Do Mother's Sacrifice More?

I can say that I agree with Joanne T AND 'Workinmom'...

I work full time WITH my husband outside the home AND we work together INSIDE the home. He has things he'd prefer handle over something that I do and vice versa. I know and appreciate all the things he does for the family and tell him so just like he does with me.

I feel that we are 50/50. They're just different tasks.

And no... I don't think that women are 'programmed biologically' to take care of home and children. Just because my mother was a SAHM certainly didn't make her an awesome mom. And just because I work doesn't mean I'm not. My mother put a clean house over her child (me) and I put my kids before a clean house. I really enjoy my life. Without Womens Lib, I would never have been able to do what my passion is... Anything mechanical. I work as a prototype mechanic. That would never happen if it weren't for Women's Lib.

I prioritize, ask for help when I need it, show my appreciation when I get that help, and schedule. There are days when I say F-it... I'm not going to do anything today. The world will not end if I take a day off. : )

There are some very insightful responses here - very helpful. I just want to add that since women are taking on so much, some things suffer. When children grow up in daycare they are often in a large group with one busy caretaker. Meals are necessarily easy to fix processed foods. When you look at statistics, more children are suffering from obesity and more children are having trouble coping with life in different ways.

I definitely feel that pull. My way to cope is "screw the house". When my husband is away, I put all my energy with the kids, I eat at random times, and leave the cleaning till everyone is in bed or not at all. :) When I am gone, I feel like keeping the house is his top priority. Therefore, when we are both home, we balance each other. I do feel the guilt about not pulling my weight with the cleaning, but I know that he feels no guilt about focusing only on the cleaning. Yes, I wish I could be a SAHM too, and maybe then my views would change, but I get such a small amount of time with my kids, I don't want to waste a second on things that aren't as important.

We "women libbed" ourselves into a mess.
Neither of my grandmothers worked outside of the home, and they never got divorced.
Divorce has changed that.
The family unit will never be what it was a couple of generations ago.
The economy wont allow one income to be sufficient for most families, and the fact that you are always wondering if you just might get divorced and have to be independent is the other culprit.
Men don't feel like men anymore.
Women work their asses off trying to do two roles.
Yep, I do believe women bear most of the responsibility.
Originally we were to take care of our husband and children and that was it.
Not like that anymore.

I do believe we were made to be the keepers of our homes. Men were made to be the providers for their families. I don't think we sacrifice more. I think that our worldviews are messed up. :) You can't have it all. No matter what anyone tells you, you cannot have a foot in both worlds and be totally engaged in either one. Your loyalties will be divided. It can't be done that both are done as well as they could be if you just had one or the other to do. You are one person. When you are engaged in a career and as a mother, both areas will suffer to some degree. My personal choice, along with my husband's, was that I would always be a stay at home mom. My mother worked, and I hated not having her there. Hated it. There wasn't any consistency to my day. I didn't have that comfort of coming home to mom. I vowed when I was a kid that I would do things differently. Thankfully, my husband also saw the value of a full time stay at home mom. We never entertained me working even before we had children because we knew that if we got used to my salary that it would be nearly impossible to cut it out of the budget. And, yes, my husband helps around the house some. But, I don't expect him to or ask him to. He has enough on his plate providing for 8 people! And, I'm so thankful for all he does for us.

Errr.... as a WAHM I can say you get to feeling like a rubber band. But I am not sure on the sacrificing more part.

My husband makes more than I do so he is at work... but I know that when he hugs her good bye in the morning and she asks him to stay home that it breaks his heart.

I guess determineing who sacrifices more depends on what you are using to measure it... I get to juggle a hectic schdule of child, work & housework but get to see all of the little moments. He has a relatively easy schedule but misses a lot of his daughter life...

I vote for equal sacrifice, just different...

