Cost of living out of control

When some men hop off leaving us holding the baby we find that the state, an institution of the patriarchy will begrudgingly means test our income and decide if you are poor enough to receive help with childcare costs. Of course the costs are met, the benefit forthcoming, not because women should have the right to support her family and work but because it's seen as cheaper and better use of her labour, ie she shouldn't have the right extended to her that say a divorced middle class women should have. It would still be more egalitarian to provide childcare for children and better wages/conditions for women and men.

yy to free childcare.

I wouldn't be working at the moment if I didn't have to. I would be happily studying. Instead I am doing both

I don't know many families that can afford to have one parent not working at all.

I don't think the state considers children to be important thought does it?

This is a new realisation for me, first time I've said it and I agree with myself now it's out there!

I don't think a father should have less rights or less responsibility to a child. It should be equal. It should also be a viable choice if the father decides to reduce hours (or SAH) to look after the kids. But this is not true in today's culture. Most people see it as the women's job even if she actually earns more than her DH.

I also don't think we should provide free childcare. Who is going to pay for it? There is already a lack of fund in our public pot. It should go to people who needs it more. For example help for SN children, the elderly, the sick, etc.

There is a school of thought that says that this is the result of the way the baby boomers have set society up (alongside high house prices, loss of child benefit lack of means testing of fuel allowance etc etc)

There is another school of thought that blames women's lib. Of course once one family has 2 salaries then we all need 2

Precisely. But please don't see this as a women's issue. It's actually a family one because children have fathers too.

In other words i agree that in many cases both patents need to work; it's just that I think it's not a case of the woman needing to go out to work in addition to the husband; both have a right and responsibility to care for their children, I don't agree that women bear a greater responsibility at all. And here's news: you can lactate and - shock horror - work!

I think some of the problem is that when you frame the argument that "women" need child care and subsidize childcare through welfare systems you make a distinction between women of different classes.

Surely a far better way of giving women choice can be met with just two very simple things, better wages and free childcare. Because childcare is for children, women don't need looking after! and a women's need, choice or ability to go to work shouldn't rest with either the husbands wage or with the state that makes a binary economic & class distinction between those who have choice and those that don't.

mini it does. But the point isn't that 'many women go to work because one wage is not sufficient:' I went back because I was a highly trained professional, thanks. The point is that society and the government doesn't recognise the fact that both parents should be given some opportunity to participate both in the workplace and in family life. But as you've pointed out, quite apart from this, the standard of living achievable on one salary has dropped considerably in our lifetimes.

Yes, I believe women have both more right and shock horror! more responsibility towards the child because only women can conceive, carry, birth and lactate. Quite rightly women have reproductive rights, (no thanks to men)for this reason. If women are permitted to decide whether or not to have children we as a society could do more to respect her rights and to facilitate and respect the most socially important undertaking within society.

Instead we allow wages to decline and restrict choice, we undermine both mothering and parenting by extending and creating welfare needs such as nursery and tax credits to pay for it.

I don't work because I don;t want to and don;t need to. DH works because he wants to and needs to.

We are 100% happy in our own roles. I would loathe having to work and he would loathe not having to. Our marriage is absolutely equal, respectful and egalitarian. All money is shared and I assure, I am very, VERY far from vulnerable.

Mini. Are you saying that just because you have a womb and give birth that you somehow have more rights towards a child than the father?

If so, doesn't that completely fly in the face of the whole principle of equality? ie. EQUAL

Or is this the same idea in socialism in so far as everyone is equal....except some are more equal than others?

Wouldn't two part time wages really only equate to one full time wage, which really brings us back to the point that many women go to work because one wage is not sufficient.

cogito, yes it does mean becaroo's woh dh isn't bringing his child up the way he would like to, because he gets to see his child far less than he would do if both he and his wife were able to work part time.

You're accusing other people of misogynistic viewpoints but I think it's fairly odd it hasn't occurred to you that a father might prefer to share childcare than leave it all to the mother.

