Depending on your source of information, one can argue if we are seeing a decline or an increase in families choosing to have a stay at home parent. Certainly the recession has resulted in, most likely unintentionally, an increase in the number of stay at home parents. However, regardless of the direction the trends show, there are, in my estimation, at least 3 key reasons why we see so many families choosing to be two income households (at the expense of their kids, in my humble opinion), and to avoid the suspense, it is NOT because two incomes are needed to raise a family.
First and foremost, the United States has become a society fixated on consumption. We have become a society of immediate gratification, one that prioritizes wants often times at the expense of needs. Keeping up with the Jones' has become a way of life. This paradigm of consumption leads to the predisposition that both the Mom and the Dad must work in order to provide for themselves and their children. Case in point, let's look at an extreme case of how fixated, we as a society, are on consumption. Recently, the Heritage Foundation (a think tank focused on conservative public policy) released a series of statistics that profile the typical "poor" American household. In 2010, the poverty line was drawn at $22,314 (pre-tax and not including any governmental "handouts") for a family of four. Now, putting the definition of poor aside (they use the current definition utilized by the Social Security Administration which unfortunately, is a complete joke and is an insult to the truly poor Americans, but that is another story), here are some statistics about the average poor household in the United States:
1. The typical "poor" household in America has a car
2. 78% of "poor" households in America have air conditioning
3. 64% of "poor" households in America have cable or satellite TV .. most have two TVs, along with a DVD player and VCR
4. Most "poor" households in America with children have a gaming system such as an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii
5. 38% of "poor" households in America have a personal computer
6. Most "poor" households in America have a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. They also have other household appliances such as a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
7. The typical "poor" American has more living space than the average European.
8. The typical "poor" American family is able to obtain medical care when needed.
9. The average "poor" household in America claims to have sufficient funds to meet their most basic needs.
Is this the image you have in your mind when thinking about the American poor household? It is certainly not the image I had, hence why I think it does a disservice to the real poor Americans. That aside, according to these statistics, the things that the "poorest" Americans are struggling to pay for are pure luxuries, the game systems, the cable bill, satellite t.v., electronics, etc..., not the necessities such as food, shelter and clothing. My point with all of this is that our desire as Americans to have the "luxuries" in life materially distort our perceptions of what is necessary to live and more importantly, to raise a family.
Second, somewhere along the way the role of stay at home parent has become viewed as less desirable, a "choice of last resort" or even subordinate to, and less rewarding than, a career outside the home. There seems to be a belief that a stay at home parent is not contributing to society to the same degree as a person who works outside the home. I think there are likely several reasons why this has become the case but certainly some of the roots can be traced back to the second wave of the feminist movement during the 1960's to 1980's. This part of the feminist movement was arguably kicked off by a book written by Betty Friedan called "The Feminine Mystique". In this book, writing as a housewife and mother, Friedan talks about the "problem with no name", the dissatisfaction of educated, middle class women in a post war era society that denied women the opportunity to develop their own identities and encouraged women to confine their roles to housewife and mother, forsaking all of their other aspirations. Regardless of the validity of Friedan's research in the book (I am not critiquing her work here and certainly not trying to engage in a discussion about gender and the expectations in society, etc...) it called into question the role of a stay at home parent, inviting the connotation of being a narrowly defined role that was unfulfilling, unrewarding and unsatisfactory.
Third, and tied strongly to my view that the decision to have a family and subsequently raise your own children are not mutually exclusive, we as a people have lost our sense of personal responsibility when it comes to the choices we make, when it comes to our actions. We have become a society with little to no personal accountability. We continually seek to place blame on everything but ourselves for our problems, choices and actions. This is a very disturbing trend given that we were a nation founded on the ideals of rugged individualism. We see this trend demonstrated in all facets of life, from people suing fast food chains for making their coffee too hot or for making their food too fattening. If you end up stealing something, it is a function of socioeconomic forces. Unplanned pregnancies and young mothers blame poor sex education or lack of access to contraceptives. Murders have been blamed on race, easy access to weapons, violent movies and video games, etc... If your child does not make the soccer team, or does poorly on a test, it is the coaches fault or the teachers fault, not that your child is just no earthly good at soccer or did not study hard enough for the test. To bring the issue closer to home, to be more relevant to the purpose of this post, a child must go to daycare because you cannot raise a family on one income due to socioeconomic factors, due to not being able to find a better job, due to the high cost of living where you live, etc... Rather than accepting personal responsibility and accountability for raising your own child, people blame outside forces as the reason for putting their children into daycare. Rather than choosing to move to a lower cost area, doing without certain luxuries, postponing the decision to have a family, etc... we as a society would rather just place blame as opposed to making the hard choices required to take responsibility for our actions and decisions. So, why is this the case? What can it be attributed to? In my opinion, it is tied to the lack of appreciation for our roots, for the origins of our country and for the origins of our ancestors, our grandparents and great grandparents. The younger generations currently living in this country, in the wealth of the post WWII era, have had it pretty easy (relatively speaking), we have had a lot "given" to us rather than having to struggle for it ourselves. Generally, we have not experienced the hardships that our grandparents suffered, and as such when faced with hardship, the tendancy is to blame something or someone else.
