posted
I read a good article in a church magazine about Streghtening Future Mothers and felt it was a really good article. The author pointed out that at no time on the face of the earth has the home and family been under more attack by satan that it is today. She wrote "Homemaking skills are becoming a lost art. When we lose the homemakers in a society, we create an emotional homelessness much like street homelessness with similar problems of despair, drugs, immorality. and lack of self-worth." Strenghtening Future Mothers, Liahona Magazine, June Issue, Susan W. Tanner, pages 16-20.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Feb 2005
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In a world that looks down on women who stay home and put their families first.....it is good to be reassurred that we are doing the right thing staying at home. Not everyone can do this and I feel blessed that I am able to be with my young kids and not be forced to cart them off to daycare. I give up a lot but I know it will be worth it. I feel sorry for women who do not have that, and must support their family by working. As for homemaking....I'm still learning and trying but it gets easier everyday.
Posts: 443 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Well, I for one am a bigger fan of women every day.
Yesterday, my younger sister (who is a wonderful homemaker, and who also works outside the home), put on a lovely family get-together barbecue. Not the first time. She pulled it off with what looked like ease.
We all brought something, so the whole thing wasn't dumped on her, but she did have to have a nice, clean house for everyone to come to, which is quite an achievement even without the food.
A few weeks ago, I was helping my neice put together a 5-course pre-mothers day meal. I was so stressed out by the end, that I was not the best host in the world.
I can't believe how easy you women make it all look. Really. Posts: 8601 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I have been pleased to see that being a SAHP seems to be becoming slightly more common, as well as more respected. If there was ever a time when it was a good idea to have a parent in the home, that time is now. We spend a lot of our time trying to keep our own culture out of our homes; something was not always so necessary.
Homemaking skills have been so disdained for the past generation that I think we are seeing a reaction in the opposite direction. We're discovering that it's nice to have a pleasant home that isn't filthy, that family meals are important, that good homemaking can foster family happiness and connections. It is not, whatever the ads and Ms. Stewart may want you to think, about obsessive cleaning and matching decor and crafts; it is about creating a pleasant space to live in (which, admittedly, does require some cleaning!), which can be done any number of ways.
Posts: 562 | Registered: Feb 2002
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many women are choosing to stay at home these days, it is not a sole perogative of latter day saints. I think it is wonderful that many women are choosing to stay at home, and that being a stay at home mother is now considered by society to be respectable, but I would hate to see a full turn in that we then see mothers who go to work, either out of choice or necessity being made to feel that they are less valued.
I was 26 when I first went to work, it was out of necessity, now I work out of choice, I have no children under 19 at home, but even when they were small, they were always cared for, my home was then and is now, immaculately clean, even if I don't possess a grand home with even grander furnishings, my children ate a home cooked meal every day and we did lots of things together.
My grandmother used to say that you can tell if you have been a successful parent by whether or not your adult children visit you, those of mine that have left home visit often, and I see my grandchildren regularly!
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I think the meme that SAHMs are disrespected is a myth. I only hear third-party anecdotal evidence, and most of that is rather dated, that women who stay home to care for their families get no respect. This idea is a manifestation of the culture of victimhood that is so prevalent in our society. Can someone please show me an example that they have personally witnessed, within the last year of this happening? Concrete examples, and not just someone misunderstanding a vague comment?
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quote: but I would hate to see a full turn in that we then see mothers who go to work, either out of choice or necessity being made to feel that they are less valued.
They are not less valued, but their role is less valuable.
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I agree with Ennui. My wife gets a lot of comments from mothers that are more along the lines of jealousy then disdain.
Posts: 1003 | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote: I think the meme that SAHMs are disrespected is a myth. I only hear third-party anecdotal evidence, and most of that is rather dated, that women who stay home to care for their families get no respect. This idea is a manifestation of the culture of victimhood that is so prevalent in our society. Can someone please show me an example that they have personally witnessed, within the last year of this happening? Concrete examples, and not just someone misunderstanding a vague comment?
