A spin off of a couple of recent threads and comments. I'm also reading Lean In, so I have this stuff on the brain. I WOH but grew up with a SAHM, and all of my friends' moms stayed at home too. Because of this, I constantly wonder how my daughter will feel about me working and not physically being present all the time. A few people posted recently that they felt inspired by their working moms, which I think is so amazing. If your mom WOH, how did you feel about it? As an adult, do you think she did a good job balancing her work and home life? Things she could have done differently? Things you loved?
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I feel somewhere between neutral and positive about it, and I only say neutral because I didn't know any different; most of my friends had two parents who worked outside of the home, so it was the norm for me growing up.
My mom was incredible at balancing work and home life, and I never, ever felt like I was lacking in support. Our house ran like a well-oiled ship; we all ate dinner together as a family every night, both of my parents helped with homework and ran us (I have 3 siblings) around to various activities... I feel like her working FT outside the home didn't take anything away from my childhood. It helps that my dad was very involved in raising us and keeping things organized around the house, I'm sure. I lean toward feeling positive about it because it gives me hope that I'll be able to offer the same sort of life to my own children, as I am definitely not cut out to be a SAHM.
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I could have written everything @Synchronicity: did, but since she's already said it, I'll just ditto her
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When I was little I used to not like that my mom worked. Other kids got to do after school activities like book club, but I didn't have a ride home. And other kids got to go home right after school and I had to go to a babysitter's house. One day I asked my mom why she didn't stay home like other moms and she told me that her working was essential to supporting our family. She said it was important for women to work and not be dependant on their husbands.
That always kinda stuck with me. And that's the example I want to set for my kids too.
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my mom WOH until i was in HS when she quit because (in her words) "she wanted to spend more time with us." i had two younger siblings and she was involved in EVERYTHING even while working 40+ hours a week. literally, book drives, scrip programs, holiday fairs, room mom, PTA... she did it all. i have NO idea how. i think she didn't sleep!
anyway, she inspired me because she worked 20+ years at a job that she just didn't love. she was a sole breadwinner for 2 years while my dad SAH due to his job leaving town. after they were stable, she took a healthy severance and quit. i think she felt a lot of guilt over not being at home when we were young because she wanted to be home, but i admire her for working anyway to take care of our family. i wanted to be in a career that i loved, even though i'm not making as much as i hoped and i get to be home with our daughter too. i never felt like my mom wasn't around though!
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My mom WOH in a very demanding job with loooong hours. She often wasn't home until just before dinner or after. My best friend in second grade was in a similar situation and we took turns going to each other's houses after school until dinner time (or after). We took care of each other I guess. I can't remember when exactly that started, but we loved it! When I didn't go to her house or have her over I went to my moms office and played with her coworkers kids who would come in, or play with office supplies. Sounds insane as I type, but I really enjoyed it.
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I actually grew up similarly as other mentioned above in that almost everyone I knew growing up had a mother who worked. I will say that my mother was a single mother, so she had to do everything. She wasn't at all of my school stuff that was during the day, but I went to the type of school where many people's parents weren't. I admire her even more than I did back then because of how laser-focused she was. She was even taking college night classes at one point. She had a very different job/career than I do now, so she was almost always home by 4:30pm etc. I just think she was amazing then and now.
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Most of my friends and myself had mothers who WOH. I just thought that was what everyone did. I remember feeling badly for my mom because she WOH, and took care of everything in the house, and always looked tired. I only remember feeling like I didn't want to do that when I grew up.
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My mom worked a very demanding job and I wished she was a SAHM because it was tough getting to extracurricular activities. I was always the last kid picked up.
I also thought if my mom was a SAHM I'd come home to cookies every night. I think I watched too much old tv shows and had unrealistic expectations.
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When I was an infant, my mom went back to work just 6 weeks after having me because my dad had been laid off...but I was too young for me to remember that.
