Women have their little careers till they have babies. Then they do as little as possible, preferably not working at all after that

If WOHM are pawns of the patriarchy, why does that make the husbands of SAHMs? Are SAHMs content to live off the labour of their own pawns but condemn those of their own sex who seek to make an honest living?

My point is, I don't give a fuck how you raise your kids or what you do for a living. However several people on this thread seem to think I am "letting the side down" by not getting a job because I am pawn of the patriarchy, my reply is so is anyone working in the system. The difference is that my family chooses to only have one person participate and only because to opt out would mean to live in abject poverty. Is that difficult for you to comprehend?

No one is belittling you or your choices, a few people have said they stay home because they dont want others raising their children, this has only ever been said in response to people belittling their choices. I don't care what you or your partner do, genuinely I don't. You seem to have an odd in interest in how my family runs. There must be certain things at your job that you don't delegate right? That you only trust yourself to do? For me that's child care. For many parents that is child care.

Dh can go to work happily knowing that he has someone he trusts implicitly with his children, I know exactly where my kids are and who is dealing with them if anything it saves my mental health.

As for school, that will only be from 8:30 until 2:30 and then I will be with them until bed time. Dh sees them an hour a day just before bed. He hates that, but unfortunately until flexible working hours and people caring about life outside the home become the norm that's his lot.

As I have been saying for 17 pages now, getting every human who can physically work in to the system isn't going to improve things, you do understand that don't you? It will just mean more people working for less money. That obviously won't matter to those of you who are high earners, but to the fucker on the minimum wage vying for a job against another 100 people it will.

Honestly there is such a massive disconnect between some of you and the real world for the majority of women and it is the reason so many women feel feminism cant speak for them.

Would my dh be a sahp? He would jump at the chance, unfortunately he has 3x my earning power. SO I could work and he could stay home and we'd live in poverty, but hey as long as I am being a good feminist. I could also continue in my minimum wage job eating in to our family earnings by paying more than I earn to pay for child care in order to prove my dedication to the cause, but frankly only an idiot would think that was a good idea.

Now what I often hear is that, it's worth taking that monetary hit for the first couple of years because eventually you will be making shed loads right? Guess what.. the fucker at ASDA will never make shed loads, even if they move their way up to management. no they wont.

What I do think will improve things is changing the idea that working outside the home is the only thing anyone can do of value.

That means having more men working from home. Which starts with people like you respecting the position so people choose to stay home. It also means worrying about the real problems that still haven't been solved by feminism like the pay gap. More women making more money means more men will stay home.

Now stop being so defensive and listen.

Excellent post pollypandemonium

Here Here blueberryupsidedown you've put it much more succinctly!

Perhaps some people who undertake paid work need to limit the value of sahp's as that helps them to justify their so called "choices".

They can go on about how they contribute taxes and other stuff and feel good about themselves employing other people to look after their children and or do their housework etc etc.

I am not struggling to articulate anything. I am saying that to you looking after children has no value unless the person doing it is paid so to do.

I am asking, therefore, whether if the father of my children paid me formally to do it, the task would suddenly gain value.

Richman - Can't say I agree with how you value - for example investment bankers - well some investment banks have really done all they can to capitalise profits at the expense of long term financial security for many others.

I think it is important how we define growth - GDP was only invested during WWII to pay for the war. Now is a mandatory accounting formula used by all nations. GDP counts only cash transactions, giving no value to peace and the environment.

Look again at some of the work by Waring which basically puts forward that the GDP system leaves out half the population of the planet and the planet itself.

How do you value the legacy of a truly great teacher or social worker for example??

I thought this thread was interesting, but you have completely lost me.

Being a sahp has enormous value, in society at large, just not revenue-based value. Working in a care position, childcare, nursing, teaching, social work, etc has enormous value, just not that much financial value.

To me, someone who work let's say, as an IT consultant (my old job...) has very little value, just lots of money... If you want to judge people's value just based on how much money they make, well the world doesn't make sense. I know many complete idiots who make 100k + a year...

