Women subsumed into their children

clearly then money matters,as you do have expectation/hope your dh will work
most of us need to earn a certain threshold wage that maintains our expectation,habituation
yes a nice walk in park is jolly,but it doesn't fill the fridge

There's no way (no degree) that I could make as much money as he can, so I suppose I would expect that he'd have to get another job sometime. But we could move if we had to, etc. It wouldn't be the end of the world.

Of course I would go to work in the interim, ScottishMummy. :)

We have separate accounts and share expenses so we each have a similar amount of 'spare' cash. If he lost his job (as he is likely to in the next couple of months due to the imminent bankruptcy of the company he works for) I would definitely tell him it is ok and we will find a way to work it out while he looks for another job. I suppose that's easier because I work ft too but i do wish he earned more so I could be a sahm or even cut down to pt work. He has no desire to be a sahp but may end up being one at least for a while if he hasn't found a different job by the time this company goes bust.

Money isn't the most important thing. I have had very lean times where I have worried about every penny I spent and yet I was still very grateful for the health of my family and the pleasure we got from the free things in life. If we had to go back to watching every penny (we aren't exactly earning huge amounts but we're fairly comfortable atm) I would find it difficult but it wouldn't be the end of the world as long as we were all healthy.

would you go and work in interim til dh got another job
if dh were unfortunate to lose Job would you expect him to get another job
re accounts my money is my money,his is his

Yes, if DH came home and told me he'd lost his job I would tell him it was okay.

But I am a schmaltzy American. :o

Nailak we have a joint account too, both our names on it though.

we have one joint account, in my name, one cash card, in my name

and neither of us has any other bank accounts, would you worry about that?

lol,no I'd worry more about one joint account
my money is mine, his is his
joint for mortgage, nursery,utilities etc

fair enough,glad you are all happy
I always get slightly concerned about seperate bank accounts,but I appreciate that each marriage is different,and what works in 1 marriage does not necessarily work in another.
Totally agree with you that discussing many many things including kids,career,money etc before getting married is the best way to do it.

The blogger does not say 'financial protection' for SAHPs....she says better wages for paid caregivers. Hence my interpretation that it is about wider protection for SAHPs, not state handouts.

we met at 18 couldn't have known either career or salary potential
love him v much.we are a team and family. its all about the love
we discussed early when we had kids I'd still work ft.always the plan I'm career minded

sm
er, if you read the blog post, she specifically says it was not the hardest job in the world (for her). I suspect you might have missed the point in your haste to peddle your tired old line.

Regarding protection, as the blogger is American, I read that to mean increased employment rights, such as better maternity leave (in the US, it is not unuasual to have no paid maternity leave at all) and access to healthcare protection during a leave of absence from paid work.

also
sm,if you dont mind me asking,do you see all things in terms of money?
You love your DH from what I have read,you didnt marry him for his earning potential did you?
I am not judging you,just trying to understand your pov

i think this discussion is getting above my head.
SHAPs dont need financial? protection? from what?

your union analogy was inaccurate,and yep pretty clear cut to call it
housewives dont work they don't require any protection.end of
if you want to be sentimental about ardest job in world thats fine.dont expect agreement

sm Wish I was able, like you, to see the issues in such stark black and white. Must make life easier living without ambiguity or nuance.

workers need union to balance and moderate employer/ institution
housewives don't work.they don't need protection
if housewife wants financial protection or remuneration get a job

Well, I agree, scottishmummy that there is certain sentimentality to the blog post. But I am surprised that you don't agree with more of it. You rail against the "precious moments mammas' and here is a piece which articulately expresses why you don't have to be the one doing every nappy change and every lunch box and settling baby for every nap and yet still have a life-changing relationship with your child.

There is an argument that unless you are doing it all, you simply can't build the closeness of relationship that SAHMs feel they have. I loke this post's repudiation of that.

And saying that SAHPs don't need protection.....that's mighty humane of you. Maybe we should ban trade unions because people should just fo and get themselves a better paid, more secure job, rathee than rely on external protection.

I like Cherie Blair slot v talented sparky woman

given the new uk poverty research in uk I don't think those families are thinking nowt in fridge but birds song is magnificent,sky blur,Bonnie baby..life's good.a life lived poor is a hard grind

ime people who say it's only money...have it and bavent had the anxiety of not enough. I'm good with money,I save,I have my just in case money.

and for me yes it's important not to financially depend upon partner. that's my preference.we have separate accounts

no,sahp don't need protection.if they want an additional financial buffer get a job
the ole ladies who stop you,yes that was touching.kind strangers are heartwarming
but find the article schmaltzy American

I agree with most of your post sm.
some people are more sentimental than others.so long as there is enough caring going on,beyond that it doesnt matter.
Agreed that with money,need it,but dont need masses to be content.

I do realise that if you did not have much or enough growing up,that you come from a different perspective.I think I read that Cherie Blair grew up like that,and says she worries about money all the time.She says enough is never enough as she is always afraid that it will all be lost,and she will be left with nothing again.Very sad.

Dont agree about the "not financially dependent upon a partner".It can and does work in a lot of cases.

This (longish) blog post is really worth reading in the context of
This discussion:

Free but not cheap

Jessica Valenti just wrote a new book called Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness, and wrote a piece for Babble summarizing her main argument in the book, which is that we keep saying "Motherhood is the most important job in the world," but at the same time we undervalue it enormously. She buries what I think is the most important point in the last paragraph of the Babble piece, which is that motherhood isn't a job, it's a relationship.

If we think it's a job, then nothing makes sense about it. How is it possible that it's so important but also so undervalued? How is it possible to be a good mother if you're with your kids 24/7 but also be a good mother if you leave them to go work for a good part of the day? How can we take such satisfaction from being with our kids but be so bored by all the stuff we have to do for our kids?