I do think it largely depends on the crowd one hangs with. I can tell you that I personally experieinced it. IN my beginnings as a parent advocate, the assumption was that I was a high school graduate, bright but wasted potential because I really wasn't qualified to do "anything" else but PTA mom. Advisroy moms worked and held down porfessional positions.
Well, after realizing the perception I set them straight and succintly stated the reasons why I made the choice to stay at home with my two children and why I still stay at home with my soon to be 14 year old and my 12 1/2 year old. That is outside the home.
Inside the home, I had to recently out the reasons, to my husband, why I wasn't going back to work until the kids were in college. He takes for granted a lot of valuable things I do in the home ( BTW, I am not the greatest homemaker in the world) and how I take care of the school things. I went on to then point out that my activism doesn't consist of bake sales and fund raisers, but I , along with other liked mind parents, change policy in my school district. I am sitting on committees that write policy and monitor equity and we make a real difference in the district, little by little. Then I tossed him, Broward's CCC status report and asked him if this was light weight reading. He got the hint.
Watch any talk show like Oprah and you will see a clear line of demarkation between the SAHMs and the working moms.
BTW, a victim is a victim no matter what the issue is.
posted
I think it's all about perspective. Parents who stay home feel discrimination. Parents who do not stay home feel discrimination. It can happen to everyone no matter if you work or not. Those who think it only happens to stay-at-home parents are simply wrong.
Posts: 62 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Tehoa, nobody said that. This isn't about how all people are looked upon for their decisions, it is about a certain segment of women. We do not always have to be so quick to hop on a thread and talk about how the topic isn't addressing EVERY flippin' side of every flippin' equation. Some times, we should just be able to talk.
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Fair enough, trooperswife. Since I apparently don't know how to talk I'll concede defeat and scurry off to play with the grunting neanderthals.
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I think in many segments of society 'Stay at Home Mothers' are becoming more and more respected.
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I don't want to hear about "attitudes" when someone started working outside the home decades ago. I want a recent, smoking gun. I would be convinced if someone told me that this happened to them last week:
Random Guy: So, what do you do? SAHM: I'm a stay-at-home-mom for my three kids. Random Guy: What a pear-shaped loser you are! I can only respect your opinion if you have a "real" career. Get thee hence!
It doesn't count if it's something like this:
Random Guy: So, what do you do? SAHM: I'm a stay-at-home-mom for my three kids. Random Guy: Did you earn a college degree? SAHM: No/Yes, but I stay home now to take care of the kiddos. Random Guy: Don't you get bored?
The second example is not what I'd call disrespect. Maybe a little cluelessness and lack of tact, but not exactly rude or condescending, as seen objectively.
Posts: 583 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Ennui, I think my favorite was "I'm surprised you stay home. You seem so intelligent".
I am not recounting every stupid thing that has been said to me on the subject nor every stupid thing that I hear working moms say about SAHMs when I was working. I'm just saying that in my experience, it isn't a myth.
Posts: 1451 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Ennui, Don't you think, 1) it's a little silly to discuss whether they have really been disrespected or not, and 2) you're in an exceptionally bad position to judge it since you have no idea how they said it, what the facial/body language was, etc.? Women tend to pick up people's feelings on a subject better than men do. Why don't you just take their word for it that it happens occasionally?
Posts: 2205 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Tehoa, With all due respect, I don't think anyone was attacking you or your decisions. The frustration that trooperswife was expressing was the frustration that all of us are feeling (I think) about everyone personalizing everything and going on rabid "defense" mode even when talking about seemingly innocous topics like "temple marriage is good" and "staying at home with children is good". We are not attacking you or working moms. We would just like to discuss these things without people getting over-emotional about it.
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Haven't women worked for decades to achieve the freedom of choice? None of us should condemn another for making use of that choice. Stay home if you can, go to work if you want. We can do what is best for ourselves or our families. It's OUR choice!
Posts: 1765 | Registered: Apr 2004
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JimClay and EDG, I just think that the whole "SAHMs are disrespected" meme is an overblown myth. Being a myth doesn't mean that it never happens, just that it has been institutionalized and stereotyped and overdone so much that nobody questions the actual, everyday truth of it anymore. I don't think SAHMs get any less respect than working fathers. How many times do working fathers get congratulated for sacrificing their time away from their fammilies so that they can materially provide for them? Maybe as a footnote in a talk given on Father's Day, but not really any other time. But, as a working father, I don't gripe that the world doesn't respect me or my parental role.
