What it takes
Last week, in response to my post about income and SAHPs, Amy commented:
"If you’re a person who can live reasonably happily spending all day, every day with small children for 5-10 years — if you don’t require an intellectual life and work, sustained adult conversation, trips to the doctor or dentist where your priority is your health rather than keeping your child safe and amused, exercise, regular sleep, the security of a well-funded retirement account, an active resume, and a few other things — then sure, have at it."
I called this a "low blow" and she responded "in all honesty I have trouble understanding how someone with a serious intellectual life sustains the multiyear desert you get when you do fulltime childcare. I sure as hell couldn’t."
I disagree with Amy’s suggestion that full-time parenting is incompatible with an intellectual life, but agree with her that I’d have trouble doing it. (At some point, I realized that all my fantasies about being a stay-at-home parent involved school-age chidren.) But I don’t think it’s because my brain would rot. The two main reasons that I think T is better suited for being the at-home parent than I am are:
1) He doesn’t mind the lack of adult conversation. At the playground, he’s usually the one on the climbing structure with the kids, not on the bench trying to talk to the other adults, so he isn’t frustrated by the constant interruptions. He has some online forums where he hangs out in the evenings, but doesn’t miss the water-cooler conversations.
2) He’s not a multi-tasker. I know, this is counter-intuitive; aren’t SAHPs supposed to be the masters of multi-tasking? But it means that when he’s on the floor playing dinosaurs with the boys, he’s generally not stressing over whether the laundry’s getting done. Whatever he’s doing, he’s giving his attention to. I think I might get more done if I were the at-home parent, but I’d make myself crazy in the process.
Some interesting related links:
-
Dadventure’s list of tips for potential stay at home dads (which generally apply to moms as well). Via RebelDad.
-
Mommy Chronicles argues "in defense of the bake sale" and the skills involved in parenting (although I would suggest that parents who work for pay also do many of the things that she describes). Via Playground Revolution and MotherShock.
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:43 pm
I love that you mention NOT multitasking. As P. has gotten into the older-toddler stage, my habit (compulsion) to multitasking has started causing problems for both of us. I seem unable to walk from one room to the other without making detours to put things away, double-check my list, fold a quick piece of laundry, etc., and simultaneously with reading books with P. and even having conversations, I have an inner scheduler chattering away constantly (‘If I start the rice now, then I can unload the car and change a diaper, and then it’ll be time to cut up the vegetables…’). The result is that when something doesn’t go according to plan (what? With a 2 year old?) I get frustrated and impatient and we both have a hard time.
Thanks for the suggestion that I might not have to do this.
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:59 pm
Urgh…Amy’s comment *is* a rather low blow. Frankly, it is possible to maintain an intellectual life as a stay-at-home parent, but you have to work at it. It also helps to have an intellectually engaged partner/spouse as an outlet. Your intellectual life gets pushed to the fringes, but it’s still there.
When I was working, it wasn’t exactly an intellectual paradise, either. I worked long hours doing work that was often not intellectually stimulating, though it was often challenging and sometimes fun. Being a full-time parent is also often not intellectually stimulating, often challenging, and sometimes very fun. The main difference was that I had time to read while commuting via public transit. On the other hand, I didn’t get home from work usually until 8 or 8:30pm on a good night. Since the baby is generally in bed by 8pm, I get more one-on-one time with the DH than I did before.
November 2nd, 2005 at 11:55 pm
Hmmm. I missed that comment.
Now, I did part-time work back in CT, in my field. Maybe I can’t comment. And I’m finding SAH parenting increasingly frustrating. I’m ready to get back to work on my dissertation and get that tenure-track job already. But I would hardly consider my life at home with small children an intellectual wasteland. And quite a few of the small tasks of life (doctor’s appointments, for example) are easier to manage without both adults in our household having simultaneous paid work obligations.
