For alot of SAHM,s I was one for 20 years, I think isolation can be a problem, maybe it's not for men. I did not regret it for one second though,even if I had a lot less than my working mother contempories.
"While interviewing for my new wife," I do hope this was said tongue in cheek!
I have always appreciated what my mother did for us. I myself plan on being a SAHM b/c I want to be a part of my children's lives. My circumstances and technology has progressed to where I can do both.
That being said - those of us that work, men and women, also worked hard to get to where we are in our careers today. I make good money but it did not fall into my lap. And it has nothing to do with who I M. In my case, my M held me back career-wise.
It would be nice to receive some validation of those efforts instead of always being treated like our efforts are any less than theirs. And I think H's would also appreciate it if their W's treated their jobs as being as important as their own work as SAHM.
I suppose my post is polarized as well b/c I am tired of hearing how women that do not have children are somehow selfish and self centered people that have no idea what it is like to work hard. And I am tired of hearing how working women raise children that are somehow inferior to children of mothers that stay at home. It generates that urge in me to toss down the gauntlet.
And I think this issue is more personal to those that had to pay to make The X's go away. It has taken me 5 years to recover financially from a M that lasted 5 years.
And while many women do not M men based on their incomes - there are many that do. If anyone has any doubts - they are welcome to join me at my neighborhood rich housewife bunco party and hear women admit first hand that they M for money. Or call the University of Texas Law School in Austin and ask them why they have a policy of no non-law students in the law library.
It's too bad folks in all of these different positions don't take a walk in each others' shoes.
I started as a secretary, went back to school for almost 2 full 'school' years.....left to marry....was a SAHM for 7 years, got divorced, went ba ck to school (pretty much started over)I have been a professional now for 8 years. For me....SAHM was the most stressful.....you're always on. Not everyone has the same experiences in each of these situations, though. Some have it easier at home, some have it easier at work.
sg Love is PATIENT, love is KIND, LOVE never fails / DB since 2001
My suburb publishes two magazines. It is an upper middle class to upper class suburb.
Two types of families live here. Working couples and couples with SAHM. One of them recently published an article about the animosity that exists between the two groups of women.
As for men - they would be tarred and feathered for daring to sugggest that their work is comparable in stress and value to that of a SAHM.
I like NMD b/c he dares to go to places that are sometimes controversial. I am sorry there is a no contact policy. I would really enjoy having these spirited discussions with you and your W over a couple of beers.
I have wasted a lot of time today and need to get back to my cushy stressfree work - part of the life of a selfish woman that has chosen to establish a career. A part of me is wondering if I may be able to do it while I am asleep - really there are no children involved - so how hard can it really be. After all - pretty much any SAHM can earn the degrees I have, etablish a 20 year work history and do what I do for a living.
I am off to surf millionaires.com. In my case, the future H's income really needs to be significant for me to be able to give up my cushy life as a working professional, switch to a hard working SAHM and be able to earn that alimony as opposed to being on the hook for paying it out.
I think in your post to me - you once said the most important phrase for a man to learn is "yes dear."
That also applies to working women that sometimes socialize with stay at home mothers. There is no higher caling in life than bearing children, staying at home to raise them. I usually said nothing when I ventured out to socialize with the rich housewives in my neighborhood. There was no point - I was the selfish self centered single woman that led a cushy life - as long as I didn't give birth - as far as they were concerned it diminished my value as a woman. And I listened to them bash their inconsiderate H's that went on business trips apparently for the sole purpose of leaving them alone to manage the kids, H's that could not do dishes right or run a dishwasher, answered their cell phones while on vacation, never spent enough time with the kids, and on and on and on... I think I actually spent more time socializing with their pets than the humans there.
I can understand splitting assets acquired during an M. I can understand child support. But alimony - well it is designed as a tribute to stay at home mothers.
You could invent a cure for cancer, patent it and bring in a gagilion dollars in income. Many stay at home mothers believe their contribution to the M trumps anything anyone does or achieves at work and so they are entitled to future payments for "sacrifices" they made by virtue of being M to the man.
I posted earlier why I was so happy this weekend. One of my paragraphs explains that one of the reasons is that I am limiting my social circle to people of my heritage, women that work and male girlfriends. I ventured out and am not as happy - so I am scurrying back to hanging out with like-minded people.
Your W is a very lucky woman. I hope I find someone that thinks like you someday.
Well - I suppose it is appropriate that I go out with a bang as my time on the BB nears its end. I have been censored so many times in the last 5 years that I have lost count. And none of my posts were about sex! LOL!
I started as a secretary, went back to school for almost 2 full 'school' years
I know all work experience is the same... Since we are exchanging resumes...
I worked for 5 years as an electrical engineer. I have a BSEE - specializing in communications and control systems. I spent 1 year as a digital design engineer in a pressure instrumentation company and then 4 years at NASA training astronauts in the shuttle computor systems and navigation systems for flight specific shuttle missions. I also worked on my MBA while working 50 hours weeks at NASA.
I went to law school for three years.
Since 1997 I have been working as a patent attorney. I have experience in patent prosecution, litigation and licensing. Law firm billing requirements range from 1800-2000 billable hours. That roughly works out to 8.5 hours per day. That is not worked hours - it is billable to a client hours. It takes roughly 10-11 hours to bill 8.5 hours. I was also required to do 200 hours per year of marketing and 200 hours per year of community service.
I started my own firm 3 years ago and primarily handle patent prosecution and work as a contract in-house attorney for Humongo Client. My in-house counsel role includes managing a number of large patent portfolios. My duties including sending out and supervising work that I send out to 30-50 law firms globally. This requires that not only that I be familiar with US patent law - but have a handle on international standards of patentability. I provide patent prosecution support on major IP licensing deals.