Yes- I do believe that it is our natural instinct to nurture. I am feeling more fullfilled and happy as a SAHM than I ever was in my job. And I loved my job-I was good at what I did, enjoyed a ton of freedom and made a significant paycheck. But no amount of money or professional accolades can come close to comparing to how good I feel when I am with my two little guys. Its what I was 'meant' to do. And I wasn't willing to sacrifice what I have with them to live in a bigger house and drive a fancy car or feel validated as someone who 'works'.

I constantly feel stretched and not myself! It's part of it. I figure that I can be what they need until they are older and then get back into the things that make me, well, me! I can't crochet, because I would like to do it without someone unraveling as fast as I work. I would like to read without someone on my lap and trying to turn the page to find a picture, etc, etc.
I did take a cake decorating class just to do something for myself- although it really benefits us all in the long run as we wont be spending so much on purchased cakes now.
I'm still me somewhere deep down, and believe me, she is fighting for her chance to resurface. She will just have to wait a little longer.
It gets better. Just think. When they are teenagers they wont want anything to do with you!

As a proud feminist and a working mom, I'm just going to say this:

The problem with the women's movement has always been that we tell women that they can do EVERYTHING without simultaneously insisting that men should do ANYTHING. I think it's baloney that women and men have fundamentally different roles, but anyway you split taking care of a family, it should be 50/50. Somehow we roped ourselves into 70/30.

I do find that my instinct or drive to do all those things is much more present than my husband's. I find it unrealistic and even manipulative when women expect their husbands to play the wife/mom role. Don't get me wrong, my husband DOES help with child-rearing. He changes diapers, he wipes noses and butts. He's an amazing father, and loves being a father. However, when it comes to balancing everything, he falls short pretty regularly. I can't blame him, he's not biologically equipped. I do work full time, and my husband stays at home with our three-year-old during the day and goes to school at night. Although we have a role-reversal right now, my husband in no way replaces me. He knows that, I know that, and our chilren know that. My beliefs about a woman's place more parallel the bible, so I find it perfectly natural that you should be questioning your beliefs about women right now. I know you'll find the balance that works for you and your family.

you can never be the same person you were before you were a mother. It's not possible. My husband and I do equal housework, although I probably do a bit more since I have Fridays off and he doesnt, he makes up for it by doing all the yardwork. It's not a woman's natural drive to do housework, it's what you were taught. I was so mad watching The Walking Dead this week when the womenfolk were all doing laundry so the menfolk could sit around drinking and hunting frogs or whatever.

You only have to be stretched as thinly as you want. Make up a schedule. Clean a little bit every night and keep on it, it's not as bad. If I were a SAHM my house would be cleaner (it's never been as clean as it was during my maternity leave!) but only because I would be in it all day and not at work.

I handle this by knowing sometimes things are going to fall through the cracks and I am going to at times make mistakes but they are alright too. I really do cut myself alot of slack. It makes me a less stressed out mom. The kids notice the difference.

Hormonally however the pull is to protect and serve your family especially while your little one is so small. The reality is that my teens need just as much supervision as they did when they were 2 but for different reasons.

We all must make sacrifices but I know my children also need to see me soaring in my passions too. It is all about the juggling and balancing acts. Pray often.

Since you're a new mom, your husband is a new father. How you treat his attempts at child care, housework, etc will be the biggest factor as to whether you have a partner even attempting to pull equal weight in your new roles. So, try to find a way to include to encourage your husband to do more and you will find yourself less overwhelmed.
I don't know if it's all a gender thing, at a young age I preferred to do something myself rather than have someone else do it in a different way. A lot of what we as women feel are "our" obligations to our families is what we were taught. Yet, over the years I feel that I've gotten jaded to that role that was taught to me. I've always worked outside the home (circumstances have changed for me very recently, though) and I got to thinking - why should I do all the household chores when I work just as hard as my spouse? I got really resentful about it. Today, I have a spouse who frankly does a better job on most of what you would consider my traditional duties than I do. Talk about reversals of fortune! LOL
It's also about what you can personally handle and what you can't. That has changed a lot for me over the years, as well. If you have motivation and drive to make all of this work for you, you will see it done. However, don't be afraid to say enough is enough and pull back from some of what you're doing. Independence is a skill that can be learned, unlearned, and learned again. You can't let yourself get stretched to the breaking point everyday and expect to remain healthy and emotionally whole.

