Do you the reason some women don't stay at home is due to fear?

Question

I'm not judging. Fear is normal.

I can understand because while I know it's my role to be at home. I'm worried about being so busy with the child all the time or about not having enough adult interaction or how's all the money going to pan out... Yes, I worry about these things but I won't let it stop me.

Do you think that's why a lot of women choose not to stay at home?

Fear of lonliness?
Fear of financial instablility?
Fear of not having indepence?
Fear of not being able to handle it?
Fear of not be felt as if they are worth anything?
Fear of husband leaving?

If it is fear, why not embrace it and move forward with a plan?

Carrie:
If you are insinuating that I am acting like a dictator and/or that I stick my nose in everyone else business, I'm sorry you feel that way. This is Yahoo Answers, I have questions so I come here for answers. I'm trying to understand the true reason someone would not want to stay at home as it doesn't make sense to me. I'm just trying to understand. There's no need to be insulting.

Lol...maybe I should proof read before posting... I meant to say Do you THINK the reason some women don't stay at home is due to fear...oops...

Rude unfeeling: Why is it your assumption that if someone stays at home they don't have independence?

I wasn't trying to insult anyone. I'm wondering what the deep down reason is women won't stay at home.

To state that women typically stay at home is false in this day and age. This day and age it is typical for a woman to have a career outside of the home and unfortunately it is looked down on for a woman to stay at home as if she is lazy or dependent.

The fact that I'm so considered about women staying at home is due to the fact that I know of the benefits of women in the home. I also worry about my future and the future for my kids if we continue in the direction we are in.

Super Ruper: How does a job make someone more interesting? I don't want to sit and talk to my engineer friends about engineering all day. I want to talk about them and their lives. Plus if you feel you need more dimension in your life there are all kinds of hobbies or little jobs a person can do from home.

Answer 1

Wow! Being a stay at home Mom means having to juggle everything! I think it is important to have friends to hang out with and have time at night with your husband! I spend time whenever possible with husband and keep everything in order! Simply time management!

Answer 2

Well I am 25 years old and I have 3 kids ages almost 2 ,3 and 8 and I am not working but I am going to college and the reason why I want to work is for sanity reasons. I get cabin fever I go crazy all day at home with the kids and going to school is a little me time to just get away and interact with other adults. I am not working and probably wont be for a while since going to college and having 3 kids to schedule my classes around isn't easy. I dont really know what it would be like to be at work all day long 5 days a week, I dont think I could handle that while they are still so young, but maybe when they are all in school I could just work while they are there and still have plenty of time with them. I understand both sides but I just started school about a year ago and I was a stay at home mom before then and I had a really hard time coping with the stress, and not having adult interaction often enough.

Answer 3

I'm not afraid to stay home, I just don't want to. I'm not afraid of not having independence, I DISLIKE not having some independence. Apparently you enjoy being dependent on someone else. That's your choice, but when you insult those of us who don't choose to do that by making allegations that we fear staying home, you will hear my true opinion. I would say fear is more what KEEPS women at home. Women typically stay home and take care of children. To do something different forces a lot of women out of their comfort zone. That can be scary. The fact that you are so concerned about why everyone else won't stay home makes it sound like you may be a little jealous. Misery loves company.

Why should I stay home? Why shouldn't the husband? Because I have a vagina? I didn't ask for this vagina, and if it truly limited me to staying home and not working, I'd trade it in a heart beat for a penis! And to blame women for the deterioration of society is simplifying things to say the leat. Some families are capable of having two working parents, and raising good children who grow up to be productive members of society.

Answer 4

The fear of financial instability is too realistic not to have. There is no good reason for women to take a risk like that. Everyone needs to be able to care for themselves.

Most women choose not to stay at home simply because they don't want to. They deeply enjoy working and making accomplishments outside the home, and they have every right to do so. Those who are mothers still make their children their number-one priority, but that doesn't mean dropping everything else in their lives for their sake.

Answer 5

Seriously, why is it so important to you that women be confined? I would NEVER stay home 24/7, kids or no kids. It would drive me up the wall and turn me absolutely loony.

So, no, going nuts is not the same as being "afraid." Reasonable people try to avoid going nuts as much as they can, not "embrace" going nuts and "move forward with a plan for being nuts," as you suggest.

My mother was a stay-at-home her entire life, and I watched her become withdrawn, miserable, depressed, and psychologically ill because of it. Staying home with kids is not all fun walk-in-the-park time. I have no idea why women try to pretend it is.

