A letter from Satan

[chaotic life]

I just went back to work after 15 years of being a SAHM. I LOVE being a SAHM but I have two reasons to go back to work.

First, the children are growing and I'm not sure what I'm supposd to DO when the kids don't need me home all day anymore.

Second, we incurred a lot of medical debt in the last year. We *could* make ends meet and pay off the medical debt but doing so would cause us to have to cut back on our standard of living. After working hard for 15 years, supporting him in both earning his Bachelors and his Masters and building an excellent, career, *I* do not WANT to cut back on our living. I got TIRED of telling the kids we're down to needs only for now because of the awful year we've had medically.

Instead, I took that degree I earned all those years ago and always called my "insurance policy" and I CASHED IT IN! I can make a whole lot more than a minimum wage earner just working part-time, and that's precisely what I am doing.

I did have the kids early. I'm in the medical field and I was long aware of the fact that fertility rates start dropping at 27 years of age. I also knew that it would be harder to step away from a career after I already built it and I knew I wanted to be home while my kids were little. Now, I'm mid-30s and working on the career, having had the thrill of being home with the babies before now.

I get so tired of the either/or mentality. You don't have to CHOOSE family/SAHM/career. You have to prioritize them. In all of the years I was a SAHM the money was OURS, never his. I did put him through school for two degrees from endless nights of single parenting while he was doing school after work. I did support him in more career moves than I could count. It was OUR money. It's still OUR money. Now, he's re-arranging his schedule so I can get to work, answering for kids needs while I'm unavailable during the day (because upper management can always take a call on his cell phone or re-arrange meetings in an emergeny whereas a nurse cannot be accessed when she is doing patient care).

It is NOT from Satan to want an education and a career, and it's not less than to have a family and stay home. One woman CAN do both. I come from a LONG line of women who have their babies in their 20s and start building POWERFUL careers in their 30s and 40s so that they can have both. I heeded that lesson from four+ generations of women well and I opted to have the family early and the career slightly later. However, at the end of my life I will have embraced BOTH choices.

[Carla Bruni]

I think we can all agree that we don't want to be dependent on another person? As a housewife, you are not necessarily dependent on another person. You and your husband could make a perfect team where you both contribute to the household (you with your unpaid work, the husband with his paid work). Dependency is not just about money.

(...)

I'm not sure if my little rant here makes sense at all, but my point is: not all housewives are dependent, just like not all working women are independent. Perhaps working women are financially independent, but that's just one part of it. If you are independent when it comes to your finances but dependent when it comes to all other areas in your life, then you are not really independent...

I completely agree with this - emotional and social independence is just as important. My concern lies with the financial aspect - I was reading a "mommy blog" recently, the author of which had kids really early and did some online work here and there, but never got any kind of professional credentials and never built up professional experience elsewhere, since her husband seemed to make enough for them to live just fine. Then he ended up on disability and obviously had to quit his job. Quitting his job led to them losing their insurance, covering both adults (one now disabled) and two kids (one special needs). She's now left needing to figure out how all of this is going to work, how they're going to afford any major medical expenses, including hers for some kind of chronic condition that doesn't fall under disability, etc, etc. This type of situation is my worst nightmare. Besides the fact that I love what I do and want to keep growing as a professional, I just couldn't quit working and "wing it" with a family, knowing this type of thing could happen to anyone.

A year ago, my friends and I got into an accident, and one of my friends got half of her face smashed in. Luckily, all of the damage was more or less cosmetic, and her cognitive function was unimpaired, but she needed three incredibly involved surgeries to rebuild her face and keep her eye from falling out, effectively. Her medical bills by this point likely total half a million, as the result of an event that happened in the course of 3 seconds (and keep in mind she was incredibly lucky - all she has are some scars and some asymmetry, otherwise she's a totally normal, gainfully employed 20-something who didn't suffer any long-term neurological damage). Having seen firsthand how three seconds can literally change your life, I'm now even more risk-averse when it comes to financial dependency and/or to limiting "safety net options" (two incomes, two insurance plans, two careers to fall back on, etc). So it's not just about tampons!