It is with these three factors in mind and the resulting decline in the prevalence of stay at home parents that I will discuss (in my next post) my theory regarding how this decline and the increase in two income households has harmed our country's economy and exacerbated our most recent recession.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Stay at Home Parents...Grim Statistics & Additional Context on my Views...Part 1
A few posts ago I shared a high level view about our decision to have my wife be a stay at home mommy while our children are young and not in school. I also indicated that my beliefs regarding the importance of a stay at home parent run pretty deep, and that I would expand on them in a future post. This will be one of several posts that attempts to provide my point of view and opinions on how the decision of how a stay at home parent is ultimately the best possible outcome, not only for the parents and children, but also how stay at home parents contribute to the economic stability of our nation.
First and foremost, I want to clarify some things about my position on this topic. I am an advocate for there being a stay at home PARENT. While in the case of my family it happens to be the mommy, I am in no way against or not advocating for all those stay at home dads out there. My hat goes off to them, it is the toughest job you will ever love. Dad or mom, the important thing is that the parents of the child are making a decision to have one of them (whom it ends up being is a personal decision) stay at home with their children.
Second, I do not equate a stay a home parent and permanent homemaker as one in the same. What I mean here is that once the children are in school full time, I think that it then becomes optional regarding whether or not the stay at home parent continues to choose to stay at home during the day. The one caveat here is that if the parent does choose to return to work, there needs to be an appropriate accommodation made such that one of the parents has the flexibility to be home when the kids leave for school and when they return home from school. In fact, it probably becomes even more crucial (for a variety of reasons), as the children get older, for there to be a parent home when they return from school. So, given this, the timeframe to be a "full time" stay at home parent is about 5 years (the time between the birth of a child and when that same child goes to school full time). Thus, a five year commitment (obviously longer if you have successive children) for couples to plan for one or the other to be home with their child.
Finally, as I discussed during my prior post, the decision to have children and the decision of whether or not to have a parent stay home with those children is not, and should never be considered mutually exclusive. I am pretty black and white about this one. If there is a decision to start a family, one of the parents stays home with the children...end of story. If the belief is that you cannot afford to, or are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to allow for one parent to stay home, then you should not start a family at that point in time...period. A bit harsh, perhaps...but part of the responsibility of having a family is to raise your own children, and make a plan, prior to having children, to allow this to happen. This does not mean you pay someone to watch / raise your children so you can go to work. It means that you make the required sacrifices so one parent stays home to care for the children. Mother nature is even kind enough to give you about 9 months to prepare (or in the case of adoption, couples can often have longer) or from another viewpoint, time to adjust to living on one income prior to that bundle of joy coming home.
Now, there is likely great debate about the factors that contribute to the lack of stay at home parents in today's society. But, before I tackle those factors (I will do so in my next post), let's review some of the statistics...
There are, per the most recent 2010 census data:
120 million households in the U.S.
34 million households with children
23 million married couple households with children
18 million married households with both parents working
10 million married households with children under the age of 5
11 million households with children, single parents
5 million married couple households with a stay a home parent
Regarding the children under the age of 5:
20 million children under the age of 5
10 million children in the care of either their mother or father
10 million children in non parental or organized daycare.
Out of all the households in America with children, less than 15% have a stay at home parent. If we look at just the married households with children, that jumps up to about 22%. Looking purely at the data, and assuming that all the married households with a stay at home parent have children under 5 (likely a gross over estimation), about 50% of the married households with children under 5 have a stay at home parent. That translates to roughly 5 million married households with children under 5 where both parents are working. Framed up another way, 50% of all children under the age of 5, or 10 million children, are in some form of organized daycare or non parental care.
That is 10 million too many in my view...
First and foremost, I want to clarify some things about my position on this topic. I am an advocate for there being a stay at home PARENT. While in the case of my family it happens to be the mommy, I am in no way against or not advocating for all those stay at home dads out there. My hat goes off to them, it is the toughest job you will ever love. Dad or mom, the important thing is that the parents of the child are making a decision to have one of them (whom it ends up being is a personal decision) stay at home with their children.
