dwl10@amdahl.UUCP (dwl10) (11/29/84)
More power to the man who is willing to be a "house husband"!
My wife is also a "domestic engineer". If she wanted to work outside
of the home, than our child would go into daycare. I am the first
to admit that I couldn't handle being at home 24 hours a day. Some
of this is due to the fact that I am an inept house keeper, but
mostly it is a matter of patience. Our son borders on the hyper-
active. He has been in the "terrible twos" now for 3 years (He
started at age one). I do "spell" my wife when I get home by doing
a lot of the cooking and bathing our son, but that is only for a few
hours and on weekends.
I have no problems with my wife working (she has taken on a few
jobs in the past). But she usually won't even consider working.
She usually says that it's because she likes to be able to make her
own schedule, but there are several unsaid factors:
1. - Guilt. We both feel very strongly about not wanting a
"stranger" raise our child, so that tends to keep her
from even considering working.
2. - Money. She doesn't have any formal training outside of
High School, so any job she takes will barely cover the
Day Care expense.
To sum it all up, I guess that every situation is different and
not every man (or woman) is cut out to be a "house person".
--
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Dave Lowrey
"GORT...Klatu borada niktow"
...{amd,hplabs,ihnp4,nsc}!amdahl!dwl10
[ The opinions expressed <may> be those of the author and not necessarily
those of Amdahl Corporation, its management, or employees. ]stevev@tekchips.UUCP (Steve Vegdahl) (12/01/84)
> Three cheers! I have no children (not even married yet) but am looking > forward to the experience eagerly. My fiance and I have talked about it > and decided that we will have probably 2 (possibly 3) children, that I > will stay home with them when they are very young (until age 3 or so) > while he works, then he will stay home with them until school age (age > 6) while I work. Possibilities of the current housewife/husband could > be to do part-time at-home consulting or courses in night school. > > My question is: has anybody out there done this? Are there any > real-life househusbands or ex-househusbands out there (or any wives of > househusbands!)? My experience has been that every time I mention this > plan to anyone (mostly students) they drop their jaw and look > dumbfounded. It didn't seem so outrageous to us. It's not outrageous at all! During the first 19 months of our eldest son's life, I was his primary caretaker while my wife worked a full-time job as a metallurgical engineer. Jeannie took a maternity leave for the first three months of his life, which included a 5-week airline trip to visit all his grandparents at Christmastime. After she went back to work, things were pretty hectic, as I was trying to finish my thesis research and thesis. Our schedule went something like this from 3 months to 11 months: 3am (ugh!)I would get up to work on thesis from my home terminal. 6am She would get up and nurse him. I would change him while she was expressing milk on the second side. Then he'd finish off the second side. She'd then get dressed and leave for work. He'd go back to bed. 10am Philip would wake up for the day. I would quit working (on thesis). I would feed him a bottle (in later months solid food). I'd play with him, get things done around the house, often go on stroller walks to shop for this or that. 2pm He'd get another bottle and go down for a nap. I would either nap, or try to get more thesis work done (usually impossible with the machine load at that time of the day) or relax, clean up around the house, work on dinner, in the garden, etc. 5pm Jeannie would come home and nurse Philip while I put the finishing touches on dinner. Then we would eat. In the evening, I'd try to get a little time in on the thesis again, and then go to bed. She would spend time with Philip, keeping him up 'till around 10 so he'd sleep late the next day. On weekends, I usually went into school to work on the thesis, while she took care of him, cooked dinner, etc. She also did most of the laundry (she enjoys that, while I hate it) except that I did diapers, which is about the only thing she trusts me with (probably with good reason). After I finished the first draft of my thesis (11 mo.), the schedule a became a little more relaxed, but the overall schedule was similar. When he was about 15 months, I began working part-time (~2 days/wk) and we put him in day care two days a week. When he was about 19 months, my wife quit her job (we were planning to move back west anyway, and it was a good time politically for her to quit). Then I started working full-time, and have been doing so since. Since we've moved west, she has been doing some part-time consulting. All-in-all my experience at home with Philip was a very positive one. I'm not sure if I would have felt the same way if I were at home without any kind of "outside work". (I was generally either working on thesis or working part-time.) It also helped that Philip had a pretty regular sleeping schedule. Based on my experience I'd tend to reverse your schedule, having the father stay home during a good chunk of the 0-3 year time. Particularly if the child is an nursing infant, the child will get time with his mother anyway. I would also try to ensure that the parent at home gets some "professional stimulation", such as working part-time; both working full-time and having small kids, however, is just too hectic for us. ******************************** Steve Vegdahl NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR Computer Research Lab. typos Tektronix, Inc. logical errors Beaverton, Oregon actions of my pet alligator ********************************
mark@tove.UUCP (Mark Weiser) (12/03/84)
For our first child Vicky continued to work fulltime after a 6 week
maternity leave. I was a graduate student nearby (she was a librarian
at the same University) and our schedule was: she: up at 8 to work.
Me: up with baby at 10 to Vicky for morning feed, then to my office and
playpen with baby. Us: lunch. she: back to work. Me: back to office
and classes. Sometimes my officemates, fellow grad students, helped
out with baby when I had a seminar. I always tried to leave with baby
sleeping, but she was not always sleeping when I returned. Luckily I
had no real classes to take by this time.
We went on this way for 2 years, during which Vicky advanced to head of
her own branch library and I finally completed a PhD. Our schedule now
is (with two children, aged 3 and 7):
She: up at 5:30, to work by 6:30 at the Planning Office of the Library
of Congress. Me: up at 7, dress and breakfast and drive children to
school. (Both children attend the same Montessori school.) At work by
9:30. She: home at 2, picks up children from school at 3:30. Me: home
at 5:30 on good nights, 7:30 on bad nights. Always home for bedtime,
which is my job since with Vicky's early rising (see above) she is
usually asleep before children.
Hardest parts: only seeing Vicky for normal conversation on weekends,
and learning what "keeping the house clean" means and trying to do
it while with the children.
--
Spoken: Mark Weiser ARPA: mark@maryland Phone: (301) 454-7817
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs UUCP: {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!mark
USPS: Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742