any old-school housewives??

[KittyVonKirsche]

Ive worked in daycare n I would NEVER send any child of mine to one

 

[VintageVixie]

My mom was a traditional housewife and mother until my younger sis was 9 and circumstances had to change. I think it gave my sisters and I invaluable, priceless times that would never have happened otherwise. And she got to see us grow, learn, and guide us herself.

 

[Tikismall]

As a child my mother worked so much and it was due to the lack of support on her "better halfs" end.
Sadly, we missed some times with her as children that she, to this day gets real misty over.

She is an awesome mother though and even when she was working grave yard she still took us to school in the morning.
I remember a conversation with her about traditional housewives and she said she kind of wished she had the opportunity to be at home with us a lot more. But she also wanted the freedom to work, which some ladies did have and sometimes had to do.

It worked out in the long run! My brother and I love her to pieces

 

[Retro_Lass]

I'm thirty and still single. I've been engaged several times.I have notoriously bad luck with men who pretend to be that which they are not.
Since my sister was born, when I was nine, I have wanted to be a housewife, stay at home Mum. Nothing would make me happier. If I can't have an old fashioned, traditional home, then I will never get married or have children. I feel that strongly about it.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

I retired at 40. I stay at home with my boy; just turned 3. Now my life is an adventure. I am the "de facto" music director/performer and only guy around in his playgroups.

This was by design. I cook etc etc etc. He will be going to pre-school next year. I am not looking forward to that. I am going to miss him and it will kill me.

I do not know if that is "old fashioned" and I am not a housewife. So I hope this fits in this topic[huh]

 

[RebeccaMUA]

I retired at 40. I stay at home with my boy; just turned 3. Now my life is an adventure. I am the "de facto" music director/performer and only guy around in his playgroups.

This was by design. I cook etc etc etc. He will be going to pre-school next year. I am not looking forward to that. I am going to miss him and it will kill me.

I do not know if that is "old fashioned" and I am not a housewife. So I hope this fits in this topic[huh]

that's so fantastic

 

[exquisitebones]

stay at home dads are awesome.

daddies FTW!!

 

[Lillemor]

Mom was never stay-at-home. Dad was for the first five years of my life, I think. I take after my dad. I've been a stay at-home since the end of 98 when I became pregnant between quitting job and looking for a career future. I never foresaw this as a future for me. No one did.

We have three boys. The oldest one has infantile Autism, the youngest one has psychomotoric retardation. So it's a good thing that I enjoy what I do because now it's not really a choice.

Before anyone attacks me - No, we didn't know the first thing about mental disabilities or that perhaps it runs in my father in-laws side of the family. The oldest one wasn't diagnosed until we'd had the youngest one so there's nothing we could've done differently and despite all we have to deal with, they're lovely boys and not just a burden. With the right help they don't have to be just a burden on society; they may be able to contribute to some extend. fftopic: Sorry, out of habit I always explain my situation and defend it.

I may not have much to document on paper, no diplomas, no degree and my high school diploma is useless in Denmark but my time with my boys, contact with NHS (chronic health problems in the family), social services and just coping with our situation has taught me so many skills and I've had so many useful lessons in LIFE that I can't imagine I would've got any where else. I'm grateful for this.

My husband doesn't earn more than others. It's about choices and we accept that there are things we must go without for this arrangement to work out for us in the 21st Century. I'm not getting anything from the state but obviously we need help with the boys.

It saddens me when people consider staying at home low status and assume that there must be something wrong with you since "you can't do better". I get so fed up with "it must be lonely", or "so do you watch all the soaps", or "how do you pass time". I put my foot down early when it came to babysitting other people's children. I don't have more time than anyone else and in our situation having other's children around wouldn't work.

Ultimately, it's different what's right for different people and families. There's no one right way. I don't assume that because me being a homemaker is best for my family and something I enjoy, that others should feel the same way too.

I'm not for or against. Yup, cook, clean, wash, grocery shopping or send the list on e-mail to hub if it's too much for me to carry. I'm so old school housewife that I don't drive.lol I have a license, but we only have one car. I haven't driven since 97 because since moving home to Denmark and finally getting a car with automatic gear, I've realized that my vision and hearing is so poor that as a responsible adult, I had to make the decision not to drive for everyone's safety. I enjoy looking more and more like a stereotype of a 50s housewife and I've added apron dresses to my wish list.