Second, I do not equate a stay a home parent and permanent homemaker as one in the same. What I mean here is that once the children are in school full time, I think that it then becomes optional regarding whether or not the stay at home parent continues to choose to stay at home during the day. The one caveat here is that if the parent does choose to return to work, there needs to be an appropriate accommodation made such that one of the parents has the flexibility to be home when the kids leave for school and when they return home from school. In fact, it probably becomes even more crucial (for a variety of reasons), as the children get older, for there to be a parent home when they return from school. So, given this, the timeframe to be a "full time" stay at home parent is about 5 years (the time between the birth of a child and when that same child goes to school full time). Thus, a five year commitment (obviously longer if you have successive children) for couples to plan for one or the other to be home with their child.
Finally, as I discussed during my prior post, the decision to have children and the decision of whether or not to have a parent stay home with those children is not, and should never be considered mutually exclusive. I am pretty black and white about this one. If there is a decision to start a family, one of the parents stays home with the children...end of story. If the belief is that you cannot afford to, or are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to allow for one parent to stay home, then you should not start a family at that point in time...period. A bit harsh, perhaps...but part of the responsibility of having a family is to raise your own children, and make a plan, prior to having children, to allow this to happen. This does not mean you pay someone to watch / raise your children so you can go to work. It means that you make the required sacrifices so one parent stays home to care for the children. Mother nature is even kind enough to give you about 9 months to prepare (or in the case of adoption, couples can often have longer) or from another viewpoint, time to adjust to living on one income prior to that bundle of joy coming home.
Now, there is likely great debate about the factors that contribute to the lack of stay at home parents in today's society. But, before I tackle those factors (I will do so in my next post), let's review some of the statistics...
There are, per the most recent 2010 census data:
120 million households in the U.S.
34 million households with children
23 million married couple households with children
18 million married households with both parents working
10 million married households with children under the age of 5
11 million households with children, single parents
5 million married couple households with a stay a home parent
Regarding the children under the age of 5:
20 million children under the age of 5
10 million children in the care of either their mother or father
10 million children in non parental or organized daycare.
Out of all the households in America with children, less than 15% have a stay at home parent. If we look at just the married households with children, that jumps up to about 22%. Looking purely at the data, and assuming that all the married households with a stay at home parent have children under 5 (likely a gross over estimation), about 50% of the married households with children under 5 have a stay at home parent. That translates to roughly 5 million married households with children under 5 where both parents are working. Framed up another way, 50% of all children under the age of 5, or 10 million children, are in some form of organized daycare or non parental care.
That is 10 million too many in my view...
Friday, October 14, 2011
A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work
I thought this video was pretty cute...it is also possibly a little "eye opening" because it is a reflection of how modern day electronics (and how one man's ability and vision to create beautiful products, that people want to use, that fundamentally have changed how we utilize, share and consume information...thank you Steve Jobs) have impacted our lives and the lives of our children. It is not a bad thing necessarily, after all, my entire blog is being written and published primarily from my iPad, and I am admittedly, to my wife's chagrin, a technology junkie, but instead it is a reality check for the amazing times we live in, and a window into what life will look like for our children.
A Motorcycle's Impact...
Back in the spring of 1999, I rode out of the Honda/Suzuki dealership in Waterville, ME with one of my largest purchases since graduating college the spring before...a brand new motorcycle, a Suzuki Katana 750. At the time, it was the only thing that I owned to which I held the title. It was mine... My wife and I have a lot of fond memories on that motorcycle, from just going for a leisurely ride around town to "flying" down interstate 95 (I think we might have broken the 130 mph mark a few times..., yes, this was BC - before children). When we were married in the fall of 2000, several of our wedding pictures were taken on that bike. We rode it to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, ME. I even got my mother, the woman that told me once that it would be over her dead body when I got a motorcycle, to ride on it with me during one of her trips to visit Tiffany and I in Maine. (granted it was just in the hotel parking lot). We enjoyed riding with friends of ours, who also had bikes. When my wife and I were buying our first house, we rode the motorcycle by the house nearly every evening while we were waiting for the sale to close.
The motorcycle was a symbol of independence. Thinking back there was probably an element of maturity to it (believe it or not) regarding a young man (although that does suggest that I may not be a young man any longer...bummer) who was starting to forge his own path in life, make his own choices, control his own destiny...
Now, fast forward 12 years. Between getting married, full time employment, starting a family (a child born in each of the following years, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011), enrolling in an MBA program in 2000 and finishing in 2005 (the "one class per semester" plan), two corporate driven moves and all the rights of passage and other life events that occurred in between, I found myself looking at my motorcycle this spring (2011) and reflecting on the mileage on the bike and realizing that despite all the memories, we really have not ridden this motorcycle all that much. There was only 6200 miles on a 16 year old bike (the model year was 1995, it was a dealer holdover when I bought it). Yet, we were paying to insure and maintain it every year...was it for nostalgic reasons only? Did I truly believe that I would ride it more this summer, like I had been telling myself every spring for years, or was I kidding myself? I think the final straw was taking the bike in to be serviced this year. About $450 later (damn ethanol fuel...) I decided that there is a season for everything, and this was not necessarily the time in our lives where a motorcycle still made sense. So, I decided to sell it (note that I said that I decided to sell it).
