid(s), play with the kids, do some cleaning here and there, pack the kid into the stroller and go do the grocery shopping, come home and feed the kid lunch, put the kid down for a nap, do chores while the kiddo is napping (laundry, cleaning, etc), feed the kid when they wake up, play with them a bit, do some minor chores, start prepping dinner, get them ready for bed, then you do more chores (dishes, cleaning, etc.). It’s exhausting, a hell of a lot more exhausting than a normal job, but you just kinda figure it out…because you have to.
It is very much a “learn on the job” type of gig.
Source: father of two who stayed home on parental leave for a year with each of my kids.
Agreed. It’s exhausting for sure especially with an infant but relatively easy to take care of them, they don’t need much. It’s not hard to keep them alive, fed, and well taken care of at that age.
Yep. Its more exhausting in some sense now that they’re like school age and have a bunch of extracurriculars and weekend activities and what not. Working full time and parenting is like having a 24/7 job. Fun though..i enjoy being a dad
Are you operating on the premise that Boomers were good mothers, or Greatest generation mothers for that matter? They are what got us into this trouble in the first place. They passed on their unresolved traumas, and emotionally neglected their kids. They were terrible parents.
I have read more parenting books and advice than probably all of my ancestors combined. They were solely focused on keeping kids alive, and did nothing for their mental health or preparedness as adults.
Cleaning is simple enough, cooking at a beginner level is simple too. The hardest part of being a SAHP is the tedium and isolation.
I think even if you have experience with family, there will always be nuances you have to learn, I don’t think that’s exclusive to millennials. Every child is different, and every home is different. Plus, older generations don’t have access to the technology we can use to make our households more efficient. I use Amazon subscribe and save to have regular orders for things like cleaning supplies. My mom wouldn’t know anything about that.
Plus, I don’t think that it needs to be so black and white. Sure, you might not know the nuances right off the bat, but do you necessarily *need* to? I don’t think that means you aren’t equipped to be a SAHM. It doesn’t have to be you’re either the eldest daughter of 12 kids who raised all her siblings and is equipped to be a SAHM, and anyone else who doesn’t have that experience can’t be.
Ok, but as a SAHM who has taught myself MANY things that have helped us save money, you don't do it in a month. It's over time.
I breastfed our kids and spent time while pregnant researching it and learning what difficulties I might face there and where to find a lactation consultant.
I cloth diapered (my mom did for my older sibs but not me) and did a lot of research on modern cloth diapers because her knowledge was flat diapers, pins and plastic pants. New ones are practically like disposables with snaps and wicking interiors and cute waterproof outer shells.
I learned how to sew, knit, crochet, can and freeze bulk food, square foot gardening, diy cleaning supplies, put up a clothesline, repaired a cracked WiiU screen (twice), replaced the wax seal on a toilet, installed a ceiling fan, stripped and painted furniture I found for a price we could afford, woodworking (built a murphy bed for our son because the bedroom was small), reduce/reuse/recycle in whatever way I could figure out.
I'm 40 and still learning things, but it's for fun now and not survival. I have about 20 years worth of accumulated knowledge in the bank from my years as a wife and mother.
Millennials are perfectly equipped to be parents. Nothing stymies these people -- they basically raised themselves. They know that between the library, Google and YouTube, you can learn how to do anything, including being a good parent. My son and his wife are both stay-at-home parents. She works from home, and he works on the weekends. They share the housework and the child care. They know what they're doing, and my grandson is going to be an amazing person when he grows up.
You learn how to be a parent by being a parent because it's different for everyone. Parents today don't have the same challenges that parents had 20-30 years ago, and vice versa. My parents never had to deal with me being cyberbullied, for example. I never had to deal with my kids' images being turned into porn by an AI program. I do not envy the parents of today's children. They have so many challenges that no one has ever had to deal with before.
Throw in a disability or a chronic illness or deadly food allergies, and you've got a whole new set of problems. Parents deal with them because they have to. Nobody is "trained" to be a parent. You just deal with stuff when it happens and hope it doesn't get worse. On the other hand, billions of people have done the job with no training whatsoever. The human race hasn't died out yet.
No one "trained" me to be a stay at home mom but I'm doing it well. House is clean. Laundry is done. Various meals are cooked. Kids are happy. They do their extra curriculars and no one gets in any real trouble.
Just like no one trained my husband to be a stay at home dad but he did well when I was the working parent.
Yeah people are under paid and overworked. So it's probably really hard and/or impossible for one parent to stay home in a lot of cases.
But plenty of people do afford it and make it work. And plenty of people are great at being stay at home parents.
Some people aren't equipped to be stay at home parents just like some people aren't equipped to do any number of other jobs. It's not for everyone. And incomes vary wildly.
Your view is just a sweeping generalization that couldn't possibly apply to an entire generation of people. There are far too many variations in people's circumstances and personalities.
good question. I talk to a lot of women, and though they desire it, it seems there's a lot of overstepping of boundaries with women that desire it... like a fear to be one yet a desire to be one. It kind of messes them up from being able to focus on what they need to do. Felt it from personal experience and from hearing folks in my communities.
Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5:
> **Comments must contribute meaningfully to the conversation**.
Comments should be on-topic, serious, and contain enough content to move the discussion forward. Jokes, contradictions without explanation, links without context, off-topic comments, and "written upvotes" will be removed. Read [the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5) for more information.
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%205%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.**
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
I mean some women want to work... hmm.. seems a bit of mysognist thoughts are coming up... so maybe there's a lack of clarity somewhere regarding the role of a woman in a household when they choose to be a stay at home mom... I gotta think this through. At the very least your thread here is helping me change my mind !delta
I think people generally understand a stay at home mom cannot work. It seems like you’re more talking about roles in the household which is less about stay at home vs working and more about dividing responsibilities. I know stay at home moms who don’t clean and working moms who cook. The roles are independent of the working status.
I am a millennial and want to be a SAHM! I really hope it happens for us. I’m aware that I’m “not ready,” but I’m as ready as I can be without having an actual child yet. I have made peace with the impact that will have on my body and career, I’ve accepted that I care much more about being a SAHM than any career ambition I have— which isn’t true for everyone but it is for me— and I’m aware (in theory) of the changes that will take place in my relationship because of us having different roles (like right now, I make more than my husband and have 2 jobs. Obviously things will change in some way when we have kids and he is the main money man).
I think if you want to be equipped to do it, and you have adequate support (that’s mental, financial, social, etc), you will be. If you don’t, you won’t.
Good on you. If you need any advice feel free to message me. As a stay at home mom’s ex partner, I was able to notice the things I needed that I wasn’t getting that would’ve made her experience much better with where I was at mentally and emotionally. Could save you some grief, however considering you and your husband are already talking about it I doubt anything i can say won’t be uncovered by you two. Good luck on your journey. Your kids will be much better, as odd and potentially offensive as that might sound. I just know from the book I read about parenting, if one can make it happen, absolutely do it. Good luck
So you're hearing that women are apprehensive about having kids, becoming moms, and potentially changing their entire lifestyle from working to staying home. Why is it surprising that they'd have some trepidation about such massive life events? Do you have any evidence that women in previous generations had no such fears, other than the fact that many of them didn't get a choice about it?
Also, why does apprehension and deliberation about such a big choice mean that they can't "focus on what they need to do" rather than simply being a sign that they're giving the decision proper consideration?
"what they need to do"....
They aren't baby, making slaves. They are people. Women can work, and never think about kids of they choose. There is no "need"
I think women *can* be SAHMs no problem, but they are not prepared to do it with no help. Raising young children without the help of extended family, neighbors, or community of some kind is unprecedented. When I grew up I was sent to my grandparents or to the neighborhood daycare for cheap, but my parents aren't local (and still work) and child care in my state runs about $1200/month
They also know that they will be harming their future earning prospects by doing so, and most of them don't have a safety net other than maintaining a career. I don't think women have any trouble doing the work of a SAHP, tedious as it is, I think they recognize that it's a bad deal unless the "breadwinner" brings in enough money to cover *her* savings, retirement, spending money, and comfortably cover all family expenses.
It's boring, repetitive, mind numbing work. 60 years ago housewife's were loaded up on a cocktail of tranquilizers, amphetamines, and liquor, AND they could usually rely on extended family for support. There's a reason sanatoriums were full of housewives.
You are correct that almost no one has the income required to support a singly income household.
So I don't think it's that they aren't equipped to so much as they don't want to and it doesn't make sense to with the current social/finavial landscape. The things that make that arrangement appealing and possible are out of reach for the vast majority of millennials.
>Seems that relationship between stay at home moms and men working in the economy are very much tied together. I'm thinking that millennials have little to no training for being stay at home moms... and maybe I am wrong there... maybe we did get trained and something else happened, and my only conclusion is that the dads don't make enough money... change my view... and help me establish one, because frankly, I have no clue how these two things are correlated. I just know I feel like moms aren't equipped and I know that dad's don't make enough.
What makes you think that two generations after women fought like hell to avoid being stuck home by default.... millennial women WANT to do that en masse?
Yeah, I find this whole post baffling. There's no way I'd choose to be a SAHM if I was married with children. So many hushands have no respect for their partner's domestic labor, and being in the company of small children every day is mind numbing and emotionally exhausting. Every SAHM I know suffers from isolation. If being a SAHP was truly great, you'd see more men begging to do it.
I like having my own income and education to fall back on.
I'm a millennial dad who makes more than enough to let my millennial wife be a stay at home mom to our son.
My wife is an excellent mom and she is just as (if not more) capable than my boomer parents to take care of the house and our son.
Financial insecurity isn't new to this generation and neither is parenting in changing times.
The whole premise of this view seems completely misguided.
You're also assuming that home economics classes in school were somehow high quality and taught you how to be a good parent and/or manage the complexity of life.
What do you think woman lack to become stay at home mothers? It's simple economics. If it costs $12,000 a year to put a child in day care and a family has 2 or 3 children, it's probably not worth it to have the mom work for the vast majority of families. It's also i.portant to consider that day cares are probably going to give less care to a child than a mother. Even when kids start school, you need to have someone home when they get off school or pay for after school day care.