Also, the act of raising children has parallels to the act of writing a dissertation (one of the purest forms of intellectual pursuit imagined — if not often realized). Children and dissertations both impose great responsibility, provide few day-to-day ways of getting positive feedback, can lead to isolation of not handled proactively, and impose huge amounts of scut work, interrupted with periodic ephiphanies of such intense joy, it’s hard to wrap your mind around them after its over.
I’m not entirely clear: is Amy critiquing stay-at-home parenting, or parenting altogether?
That all having been said, there are powerful arguments to be made against women or men withdrawing from the workforce for extended periods of time. The hit in social security contributions alone is substantial, and the resume gaps remain frighteningly daunting.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:06 am
Okay, I’ve read Amy’s comments. I’m glad she’s found a work/family balance that works for her, and I certainly appreciate her need for solid hours of child-free worktime. I, too, struggle with carving out those blocks of time. And my first year was a bit of a haze [/understatement].
But even as a full-time, stay-at-home parent, I managed to create syllabi and write lectures for two years’ worth of evening classes at a local university. I wrote and presented a professional paper. I still read important magazines cover-to-cover, and academic articles, too. There are many datapoints for parents, working, and childrearing, and no one should extrapolate too far from the particular and personal to the universal.
November 3rd, 2005 at 7:14 am
That multitasking thing–or lack of it–is important. Mr. Geeky is much better at handling the children than I am. In part, I think it’s because he has a one-track mind. We’ve joked about this before. But it’s quite helpful. Like you, I’m always thinking about what I have to do next or what’s not getting done because I’m playing with the children. I have to really make an effort to focus and not think about those other things. This is best accomplished on the weekend, though even then I have difficulty with it. I sometimes wish I weren’t that way, but I’ve come to recognize that I am and just try to deal with it.
I was a stay at home mom for a year. I got lucky and my son was a long napper. I was able to learn html, connected with other parents online, read books, and eventually studied for the GRE, both the general test and the literature subject test. I did miss adult conversation, but I managed to tap into the internet for that.
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I am a (mostly) SAHM with two very young kids and I wonder all the time whether staying home was the right decision for me. I really miss the intellectual challenges of my pre-baby job and of grad school before that but I agree with many of the others who have commented here that that isn’t what makes staying home so tough. I find that as long as I am willing to sacrifice some sleep I can stay up late and find all the intellectual community I could ever want online. I’m still hoping that someday I’ll find a playgroup/book club made up of similarly-inclined moms and dads whose kids are on the same nap schedule as mine.
November 3rd, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Hey there.
Jody writes:
“But even as a full-time, stay-at-home parent, I managed to create syllabi and write lectures for two years’ worth of evening classes at a local university. I wrote and presented a professional paper. I still read important magazines cover-to-cover, and academic articles, too. There are many datapoints for parents, working, and childrearing, and no one should extrapolate too far from the particular and personal to the universal.”
Jody, hats off to you.
Sure, I read magazines and articles (even whole books!) the first year, briefly took part in online debate. For a while I wrote papers, flogged myself to get some work done at 4 am so I could also get a run in before my husband went off to work. Organized and ran parents’ groups, served on a county board, wrote about them. But I was aware of the quality of my thought and writing being plodding, undisciplined, even confused, and of the fact that I didn’t have the time or energy for really shoving the plow point down, especially in the first year. (The second year was also a haze, since that’s when my husband was disabled. For me the stresses of the two — new baby, disabled husband — came out about even, though the baby took more time, and was certainly a nicer stress-generator). I look back from the standpoint of 25-30h/wk daycare and regular, uninterrupted sleep, and think of those years as subsistance, mindwise. I don’t consider that I did any serious work beyond raising my daughter and managing the disability fallout in those years. I did some preliminary work, maybe, and the experience is valuable, but I could not have done what I do now. Not while caring for her fulltime. An intellectual life pushed to the fringes is not, to me, an intellectual life & doesn’t allow time for the work.
I”m not sure I see why any of this should be a surprise. Nobody expects to do any other high-level professional work of complexity and depth while raising kids fulltime. My mistake was in thinking I wouldn’t mind dropping it for a while & underestimating how much of it I’d have to drop. Nor had I understood how fuzzy, mentally, chronic sleep deprivation can make you.
