Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

I wonder how many wives wonder why there husband had children only to abandon them to go off to work. Doesn't seem to count when it's paying for them not to work

Plenty of low or non earning households have SAHPs as tax credits allows people to choose to work little or not at all at the expense of tax payers. Daft to suggest it's just high earners.

Whilst not stealing as such, I do think its unfair that the person who doesn't work gets to take half of the other persons hard worked for assets and savings upon divorce. There can't really be an army of men that can't work without having another adult in the house. Their mums must be so proud .

As for the "sponging" comment. Poor choice of words but technically true. If you don't work and are supported by your partner you rely on them for your every need, be it tamped or food.

And in the 1930s, one fifth of maternal mortality was due to complications from illegal abortion.

But no, feminism hasn't achieved anything for the working classes. Read Letters from working women if you are in any doubt about what feminism has achieved in the last 100 years.

Apologies for multiple posts. Will step away from phone now!

Biggest issues, even

Access to contraceptive advice - feminism.

Access to abortion - feminism

One of the highest issues for working class women was number of pregnancies at a time when giving birth was more dangerous than going down a mine.

Family allowances, now child benefit, was mid-20th century.

Playgroups and later, early years childcare was second wave feminism.

Not sure of the origins of childcare tax credits, but these have enabled far more women to work than previously.

In the 19th century, the mother would usually have custody to age 7, whereupon it was given to the father. Early years childcare was never a paternal responsibility.

'stealing the assets', for balance my 'd'h spent the assets on a flat in his name before anything was finalised. Enough men fiddle the finances on divorce. As pp says, many men have relied on female support to get where they are. An equitable distribution of assets is hardly stealing...simply spending the assets is.

But none of Jane's 'Good examples' tackle the issue of the economic viabilty of paying for childcare if you are a low-paid woman cheminotte.

Lots of good examples Jane . I would add maternity rights and the option to share much more recently.
I think limiting the original OP to what do you say to your DDs is wrong. I want my sons to grow up to be feminists too and they do ask - why can't you pick me up like Tom's mum does? Daddy's job is more important than yours isn't it Mummy?
Funnily enough DP's mum was sahm but always assumed / expected I would work post kids.

Yes, jane you are right, but most of that was achieved in first wave feminism. The critique is of mid 20th century feminism.

I gulped at that point too numptie. How ridiculous. My OH has only been able to earn as he does because he doesn't have to look after children or run the home.
He can come back from a two week business trip to find the children well cared for, fed adequately and the house running smoothly.

steal the assets?! Taking 50% of the family assets after divorce is the very bare minimum a sahm will receive. And deserves every damn penny.
You do make me giggle Jane!

I don't agree that feminism has only helped professional women. Working class women can vote today - that was achieved by feminism. I hope you've all voted. I have. I have ensured all the older children have. The younger 2 did class votes at school.

Secondly if your husband does not have the right to have sex with you whether you like ot or not (there used to be no rape in marriage in English law in my life time - feminism changed that). Thirdly if you divorce and don't work you can take (steal) half his assets and have maintenance often for life - that did not used to be the law. It used to be the case many years ago that on marriage the husband owned all the money and property. Fourthly you may well get residence of your children with you. In the past fathers often could take the children in the very old days. Fifthly it used to be permitted or overlooked if a husband beat his wife. These days it's illegal. Loads and loads of changes. You don't; have to give up work when you marry now. Your income isn't lumped with his for taxation. You aren't paid half what a man is because he works. All those tens of thousands of female local council workers in the last 15 years have won bit equal pay cases. Feminism has done loads for non professional women.

There is a definite strain of thought that feminism only really helped women of the "professional classes." Their achievements and opportunities all rest on using other women as cheap labour without whom, they couldn't make it all work. Meanwhile, working class women just ended up with double the responsibilities and not much to show for it.

I haven't thought this one through properly myself. It is interesting though. Articles like this one, www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/05/19/the_business_of_feminism_star_studded_women_s_conferences_empower_the_powerful.html
do make you kind of wonder.

Sorry. I didn't phrase that well.

I don't accept that other people do have to justify their choices, even to their DC.

But, the premise of the OP is that paid work is the norm and you need to justify your deviation from the norm. Why exactly does the deviation require justifying?

For not fulfilling your intrinsic career potential? Purely one's own private business - why would you ever justify that to your DC? You've probably found a range of unpaid ways to fulfil yourself, including parenthood.

For not filling your time productively? Well presumably you have been filling it usefully in some unpaid capacity (more likely several) and besides who are these young victorian moralists you have spawned that you need to account for that to them?

So maybe it is the lack of earned income that one might feel the need to apologise the children for? It is the main reason that most people work rather than pursuing their favourite hobby, after all (and yes for some for some lucky people the career is the hobby and the hobby is the career, but not most). I am quite aware it is possible to be happy and frugal but maybe the OP doesn't so maybe that would be a question someone would ask. But in this case we are talking about wealthy people so even that question makes no sense.