Answer 6

The choice to stay home with children or to not stay home is as varied as the people who make the choices. It's impossible to say that any one rational for a behavior is going to cover even a small portion of the population.
Instead of creating an agonizingly long list of reasons why women might choose to not stay home, I'm going to focus on the one reason you give...FEAR.
As far as I can tell, you see fear as a bad motivator, you want fear to be embraced and overcome. Not a bad idea for a motivational speech, but a poor excuse for logic.
Everyone fears something, and the God you believe in created the ability to fear in humans in order to keep them safe. Fear means we don't drive cars at 120 mph, even though they'll go that fast, because it's a bad idea. Fear means we use the self-preservation instinct, also instilled in us by God, to make the most out of our lives.
You personally fear Hell. If you didn't, than you wouldn't follow the Christian faith. Don't make faces, I know you won't agree with that idea, but without consequences there would be no reason for people to believe in God. If you want everyone else to overcome their fears, than you should overcome yours.
I raised two boys, 9 months and 3 weeks apart in age, when I was 16. I lived alone, worked full time, and went to school full time. These children weren't even biologically mine. After that, nothing about hearth and home frightens me. I know there is absolutely nothing that could go wrong that I can't handle, because I've already handled it when I was much younger and much less capable.
I didn't stay at home full time then, and I wouldn't now. It's a choice that women make to stay at home and raise their families. It's a fine choice. But that doesn't mean it's the only one, or that its a choice that is controlled by something as easy to catalog as fear. I wish motivations were as simple as that, if they were the world might be an easier place to live in.

Answer 7

That could be a deciding factor for some. Others do not want to stay home, it's not that they fear anything it is just they do not wish too.

Also, historically only the upper and upper half of the middle class actually managed to stay home, or not work in order to bring in money. But then again the upper class that stayed home also managed to have the lower class to come in clean their house, and raise their children, they even had others breast feed their children a good deal of the time.

Answer 8

Oh, I get it. Anyone that doesn't choose as you choose to do is some how deficient in some way, right? Is that why you just don't want to "listen" to the opinions that have been given to you over and over again? You are so set on your way being the only and right way that you can't seem to comprehend what others tell you? Why can't you accept that not all women want to be what you want to be, and that there is nothing wrong with that.

You want to know why I, personally, don't like you and have very little respect for you(or, at least, for your Y!A persona)? Because you try to make me, and others like me, feel less then you, and not as good as you, and that I am wrong because I believe that the feminist movement was a good and positive thing for humanity. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman that wants to be a SAHM and housewife. Good on ya, glad you can choose that(although, is it really a choice if you've been made to feel that you are wrong for doing more then stay at home with the kids and take care of your husband and that that is your only role in life?), but why must you make other women feel that YOUR way is THE way, and that any other way is wrong? What's wrong with you? Why can't you just be happy with YOUR choice to be what you are let others alone and not belittle them for THEIR choice to be what they are? Get over yourself, you are not the best woman out there, your life isn't the best life out there, there is more then one way to live.

Answer 9

For some it could be. Fear of not having their "own" money just in case. Fear of being left high and dry with no way to support themselves, fear of not being able to find a job if they have a long gap in between work history...etc... I could see how some women are afraid to be stay at home moms. Especially with the economy and inflation the way it is now, it is no wonder people want additional income as either a backup, or to make ends meet.

Answer 10

I think you've defined fear very broadly to encompass many of the reasons women don't or can't stay at home. For the record, I think it can work just as easily for a man to stay at home. I think in many cases, one income is not enough to carry a household. You probably know you can save money making meals at home, you certainly save on babysitting costs if you have children, but what about things you can't save on? For me, both my spouse and I have student loan debt from College. Those loans, combined with rent, electric, food and insurance bills are too high to carry on one income.
For us, it's not fear, it's practicality. I drew up a budget, and not much can be cut out of it. Having said all that, our goal is to pay down our loans and save to a point where one of us can stay home and raise kids.

Answer 11

Don’t confuse fear with need.

Many women don’t have the opportunity to stay at home because they NEED two incomes to live on, and not so they can take several vacations a year. They both have to work to survive.

And I doubt many women consider going to work as a contingency plan just in case their husband leaves them, etc.

Plus, you fail to take into account that many women DESIRE to work. I can tell you from personal experience that I have helped enrich lives through my work, a lady friend of mine who’s a doctor has developed a drug that is in clinical trials as a potential cure for pancreatic cancer, and other friends have become teachers who’ve helped develop young minds into great students.