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A stay at home moms way of cleaning house!

12th September 2007

A stay at home moms way of cleaning house!

posted in Uncategorized |

Parental rights have always been a main focus of government agencies and political agendas but lately it seems to be swept under the rug.

Years ago women were expected to stay at home to care for children and the men dragged themselves to mindless jobs just to bring home the bacon. Well, today as you can see women are slaughtering the pigs and men are ironing as well as vice versa. The gender problem in most places has been sorted out, after years of burning bras and scolding husbands for not listening to them, women have finally started to prevail in their fight for equality. Good for them I say, because without them we’d be baking bread and icing cakes like slaves just because we naturally breed. Whooa did I just say that? No really, women and men like to bake or cook or clean personally I like to eat home baked goods. I just suck at baking because I have a heavy thumb when it comes to cooking. Luckily in my family my husband cooks and I well, I clean. Can you imaging loving to cook and eating your own food with someone else cleaning up your mess, we do it daily. No arguments just full bellies and a big kitchen to clean. Oh and just because we don’t fight over the cooking or cleaning doesn’t mean there isn’t something else to fight about.
Life today as you know it well it is pretty good except….

Try being a stay at home mom, without the reward of your children it would honestly suck! We all know it is because of the children that we do it.
These are my problems with being a stay at home mom and I thought I would share them with you just in case you never noticed them before or they got swept under the rug.

Parents who stay at home by choice or are financially forced to stay at home are..
*considered non-working dependents under the Canada Income tax act. Personally I’d rather be called a welfare bum than a non-working dependent.
*not considered financially stable by banks or credit companies. Literally the bank asks your spouse if you can be on the mortgage if you have no income. Don’t laugh I was in that situation fortunately my husband quickly replied without my wife we wouldn’t be here! My hubby is a good boy.
*penalized and have no tax breaks for being at home. Some say we do because our spouse can claim a spousal deduction but if we had a paid income then we would be able to claim a personal deduction. Since we do not have a paid income then we don’t have the personal deduction only our spouses can claim us for a spousal deduction which I might add is less than the personal deduction.
*pension-less. We cannot buy RRSP’s if we do not have an income.
* not employable, many jobs don’t see household duties as experience. Funny, domestic engineers aren’t as popular as they used to be.
* completely useless in the eyes of society!

Remember when women were expected to stay at home with the children and men dragged themselves out to mindless jobs to bring home the bacon? Well way back then they did have tax breaks and incentives to value the spouse at home but these days you are only valued if you use some sort of daycare setting or take in children in your own home. When and if you do that you will see tax breaks and subsidies coming from all 3 governments. Federal pays for the tax deductable and hands out money to the provinces to let them use it anyway they want to create new daycare spaces. The Provincial puts money towards educating childcare workers and builds buildings for these spaces also handing money down to the municipalities. The Municipal in turn decides how many spaces are needed for their local area and proves to the province that they are in need. Money, money, money all for bureaucracy but none for the at home parents.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of being swept under the rug, its time to clean house!

So yes I complain but just remember for all the bitching I do the kids make it all worth while.

Sara Landriault
Stay at home mom of 3
President, National Family Childcare Association

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There are currently 5 responses to “A stay at home moms way of cleaning house!”

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  1. 1 On September 23rd, 2007, Cynics Unlimited » Does Canadian Taxation Discriminate Against Marriage? said:

    […] Sara Landriault: “A Stay at Home Mom’s way of Cleaning House”. Technorati Tags: Cohabitation Marriage Taxation Share this article: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]

    posted on September 23rd, 2007 at 6:13 pm

  2. 2 On January 23rd, 2008, Beverley Smith said:

    A caring government open to women’s dreams has enabled women who want to earn outside the home to do so with tax breaks. It has eased their feeling of guilt or loss by reassurances that daycare is top quality early education and often better than mom. It has pressured them to continue to earn with penalties for being home like lack of income splitting, pension rights or universal deductions for children. So with carrot and stick it has enabled women to do roles men used to have. It has however not recognized the equally valid other side of freedom - the situation of those whose preference actually is to be with the kids. Where they have financial problems, it has done nothing. Where they lack pension, mat leave, family allowance or status as ‘working’, it has done nothing.
    So currently government policy is very weighted to be very very kind to women’s rights as long as women want to earn outside the home. It has to realize that women are not all of one stripe. And it has to open its own eyes to what bias and discrimination really look like. Chains to the office desk are no less offensive than were chains to the sink. Remove the chains.
    Many of us have worked for years to get governments to the ‘both-and’ solution, valuing women whose paid work leads them to use daycare, grandma care, sitters, nannies but also value those whose paid work is at home and who don’t use others for care of the children - but who still have heavy costs and salary loss. Help everybody. Enable freedom.

    Sara Landriault is a passionate advocate for just this choice. This is not at all the backlash against feminism of the 80s where women were made to feel badly for working outside the home. THis is the win-win argument that says women don’t need to feel badly period- they are always working, there is no such thing as a nonworking mother and the state will recognize and value both paid and caregiving roles.

    posted on January 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am

  3. 3 On February 6th, 2008, Income Tax Child Care Deduction said:

    Caring For Your Child With Cerebral Palsy

    At this point, medical specialist still does not have any specific guidelines with regards to the real cause of cerebral palsy. Prematurely-born babies as well as unborn child who has already damage to the brain are most susceptible from acquiring such…

    posted on February 6th, 2008 at 7:22 am

  4. 4 On May 4th, 2008, Cerebral Palsy Child said:

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    A stay at home moms way of cleaning house! ” International … was a very useful read.

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