After my dad got a job offer in another state, we moved and my mom started her own WAH business, so she was around even though she wasn't the one watching me (someone else watched us during the day). When I was in 4th grade, my mom went back to teaching and worked in my elementary school, so we rode to and from school together and that continued until I was old enough to drive myself in HS.
So, my mom was home with me when I was home, if that makes sense. But my dad traveled a lot for work (he is a pilot) so my mom did EVERYTHING when he was gone, on top of working full time--cooking all the meals, doing the yard work, the laundry, the grocery shopping...so honestly, I have just as many fond memories of my older siblings watching me and teaching me things (like how to bake) because my mom was so busy running around doing everything.
I'm one of 6 kids and I honestly don't know how she did it all.....we lived out in the middle of nowhere, so eating out was never an option and she cooked 7 days a week. But even today, she is super energetic and never sits down.
I also thing parenting was different then--you didn't have to be spending "quality time" with your kids 24/7 to be a good parent. My mom would leave the house every single Saturday and be gone from 10 am till almost 5 pm shopping and running errands for the week (in the nearest town, 30 min away) and she wasn't considered negligent. Sometimes my older sisters would go to friends houses and it would just be 8 year old me, watching my 2 year old little sister and I felt totally capable of doing that, haha.
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Both my parents woh full time and I was just fine with it. My mom was usually home by 5 amd my dad shortly after. After my parents got divorced I would usually come home to an empty house and it was kind of lonely, but it was only for 30 mins to an hour so it wasn't that bad. That's the only negative thing I remember. Both parents were always at every school function.
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My mom stayed home until we went to school, then worked jobs that gave her more flexibility. I never really noticed or cared that she wasn't always there. No one I knew had a SAHM.
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@BandDmommy: I assure you I didn't come home to cookies every night!
On the flip side, I thought families with 2 parents working must be super rich!
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My mom traveled alot for work & worked late and she wasn't able to attend all of my school functions. I wish she could have been there more because I always wanted to impress her or show her off. I also was a latch-key kid, and hated being alone when we would have bad weather. As I became older and less scared of a storm I absolutely loved the hours alone I had to myself.
I knew I fulfilled her just like her friends and her work fulfilled her. It's so weird because my mom SAH for a good chunk of my younger bro's childhood and she turned into a different person IMO. My bro would leave a text book at home and she would drive it up to the school. In my day if I wasn't prepared for school I was SOL and had to figure it out! By her working I am much more independent than my bro who still relies on her for so much.
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I will probably be the odd one out but I have always wanted to be a SAHM because I grew up with a WOHM. To be fair I have a lot of issues from my parents and how they parented that had nothing to do with WOH or SAH as well as the fact that Im an only child so I had a very lonely existence as a child I feel. I was brought up in babysitter homes, latch key programs, and eventually I just went home to an empty house by myself when I was older. While some of that was nice as I got older as a younger child it made me sad and more acutely aware of my only child situation where I didnt have anyone. Because of that I wanted to give my children everything I didnt have as a child, a parent at home to ask them about their day, to spend time with, to talk to. I think my experience is compounded by a lot of things and maybe I would have felt differently about the my mom working if other circumstances were also different. For what its worth my mother is still working, has pushed back retirement twice already and truly is married to her job ,as she always has ,still.
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@Anagram: my friends and I talk about this new idea of "quality" time regularly. Like, my mom was home with us 24/7 but she never busted out any Pinterest projects to keep me occupied. We mostly kept ourselves occupied.
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It was fine...she was a teacher, so sometimes around report card time she was at school annoyingly late, but that jut meant we got to order pizza and goof around and eat dinner in front of the TV with my dad, haha! I don't think it was that much different than a SAHM would've been the rest of the time. The only difference was we hung out at our school's after-school program for an hour or so and played before she would come get us and take us home. And once we were older...let's face it, most teens come home, go into their room, and shut the door anyways, so it doesn't really matter if anyone is home or not! I probably had more responsibility with chores since she wasn't doing them during the day, but I don't think that's a bad thing. And we had plenty of time together at night and on weekends.