 

[Lillemor]

Reading others experiences, how it affected them and the choices they made for themselves made me think of how my MIL was a homemaker except for in hard times where she worked out of necessity. Both of my SILs are career women and neither have children. They resent anything that remotely smacks of homemaking.

My mother was very career orientated and not very hands on. She's a typical old school feminist. We've moved around because of her changing jobs, I've attended different schools and was very unhappy in kindergarten.

My oldest had to go to daycare for a year before starting kindergarten because the council didn't listen to me at first when I insisted there was nothing wrong with us but our son needed to be diagnosed and get some professional help. I fought with the social services for 5+ years before they took me seriously. So my middle one had to go to daycare and kindergarten too. I refused to let my youngest go to daycare but he's in a special needs group in kindergarten.

I think the time my oldest and middle one spent in daycare was wasted and I think they suffered for it. I think I can do better what the kindergarten did for my oldest and are now doing for my youngest if my boys had been diagnosed earlier and I'd been given some training in stimulating them the right way. Instead my boys have been dependent on staff having enough time for their special needs which they haven't always been able to meet and right now they're understaffed and my youngest is often left to sit and rock in one place. This isn't personal, I know all the staff regret the situation. So I've used the smallest excuse to keep him home; anything that might look like a bad cold or hint of a flu.

Things I've taught them at home like polite manners, washing hands, looking away and coughing into your hand, saying please and thank you even before they could really talk (late talkers but they talk like waterfalls now - just like their mother!) got lost as soon as they started in kindergarten!!!

Edit/moderate/delete if needed. I always get a bit wound up on this subject.

 

[kamikat]

I retired at 40. I stay at home with my boy; just turned 3. Now my life is an adventure. I am the "de facto" music director/performer and only guy around in his playgroups.

This was by design. I cook etc etc etc. He will be going to pre-school next year. I am not looking forward to that. I am going to miss him and it will kill me.

I do not know if that is "old fashioned" and I am not a housewife. So I hope this fits in this topic[huh]

I don't care who's home with the kids as long as it's a parent. I think it's fantastic that you stay home. Is it lonely for you? When my kids were little, there was always one, MAYBE two, dads hanging around and the women didn't really try to include them. I was good friends with a stay-at-home dad for a while, until they moved. Not only were his kids the same age, but his dogs were the same breed and age as mine. Our playdates always included kids AND dogs.

 

[kamikat]

Lillemor, I think it's great that you are home for your kids. It's even more important when there are special issues. I know it's not quite the same, but when my youngest was little, he had a TON of food allergies. I spent all my days cooking and baking so that he could have safe foods. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I was working. Last year, the school thought my older son might have dyslexia. I spent so much time in meetings and working with the teachers and my son. I would not have been able to do that while working. Special needs children need a stay-at-home parent even more than other children. Good for you!

 

[Lillemor]

Very few people realize that special needs children are a full time job where most of your time is taken up with filling out applications, stupid questionaires, writing e-mails, calling around, logistics managements to arrange a meeting between x, y, and z, attending meetings, and a lengthier daily report from kindergarten and school which I either get word of mouth or have to read in the evening.

 

[Caity Lynn]

^ That's great! my dad 's done the stay at home thing so has my mom lol tell the truth, my dad's the better cook

my mother was a stay at home mom (excluding tax season, my grandmother owns a tax office and it was mandatory work lol the family didn't have a chance) until I was in the 7th grade, then she and my father worked at my school, so it may as well have been stay at home lol we all practically lived there.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Lillemor, I'm sorry to hear about some of the challenges you are facing, and even sorrier to hear that you often have to defend your lifestyle.
I have found it amazing how many people think that my lifestyle is their business. Many of them are cool with all kinds of alternative lifestyles, just not the traditional one... :eusa_doh: It does get frustrating.

And you are also right that it is all about choices. My husband makes less than a number of people I know, but we still make it on one income. Of course we only have the one car, and we do without cable and high speed internet. We don't eat out all the time, and our vacations are significantly more humble, but we are willing to do that to have the lifestyle we choose.