Oh — Jody, I agree about the parallels. The problem I see is that the SAH childrearing gives you everything but the sparky-mind part. (Sorry, I can’t keep intoning “intellectual” until somebody gives me a pipe.) I’m critiquing SAH parenting — or, rather, the idea that it’s possible to have the quality of the full- or even part-time work while doing it. That said, I’m talking about the traditional arrangement where the other parent goes off to first-shift paid work. I have a couple of young-fiction-writer/poet friends who’ve managed to have the wife (primary parent) retain something her old life, since the husband’s home plenty during the day, when she’s awake enough to do worthwhile work. She can go off for 3-4 hours midday and write, which is not the circumstance of most SAHPs.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Well, I have no excuse. I have a stay-home husband and I continued to work full time after both my kids were born, and my intellectual life, such as it was, went in the toilet too.
I never had time to read any more. I couldn’t get out in the evenings to see my friends; they didn’t understand my new baby obsessions or the fact that I couldn’t really drink while nursing. The chores were piling up at home and I was so exhausted from the night wakings that I couldn’t focus anyway.
I have always loved my career but at that point things were not rosy on the work front. Layoffs were rampant at my office, paranoia ruled. I spent my days applying and testing security patches to the same set of 50 servers over and over again. (The monotony was broken by every-other-day status meetings. I was ready to slash my wrists.)
I’m not sure what this experience means, except to say that it’s not necessarily the stay-home part of SAHP that challenges a person intellectually. Honestly? There are only so many hours in a day. Something’s gotta give when junior arrives, and “intellectual growth” is not a maintenance activity, as they say.
BTW my kids are now 2.5 and 4.5 and things are much closer to normal. The kids sleep thru the night, the chores are not so overwhelming, I changed jobs to get away from the endless patch-test life. I feel like myself again.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:26 pm
Is being SAHP intellectually stimulating? God, no. I mean I’m not sitting around discussing Kant or Rousseau with my three year old. I’m trying to get him to not pee on the toilet seat. But so what? That’s not why I’m staying at home.
However, by practicing my patented brand of distracted parenting, I’ve been able to maintain a daily blog for two years, finish a dissertation, write many conference papers, read a couple of shelves of books, and teach the occassional course.
And outside a small circle of egghead jobs, most jobs are not intellectually stimulating. My husband is alternates between stressed out and bored at his job. My neighbor is a secretary. I doubt she gets a charge out of processing her boss’s papers all day.
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:44 pm
I have done more writing since becoming a SAHM than I ever did as a single woman working a nine-to-five job with plenty of free time on her hands.
Like Laura, I have my own brand of “distracted parenting” except I call it “detachment parenting”.
It works for me and rather well, I might add. Once I got over the fact that I don’t bring home a paycheck, I found other things I can use to value my life (besides the fact that I’m raising my kids in a loving, caring, supportive environment), and I’ve never been happier.
It might not take intelligence, but being a SAHP definitely takes creativity.
November 3rd, 2005 at 9:34 pm
But, Amy, how would going back to work, part-time or full-time, have solved the sleep deprivation problem? How would it have solved the over-committed to caring for small entirely dependent people problem? I’m not convinced that the problem is the at-home part, or rather I’m not convinced that the solution to my fuzzy-headedness in those first 18-24 months would have been _more_ commitment to my intellectual life. As you point out, sleep deprivation is probably the biggest problem with infant care — and unless you hire a night nanny, some one or both parents are going to deal with it.
My husband, who was lucky enough to go on sabbatical for the first full academic year after the kids were born, still pisses and moans about his relatively low productivity during those two years, compared to his colleagues who didn’t have triplets.
I’m somewhat prepared to concede that parenting newborns through toddlers involves sacrifices of intellect. I’m not convinced that the problem is being at home per se, however.