I don't know if I'd call it sacrificing...but all I'll say is that my views did a 180 after having kids. I was a career oriented, degree(s) holding, professional woman who never thought I wanted kids. I am now a SAHM of 2 young ones and wish I was younger because I'd probably have more. I used to laugh at June Cleaver...now I'm beginning to think they might have been onto something! (Ok,maybe not QUITE like that...but is it really wrong for each member of a marriage to be dependent on the other in different ways? It's scary for sure if you don't know if your spouse will ditch the marriage tomorrow...so an education is priceless...but what's so wrong about fulfilling a certain role if that is what you feel is right for your family?)
My husband "depends" on me to make our house a home, warm and inviting (and often messy!), errands run, dinner on the table (sometimes), bills paid, kids bathed, dressed, to bed, schedules, etc. I depend on him to financially support our family, to be our family protector, to be a role model to our kids and to do his part in bringing them up. (Would be nice if he'd put his dirty laundry in the basket when he's home though! LOL)

As a strong woman, I think about this a good bit and have come to terms with the fact that men and women do have different roles. No matter how you argue it, a man CAN NOT give birth to a child and a women CAN NOT father a child. That's not to say that the roles are the same for every man and woman or that either one is better than the other, but it's silly to claim there aren't differences. With that said, I also don't believe that there are gender specific jobs that preclude the other gender from being able to fill that role. While I think that "Women's lib" did a tremendous amount of good, where I feel "Women's lib" failed was in the "a women can do everything" message' it really should be a women can do anything, but not everything. Instead of giving something up, women just took more on their plates. Sadly, now the message is guilt over being a working mom and not raising our kids vs. guilty over being a SAHM mom and not contributing financially to the family. The message should be do your best at what you want to do and don't have quilt. =) It's hard, but if can figure out what works for your family, stick with it and ignore the negative messages. Good luck.

I think all moms feel stretched thinly at times, but there is a continual striving to maintain balance. There might be some things you have to give up now, but just put them on the "back burner" until later. I agree that it is a woman's natural instinct to take care of the nest...but it's alot easier with a husband's help. Also, some things to think about...can you hire a cleaning person to help you clean once every 2 weeks? Can you work part-time and stay home part-time? Kids are only little for a short amount of time...and your husband and your kids are the most important parts of your life, so is there anything you can do to allow you to put more of your time and energy into them? That's not to say you forget about you--you definitely need time to do some things for yourself, or something you want to do as well, to recharge and give you more to give. It's all about trying to create balance, but within priorities. I think we all struggle with that.

My husband and I have distinct roles in our house: when we got married, I hated doing dishes, and I was picky about my laundry, so those tasks fell to us appropriately. We have always shared cooking responsibility, and, when I was working, we shared grocery shopping. After kids--and realizing the time aspects of mothering a newborn, if you're nursing, especially--those shifted. My husband has always done the "heavy" work--which is, inherently, more sporadic--while I do some of the lighter work--mowing lawn, gardening. After working for three years while my first went to daycare, I am now a stay at home mom to our 3 year old, while my 6 year old is in school and we are expecting our third in a month. THAT has changed the dynamic in our marriage far more than anything else: how can I stay at home, and NOT do housework? Is it fair to expect HIM to come home, after working all day, only to "make up" for what he didn't do at home during the day? That's not fair either...neither is throwing the kids at him, every day, the minute he walks in the door, expecting him to "make up" for not being home for 9 hours. If you write it out on a sheet of paper, there is absolutely NO way to make it fair--divvying up time with kids, time with spouse, alone time, time for chores and time for hobbies and socializing. Does his work count as socializing? Does mine, if we have a playdate? What about cleanup of playdate? Anyway...being a stay at home mom has put us much more into traditional roles, but, as long as there is respect for the work that is done, I don't feel like we are regressing on the women's lib movement--I guess I've always thought it dumb when women's lib is interpreted as "women should be like men" instead of "women should have choices". Our choice, right now, is to have me staying home--and that deserves respect--from my husband, and society, and THAT, for me, is the crux.