So, I listed the bike on Craig's List and it was only a few days and interest was being expressed. After about a week, I received a text message from a "young kid" (18 years old) that was interested in the motorcycle. He came by, looked at the bike and asked if he could come back with his father a little later. After thinking to myself, "yea, right..." I agreed and to his credit, he came back a few hours later with his father and they bought it on the spot. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, having sold the bike so quickly, as I came inside the house (with a big wad of cash in hand) to get the title and print the bill of sale. I returned outside to complete the sale and after the new owners drove off with the bike, I came back into the house and only then realized that my wife was in the kitchen, holding our newest daughter, with tears in her (my wife's) eyes.
Immediately, I asked what was wrong, thinking that maybe my wife just hurt herself somehow, maybe she banged her funny bone, cut her finger or god forbid got some bad news on the phone. But, something told me it was none of those. It turned out she was upset over the sale of the motorcycle. She was upset that she did not get to take one last ride on the bike (aka...say goodbye). I did not recognize until that moment that while I saw a motorcycle that despite some good memories, was underutilized, was costing us money and taking up space in the garage, my wife saw it as an "end" to an era, the "death" of a piece of our past, one of the last mementos of a part of our history as a couple. The sale of that motorcycle represented one of the last symbols of a time in our life that we will never get back.
Through the last 12 years, our lives have experienced an immense amount of change and as a result, we have (right or wrong, good or bad...) changed along with it. That bike was from another time in our lives, a persistent symbol that has remained static while the rest of our lives have been in never ending flux. It had become more than just a motorcycle to her, it was part of us, a piece of our history, a symbol of a time in our lives where we as individuals became an us...arguably a simpler time in our lives where we had our entire future ahead of us.
Despite the occasional reminiscing of those times, I think Tiffany would agree that we would never give up what we have today to go back to that time, but the motorcycle, like a trophy you earned as a kid, or like a college yearbook was a conduit to the past, to a different time where there are fond memories, and now it is gone.
The motorcycle was a symbol of independence. Thinking back there was probably an element of maturity to it (believe it or not) regarding a young man (although that does suggest that I may not be a young man any longer...bummer) who was starting to forge his own path in life, make his own choices, control his own destiny...
Now, fast forward 12 years. Between getting married, full time employment, starting a family (a child born in each of the following years, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011), enrolling in an MBA program in 2000 and finishing in 2005 (the "one class per semester" plan), two corporate driven moves and all the rights of passage and other life events that occurred in between, I found myself looking at my motorcycle this spring (2011) and reflecting on the mileage on the bike and realizing that despite all the memories, we really have not ridden this motorcycle all that much. There was only 6200 miles on a 16 year old bike (the model year was 1995, it was a dealer holdover when I bought it). Yet, we were paying to insure and maintain it every year...was it for nostalgic reasons only? Did I truly believe that I would ride it more this summer, like I had been telling myself every spring for years, or was I kidding myself? I think the final straw was taking the bike in to be serviced this year. About $450 later (damn ethanol fuel...) I decided that there is a season for everything, and this was not necessarily the time in our lives where a motorcycle still made sense. So, I decided to sell it (note that I said that I decided to sell it).
So, I listed the bike on Craig's List and it was only a few days and interest was being expressed. After about a week, I received a text message from a "young kid" (18 years old) that was interested in the motorcycle. He came by, looked at the bike and asked if he could come back with his father a little later. After thinking to myself, "yea, right..." I agreed and to his credit, he came back a few hours later with his father and they bought it on the spot. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, having sold the bike so quickly, as I came inside the house (with a big wad of cash in hand) to get the title and print the bill of sale. I returned outside to complete the sale and after the new owners drove off with the bike, I came back into the house and only then realized that my wife was in the kitchen, holding our newest daughter, with tears in her (my wife's) eyes.
Immediately, I asked what was wrong, thinking that maybe my wife just hurt herself somehow, maybe she banged her funny bone, cut her finger or god forbid got some bad news on the phone. But, something told me it was none of those. It turned out she was upset over the sale of the motorcycle. She was upset that she did not get to take one last ride on the bike (aka...say goodbye). I did not recognize until that moment that while I saw a motorcycle that despite some good memories, was underutilized, was costing us money and taking up space in the garage, my wife saw it as an "end" to an era, the "death" of a piece of our past, one of the last mementos of a part of our history as a couple. The sale of that motorcycle represented one of the last symbols of a time in our life that we will never get back.