None of which should be taken as an argument in favor of at-home parenting. I’m reasonably convinced that part-time arrangements for both parents would be the ideal. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and the strict division of labor worked best for us, with the least sacrifice. Would I feel better as a feminist if I’d been the one on the tenure track, while my partner had been the one to interrupt his Ph.D. to be the full-time caregiver? Sure, I guess. Truth be told, I wanted to be home, whatever the costs.
And now I’m ready to get back to work. I don’t think my _long term_ ability to think, argue, or pursuade will have been damaged by the hiatus from intense intellectual work. On the contrary, I’m far more enthused about my academic projects now than I was just before becoming pregnant.
November 3rd, 2005 at 11:19 pm
That’s a good question. And I bet you’re right, I bet the productivity and quality take a hit whether you’re SAH or at the office. But what I’ve seen is that the SAHP tends to get up more at night than the “working” parent, because the “working” parent can be fired. The “working” parent — assuming an intellectual job, say you’re a circuit-court judge or an academic chemist — also has both the time and call for sustained, deep (or at least complex), incisive thought. So I bet there’s a pretty sharp qualitative difference between SAHP and “working”, mindwise. (And sure, what someone else here said is true, most jobs have close to zero intellectual content, but that’s a different conversation.)
If I’d had even an adjunct faculty appointment, a part-time nanny, and an office with a door, I’d have gone to my office to sleep sometimes, work sometimes. The output would’ve dropped for sure, but I doubt I’d have had the overwhelming molasses feel in the head. The husband’s disability has pretty well killed off the prospect of more kids, but if a miracle happened tomorrow and he was cured, I’d still say no unless we had at least a part-time nanny for the baby.
Will there be long-term damage? No way to know, but I do sense that taking this much time off again would do real damage, if only because the absence and recovery would eat so many years of what I suspect is my prime for writing. I do know that I don’t write nearly as well as I used to, and I’ve been out of the game long enough that I don’t know what will come back & what’s just gone. (I can’t run as fast anymore, either, & training doesn’t make a dent. Have a half-assed idea about losing fast-twitch fibers rapidly during a months-long break in middle age, but who knows.) Or if whatever ability I grow will be better or worse than what might have been. After four months back at it I’m starting to remember the existence & names of tools I used to use, but it’ll be quite a while before I can take them for granted again.
Meh. The pneumonia says I’m done for tonight.
November 4th, 2005 at 10:13 am
There is no doubt that having kids puts a dent in your job and even dulls the mind. Studies show that women with kids are far less likely to get tenure and make less money than their childless counterparts. I’ll never wear a bikini again. And I shrunk from a B cup to an A cup after breastfeeding.
Some stuff like the income inequality we can seek to reform. The dull brain and the breast shrinkage not so much.
It sounds like your work is very important to you, Amy, and no judgement from me there. Kids take a toll on your work life and your personal life. If work is your priority than a halt to children sounds like a good plan for you.
What some of us found offensive in your original comment was not your claim that kids dull the mind, but the implicit assumption that anybody who stays home with their kids must not value intellectual life. SAHPs must be brainless martyrs. Ick.
November 4th, 2005 at 11:06 am
Thanks folks, this is very interesting. I have reams of posts circling my brain in this area, many dealing with the guilt I feel about not wanting to be completely a stay at home parent and not wanting to work full time, either. I, too, can better see myself at home full time once my kids are in school all day, and isn’t that sad? Or maybe it’s not, and I just need to get over it.
I will say I agree that something has to give in the baby/toddler years. I’m only working part time and have mostly full time child care, but the extra housework involved in having little kids around, the sleep deprivation, and general chaos have definitely cut into my reading, hobby time, travel, community service, etc. My career certainly won’t ever be what it would have if I hadn’t reproduced.
And that’s just how it goes. What I get out of being a mom more than makes up for the loss. I do see myself reclaiming some of my old interests as the kids grow up, and they’ve certainly opened doors to doing and thinking about lots of new things, too.
