Has anyone read 'I Don't Know How She Does It' or 'The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy'?

Yes - it's funny I've been around for over 3 years and it's only in the last couple of days that anyone's said that! Perhaps people thought I just couldn't spell "piglet"!

Piglit - is your username a play on chick-lit?

Yes, I'm glad I'm not in that book group.

(Partly because I think that is a very unsophisticated analysis to draw from that book, as some of the more thoughtful comments on here - vide Squiffy's - show).

Issymum - you should know by now that almost every thread turns into a sahm/wohm debate.

Snore.

Issymum What a stupid woman that must have been.

Issy - !!!! [too-gobsmacked-even-to-emote punctuation] I haven't seen you quote that before.

Lots of men have "good" jobs which they do very well, but which on their own would not be enough to provide for the entire family or get a mortgage. It's one of the defining conditions of the modern middle-class male - to be judged by your earning ability rather than what else you can bring to a relationship.

Xenia - as I've said before, I don't care at all that my partner earns more than me (though it didn't have to be that way - other options have been available). I think it's very nice and comfortable for all our family that he has a good job he does very well and that provides for all of us. Why is it such a big deal for you? Income is just ONE contribution to a relationship.

I thought that too Anchovy and, as a Kate Reddy cypher but without Bink's caramel ending, couldn't help momentarily imagining myself in that reading group, wilting before the hostile scrutiny of all those sacrificing mothers.

Still, as one RL mother memorably said to me and I've quoted before on Mnet "At least your husband has Multiple Sclerosis so you don't have to feel guilty."

I must now retire from this thread before it stops being about books and morphs into one of those full-on WOHM v SAHM rucks that I've promised myself I will ignore.

What always interests me is why the husband earn more? Is that because the women subcousciously seek someone who will provide so they can give up work and have babies or do men only want lower paid wives? If you marry someone who will earn more or you don't have much of a career of course it's likely you'll end up being the one at home so that and lack of male help domestically are some of the biggest reasons women don't progress at work as well as they might.

What if you need both incomes to pay the mortgage? What do you "sacrifice" then? Seems a little glib if you ask me.

Imnot27 - What if you decide children aren?t for you but you accidentally have one and then realise it?s the best thing? What if you decide children are for you but you realise full-time stay-at-home motherhood isn?t? Who decides what level of sacrifice is enough? Is one parent SAH (sacrifice) and the other working twice the time (sacrifice) to make ends meet morally and practically superior to other options? Is someone SAH because financially possible and the other partner working twice the hours because they enjoy it worse because no actual sacrifice is involved? I have cut back to 10 hours a week, DH to 3 days a week and massive career change. For us, this is quite a big thing. Seen from outside by someone who doesn?t know our circumstances this may well be not quite good enough. What would Hugh Grant say?

"IMHO, having children is a priviledge, and a decision which should involve a little sacrifive to involve them in your life. Not suggesting for a mo that everyone should be SAHM, but certainly working part-time, career break etc should be done if possible. If you are not prepared to make a sacrifice for your kids, then perhaps you are not really ready to have kids"

Hmmm. Interesting.

Ummmmmmm lovely Hugh Grant. I don't consider it as a terrible sacrifice to have been able to be with my kids when they were little, I feel lucky. My husband was sad that he couldn't work p/t too, but as he earns much more than me, this was how we worked it. If it is very gutting for a woman to sacrifice a career, then perhaps she should stay focused on working, rather than starting a family? I do have a firend who regrets having kids, and felt she bowed to pressure from family etc. Really, she loves working, and doesn't enjoy being a mum. So, maybe, rather than trying to have it ALL, and being fed up with juggling, it is a good thing to really consider what we actually want, and then go all out for that, whether it's family, or career, at least for a while. And who says men have it all so good? The pressure on a lot of blokes to work all hours etc is tremendous!

Well said Squiffy.

Anna - I too see the sense in what you are saying. Have come from a similar working environment and understand where you are ocming from.

SSD - perhaps some are PUT under more stress than others (work environment, inflexible employers, nature of work, etc...). In my experience, most mothers have a phenomenal threshold for coping.

So here's to:

• young women being educated in a way that at least PREPARES them for the inevitable battles that they will have to face (they are being won every day by strong professional women who refuse to compromise but there are still many more);
• mothers feeling sufficiently empowered to being able to stand up to misogynistic work colleagues without apologising for or worse, trying to deny the fact that they are women and mothers; and
• getting our men to do the bloody washing up so that, for us, having it all really doesn't mean doing it all.

Chin chin.

Top post squiffy and I too am more than happy to point the finger at Hugh Grant for anything we care to discuss

wonder who made the sacrifice, i, though... could it possibly have been the female? How could I guess right? What a coincidence.

pmsl at the thought of poor old hugh grant being held responsible for the ills of the world. Please someone start a thread on it so we can discuss it in more detail...

Good post squiffy!

Crikey, what a long thread!

We read IDKHSDI at book group actually, and felt perhaps it should be 'don't know (or care)WHY she does it!' We all just felt thankful that we could work part-time/ stay at home etc, which all of us did, some of us were solicitors, Drs etc, all part-time. Seemed that girl in the book didn't have to have a job like that, as she kept balancing up giving up job and down-sizing etc, so the job was a choice, not a necessity. Which is fine, but really, IMHO, having children is a priviledge, and a decision which should involve a little sacrifive to involve them in your life. Not suggesting for a mo that everyone should be SAHM, but certainly working part-time, career break etc should be done if possible. If you are not prepared to make a sacrifice for your kids, then perhaps you are not really ready to have kids. This was out thoughts anyway. And that it was a bit of a crap book, but we all finished it!!

Hugh Grant... may be actually a bigger problem than people thinkg. A lot of girls at 30 want to settle down and have babies and a lot of men their age won't commit as they don't have the time pressure and then commit at 40 to the 20 somethings. Men like HG have a lot to answer for.

I completely agree that equality begins at home. And (as I have said before) I think that a great education gives women the self-confidence and negotiating skills to ride out that mega-battle (where there are no convenient anti-discrimination laws and HR officers to solve your problems for you).

SSD - it was unfortunately in a highly niche area of accountancy - so perhaps not

Anna - I suppose some people are more susceptible to stress than others!

My experience was the opposite - my mother stayed at home from the time she had children and I always thought of her life as a SAHM as a terrible waste of potential (I am being brutally honest here - and it is just my opinion of my mother's life - so please don't lambast me)! She spent many years lunching, reading progressively crappier books and watching crappy day time tv. A more vaccuous life I could not imagine!

I suppose my desire to keep my hand in at work during the baby years was to avoid living the life she did, although I did work a 3 day week for a couple of years and a 4 day week for a couple more. Now f/t but Fridays working from home but doing school run etc.

sq, yes, the only real battleground is in the home and women enabling men to do b ugger all. These women in effect are their own whipping boys and they should know better. Every time they do a job their husbands should be doing they are damaging their daughter's future in a sense.

Great post squiffy.

Also so agree about Hugh Grant being to blame.