But motherhood makes sense when you realize that it's a relationship. Loving and nurturing your child is the relationship you have with your child. That's why when you have a bad day as an adult, you still want your mom (if you have a good relationship with your mom) even though she isn't making your meals, changing your clothes for you, driving you to work, or doing any of the stuff moms of kids do.

All the stuff that has to be done for kids, though, those things are jobs. Changing diapers, researching carseats, driving to soccer practice, washing clothes, catching vomit with your hand, putting to bed, filling out forms, searching out a replacement wubbie on the internet, making lunches, making dinner, making breakfast, making snacks. Many of those tasks are not that brain-intensive, and are not valued highly, across all societies. That's why a) motherhood sucks so much, b) it's devalued so much, and c) wealthy women have always outsourced as many of those tasks as they could, until recently, so they got the relationship but not the jobs.

What we were talking about last week in the discussion of how motherhood changes who we are, and what Randi Buckley helps women figure out in her Maybe Baby program, is this: Do you want the relationship enough to suffer through the jobs?

And that's not a small question. The jobs almost break some of us. The jobs almost break almost all of us with kids under 3. And how you come through the jobs as your children age and the jobs change is not guaranteed, and it's different for everyone.

Some people like, or don't mind, the jobs of raising children. Some people really do not like them at all. We shouldn't be judging women for wanting to stay at home to do the jobs of raising children if they want to. Nor should we be judging women for wanting to do another job while someone else does the jobs associated with her children. That would be like judging someone who is a dentist because she's not a fashion designer and vice versa.

But we do need to make sure that the jobs associated with raising children are valued, financially and socially. We need protections for SAH parents. Protections and better wages for paid caregivers. And respect for everyone who does the jobs of raising children. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done, but doing the jobs of raising children (I was a stay-at-home mom for 5 years) was the most intense sustained thing I have ever done. It makes me exhausted and sad just thinking about some of those periods of unending work, and I hear the exhaustion and overwork from youespecially those of you with little kidsand the suck of the intensity.

But the relationship... That's why old ladies come up to us when we're half dead with a 6-week-old strapped to our lopsided leaky chests as we're waddling into the drugstore at 7 am to buy more diapers and say, "Enjoy this time!" They don't remember the jobs. They don't know it, but what they really mean is "Enjoy this person, this relationship that you're starting and that's only going to get better but also more complicated, and this love that will make you hurt and make you vibrate with the rest of the universe. Your boobs will stop leaking and diapers are only for a short time and you will survive, but this relationship is your chance to be better than just yourself."

That's what those old ladies mean. And why they can't stop themselves from saying things to stressed-out strangers. Seeing us with teeny babies and a new relationship makes them think of their own children, their own relationships. And they want that same thing for us.

So. The jobs, well, they never end, so you get a million chances to screw up or to dominate. And if you have the chance to do the jobs you want to do, whether they're kid-raising jobs or some other jobs, you should do them. Don't feel guilty about making the best choice for you. But at the same time, we all have to fight like hell so that we can all have the choice to do the jobs that we want to do and are best suited for. Because if we're doing things that make us feel useful and fulfilled, the relationship becomes free and unburdened. The intensity without the grind. And weand our childrendeserve that.

www.askmoxie.org/2012/09/free-but-not-cheap.html

the prosperous and secure dismiss money and fripperies because theyre secure and have it .precious moments matter most.smile of a baby,birds singing in meadow. imo thats sentimental tosh worthy of clintons cards

a full fridge,not being worried about money,spontaneity cash can bring these things matter considerably too

and tbh if you're not working you don't earn the money so do you really appreciate it's worth and the effort required to earn it?

if the salaried partner returned home tonight said,oh dear lost me job.would the honest reply be but hey it's only money.not most important thing...I don't think so
I value my possessions because I worked hard for them, I studied hard. it's important to me to be solvent and not financially dependent upon a partner.

I will bring my children up to work hard,value money they earn and value the non moneytary things too

I think "I'm not ashamed" should be a Mumsnet slogan. It's an elegant and succinct statement to use in defence of our own choices, whatever they may be, when we don't want to squeeze into the claustrophic compartments that society or other people expect.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this thread yesterday. Xenia; you agree with the article's premise that women are disappearing behind their children when they don't use their own picture on social networking websites, but I've read on here that you have a photo of your island on your Twitter account, not a picture of your own face. You're still hiding behind something. I think that having a photo of your on child/ren is a far better representation of yourself: our children are a direct part of us, fresh buds grown from our own bodies. Even when they are born, their stem cells remain in our bodies as our cells are in theirs.

Going off on one slightly here, but in a joyous, Natalie Angier or Clarissa Estes style of feminist viewpoint. Women should be proud of their achievements, whatever they are, but but we shouldn't necessarily be proud of our possessions, because we are of more value than the the fripperies we accumulate in our life. So much work generally done by women is low paid, but still of infinite value; caring for relatives or people in a nursing home, cleaning, nursing, looking after children - to name but a few jobs. It would be nice if women accepted that these are at least as important, if not more, than being an international banking consultant or the director of a blue chip company. These careers have high monetary renumeration, but if we had to write a list of what was really important to us, what made us what we are, would that list really include things? Mine would include: the sparkle in my baby's eyes, brighter than any jewel; the sound of her burbling laughter; the rich bristle of my cat's fur under my fingers; changing seasons (the first warm breath of summer dancing through a cold spring day or the icy promise of winter on a sunny autumn afternoon); the taste of strawberries; reading a book where the author has taken the 26 random shapes that make up the alphabet and formed them into words that sear into my soul; unhurried mornings spent with friends; my plants; birdsong; walking along the coast; Vivaldi; the rich, satisfying tiredness at the end of a long working day. None of these things can be bought.