[AnnieC 305]

Ah, see, now it makes sense. This is why I keep up my teaching credential, just in case. Odds are I could find a teaching job somewhere in the state before the insurance runs out. And he is insured to the max, knowing that if something did happen we'd need some time to shift over to my earning again.

It also probably helped that we both worked for the first year of our marriage, and for the next two I supported him. That was when we worked out our share and share alike policy.

I also remember something that happened the first year I was home. My husband was working full time and going to school part time and in one of his classes one of his professors asked a question.

Professor - "Okay, are any of you married?" Some hands went up. "So any of you have a spouse that stays at home and tends to the house and family?" My husband and another man left their hands up. "I assume you both have wives?" They both nodded. "Would you let your wife work?"

The other guy - "Yes, I would let her work."

My husband - "In our house she lets me work."

[wildcatgrrl]

It is NOT from Satan to want an education and a career, and it's not less than to have a family and stay home. One woman CAN do both. I come from a LONG line of women who have their babies in their 20s and start building POWERFUL careers in their 30s and 40s so that they can have both. I heeded that lesson from four+ generations of women well and I opted to have the family early and the career slightly later. However, at the end of my life I will have embraced BOTH choices.

Wonderful post, thank you so much! If all goes well, I will begin pursuing a college degree in January. I'm a 35-year-old with work experience that is limited to retail and I spent the last six years as a SAHM. The youngest will start Pre-K next Fall, so it's time for Mama to do something. I love hearing stories like this, they inspire me.

Back on topic, the youngest that I just spoke of was conceived when I was 31-1/2 despite my having a truck driver husband that was infrequently home and the fact that we were not trying at. All. Total surprise baby. Guess someone forgot to flip my fertility switch off at 30, also.

[Carla Bruni]

Professor - "Okay, are any of you married?" Some hands went up. "So any of you have a spouse that stays at home and tends to the house and family?" My husband and another man left their hands up. "I assume you both have wives?" They both nodded. "Would you let your wife work?"

The other guy - "Yes, I would let her work."

My husband - "In our house she lets me work."

Hahaha, that is fantastic!

I honestly think that it really just comes down to having the option to support yourself/your family/your husband if some sort of catastrophic event were to occur. This can come in the form of an actual degree, a professional credential (technical diploma, etc), or even just a marketable skill - something you can fall back on even if you don't actively use it at this particular point in time. This is why this SAHD phenomenon totally blows my mind, and not just from a feminist perspective, but from a completely rational real-world perspective - oh, you're taught to bake pies and create a family budget? Really?! That's adorable! So was I! At like, 13. But you can't exactly support a disabled husband by selling bonnets on Etsy. And they present this as some sort of adequate alternative to formalized education and/or professional development instead of what it really is - skills every adult should have (yes, I expect boys to be able to do laundry and scramble eggs, the horror!). Here's a gold star. Let's hope it carries you through tough times in life.

[chaotic life]

I am truly thankful to the SAHD movement. It got me O-U-T of fundieland entirely!

I finished my nursing degree and credentials before I became a SAHM. I always considered it an insurance policy. I have live insurance if something happens to him and I am a widow. However, no insurance would prepare me if *I* needed to provide for the needs of the family. Disability insurance will cover some income. It will NOT cover health insurance, something we absolutely cannot afford to be without. My nursing license was that insurance. If something happened to his earning potential, or if we did divorce, I always knew I could go back to nursing.

That's EXACTLY what I did this month, not because he became disabled or we divorced, but because I didn't want to cut our lifestyle anymore for the medical debts. I finished on Bachelor's degree last December and I am starting a second one in January that I should have finished next December since my nursing was an Associates degree originally. I do want to start working on a career (and I need to work in nursing long enough to decide if I am going for nurse practitioner or into academia).

I have told my daughters from the day they were born that it is FINE if they want to be SAHMs eventually but they MUST finish an education first. They need that insurance. They need something that creates marketable job skills. It is vital to have that insurance policy, imo. Even if they choose to stay home and never use it, it needs to be there for life's "what ifs" they cannot control.

