Can you be a feminist housewife?

scottishmummy the only one of those quotes that directly suggests payment by the govt is HBX's and that was posted after yours - are you psychic???

I would like to see massively subsidised childcare so that staying at home is a genuine choice, not forced onto women because childcare costs are so high. This would require more taxation or a redirection of existing tax from something else into childcare. I see no problem with this. No one bats an eyelid at this being done for education or the NHS. These things benefit most of of society, and since 82% of people become parents, subsidising childcare would also benefit most of society. It would also contribute to economic growth, extra jobs, extra extra taxation, etc.

For SAHPs who willingly embrace the role, I'd like to see their tax allowance transferred to their partner's wage and the extra allowance used to cover the national insurance and private pension contributions they'd have made if they were working. This would not require subsidy from the government apart from administration costs. To address the issue of the working parent who builds a highly successful career because of the SAHPs role, we could also have a system where the working partner's pension contributions are split in two and divided equally between the two parents in separate pension funds for each.

This could get a bit sticky in terms of single parents or blended families and needs a bit of work, but the principle is sound I think. Why should a single mother not benefit from her Xs income when he is benefitting from her 'free childcare'?

Alternatively, seeing as taxation is based on the individual, we could also make benefits payable to the individual so that a SAHP is always guaranteed her own income (even if it is only at subsistence level). This would probably be beneficial to more women than the model above, but it would probably cost the country a fortune and I can't see it being a vote winner. I also think the model I mentioned earlier sends a much clearer issue about how WOHPs are really helped by the role of the SAHP, which has to be good for improving the status of parenting and gender equality.

yes you have missed things,it has been suggestedto pay skrumple.
do read back

LeninGrad Wed 31-Aug-11 16:44:24
Makes me more convinced though that if a partner wants the other to be a SAHP (and that partner is happy to perform that role obv) they should pay the going rate as they go along

HereBeBolloX Wed 31-Aug-11 18:44:41
I agree with Lenin, I think womens hould be paid for the economic hit they take when they have babies and stay home to look after them.Either that, or change the economic system so that having babies and looking after them, doesn't imply an economic hit....We should start charging to reflect the value of our work.

LindenAvery Wed 31-Aug-11 18:46:53
Agree with HBBX!

NormanTebbit Wed 31-Aug-11 18:49:33
I would not pay women to stay at home to care for their kids, I would subsidise cheap affordable childcare which is of high quality.

beckybrastraps Wed 31-Aug-11 18:54:41
Who should they charge HerBex?

HereBeBolloX Wed 31-Aug-11 19:00:19
Men, beckybrastraps.
The men they live with, or the men in government.

One of the reasons the current govt are having such a go at single mothers atm, is because tax credits have become part of the economy, essential to enable many of them to work and the govt would prefer them to be dependent on an individual man, whether they like him or not, than the state.

They think they can put the genie back in the bottle. But they can't, because lone parenthood has become too common to re-introduce the level of stigma you would need to discourage women from doing it and too many people know lone parents who are happy and having a good life without their children's father in it and are also raising happy, normal children. That really pisses the govt off. Every time an unhappy women sees a happy lone parent, the possibliity of being there herself, enters her head. That's dangerous, because tht means more tax credits. Single parents are on the front line of feminism, they're being paid to some extent for their work, in a way other mothers aren't - and the govt are bloody livid about it and so are lots of other mothers, who feel the unfairness of it. The tax credit phenomenon has been an interesting thing in that for the first time, a section of mothers actually were being paid a little bit more than CB, for their parenting - because the alternative was that they would be on the dole. I'm sure that wasn't the intention but that has been the effect. The difference with this govt, is that it wants the alternative to be that those mothers continue to stay in bad relationships, that is far preferable than enabling women to function without men.

scottishmummy:
"paid by individual partner if both agree.personal private arrangement to be negotiated as couple if desired
paid by state absolutely not. money for being economically inactive and undertaking lifestyle choice.no.sahm is not a job."

can i ask where this was suggested by anyone - have i missed it? or are you referring to single mothers receiving benefits? because my take on it would not be that people are receiving money to undertake a lifestyle choice but rather that we are civilised society and would not want to see children starving on the streets?