Through the last 12 years, our lives have experienced an immense amount of change and as a result, we have (right or wrong, good or bad...) changed along with it. That bike was from another time in our lives, a persistent symbol that has remained static while the rest of our lives have been in never ending flux. It had become more than just a motorcycle to her, it was part of us, a piece of our history, a symbol of a time in our lives where we as individuals became an us...arguably a simpler time in our lives where we had our entire future ahead of us.
Despite the occasional reminiscing of those times, I think Tiffany would agree that we would never give up what we have today to go back to that time, but the motorcycle, like a trophy you earned as a kid, or like a college yearbook was a conduit to the past, to a different time where there are fond memories, and now it is gone.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
A Daddy and His Bed Rite...
You see it all the time on TV shows or in the movies, a married couple is fighting and inevitably, the husband ends up sleeping on the couch. However, this is not the case in my house. It does not matter how angry my wife and I might be at each other, it does not matter how at odds we are, nothing, and I mean NOTHING will keep me out of my bed at night. There are probably two fundamental reasons why I am a stickler about this...
1. I value a good nights sleep...I get about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night, on average, which is probably less than I need if I were to listen to all the "experts" out there. So, when it is time to sleep, I want to have the best conditions possible, and that begins with my bed.
2. In my opinion, the bedroom needs to be neutral ground...the demilitarized zone. It should never become a place that is associated with anger or resentment. It is the place where the promise of "...for richer or poorer, in sickeness and in health, till death do us part" is always meaningful and sacred. I have always felt that if the bedroom becomes anything but that, if two people who are married cannot maintain that, major trouble is on the horizon.
So, my rule is that I will not give up my bed for anything...however, that was until the other night.
My 3 month old daughter still sleeps in our master bedroom in a co-sleeper next to my wife's side of the bed. Usually, Evie (our daughter) will wake up to eat at 4:00 AM and I will typically get up, feed her a bottle and she will almost always go right back to sleep once she is fed. The other night she jumped the gun and woke up fussing at 3:00 AM. She was acting as though she was hungry, so I got up with her (I take the overnight feedings usually) and went ahead and mixed up a bottle. Upon trying to feed her, she bucked, kicked, screamed, cried...basically she had no interest, no desire to eat, and she was telling me in no uncertain terms that this was the case. So, figuring that she just needed a diaper change and then be re-swaddled (several of our babies have loved to be swaddled at night) maybe she would just drift back to sleep. I awoke Tiffany to change Evie (read my post about diaper changes) and then I swaddled her (my wife and I are swaddle masters thanks to a nurse in Maine who taught us the best technique imaginable) and laid her down to sleep. For a moment, Evie was quiet...but just for a moment.
We tried everything to get her to settle down and get her back to sleep, we tried to feed her again (got the same result as the last attempt), hold her, rock her, etc... Finally, out of desperation, I knelt down along side of the bed (in "prayer" position) and laid Evie down, on her side (since birth, she has always been a "back to sleep" baby), on my side of the bed. Two things then happened, first, she pulled my hand up to her face, and was lightly "mouthing" my index finger. Second, she quieted down almost immediately, closed her eyes, and went to sleep. It was 4:00 AM. There I was, kneeling along side the bed, dog tired, my hand held hostage by my daughter, with her sleeping soundly in my spot on the bed.
At 5:00 AM my alarm went off to wake me up for the start of my work day. As I got up from my makeshift bed on the floor (a pillow) I looked over and saw our angel Evie sleeping soundly, and I could do nothing but smile. My daughter did something that my wife could never do, displace me from my bed.
1. I value a good nights sleep...I get about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night, on average, which is probably less than I need if I were to listen to all the "experts" out there. So, when it is time to sleep, I want to have the best conditions possible, and that begins with my bed.
2. In my opinion, the bedroom needs to be neutral ground...the demilitarized zone. It should never become a place that is associated with anger or resentment. It is the place where the promise of "...for richer or poorer, in sickeness and in health, till death do us part" is always meaningful and sacred. I have always felt that if the bedroom becomes anything but that, if two people who are married cannot maintain that, major trouble is on the horizon.
So, my rule is that I will not give up my bed for anything...however, that was until the other night.
My 3 month old daughter still sleeps in our master bedroom in a co-sleeper next to my wife's side of the bed. Usually, Evie (our daughter) will wake up to eat at 4:00 AM and I will typically get up, feed her a bottle and she will almost always go right back to sleep once she is fed. The other night she jumped the gun and woke up fussing at 3:00 AM. She was acting as though she was hungry, so I got up with her (I take the overnight feedings usually) and went ahead and mixed up a bottle. Upon trying to feed her, she bucked, kicked, screamed, cried...basically she had no interest, no desire to eat, and she was telling me in no uncertain terms that this was the case. So, figuring that she just needed a diaper change and then be re-swaddled (several of our babies have loved to be swaddled at night) maybe she would just drift back to sleep. I awoke Tiffany to change Evie (read my post about diaper changes) and then I swaddled her (my wife and I are swaddle masters thanks to a nurse in Maine who taught us the best technique imaginable) and laid her down to sleep. For a moment, Evie was quiet...but just for a moment.