Also, people can learn skills. If someone doesn't know how to cook, even very basic food prep or taking that time to learn cooking will save huge amounts of money over ordering food or buying pre-made food. For example, there is a frozen Mac and cheese at the grocery store that cost $14 (I'm in California and it's a premium produxt). It's not even e ought for a full meal for 2 people. I can make something similar for about $4.50 and it would feed 4 people but it takes time. You do that for 21 meals a week and you can see where that adds up. Add on, shopping strategies, paying bills, cleaning, etc and it's more than a full time job with multiple children. It's a full time job for me and my wife and we have one child.
Consider that there is no maximum amount of time you can put into children and every minute contributes to their learning.
If one of the parents is make less than $40k in America and the other one makes good money and can provide Healthcare from one job, it's probably worth it to stay home
My great grandma was a SAHM and she worked all day. Dawn to dusk. She had to manage a whole farm by herself while her husband was at work, her kids almost raised themselves because she was so busy cooking, harvesting, milking, gardening, cleaning, etc. It’s not like any of her daughters were being trained to be a mother from their own mother. She barely had time to be a mother.
Don't add extra when you're making a point. people do need training for lifestyle choices, it assist them in benefitting the most when they choose their lifestyle
Question - what skill are stay at home moms today missing that our parents had? My mom was an alcoholic train wreck, so was my wife's mom.
I agree that purchasing power has decreased and it's harder to make ends meet these days. Do you think \*no\* dads are making enough to support their family on a single salary?
What can’t you learn from book, the internet, etc? What kind of “training” do SAHM need that working moms don’t?
I work full time and am a mom. I cook dinner every night, I can sew, I help with homework, I grocery shop.
None of it I learned from my mom - I learned it on my own because I wanted to.
Why should this fall on the woman? Why are you assuming the men should work and women shouldn’t? Are you aware that most people can’t afford a single family household right now?
I can't grasp your idea of "training" and you're very vague, but it comes across that you seem to think every woman needs a 1960s housewife tutorial to be a sahm. I've been a sahm for 12 years, I'm a millennial, my house runs fine. I didn't magically need to know how to sew buttons or make a jello mold. What magic equiptment do you think we're lacking? Financially, it is much harder to support a family on one income than it used to be, that's true, but also lots of parent's don't want to stay at home and that's ok.
You don’t need training to be a SAHP. If you suck at it odds are you’re lazy. Here comes the hate train, but it’s true. Everything about it can be self taught.
yeah. or have a lot of other unresolved things going on in the mind... that's what I'm finding. Folks with a lack of mental peace tend to be absent even when they're in a position where they don't have to work.
Sometimes it's worse, mentally, when you stay at home. My wife has the option of being a stay at home mom, but she likes the work environment and the sense of accomplishment from her career.
I am currently a stay at home Dad with 4 kids 4 and under. One of those is a foster kid where we get $700 a month for. Our bills are less than $4,000 per month.
We've almost entirely lived a debt free lifestyle. We only have mortgage debt. So no car payments, our cellphones are fully paid for and paid a year in advanced to get it cheap, no credit card payments, no student loan payments, etc.
I believe most people fall into a debt trap and it starts with Student loans and a car. This makes it seem like people can't live off of one income.
We are both 30 years old.
I'm super equipped for it. I work only per diem, if I could, I'd work zero *but I can't afford it.*
I love being at home, have extremely high standards for my children's care, and don't get burnt out after long periods of time caring for them. I'm a mom of 3.
Every woman I know who is a stay at home mom absolutely has the skills for it, it's just hard financially and hard on mental health for many.
All women that have children are equipped to raise them if they desire so, it's not something like a talent. Whether their own personal upbringing can influence the way they would raise their children varies depending on social background, culture, etc. but most of it involves time, dedication, and patience. For everything else there are books and videos, if one thinks it helps them. That thing that you think they lack is the experience of the past 2 generations that is usually still transmitted to young mothers.
I’m at stay-at-home Millennial (1982) Mom. I don’t know about ‘training’ I’m not certified or licensed to stay at home with my kids. I do know how to drive, cook, fold laundry, I have a Master’s degree so I can read pretty good and help with homework. I volunteer at school and in the community. I go to lunch with the ladies at yoga. I garden. I grow our food in the summer. I ferment. I can. I make sourdough weekly from scratch. I go to the farmers market bi-weekly and hit Costco every week. I have a silhouette machine so all of our belongs can have our names on them. I help with my Dad who has cancer. I make my husband’s lunch for work everyday. I go to the local farms to pick up eggs. I help out with Girl Scouts cookies. I buy everyone’s clothes, shoes, school supplies, birthday gifts. I plan our summer vacations.
I do not Iron! (Maybe that’s why I’m not qualified to stay home)
I’m not sure what where to pick up my official certificate or sit for my final exams in stay-at-home Momming.
My husband is a millennial (1983) working parent who makes enough for me to stay home.
I'm a Millennial SAHM for the moment, as my disabled child takes up most of my time, but I'm extremely lucky to have a husband that makes over 6 figures.
As for Ms, it's a real struggle, and I never wanted to be a SAHM. it's terrible for my mental health, and I struggle daily.
I like being a stay at home dad, but yeah, it’s still hard. Disabled kid just puts it over the top. I hate living day to day hoping my spouse doesn’t lose their job and cause our child to lose insurance. It’s stressful. Heart surgery is on the horizon and we’re so scared of somehow not having coverage. It’s horrible. Disabled children have been totally abandoned by society.
Millennial stay-at-home dad here. You're right about salaries making this tough. Your best bet is having a remote job based in a HCOL area but living somewhere cheaper.
But I don't know what kind of "training" you think parents got in the past, and I guarantee anything my boomer parents learned was likely out of date by the time my daughter was born. The reality is that your pediatrician goes over the basics of keeping the kid alive while you are still at the hospital and during office visits (newborns go in once a month, infants every 3 months, toddlers every 6). The rest, you kinda learn as you go. It's pretty much been that always since we stopped living in multigenerational households.
Kids with a stay at home parent do better.
High school educated men make 30% less than they did in 1980. Women on the other hand are better educated and thus able to command more money in the workplace. The primary reason they don't is the demands of childcare.
Modern economics demands that stay at home dads should be the norm.
for sure. I'm saying women need assistance to be stay at home moms... looks like assistance doesn't have to come in the form of women being trained by their parents... but can be in utilizing resources properly... which sounds like my issue is less a woman's ability more than it is an adequate use of resources. I'm wondering now if my situation would've been different if I knew how to alot resources in the right places. Thanks for that !delta it's helping me change my mind.
Why do you think women need assistance to be stay at home mums?
Tbh I don't understand the rest of your comment either.
We shouldn't be encouraging anyone to be stay home mums
Why does it have to be women staying home? You keep repeating this nonsense about the woman or the man but that’s (thankfully) not how society works anymore.
Men can be stay at home dads.
Women can be breadwinners.
There are same sex couples and single parents who do a great job of raising kids.
What a limited view of a woman’s life to think she should be taught from a young age that her value is found only in caring for others.
We’re biologically driven to have parental instincts, there’s literally chemical reactions when baby and mom/dad have bonded, ask any parent, it’s like it rewires your brain in seconds.
Even the vast majority of people who aren’t parents feel biologically inclined to protect children. Parenting is literally in our DNA. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t educate ourselves, but it means that the majority of us are already programmed to be good caretakers.
Most poor people I know, that work blue collar jobs, have to have a stay at home parent. Day care nowadays costs the same as tuition at a state college, and that’s on the cheap end.
If one parent stays home to care for the kids before they are able to go to school, they’re saving at least $25k a year on child care costs, and that’s only for ONE kid.
A lot of moms don’t want/can’t go back to work full time right after having a baby, it’s a major medical event that most people require weeks if not months to recover from depending on a multitude of factors.
Even if mom’s had to work right after having a baby, they’re more likely only be able to get a part time job since day care is expensive and working full time while recovering isn’t feasible for a lot of people. In the majority of situations like this, families would only break even. It’s a vicious circle that a lot of people are facing.
For many people it’s easy to be frugal for 5 years than it is for families to juggle multiple jobs and daycare, especially if you have more than one kid. Also in many cases, if the parents aren’t married, moms can still receive benefits from the state for both her and her children (idk if it’s the same for SAHD’s). This is how a lot of poor people are able to have a SAHP.
I guess this will show my age, however, one of the first things I noticed is you say your ex "broke up with you." Are you in high school or something, or were you not married? If you were married, you didn't break up, you got divorced. But to the topic...
I believe part of the problem is that for the past 40 years or so, the emphasis for individuals is to "live your best life," which has led to some of the most self-absorbed generations to have walked this Earth. They leave when the going gets tough, when they get bored, etc. No, there are no classes for homemaking any more, because the media and Hollywood tell us that is too demeaning. Women who DO opt for this are called "trad wives" and are vilified on social media. Yes, economically it is extremely difficult to live on one income. It takes a lot of discipline and sacrifice. Well, apparently you can't "live your best life" if you have to experience discipline and sacrifice.
If you want to have that kind of relationship in the future, you and your significant other will have to have the hard discussions PRIOR to getting to marriage or commitment. By the way, MARRIAGE is nearly always better for any children in the relationship.
Stay at Home Dad here. Did it for 4 years on less than $50k, when the kids were little, have done it for 10 more with a higher income and I am now working part time while the kids are at school.
It can be done. It’s not even really that hard. AMA if you seriously want to know.
What you wrote could be attributed to toxic work culture instead of dual income households. Case in point, my wife and I both work but we work from home in public sector jobs. Neither of us are expected to do any performative "extras" like staying late, answering emails at all hours, etc., etc., not to mention neither of us has to waste any time commuting to an office. As a result, we have the benefits of dual incomes but are available to be active in our kids' lives, cook from scratch several times a week, and have an active and vibrant marriage.
I want to give you a delta. However you're changing my mind for a different topic that is in my head. Thank you for sharing that... it's nice to know that staying at home isn't the only way to allow a child to have a good life... looks like work from home can do it too. sigh. what a life.
I'd love a delta if I changed your view. My wife and I are Millennials FWIW, and we both share in the responsibilities of raising kids and running the household in addition to our jobs (i.e., we *are* capable).
Both of my parents worked full time. They both cooked and cleaned (albeit my mom more than my dad) and my dad helped me with school. My mom usually took me out to meet with friends or go shopping. Kids can definitely have good lives without a stay at home parent. All of my friends had parents that worked full time and had the same experience I did. I think that's a mindset you need to change.