November 4th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
This has been a fascinating exchange to follow since I am at the beginning of what I foresee as an extended period of at-home parenting. My daughter is 6 months old and so far staying home has been a generally wonderful experience without a serious blow to the intellectual quality of my life. For the year and a half before my daughter was born, my work hadn’t been intellectually challenging and I found much solace and stimulation in outside interests – blogging, reading, etc. At least so far, I’m finding that I still have plenty of time to think about these interests while changing diapers or doing dishes and then I can squeeze in the actual writing or reading when my husband can take over baby duty. And I’m finding that the creativity required of my day-to-day life as well as observing the amazing process of my daughter’s intellectual and personality development outweighs the monotony of many jobs I’ve had. I don’t have a whole lot of intellectual conversations anymore, but most of my jobs never provided that anyway.
November 4th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
this has been v. interesting to read, as my partner and i are expecting our first child in may. as we are both a little older and very well established in our professional careers, we have the good fortune to have choices available to us that many only dream about — our plan is for us to both work part-time, and also to have a nanny.
i’m intending to take 6months or a year off of my job and then return part-time. this is acceptable to my employer, which works great for everyone. it should be noted that this isn’t about the money ~ it’s about getting me out of the house & giving me a job to do, other than being a SAHP. nothing against SAHP, of course, but it’s something that i have never ever in my life wanted to do and still have no interest.
that said, what i find most interesting in this discussion is the couching of the terms. for me, staying home for 6 months or 1 year is not being a SAHP; it’s taking maternity (or family, to not be gender specific) leave. the definition in my head of being a SAHP involves dropping out of the workforce for multiple years at a minimum, if not for good. and of course, it’s a shame that family leave is not a financial option for so many parents; a lot of parents have no choice but to have both parents back at work immediately after the baby is born.
but included in my decision to take a maternity leave break from my job is the idea, however accurate that may be, that there is going to be a period of time, a few months at least, where i’m going to be fuzzy-headed & sleep-deprived and not doing much of anything besides breast-feeding and changing diapers. the occasional outing to the park, a little yard work, a little yoga practice, and a book or two being read could happen when they happen, but (for my own rationalizations as much as anything) i don’t look at this as being a SAHP. i look at this as having a young baby.
again, because i’m older and as well-established in my career as i’m going to get, perhaps this sacrifice of however many months appears to not be so terrible ~ i don’t have to live in a state of scarcity where i would fear i wouldn’t be able to get back into it, that i would have lost my brains forever. i know i would have felt this way had i had a child when i was younger.
November 4th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
T. offers the following comment:
Consider three propositions:
1. T maintains an intellectual life
2. IF a person is a full-time parent THEN they do not maintain an intellectual life
3. T is a full-time parent.
Obviously these three are incompatible as stated. People demonstrate some revealed preferences in the way they choose to evaluate the propositions:
SYLLOGISM #1:
T is a full-time parent, AND
IF a person is a full-time parent THEN they do not maintain an intellectual life
THEREFORE the proposal “T maintains an intellectual life” is not true.
SYLLOGISM #2:
T is a full-time parent AND
T maintains an intellectual life
THEREFORE the proposal “IF a person is a full-time parent THEN they do
not maintain an intellectual life” is not true.
I see the attraction of Syllogism #1 for Amy. It lets her feel that she made the best effort humanly possible, but the problem of maintaining an intellectual life while caring for kids is just insurmountable, by anyone, period.
I hope that, given the explanation above, Amy can see that Syllogism #1 is INTENSELY insulting to me, no matter how you sugar-coat it. It is saying “This thing you think about yourself? Well, I don’t know you, I’ve never met you, but I know that you’re wrong.”
As far as I’m concerned, propositions #1 and #3 are observed facts, and Syllogism #2 is solid bed-rock. If you want to argue that people who keep their brains functioning can’t be real parents, come out and say it. If you want to argue that what a full-time parent considers an intellectual life doesn’t live up to your more elevated standards, come out and say it.
Don’t just dump the axioms out there and imagine that we won’t connect the dots. I’m a parent. I’m not stupid.
November 4th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
Thank you, T!