We tried everything to get her to settle down and get her back to sleep, we tried to feed her again (got the same result as the last attempt), hold her, rock her, etc... Finally, out of desperation, I knelt down along side of the bed (in "prayer" position) and laid Evie down, on her side (since birth, she has always been a "back to sleep" baby), on my side of the bed. Two things then happened, first, she pulled my hand up to her face, and was lightly "mouthing" my index finger. Second, she quieted down almost immediately, closed her eyes, and went to sleep. It was 4:00 AM. There I was, kneeling along side the bed, dog tired, my hand held hostage by my daughter, with her sleeping soundly in my spot on the bed.
At 5:00 AM my alarm went off to wake me up for the start of my work day. As I got up from my makeshift bed on the floor (a pillow) I looked over and saw our angel Evie sleeping soundly, and I could do nothing but smile. My daughter did something that my wife could never do, displace me from my bed.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Lily's Hair...
There are many things I never imagined myself having to do as a father...there always seemed to be those things that mommy would always be in charge of doing. Over the years however, I have found that one by one, those things have slowly been coming off my list as I have been "required" or strangely enough, challenged myself, to do. The most recent example that comes to mind is styling my daughter Lily's hair. Now, I use the word styling very, very loosely here. What I am really referring to is either putting her hair in a pony tail or into a braid.
Over the years, it has slowly but surely become my responsibility to bathe all of our kids. While I do love the one on one time with my kids that this has provided me, it was also out of necessity as due to my children all being relatively close in age, there was always a pregnant belly that would make it difficult or nearly impossible for Tiffany to lean over the side of a bath tub to bathe our children. So, long story short, I bathe the children. Now, my daughter Lily, who just turned 5 this summer, has very long hair. I mean really long hair. Her classmate this year referred to her as the girl with the hair like Rapunzel in the movie Tangled. Except for her bangs, we have never had her hair cut in all 5 years that she has been on this earth. She has beautiful long hair. However, following her bath, all that wet, often times snarled hair needs to be combed and either put in a pony tail or braided to prevent her hair looking like a rats nest the next morning. Combing or brushing I can do...although she might argue that Daddy does not go "easy" like mommy does. But a pony tail, that took me a long time to master. Usually I would send Lily downstairs to see my wife to have her do her hair. But inevitably, for example, when Tiffany was in the hospital following the birth of our daughter Gabby, the job of the pony tail fell to my inexperienced, nervous, trembling hands. Long story short, after many failed attempts and a few acceptable efforts, I figured out how to put Lily's hair into a pony tail. I made it through, Lily's hair survived (albeit there were times where I am positive that people thought I was severely intoxicated when I did her hair) and the teachers at her school all very kindly would send Lily home with her hair looking far better than it did when I dropped her off at school.
Most recently however, after watching Tiffany braid Lily's hair the day before (for probably the millionth time cumulatively), I decided, following her bath, to take a stab at braiding her hair. I am still not sure why I determined it was something I should try at that very moment. I think I just convinced myself that I needed to see if I could do it. If there was success (which I highly doubted would happen on the first go around), I could send Lily downstairs to her mommy with pride, following her with my head held high, beating my chest, awaiting the accolades that would no doubt follow. Conversely, if it was a miserable failure, no one needed to know about it, and I could buy Lily's silence with some extra dessert, or maybe a little extra T.V. time.
However, much to my surprise, my first attempt was borderline flawless. The braid actually came out pretty darn well. I was a braiding master, I was able to slay the hair braiding dragon with precision. And while the accolades were not quite as elaborate as I pictured in my head, I think I did earn a few points from my wife that day...
What do you think? How did I do?
Over the years, it has slowly but surely become my responsibility to bathe all of our kids. While I do love the one on one time with my kids that this has provided me, it was also out of necessity as due to my children all being relatively close in age, there was always a pregnant belly that would make it difficult or nearly impossible for Tiffany to lean over the side of a bath tub to bathe our children. So, long story short, I bathe the children. Now, my daughter Lily, who just turned 5 this summer, has very long hair. I mean really long hair. Her classmate this year referred to her as the girl with the hair like Rapunzel in the movie Tangled. Except for her bangs, we have never had her hair cut in all 5 years that she has been on this earth. She has beautiful long hair. However, following her bath, all that wet, often times snarled hair needs to be combed and either put in a pony tail or braided to prevent her hair looking like a rats nest the next morning. Combing or brushing I can do...although she might argue that Daddy does not go "easy" like mommy does. But a pony tail, that took me a long time to master. Usually I would send Lily downstairs to see my wife to have her do her hair. But inevitably, for example, when Tiffany was in the hospital following the birth of our daughter Gabby, the job of the pony tail fell to my inexperienced, nervous, trembling hands. Long story short, after many failed attempts and a few acceptable efforts, I figured out how to put Lily's hair into a pony tail. I made it through, Lily's hair survived (albeit there were times where I am positive that people thought I was severely intoxicated when I did her hair) and the teachers at her school all very kindly would send Lily home with her hair looking far better than it did when I dropped her off at school.