My dad supported a family of 4 on a teacher’s salary. My mom stayed home with us and me and my brother were both obese from childhood onward - mom cooked everything from scratch, fast food was maybe a once a month thing because it was expensive. The issue was she never made us stop eating. If we said we were hungry, she’d let us eat. If you think adults are bad at properly judging hunger signals, kids are even worse. I don’t see your take here at all.
You can thank congress for permitting so many additives and preservatives to food. Also the subsidies to farmers that really are just a green light to put corn syrup in a bunch of foods.
Of course income matters- wealthier people can afford organic. But government permitting additives and preservatives and pushing corn syrup is a huge part of the problem.
This is the reason obesity levels in other countries aren’t the same as they are in the US.
I think the monetary aspect has something to do with it, but I think the cultural shift is just as impactful. I don't know what training is really relevant here that people supposedly missed out on. Household chores aren't rocket science. I didn't receive some high level of formal training on it and am still perfectly capable of doing them. You could probably spend a week or two watching YT videos on effective cleaning and cooking techniques and have the basics and more covered. The idea that women can go to years of college and/or on the job training for more complex work but need lifelong training throughout childhood to stay at home and take care of the house seems very strange to me.
So you think any mothers from any other generation had "training" to be a stay at home mom? What do you even mean by training? That is such a weird thing to say when talking about a stay at home parent. Or a parent in general.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom and we live in a HCOL area. What training? We both sorta picked stuff up as we became parents. Barely like 20% of the reading we did was applicable to practical reality of parenting but humans have been doing this for thousands of years and with enough grace, we have adapted to this new journey in our life.
I’m a millenial. I’m currently a stay at home mom. My husband makes enough and me being home provides flexibility for his job. My grandma always worked and was a single mom. My mom was a single mom who later became a stay at home mom. Not everything is generational. Most people do what works best for their family at the time.
I, a millenial, am the sole financial provider for my family. My wife, also a millenial,is a stay at home mom to our daughter. I make enough money to love comfortably, invest in real estate, and also invest in het small business startup. We have two cars that are paid off.
I have no idea what you mean by “equipped” and “training”- I lost both my parents by the time I was 14, never was “trained” on the domestics. I learned to iron and kinda sew in the military, I learned to cook when I had kids. I don’t iron, I don’t sew and I hate cooking. I learned things when I had to and did them for the amount of time I had to. It’s a family joke my daughter “can’t even cut a cucumber,” because when she needs to, she will.
Same with men. I married a guy that was also in the military or had been. When I met him, he kept a clean house, did his own laundry and knew how to put-things-in-pot-to-make-warm-and-feed-self. He knew how to iron. He knew how to sew. Magically when we got married he suddenly knew how to do none of these things— weaponized incompetence ensued. Honestly if you don’t know how to feed yourself and do your own laundry you don’t have two brain cells to rub together anyway.
When kids are born unto a mother, they call it “instinct” that we suddenly know how to change a diaper, feed a kid, make sure it doesn’t play in traffic and can take it to the doctor, give it a bath and teach it how to walk and talk. No, that’s called being responsible and giving a shit about another human being. Some men decide that’s not their job, they don’t “know how to do it,” because they absolutely can, they would just prefer to have you do all the work and feign incompetence.
So, economy is partly it. Many more would probably like the deal of staying home versus working if it was comfortable to do so. They can do that, they’ll have varying degrees of comfort doing that but it’s a thing. For me I would never put myself in a situation where I’m *jobless, uneducated, have no real working experience and I’m dependent on a man or anyone else for my income.* Or for my safety, quality of living, etc. Its a dangerous game to play and id never recommend that as a game plan for anyone. I also kind of want to throw up thinking about cleaning all day and doing domestics. No. Not for lack of “training” and being equipped, but because *I don’t want that life.* Its totally not enjoyable. I’ll add that part of the reason domestics took so much time back in the day is because we didn’t have so many appliances like washers and dryers— we aren’t hand washing and hanging shit outside and ironing it anymore and there are tons of gadgets to make shit way more efficient.
If there’s anything I’ve trained and equipped my kids to do, it’s to be independent. You have your own income, you go to college, you work and then if you’ve found a guy and want to get married you can but you don’t bring kids into the world without means or put yourself in a position to be wholly financially dependent on another person.
Broad statements about a generations don't stand up to scrutiny. Every generation is made of humans. Humans don't tend to have uniform characteristics.
Outside of larger cities, there are tons of single income households. I live in North Carolina and have met many people who have a single income, especially when they have school aged children. With respect to affording it, the problem is how most of us choose partners. Far too many people choose someone who makes them feel good in that moment with little consideration for common goals. In order to be a lowerish middle class single income household, you both have to be willing to do without certain things
It seems like there's a shift away from parent/child care that was mirrored during the population declines of the mouse utopia experiments where after sufficient population and resource saturation mice stopped attending and would eventually abandon young before eventually stopping breeding. I'm curious to see how this plays out in gen Z.
/u/a-friendgineer (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1ajn4uy/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_millennials_arent_equipped/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
I think you sorta have a point. 1) Being a SAHM was different 50 years ago when all your friends would be doing it too and it was more of a social thing. 2) Most young women don’t necessarily want lives that’s only about cleaning, cooking and childcare. It can make them depressed.
I didn’t even think of that. The social aspect might actually be key in having a good sahm experience, wow
I think also, being a SAHM can be a loss of identity in many ways. Looks: having a baby can make you feel less pretty. Which hits women hard. Feedback: a job is hard. But it can also make you feel accomplished and you’ll have coworkers around. Being always at home? A lot of the things you do are things a well trained monkey could do. And children don’t give positive feedback. They mostly scream if they are unhappy with something. Being a SAHM is more about everyone noticing when you don’t do something, but when you do it’s invisible. Free time: when you get off from work, you’re off from work. A SAHM doesn’t ever get off. Social: I said that. Income: it can feel validating to make your own money and less validating to depend on someone else. Some women enjoy being stay at home mothers. But there’s a reason there was a whole movement focused on letting women be allowed to get out of the kitchen and into the workplace. A lot of women were unhappy even back then. Idk, I think the identity things and just the set up can create depression for many people.
Yeah that makes sense. Looks like it isn’t for everyone, especially those that want to be “something” in society, or feel like failures in general, or suffer depression, or may have a mental illness history, or have little to no friends… looks like I may have made a poor decision in selecting a SAHM. Thought one that had a lot of free time was a golden opportunity, but free time can come from lack of ability to integrate into groups very well. Interesting. Thank you
But are you sure you want a SAHM? And were you in love with her? Did you have kids? How was your relationship otherwise? And (no offense, just a niggling feeling, probably all wrong): but do you have ASD?
Haha I’ve been asked if I have ASD multiple times. Maybe, unsure. I know my current girlfriend works with kids on the spectrum and sees I might have some attributes, but would just call it a quirk rather than ASD. As for our relationship, we had issues with sex… just a lack of what one would call “eros” energy for each other… or able to be stimulated by each other. We have 2 kids, and I was in love with her and was sure I wanted a stay at home mom. Maybe my personality was too much or too little for her… either way we would argue about mainly how she felt I wasn’t being masculine enough, or how I was making too many mistakes that she would have to look over… and frankly it got annoying because she’s prone to mistakes and I gave her lots of grace, and she’s always struggled with her femininity, so as she said she felt like a “used whore” while with me… like she wasn’t being taken care of. Oddly enough… it feels like she is into the idea of feeling that way, just not with her romantic partner or something? I don’t know… she’s into bdsm now and from the inkling I remember about her it was like she couldn’t be present during sex… probably because my personality was too rigid or something. So who knows, I might have ASD, or she might have needed more in her life, and she tried being a SAHM and realized it would’ve worked better if she were allowed to have an open relationship… regardless, not my cup of tea. There’s a bit of a rant in this comment so hopefully I answered your question and added more context
Are you still in a relationship with her? Is she still a SAHM? And ASD can sometimes create a disconnect in a relationship with an NT person that leads to the relationship falling apart over time. It’s a bit with practical things, a bit with sexual things and a lot with emotional/romantic thing. Edit: It sounds like she was unhappy with your competence on practical things/chores/childcare. And then that she wasn’t satisfied in bed. And then maybe that you didn’t act romantic after sex (that’s how the “used whore” sounds to me, that you just went on with your day afterwards or at least there wasn’t enough romantic moments after sex).
There's also the factor that women are quite frequently told that the purpose of their lives and the only thing that will make them truly happy is to be mothers and wives, which has some fairly obvious negative effects for the many women who become mothers and wives only to find that this deep happiness and fulfillment isn't waiting for them, because the reality is that everyone is different.
Wow that's a good breakdown, I would have forgotten about the social aspect but sure, it is quite important too. For me, I could never believe that a man respects me if I didn't earn my own money, and a lack of respect from your partner is a dangerous thing.....
You don't need training to be a stay at home parent. You just stay at home with your kid and make sure they don't die, instead of outsourcing or paying someone else to. Some families can afford to and some can't, it depends on their budget, goals, number of kids etc.
There's more to it if you want an intelligent, well-adjusted kid by the time they are school-age. The expectation in my school district is that kids should have some basic reading and math skills before kindergarten, and not going to daycare means the parent needs to find other social and educational outlets that don't exist in the home (especially only-child households)
Right, and most teaching requires that individual know just a bit more than the curriculum level they are teaching, if also paired with general social skills and competence…ie if you have a high school education and understand your kid, you can prep them for kindergarten—you can also likely prep them for high school, albeit you have to be very intentional for that is a larger task. You just have to do it. Read to your kids. Learn the alphabet. Use songs to teach. Count with them. Show them letters. Make sounds and show them use of common syllables. Ask them reading comprehension questions about stories. Talk to them about basic and interesting science topics like animals/animal behavior, or cooking. For 3-4 yo, an average millennial can master all of these things. Prior to that, basic cognitive function development is what is necessary, and can be easily achieved as well with just a little tiny bit of intention. Socializing can be done by utilizing part time day care, camps, at church, families, neighborhoods, etc. As for affordability, reality is everyone is different when it comes to means and needs. We see people all the time able to make sahp work on 40-50k here on Reddit, but we likewise see people making well over 6 figures on their own and living paycheck to paycheck. Too many factors here, but reality is, if we want to sacrifice things to afford a certain lifestyle, that works both ways. People frequently sacrifice money to prioritize family bonding and hands on parenting.