November 4th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
Next week I will start my sixth year of stay-at-home motherhood. I have three boys – figuring-out-the-world five and eleven-twelfths, figuring out his moving-into-boyhood-self three-and-a-half, and learning-how-to-talk and how-everything-works nineteen months. I do not feel that I am in a multiyear desert. In fact, I feel that I have grown considerably in my time as a SAHM. I am a better person – more patient, more able to see that little actions can add up to big changes, more thoughtful about personal relationships, more knowledgeable about how the world works for real people, and with more ideas about how to make it work better. I have fabulous smart and thoughtful friends, most of whom are also stay-at-home parents. I know that staying at home can be difficult for some people, but it isn’t for everyone. Some have found/created/tapped into wonderful communities of like-minded people who nurture each-other’s spiritual and intellectual growth in the time they can find for each other.
Alison (almost skipping the “intellectual life” credentialing of two Ivy League degrees)
November 5th, 2005 at 10:38 am
What continues to amaze me as I start my second year of SAHMing is the constant sniping and judgement. What the hell difference is it to Amy, or anyone else, what someone chooses to do with their life and who dubbed her Intellectual Judgement Gal who gets to say whether or not a SAHP has an intellectual life?
Based on reading this blog, it’s obvious that Elizabeth is very bright. I cannot believe that she was be with someone who wasn’t equally bright. Therefore, until I have incontrovertible proof otherwise, I think T is brilliant. And that’s my judgement.
November 5th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
You know, I’ve been stewing about Amy’s comments for a few days now, writing various rebuttals and explanations in my head, and (more positively) thinking about how my intellectual life has expanded in the past few years of SAH-parenthood despite having abandoned academia. Granted, my kids are 8 and 3, and the sleep deprivation is *mostly* over.
But I think everyone else has already said it all for me. Except that anyone who has values sleep as a priority had better be prepared for a major sacrifice when they have children, whether they work fulltime, p/t, or as unpaid caregiver after their child’s birth, whatever their intellectual goals or capabilities, unless they have a fulltime nanny or nurse.
Furthermore, Amy’s list of the other necessities you must be willing to forgo in order to be a SAH parent (exercise, savings, career opportunities) implies that all are equally unobtainable when “staying home”, or that the chances for these were abundant before leaving work. This probably just isn’t true for many parents below the upper middle class, at least. So it is only upper class parents that really suffer by staying home? The implication is certainly that only by having all these resources can you also have a rich intellectual life.
November 5th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
Great blog and great post. I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now and wanted to say hi.
As somebody who knows T, he IS a wonderful stay at home dad, and smart too. One day, I gave him a ride to pick up his then 2 year old from school, but couldn’t give him a ride home. When it was time to pick up his son, T stood in the carpool line and pretended to become a car (he really went all out and became completely immersed in the task). All the parents in line were amused, but I’ll never forget the look of pure delight on his son’s face when he saw his father. I still think about this moment from time to time.
I’ll echo some the other comments that I find great satisfaction in staying home with my children full-time while still having a great quality of life. Throughout parenthood, I’ve worked from 0 to 30 hours per week and I don’t feel like working really contributed or detracted to my intellectual capacity. I am fortunate though that I am surrounded by supportive family and friends. I commend this blog for maintaining a supportive environment for people with a variety of work-life situations. In my experience, encouragement to make the most for yourself and your family is what matters. When we are judged on this (e.g. full time parents aren’t x or working parents are y), it detracts from the community of supportive parenting, I think.
November 6th, 2005 at 2:07 am
I second the commendation for this blog. Thank you for maintaining a supportive environment for people with a variety of work-life situations.
By the way, I am in my mid-30s with two children under four, and I get enough exercise while “staying at home” with them — riding bikes, walking the trails, etc. — that, without specifically training, I was able to scale a 7800 ft. mountain in Oregon with a group of seven men. They didn’t have to slow down for me, either!
So. Whatever you value.
November 6th, 2005 at 6:12 am
I’ve found this a fascinating exchange. Although I’m in the same work/family situation as you, I always appreciate your acknowledgement of others in different situations.
