Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

Handcream in two households earning the same amount of money, one with one earner and the other with two roughly evenly paid earners, which do you think pays more tax? Hint: I am not using my personal tax allowance.

Surely people cannot be claiming that their parnter pays their tax for them! You have to be earning shed loads to make that work! And tax doesnt work like that.

One person earning say 50k isnt funding, his partner to stay at home, 3 chidlren at school, NHS, pension payments etc.

I do smile at people who say 'well my partner pays my tax etc.' No they dont!

What is plenty of tax and NI btw for 3 children, and a non working parent?

Thinkaboutittomorrow,

but that is obvious, surely?

It is women who carry the child, who go through labour and breastfeed the baby. So women start out being a bit more invested in their offspring.

That is just biology. After that first stage, it becomes maybe a more rational "choice", but by then women will have had time off work, even if just to give birth! and will on average have bonded more with the mum.

Bottle feeding and breast pumps are a relatively recent invention, and for centuries, millennia, ten thousands of years, women (like all female mammals) have always taken "time out" to care for their newborns, and breastfeed them .

To deny any difference between the sexes in terms of evolution or biology makes any feminist debate a bit artificial.

I am not saying women should stay at home , I am a feminist and think women should have the same choices as men, and that includes men having the same choices as women (as ultimately that furthers women's advancement in the workplace and lead to more equal treatment).

But I don't get why people are baffled that it is so often the woman looking after babies and small children.

I also question whether being the SAHP is the "lesser" option.

Office work and carriers are overrated IMO

Sabrina

You say:
"Sometimes on MN it's like it's a crime to actually want to raise your own children."
Then you post
"raise stay at home with your own children."

Who is being accused of the crime here? Sounds trite but 'two wrongs don't make a right' so to speak.

I have seen equally negative language on this post from both parties, sadly.

I will tell my daughter that when the children were young I wanted to look after them myself and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that as they grew and I ended up with three of them that it made financial sense to stay at home with them and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that I felt it was unfair that child number three would miss out on what the first two children had and I decided to stay at home until they were in senior school and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that by the time they were all at senior school the job market had changed and it wasn't so easy to walk into any job but it was worth it

I will tell my daughter that if she is well educated she can chose to do whatever she wants

I will tell my daughter not to give a flying fuck what any body else says about her choices as long as they are the right ones for her and her family

I will tell my daughter that I did the absolute best I could

I will tell my sons the same

Sometimes your perspective changes when you become a parent, what was important to you in your life and career pre children is not always as significant post children, even when they are grown up. Becoming a parent made me more family orientated and suddenly had no desire to go gallivanting around the country with my career anymore and got the same satisfaction from being home with my family. Surely the importance of being happy rather than solely education and career would be better?

My mum was definitely not educated to degree level but her sahm status vs the aspirations she had for me created major arguments during my late teens.

Then when I had kids and went back to work we had more arguments as she didn't think that was right either.

I dont know anyone who has a partnership like this i.e. SAHD?

Me neither! That is exactly my point though. We are having the SAHM / WOHM debate but in the feminist section we should be having the discussion about why it is almost always the woman who feels this is the choice / option? And that it is her role.

raise stay at home with your own children.

^ handcream My DH's income is our family's income. He plays plenty of tax and NI to cover us (there is no relief for being married / we don't claim tax credits for DC).

What example would I be setting my child by working? My DC has had SEN, which had a Statement (until recently), child care was not straight forward. Received flexible, part time schooling at one point. No relatives live near to help with childcare either. We don't need the money I would earn, I can support my child out of school. It works for us. Dealing with the Statementing process and SEN (appointments and so on), making sure everything was done correctly, would have been extremely difficult if I had worked. I don't resent not working.

Now I have had a big career gap, but we don't need the extra income. If we did there may be radical changes, downsizing etc, which we could do. We have a buffer though, equity in our house and some savings. It is enough security for me....it has to be, that is I don't believe in worrying.

handcream, I also know of plenty of relationships that have broken down because the wife is working FT and is pissed off that she still does the 90% of the childcare and housework - the "wifework". Or because they are all so busy working that they never get any quality time together.

Sometimes on MN it's like it's a crime to actually want to raise your own children.

Handcream I think there is an underlying assumption in your points that not everyone on the thread shares. You assume everyone should be assessed as an individual contribution. Others are looking at a contribution as a partnership.

So if a couple make a choice to support themselves on a single (high in the OP context) income then the taxes on that income covers 1,2 & 3 in your points.

And point 4 is the essence of what the thread is about...

Thinkabout it makes a good point, however I dont know anyone who has a partnership like this. I know couples who both work, I know very high earning families where the wife stays at home (and allows the man to continue onwards and upwards without having to worry about the school pick up etc).

I think this is where there is a mismatch. Maybe not 40 yrs ago when it was expected and the norm for the women to stay at home but nowadays... I am not so sure.

For me its the breakdown of the family (married or not) that would make sure that any DD of mine recognises that she will have to make her own way in the world and not rely on a man to support her choices in life.

