[SmilingBluEyes]

What man needs be comforted in his choice to stay at home with the kids?

I guess I don't get why people look outside all the time for affirmation as to what they are doing is right at HOME. that is what choice is about. You make it, you stand by it, and you don't feel you have to defend it, if you are secure. And the trend IS growing. As the SPOUSES CLUB name would imply. It's not just women choosing to be home for the kids anymore. So if women are main providers, they should expect to be paid equally. The old argument that men should be paid more cause they are primary breadwinners is DEAD, but still being used. That I guess, is what I mean to say in order to stay on topic here.

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by SmilingBluEyes

What man needs be comforted in his choice to stay at home with the kids?

I guess I don't get why people look outside all the time for affirmation as to what they are doing is right at HOME. that is what choice is about. You make it, you stand by it, and you don't feel you have to defend it, if you are secure. And the trend IS growing. As the SPOUSES CLUB name would imply. It's not just women choosing to be home for the kids anymore. So if women are main providers, they should expect to be paid equally. The old argument that men should be paid more cause they are primary breadwinners is DEAD, but still being used. That I guess, is what I mean to say in order to stay on topic here.

Woot!

[SmilingBluEyes]

Cherish, "serious" to me , also, is the original topic at hand.

That women are paid less for equal work, experience and education in this day and age is plain wrong and unjustifiable. That it is up for debate at all is not only serious, but puzzling to me.

Tweety, thank you for the respectful point of view. I hear what you are saying. I guess our choices sometimes change to reflect our changing lives. This would apply to any of us. I remember, When I was in college, I would have DIED if anyone told me I would give up my fulltime career to be home with two kids, let alone homeschooling them. I would have NEVER wanted to become "my mother". I was an INDEPENDENT WOMAN of post-women's lib age after all. You see, girls are making decisions in highschool that DO refect changing times around them, it is so true. But high school is a far cry from age 35 and post-life-experience.

So they (girls) often revise their decisions as they get older and start families. I think it's great women have the choices they do today. A girl today can aspire to be a pilot, soldier, EMT, professor, lawyer, whatever. It was not true in my Mom's time coming up in the early 60s. I just find it quite interesting that despite this, many of us are instead choosing to stay home and raise our kids. Or men are doing so. It's about choice, and I think that is a wonderful thing!

[Tweety]

Deb, I agree that in this day and age there are so many more freedoms. Freedom for a man to still be a man and stay at home with kids, freedom of a mom to put a career on hold and raise kids. Freedom of choice and opportunity for all!

You're right about women changing their tune after babies are born. Before I was nurse I was a clerk and there was a female executive who was a staunch feminist than quit and gave up big bucks to be with her child. Same thing happened to a coworker who would beat you senseless if you told her she would get married, have a child and be a SAHM, but that's exactly what she did over the course a one year.

I'm very disappointed to read that in nursing men make more than females. That men make more than females in any profression is wrong, but in nursing it's down right obscene.

[SmilingBluEyes]

ON that we agree 100%. Its not only obscene but ironic when you consider nursing is overwhelmingly female. The reasons why are up for debate, yes, but as to whether it's right should NOT be.

[DC2RN]

I think it is great that women have more choices. I think we have reached a point in society where nobody with a straight face would argue that a man should make more than a women for the same job. NOBODY believes that in 2004. In their careers, women do have more choices than ever before.

......But, choices have consequences. If a women makes the choice to stay at home, she is making a choice that ultimately will bring her down the payscale in the future. There is nothing sexist about it. This is the reality even in a unionized hospital where the payscale is public and uniform to all and entirely based on seniority.

The reality is that many more women choose to stay at home than men. Maybe this is slowly changing, but overwhelmingly, it is the mothers who stay home with the kids if one of the parents chooses to stay home.

I know so many women who would love to stay home with their kids, including my wife, but feel trapped in a lifestyle that forces them to work. In the end, women who feel forced back to work will make a higher payrate, because they have more years on the job. But often they feel resentful of the time with their family that they had to give up. Pay rate is not the only important variable in life.

[Dayray]

In many foreign countries it is expected that 1 parent will stay home with the children. Some foreign countries even pay a 1 year maternity leave.

I'm not sure where it was (think it was Holland) where people were paid for 3 years to stay home with no specification as to which parent it was. Sadly I think they were going to change it because of abuses.

It is too bad that our society doesn't place a priority on parents doing this. Sure everyone should be allowed to have choices and if they don't want to stay home okay but It's too bad that it's not an option for more.

I read an interesting article that tracked the cost of living and pay from WW2 on. It said that after the war many families had 2 incomes and as this become the norm our economy has adjusted to it so that in order to maintain the same standard of living as 1 income house house pre WW2 a family now needs to have 2 incomes because the job market has adjusted for a larger work force. makes allot of sense when you think about it.

My wife stayed home until my youngest was 5, now she is back in school and planning to start work. It was hard to survive on 1 income but I'm glad we did it.

As a side note: When we got married we decided that one of us would stay home to raise the kids. Originally I was going to be the one to stay home but it didn't end up that way. I have no regrets I did stay home with 4 children for about 6 months at one point in our marriage and I feel that I go the better end of the deal being the one to work lol.

On the subject of men staying home: I can see allot of the points made by both sides. There are people out there that would make fun of a stay at home dad but I agree with deb. They wouldn't make as much fun as they do of male nurses.

I think the bigger obstacle to this would be the pre-programming of the man himself. I have had friends and relatives that were stay at home dads for a time and they had a real hard time with it. Not that they didn't like being with their kids but they felt like they were getting a free ride and needed encouragement that they were making a contribution to the family.

[SmilingBluEyes]

GREAT post dayray!

[NP2BE]

Originally Posted by Cherish

I am not giving an opinion, and really don't feel as passionate about the issue as you are have posted from your REPLYs to everyone. I think everyone else is really not stating more or less there OPINION but REALITY. You are stating your OPINION, which is great, but if you look at the WHOLE picture, you will see that in REALITY society is not willing comforting the stay at home dad. NOW my OPINION would be I don't care if your a stay at home, mom, dad, dog, or cat, but that you take care of your family and finances, and that you enjoy life. THAT is what matters (but thats my OPINION; Society sees it another way and that would be the Reality of it). LOL....
THIS WILL BE MY LAST POST SINCE I DON'T WANT A DEBATE BECAUSE IT REALLY ISN'T THAT SERIOUS. SERIOUS WOULD BE THAT CHIMPANZEE's ARE ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT IN 50 YRS AND SO ARE a TYPE OF KILLER WHALES IN ALASKA, and BELUGA WHALEs. OR THAT THE EARTH WAS ABOUT TO FLY IN THE SUN.

Cherish, thanks for seeing my point, and communicating it more effectively than I did. My opinon is, I don't care who stays at home and does what, but like you said, the reality is, Society has never and is a long way from accepting a man who wants nothing more than to be a housewife

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by NP2BE

Cherish, thanks for seeing my point, and communicating it more effectively than I did. My opinon is, I don't care who stays at home and does what, but like you said, the reality is, Society has never and is a long way from accepting a man who wants nothing more than to be a housewife

I think you and Deb might have been talking about two different things. You were talking reality, she was talking how it should be, or even how it might be becoming.

I think society is more accepting of a man who chooses to be a stay at home dad. I still think it's rare to find someone whose only ambition is to be a stay at home dad, and it's also becoming increasingly rare for females to want only this for themselves.