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My mom was a successful professional and I grew up watching her win awards and give speeches. She somehow also always made time for us and I don't remember her ever having to miss any of my music or sports events for work, even though she had to travel quite a bit. She was a great role model, but she had lots of support from my dad, so I think that was a key reason why she didn't burn out. I think it was equally important seeing my dad support my mom as it was seeing her succeed. She always put us first though, and I think that was important. She also let us participate in her work sometimes (I remember pretending to be the audience while she practiced speeches) and I always really enjoyed feeling like I was helping her do her work. I think she enjoyed it too.
I should mention that she told me before she died that she sometimes wished she had reduced her job responsibilities to spend more time with family instead. However, on the day she found out that she was too sick to ever go back into work again, she was incredibly upset. She loved her job and the people she worked with. I think the working mom guilt is just so tough. As her child, I can honestly say that I never thought she put work ahead of us. So I remind myself of that when I get my own working mom guilt.
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I honestly don't recall doing much with my mom other than the occasional trip to the park or going to the store with her as a kid. She was a single mom and then the breadwinner and then a single mom again and it just seemed like she was always busy, so I spent most days just watching tv, playing alone, or making up games with my brother (or stepsisters when they visited). I was never able to do any extra-curricular activities other than swim team a couple summers when I was at the camp it was held at anyway and girl scouts because I went with my friend and her mom (my mom was never involved in either) - I couldn't do anything because my mom couldn't pick me up or couldn't afford it and we didn't live near anything walkable. Most weekends from middle school on I begged to go to friends' houses to spend the night. On the bright side, it meant that I learned early on how to entertain myself and learned the value of things/experiences because I didn't really get to do much until I got a car and a job, but it definitely wasn't ideal and I strive for much more for my dauhter. I know that isn't how things were with most working-parent homes though!
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Well....my dad worked and I never felt like he wasn't around. My mom worked in a school when I was older so she had great hours. I'm hoping to utilize flex time and even now, I'm off work at 4pm and DH is off at 2:30 so I hope we can make it all work. I hope my daughter can admire my desire to keep feet in both worlds. I think it's SO much easier for us nowadays than it was our moms in the workforce, though!!!
Basically, I don't have an equivalent role model of mom/career so I'm following along and just hoping I don't let my kids down
I figure I always have vacation days to take for field trips and fun things. I have zero issue taking them
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Wow such positive WOH mom stories!
I almost don't want to write mine but I think my situation was different.
My mother worked a lot. We were very poor and she worked at a fast food restaurant. My dad worked nights as a cleaner for a large office building.
My mother would work from 9am to midnight (Mon-Sat - 6 days a week - 15 hours a day). My dad worked from 10pm to 7am (Mon-Fri). So there was actually a parent home almost all the time. My dad had weekends off but my mother only had Sunday off.
My dad would cook our dinner... we were on our own for breakfast and lunch.
My mother was very harsh with us when she was around, like we did zero fun things ever. At work though she worked with a lot of teenagers and they loved her! She was the straight talking Asian lady that set them to the right path. I think she really guided a lot of under privilege teenagers to better themselves. We weren't well off but I didn't need to work as a teenager because school work was more important.
It was really tough for my siblings and I to hear at school or at her fast food place from her teenage coworkers how awesome she was and how we were so lucky to have her as a mom because we didn't feel that way at all.
I know she did it to provide a better life for us and we did do better ... went to college and got stable good paying jobs. I wish she made more of an effort to hang out with us and do fun things and maybe showed she cared about us more than our grades.
Again I think my situation was different... I am WOH right now but my work is no where near as demanding as my mom's was so I have more time to plan and do things with LO.
