To think most men wouldn’t survive a year living the life of an average woman?

So I’m currently not, primarily because my children are extremely happy at school and fortunately are at an excellent local school which stretches them academically (I have kept an extremely close eye on this).

I really admire parents who do home educate, that’s an amazing commitment to their children’s education. I would happily do it, it would be amazing to have that time and follow their interests more closely, but I make decisions based on my children’s needs- they are happy at school, so that’s great!

However, should that change then I wouldn’t hesitate to switch to home educating. I certainly would if I felt they weren’t being adequately challenged and stretched and/or were being bullied, for example.

In your specific case, you clearly need some help. I don’t think anyone would begrudge that after you’ve shared more about your own circumstances.

In my situation, I want to raise my own children, it’s as simple as that. Our parents are dead, we only have my Mum. She spent my entire childhood as a fantastic SAHM for me, she gave me everything I could ever need. She is on her own and cannot afford to not work, so no, I absolutely would never expect or ask her to provide childcare for us bar the odd bit of babysitting/emergencies. She looked after us, now it’s my turn to do the same for my own.

I witness plenty quite frankly (who are not in a situation comparable to yours) taking advantage of their parents and ILs whilst doing nothing but pick fault with them over utter nonsense and showing little gratitude. I find it a bit much.

I am sick of being insulted by people who look down on me as being a ‘dependent’ housewife when actually I have never felt more independent in terms of doing everything personally myself day-to-day. I see people relying on 4 different people to help with their school run- I don’t have anyone, and I get on with it without complaining constantly! We moved out young and haven’t been dependent on our parents for anything since our early 20s. I see many dependent on their parents who are 20 years older, financially, practically and emotionally.

So yeah, I think people should look at themselves more and really consider how truly ‘independent’ they are before insulting housewives! Or are domestic women just an easy target?

Why aren’t you home educating Btw ?
Do you plan to ? How old are your kids?

Didn’t you congratulate me for having supportive grandparents that support us with childcare?

So is it that, or that relying on your parents for support with children is immature and we need to grow up?

Hmm, I think a man would be judged more harshly than a woman if he didn't work and just looked after the house. But we get judged in other ways men don't so much.

they are comical and largely exaggerated - nobody really gives a shit about how someone else does Xmas or washes their sheets or eats for that matter do they????

And Brexit is the absolute mess we all thought it would be. Reform can't afford to deliver those policies. They can raise the threshold all they like, unless they are dishing out big amounts in benefits which they also can't afford low income families will never be able to afford the cost of housing on one wage, let alone all the other expenses on top. Housing in the UK is extortionate. That's why taking away child care keeps people in poverty.

In countries like Germany nursery costs roughly 400 euros a month, roughly 300 pounds. In the UK it costs roughly 1500 pounds on the cheaper end in some cities it's 3000. That's a whole middle class income and more. Without the government subsidising it no woman has any chance of working her way out poverty or even maintaining her career, they simply can't afford to work. But they also can't afford don't to work because life isn't free. The problem isn't with women wanting to work, it's a system that's been made so expensive no one can afford it, but without it women are forced out of work and into poverty. But you really begrudge them that opportunity because it's immoral. Baffling.

Also any right wing party prioritising moving things back to the "good old days" are always bad for women's rights. You only have to see what's happening in America to know that going backwards is bad for women. Voting farage is selling yourself and your daughter's down the river.

She does understand.

She just doesn't care because she thinks it's immoral for mothers to have their own ambitions.

You only have to read threads on here where women are demonised as disgusting because they only wash their sheets every two weeks, or the competitive Christmas threads, or the one salad leaf does me a fortnight threads to see where the pressure comes from.

Society pressure from where? If it is friends or relatives no one has to match them, surely woman are intelligent enough to not rely on social media how to live life? TV and magazines just because other people do it or ads say we have too doesn't mean we do

So again pressure from where? And does this mean men have more brains than us?

What a brilliant question

You are completely right!

but I wonder if men would get sucked in if they were judged by the same standards as women? No one expects a guy to do these things, but imagine the weight of judgement if you don’t do it as a woman?

we definitely have more social pressure. We don’t need to act on it, but it is constant

And just like the Brexit vote, reform is making all sorts of promises it's got absolutely no ability to follow through on.

Reform’s policies on the family are outstanding. They are the only ones speaking up for the choices of lower income families. They propose raising the current personal threshold to £20K, lifting the 2 child benefit cap and ensuring the first £25K of one party within a marriage is not taxed, to make it financially easier for families to have children and to reflect and respect their greater responsibilities.

Like with the Brexit vote, it would be naive to underestimate how popular these policies are. People naively assume people are only voting for Reform because of immigration, and that is grossly inaccurate. They have other policies, such as their family ones, which quite frankly are a refreshing change.

HAHAHA!! You want the government to pay you to look after your own child!?! I've heard it all now!! 😂 The government subsidise childcare to protect womens rights and because they need our skills to run industries and our tax to pay for people who can't work to be looked after. Not because the government pays per child 🙄 You're already being subsidised by receiving NHS care and a state pension without paying any tax what more do you want!?

YOU believe nurseries are morally wrong. Thankfully the majority of the UK aren't thick enough to vote reform so you and Nigel won't be sending anyone back to the kitchen sweetie 😘

Women do tend to be more resilient and better able to cope with what are really just normal challenges.

Until they need to change a tyre. 🤣

OK, I'm taking the piss but a lot of my mates wouldn't be able to do something simple like this. I doubt they'd even know what a jack point is tbh. I don't think either sex have it easier really. People always focus on the perks. All the male CEOs. Nobody is fighting for an equal number of female bin operatives.