The SAHD movement infuriated me from the minute I first heard of it. We, the mothers of these girls, had opportunities and made our choices. How DARE we cut off those choices for our daughters. How DARE we go to college, consider our education insurance and yet deem our daughters aren't valuable enough for those opportunities. I don't want my daughters to be SAHMs because I am. I dont want them to be SAHMs because that is the only thing they are valuable for. I want them to choose their OWN lives, whether that is being at-home or having careers

[Carla Bruni]

I am truly thankful to the SAHD movement. It got me O-U-T of fundieland entirely!

I finished my nursing degree and credentials before I became a SAHM. I always considered it an insurance policy. I have live insurance if something happens to him and I am a widow. However, no insurance would prepare me if *I* needed to provide for the needs of the family. Disability insurance will cover some income. It will NOT cover health insurance, something we absolutely cannot afford to be without. My nursing license was that insurance. If something happened to his earning potential, or if we did divorce, I always knew I could go back to nursing.

That's EXACTLY what I did this month, not because he became disabled or we divorced, but because I didn't want to cut our lifestyle anymore for the medical debts. I finished on Bachelor's degree last December and I am starting a second one in January that I should have finished next December since my nursing was an Associates degree originally. I do want to start working on a career (and I need to work in nursing long enough to decide if I am going for nurse practitioner or into academia).

I have told my daughters from the day they were born that it is FINE if they want to be SAHMs eventually but they MUST finish an education first. They need that insurance. They need something that creates marketable job skills. It is vital to have that insurance policy, imo. Even if they choose to stay home and never use it, it needs to be there for life's "what ifs" they cannot control.

The SAHD movement infuriated me from the minute I first heard of it. We, the mothers of these girls, had opportunities and made our choices. How DARE we cut off those choices for our daughters. How DARE we go to college, consider our education insurance and yet deem our daughters aren't valuable enough for those opportunities. I don't want my daughters to be SAHMs because I am. I dont want them to be SAHMs because that is the only thing they are valuable for. I want them to choose their OWN lives, whether that is being at-home or having careers

Bravo! :clap: I have tons and tons of respect for nurses, I know it's an absolutely brutal profession, and it's horrible when people think nurses shouldn't get as much credit as doctors. My mom's a doctor and always said she'd be powerless without her nursing team, who are all outstanding. Best of luck to you!

[notsocommon]

[ ]

You know, I'm a housewife these days. Granted a housewife with a college degree and a teaching credential, so I could work if I needed to, but still, these days the husband brings home all the cash. And honestly I'm a lot happier than I was when I was working, I enjoy being a housewife, I really do.

Back in the day my mother and my godmother used this same line of reasoning when they were teaching me that I had to work, no matter what. Even if my husband made gajillions I had to keep my own income so I wouldn't have to ask him to buy me a box of Kotex. Those were the exact words. It was clearly the ultimate shame and horror that you might have to go to your man and beg him for a box of Kotex.

WTF is the big deal with putting pads or tampons on the grocery list? Seriously? Why is this an issue?

I put them on the grocery list every two weeks, and through at least half of the year the husband does the grocery shopping he just brings them home with the lettuce and the milk. Not at all an issue. Is it just my husband who is okay with this? Is it because he's got so much MANLINESS he's not afraid to be caught with a box of pads in the bike trailer? Is everyone else having a problem?

Could someone clarify this for me, please? Thanks

[ end ]

My husband buys pads and tampons no problem...and he is taking me to the fabric store tomorrow so I can buy the supplies to make more cloth pads.

[Hane]

My grandmother also gave us the same line that a woman worked for her own money to be able to buy whatever she pleased. I don't know, when we needed pads or tampons as teenagers, we put them on the grocery list and my dad would pick up whatever brand we specified. I guess we were spoiled. :?

My dad ran our family's neighborhood grocery store. Right before closing time, we used to call him up and read him off the list of groceries we needed to have him bring home. Our code word for Kotex was "marshmallows." (Hey, this was in the '60s).

And, yes, the women of my family, going back as least as far as the 1880s (when my great-grandparents came here from Italy), have ALWAYS stressed the importance of having one's own money, and being able to earn one's own living.