To be annoyed by SIL making these comments towards my DD

@nhd

I don’t think you need to justify yourself at all. You don’t even need to actively encourage your daughter to play football, just to prove a point. She’s literally 3, I don’t know why posters are dying, saying that she’s going to be a girlie girl, or whatever. And even if she does, what’s the problem, if that’s how she feels comfortable. Trying to force a child to go against stereotypes, just to prove a point, is harmful. SIL is doing too much to push her own beliefs.

Of course some women enjoy it and want to be SAHM's, I've never said otherwise.

It contributes to inequality so it can't be a feminist choice. How can it be when it largely makes women financially vulnerable and supports problematic gender stereotypes?

I'm sorry but what you seem to be saying here is men and the patriarchy have decided what work counts as work and is valued. So women must now opt for the work outside the home choice (and lets all recognise that only some work really matters here - high paying stuff)

I don't accept that. I worked outside the home all my life and went back to work when my kids were 12 weeks old. I'd be crucified here on MN for that but that was how it worked where I lived. I understand completely how much care an infant needs because I paid for it.

Staying home to mind your infant/toddler/child is absolutely a feminist choice. Seeing it as a devalued choice is absolutely a patriarchal choice - if women do it it must be worthless.

She sounds annoying.

She's annoying. She's crossing the line. I'm sure all the sis in law lovers on here would feel the same if they were constantly undermining their parenting. My girls liked dressing up and playing with cars, climbing trees etc. My middle daughter campaigned for girls to be able to play basket ball at her high school as it was always a male sport. She got the rules changed for the girls then decided she preferred horse riding. She can be the cool fun aunt but she's really over the top and needs to reign it in.

@SouthLondonMum22

Plenty of women actually enjoy and actively want to be an SAHM, even educated working professionals. Heck, some detest going back to work in the early years, but feel they have no choice. This isn’t fair on them. Why not appreciate that some women have a positive experience of staying home, it’s not always be all or end all. If that makes someone not a feminist, then so be it. Childcare/homemaking is also of value.

I'm interested, fair enough if you don't wish to elaborate.

I have my own purpose, several actually.

I'm with your SIL

If you're not capable or willing to branch out beyond stereotypes for your DD at least someone else will.

👌

No It doesn't matter what I mean. Men have set out their own purpose. Meanwhile us women are arguing whether a 3 year old having two dresses presented to them is a tragedy!

Again, OP has an engineering degree. She's taken the DD to football and DD didn't like it.

SIL isn't offering anything that OP doesn't offer with regard to crossing the boy/ girl activity/ skills barrier and empowering her child to do anything she wants. All SIL is doing is annoyingly undermining OP, and (unforgivably in my opinion) denigrating her niece's achievement, when DN ran to her, so proud of her baking, only to be lectured on what she could be doing instead.

Depends what you mean by the male purpose.

YABU, your SIL sounds great and those are all things I say to children 😂

I didn’t mean you are lazy(!), I said that your posts imply/ suggest - at least to me- that you are modelling, affirming some fairly pervasive gender stereotypes in a lazy (ie uncritical/ unthinking) way. Eg offering her the choice of two dresses for a party, and trying to win her compliance by telling her she’ll look pretty - thereby teaching her a) dresses=pretty, b) pretty=valuable and aspirational goal for girls (who after all are the sex that exclusively wear dresses). Instead of critically reflecting on this, you justify it with, well she needs to be clean (lazy justification).
The football example: your SIL tries to reflect on the subliminal messaging that your DD is getting when she watches daddy go out to football (an overwhelmingly male dominated / celebrated sport) , while mum stays home and bakes (an activity Primarily associated with women) . She tries to counterbalance this by telling your DD that football can also be for girls, and you say “well dd doesn’t like football cos I took her one time and she just wanted snacks and to go home”. Again, imv, lazy reasoning. She’s three.

I never said it is just about finances. I've raised other issues too.

I'm sorry but labour and breastfeeding is my work. I hate the type of feminism you preach. It is just so reactive to male needs. Men do X, women want X.

Why can't we be more creative then that as women? We can create our own purpose and not use the male purpose as a blueprint.

I think you see equality in a different way to others. It's not just about financial equality ... There's also the mental load equality, quality of life equality, the equality of choice ect ect ...

I am not a SAHM but I wish I was. Unfortunately I can't be and I don't see this as equality for me! I would love to be at home for the early years. I don't feel like I can have it all. Society isn't set up that way though. I need to work as a single income isn't enough.

Your sil is great,empowering your daughter that she can do anything. I like the comments also gives your daughter a different view point and possibly an open person in her life she can confide in or ask questions of as she grows

It's an issue because there should be no such thing as ''women's work'' and ''man's work''.

Surely it’s only an issue if somehow ‘women’s work’ is worth less than a man’s work??

Okay, let's call it work that mainly women do. Better?

PS. My partner was a SAHD. I was the breadwinner.

It shouldn't be ''women's work''. That's part of the issue.

But pointing out that it isn't a feminist choice isn't the same as saying that SAHM is a useless contribution/nothing. No one has said that.

It contributes to inequality so it can't be a feminist choice. How can it be when it largely makes women financially vulnerable and supports problematic gender stereotypes?

I agree with you OP.

I don’t think you’re over focused on looks. It’s also ok for a girl to be told she’s pretty sometimes, as long as it’s not the main theme of her life.

It sounds like SIL has made your DD her ‘project’; totally inappropriate to be telling a toddler who has baked something that she could have done something else, or to undermine your value of dressing appropriately. It’s unecessarily introducing doubt and confusion in her mind.

Sometimes the feminist thing goes far too far and ends up being unfeminist. If the message being given out is that being ‘girly’ is somehow wrong or has to be challenged then that’s a problem. We should celebrate ‘girlyness’ and femininity too. It’s not just tomboys who have got it right.

I was a SAHM for five years. It wasn't remotely detrimental to my career going forward. I went back at the same level that I was when I left (and from which I wouldn't expect to have progressed in that period, given the nature of my job). I was promoted two years later, and again a few years after that, in exactly the same timeline of have expected had i been working throughout.

I expected to be a working mother. My DH would have loved to be a SAHD. But when my first child arrived, and I went back to work for the few months I was obligated to, I was miserable. I wanted to be home with my child, and handed in my notice.

Not for one minute did I feel obliged to stay at work and be miserable for the sake of the sisterhood. That's absolutely ridiculous and makes a mockery of feminism being about choice. I don't owe anything to every other woman just because we share genital anatomy.