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@Mrs. Chocolate: this is how I feel, but in reverse. Because of issues I have from growing up with my stay at home mom - which also has much more to do with the way my parents parented than their work status - I never wanted to stay home and became super career oriented, the goal being to provide my kids with the sense of security that I did not have. The flip side is that even though my mom stayed home, we weren't close at all. So I'm constantly struggling with how to provide my daughter with both financial security and emotional security.
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My mom WOH and runs her own business so she had some flexibility growing up. She was there to chaperone field trips, she could stay home with us when we were sick, she was at every performance and recital. She made sure that the time spent with us was quality time. We took a lot of family vacations - we would go to Disney World, camping, Prince Edward Island... when we were on vacation my mom could really relax and "let go" - I have the best memories of mom during those special trips.
That being said, she did have 4 kids under the age of 6 and a stressful business to run. She would work late some nights/weekends if she had to, but I never felt neglected. I have NO idea how she did it all - I'm truly in awe of her now that I have my own kids. I have very vivid memories of her waking up early (like 5:30am!) to bake cupcakes for our school bake sales. She's superwoman to me.
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My mom was a librarian and she went back to work at 6 weeks, she had regular hours but she often worked Saturday to have 1 day during the week off and worked both morning shift and a noon to 8 shift somedays. My dad also worked but he has more normal 8-5 hours with some travel and summers off.
I was very active in gymnastics (practice 5-6 days/week, meets all over the country) and I always got to all my stuff. I know scheduling was tough but they always made it happen. They weren't at all my meets but I went with friends and their parents and it was fine (we also took friends with us to some meets). One of them always attended events that were important to me (and my two other siblings). They were both available to help with homework and big projects. One of them cooked most nights (I usually had leftovers because I was at the gym) and packed our lunches every morning. I feel looking back that they were around plenty. We did lots of fun stuff as a family.
I wanted to leave my perspective because in my house growing up it was a team effort with my parents. I never felt like my mom was more responsible for us than my dad. They really shared work very equally (my dad french braided my hair for goodness sake) and the way the were really shaped my ideals for having a relationship where the work is shared and partners.
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I felt inspired. She wasn't super high up in her company and she didn't make a ton of money, but she did it for me and my brother and she never complained. She never missed a dance recital or a band concert. She's 65 and still working and has no plans to retire anytime soon. She's basically my hero
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@Ms.Badger: I love this so much! I had a very traditional upbringing and I want my LO to see us as a team the way you described. I've been teaching DH how to do a ponytail
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@blackbird: There's hope, it wasn't long before my dad was the best french-braider of all the gym parents!
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I guess I sort of had both. My mom SAH until I was 4 and then got a job running the latchkey (before/after school care) at the elementary school I went to. So through elementary school she did WOH but I went to her program so I was still with her. Then I went to middle school and for 2 years she stayed at that program so I was home alone after school and it was fine, I don't remember every being upset about it. I think mostly I was happy to have the tv to myself lol. After that she became a teacher's aid and only worked school hours so she was off before/after school. But-- most of this time (from the time I was 5 until probably 12 or so) she also worked other jobs nights/weekends/summer. Stuff like working at walmart, video store, etc. Whatever to make ends meet. Because it was irregular hours my dad watched me or I went to my grandma's house or sometimes I went to work with her (when I was little and she worked summers at the video store they allowed that!). I definitely never resented it-- just seemed like she did what she had to do to make money and it never occurred to me she shouldn't.
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@Ms.Badger: Same! My dad did just as much as my mom. It was great.
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I hated it and it has played a large role in my deciding to be a SAHM. Unfortunately I will have to go back to work when my babies go to school and then's when I hated it the most.
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@Mrs. Chocolate: I had a similar experience.
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@AprilFool: I had a similar experience and wonder if it has influenced me as well.
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My mom was a teacher and she taught part time til I was in kindergarten (I'm the youngest) then went full time. I found it inspirational and seem to be following in her footsteps! I'm also a teacher who will be working part time as of next year (full time now and I can't hack it).