What are you struggling to articulate seeker?
that you want paid to watch own baby?
want your child's father to pay you

"Seeker your dp a sole wage earner already subsidizes you.he earns the money
Cant be wages as you aren't actually working,you're parenting maintaining patriarchy"

I said "if". If he had been a single parent, he would have had to pay a nanny. What if he had employed me as his children's nanny?

blueshoes "Is it better to reform the patriarchy by carping from the sidelines that unpaid childcare work is unvalued (where has that got women? I don't see a revolution around the corner) or by actually participating in the activities that the patriarchy values and then to get to a seniority that will make a difference?"

Oh I am really really waiting to hear about all these senior women you know who are lawyers or otherwise who have made a difference?? I know lots of senior women who work but I'd have to say they are mainly working to take home huge pay packets as lawyers not to promote equal rights.

And I have to say the carping from the sidelines was meant as a put down wasn't it - do you only think that people who earn money are allowed to have a point of view??

NGO chartiable organisations are really interesting - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is super interesting and actually pays their staff really well as it is part of their core values. They are an example of super rich people who are putting things back but there are lots of super rich people who don't and your point is?? Are we into a competition now Mother T versus Gates??

As for "Is it better to sell cakes at the loss at the school fair (compared with the cost of the ingredients and labour) than to work for 10 minutes to earn the profit on those cakes and donate to the school." Woo Hoo - let's just hope the purchases of the chocolate for the cake are fair trade.

Maybe I'm more pessimistic and it is great that blueshoes can work part time - but lots of people can't. You can submit flexible working requests but they are often turned down. Finding a job can be tough for people and I can't imagine you to ever be a very supportive employer and employ a SAHM parent who wanted to enter the work force.

I mean take this comment from you:

It was you who said "after children are in school, I admit to finding it hard to see the contribution of ft SAHM as being equal to a ft WOHM because WOHM somehow do what SAHM's do (you would probably disagree) but also hold down a job at the same time."

"If WOHM are pawns of the patriarchy, why does that make the husbands of SAHMs? Are SAHMs content to live off the labour of their own pawns but condemn those of their own sex who seek to make an honest living?"

No I didn't say WOHM are pawns of the patriarchy I just took your arguments to the extreme. If you are going to have a pop at SAHm's then surely you need to look at your role in the patriarchy. I don't seek to condemn wohm or sahms but it did completely piss me off what you were spouting about choices and all that.

And I'm not sure I get the quantity versus quality point or why a poster would be pleased that your children don't show any empathy with a change in their child carers or au pairs. For what it is worth my child always bonded with child carers and I thought that was good so I didn't mind when he or his child carer got upset when an arrangement was changed. I could go on and on but I don't have the time.

I did define value- I said it should be the value to the recipient of the service- i.e. the child, so on that basis, childcare worker and SAHP provide a service of equal value during the working day.

As I said before, if we're defining value in economic terms (i.e. tax dollars into the coffer/ spending power) then an investment banker is worth many times a teacher or social worker or nurse. In fact, public sector workers are basically worthless as they're not net wealth generators.

Seeker your dp a sole wage earner already subsidizes you.he earns the money
Cant be wages as you aren't actually working,you're parenting maintaining patriarchy

Define value!may be beneficial to that individual or their familial circumstance
Of value to others,not necessarily

I'm currently studying full time, have ds age 3 and am getting married at the end of the year. I get comments from all angles - why bother studying when I'll just have more kids and have to stay at home? Why am I choosing education over my child? Why do I want to work when dp can support me?

Honestly, the ideal is for me to work ft and dp to stay at home. He makes a better sahp anyway, I just don't have the right temperament for it.

Please forgive any oddness in format, first time posting on new phone and still getting used to it.

Interesting. What if, when dd was born, we had made a formal arrangement that dp paid me to care for her? So everything would have been exactly the same, except that dp would have been my employer.

How would people feel about that? Oh, and please would people stop saying housewife?

I agree they're not the same- a parent is a parent whatever their childcare arrangements- BUT the tasks undertaken by an average SAHP, during the hours that the child would otherwise be in childcare, are equivalent to those undertaken by a childcare worker during those hours, so the work involved still has value, whether paid or unpaid.

