Tell Me About It: To homemaker, that's her work; hubby asks her to take a job

Question: My husband and I have been married for 12 years. He has always worked, and I've always been a homemaker. I consider this my "job."

Recently my husband was laid off, and he accepted another position that pays significantly less. My sons are middle-school age, and my husband wants me to consider working part time for extra money, because I "have so much free time during the day."

I find this extremely disrespectful. How can we compromise on this issue, and how do I show him the importance of everything that I do?

Answer: You can compromise by allowing that both of you are right. Since you're a homemaker, you do all the jobs that two working parents would either have to divide between them or hire someone else to do, and you also are able to get involved in your kids' lives in ways that parents who work full time are often unable to. So, yes, you save the family money, and bring added value to the household.

That said, your family apparently needs cash now - more than it needs your full-time attention to home and kids, and that's legitimate, too.

Please let your husband know that you saw the "free time" comment as unfair, because you take pride in the way you've supported him and your kids.

After that you'll need to set aside your defensive impulses, and instead undertake a serious accounting of the housework and child-rearing that a part-time job would displace, and do your best to attach a money value to it. The whole point is to enable more financial stability. Figure out where you can best be deployed for the family good, and get to it.

Q: I know that my college-age daughter is hooking up (having sex) in college in a nonrelationship environment. She is happy, well-adjusted, gets good grades, and has always been very popular but never "in a relationship." She has been very private, and now I am heartbroken and feel like a failure for not being able to prevent her from making these choices. She seems fine, but I am not. Do I just need to let go?

A: The most important things you can do are not judge her, not take responsibility for her choices, and not let these choices overwhelm your other knowledge of her.

This is her business entirely. She's committing sexual exploration, not armed robbery.

Since you're taking it so hard, I suspect you came to child-rearing with some black-and-white views.

Try to see this as trying her own rules in place of her parents'. Never pretty, that process strengthens the person she will ultimately become.