Posts: 583 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Ennui, I posted on the previous SAHM thread about an instance where a neighborhood mom asked me to take part in a survey because I was a stay at home mom who basically "did nothing all day long," and who did "not contribute to society"(the quotes were her exact words). She went on to explain that she had been asked to participate in the survey but that she didn't qualify because she was contributing to society by working every day, and therefore I was the first person that came to her mind as a substitute for the survey.
Maybe this was an isolated incident with one idiotic woman, but I believe this mindset is more widespread than this. The fact that someone was doing a survey on the matter suggests it might be so.
By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I did not let her comments go by the wayside. I made sure she was no longer ignorant about SAHM's and what they do all day long!!! Posts: 605 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Some of the looking down on mothers of either persuasion is geographically centered. When we were in UT I frequently heard disparaging remarks about kids being raised by daycare so a mother could have a career. In CA the comments seemed to skew the other way, about talent/education being wasted in staying home. Of course, my memory is also skewed since I tend to remember the unkind comments directed at my situation.
My very biased opinion is that the disdain for staying at home is more prevalent.
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In my pre-retirement days I occasionally referred to my wife as a homemaking engineer. She is now the homemaking manager, with me as the gopher.
Posts: 134 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote: interrogation tactics put people on the defensive and aren't conducive to open discussion.
Interrogation tactics? I think you're reading WAY too much into this. In a text-only medium, what's the difference between interrogation and discussion?
My point is that people say things that aren't really quantifiable, such as "SAHMs don't get respect" and then don't back it up with evidence. A story about how a woman (notice how it's almost always a woman) once was rude to you because you are a SAHM is not real evidence of disrespect.
For the record, I respect SAHMs, especially my wife. I've never disrespected a woman for choice (or not) of vocation. I think that getting upset about "SAHMs being disrespected" is a tempest in a teapot, because I don't think that it's a particularly true meme. I think most people show a tremendous amount of respect for SAHMs.
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Referring to the title of this thread, we need more "homemaker's" and "mother's" what in the home? Love? Skills? Bread? Discipline?
Posts: 230 | Registered: Jan 2005
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If you ask for examples of disrespect and then discount the examples you are given and then conclude based on your dismisal of the evidence that there isn't any, you can pretty much prove anything.
Frankly, I think I deserve a little more respect for my opinion and life experience than this.
Posts: 1451 | Registered: Jun 2004
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EDG, I don't think I discounted the actual examples shown here. I just haven't had time to respond to them. I certainly don't disrespect you or your opinions. I thought my history here has shown that even when I disagree with you there's no rancor or personal attacks involved, by either of us.
Obviously we have had different anecdotal experiences. Barring some way of quantifying "disrespect", and collecting a large enough sample size, this subject will always eventually fall back to one person's experience against another person's experience. I just inelegantly expressed my view, which disagrees with yours. I guess we are at an impasse and must agree that we disagree on this subject.
Posts: 583 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote: Referring to the title of this thread, we need more "homemaker's" and "mother's" what in the home? Love? Skills? Bread? Discipline?
Hee. Thank you.
quote: A story about how a woman (notice how it's almost always a woman) once was rude to you because you are a SAHM is not real evidence of disrespect.
In response to this, I have a story about a man. Granted, not in the past year--this was maybe 8 years ago? Anyway, My AP history teacher tried very hard to convince me not to throw myself away when it came up in a discussion of college/career plans that I 'just' wanted to be a mother (after college).
Posts: 5737 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:I think in many segments of society 'Stay at Home Mothers' are becoming more and more respected.
The impression I get where I live is that the new trendy thing is to have the mother stay home, as a conspicuous sign that the family is wealthy enough to do without the second income: it's a status symbol, like an expensive car or a big house.
