Part 3: Socioeconomic Status

Response to "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In", an article in the New York Times.  Part 3:  Socioeconomic Status

Most of the women interviewed for "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In" appear to be part of families in upper-middle to upper income families.  I wish the authors of the article had interviewed some middle-income women.  Most were still able to put their kids in fancy New York private schools after they quit working.  Those women were easily able to find jobs when they were ready to go back to work because they were able to network within those circles. 

I do not fall into that category.  Neither do most of the SAHMs that I know.  I want to know how women in the middle to lower-middle class feel after 10 years of being a SAHM.  Is/Was it difficult for them to get back into the workplace?  Do they even want to?  Many of the SAHMs I know stay home because what they could earn wouldn't cover the child care costs.  Some have chosen to stay home because they feel it's the right thing to do and are willing to suffer the financial difficulties.  We were lucky enough that my husband's salary was able to keep us at a similar life style, but giving up that "extra" income was not easy.

I stayed home with our oldest when she was 6 months old until she was a year old and it was BO-RING!  We had just moved to a new state.  We had no friends, no family and NO money.  I didn't go to work because I couldn't find anything.  Eventually I ended up working odd shifts at Kmart to make ends meet.  It was awful.  I want to know how women like that feel after ten years of staying home.  The women interviewed for the article went back to work because they were bored.  After their children got old enough to not need constant supervision and their homes were completely remodeled, they needed something else to do.

I want to know what women who opted out of working to stay home, regardless of financial hardship, feel after ten years.  The article does mention talking to some women in this category, but just said they "often struggled greatly" to get back in the work force.  That's important to know, but were they happy?  Many of the wealthy women were not happy or satisfied with their lives.

Those who did go back to work stated they needed more money to save for their children's college education.  Now, I am a firm believer that everyone should get either college educated or get some other technical degree after high school, but I don't think I'm responsible for paying for my children's post high school education.  I hope we're in a position to help, but I think my kids will appreciate it more, if they are responsible for getting it themselves.  The way our economy is right now, we should be more concerned with our retirement.  My husband and I worked hard for our degrees and we're very proud of that.  We may not have gone to Ivy league schools, but our education was still top notch and didn't send our parents or us into a whirlwind of debt.

Luckily most women, regardless of socioeconomic status, agreed that they did not regret their time as SAHMs.  That does give me hope.