Yes, I probably was thinking of the other person. Sorry about that :) But what's better... taking on credit to to meet expenses or all the adults in the household going out to work?

You have taken that out of context and confused me with Ttosca??????why?

And yes people have taken on credit to buy ribbons, I agree with you but just as many people have taken on credit because their living expenses have outstripped their income, esp in regards to housing, transport and food.

"The unhappiness is more about relative wealth and aspiration, stress from being run ragged in the pursuit of acquisition and media bombardment of things to acquire."

Only the other day I think you were trying to convince me that wages not keeping pace meant people were buying essentials on credit. Now you're talking about wealth, aspiration and acquisition.... keeping up with the Jones... luxuries, in other words.

It's a very misogynistic perspective that women in jobs are just earning to keep themselves in ribbons...

I think motherhood and feminism has been railroaded into thinking that women shouldn't have more rights over their child, we have wombs, we lactate, it's men that have an agenda here to compare the rights of mothers and fathers.

Women have the right to choose to have babies, we carry them and we give birth to them. Why some women confuse maternal and paternal rights and boil it down to men having some magical kind of input really confuses me.

"For a wohp its not being able to raise their child the way they would like to, "

So does that mean your DH as the WOHP hasn't been able to raise his children the way he would like to?.... That's where the argument always falls down.

I think there is a dichotomy here, women work because one salary is not enough and the fact that being financially dependant upon another is not desirable but the fact remains that single women with children who work are still financially worse off than a couple who both work.

The answer lies not with a women's choice to work or not but with the fact that wages have not/never have kept pace with living costs. If women were to be truely independent she would be able to provide for her family irrespective of her partners wage or irrespective of whether she even had a partner. So yes OP you are correct.

Real choice esp for women would not be borne out of need but CHOICE. Something we don't have.

but those same women were often so bored they were turning to drink or tranquilisers just to get through the day and now many women work they no longer drink several glasses of wine after work or take anti-depressants. What a nonsense, there are many more women drinking socially and at home and the use of happy pills has increased.

The unhappiness is more about relative wealth and aspiration, stress from being run ragged in the pursuit of acquisition and media bombardment of things to acquire. Washing machines and happy pills have a lot to answer for It's caused by the gap between what we really need and what we think we need and the fact that you have to keep spending to keep everyone else in work.

I just want to add that with about half our university graduates being female. And many females studying for degress like law and medicine, it can't be that rare for a female to earn at least the same or not more than their DH when they have their first child.

Sadly, Becaroo, I'm very educated and my female friends are mostly the same. But the expecation for middle class women, like Cogito has said, hasn't changed that much. I know two PhDs who have quit their jobs to be SHAP. (I suspect they dont earn more than their DPs though because they were postdocs). A friend went part time when she's a senior engineer, and DH a postdoc, which I can guess she earns at least 10k more. Another is a hospital doctor, earned more than her DH, with probably a better career future too, but it's also her that went part time. We are conditioned to think it's wrong to ask the father to reduce their hours to care for the children even if they earn less. (Let alone if anyone dare to ask the father to quit their jobs because they earn less).

The govt pay single mums to not parent their own children. Because obviously we can't be trusted to not feed them macdonalds and smoke fags all day .

cog I think the vast majority of sahps are women for the simple reason that generally men earn more than women - even when doing comparable jobs - therefore the one with the least earning potential stays at home. Common sense, surely?

There is no way I could ever earn what my dh does...he has trained for his job for years, got a degree and 25 years experience. I was a receptionist and - as you must know - we are 10 a penny

But, yes of course it is a sacrifice...I am happy to have made it, but its a sacrifice none the less.

My bugbear is the women who think - as cosmo et al have led my generation to believe - they can "have it all". Well, you cant. Something has to give, in both scenarios.

For me as a sahp its financial independance and spending 9 years out of the workforce. For a wohp its not being able to raise their child the way they would like to, spending a large % of their wages on childcare and having to use all their annual leave looking after their sick dc.

There are no easy options being a parent IMHO.