Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

How long do you continue calling yourself a SAHM once the children have left home? Presumably you go from being a SAHM to a housewife.

Eh? Presumably you find work long before then.

Drinkingtea, there was a long thread on here within the last few months and a fair few admitted that they picked their partner for their earning potential. Cant remember the thread title to search, it wa depressing reading for any male out their.

How long do you continue calling yourself a SAHM once the children have left home? Presumably you go from being a SAHM to a housewife.

I do think it is quite rare to be a housewife these days. Most women I know have taken up some sort of employment as the children get older. The number of women who have children and never work again must be pretty teeny, so it is hardly a huge issue, I think. Even women with mega wealthy husbands seem to have some sort of vanity business, so they at least have a tendy job to talk about.

HappyMummy I have never seen anyone on here say salary is a factor in their choice of male partner - where has that come from? [Hmm]

Juneau

For the record, you don't sound snobby to me and we aret theothe end of the pectrum, very low income nd sahm.
I don' thin pople relise you on' need a hih income to have a sahp, you cut yu cloth acordingly.

I think being educated is a red herring too. Waste of money if you never pay back your student loans but thats another topic.

Its only possible to choose not to work by either finding a high earning partner or living off state benefits (be it full benefits or top ups). Neither which i'd encourage either a DD or DS to do.

We've always wanted to teach DS that its perfectly possible to work and parent hand in hand and that all adults should share bills. Hopefully he'll look for a partner with the same beliefs he has grown up with.

Sadly, the number of women on here who admit salary is a factor in the man they look for, its a case that men get the raw deal in a lot of relationshis purely as they were born male.

"My mum was a SAHM until I left school. I went to uni and got a job. It never occurred to me that I shouldn't/couldn't just because mum was at home."

Yep, this.

I am a lazy arsed sahm, and for what it's worth, dd15 is very focused, studying hard and know what she wants to do when she leaves school. Ds12 on the other hand is very able, but lazy and I worry more about his future. So your theory doesn't work in our house.

Squizita I have received those looks too!!

Juneau you sound like a terrible snob. And using emotive language like 'worth staying at home for' is really not nice on a thread like this. You admit you can only do this because of your rich dh.

If you don't earn enough to pay back your student loans then I'm not sure you'll earn enough for a mortgage either, given the cost of houses. I can't imagine planning to borrow a large amount of money in order to study for a degree with no intention of working afterward, but then I can't imagine planning not to work either.

Just to clarify. I work, I have a mortgage and I pay an amount each month to the student loan company.

It's touch and go whether I will pay all of my loan off, if I had a 'new style' massive loan, I very much doubt that I would.

If in the future I decide to SAH that will be because I have the luxury of choice, and will not be defined by either my student loan or my desire not to 'waste' my education.

As if raising your family could ever be a waste of anything.

In life lots of people don't have the luxury of all of these choices. The problem comes in when the man is 'choosing' meaning the woman cannot.

Yep, on the sharp end of this one at the moment. Society doesn't even view it as a choice but the norm!

Society is not geared up for female breadwinners IMO, nor to men who want to be SAHD (DH has always wanted this- his dad worked shifts and he was the one he always saw after work cooking dinner etc' so to him it's a fond memory).
OK, on paper it's fine: but having to explain (with raised eyebrows) that you'll be coming back off maternity full-time and DH (none of their business - doubt they'd ask a man this) is the one who will be SAH or part time really makes you feel like an utter freak.
Mind you, I think DH has had more social hostility and being made to feel weird than me. :( Even a homophobic type comment... which goes to show how strange and mixed up with other prejudices these stereotypes are.

I am one of the women you're addressing. My DH earns a good salary. We can afford for me to SAH. I am educated to degree level and used to earn good money before we had DC, although that had little do with my degree, which was in an interesting, but useless subject. And actually I don't think it matters whether you have DDs or DSs, you need to set an example as a parent in many different areas of life, not just in working or not.

However, I think raising the next generation well IS an extremely worthy job - certainly more worthwhile than the job I used to do in finance. I didn't have DC so I could get someone else on a minimum wage to raise them on my behalf while I went off to do something else. I could have gone back to work when my first DC was a baby, but its my opinion that he's worth staying at home for and raising properly and I'm fortunate enough that a) we can afford for me to do this, and b) my DH agrees with me. Many people who work in childcare don't speak properly. They say things like 'You was' and 'We was' and 'I done'. If I want to raise eloquent DC who will have choices in life, I feel like they're better off at home with me. If that means to some other people think that I'm setting 'a bad example' by not working, I really don't care.

If you don't earn enough to pay back your student loans then I'm not sure you'll earn enough for a mortgage either, given the cost of houses. I can't imagine planning to borrow a large amount of money in order to study for a degree with no intention of working afterward, but then I can't imagine planning not to work either.

I've pretty much always worked, but my dh has had two fairly long spells of being a SAHD, the second when our children were old enough to be thinking about 'what they might do when they grow up'. ds swung between wanting to be a self made trillionaire and saying he'd like to be a kept man. I do think the latter ambition was influenced by his dad being around all day, and it was one of the reasons I really encouraged dh to go back to work, lovely though it was to have everything done for me.

As far as I am aware it doesn't count against you in the mortgage stakes in the way 'normal' debt does. It is also written off at retirement age. The government forecasts that 45% of debt will never be repaid, and I'd almost bet the farm that in reality that figure will be much higher.