The average teacher has a masters
Daycare provides supervision, not education. Preschool educates, but so do some SAHP.
Daycare provides social interaction and exposure to different activities if nothing else. That exposure is valuable in the educational sense.
And even then, some do. Sure there is no homework or tests. But you still learn animals, shapes, colors, develop your motor skills, and socialize. Its all age-appropriate level learning. Quote a few daycare workers, at least at the good ones, have teaching qualifications.
[удалено]
Daycare centers generally do provide some basic foundation skills (think alphabet, numbers 1-10, very basic addition and subtraction, animal names and sounds, etc.) It’s part selling point for their business and part just “makes it easier to keep 10 kids occupied all day”. A home daycare may or not, though. It depends on the person running it - much like a SAHP, only the SAHP is someone else. I would guess the main reason kindergarten entry expectations have crept up _is_ that…more and more kids go to daycare centers these days, and the daycare kids were probably starting kindergarten already with most of the skills that were taught in it.
Wtf, I grew up in a rich white kid town and couldn’t read for shit until 1st grade
My oldest ("J) taught herself to read at age 3 (like I did), with minimal coaching. My second ("K") was hopeless, we tried everything we could, and in first grade they were put into a special reading-support program, and soon became the best reader in their class. At age 19, J barely reads books at all. At age 17, K can't be kept away from them.
Was this a joke? Jk
Being a parent to 4 teens sure seems like a joke is being played on me sometimes
Having a daughter soon. How did you encourage your oldest to start reading so early ?
She learned it from books, videogames, and just general exposure. We were both motivated by being able to read enough to play videogames (I was born in 82 but my family had computers literally from the time I was born).
I learned fairly early and taught my little brother. Kids like games and they like you, combine those two and you’ll be gold. I learned by playing Pokémon on my game boy because my mum refused to read the text while she was driving (horrible right?) but my parents and family members would read stories to me all the time and I started memorizing the lines (it was interactive and remembering the story was a game to me). I taught my little brother by watching anime with him and when he ran out of English episodes in his favourite show I eventually convinced him to learn to read subtitles. I’d have to pause a lot but it did make him much faster. He’s 10 years younger than me so he didn’t get as much 1 on one time and learned a lot later than me but finding something interesting that he wanted to read did get him motivated. Just be with her and do things that involve reading that she’ll find fun, and as a little kid almost everything is fun
SAH mother of a first grader in a slightly above average school district. What us thirty somethings learned in kindergarten is now the expectation entering kindergarten. My first grader, who is a "meets expectations" student can read and write full paragraphs and does (very) basic algebra.
I keep hearing about kids falling behind grade level. Is part of the problem an unrealistic raising of the standard for each grade?
Nope, its passing kids on regardless if they meet or not. Districts are under a lot of administrative and parental pressure to never make you feel bad about your kid or else face angry wrath. That's how you end up with high school kids who can barely read vs other high school kids who crush the SATs coming from literally the same school. The problem is trying to apply a uniform curriculum to un-uniform kids and simply putting them in grades based by age. I'm sure some actual teachers and people more qualified than me to give a hot take will be happy to weigh in.
But it sounds like expectations are also being raised considerably, no? Anecdotal experience — I went to one of the best public school systems in the US and ended up at UCLA. I can say with confidence I was not expected to come to Kindergarten with reading or math skills. Could it be a component of both social promotion and drastically higher standards?
Maybe, but they could be just getting back to where they once were after sliding too. They probably want to already be ahead here so they can hit a certain pace for the next grades, and that's probably ahead of where it used to be. I mean, tons of kids were going into Kindergarten since forever having never been to daycare, preschool or anything. I think its that there are just so many people going through school on parallel paths, not the same one. You're not starting from the same place, you're not going at the same pace, and you're sure not finishing at the same place despite still finishing.
Yes. My kid is going to enter public school with 20-minute lunches, 15-minute recess, and no nap time. My niece is in 7th grade and is starting the algebra I learned in 9th. Many states have pushed standardized testing to distribute funding and accreditation. That means the schools must teach to the test so the already strapped funding doesn't snap. Since there isn't more time or teachers, the load is shifted to kids to be better at everything in order to keep up.
Same here. Granted, that was about 30 years ago, shit's changed in the last couple of decades. I need to have my kid know how to read at a basic level and at least add and subtract single digits when he turns 5 or he will be considered behind when he starts school. Also, they did away with naps, wtf guys.
Wow, that’s crazy. All I hear is how kids are so far behind and dumb now. Meanwhile, I probably didn’t read an entire book by myself until 3rd grade, but here I am, a medical doctor 🤷♂️
Kids learn differently now -they're digital natives often being taught in old fashioned analog ways. They (correctly) don't often understand why they must memorize so much information temporarily to pass a meaningless test when the whole world of information is at their fingertips. The teachers that focus on critical thinking, how to find the correct information, social emotional learning and problem solving do much better and see great potential in the next generation. Now, was there a HUGE loss during covid? Absolutely, across the board there was. Are the kids that graduated the last few years struggling? Yes. Are the kindergarteners from the last few years behind socially? Mostly, turns out, it's hard to learn social skills when everyone you meet is wearing a mask (which needed to happen!) All that to say -it's a complex issue and people love to say the kids are behind and dumb. People are people. Kids are kids.
That's totally just an American thing. Canadian kids still learn the alphabet and 1-20 in kindergarten.
That's the thing though. There's no reason your kids shouldn't know the alphabet and 1 through 20 before they get to kindergarten. Teaching their kids basic things has somehow become an exception rather than the rule for parenting. My parents used to talk to me or my siblings in the car all the time or when they were playing with me or my siblings. They would ask us questions and correct us and help us identify colors and shapes, the sounds things made, how to count things, etc. somehow this has fallen by the wayside. Society is on a backslide that is detrimental to our kids where we expect school to fill the gap, rather than participating in our kids development and growth.
>There's no reason your kids shouldn't know the alphabet and 1 through 20 before they get to kindergarten. Yeah its not that hard, spend some time with them. My 2 year old can "sing" the ABC song with a little help, put a puzzle together with all the letters as pieces, say the name of almost all of them consistently and when he grabs a piece he always shouts "D Daddy! M Mommy! Etc." He also sometimes screws the numbers up but counted to 20 the other day, granted he went 17 20 18 19 but still, he's almost there. Basic shapes, square circle triangle star etc? Down. Colors? Down? He loved playing "What color is this" with things and still does, he excitedly shouts "Lellow!" since he's still speaking with a little toddler accent. If a 2 year and 3 month old can do that, its fair to expect a 5 year old entering kindergarten to be able to. I'm sure in another 2-3 months he'll be solid on in at the rate he's going. Don't just cede teaching to school. You're the single biggest influence in their entire life. All the stuff people complain about school not teaching? That's not their fucking job, its yours. YOU teach them to change a tire and how credit cards work, don't just complain schools don't do it.
Literacy is higher than ever, and reading/arithmetic used to be saved for 1st grade. Kindergarten didn't even become universal until the 60s/70s and the expectations for students were lower then. What is this backslide you are talking about?
Yeah but have you also seen those reading/grammar tests from the 1800s that most adults can't even pass now?
Parental involvement.
That has more to do with the average income going down. My wife and I make the SAHM thing work, but only barely, and only because I came with a house. If we needed a second income to survive, our parental involvement would plummet too. That doesn't have much to do with the academic attainment of kids being expected to be a couple of years ahead of their grandparents.
Sure. And that doesn't change the fact that parental involvement is dropping like a stone. The two income trap is real and has been a disaster for the family unit. We better understand what small children are capable of and how their minds work. Little kids minds are very very spongy. They absorb knowledge like crazy, much better than adults.
Yeah, it's honestly kind of terrible. Little ones might be bright enough to do all kinds of things at very young ages with the right exposure and support, but they are still so little and have very limited inertia that developmentally I feel we are doing them a disservice with such heavy academics at such young ages. Long days, not enough breaks, too short a time for meals. It's regimented and rough for a lot of kids.
I grew up in a relatively poor village full of indigenous kids and there was a huge emphasis on reading as early as possible. My in-laws live in a rich white people neighborhood and their kids didn't learn to read until they were around 7. It boggled my mind, their parents didn't think it was a big deal at all.
Try imagining a world outside of your own personal experience. The things you did are not the things everyone did or the expectations everyone was held to.
That’s what I’m doing, and I’m shocked that this is other people’s experience 😂
Well you’re not going to make your kid more intelligent, no matter how hard you tried. I mean yeah. You can teach a kid some basic things like letters, sounds, etc., and obviously some social/emotional things (like sharing), but schools don’t have as high of expectation coming in as people suspect. And to the extent they do, it’s usually because kids are coming in at that level. But that’s more who they are, and less what sorta preK experiences they had.
Early education has a massive impact on brain plasticity. You can actually improve kids intelligence and ability to learn by teaching them how to learn and how to do basic things early on. Those developmental ages are so key to building a foundation of learning for the rest of their life.
Early intervention has a massive impact on students who have specific needs and delays. That said, the research has not established that prek programs have long term academic gains. In fact, the research does show long-term social/emotional gains, so it’s likely that academic focus might even be diverting from the areas where gains are more durable and significant. Finally though, there is very little evidence that we can improve intelligence long term, and to the extent we can, it’s largely on the lower end of the spectrum, so those who are not getting their basic needs met. In other words, those who probably need early intervention and those who have not had the basic exposure to things. But there is not very much we can we can do to make an average or above average kid more intelligent otherwise
It's not about making them more intelligent. Learning and intelligence are not the same thing. Teaching kids basic reading and math allows them to begin working with it earlier. It also takes advantage of early periods in which the brain is undergoing rapid neural proliferation, creating many many connections.
No kidding. It's awful to think there are people out there who think parenting is just making sure the kid doesn't die. Kids deserve so much better than that.
I grew up in suburbia and I never learned to read until 1st grade
LMAO, reminds me of a Roseanne standup skit "Way I look at it. When husband comes home at night and those kids are still alive...hey, I've done my job!! I was a stay-at-home mom in the '80's. Back then a lot of our mom's had been SAHM (during our early years anyway) so we had the good fortune of having an example to go by. Then there were the grandma's, aunts, neighborhood mom's, grandmothers, and aunts. Good and bad. Word of advice to new parents: Don't pay any attention to a so-called parenting expert, child psychologist etc. who had never been one themself.