So, in short, I drew a blank as to the point of the original question

A lot of my friends are sahm on a tight budget and I have max respect for them. The finances are better without them working due to childcare (regardless of what they would want to do) and they hold everything together using very clever ways to make the cash last.

I also know some women who are rich sahm. Most had maternity and night nurses, send kids to private pre school most days from age 2-3 and have nannies on hand too.

It is them I would actually like to ask them to justify their existence if I'm very honest and really letting myself get my judgy pants on.

Maggie

I totally agree with your point about lower incomes finding it harder to justify (if indeed they need to).
People assume you must have a high income to be a sahp, they don't believe you can manage on a low income.
I have people say to me, well its alright for you, you must be very rich.
I don't mind this assumption as it is difficult to imagine any other way it would work, but it does work and I'm not the only sahp I know where the family has a low income.

Gawds, foot in mouth again. I don't mean by that WOH parents don't enjoy the time they have with their children...

[I think I'll bow out now before I dig myself deeper]

Summerflower
What I don't like on your post, although you are not the only one who has done this, so apologies for singling you out, is the very loaded emotive language, that you SAH for a child that you love, and the language of escape around working etc. There is no question that WOHMs love their children. Surely your DH loves his dc?

Yes he does :) I'm sorry that my post was hurtful, I thought I had been respectful. The problematic part seems to be: I appreciate that not all women would choose this kind of work as their day job (though most parents can't escape it the rest of the time!) but some would or would if it is for their own child who they love. It is work that needs doing and it is no less valuable because I gave birth to him and no one pays me to care for him.

I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean that every woman who loves their child ought to enjoy childcare work as their day job. I just meant that some people who wouldn't have chosen a career in childcare to look after other people's children feel differently about providing childcare during the day for their own children.

I absolutely appreciate that WOHPs love their children very much and don't see their decision to WOH as making them less valid or loving parents. And of course they do all the childcare related tasks that SAHPs do when they aren't working. I'm sorry if my post wasn't clear on that point.

SAH vs WOH is a blooming guilt minefield of a decision for parents to make emotionally themselves and involves all sorts of considerations (and often financially not a lot of choice). Its hard enough without having to justify that decision to other people.

In my case, the decision was easy/made for me. I didn't have a job/career due to ill health so we were already on a (modest, now average) single income. We would have preferred to have a SAHP anyway, as DH grew up with that and liked it, and I had two parents working full time with a large family and could see the pressure and stress of trying to do that. We aren't in a great place financially, but I feel lucky that I can take time to enjoy being a SAHP before looking at my options to further my education or skill set for employment/self-employment as my condition improves.

I think that when most people say things like "I didn't have kids to put them in childcare all week" they are reflecting their own reasoning behind SAH - that they enjoy the time with their children and would rather do the childcare themselves - and don't think about how rude and judgey that sounds about people who do use childcare or how unfair it feels to people who wish they could afford to be part-time or SAH. We can all be a bit more sensitive to the tough decisions that other families have to make about their careers/finances/children.

I think I agreed with the other points you made in your post, summerflower. :)

Hmmm...I'd just say they sound utterly privileged anyway thus their children will likely be aswell, so they have nothing to worry about.

The sort of things well off middle class people worry about have me in stitches.

I can't really see that household income level has a significant impact on the OPs question, the main thrust of which was how does a SAHM justify her decision to become and remain a SAHM? Specifically how does she justify that decision to her daughters?

It's arguable that a higher household income lessens rather than increases the need to justify, if one even accepts that there is a need to justify.

The original OP is not about most people's lives anyway. It goes along with the comments made by Helle Thorning-Schmidt about very highly-qualified women becoming SAHMs. It applies to a tiny proportion of the population, the sort that get over-analysed in the UK press.

The original post was an obvious spring loaded trap for SAHM. It was loaded with:

1. How can you justify your actions?
2. Particularly, when they are such a bad example to your children
3. You are just living off a rich man

I haven't been participating in these threads since 2008, thank goodness, but this particular thread was pretty aggressive against SAHM from the start.

And I didn't even realise this was the feminist section, do it better here if anywhere.

I would much prefer to do the broader issues. But people make it personal, it only takes on dig and that's the direction the thread goes.

I have noticed some posters openly bait such answers and twist words.

Yes - this.

Well the constructive way to posit 'why bother...' is 'You work 80 hr weeks? Don't you find it hard that family life only happens at weekends?' (which i, for one, am geuninely curious about re. mums AND dads) but it has sod all to do with the SAHM v WOHM debate. It's more of a work-life balance issue.

The SAHM/WOHM debate has genuinely undergone a huge shift I think. In 2008ish when I first read MN, it felt very much as though WOHMing was still the beleaguered 'position'. Now I think there has been a reversal and SAHMs are the group who by default feel the need to defend themselves.

IMHO it is a completely false debate to be having at all and it would be great if we could all move onto something wider and more nuanced encompassing working patterns and practices for both genders but hey ho, maybe we'll get there eventually.