In life lots of people don't have the luxury of all of these choices. The problem comes in when the man is 'choosing' meaning the woman cannot.

'It's not 'real' debt and doesn't materially affect your life.'

Til you try to get a mortgage

I don't think any of my daughters are going to look at what I do - nightshift in a call centre - and decide they want to follow in my footsteps.

I think they'll look at what interests them, make decisions

And when it comes to having children, they will make the much vaunted 'choice' about working or not. This choice is talked about alot in feminism and it ALWAYS ignores the fact that for the majority of women there is no choice at all.

This 'choice' is generally open to some women, but many, many others find themselves either not working due to cost of childcare, or working because they cannot afford to lose pay scale, pension etc

The flipside of having to justify working to a child... as the child of a working mum I really appreciated from a young age that she wasn't just working for the money and it fostered a real respect for her. It may have helped that she was in a very obviously 'community based' career which I could understand as a child?

It's interesting because the "my daddy the hero" narrative is never seen as a problem for kids, whereas "mummy goes to work" is seen as automatically worrying and upsetting because of childcare- it doesn't have to be like that.

Looking back I can see my mum was very astute with childcare (ours was great, educationally and emotionally) and working hours to minimise impact back in the days before flexi time!

What is has done is make me challenge the assumption that every mother deep down wants to be a SAHM forever. Some (for example my consultant at hospital who deals with high risk pregnancies and is herself the mother of twins) are probably driven on in their careers because of their experiences as mothers.
For others, motherhood is in itself a vocation.
Neither is 'wrong'.

As Greene and others point out, many, many children look at their own parents example and are ao put off they vow to do the opposite. I'm a post grad educated SAHM - just starting to do more paid work now the youngest is 3, but part yime around the kids. My mother worked full time in a professional job, as did my father. My mother was endlessly resentful that she felt even the smallish amount of time she took "off" to have kids meant she had "fallen behind" my father, and endlessly frazzled and stressed throughout my childhood. Then, once all her children left home, she went part time, then took early retirement to do more gardening. Her choice but I was always a bit about the way around she did it, esp as it didn't seem to make her happy AND we didn't need the money...

I don't think £50 000 of debt (the estimated average debt of uni graduates in a few years) is worth it just because you love a subject.

But if you don't have the decent salary you don't actually pay it back... It's not 'real' debt and doesn't materially affect your life.

Education for educations sake.

Really yorkshire? How sad.

I don't think my older 2 dc will have huge careers as they aren't driven like dd.
However, I think they have realised what is important to them from dh and my values.
Not that I think anybodies values are better than anybody elses, we all make our choices to a certain degree.
My eldest has a long term gf who whilst works wouldn't use cc in the future, but her and ds share cc when the time comes.
I too don't like cc and didn't use it for any of our dc.
I think whatever you do in terms of work you may need to justify it to your dc.
How do you justify sending them to cc when you can afford to sah?
My ds have both said they felt sorry for the dc who didn't want to go to after school club but had to. They appreciate our decision to have a sahp and say they are thankful we did.

DM was your typical career woman, out before we left for school and not back till 7.30pm sometimes 9pm everyday. She had a good career but i hated the fact she was never in and I had to take on the role of cooking for the family and helping younger db and dsis with home work, DF was in an equally high powered job. Friend next door's mum was SAHM, I was able to observe how she would always have a meal ready when they got back from school, had time to listen to what had gone on at school, could help with school work in various ways and what should couldn't teach them was quick to arrange a tutor. Friend and siblings were a very confident bunch and did extremely well at school due to the close support and nurturing from home. Friend is now a top lawyer in her country, all her siblings have high flying careers. We did well too but struggled a lot more in ways we wouldn't have had DM taken some time out during crucial periods of our lives.

Of course there are working parents who also turn out high achieving dc, but my post is to point out that being a SAHM does in no way me, no ambition to succeed academically. In addition when ds started school, I was surprised to find that contrary to what I had thought, the children with SAHM could all read very well before they started to school, whilst ds and a number others who had been to nursery couldn't. I remember one mum commented.. "After spending hundreds of pounds!"

Surely nowadays a university education has to have a financial reward. Tuition fees are only going to get higher.

I don't think £50 000 of debt (the estimated average debt of uni graduates in a few years) is worth it just because you love a subject.

In my experience, pleasant DC of a SAHP appreciate the extra parental time, school pick-ups etc they benefitted from, pleasant DC of WOHPs appreciate the material extras it brought them. Why would you justify the choices you made to your DCs? Surely they will have witnessed the upside of the choice themselves?

There seems to be a slight assumption in the OP that all SAHMs have high-earning DPs. Not remotely the case. People in all income brackets become SAHPs for allsorts of intangible, values based reasons, family circs, illness etc and economise accordingly.

Do people say the same of SAHDs? Or are they brave for bucking the trend?

One of the big problems is that the media portray SAHM as something which every woman wants and should try to afford (by marrying a richer man) or they're not good mums but evil cold unnatural career women.
But once (or rather if) they are able to, it's viewed by the very same media/society as a luxury not a job IYSWIM. As the 'easy' option. When in reality it is so incredibly rare to have a woman like those "real housewives" stereotypes!

So precisely NO women win!

I suppose what I'd like to teach my children is that it's important to (in no particular order) a) be financially independent, b) be a loving parent (if you have children, obviously), c) make a worthwhile contribution to society, d) do something with your life that brings you pleasure and fulfilment.