I am the youngest person at Humongo Client with my level of responsibility. Outside counsel, like myself are rarely given this much responsibility internal to a large corporation on the scale of humongo client.
I am 43 years old. I started working when I was 22. That is 21 years. Minus the 3 years of law school - that would be 18 years.
I have heard the "I have done both and the SAHM role is harder many times." I have never heard that from a woman that has spent at 18 years in the workforce. My first few years on the job were far less stressful than my job today. Stress increases with experience - especially if you move up.
As for my assistant - she is the wind beneath my wings. As for stress - the buck always stops with me - even if the mistake is hers. Mistakes do stress her out b/c she has a phenominal work ethic. However - I take the heat. That also holds true for the law firms I hire to work for me. I supervise them. If they make a mistake that slips past me - once again the buck stops with me. I take the heat. I do not go running to my boss every time I have a problem managing outside counsel with respect to attitude - I deal with the stress and I handle it. Many of the people I manage are 20-30 years older than me.
If one of the hundreds of patents I supervise is ever challenged - the lawsuit is in the millions. I am on the hook and will be called in to testify. A patent is valid for 20 years.
I have no idea why I am trying to establish that people that work experience just as much stress and work just as hard as SAHM. I guess after 18 years of silence - really I have had it with being classified as a person that is not as "on" or works just as hard as a SAHM.
As for the children part. I am in the process of adopting as a single parent. And while raising children will be a significant aspect of my life. It will not define me as a human being. It will be a component of what defines me as a human being.
The way I feel now is why I decided to not socialize with housewives - there really is absolutely no point. And quite frankly the continuous H bashing gets old really fast.
I am also socializing more with the people of Indian heritage I met at the last seminar and it feels better than the rich housewife group. There is less or no alcohol and less talk about sex - and more about politics and current events. And no one hits on me. I am gaining a new appreciation of my heritage. The other part of my social group is through work.
Needed to remind myself why I felt such a sense of peace this past weekend.
When The X left - he said his C had said that our R was toxic. Made me angry at the time. But really there is an element of truth - clearly he and I did not have a synergistic R. Towards the end of my M - I lacked the capacity to hear The X and he lacked the capacity to hear me. It was all reactive pain and gunk. Michele helped me de-escalate - but it was a little too late. We had both done too much damage to the R. Yes, I have posted about what he did. Well - he actually has quite a few legitimate things to post about me.
And several posts ago when I started accepting that being different was not a bad thing - it was just work accepting the gap simply cannot be bridged between certain groups if the differences lead to a toxic R. And in that case, you have to accept and move on.
When I left the large firm environment - I left b/c it did not work for me. I had to overcome a sense of failure at times and work towards - it is not about failing - I was just not suited for that environment. Selectively firing clients b/c they cause angst - once again accepting that a professional R with these clients was just not going to work for me.
I use to be angry with people that voted for W twice - posted all about that too. Now - well I have just moved away from those people. Clearly an R between people that view brown caucasions as suspect terrorists and brown caucasions - is just not a good fit.
Once again applying the principles I applied in my professional life to my personal life. The reason I am happy interacting with the groups I listed last weekend is b/c they are compatible R's. I guess there is a spectrum ranging comfortable to toxic.
My exchanges on the BB these past few hours reaffirms what I learned when I tried socializng with the rich housewives after I started working out of my home. Most of my GF's that work thought I was nuts for even thinking there was a possiblity of bridging the gap.
It just is not a good fit. I had posted about the sense of entitlement - the ability to spend money that H worked hard to earn on all sorts of luxuries while continuously bashing them for being inadequate as H's and as fathers. It caught me off guard how similar their tones were to that of some of the LBS's on the BB.
And of course my B-Day celebration with M GF - where I heard the most ludicrous statement of entitlement to date : having an affair with a 22 year old and telling her H that she was going to do it b/c he was inadequate as a H and b/c she had had 4 children with her H.
Life is too short to interact with people that are just not a good fit. As the years pass - I find myself gravitating increasinly away from idealism towards realism. Yes, in a ideal world - we would all get along. In the real world - well - not going to happen.
So onto the things that I enjoy doing in my life. My disease of the month was Parkinsons in June. I volunteered at the beer tent to help raise money for abused children and prevention of domestic violence in July. Breast cancer walk is Oct. I need to start looking for something for August. My goal is to do something for a charity - any charity every month. I don't want to be in charge of anything - I want to volunteer as a grunt. It is a great way to meet people while maybe giving a little something back to the universe.
That is very wise..... People are either like us or not.... There is no sense in trying to fit a square peg into a round hole...
That is why I chose not to wait around too long for WAW after the D was final... She is who she is.... She has her own core values (or lack thereof).... I was not going to waste my time attempting to convince her our M was worth working on......
NMD
Last edited by No_More_Dodo; 07/22/0804:52 PM.
"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. That is what makes a marriage last --more than passion or even sex!" - Simone Signoret
"While interviewing for my new wife," I do hope this was said tongue in cheek!
naej,
No, that was pretty much how it was... I talked to several dozen women..... I met a couple dozen......... I flew to a few fun cities to meet a few.....
But, in the end, my M was "arranged"......... I was told by God this is the one....... I said, "Yes, Lord." I just walked through the steps being me every step of the way........ I believe I am now married to the most wonderful woman on the planet...... She is so much more than I ever dreamed...
NMD
"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. That is what makes a marriage last --more than passion or even sex!" - Simone Signoret