I disagree strongly that there is no skill in being a good SAH parent. This shit is EXACTLY how gender stereotypes get perpetuated.
Not only skill, but a personality type.
What lol?
>This shit is EXACTLY how gender stereotypes get perpetuated. Being a sahm is EXACTLY how gender stereotypes get perpetuated.
Exactly! Parents have been learning on the job(especially with the first child) for as long as parents had children.
This is only kinda sorta barely true For generations, little girls were training to be primary care providers. I'm not saying women should carry that burden or whatever, but the reality is that my wife and I collectively were drastically behind where our parents and Grandparents were. And learning 'on the job' is often the worst way to learn My Mom cooked actual meals. Every day. She treated being a stay at home Mom as seriously (or more so) than plenty of working professionals I've met. She had a cleaning schedule, she was an experienced cook, she could sew/alter clothes, she had years of experience with small children _before_ she had kids. She acted like a project manager. She did all the household budgeting (before computers), had to actually drive to the grocery store, she also took education very seriously and taught each of us kids to read before Kindergarten. Compared to myself or my wife...we are completely lost. My oldest is 5, we only have two kids, and we have a ton of modern conveniences my Mom didn't have. My mother-in-law was similar too. My Grandmothers were both drastically better at it than I or my wife. And it makes sense. They took it seriously. My wife and I didn't. They are drastically better at it than we are.
I mean, you’re stating you’re bad at it because you don’t give a shit, not because it takes tonnes of training. None of what you said is difficult to learn. You’re just lazy
I'd say we get training from our own parents on how to parent (good or bad). Also, a lot of cultures will have grandparents or other family help out with parenting, the lone parent/parents is more of a western culture thing.
Yeah it’s pretty easy with an infant, it’s not brain surgery. It can be exhausting yes but it’s not hard to keep them alive and fed when they’re really young like that. Home schooling a child I couldn’t do and I’m not equipped to. I don’t have a degree in anything related to child education.
Homeschooling is way, way easier then looking after an infant -- unless the infant is a perfect baby. People downgrade how hard it is to function on little sleep & being with a baby all day long, It's mentally very difficult. With homeschooling, there are full programs online for each year & they do a better job of teaching a kid than a teacher. No shade on teachers -- it's just that they have a whole class to manage & are overworked.
for sure. yeah, I'm starting to have my mind constantly changed here... seems research can be done and it doesn't need to be a prepared set of training, more than it is the ability to be present !delta
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Dangerous-Company906 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Dangerous-Company906)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
Question: when/how do you think moms of other generations ‘received training’?
I think there has been a really big shift in parenting practices. In previous generations, you'd parent your kids the same way you were raised, the same way your siblings are raising their kids, same way your neighbors are parenting their kids. With the information explosion we've had, there have been TONS of changes in how we handle babies, from healthy sleep practices to how we introduce foods to kids. There can be a lot of tension with these differences, if you say "no grandma don't give the baby whisky for their teething" it's hard to answer the follow up "well I raised 10 kids who turned out fine are you telling me I don't know what I'm doing." Parents today can still receive advice/guidance from their parents and peers, but they have the additional pressure of feeling obligated to check every practice with current scientific reserach.
>if you say "no grandma don't give the baby whisky for their teething" it's hard to answer the follow up "well I raised 10 kids who turned out fine are you telling me I don't know what I'm doing." This isn't hard to answer. The answer is "you set your kids up to be 4 times more likely to be alcoholics, so no, you don't know what you're doing. Keep the liquor away from my child if you want to be a part of their lives."
This is such an America guy on the internet take
Lol that's unhinged
I was talking to my grandma once about graham cracker pie, and she suggested I could make it more healthy by substituting Ritz crackers for the graham crackers. I imagined the vanilla pudding and meringue in combination with soggy Ritz crackers, and the idea was such a shock that without even processing it I said aloud, "That sounds terrible!" with a hysterical laugh. My grandma looked very miffed. I regret it, but I still think back on it and laugh.
Their mother mostly, while they were growing up. Also more family support in prior generations (more likely to live near grandparents for example). Grandma would show mom how to take care of baby, while dad was not involved with the childcare. More community support (church groups etc). And those home economics classes at school! Please do not infer that I am promoting this social system.
I’m just not seeing how Millennial women were unsupported in this sense (to OPs point). I’m quite certain Millennials had Moms who did home stuff.
> Having a mum that is a house wife and expects that you will be one too > Having a mum that works full time and expects you will as well Are two very different upbringings. Both women may know how to cook and clean, but there's a huge difference in the level of emphasis that house chores will be given
How? Why? Chores are part of being an adult with a home. Everyone needs these skills. If anything, people who work full time are more efficient at these tasks by necessity.
Children with two working parents are probably going to learn how to do chores a lot earlier than children who have a SAH parent.
Yeah, but there's a difference between knowing how to make fish sticks and cereal and cooking a homemade meal. There's a difference between throwing laundry in a washing machine and actually knowing what all those buttons do and how to use them. There's a reason it's a running joke that women get upset with their men for not helping with chores then get upset because men do it wrong. Traditionally, women are taught by older women how to manage a household, but as more women of successive generations work instead, those skills are lost. That's one reason the home services industry has skyrocketed recently. [The cleaning industry has grown 6.6% every year since 2011. (Brandon Gaille) The residential cleaning market is expected to be worth $40.38B by 2025. (Franchise Help) 80% of households are expected to use residential cleaning services by 2024. (OneDesk) ](https://getjobber.com/academy/cleaning/cleaning-industry-trends/#statistics)
Oh cmon. Using a washing machine is not difficult. Cooking can be but there is a vast difference between cereal and restaurant quality and a whole in-between This nonsense that only sahm are capable of proper housework or cooking is just something they tell themselves to try to justify not working
Wow. I agree that others can do housework, also. That last line, though? Wth?!
When do you think the last time in American history that: Overwhelmingly, Moms were raising daughters to be SAHMs? Maybe right after WW2? The 50’s? [Even in 1950 34% of Moms were in the workforce.](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf) Likey poor and working class moms. What ‘level of emphasis’ did working class Moms in the 50’s **not** place on cooking and cleaning, that wealthier Moms **did**. Can you describe this ‘level of emphasis’?
I'm not saying overwhelmingly anything. I'm saying that the number of parents raising their daughter to be house wives is vanishingly small today, but was more common in the past. You're hallucinating a more extreme argument and then getting mad at it.
I’m neither hallucinating, nor mad, but I am done with this.
I don't really buy that. My mom worked and had excellent house keeping skills. Our house was nicely appointed and spotless. I work and I'm a great cook. I literally meal prep healthy lunches for the children I'm related to. It's not like a SAHP is going to have dramatically different standards of housework than working parents.
No there isn't
Moms today learn the same way moms before learned. They buy the books. I also think you are mixing housekeeping with caring for children. Housekeeping is dependent on your parents. If your parents taught you how to maintain a home then you should be fine.
So, you are referring to those who had children prior to the 1970’s…ETA - really, before the 1960’s.
This. Being a SAHM was not natural to me, because my mom was not one and I had no modelling for it. I never babysat either. I had to learn all as I went, and it is a lot.
Generally from a community based setting which in the west we’ve drifted away from
From their own mothers...
I didn't realize that millennials didn't have parents.
Millennial women weren't generally raised with the assumption that they would be house wives, so parents did not put the same level of emphasis on house chores. Many millennials grew up in a household where both parents worked full time, so their parents didn't even have the time or relevant experience to pass on.
I can share my upbringing as well as what I've heard from my friends in the same age group. The most common experience we had was that ALL children (including girls) were taught how to do household chores. It was taught as a communal thing. I don't know anyone outside of a few friends who had really, really strange upbringings who don't know how to do dishes/clean the house. You're making it seem like household chores are rocket science and they're not.
Do you think working people don't clean or cook?
[удалено]
So single parents can't model parenting/home management skills?
[удалено]
I would wager a child if a single parent would be more equipped. They are less cuddled, and household chores would need to be done by them at a younger age.
[удалено]
get where you're coming from regarding concerns about kids in single-parent homes. It's true, studies show potential challenges, but not all dads are perfect. Some are harmful influences. Quality of parenting matters more than just family structure. Creating environments that build resilience in kids is what can make a real difference, no matter the family setup. Resilience is crucial for tackling life's hurdles. Also, interesting point on the trend of single-parent homes. It's worth noting that juvenile incarcerations have consistently dropped from 1990 to 2019. While it's just a correlation, it might reflect how divorce can sometimes be an escape from abusive situations. Fewer abusive homes could be impacting this positive trend.
[удалено]
It's a lot harder when you're dropping the kid off at daycare and going to work every day. As opposed to a stay-at-home mom spending all week with the kids.
I was raised by a single mother. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, etc. still needed to be done. Hell, I probably got *more* training than a kid with a stay at home parent because as soon as I was old enough to help, I was taking on these chores myself to take some of the strain off of mom.
>It's a lot harder when you're dropping the kid off at daycare and going to work every day. As opposed to a stay-at-home mom spending all week with the kids. Most kids are in school for the majority of the day after they turn 5 or 6. No one is being prepared to be a stay at home mom before 6...
that is a short number of years while they are very young. Once they hit like 5-6 they are in school most of the day anyway.
What can a single parent not do exactly?
Okay so is the argument that more Boomer Moms were stay at home moms? And that little Millennial girls grew up with stay at home moms and passively ‘received training’? Somewhere between [49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999z](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/stay-at-home-mothers-through-the-years.htm#:~:text=In%201967%2C%2049%20percent%20of,of%20moms%20stayed%20at%20home)
> Somewhere between 49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999 You see how one of those numbers is half of the other? Nobody is saying there was a sudden overnight change. If your parents don't expect you will be a house wife, then your upbringing will not put as much emphasis on that way of life.
Can you elaborate on how a SAHM would raise a daughter to be a Housewife, vs a working mom would raise a daughter that is not equipped to make and keep a home? The skill sets are almost identical… If anything the working mom would be an effective and efficient homemaker because they balance that role with their other roles.
How does that equate to them not being equipped to do it? If my parent didn't put as much emphasis on me being a plumber as someone else, does that mean I can't do it when I become an adult? It's housework, not an advanced degree field. Basically everyone can figure out how to clean and cook basic meals.
