girls if you got married and had a baby would you stay home?

[cndlady]

I have to say that I think it depends on the daycare situation. Jenna goes to a home run daycare and all the kids love nanny bonnie. She take a max of 5 so it is better for the kids and her as she has more time for them.
Jenna misses nanny when she doesn't get to go for the couple of weeks that she is on holidays in the summer...she also misses her daycare friends.
She also does 2 half days of play school and 1 half day every other week of pre-K. I have to say that I think it has been a good thing for her..she had to learn to share and make nice w/ others...and she isn't afraid of mommy leaving her when she goes to ballet or swimming lessons.

[bcteagirl]

In the studies I read, even the children in the pristine well run, enriched, low adult to child ratio still showed negative effects.. that is what was so startling about it.

[StarDancer]

i'm not married i was in a relationship and i did have baby and i do stay home! I would really like to go and work. as much i love staying home with my son i would love to go and work and talk with other ppl and not just talk about kids and babies all day.

[iced_faerie]

I wanna be a Stay at home Mom..

[CanadaLovesFree]

If I had kids, I would be a SAHM... I have read enough of the primary literature to know that it is not good for kids, and worse if they are younger, or if it is for more hours a day.

Some of the research published in 'pop' psyc. journals or popular mommy type journals actually mis-represent the studies, which makes me so mad! (One re-interpreting a study showing negative effects as showing positive effects- the opposite of what the author herself said she found). Moms would *want* to know about the negative effects, but people go by the arguement that they have not choice but to put the kid in care and should not be made to feel bad about that. When meta-analyses are done on the actual *good* studies (taking out thhe ones designed to find what they want) it has been shown that even the best university designed daycares are not equal to family care, and can have long term consequences for children (but of course no one has studied very long term yet).

Fewer studies are being done, and people are being bullied as 'anti-daycare' when they cite concerns over misrepresentation of data, or crummy studies. One Dr. sited concerns in a reasonable manner stating that parents should have the right to know, and next thing you know there was a letter calling him a mysognist (spellling?)

Sorry, started off in child psyc. and did a large amount of research into this as it was an interst of mine at the time. It was a during my undergrad so don't have my references to hand out off the top of my head, but they are there.

Refering to SAHM's....the postivie influence of a parental figure being around. What about SAHD's (dads)? Quite often the onus is put on females to be there for the child, and dad's are left out of the picture (yes...quite often there is not a male figure to be present.. there are alot of single mothers who do not want to be in contact with father for various reasons, or do not know where father is.) But there still are many "nuclear" families (consisting of 2 parental figures--usually male and female) where reports like this put the emphasis on women/females being home/available for offspring.

Even when women work outside the home after having children, there is the notion that she must be "super mom"---work, take care of children, the domestic sphere. If her situation has a partner present, these duties should be equally divided.

I resent the societial notion that I, as a female, should have offspring, and that I am either left with the choice of "super mom" or SAHM. Where is my partner? Dad's on parternity leave?

My counsin and his partner reciently had a child. I asked him how they were going to go maternity/paternity leave. He reasoned that since he made more, he would stay working. Just a note: for every dollar a man makes, women make 73 cents (this is full time employment--average.) Therefore...with my cousins logic... most women would be staying home (at least for the period of paid maternity/paternity leave.) Also, note that all women in Canada make 54cents for every dollar a man makes. Question this inequality.

[bcteagirl]

I guess I should have used moms/dads when posting about parents in what I wrote, I certainly didnt meant to imply that only moms should stay home with kids, and only dads should work. The other way can work perfectly fine.
(I knew one girl who sat for a friend of mine... her husband was on 'paternity leave' and yet she brough her kids to work with her every single day..... I had it when people abuse the system!!).