Going back to the OP. I know many men earning these sorts of money (and it IS men, I dont know any women!). I also know their partners who bar two have complaining and moaned that their DH's bring home work from the office, have audios during the weekend. Are always checking their Blackberry's and dont seem to understand the presssure THEY are under.

I also hear their DH's saying their wives dont understand the pressure they are under to provide for the WHOLE family, who really dont appreciate being moaned at when they have to work after hours. I work with these men.

It doesnt sound a great arrangement. Most of these women are well educated but my fear is that their marriage/partnership is going to fail when they are so far apart.

The person saying 'well why should I work...

1. To pay for the NHS (unless you want others to pay your share)
2. To give back something financially when you use schools for your children
3. To pay for your pension
4. To provide a good example to your children. What are you going to do when they decide to stop going to school because actually there is no point.

Ahh, how different I think this thread would be if the OP had said 'how do SAHD who are well educated justify their choice to SAH to their sons without sending the message that they don't need to work hard at school because they can grow up and find a rich woman'

To me there is no negative example being set in this choice when children are small , the challenge is when older (and I think there is broad agreement on this isn't there?).

I think most people would be applauding a SAHD for that choice.

I think from a feminist perspective ANY decision that conforms to a typical gender role feels damaging because it reinforces the status quo. But I suspect we all make these choice hundreds of times a day on small or large scales. The choice to SAH is just one of the really big ones.

As a parent the decision to want one parent to be at home taking care of young children is I think probably quite natural, as well as societal and structural for some (childcare cost = pressure to stay at home) though not others (mortgage costs = pressure to earn).

The feminist challenge comes in at the point that in almost every couple it ends up being the woman who stays at home.

can we not discuss that rather than our personal choices?

Life is too broad to judge like the op is trying to prompt people to do.

This!
Some women (and men) are highly rewarded by SAHPing.
Some women (and men) would find it frustrating.
Some kids would struggle in childcare and learn better with a SAHP.
Some kids thrive in childcare.
Some women (and men) love having the dual identity of work and home.
Some women (and men) hate it.

...TBH letters after your name and so forth aren't going to change the dynamic of your own personality/your children's. There isn't a 'one' right way.

Sadly there are societal and financial pressures meaning some people are pushed towards options which aren't best for them: be that financial pressure to work when they'd rather not or pressure from F&F to stay at home for moral reasons when their kids are at school and they want something else (happens in my culture/area).

Deep in the Woods - so you are actually a working parent!

'Because they love to sit down with me and unload their day, they love a cuddle and a kiss when they come though the door. They appreciate someone there to pass the sick bucket or make lemsip when they are ill.

Do these things have no value?'

Really a 16 year old rushing through the door to see you, telling you all about the girls they have met, their fears for the future. are you joking!

And surely you arent justifying staying at home because one day they might need a Lemsip and the poor loves cannot make it themselves. What happens if they go to university? Perhaps you will go with them...

A 16 year old absolutely doesnt need childcare. If you think they do I dread what they will be like when faced with something they need to deal with outside of the home. Getting lost on the tube, getting on the wrong bus, getting into a fight at school, getting into trouble on the internet. All of these things are learning for them. You are certainly doing them no good hovering over them.

And someone UT who states why would they want to work... Well words fail me on that one....

And if you want "sad and thwarted" you could equally hang around the champagne bars in the city and chat to the late 40s women who have worked incredibly hard, realised they have left it too late for marriage and children and are freaking out when partnership is just more of the same. Some of them are my friends and it's shit for them. Life is too broad to judge like the op is trying to prompt people to do.

Not when the purpose is to pat oneself on the back whilst internally congratulating yourself on your own perceived superior life choices which is all this really isn't it?

" I only know one woman who never worked after having children (my MIL) and she is very sad and thwarted"- that's a sad and thwarted view.

Your MIL may well have been "sad and thwarted" even if she had worked.
I am of an older generation and I have known dozens of women ( indluding my mother, and many aunts and neighbours) who gave up working after children.
Most of them were certinly not "sad and thwarted".

Contributions to life and fellow humans are not always measured in financial terms.

I suppose because the OP asked and I was interested in the answers. I only know one woman who never worked after having children (my MIL) and she is very sad and thwarted. I am interested in women and families and people. Maybe it is just nosiness, but I suspect we are all a bit guilty of that on mumsnet.

Why though? What business is it of yours if someone chooses not to work. All this over the fence peering and judging others choices very odd get a life! The only post of interest on this thread was summer flowers. That's my worry for women too.

I don't see why a SAHP needs to justify it to their DD. They may wish to discuss context etc. No doubt they will wish to point out that each family and situation is individual. Fat worse would to speak in general terms about what is 'right' or 'best'. Those conversations are both sexist and really really shit parenting.

And the reason I made my post (gah, being taken off subject by pointless sniping) is to illustrate that my children don't need childcare, ergo if I didn't work it would be for reasons other than childcare responsibilities.

As it happens, both DH & I work part time, which is a luxury we can afford. It does make it easier with the 11 year old, but we will continue to work PT, even when the kids have left home, so it is not childcare that impacts on our working choices any more.

That is what interests me, reasons for not working that are not childcare related.

I think that is not a 16 year old's job. It's a parent's job.