Most recently however, after watching Tiffany braid Lily's hair the day before (for probably the millionth time cumulatively), I decided, following her bath, to take a stab at braiding her hair. I am still not sure why I determined it was something I should try at that very moment. I think I just convinced myself that I needed to see if I could do it. If there was success (which I highly doubted would happen on the first go around), I could send Lily downstairs to her mommy with pride, following her with my head held high, beating my chest, awaiting the accolades that would no doubt follow. Conversely, if it was a miserable failure, no one needed to know about it, and I could buy Lily's silence with some extra dessert, or maybe a little extra T.V. time.
However, much to my surprise, my first attempt was borderline flawless. The braid actually came out pretty darn well. I was a braiding master, I was able to slay the hair braiding dragon with precision. And while the accolades were not quite as elaborate as I pictured in my head, I think I did earn a few points from my wife that day...
What do you think? How did I do?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Fireproof
I wrote a post not long ago talking about a book that my wife and I read called "The Five Love Languages". Tiffany and I recently watched this movie and it echos one of the main tenants of the book...that love is a choice, it is an ability, love is not a feeling. Regardless of any expectation of personal gain, regardless of how your spouse may respond, you can choose to show love to your spouse in the way that he or she needs to be loved. A must see in my book...
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Decision to Stay Home...
Disclaimer: The decision to raise children with at least one parent being a stay at home parent is a personal choice. This post reflects the choice that my wife and I made and the reasons for doing so...
Many years ago, when my wife and I were first married and we were discussing the desire to have children, we both agreed that there would be immeasurable benefits for our future children and the happiness of our household if we could make the sacrifices necessary for one of us to be a stay a home parent. For me, this was an easy decision. When I grew up, my mother stayed home to take care of myself and my three other siblings. That is the way it was. I knew nothing else and I believed (and still do) that this is the way it is supposed to be (I have a theory on this that I will share in a later blog post). My wife is also a firm believer in there being a stay at home parent. When she was a child, her mom stayed at home as well, only returning to work when her children were all in school. Even then, she arranged her schedule where her children never had to be latch key kids, she was always home to greet her children when they got off the school bus.
In our case, we decided that Tiffany would become a stay a home mommy. There were several reasons that ultimately drove us to choose the more "traditional" roles, with the wife /mommy being the homemaker and stay at home parent while the husband / daddy went out into the workforce. Truthfully though, it can probably be boiled down to two main reasons...
1. As I have described in prior posts, my wife absolutely loves children and babies and is a born nurturer. With every fiber of her being, she believes that all children are a blessing, and it is an honor and a privilege to be the primary caregiver to help them grow, develop, and become independent, self reliant, responsible people. She believes that her most important job while on this earth, and certainly the most rewarding one, is to raise her children to the best of her abilities. She was meant to be a stay at home mommy...
2. We both, but especially Tiffany, have a deep seeded belief that if a couple decides to have children, part of the responsibility of starting a family is to make every accommodation so at least one parent can be the primary care giver. In our estimation, the decision to have children and the choice to have a parent home to raise them are NOT mutually exclusive. They must happen together.
I recognize that "every accommodation" is a pretty broad statement, but my intention is to point out that you exhaust every possibility to make sure that you, the ones deciding to have a child, are the ones that will ultimately raise your children. "Every accommodation" could mean potentially giving up a certain career path, downsizing to a different size home, living in a different area, driving older cars, foregoing completely or going on less extravagant vacations, cutting out cable or satellite, wearing clothing that you buy on consignment or even purchase at Goodwill, eating out less, making less trips to Starbucks, avoiding the temptation for the latest electronics, gadgets, fads, or trends, etc... Many of these can be very difficult decisions but bottom line, you make the sacrifices necessary to develop a lifestyle that will allow you to support a family with only one person working outside the home. If the sacrifices are too great, if you cannot "do without" to make the numbers work or if there are certain things that are of a high enough personal priority that you cannot see your way to giving them up, then it might mean that the timing is wrong or you are not ready to start a family.
