Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

Couldn't agree more about teaching/demonstrating Scottishmummy which is why I demonstrate to my children that I love them above anything by being there to pick them up from school every day.

Totally agree that equality is not taught but lived
it means my DH has enjoyed time with our DC as much as I have and that has been a great experience for our DC

Teaching equality is false construct,equality is demonstrated in behaviour,values
One can demonstrate not being dependent,by working and own money,job
Some people get hung up on teaching equality,when it's easier to enact equality

YY to teaching our children about equality. But it is an uphill struggle. In the supermarket today, picture of little boy at a table, holding his cutlery standing to attention, text, quick, hurry up, or similar. Further round the store, picture of little girl, pinny on browsing her baking book, spoon in hand and baking trays next to her.

Not my normal supermarket and I won't go back but this is a big chain.

Further to not doing 'fraught explanation' for family situations, I have always provided a solution immediately rather than asking for one.

For e.g. years back when youngest had chicken pox, myself and husband went to our workplaces and put the suggestion to our respective line managers of what we had decided would happen - he would go in work 3 hours earlier in morning and finish at 12, I would start at half 12 and work through into the evening.
By doing that, we were both able to provide wrap around care for the short period required without either of us appearing to management to be 'problems'.

I agree with that SM but I do share cat pictures with my colleagues

Seriously if both parents shared care and work then things would be more balanced within society.
The long working hours culture would disappear - the "wife" at home expectation perpetuates it.

I don't talk about being a parent in work,I compartmentalise.its not relevant
Best advice I was given was when you need to leave to collect kids,just go.no fraught explanation
Don't do the convoluted explanation of your domestic arrangements.men don't

Re defending your choices, I've actually had that from ds1 but in a different way. More of 'but why aren't you at home doing all the HW whilst daddy goes to work? Do you really have to work?'
Cue to defend the idea that 1- yes it's ok for women to work and 2- no it's not ok for men to be sat on the sofa watching football whilst their wife is cooking dinner/looking after the kids etc (which apparently is the best thing that can happen to a man )

YY scarlet having never lived what it actually means to be equal parent with equal responsibilities, it's them easy for men to actually realise what it entails. And to then assume that women with young children will automatically be less reliable because you know .., they are tied up with children issues.

Which actually means that we need to teach both our daughters and sons about equality. and will forget quickly crap from ds who thought it was normal for women to do all the he and childcare and other crap like this, all told by his 'friends' at school

I never questioned my own mother's choice to stay home with us. She had a degree and worked before having us.

Given that so many women now don't start having children till their 30s, especially the daughters in the situation described by the original post, it doesn't take a lot of foresight to realise that you have a good 10 to 15 years to fill up before becoming a mum. Even if a girl's only ambition is to become a SAHM, she needs something interesting to do until then. And frankly, at 18 I couldn't imagine being a mother, SAHM or otherwise. I wanted to get out and do things. And I did.

I was just thinking that any feisty questions about my life and career choices from one of my extremely feisty DDs would get a feisty response, that's all. My life, my decisions.

On the other hand, I get quite a bit of feistiness if they ever think I am trying to direct their choices, which is rare. I have always tried hard to let them see the range of choices they have though. DS too.

I can't remember ever questioning my mother's almost two decades of SAHMing either, although it certainly didn't appeal to me as an option at all. Not surprising we were polar opposites born in very different eras.

I'm struggling to understand Mothers and Daughters questioning each others decisions I suppose (as you can probably tell).

For me,it's demonstrating that women donr need to be dependent housewife
Didnt want to enact patriarchy it's not a given that woman Gives up work and daddy work
And yes if mother doesn't work,and is housewife it does reinforce antiquated roles

Yes, absolutely pomme, to the extent that my mother consistently sabotaged or tried to sabotage any relationship I had, lest I, heaven forbid, had kids. She was not feisty, she was a controlling bully, or someone desperate to stop her dd making the same 'mistakes' she had, depending how you look at it. She was quite unhinged.

It was mentioned upthread but not expanded on a great deal - but for all those men who have a wife at home 'allowing and enabling the husband's career to advance and flourish', what do those men think of the mothers that they work alongside?

From experience, I know that I am instantly earmarked as less committed and less career-centric than these men because I have family life and children to juggle. Due to being in the same position as me, my husband understands and realises these things, so affords all his staff the understanding and workarounds where appropriate/necessary; would he have been the same sort of manager with a wife and sahm to pick up the home side of things? I suspect not.

(In fact, I have just had that very discussion with him prior to pressing 'post' and he agrees. He said he would have a very different view if he hadn't had to be an equal parent/housework/ etc etc- he sees the difference in his fellow managers who have supportive wives 'at home').

She is with a glass of wine inside her bit otherwise no, she is overly meek IMHO. Why?

Was she not feisty too then pomme?

maggie - it is not a pointless question though. It caused major rifts between my mother and I when I was in my teens as I couldn't reconcile her ambitions for me (admittedly she was pushy on them) with her life story of marriage and kids very early on and no jobs after that.

So actually she did need to justify her sahm - ness to her stroppy, feisty teenage daughter and we argued a lot.

We cannot be the only ones to have experienced this.

It's not what happens on the ground though Jane. Low-pay work is incredibly gendered and traditionally 'female' low-pay jobs pay less then traditionally 'male' low-pay jobs.

When a couple of limited income are trying to make arrangements for the woman to return to work after maternity leave, and discovering the high cost of childcare, they are going to be making so called 'better-off calculations' rather than subscribing to MC notions of paying half of childcare each, because they can't afford to do otherwise. E.g. If they are rubbing along on £400pw, then it is just not affordable to decide that the woman will work at a £50 per week loss after childcare.

"Good examples' tackle the issue of the economic viabilty of paying for childcare if you are a low-paid woman"... Can we change that raound show show the deep sexism within it?
"Good examples' tackle the issue of the economic viabilty of paying for childcare if you are a low-paid man".

Why do some women think women pay for childcare. It's seems a ludicrous idea to me. If you have a penis you are just as needing of childcare. It is as much the taxi driver or male nurse requirement to find and pay for it. There are many many average earnings couples out there who earn the same and need to pay for childcare. It is not a woman's issue at all. Men need the childcare too.

deep I get that and my parents had close to zero choice and I know we are lucky. Happy was sympathising with put-upon spouses - who may not be! The OP on this thread was talking about those who have choice then having to justify themselves.

"have had kids with someone whose career comes first tbh."

But many feel lucky to even have work. It's not always to do wth career, employers demand 110% and many employees have to give it just to hold on to their jobs.

My OH took one days paternity leave and never gets lunch breaks- not that he wants to work so hard but because he is holding on tight to his job.

Happy my DH has refused jobs because we could predict it would impact on time at home and for his hobbies! I had a WAHD and would not have had kids with someone whose career comes first tbh.

Sue us for not maximising the government's tax take!

Work can bring massive satisfaction, meaning, learning, social life, travel, experience and dare I say it, financial independence.

I take it you're not describing call-centre work or cleaning careers?

"There can't really be an army of men that can't work without having another adult in the house."

But there does need to be another adult in the house if you have children.

I don't berate women who chose to stay at home. However, I think they are often missing out on a large proportion of what life can offer. And why is it disproportionately women who are missing out on this part of life?

Work can bring massive satisfaction, meaning, learning, social life, travel, experience and dare I say it, financial independence.

I genuinely don't work for money (although I do need that too) but the perspective I get from what I do helps me parent my dcs much more effectively. And before sahm's, think that is having a go and calling them closed minded etc. it is not meant in that way, it is more that independence and having something just for you helps with mindfulness, confidence and therefore parenting IMHO.