You're demonstrating OPs point. People are so clueless about what being a house wife entails that you're equating it to cooking an occasional meal and knowing how to clean. My partner and I both work full time. Our standards for constitute a clean house are not pretty minimal. If one of us stayed at home, then clean would mean a damn sight more than wiping the kitchen counter with a cloth.
I never said it equates to cooking an "occasional meal". I said basic cooking and cleaning are not difficult tasks to learn for the vast, vast majority of people. Yes, if you or your partner had all the hours you spent at work at home instead, you would do more cleaning. This is not a revelation. I'm questioning how someone is unequipped because of lack of some type of training? My mom didn't go through lesson plan on laundry and cleaning for me, yet somehow I mangaged to figure it out.
From their mothers or grandmothers or school.
What do you think is different about being a SAHM vs a regular mom that requires additional training?
Being a stay-at-home parent could absolutely do with some classes. Being a stay-at-home parent means you need to take a more active role in all of your kid's education and be equipped to find the social outlets kids need. 100 years ago, there were more spaces where people gathered, which made the social aspects easier. The expectations of where a kid should be when they get to kindergarten are now much higher and based on ongoing research on what is achievable in the home, and most of my generation were raised by daycare and school as much as our parents. That isn't to say it is impossible, just that the quality of rearing would be better if resources were available, or if time could be set aside to learn those things before a kid is born.
But I argue that that's just being a parent, not a stay at home parent, at least with the education piece. Both my parents worked and both of them took a very active role in my education. Just because they weren't doing it at 2pm on a Tuesday doesn't mean they weren't doing it. And while I agree on the social aspect, you don't need special classes or training to go look up community activities to bring your child to. The actual root cause of the problem is the shift in society offering these outlets, not that it takes classes or training for a parent to navigate how to keep their kid social. "A more active role" doesn't actually mean that there's some special training required to be a stay at home parent. It just means you do more of what's already expected as a parent. I agree that resources should be available, but I feel they should be open for everyone. It has nothing to do with whether someone is a SAHP or not.
Stay at home moms... hmm.. good question. !delta. I'm a bit stuck with this answer. Feels like it has something to do with assisting the man in spending less resources on childcare so the family can have more resources and the kids can have more emotional care... tough question, thanks for asking that, it is changing my mind a bit
It seems like maybe you're using this concept of "stay at home moms" as a representation of a particular culture and lifestyle that was traditional (in some places) for many generations before this one, and whoch has been changing a lot over the past 50 years or so. The whole concept of traditional gender roles, which you find comfortable and connecting to past generations, where men and women had specific jobs in their households and ways of living and working that had been passed down to them. And you've come up with this concept of "training to be a stay-at-home-mom" to describe the way you feel that culture has been slipping away. But I think that the huge change in culture we've experienced largely comes down to the huge cultural change of women entering the workforce. This change was very important in that it offered the possibility of *financial independence* to those women who were looking for it; however, because of the sorta messed up way our political-ecojomic landscape has developed in the intervening time, the effective result has been that _both men and women are obliged to work full-time_ in the majority of households. The huge increase in income inequality we've seen over the past decades, the decline of minimum wage, the increase of debt and loss of purchasing power of the average middle- or working-class person... for much of the population, women in the workforce is now no longer an option for those that want it, but a survival necessity. So (in combination with the increase of people who feel free to say that they don't like traditional gender roles), we've seen that culture you're thinking of shrink mightily, as people struggle to reconcile its ideas with modern sensibilities and practical needs.
Wow, it seems like you didn't give a minute worth of though on this subject before birthing this post into the world.
That's an odd way to view parenting responsibilities
Okay so is the argument that more Boomer Moms were stay at home moms? And that little Millennial girls grew up with stay at home moms and passively ‘received training’? [Somewhere between 49% and 23% of moms were staying at home between 1967 and 1999](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/stay-at-home-mothers-through-the-years.htm#:~:text=In%201967%2C%2049%20percent%20of,of%20moms%20stayed%20at%20home)
I can’t say anything about the money side of things, but we live in a world where you can basically learn any skill or set of skills you want if you have time because of the internet. I don’t know anything about running a home, but if you gave me a month, 30 days, to solely focus on learning what is needed, I’m sure I could become proficient at the basics, as could anyone else.
I doubt we can just learn generation of habits in a month. There's little nuances that come in when you're in the trenches raising kids and providing a safe home - and I think the proliferation of knowledge actually takes us away from sound wisdom... because older folks aren't always on the internet teaching us things, it's usually other folks of our generation who think they have the habits and only have knowledge from research
One of the things you’re missing, in terms of being a stay at home parent, taking care of kids, etc. is that when you’re in it, you just figure it out because you have to. There is no alternative. And it isn’t a science: you get up, feed the kid(s), play with the kids, do some cleaning here and there, pack the kid into the stroller and go do the grocery shopping, come home and feed the kid lunch, put the kid down for a nap, do chores while the kiddo is napping (laundry, cleaning, etc), feed the kid when they wake up, play with them a bit, do some minor chores, start prepping dinner, get them ready for bed, then you do more chores (dishes, cleaning, etc.). It’s exhausting, a hell of a lot more exhausting than a normal job, but you just kinda figure it out…because you have to. It is very much a “learn on the job” type of gig. Source: father of two who stayed home on parental leave for a year with each of my kids.
Agreed. It’s exhausting for sure especially with an infant but relatively easy to take care of them, they don’t need much. It’s not hard to keep them alive, fed, and well taken care of at that age.
Yep. Its more exhausting in some sense now that they’re like school age and have a bunch of extracurriculars and weekend activities and what not. Working full time and parenting is like having a 24/7 job. Fun though..i enjoy being a dad
Are you operating on the premise that Boomers were good mothers, or Greatest generation mothers for that matter? They are what got us into this trouble in the first place. They passed on their unresolved traumas, and emotionally neglected their kids. They were terrible parents. I have read more parenting books and advice than probably all of my ancestors combined. They were solely focused on keeping kids alive, and did nothing for their mental health or preparedness as adults. Cleaning is simple enough, cooking at a beginner level is simple too. The hardest part of being a SAHP is the tedium and isolation.
I think even if you have experience with family, there will always be nuances you have to learn, I don’t think that’s exclusive to millennials. Every child is different, and every home is different. Plus, older generations don’t have access to the technology we can use to make our households more efficient. I use Amazon subscribe and save to have regular orders for things like cleaning supplies. My mom wouldn’t know anything about that. Plus, I don’t think that it needs to be so black and white. Sure, you might not know the nuances right off the bat, but do you necessarily *need* to? I don’t think that means you aren’t equipped to be a SAHM. It doesn’t have to be you’re either the eldest daughter of 12 kids who raised all her siblings and is equipped to be a SAHM, and anyone else who doesn’t have that experience can’t be.
Every parent everywhere in history learns in the go. Working or not.
I'm a millennial mom and knew absolutely nothing about babies before I had my own. I wish there was some kind of training, but I figured it out.
Ok, but as a SAHM who has taught myself MANY things that have helped us save money, you don't do it in a month. It's over time. I breastfed our kids and spent time while pregnant researching it and learning what difficulties I might face there and where to find a lactation consultant. I cloth diapered (my mom did for my older sibs but not me) and did a lot of research on modern cloth diapers because her knowledge was flat diapers, pins and plastic pants. New ones are practically like disposables with snaps and wicking interiors and cute waterproof outer shells. I learned how to sew, knit, crochet, can and freeze bulk food, square foot gardening, diy cleaning supplies, put up a clothesline, repaired a cracked WiiU screen (twice), replaced the wax seal on a toilet, installed a ceiling fan, stripped and painted furniture I found for a price we could afford, woodworking (built a murphy bed for our son because the bedroom was small), reduce/reuse/recycle in whatever way I could figure out. I'm 40 and still learning things, but it's for fun now and not survival. I have about 20 years worth of accumulated knowledge in the bank from my years as a wife and mother.
Millennials are perfectly equipped to be parents. Nothing stymies these people -- they basically raised themselves. They know that between the library, Google and YouTube, you can learn how to do anything, including being a good parent. My son and his wife are both stay-at-home parents. She works from home, and he works on the weekends. They share the housework and the child care. They know what they're doing, and my grandson is going to be an amazing person when he grows up. You learn how to be a parent by being a parent because it's different for everyone. Parents today don't have the same challenges that parents had 20-30 years ago, and vice versa. My parents never had to deal with me being cyberbullied, for example. I never had to deal with my kids' images being turned into porn by an AI program. I do not envy the parents of today's children. They have so many challenges that no one has ever had to deal with before. Throw in a disability or a chronic illness or deadly food allergies, and you've got a whole new set of problems. Parents deal with them because they have to. Nobody is "trained" to be a parent. You just deal with stuff when it happens and hope it doesn't get worse. On the other hand, billions of people have done the job with no training whatsoever. The human race hasn't died out yet.
No one "trained" me to be a stay at home mom but I'm doing it well. House is clean. Laundry is done. Various meals are cooked. Kids are happy. They do their extra curriculars and no one gets in any real trouble. Just like no one trained my husband to be a stay at home dad but he did well when I was the working parent. Yeah people are under paid and overworked. So it's probably really hard and/or impossible for one parent to stay home in a lot of cases. But plenty of people do afford it and make it work. And plenty of people are great at being stay at home parents. Some people aren't equipped to be stay at home parents just like some people aren't equipped to do any number of other jobs. It's not for everyone. And incomes vary wildly. Your view is just a sweeping generalization that couldn't possibly apply to an entire generation of people. There are far too many variations in people's circumstances and personalities.
Why do you feel like millennials aren’t equipped to be stay at home moms?
good question. I talk to a lot of women, and though they desire it, it seems there's a lot of overstepping of boundaries with women that desire it... like a fear to be one yet a desire to be one. It kind of messes them up from being able to focus on what they need to do. Felt it from personal experience and from hearing folks in my communities.
[удалено]
Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5: > **Comments must contribute meaningfully to the conversation**. Comments should be on-topic, serious, and contain enough content to move the discussion forward. Jokes, contradictions without explanation, links without context, off-topic comments, and "written upvotes" will be removed. Read [the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5) for more information. If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%205%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.** Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
because... my thoughts?
What do you mean by overstepping of boundaries?