Had I charged the man I live with for my childcare duties, rather than simply have had free access to all his money, I would have had to pay tax and National Insurance, which would mean we had less money coming into our household. Unless I undervalued my contribution to the extent that I didn't pay tax and NI. And also, would it not mean I was working for him? Or, I suppose, I could be contracting out my services, like cleaners or childminders, but then, he couldn't dispense with my services if he found them unsatisfactory. Hmm. But mostly the first objection really.

the country is economically on its knees without asking other people to pay for someone else individual choice to be a housewife

so would i submit an hourly timesheet too for tasks undertaken
reading
baths
appts
park at weekend
because obviously you couldn't only pay sahm for task.would have to pay all mums.inc working mums too

how would you finance that?

would the housewife monies be taxed and ni, redistributed again
is it means tested housewife wage or universal benefit

I've always had rosey glasses for how Scandinavians run their social systems - probably with a high degree of ignorance. Do they have it better than the UK?

Where in the world do they have the balance right?

Men, beckybrastraps.

The men they live with, or the men in government.

The fact is, if our work were paid, men would change our economic system tomorrow and there'd be no more of this nonsense of women executives getting paid 10,000 pounds less than male execs 40 years after a law was enacted which said that was illegal.

pam - I don't feel I know the answer either ... you're right, they're huge tasks.

Thanks for saying it wasn't useless btw.

Who should they charge HerBex?

LRD not useless at all. What I was getting at is - is legislation the answer and we move to value the unpaid work done by mums or do we take a different approach and change the traditional set up. Both seem like herculaneum tasks.

Btw - I'm just enjoying thinking about this - don't feel I know an answer.

Norman your perspective is really interesting - I'm thinking my time off will make me reassess my career. I know it is a shorter time just ovre a year but I have the threat of redundancy so would hope to change skill set a bit.

I know trading time isn't an option for me as OH is clear how his career is important to him. I have eyes wide open on that front from the day we met. I haven't made a compromise on my wishes as a result of this but it does remove an option.

'I would not pay women to stay at home to care for their kids, I would subsidise cheap affordable childcare which is of high quality.'

Who would do it, and would they by any chance be women, with kids? It's just that, if you subsidise cheap child care, that means you will probably be paying a low wage to someone, doesn't it?

no its an issue no one wants to pay sahm.untenable and daft idea
can you imagine trying to regulate payments and enforce quality prior to payment.would there be a regulatory body and inspection of tasks undertaken.? a wage = acceptance external responsibilities and monitoring

no govt will or should pay individual sahm to do own thing,in own time

Women looking after their own children is cheap, affordable high quality childcare.

Why so little faith in women NT, why the lack of trust in their ability to look after their own children?

I would give them the choice. Because some of them might prefer to give the vouchers to their partners.

Bringing up children is not economically inactive.

Our economy is built on the free labour of women bringing up children.

If they refused to do it, there would be no bloody economy.

I would not pay women to stay at home to care for their kids, I would subsidise cheap affordable childcare which is of high quality.

I think there is a big problem that we look at our society, and we see that having and caring for children in the home is not valued, and we say 'but how could you put a price on that?'. But the fact that anyone has to stop and think about whether these things are valuable, whether your partner who works outside the home is getting economic value from you staying at home, demonstrates that these things are a blind spot in our economy, an issue no-one wants to see.

paid by individual partner if both agree.personal private arrangement to be negotiated as couple if desired
paid by state absolutely not. money for being economically inactive and undertaking lifestyle choice.no.sahm is not a job.

so if we go down this stste pay route do i get paid when i do drop off/collect
accompany dc to gp
cook dinners

Agree with HBBX!

I agree with Lenin, I think womens hould be paid for the economic hit they take when they have babies and stay home to look after them.

Either that, or change the economic system so that having babies and looking after them, doesn't imply an economic hit.

Our economic system should be based around the notion that 80% of us are going to have children and that raising those children is a really valuable important job. It stands to reason then, that the people who do the physical labour of birthing and feeding those children, must not be economically disadvantaged when they do so. Only a deeply misanthropic society, as well as a misogynist one, would have developed such a stupid system and the only reason they could, is because they had women's free labour to draw upon. We should start charging to reflect the value of our work.