I don't think any of my friends had stay at home moms in elementary school or high school. No woman in my extended family has every stayed at home, including my two grandmothers. -
My mom WOH, but she had a pretty unique situation because she was a consultant and could more or less make her own schedule. She was able to be class mom and PTA officer, come on field trips and go to basketball games. I didn't really know any different because most of the kids I knew had moms who worked as well, but my mom was much more present at school activities than most I knew. She also was the consistent source of income for the family. My dad owned his own business, and while it was moderately successful, the cash flow was irregular, while my mom had several steady consulting jobs.
It was a positive experience and I am not sure that I would have pursued the same path in life if my mom hadn't been such a positive roll model. I always said that I would strive to be like my mom was because I always felt like she was able to work and still be there for us most of the days, so I always assumed I would WOH (and I do, though I now would like to SAH and took an extended maternity leave.)
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@Madison43: thank you for posting this. My mom stayed at home until we we went to school, then worked as a teacher part time so she was always home when we were. Our lo won't have that luxury. I enjoy reading the responses.
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My mom was a teacher, worked until I was 4, then took off 7 years when my sister was born, then went back to work. I honestly don't remember it being that different when she was working vs. not (clearly I was a self-centered, oblivious kid!).
I do remember how grateful I was that she had a job when my dad got laid off and couldn't find a job for over a year. It was a stressful time but I felt secure because we could get by on her salary. It's one of the main reasons I WOH, because it helps me sleep at night to know that we're a two-career household.
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I loved that my mom had a career and I was very proud of her. I was 'watched' by my older sis and bro and 2 (sequential) home daycare providers. I loved my babysitters. I consider them two of the most influential women in my life ( my mom still comes out on top).
And on a side note, from very young I felt bad for the kids whose parents were over-involved at school. I remember being very thankful that my parents weren't always showing up, lol.
That being said, my parents weren't the most functional, so I never had any illusions that there'd be cookies waiting for me at home if my mom stayed at home. -
My mom worked (as a lawyer) but she was still super involved. In elementary school, she was president of the PTA, helped plan the spring fair my school had every year, and also made dinner pretty much every night. Looking back, I don't know how she even managed it all! I don't really have any memories of my parents not being there for me or anything. They went to work early so they would both always be home by six. I obviously don't know anything different, but I only have positive things to say about my experience. My mom (and dad!) are pretty much awesome
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I had a mother who always worked (I think she went back to work when I was a few months old). As a kid I didn't think much about my mom working because most of my friends (mostly through the before and after school programs at school) had similar families with two working parents. Despite working either my mom or dad was at every game/ competition/ activity I participated in. We did family dinners every night and either my mom or dad helped with homework. I remember my dad being very involved with my upbringing versus my mom but I think this is more because I had younger siblings not because she worked. As a child I knew my mom worked a lot in a job that she loved doing and that's something even as a child I respected and accepted. I was aware and ok with the fact that I was not number one in my moms life and sometimes other things came before me in importance (this sounds bad as I type this but I think there's something to be said about a mother SAH or WOH that has other important things in life outside of children). I was aware that my mom never was room mother, couldn't attend school events in the middle of the day, be there when I got home from school, or even take time off when I was sick etc. but I wouldnt say I was ever affected by it. I say bottom line kids are adaptable and if a parent is SAH, WOH, or somewhere in between its what a child accepts as their norm.
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This is a great thread. My mom WOH dyring my young childhood and then stopped working to help my dad run his business when I was about 10. It was great having her at all my functions when I was older.
I would like to work hard now, save money, etc so I can have some more flexibility when she is a little older and is making more memories of whether or not i am present.
I also thought if my mom was a SAHM I'd come home to cookies every night. I think I watched too much old tv shows and had unrealistic expectations.
On the flip side, I thought families with 2 parents working must be super rich!
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