Nothing baffles my wife and I more than couples who choose to have children, only to subsequently pay a daycare provider to raise their child while they are at work. Let's look at a quick example... assume that there is a theoretical two income household with two children. The children are three years old and one year old. The parents, assuming they work a stereotypical 9 to 5 work day have to leave the house at 8:30 and return home at 5:30, including the time to drop off and pick up their children from day care. Let's also assume that the children awake at 6:30 AM and go to bed at 7:00 PM. So, for five days a week, the parents will see their kids for a total of 3 1/2 hours a day, maybe 4 hours if you count the time in the car. That is roughly a total of 18 to 20 hours between Monday AM and Friday PM...20 hours out of a total of 60 awake hours and this does not include the time taken for eating, preparing meals, bathing, brushing teeth, dressing, etc...
Those are hours that as a parent, you can never get back. You cannot reverse the clock. For Tiffany and I, it was important for at least one of us to be there for as much of that time as is humanly possible. The first four years of a child's life are very formative years, your child's personality blooms, there are numerous milestones and rights of passage that occur. We chose to have one of us there to capture those moments, to personally experience the "firsts" in our children's lives as opposed to potentially hearing about those same events from a third party.
Many years ago, when my wife and I were first married and we were discussing the desire to have children, we both agreed that there would be immeasurable benefits for our future children and the happiness of our household if we could make the sacrifices necessary for one of us to be a stay a home parent. For me, this was an easy decision. When I grew up, my mother stayed home to take care of myself and my three other siblings. That is the way it was. I knew nothing else and I believed (and still do) that this is the way it is supposed to be (I have a theory on this that I will share in a later blog post). My wife is also a firm believer in there being a stay at home parent. When she was a child, her mom stayed at home as well, only returning to work when her children were all in school. Even then, she arranged her schedule where her children never had to be latch key kids, she was always home to greet her children when they got off the school bus.
In our case, we decided that Tiffany would become a stay a home mommy. There were several reasons that ultimately drove us to choose the more "traditional" roles, with the wife /mommy being the homemaker and stay at home parent while the husband / daddy went out into the workforce. Truthfully though, it can probably be boiled down to two main reasons...
1. As I have described in prior posts, my wife absolutely loves children and babies and is a born nurturer. With every fiber of her being, she believes that all children are a blessing, and it is an honor and a privilege to be the primary caregiver to help them grow, develop, and become independent, self reliant, responsible people. She believes that her most important job while on this earth, and certainly the most rewarding one, is to raise her children to the best of her abilities. She was meant to be a stay at home mommy...
2. We both, but especially Tiffany, have a deep seeded belief that if a couple decides to have children, part of the responsibility of starting a family is to make every accommodation so at least one parent can be the primary care giver. In our estimation, the decision to have children and the choice to have a parent home to raise them are NOT mutually exclusive. They must happen together.
I recognize that "every accommodation" is a pretty broad statement, but my intention is to point out that you exhaust every possibility to make sure that you, the ones deciding to have a child, are the ones that will ultimately raise your children. "Every accommodation" could mean potentially giving up a certain career path, downsizing to a different size home, living in a different area, driving older cars, foregoing completely or going on less extravagant vacations, cutting out cable or satellite, wearing clothing that you buy on consignment or even purchase at Goodwill, eating out less, making less trips to Starbucks, avoiding the temptation for the latest electronics, gadgets, fads, or trends, etc... Many of these can be very difficult decisions but bottom line, you make the sacrifices necessary to develop a lifestyle that will allow you to support a family with only one person working outside the home. If the sacrifices are too great, if you cannot "do without" to make the numbers work or if there are certain things that are of a high enough personal priority that you cannot see your way to giving them up, then it might mean that the timing is wrong or you are not ready to start a family.
Nothing baffles my wife and I more than couples who choose to have children, only to subsequently pay a daycare provider to raise their child while they are at work. Let's look at a quick example... assume that there is a theoretical two income household with two children. The children are three years old and one year old. The parents, assuming they work a stereotypical 9 to 5 work day have to leave the house at 8:30 and return home at 5:30, including the time to drop off and pick up their children from day care. Let's also assume that the children awake at 6:30 AM and go to bed at 7:00 PM. So, for five days a week, the parents will see their kids for a total of 3 1/2 hours a day, maybe 4 hours if you count the time in the car. That is roughly a total of 18 to 20 hours between Monday AM and Friday PM...20 hours out of a total of 60 awake hours and this does not include the time taken for eating, preparing meals, bathing, brushing teeth, dressing, etc...
Those are hours that as a parent, you can never get back. You cannot reverse the clock. For Tiffany and I, it was important for at least one of us to be there for as much of that time as is humanly possible. The first four years of a child's life are very formative years, your child's personality blooms, there are numerous milestones and rights of passage that occur. We chose to have one of us there to capture those moments, to personally experience the "firsts" in our children's lives as opposed to potentially hearing about those same events from a third party.
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