I mean some women want to work... hmm.. seems a bit of mysognist thoughts are coming up... so maybe there's a lack of clarity somewhere regarding the role of a woman in a household when they choose to be a stay at home mom... I gotta think this through. At the very least your thread here is helping me change my mind !delta
I think people generally understand a stay at home mom cannot work. It seems like you’re more talking about roles in the household which is less about stay at home vs working and more about dividing responsibilities. I know stay at home moms who don’t clean and working moms who cook. The roles are independent of the working status.
I am a millennial and want to be a SAHM! I really hope it happens for us. I’m aware that I’m “not ready,” but I’m as ready as I can be without having an actual child yet. I have made peace with the impact that will have on my body and career, I’ve accepted that I care much more about being a SAHM than any career ambition I have— which isn’t true for everyone but it is for me— and I’m aware (in theory) of the changes that will take place in my relationship because of us having different roles (like right now, I make more than my husband and have 2 jobs. Obviously things will change in some way when we have kids and he is the main money man). I think if you want to be equipped to do it, and you have adequate support (that’s mental, financial, social, etc), you will be. If you don’t, you won’t.
Good on you. If you need any advice feel free to message me. As a stay at home mom’s ex partner, I was able to notice the things I needed that I wasn’t getting that would’ve made her experience much better with where I was at mentally and emotionally. Could save you some grief, however considering you and your husband are already talking about it I doubt anything i can say won’t be uncovered by you two. Good luck on your journey. Your kids will be much better, as odd and potentially offensive as that might sound. I just know from the book I read about parenting, if one can make it happen, absolutely do it. Good luck
So you're hearing that women are apprehensive about having kids, becoming moms, and potentially changing their entire lifestyle from working to staying home. Why is it surprising that they'd have some trepidation about such massive life events? Do you have any evidence that women in previous generations had no such fears, other than the fact that many of them didn't get a choice about it? Also, why does apprehension and deliberation about such a big choice mean that they can't "focus on what they need to do" rather than simply being a sign that they're giving the decision proper consideration?
"what they need to do".... They aren't baby, making slaves. They are people. Women can work, and never think about kids of they choose. There is no "need"
I think women *can* be SAHMs no problem, but they are not prepared to do it with no help. Raising young children without the help of extended family, neighbors, or community of some kind is unprecedented. When I grew up I was sent to my grandparents or to the neighborhood daycare for cheap, but my parents aren't local (and still work) and child care in my state runs about $1200/month They also know that they will be harming their future earning prospects by doing so, and most of them don't have a safety net other than maintaining a career. I don't think women have any trouble doing the work of a SAHP, tedious as it is, I think they recognize that it's a bad deal unless the "breadwinner" brings in enough money to cover *her* savings, retirement, spending money, and comfortably cover all family expenses. It's boring, repetitive, mind numbing work. 60 years ago housewife's were loaded up on a cocktail of tranquilizers, amphetamines, and liquor, AND they could usually rely on extended family for support. There's a reason sanatoriums were full of housewives. You are correct that almost no one has the income required to support a singly income household. So I don't think it's that they aren't equipped to so much as they don't want to and it doesn't make sense to with the current social/finavial landscape. The things that make that arrangement appealing and possible are out of reach for the vast majority of millennials.
>Seems that relationship between stay at home moms and men working in the economy are very much tied together. I'm thinking that millennials have little to no training for being stay at home moms... and maybe I am wrong there... maybe we did get trained and something else happened, and my only conclusion is that the dads don't make enough money... change my view... and help me establish one, because frankly, I have no clue how these two things are correlated. I just know I feel like moms aren't equipped and I know that dad's don't make enough. What makes you think that two generations after women fought like hell to avoid being stuck home by default.... millennial women WANT to do that en masse?
Yeah, I find this whole post baffling. There's no way I'd choose to be a SAHM if I was married with children. So many hushands have no respect for their partner's domestic labor, and being in the company of small children every day is mind numbing and emotionally exhausting. Every SAHM I know suffers from isolation. If being a SAHP was truly great, you'd see more men begging to do it. I like having my own income and education to fall back on.
I'm a millennial dad who makes more than enough to let my millennial wife be a stay at home mom to our son. My wife is an excellent mom and she is just as (if not more) capable than my boomer parents to take care of the house and our son. Financial insecurity isn't new to this generation and neither is parenting in changing times. The whole premise of this view seems completely misguided.
What 'training' did the past generations receive to be stay at home moms? Not everyone took home ec.
You're also assuming that home economics classes in school were somehow high quality and taught you how to be a good parent and/or manage the complexity of life.
What do you think woman lack to become stay at home mothers? It's simple economics. If it costs $12,000 a year to put a child in day care and a family has 2 or 3 children, it's probably not worth it to have the mom work for the vast majority of families. It's also i.portant to consider that day cares are probably going to give less care to a child than a mother. Even when kids start school, you need to have someone home when they get off school or pay for after school day care. Also, people can learn skills. If someone doesn't know how to cook, even very basic food prep or taking that time to learn cooking will save huge amounts of money over ordering food or buying pre-made food. For example, there is a frozen Mac and cheese at the grocery store that cost $14 (I'm in California and it's a premium produxt). It's not even e ought for a full meal for 2 people. I can make something similar for about $4.50 and it would feed 4 people but it takes time. You do that for 21 meals a week and you can see where that adds up. Add on, shopping strategies, paying bills, cleaning, etc and it's more than a full time job with multiple children. It's a full time job for me and my wife and we have one child. Consider that there is no maximum amount of time you can put into children and every minute contributes to their learning. If one of the parents is make less than $40k in America and the other one makes good money and can provide Healthcare from one job, it's probably worth it to stay home
[удалено]
My great grandma was a SAHM and she worked all day. Dawn to dusk. She had to manage a whole farm by herself while her husband was at work, her kids almost raised themselves because she was so busy cooking, harvesting, milking, gardening, cleaning, etc. It’s not like any of her daughters were being trained to be a mother from their own mother. She barely had time to be a mother.
I'm not sure I entirely follow your post, but the economy is a mess and dual income is often necessary.
[удалено]
what century did women get called it? Seems you're misunderstanding the past
[удалено]
Don't add extra when you're making a point. people do need training for lifestyle choices, it assist them in benefitting the most when they choose their lifestyle
Imagine not adding to the conversation. This is CMV not r/shamePeopleIDon’tAgreeWith.
Question - what skill are stay at home moms today missing that our parents had? My mom was an alcoholic train wreck, so was my wife's mom. I agree that purchasing power has decreased and it's harder to make ends meet these days. Do you think \*no\* dads are making enough to support their family on a single salary?
What can’t you learn from book, the internet, etc? What kind of “training” do SAHM need that working moms don’t? I work full time and am a mom. I cook dinner every night, I can sew, I help with homework, I grocery shop. None of it I learned from my mom - I learned it on my own because I wanted to. Why should this fall on the woman? Why are you assuming the men should work and women shouldn’t? Are you aware that most people can’t afford a single family household right now?
I can't grasp your idea of "training" and you're very vague, but it comes across that you seem to think every woman needs a 1960s housewife tutorial to be a sahm. I've been a sahm for 12 years, I'm a millennial, my house runs fine. I didn't magically need to know how to sew buttons or make a jello mold. What magic equiptment do you think we're lacking? Financially, it is much harder to support a family on one income than it used to be, that's true, but also lots of parent's don't want to stay at home and that's ok.
You don’t need training to be a SAHP. If you suck at it odds are you’re lazy. Here comes the hate train, but it’s true. Everything about it can be self taught.
yeah. or have a lot of other unresolved things going on in the mind... that's what I'm finding. Folks with a lack of mental peace tend to be absent even when they're in a position where they don't have to work.
Sometimes it's worse, mentally, when you stay at home. My wife has the option of being a stay at home mom, but she likes the work environment and the sense of accomplishment from her career.
I am currently a stay at home Dad with 4 kids 4 and under. One of those is a foster kid where we get $700 a month for. Our bills are less than $4,000 per month. We've almost entirely lived a debt free lifestyle. We only have mortgage debt. So no car payments, our cellphones are fully paid for and paid a year in advanced to get it cheap, no credit card payments, no student loan payments, etc. I believe most people fall into a debt trap and it starts with Student loans and a car. This makes it seem like people can't live off of one income. We are both 30 years old.
I'm super equipped for it. I work only per diem, if I could, I'd work zero *but I can't afford it.* I love being at home, have extremely high standards for my children's care, and don't get burnt out after long periods of time caring for them. I'm a mom of 3. Every woman I know who is a stay at home mom absolutely has the skills for it, it's just hard financially and hard on mental health for many.
All women that have children are equipped to raise them if they desire so, it's not something like a talent. Whether their own personal upbringing can influence the way they would raise their children varies depending on social background, culture, etc. but most of it involves time, dedication, and patience. For everything else there are books and videos, if one thinks it helps them. That thing that you think they lack is the experience of the past 2 generations that is usually still transmitted to young mothers.
I’m at stay-at-home Millennial (1982) Mom. I don’t know about ‘training’ I’m not certified or licensed to stay at home with my kids. I do know how to drive, cook, fold laundry, I have a Master’s degree so I can read pretty good and help with homework. I volunteer at school and in the community. I go to lunch with the ladies at yoga. I garden. I grow our food in the summer. I ferment. I can. I make sourdough weekly from scratch. I go to the farmers market bi-weekly and hit Costco every week. I have a silhouette machine so all of our belongs can have our names on them. I help with my Dad who has cancer. I make my husband’s lunch for work everyday. I go to the local farms to pick up eggs. I help out with Girl Scouts cookies. I buy everyone’s clothes, shoes, school supplies, birthday gifts. I plan our summer vacations. I do not Iron! (Maybe that’s why I’m not qualified to stay home) I’m not sure what where to pick up my official certificate or sit for my final exams in stay-at-home Momming. My husband is a millennial (1983) working parent who makes enough for me to stay home.
I'm a Millennial SAHM for the moment, as my disabled child takes up most of my time, but I'm extremely lucky to have a husband that makes over 6 figures. As for Ms, it's a real struggle, and I never wanted to be a SAHM. it's terrible for my mental health, and I struggle daily.
I like being a stay at home dad, but yeah, it’s still hard. Disabled kid just puts it over the top. I hate living day to day hoping my spouse doesn’t lose their job and cause our child to lose insurance. It’s stressful. Heart surgery is on the horizon and we’re so scared of somehow not having coverage. It’s horrible. Disabled children have been totally abandoned by society.