Having been a teacher, I know just what you mean about paperwork and meetings and all that stuff. I knew working mothers of children with special needs, some of them single, and I have no idea how they did it, bless them. I also sympathize about the adequacy of care for children with special needs in the public system. I know I knocked myself out every day trying to give each kid what they needed, and at the end of the day was still frustrated trying to figure out how to do more... I think you are doing right by your children. Keep up the good work Lillemor!!

 

[Lillemor]

I'm so happy to read the stories of others who have made this by contemporary standards; unusual lifestyle choice.lol While I'm sad that others have some of the same experiences from their surroundings, I'm also relieved that I'm not alone.

It's sad that some people are still "awkward" around stay-at-home dads. I don't recall my dad and I ever doing anything with anyone else but I didn't notice so in worst case it was "just" lonely for my dad. of course, that's sad enough in itself.

 

[kamikat]

And you are also right that it is all about choices. My husband makes less than a number of people I know, but we still make it on one income. Of course we only have the one car, and we do without cable and high speed internet. We don't eat out all the time, and our vacations are significantly more humble, but we are willing to do that to have the lifestyle we choose.

Sometimes, I feel guilty about being able to stay home. In our case, alot of it has to do with luck. We bought our house about 6 months before the real estate boom took off. A year later, the house across the street from us went for double what we paid for ours. That family scrimped and scraped to move to a better neighborhood so their kids could go to a better school. Because of the market, the mom has no choice but to work. People always assume we're better off than we are, because of the neighborhood, but the reality is that we paid next to nothing for the house because of the timing.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Sometimes, I feel guilty about being able to stay home. In our case, alot of it has to do with luck. We bought our house about 6 months before the real estate boom took off. A year later, the house across the street from us went for double what we paid for ours. That family scrimped and scraped to move to a better neighborhood so their kids could go to a better school. Because of the market, the mom has no choice but to work. People always assume we're better off than we are, because of the neighborhood, but the reality is that we paid next to nothing for the house because of the timing.

I'll give you, I probably didn't phrase that as well as I could have, especially considering the current economic contraction, and I realize I am fortunate to be able to stay home. It's just that over time I have become frustrated by the leagues of women who I hear say that they could never afford to make it on one income while sporting a several hundred to thousand dollar bag on their arm, discussing their latest tropical vacation or discussing the several movies they saw in the previous week. :eusa_doh:

While it may not be true at this particular moment in time, I believe that a lot more women could have stayed home in the recent past if they really wanted to. The key is that they couldn't have had the jet set, designer clothes, luxury car, high-end electronic kind of lifestyle that they want and still stay home. I think that a lot of us currently think of luxury goods as necessities. People feel that they can't do without cell phones, high speed internet, cable, fancy vacations and high end electronics. It's not true of everyone by any stretch, but the statistics of overspending and the average debt of families in America tends to support my thoughts on this.

You're right that Fortune's favor has a lot to do with where we end up in life, but so do the choices we make, and I think it is up for debate which is more influential.

 

[stephie.jean]

I retired at 40. I stay at home with my boy; just turned 3. Now my life is an adventure. I am the "de facto" music director/performer and only guy around in his playgroups.

This was by design. I cook etc etc etc. He will be going to pre-school next year. I am not looking forward to that. I am going to miss him and it will kill me.

I do not know if that is "old fashioned" and I am not a housewife. So I hope this fits in this topic[huh]

Carlisle Blues--that's great! I was just thinking about this the other day--my dad, although working, was still a stay-at-home dad (Truth be told, both of my parents worked, but we never had a babysitter). This was in the early 80s, and I was wondering if this was more common today. My mother was a stay-at-home mom until we were all school-age. At that point, my dad quit his job and started his own business, so that he could be home for us, and so that my mom could finish her graduate degree and join the workforce like she wanted. That way he could work from home when needed and choose his hours. So while they were both gone/working during the day while we were school age and at school, they were always home for us after school (or practice)--right up until we left for college.

I guess I was really lucky like that. And it's pretty funny reminiscing about my otherwise old-school macho-dad playing Mr. Mom and french braiding my hair for the school day.

 

[Lillemor]

Carlisle Blues, you're just a little late. Would've been great to have had another adult male around my dad when he was alone with me so I would've had less adult talk to listen to.

 

[RebeccaDoll]

Still a bit young to be thinking about a married life - but I so want to be a housewife, I loved everyones stories (I read the entire thread) and even through the heart ache I think it suits me. Maybe I would finally get some sewing done!