

Maybe one of the best illustrations of how housekeeping and childcare don’t go hand in hand is trying to find a nanny. What jobs compare to that of a stay-at-home mom? So, to put household duties on top of that seems like overkill. They also try to be an emotional coach and therapist daily. They try to limit screen time, organize social activities, and participate in developmental activities. They are responsible for creating nutritious and delicious meals (which her child will most likely not eat #toddlerlife) and facilitating age-appropriate learning. Stay-at-home moms are involved in all aspects of child development. Today, parenting has become extremely hands-on.

On the other hand, modern moms have flipped the script and spend more time engaging with their children. Moms of the 1950s and 1960s were more “housekeepers” who also had children. As you can see, housework has taken a back seat to paid work and childcare for most moms. Consequently, in 2011 moms spent roughly 21 hours a week doing paid work, 18 hours a week doing housework, and 14 hours a week caring for children. The truth of the matter is that the 1950s “ideal family” image is not realistic anymore.Īccording to the Pew Research Center, in 1965, moms spent roughly 8 hours a week doing paid work, 32 hours a week doing housework, and only 10 hours a week doing childcare. In the eyes of society, that was the pinnacle of perfection and the family ideal we should all be striving for. Where would you rather invest your time? How the role of the stay-at-home mom changed.Įven though it’s 2021, many moms are still plagued with the outdated and utterly fabricated idea of the “perfect housewives” of the 1950s. The clean house, however, will last all of 5 minutes, if we’re being honest. Plus, the dividends from spending time with this human will payout for years to come. It’s much easier to give in and spend time with the tiny human. Have you tried doing chores when you have 30 lbs of a very whiny but adorable human attached to you? I can tell you from experience, it’s not fun. If you’ve been a mom for 5 minutes, you understand you can’t have both a clean house and happy, engaged children all the time. And if you are actively spending time with your children, you are not cleaning the house. This means that if you’re spending a lot of time cleaning and tending to your house, you’re not actively spending time with your children. The truth is, there is only so much time in a day, and you can’t do it all. Or do you imagine a more modern scene with a house that looks like a bomb went off, piles of laundry everywhere, but the mom is on the floor with her children drawing, crafting, singing songs, and teaching ABCs?ĭo you notice the stark difference between those two scenarios? No matter what decade your stay-at-home mom portrait is from, one thing remains true for both: neither is entirely accurate.
#Display maid vs stay tv#
The kids are quietly watching TV and eating healthy snacks. When you think about being a stay-at-home mom, what sort of life do you picture? Is it a scene from the 1950s where the perfectly coiffed mom is busily being a housekeeper? She’s humming around the house with a vacuum, a duster, maybe a cocktail in hand.