I think your point about T not being a multi-tasker was very discerning. I’ve found when I am the one at home by myself with the boys, I find myself always thinking beyond the current fascinating play situation to what else needs to happen with the day. Whereas Evan is much more able to enjoy the moment.
As someone who is unambiguously in business (a place not known for its intellectual life) I find some of this discussion of intellectual life a bit limiting. My intellectual life (in a narrow sense) has never had anything to do with my job, as my job involves valuing companies, and understanding the risks they are exposed to. So whether or not I’m working in that job has nothing to do with my intellectual life.
But having children has slowed my intellectual life down, as lack of sleep, and a desire to spend some of my previous “intellectual” time with my children has reduced my available time for intellectual pursuits.
November 12th, 2005 at 11:12 pm
checking in late, back from the semi-dead. It’s amazing how much codeine people will prescribe if you look polite & middle-class, have a rattling lungy cough, and don’t beg. As the last doc wrote out a script for the gallon jug, I asked her if this was really a good idea, since I’ve already got problems with insomnia and don’t want any kind of crazy rebound keeping me up. “Oh, well, yeah, that could be a problem,” she says, and signs the script. So all you codeine junkies out there, now you know the drill.
This is too old to revive, but just ftr, I’m not equating “intellectual life/work” with brights or education. They’re not the same things. Lots of bright people out there, maybe most, who don’t have much to do with intellectual work. Lots of people with letter decorations who are neither bright nor intellectual. And I’m not saying there’s no value in SAHPing or that people who don’t want the intellectual gig shouldn’t get nice restaurant tables. I’m saying that I don’t see that SAHPing’s compatible with serious intellectual work & the life that goes with it. I don’t think it’s compatible with running govt agencies or mid-sized family businesses, either.
For what it’s worth, T, yes, I think that if you’re telling me you have a rich intellectual life & work, and you’re a SAHP, you’re probably wrong about one of them. Maybe such a wunderparent exists, but I ain’t met that cat yet. Still talking about SAHPs to young (0-5) kids, btw.
People who feel I’m judging them, not to worry. I’m not that interested, and besides, who the hell am I to you? Rest easy.
To the family with the part-time jobs & nanny: I think you’ve got a terrific setup. Interesting point about SAHP v. maternity leave.
November 13th, 2005 at 9:33 pm
Amy, what exactly is your definition of “intellectual life/work”? Please give some concrete examples of what does and doesn’t pass your bar. My interpretation of your definition of intellectual life and work is something that you are paid to do full time outside of the home. That’s the only reason I can think of that you think SAHPing is incompatible with an intellectual life.
November 14th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
For me? Well, here’s what I’m doing today, mostly at home while my daughter’s in daycare:
-finish reading Sarna’s commentary on the first chapter of Genesis, with particular attention to Hebrew v. Christian-English connotations & storecounter-social implications of the differences, mostly in light of a short story I’m working on
-finish reading review of Harold Bloom’s new book & sense of Christian/Jewish irreconcilability, again in light of the story & a disturbing thought I had last night about which Jewish groups may actually be “the future of Judaism,” which will likely also work its way into the story
-work on story outline
-first read through a children’s story I wrote long ago and abandoned, for revision
-reply to email, w/conversations about how people use search engines, nonfiction forms, and attempts to translate the Torah out of Hebrew
-talk to a woman about designing her website
-finish watching “Magnolia”
-kid/family stuff
-exercise
I’d say everything but the exercise, website design & kid/family stuff falls under “intellectual life and work” (though I’ll probably be tossing around some ideas about a nonfiction project while I run). What comes out of it that involves money? Almost nothing. You’re lucky to get paid for stories at all. Ordinarily I’d look for a part-time job to support the other stuff, teaching or grocery, probably, but luckily I don’t need to right now.
A lot of artists & writers live & work this way. The work itself doesn’t pay, and given the markets you can’t expect it to; you do something for money on the side & live skinny. An expensive way to live, but if it’s important to you, it’s worthwhile.