Breadwinner or Stay-At-Home-Parent: Who has the plum position?
I told a man I know, who is a bachelor who works as a cook, that I knew about two couples who were disputing concerning care for a newborn. In both cases, the husband and the wife agreed that the baby should have parent care. In both cases, the man wanted to stay home and take care of the baby while the woman supported the family and the woman wanted to stay home and take care of the baby while the man supported the family. I asked my friend if he found it odd that in both cases staying home with the baby was considered the plum assignment.
“Why?” he asked. “Because the person who stays home with the baby has to change poopee diapers?”
“Yes,” I said.
“For the last several years, I’ve been mashing lambs’ testicles into meals called ‘lamb fries,’” he replied. “I have to grab a bunch of lamb testicles and it’s like trying to grab slices of soap in a bowl of snot. It’s disgusting. I’d just as soon stay home and change a few poopee diapers.”
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Stumble It!
May 31st, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Plum? Plum? Its so plum nothing else in an average life comes closer.
Let me explain. Way in our past, beyond 10,000 years ago, we lived similar lives in a different wrapper. In other words, mothers and fathers cared for their children, families tended to be a subgroup, etc… In this natural world a newborn was taken care of by the mom, because a mom had the active milk machines. The basic life was taking care of a living space that kept you close to your child so you can meet frequent feedings, and having food and supplies come in. depending on safety, she can gather plants and things that would augment the harder higher calorie meat that men would bring, with the CRITICAL B12 in it.
If you want to use an animal world example thing of some birds and animals who produce nests and dens and how in some the male must bring food since the mother has to tend the young and the living space, which in essence is keeping it healthy for such young and the male (depending on system/species whether he lives there or not).
So in essence, the most natural and close to original in form to original life pre high society, is to live a life where you have a place to live, can take care of it, do not work to have it, and take care of your family. This is true of women, and of men, though usually later in the childs life (not newborn). The major reason being that mom makes milk. But moms don’t make milk any more. well, most don’t. most buy natal fluid of another animal, or augmented soy products.
This means that in a world where someone has to earn a living to maintain a lifestyle way above what that base is as a modern base (note that we call people who have a home and electricity, running water, etc…poor). Sans a small trust fund, this is the only way to live closest to the natural way we lived (sans threats).
And think about it. you cant be fired. Other than being a total moron in a movie, its not hard. You bring up poop… give me a break. While a womans world, even today, is about her looks, cloths, associations… in general, she does not see the same things the guys do growing up. I will be tons of guys here will concure that in guys there can be a stage in which there is a general and varied interest in the disgusting. Not to mention we are the ones that tend to fix the toilets and things. Baby poopee? You haven’t seen bad till you have opened a pipe and discovered a mass of aged human swill and a tampon or pad that you said cant be flushed
To spend my day with my kid, and not have to deal with what I have to deal with. that’s a slider. No brainer. Where do I sign? Plum… so plum that women will complain about it to get martyr credits, but will not relinquish the job, as if martyr credits were everything. never had so many whined so much and refused to have their chains taken from them by someone they trust and love.
Kids aren’t that hard… not if you pay attention to them, teach them, make them a part of life and so forth… they become hard when you warehouse them, keep them like some kind of pet, over indulge them, and tons of other things that seem to be common parental practice now that the info doesn’t get passed down from moms and grandmoms and aunts and uncles. Each generation degrading from the last as there is too much to pass on.
Anyway…not to have the pressure of the whole future of the family on your shoulders and have only the missive of tidying up a house that only you are in most of the time, and the pleasure of feeding, playing, and just enjoying your child without worrying where the magic money that keeps everything stocked comes from. You get to choose what gets eaten rather than come home to pot luck in your own home. On nice days you can shirk cleaning and be in the park where you can read books, watch the game on a tiny tv while rocking the pram. go shop… and whats best is that you can pretend to be so pilloried by life that you can pawn some of that work off on the person who is away all day!
Oh… and as the kid gets older it gets more interesting and you can go more places, and have more fun doing things. Nothing gets you back to being like a child than being with your child. When was the last time you did something that you did when you were five? Have a kid and I guarantee that you will do it again, and more.
The potential is endless, and women in the past used that potential… today they go bonkers in boredom since they cant do anything (in the past they could write, read, compose poetry, play instruments, and such.. now they tend to show you their tattoo). Yeah I am being sarcastic, but not so far from the truth though.
Plum job…
As long as society around you don’t make it a living hell for being the wrong sex.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:35 pm
oh.. almost forgot to add in that home life description.. what do you have to do to get that and have that? well all you have to do is love someone you love… enjoy their company in bed because you love them… be nice not mean… throw a bit more in the pot when cooking for yourself and the kids… and give them a bit of space your willing to tidy up on… yeah… that sure is a backbreaking horrible set of tasks required to stay home and just live having no requirements on you except such minimums.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Having done the care giving job 24 hrs. a day for a few years for handicapped adults who were mentaly 4 year olds. It was the best and most fun job I’ve ever had even with the poopie pants and throw up cookies now and then.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Artfldgr said. And it was good.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I don’t think it should be about what one’s current job is vs. changing diapers.. that’s just pathetic.
