Dear Abby: I feel compelled to write to the stay-at-home mom who felt overworked, under-appreciated and suffocated. I know how she feels. I have four small children under 5 years old, and I haven't had a "day off" since the first one was born.
Many people think I'm lucky because I don't "have to work." Staying at home with children IS work. My husband looks forward to the weekends, when he doesn't have to work, and just when I think I'll have him around to help, he decides to go golfing, because he needs to relax after working all week.My sisters have commented that I used to be fun and funny. It's hard to be quick-witted when you're up all night with a new baby, then up again at dawn with the other kids.
As a single-income family, we can't afford to hire help or baby sitters. But your column helped me. After I wrote you this letter, I showed it (and the letter in your column) to my husband. He agreed I needed a "sanity day," and he's planning to stay home with the kids one day next week. I'm going to dress up and go to lunch with my sisters. Thanks, Abby, for my first day off!
- Stressed at Home in Pa.
Dear Stressed: I'm glad to help. I hope you and your husband make your "sanity day" a regular occurrence. Read on for another letter with a different take:
Dear Abby: I just read the letter form "Not OK Kaye," the stay-at-home mom who said her only relief from full-time motherhood is her part-time job.
My problem is exactly the opposite. I HAVE to work outside the home. I wish I could be home more often with my two young children. I feel like they are being raised by day care. I hate dragging them out of the house when it's barely light, and not seeing them until it is dark again.
My house goes unattended all week, so my weekends are spent doing laundry, vacuuming and errands - a week's worth of housework in two days.
I'd do anything to be home more and watch my children play and grow. I wish I were in Kaye's shoes.
- Homemaker Wannabe
Dear Homemaker Wannabe: In today's economy, with the need for two incomes, many families share your plight. Fortunately, employers are becoming more sympathetic to working parents.
In order to allow employees to spend more time with their families, some employers offer "flex-time": employees can arrange their work schedule in different ways (such as four 10-hour days with three days off, work from home part of the day, etc.). Perhaps your company would consider such a plan.
Dear Abby: In a recent letter to you, "Another Texan" said, "A man once wrote that if he owned Hell and Texas, he would rent out Texas and live in Hell."
The man who said it was Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan (1831-1888), in a speech at Fort Clark, Texas, in 1855.
While Texans may not want to remember Sheridan, we Chicagoans have memorialized him in the names of (among others) Fort Sheridan, Sheridan Road and Philip H. Sheridan School. A statue of Sheridan on his horse stands just off Lake Shore Drive at Belmont Avenue near the south end of Sheridan Road.
- Chicago Reader
1995 Universal Press Syndicate
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CROSSROADS
All of the Dear Abby columns since 1988 are available online. Search for DEAR ABBY in the Lifestyle section and the Deseret News archives.