Let me reiterate,a childcare worker is different to parenting.they aren't same
Childcare role,is undertaken to certain external standards for remuneration

Completely erroneous summation rich.clearly you've not comprehended or understood points
I have not made a qualitative comparison between parent and childcare worker
I have not asserted that childcare is better than parenting,that's your erroneous summation

In your scenario,The childcare worker is employed. parent isn't employed.

So what? If what they do is the same, and you're measuring the value of what they do as the value to the recipient, then the value is the same, regardless of paid or unpaid.

If we're measuring by economic value, then the work an investment banker does is thousands of times more valuable than that of a teacher. Do we really want to go down that road?

I agree with every word of blueshoes post of 14:51.

Blue I guess my point is that SM basically thinks that all professional childcare workers provide a better quality of childcare than all SAHM by virtue of having a btec in childcare studies, so therefore the work they do is more valuable, which I think is incorrect.

In your scenario,The childcare worker is employed. parent isn't employed.

Any childcare worker can be fired if they do not perform the job to the objective standards required by their employer.

In the UK, Ofsted is just a one standard for certain childcarers, but make no bones about it a nanny can and will be fired if she decides to feed the children pop and crisps and put them in front of a TV all day.

Objective standards to key to a job as is working to the employer's time schedule and conditions. All things SAHMs don't have to conform to. To equate value to the fact that childcare workers are paid and SAHMs are not is seriously missing the wood for the trees.

Ok so the ofsted thing is irrelevant then, because a nanny who is not ofsted registered is still a childcare worker. In countries where ofsted doesnt exist, you'd presumably say that nannies are still childcare workers because they are paid a salary. Therefore, it's the salary, not the regulation that's the issue., because, as you say yourself, Ofsted doesn't guarantee quality

So if a nanny gets a child dressed, gives them breakfast, takes them to the park and does a jigsaw with them, the experience to the child is somehow "better" than if the parent did it, because the nanny is paid a salary??

richman, when children are younger and parents use ft childcare, as I did for both my dcs at various points, yes, it can be 10-12 hours in the intensive care of a person, but frankly, the values and language skills they absorbed during that phase of their life are totally irrelevant now they are in school.

Now my dcs are in school, they spend time in the company of their teachers, peers, aupair before I come home. I love the variety of influences in their life. I would not be so rigid as to expect to be the end all and be all of all that is great and good in their lives just because I happened to be their parent.

As their parent, I help them to process their feelings and thoughts and impart my own value judgments but I do expect they will make up their own minds in the future. Dh and I also set in place the framework of their lives including which school they attend, which activities they attend, the playdates they have over, what holidays and outings we go to, select the aupair that looks after them. DH and I also fund these activities and makes changes when things are not right.

Parenting involving making a million myriad decisions day-in-and-day-out for the benefit of the dcs, taking into account time, financial, short, medium and long term considerations. Teachers defer to parents for this reason. I suspect my dc's teachers would also be surprised to hear they are 'raising' my dcs. They educate my dcs.

Let's not confuse quantity with quality.

BTW, hour-for-hour I probably spend more time with my boss than my husband but I don't get confused that I am married to my boss, funny that.

Somebody way earlier on described the system in Finland where it is exceptional for any parent to stay at home and look after the children. I think this is the country where they will have a party for the children on their birthdays, the school will actually take the children to the child's house and have a little party that the parent pops out of work to attend.

For parents to have such little input into a child's early years means that the state must be pretty darn confident that they are going to turn out decent young people and must have things sewn up. However because it is a universal system it works. Our problem is that childcare is so inconsistent and for many the quality is based on how much you can pay.

Actually I do believe that adults have more influence over children in their later years and I think having someone around after school when they are 8 or 9 probably has more impact on the way they turn out in terms of habits, routines, self-confidence, expectations, ambition. Although early years are important and obviously need to be 'done correctly' I think a child's character is shaped much later. So I don't think we can justify our fears about the Scandinavian model, where children are effectively raised by the State.

I think issues around attachment only become a problem when it's approached wrongly and in many nurseries and with Nannies they often just don't do it right.

LOl,you're saying im a historical hark back as compared to housewife maintaining patriarchy