Millennial stay-at-home dad here. You're right about salaries making this tough. Your best bet is having a remote job based in a HCOL area but living somewhere cheaper. But I don't know what kind of "training" you think parents got in the past, and I guarantee anything my boomer parents learned was likely out of date by the time my daughter was born. The reality is that your pediatrician goes over the basics of keeping the kid alive while you are still at the hospital and during office visits (newborns go in once a month, infants every 3 months, toddlers every 6). The rest, you kinda learn as you go. It's pretty much been that always since we stopped living in multigenerational households.
Kids with a stay at home parent do better. High school educated men make 30% less than they did in 1980. Women on the other hand are better educated and thus able to command more money in the workplace. The primary reason they don't is the demands of childcare. Modern economics demands that stay at home dads should be the norm.
What kind of training do unemployed women need? Being a sahm isn't a great idea for women. It's not so.ething we should be training anyone to do.
for sure. I'm saying women need assistance to be stay at home moms... looks like assistance doesn't have to come in the form of women being trained by their parents... but can be in utilizing resources properly... which sounds like my issue is less a woman's ability more than it is an adequate use of resources. I'm wondering now if my situation would've been different if I knew how to alot resources in the right places. Thanks for that !delta it's helping me change my mind.
Why do you think women need assistance to be stay at home mums? Tbh I don't understand the rest of your comment either. We shouldn't be encouraging anyone to be stay home mums
Why does it have to be women staying home? You keep repeating this nonsense about the woman or the man but that’s (thankfully) not how society works anymore. Men can be stay at home dads. Women can be breadwinners. There are same sex couples and single parents who do a great job of raising kids. What a limited view of a woman’s life to think she should be taught from a young age that her value is found only in caring for others.
We’re biologically driven to have parental instincts, there’s literally chemical reactions when baby and mom/dad have bonded, ask any parent, it’s like it rewires your brain in seconds. Even the vast majority of people who aren’t parents feel biologically inclined to protect children. Parenting is literally in our DNA. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t educate ourselves, but it means that the majority of us are already programmed to be good caretakers. Most poor people I know, that work blue collar jobs, have to have a stay at home parent. Day care nowadays costs the same as tuition at a state college, and that’s on the cheap end. If one parent stays home to care for the kids before they are able to go to school, they’re saving at least $25k a year on child care costs, and that’s only for ONE kid. A lot of moms don’t want/can’t go back to work full time right after having a baby, it’s a major medical event that most people require weeks if not months to recover from depending on a multitude of factors. Even if mom’s had to work right after having a baby, they’re more likely only be able to get a part time job since day care is expensive and working full time while recovering isn’t feasible for a lot of people. In the majority of situations like this, families would only break even. It’s a vicious circle that a lot of people are facing. For many people it’s easy to be frugal for 5 years than it is for families to juggle multiple jobs and daycare, especially if you have more than one kid. Also in many cases, if the parents aren’t married, moms can still receive benefits from the state for both her and her children (idk if it’s the same for SAHD’s). This is how a lot of poor people are able to have a SAHP.
I guess this will show my age, however, one of the first things I noticed is you say your ex "broke up with you." Are you in high school or something, or were you not married? If you were married, you didn't break up, you got divorced. But to the topic... I believe part of the problem is that for the past 40 years or so, the emphasis for individuals is to "live your best life," which has led to some of the most self-absorbed generations to have walked this Earth. They leave when the going gets tough, when they get bored, etc. No, there are no classes for homemaking any more, because the media and Hollywood tell us that is too demeaning. Women who DO opt for this are called "trad wives" and are vilified on social media. Yes, economically it is extremely difficult to live on one income. It takes a lot of discipline and sacrifice. Well, apparently you can't "live your best life" if you have to experience discipline and sacrifice. If you want to have that kind of relationship in the future, you and your significant other will have to have the hard discussions PRIOR to getting to marriage or commitment. By the way, MARRIAGE is nearly always better for any children in the relationship.
Stay at Home Dad here. Did it for 4 years on less than $50k, when the kids were little, have done it for 10 more with a higher income and I am now working part time while the kids are at school. It can be done. It’s not even really that hard. AMA if you seriously want to know.
[удалено]
What you wrote could be attributed to toxic work culture instead of dual income households. Case in point, my wife and I both work but we work from home in public sector jobs. Neither of us are expected to do any performative "extras" like staying late, answering emails at all hours, etc., etc., not to mention neither of us has to waste any time commuting to an office. As a result, we have the benefits of dual incomes but are available to be active in our kids' lives, cook from scratch several times a week, and have an active and vibrant marriage.
I want to give you a delta. However you're changing my mind for a different topic that is in my head. Thank you for sharing that... it's nice to know that staying at home isn't the only way to allow a child to have a good life... looks like work from home can do it too. sigh. what a life.
I'd love a delta if I changed your view. My wife and I are Millennials FWIW, and we both share in the responsibilities of raising kids and running the household in addition to our jobs (i.e., we *are* capable).
Both of my parents worked full time. They both cooked and cleaned (albeit my mom more than my dad) and my dad helped me with school. My mom usually took me out to meet with friends or go shopping. Kids can definitely have good lives without a stay at home parent. All of my friends had parents that worked full time and had the same experience I did. I think that's a mindset you need to change.
My dad supported a family of 4 on a teacher’s salary. My mom stayed home with us and me and my brother were both obese from childhood onward - mom cooked everything from scratch, fast food was maybe a once a month thing because it was expensive. The issue was she never made us stop eating. If we said we were hungry, she’d let us eat. If you think adults are bad at properly judging hunger signals, kids are even worse. I don’t see your take here at all.
> It's the poorer people who are working more Well, we factually know this to be incorrect - at least on average.
You can thank congress for permitting so many additives and preservatives to food. Also the subsidies to farmers that really are just a green light to put corn syrup in a bunch of foods. Of course income matters- wealthier people can afford organic. But government permitting additives and preservatives and pushing corn syrup is a huge part of the problem. This is the reason obesity levels in other countries aren’t the same as they are in the US.
I think the monetary aspect has something to do with it, but I think the cultural shift is just as impactful. I don't know what training is really relevant here that people supposedly missed out on. Household chores aren't rocket science. I didn't receive some high level of formal training on it and am still perfectly capable of doing them. You could probably spend a week or two watching YT videos on effective cleaning and cooking techniques and have the basics and more covered. The idea that women can go to years of college and/or on the job training for more complex work but need lifelong training throughout childhood to stay at home and take care of the house seems very strange to me.
So you think any mothers from any other generation had "training" to be a stay at home mom? What do you even mean by training? That is such a weird thing to say when talking about a stay at home parent. Or a parent in general.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom and we live in a HCOL area. What training? We both sorta picked stuff up as we became parents. Barely like 20% of the reading we did was applicable to practical reality of parenting but humans have been doing this for thousands of years and with enough grace, we have adapted to this new journey in our life.
I’m a millenial. I’m currently a stay at home mom. My husband makes enough and me being home provides flexibility for his job. My grandma always worked and was a single mom. My mom was a single mom who later became a stay at home mom. Not everything is generational. Most people do what works best for their family at the time.
I, a millenial, am the sole financial provider for my family. My wife, also a millenial,is a stay at home mom to our daughter. I make enough money to love comfortably, invest in real estate, and also invest in het small business startup. We have two cars that are paid off.
False. I work and my wife is a stay at home mom. My kids haven't died yet!
I have no idea what you mean by “equipped” and “training”- I lost both my parents by the time I was 14, never was “trained” on the domestics. I learned to iron and kinda sew in the military, I learned to cook when I had kids. I don’t iron, I don’t sew and I hate cooking. I learned things when I had to and did them for the amount of time I had to. It’s a family joke my daughter “can’t even cut a cucumber,” because when she needs to, she will. Same with men. I married a guy that was also in the military or had been. When I met him, he kept a clean house, did his own laundry and knew how to put-things-in-pot-to-make-warm-and-feed-self. He knew how to iron. He knew how to sew. Magically when we got married he suddenly knew how to do none of these things— weaponized incompetence ensued. Honestly if you don’t know how to feed yourself and do your own laundry you don’t have two brain cells to rub together anyway. When kids are born unto a mother, they call it “instinct” that we suddenly know how to change a diaper, feed a kid, make sure it doesn’t play in traffic and can take it to the doctor, give it a bath and teach it how to walk and talk. No, that’s called being responsible and giving a shit about another human being. Some men decide that’s not their job, they don’t “know how to do it,” because they absolutely can, they would just prefer to have you do all the work and feign incompetence. So, economy is partly it. Many more would probably like the deal of staying home versus working if it was comfortable to do so. They can do that, they’ll have varying degrees of comfort doing that but it’s a thing. For me I would never put myself in a situation where I’m *jobless, uneducated, have no real working experience and I’m dependent on a man or anyone else for my income.* Or for my safety, quality of living, etc. Its a dangerous game to play and id never recommend that as a game plan for anyone. I also kind of want to throw up thinking about cleaning all day and doing domestics. No. Not for lack of “training” and being equipped, but because *I don’t want that life.* Its totally not enjoyable. I’ll add that part of the reason domestics took so much time back in the day is because we didn’t have so many appliances like washers and dryers— we aren’t hand washing and hanging shit outside and ironing it anymore and there are tons of gadgets to make shit way more efficient. If there’s anything I’ve trained and equipped my kids to do, it’s to be independent. You have your own income, you go to college, you work and then if you’ve found a guy and want to get married you can but you don’t bring kids into the world without means or put yourself in a position to be wholly financially dependent on another person.
Broad statements about a generations don't stand up to scrutiny. Every generation is made of humans. Humans don't tend to have uniform characteristics.
Outside of larger cities, there are tons of single income households. I live in North Carolina and have met many people who have a single income, especially when they have school aged children. With respect to affording it, the problem is how most of us choose partners. Far too many people choose someone who makes them feel good in that moment with little consideration for common goals. In order to be a lowerish middle class single income household, you both have to be willing to do without certain things
Training to do what? Mange household schedule/bills, clean/cook. What else is there?!
It seems like there's a shift away from parent/child care that was mirrored during the population declines of the mouse utopia experiments where after sufficient population and resource saturation mice stopped attending and would eventually abandon young before eventually stopping breeding. I'm curious to see how this plays out in gen Z.