Men have no doubt 'taken control' at many points over history, which has no doubt shaped our society. But somebody had to stop Hitler and men are better equipped for fighting. It's pretty irrelevant to me that Hitler was a man. Most men aren't like Hitler.

And those of us that don’t have help from grandparents? Where does that leave us?

I don’t think you fully comprehend the importance of subsidised childcare on women’s lives.

Grandparents already do plenty of childcare. They are preferable to nurseries, so yes, I believe the government needs to either keep it’s nose entirely out of childcare (parents need to look after their own kids or pay for it) or it needs to treat everyone fairly. All parents should receive the same (to cover themselves or grandparents as much as nurseries or childminders). The government is actively promoting and encouraging the least beneficial care for under 2s, that is a choice not a necessity, and it is morally wrong. There are other choices it could promote.

I’m far from workshy, I looked after my own young children for years with zero help, I certainly wasn’t acting like many people I know and would actually define as workshy, the type who constantly whinge on about ‘needing a break’ from their kids (honestly, get a grip!) despite often having 2 sets of GPs running around after them like big babies, not just so they could work, but so they could go to the gym/beauty appointments, yadda yadda yadda. The amount on Mumsnet who cannot cope with baby 2 and the older sibling at home and pack the older one off to nursery whilst on mat leave- pathetic!!! I’m amazed at how few people can actually hack spending any decent amount of time with their own children! I have friends who barely see their own children, and it is nothing to be proud of.

Ha and people judge housewives for being ‘dependent’- the ‘dependency’ of so many so called ‘independent’ women on their own parents is off the chart- grow up! I wouldn’t dream of treating my mother like that, nor would my DH. We look after our own children, I’m not a child.

Oh and a bit of free life advice- you can be as shouty and sweary as you like in your posts, but out in the real world being ‘offended’ doesn’t make you right, and other people are free to disagree with you.

Wait, I've only just clocked you thing grandmothers shouldn't have to work either!? So having a child exempts you from work for life!? Fucking hell!

It makes zero sense that you're happy for women to claim as many benefits as they need to stay at home with their children and the government should support them to do so if they can't afford it but the government shouldn't support them to work. You said you don't judge people for being on benefits at all and no one should have to work if they don't want to. But you sure as he judge people for working and needing help. The total failure of logic shows it's not about money at all, it's about ideology.

If you cared about the state of the countries finances at all you'd pay some fucking tax but you don't, you're just workshy. It shines like a beacon from all your anti work rhetoric and the way you keep banging on about 'freedom' and the government not wanting people to wise up to not having to work.

Why is women being bread winners doomed to fail? Are they less capable than men? Or do men just not like being powerless like women who rely on their husbands are so are going to complain a lot?

This post is the cherry on top of all of your other misogynistic views. You write like a man who is pretending to be a woman and is modelling the good little wifey he thinks women should be. It's quite hilarious you had the lack of self awareness to call someone else deeply misogynistic, that's exactly what you are! You should be ashamed of yourself the way you want to hold women down.

How many women put men before their children, and how many threads on here alone are by women who i would say are desperate for a man, their money, for sex, for a replacement father maybe it is for attention, some feel their life is over if they dont have one, some crave their approval we see it daily

Maybe this place just attracts women like this as the woman I know in normal life are just normal average woman, meant in a good way, who just get on woth life.

The relationships I know that work both of the couple have similar intelligence levels and have their own interests and dont need each other they are their own people and work together to make it work

Men aren’t all terrible, some of them are, and we’re not desperate to have them.

The men who are emotionally stunted, tend to also have parents (usually mothers) who treat them like a precious little boy who needs constant support. Refusing to mother them either makes them grow up, or means you end up separating. Good, nobody needs a man baby.

Lots of us aren’t desperate for male attention either.

Relationships, on both sides of the sex divide, work best when the partner is around because you want them and not need them. I could leave my partner tomorrow, and he’d absolutely survive. He doesn’t need me either.

Completely agree.
In my early career I worked with young people in some of the most deprived areas of the UK supporting them into university and work. Many of which had grown up in families where generational unemployment and poverty was the norm.
Since becoming a mother I’ve become a university academic and completed a PhD. My research has contributed to improving educational and employment outcomes for young people.
I’m immensely proud of my career and it is a huge part of my identity. I’m not ashamed of that.

Agreed.

I taught some of the most vulnerable children in my area. Much of the time, alongside educating them, that involved feeding them, cleaning them, and keeping them safe when their parents were not.

I taught school refusers, encouraged them back into the education system, and prevented many of them from engaging in youth offending.

I now am a senior manager in a business that specialises in providing schools with 1:1 and bespoke education for children who otherwise would be unable to learn. Without our input, there would be children with real significant need, completely out of education and parents completely unable to work, because there’d be nowhere for their kids to be.

My staff keep vulnerable and hard to reach children safe, clean, and able to develop both socially and academically.

Pardon me for thinking that’s more important and valuable than whether I’ve cleaned my radiators (spoiler - I have.)

Is this for women who cant wake up in the woman without blaming hormones for their bad mood or theot unreasonable behaviour 'i am not to blame its not my fault i act badly' not all woman act like this and not all men across badly, i know lots of examples of men just getting on with things where women cant cope and the reverse, but I still cant understand if men are so terrible why women are desperate to have one, keep one and go to pieces when a man leaves them.

How much of women's lives is spent complaining how badly men are but they need one to earn so they can stay home and have babies? So i presume they have their uses

No woman needs a man it just seems like they spend their whole life desperate for their attention, but again not all woman