To be a traditional sahm ??

Handbag, I agree with that, we work more yet aren't actually becoming more productive. It's a waste.

Chandellina, the problem isn't that women arn't choosing those careers. The problem is that those careers are only possible if you've got a live in nanny or a partner who has a flexible/part time role or is a stay at home parent. Business needs to change. The way we do business needs to alter. It won't at the moment though cos we're still in recession and employers can take their pick when hundreds of over qualified applicants all go after the same job.

I dunno kim. I have child friendly hours but I'm surrounded by people desperate to make them unfriendly. We seem to be living in the age of the workaholic when it was supposed to be the age of leisure.

Shouldn't robots be doing everything by now? And where is my flying car?!

I have one of the "high flying" jobs another poster finds hard to believe in

They really do have their downsides. I was sending e-mails from my phone before the epidural wore off and back working pt within 4 weeks of giving birth

A "high flying" job doesn't make you a better or worse person than anyone else

It certainly doesn't make you a better or worse mother

If I lost my job I'd take £7ph in a cash and carry if I needed to. I wouldn't see anything wrong with that I'd miss the money but I wouldn't think my status as a person had altered at all.

Why sneer at perfectly valid jobs

inneedofbrandy
I am certainly in need of a nip of something after your post

Sahm=Slavery and Prostitution!!!!
LOL!
What an utterly bizarre, idiotic suggestion.

Hannah, that's my point. Why are entire sectors failing to attract women, surely you wouldn't argue men want to work un family friendly hours? Child friendly careers are only bad if they attract mostly women and are poorly paid. Virtually all jobs could be more flexible and family friendly but women opting out of tougher careers isn't helping.

Sorry. I misread. I do work with exceptional men though, although that contradicts what I have said above about young people thinking of going into teaching

I actually see marriage to someone whos a high earner so you can sit on your arse and eat chocolate all day a form of prostitution and slavery even if your living it and don't realise. If your a SAHM with no prospects you are stuck with a man who may do what he likes to you and comes home to a clean house dinner on the table and sex on tap. You can't be your own person and say no thats not acceptable as he is the one in control and he has the power over you to make you homeless and poor. Now men are to be given a legal right over their dc (can't remember what it's called but it was on the news) he can kick you out and you won't even have the CS to live off of.

And yes I would be more proud of my dc if they were earning NMW then doing nothing. Being a SAHM with school age dc is doing nothing. I know I have been out of work for a while there is not enough housework and stuff to be baked to fill in 9 till 3 every day all week.

If you read what I've written you'd come down more on exceptional than average, unless your mr arisbottle of course :)

I'm not sure why child friendly careers are bad?
Personally I think the reason more women aren't in high powered jobs is because they're not child friendly. My husband works in an office with no women. Not one.
They want women. They actively seek to recruit them.
It's not a child friendly profession though: longer, unpredictable hours, unpredictable days, travel. If both parents pursue this line of work, a full time live in nanny becomes a requirement. And most women want flexibility and work/life balance when they have children. Perhaps if men got pregnant, gave birth, breastfed and then spent 12 months on maternity leave, they'd feel the same.

Whilst I don't want to blow my own trumpet I am not Mrs Average and whilst some of the people I work with are average , many are not, particularly those that rise to the top.

I wouldn't recommend teaching to anyone, although average men seems to get as far as exceptional women ime, so perhaps it's a good career for mr average.

I used to want to be a high flier, my earnings never used to be about 1/4 of DHS but I hAve four children of my own and therefore have had four sets of maternity leave , that has to affect your career. It also became impossible to have both of us having full in careers, it took us three children to spot that! So one of us took a step back, as I was by then earning about half of DH it made sense for the person to take the step back to be me .

Vivienne you make a very good point about men. I can't see the value of one parent being around 24/7 if the price of that is the other parent working stupid hours and never being around or being too exhausted to enjoy family life. It's hardly fair to the working parent (usually the dad) and more importantly it's not fair to the children, who need Both parents to have the emotional energy to enjoy parenting

I couldnt agree more chandella although it has served both DH and I well to go for "child friendly occupations"
Until both partners feel responsible equally for the care of children then we are back to women sacrificing good careers because they have very little choice.
disclaimer I am aware there will always be those who choose to be SAHM but many of my friends felt they had little choice.

I think that is changing, although at work I tend to hear more girls than boys who want to go into teaching. I also noticd that it tends to be more middle ability boys that want to go into teaching whereas that level of girl wants to be a primary teacher and the brighter ones want to be seconday teachers. The girls tend to be more conservative in their ambition. Not always but there is a trend. Although of course they may be more likely to share their ambitions with me if they want to follow my career path.

I have two daughters and they Wouod certainly never be teachers and have more gender neutral aspirations. One wants to be a surgeon and the other wants to do something environmental.

My point is that women will never have true choice in staying at home or not until our economic power is the same as men's. On average obviously.

channdelina, the problem might be this:
we carry them in our uterus for 9 months, birth them, breast feed them and more often than not, it is us women who take Maternity leave.

And then at the end of Maternity leave might decide that we would rather continue being at home with baby.

Things might change when men give birth and start taking 6-12 months maternity leave.

janey68

I believed her. And even if she was not it still was not her being nasty about anyone else. All I have seen from her posts is polite and harmless. So she can not be blamed for any of the nasty fighting really.

Although I am one of the little people so what do I know

Arisbottle- I have enormous respect for teachers. I have one secondary age and one primary child and i am in awe of their teachers. It's one of the most valuable Careers there is.

A lot of women don't want to be high fliers. And a lot of men don't want to be high fliers either. As it often means long hours travel and time away from their families. I think we have to accept that different people make different choices.

The only caution I would have with the SAHM and I don't mean a few years out of the work place, but women who decide to make the home their job is that do they realise they don't have a pension in their own right. They will get accreditations for the years they are at home but it won't be a full state pension. Private or state and will be forever dependent on their husbands. I know somebody who was a traditional stay at home mother. She is now very lonely indeed. Her husband and children have all left.