You know how I do it? By being married to a terrific, truly egalitarian man. In most marriages, the house and children are the woman's job, with the man choosing whether or how much to 'help' but in my marriage, the house and children are ours together.

My husband likes a clean, neat house, so he does his part every day. Sometimes when we argue, it's about how I'm not pulling MY weight! (To relax, I like to read -- when he wants to relax, he goes through the house putting things away and organizing.)

I cook, he washes dishes. I take care of the cars, he gets the boys breakfast in the mornings. I take care of birthdays, he takes care of arranging babysitters for our nights out. I do things like scrubbing or mopping, he puts things away and makes beds.

I've always been a feminist. Still am. So is my husband, not to mention our sons. Being a feminist simply means that you believe that women should be accorded equal respect, opportunity, and rights with men. That's it. It doesn't have anything to do with femininity, or wanting to be a SAHM, or wanting to "nest." You can be feminine, stay home with your children, and take care of your house, and still be a feminist.

It sounds like you are overwhelmed right now, and that makes sense. Let yourself be overwhelmed, without guilt or fear. You are a new mother!! You are in one of the most difficult, most wonderful, most emotional, most exhausting times in a woman's life.

If you are having problems balancing everything because you are doing most of the work, then you need to talk to your husband and make things equal. I'd do it now, rather than later, when you become stuck in a pattern of you doing everything and it becomes hard to change.

Good luck, and hang in there.

I had very different views before my first daughter was born just like you. I was a recent graduate student who had spent a good deal of my research studying feminism and gender issues and had cultivated very strong views about women's roles and choices. I even presented a paper on contemporary masculinities at an international feminist conference to prominent scholars from across the globe. Needless to say, when my daughter was born, she rocked my world. I had been laid off from a very good job while pregnant and had had trouble gaining employment, so I suddenly found myself a SAHM. And it was working. My DD is 2 and I'm still a SAHM and now I have very strong views about women's roles it, but they are vastly different from those of my former self!

I believe that women need to be supported in the choice to care for their children full time. I don't believe that paying someone else to take care of my child cuts it. And I'm sick of the idea that educated women who choose to stay home are "opting out" or doing less or wasting themselves. What does that say about female childcare workers? Are they "less" as well? Or does that average $2-4 an hour per child cared for make them a more valuable citizen?

It's extremely frustrating because I do not feel supported in my choice by our society. It is also difficult living on one very modest income. We could not afford to buy a house when our daughter was born, so we are renting a house. I have a strict grocery budget and do not "go shopping." When we need clothes for the little one I buy everything at second hand stores or rummage sales, but I don't buy much. We drive old cars that were paid for with cash. We don't have cable. etc etc...

But you know what? It's worth it. If I wasn't a SAHM, I'd be stressed out and not as good of a mother to my children. The house wouldn't be as homey and we wouldn't eat the healthy delicious meals I spend a lot of time making every day. I know myself and for this to happen, I can't work full-time. Some women say they can do it, but I couldn't. So we live on very little and make it work and have a warm home because of it.

I think that mother's have more to do because father's don't have the same expectations as we do... umm... or obsessions regarding housework, child rearing, etc. For example, I tend to lean toward a regular schedule for our LO. My SO - not as much... well... not as much as I would like so it comes down to me keeping everything on some type of routine. Also, we mother's seem to have this need to look good in front of other mother's and that's not because of men... that I think is because women are just more competitive in that way.