I'll probably have to work outside the home some when I have kids... however, thanks to my new degree , I can make more money working part-time than many unfortunate folks make working full-time-plus. My hourly wage as a librarian is more than three times what I was making as a bookstore clerk.
posted
FWIW, a blog of a 'fellow-student' at my soon-to-be law school. (scroll up... I goofed up and linked to the comments).
Offered as an example of what thought is 'out there,' and most definitely NOT as an invitation to comment on her sincere concerns. As I've gotten to know some of the young women I'll be rubbing shoulders with there, I can attest that there is a great deal of confusion about why women would want to raise children, about why a family should be a priority, and even about how to go about managing a household larger than oneself. I don't know if this answers the Ennui's request for current examples of 'dissing' motherhood, but I am not sure that's the real issue, anyway. The deal is that the reasons and reasoning behind the choice to put marriage and family first mystifies many young people, and that which mystifies is often feared. Such is the attitude I have seen.
posted
And thank you, Phil. Mothers should teach their children, among many other things, how to punctuate correctly. Posts: 1366 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Here's some interesting comments on the Ensign article by Julie, a blogger at timesandseasons.org.
Julie didn't think that the photographs accompanying the article did an effective job of portraying the really important aspects of motherhood.
quote:Sister Tanner begins her article by decrying the fact that even within the Church there is sometimes the sentiment that motherhood is not a worthwhile goal for a young woman. I am firmly convinced that this sentiment is sometimes the result of the false perception that full-time motherhood is a euphemism for unpaid maid. This is not a career choice that will appeal to many. Most of our young women do not have their hearts set on putting their best efforts into preparing pot roasts, floral arrangements, ironing, reading grocery labels, or sewing (all of which are pictured here. I didn’t include the cover picture in my count: there, a young woman is sewing a button on a shirt). And who can blame them? I have no beef with women who enjoy these things, but they are not prerequisites for enjoying motherhood any more than the defining characteristic of a stockbroker is one who really digs spending two hours per day on the train. There is one picture in this article that isn’t objectionable (except that it is almost too small to see): a young woman is reading her Book of Mormon. Scripture study prepares a woman to be a mother.
For most women, the physical acts of housekeeping are the price to be paid (as a doctor perhaps would consider the keeping of charts or a young lawyer doing document review) for the perks of the profession. The very next piece in this Ensign is a wonderful depiction of those perks: this sweet story tells of a two-year-old asking her mommy to ‘play Church’ and teach her.
Now, that’s the kind of teaching that the Church should be doing because Martha Stewart can’t. Real preparation for motherhood, as Sister Tanner clearly teaches (but the graphics undermine)involves someone who shapes souls, not meatloaves. We prepare young women to be mothers by teaching them that motherhood is so much more than keeping house. I think of housework as something to get out of the way so that I can teach my children, play with my baby, and persue my personal interests. (I also see it as a teaching opportunity for my kids.) But it doesn’t define me.
The overemphasis on physical housekeeping as the defining elements of motherhood is demeaning to women and destructive. It suggests that these skills are the pinnacle of a woman’s attainment. But the mother on the cover can teach her daughter to sew on a button in ten minutes. But she’ll spend countless hours modeling Christlike traits for that girl, and encouraging her to act according to her knowledge of the truth. Which is more important?
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Cooking, gardening, sewing, and yes, even cleaning are not demeaning. They are an opportunity to work with our children, to teach them that life does not need to be lived in the fast lane to be meaningful, to help them develop a sense of responsibility - - there are some things that have to be done whether you feel like it or not - - and to enjoy some relaxed time together. Some of our most memorable moments were had with our hands in a pot of petunias or a bowl full of flour. Homemaking doesn't consist ONLY of the mundane, but no apology is needed for those who find meaning and even enjoyment in performing and teaching life's simple tasks.
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and how I take care of the school things. I went on to then point out that my activism doesn't consist of bake sales and fund raisers, but I , along with other liked mind parents, change policy in my school district. I am sitting on committees that write policy and monitor equity and we make a real difference in the district, little by little.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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, I can make more money working part-time than many unfortunate folks make working full-time-plus.![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
what I was making as a bookstore clerk.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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