I was fortunate enough to spend lots of time with my daughter from birth to when I go custody when she was 8 and until she moved out to go to school at 19.
I wouldn’t trade one second of it for any other “job”.
Selfish is as selfish does…
June 1st, 2007 at 2:12 am
Women always make out that child care is such a major task and such a complex, all involved and intemse occupation that it’s only they that do it properly.
I was the major carer with 4 kids under 5 and a ongoing sick wife who has spent 3 years in hospital over our married life.
Beat that ?
June 1st, 2007 at 5:25 am
I love the stay at home mom as sympathy card that we are regularly treated to. Ive seen it and done it…that being, treat it with the same vigor you would a job where you could be fired. My bro in law has it all done by noon, extra tidy place, AND homeschools the younger of his 7 child brood.
His place is the cleanest neatest in my whole extended family, and he is never stressed. He applies himself, organizes, delegates some, BAM, its done
June 1st, 2007 at 8:15 am
Did the single dad thing with my oldest (now pushing 30) from my first marriage. Which is why I guffaw with great gusto at the ubiquitous belief that mothers suffer from some kind of unique and overwhelming combination of stress and effort.
Baloney, bunk, and balderdash (I’m in an alliterative mood today).
It just takes organization, focus and a little effort just like anything else. No unique expenditure of effort or ’suffering’ of any kind at all. And that was coincident with a more than full time career I was managing at the time.
To be parenting at home full time with the little folks and all the attendant blessings has to be the best of all possible worlds. But I suppose, for some, it’s more emotionally rewarding to complain about it and play the martyr.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:40 am
It’s strange that commie Betty Friedan and her contemporaries argued during the 1950’s that middle class housewives greatest danger was BOREDOME!!! Click on the ARTS channel sometime for those retro newsclips of housewives getting robots to vacuum their floors (oh, we have those now!) and magical ovens that cook your food in seconds (we have those too.) We have dishwashers, laundry washer/driers, and even robotic lawnmowers (reminds me of “lawnmower man”…)
The only chore that’s not been automated away has been “childcare” which ironically has become a backdoor entryway for housewives to get support after divorce or as single mothers via backdoor alimony known as “child support”.
Gentlemen, do you notice women and the media spending more time harping on women’s value as housewives and baby making machines moreso than liberated career women? The feminists so crave to be relevent that they’ll even reverse (or invert) their ideology.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Hey man, add my name to the ever expanding list of fathers who have/are raising their kids. I work full time and have my daughter 24/7. When I first won custody I was scared, went to the local mall and watched mothers tending the young. I was amazed to discover none of them knew aquat about parenting. Bumbled their way thru lunch and rushed home at 4:00pm to make sure they were there when the real worker got home. To top it off they spent so much time yakking about nothing their kids were unattentended and unmanagable. Mall polioce did most of the parenting to keep the kids from killing each other.
It was stupid, they all had senseless theories about raising children that made no sense whatsoever. Worst behaved kids in the mall.
I’m sure those everexpanding “mommies” eating at McDonalds with their eeverexpanding children went home and told the bread earners they had to taken out after such a long hard day of watching the kids.
I’m with you guys,I cooked, cleaned, worked a full time job and made sure the law was applied on a constant basis.
I see these fools at the malls or the summer pools yakking all day about nothing. No wonder our youngsters are lagging behind in every major science.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:33 am
conservativation said,
My bro in law has it all done by noon…..
His place is the cleanest neatest in my whole extended family, and he is never stressed.
A huge part of that is because he would be looked down on (very harshly) if everything wasn’t perfect. Men can’t whine and complain about how ‘hard’ their life is. We’re just supposed to suck it up and deal with it.
Of course, if you’ve got a cherry job like his, what’s there to complain about?
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 am
Actually, if you complain enough about it, then folks will start to believe it. Then you can sit back, watch oprah and philly! If everyone (specifically men) knew just how simple it really is, then shit! The jig is up!
Another primary caregiver (AKA DAD!).
TMOTS
June 12th, 2007 at 9:09 am
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19092063/ leads to an article that points out the truth in this matter… that women do not like it if their husbands can handle the kids better than they can (probably because they are ’systemizers’)… bottom line is that women today are not happy no matter where they are as their ‘goals’ as stated and put on them by “other women” who know that you cant move in three mutually exclusive directions at once.
in the article it is clear that dads can be with the kids better than mom and brings out things that moms have no idea and they “never counted on that”.
it takes both parents to raise a child into a normal healthy individual… not one “in spite” of upbringing does ok, and says its a good thing… cause everyone of those people, i notice are deluded. they are not capable in their lives and they have turned being incapable into cache in which its better to be a incompetent opinionaites moron (as long as its the pc opionion der femnazi feurers have put forth), than it is to be a soft spoken, well rounded capable individual. (since i am the latter, i spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with those that are raised so complete that they have to ask me or else they dont know which end to wipe with toilet paper)
“Research also points to fathers playing more with their children, and through that play kids learn lots of things, like self-regulation, exploration, different uses of their body, sounds and space,” Garfield says. Mothers certainly play too, but they are usually more quiet and relational.