In regards to having children and how it changes the lives of both males and females... here is an interesting article: http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/#%7B

i dont call it "sacrificing", but i've found most kids cling more to mom than dad because dad is more "firm' than mom's are and "mom" is who child goes to for a cut or a bruise, or just to "kiss it better". yes running a house, balancing school, work, relationships with everyon and their dog, all that CAN be overwhelming and tiring. the key i have found is you MUST make time for YOURSELF, and your MARRIAGE/RELATIONSHIP, time with your kids will ALWAYS find it's own way into your schedule. and don't be afraid to put your baby in a safe place if needed walk away for a bit (outside or in a different room) and take a breather, and don't be afraid to ask for help from loved one's when you need it.

i always wanted to be a shm growing up, but honestly after the way my mom raised me and recently just spending a week vacation with my family last summer, i really dont' think i could handle that-i need ME time, the drive to and from work, excusing myself to "extra time" so i can go grocery shopping on the way home, or whatever..yeah that's nice, i have to have SOME form of independence because so many people "give up" too soon and you never know when you might be standing in the welfare line hoping you get food that day to feed your family, and you never know when you need YOUR credit to get yourself out of a bad situation.

I've learned I can't do it all so I do what I can and spend all my "extra" time with my son because the time flies by and I don't want to regret it. I hired a cleaning lady too! Oh I still have my moments but it is usually me...sometimes overreacting or being protective (and I know it) I am a mom!

I absolutely think we as mothers sacrifice more, hence the complaints about husbands being babies, or working mothers taking on a job the kids AND ALL the household work.

Personally my nesting urge kicked in 7 years ago with my first baby and never went away. We are fortunate to afford (with cutting corners) the ability to let me stay home this second time around, with my first baby i worked a night job, now i just stay home. Im not stretched as thin as i was, and i am grateful for it. i want to go back to work as soon as possible.

Possible meaning for me, when my baby starts preschool.

and i do think women are biologically programmed to nurture , and men to provide. I dont see anything wrong with these roles,, they come about organically to me.

It depends. My "mom" left when I was 4... my little sister was only 6 months old. So he HAD to take care of EVERYTHING on his own... Then when he got re-married my step-mom was USELESS as a mother... He was the one to make sure the house was clean, that we were all doing homework and chores, etc. Although, I find that in MY relationship, I am definitely the the one who takes care of the household, even while working.

It takes a village.

Moms have always done more. Becoming a mom encouraged me out of my shell and connect with the "village" that was always there. I've learned to lean on family members, neighbors, and day care to get stuff done (always reciprocating)!

In generations past, we have always relied on other women of all generations.

Also, I've had to re-evaluate what I can and cannot do anymore. For example, I stepped down from some volunteer work I was doing (in addition to working full-time), loosened my cleanliness standards at the house, re-landscaped the yard so that mowing and watering are almost non-existent, and shop from catalogs. If I was attending school, I probably would have dropped out.

I have a 5 yr old ant a 2 yr old and I still struggle with this question. How come I feel like I need to rush home from work and hurry home from my "girls" retreats or nights out sometimes? Does my husband feel this way? I don't believe so. I work evenings and he works days so he does take on all of the responsibility when I work. He helps out on the evenings I am home too. I just wish I could find time (and no guilt) to just lay on the couch and watch television. But there is so much laundry to do! hehe I haven't exactly found the balance but I do know that before long they won't want our help and won't need all the attention we have to give them right now. And we will miss this time dearly.

I changed my view after having and raising kids too. Used to think the sexes were the same, that it was nurture vs. nature -- NOT. I don't think anyone can do it all without feeling stretched very thinly, unless they have a lot of money to hire people to do things.

What the women's movement did for us was to give us a choice (even if economic circumstances sometimes take that choice away...). We no longer HAVE to stay home with the kids.

I have been working part time and staying home part time. I recently made the decision to cut back my out-of-home work even more, and it was an excruciating decision. I just keep telling myself--I can return to a more full time career track in the future, but my daughter will only be this age once. I never thought I would do something like this, but becoming a mother has changed me.

It's tough to be a woman in our culture. We are blessed that we have each other to talk these things over with and get support.