Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

Excellent post Vestal

I haven't read the whole thread, so I will start off by just answering the initial question.

I do think that housekeeping, childraising, etc. is very important work, but I also feel that many cannot be happy only doing that, as it is a invisible kind of work (that you clean the floors shows only in that they are NOT dirty) and rather repetitive. And of course, it is not appreciated by other people, which poses an additional problem with regards to self-esteem.

Originally, I suppose childraising was done by women because men often already had run off when a child was born. Men do not value that kind of work because it is done for them, without them even having to ask.

However, I think that in modern society, housework is also not done by men because it is not paid. If cleaning floors was a well-paid job, I think men would not care whether the floor looks dirty to them or not.
People work in completely useless jobs all the time; the perceived neccessity of doing something does not figure into it much if the pay is good. (Let's be honest, most people don't like advertisements. That industry is only as large as it is because it's profitable to sell people things they don't actually need.)

Science is advanced enough so that women could prove who fathered a child, and demand not only compensation for the money they cannot earn, but also payment for the work of childraising. Patriarchy is the reason why the latter is not done.

From a rather practical point of view, I wouldn't choose to be a housewife in today's political climate. I would not choose to be a housewife voluntarily, except with a marriage contract that gives me enough money to compensate for the lack of job experience (that might mean eternal unemployment), health insurance, and so on and so forth in case of divorce, regardless of who initiates the divorce.

Maybe one day we will live in a feminist utopia where work is valued according to how useful it is (which will place childcare way over, say, investment banking), but today is not that day.

Perhaps if we shaped our conversations around it being both men and women as SAHP then it might make it seem more common than it is. More men will feel it's normal (and women too), and perhaps it's more likely to happen.

I believe that men could do it too, but most don't or won't. "It's [almost] always women" is not a line, it's a fact borne out by the Office of National Statistics! Will dig around. A few men do it, but it is just a few.

i truly believe either sex can be a SAHP my DH took 6 months paternity leave with our first. So I personally don't buy it's always women line. It's not, and actually I wouldn't have wanted to marry a man not willing to be a SAHP, DH nearly was the one to be the SAHP I was the one who got sick.

Some men and some women would prefer not to be a SAHP and pursue a career and some if able prefer to raise their families.

even on these threads posters will comment how it's women who are really SAHP and not men. We have to stop that attitude because it's not really helping women and men ( because some men love being a SAHP) achieve equality.

I think it's when the separate groups SAHM's and WOHM's start making somewhat lazy assumptions about the other that you get problems.

Stop with the disparaging comments such as 'Oh I would never farm my kids out to somebody else to look after or 'I would get brain-rot if I was a FT SAHM'. If we showed more compassion to the downside of each others choices then we could be more sympathetic to each other. I'm a FT working mum and I sometimes long to spend a bit more time with the kids but it isn't possible at the moment

But Captain, cultural and religious expectations like that have a disproportionate impact on women.

The cost of care for the elderly is a hige challenge that is being avoided by successive governments. I am probably typical of the 80s people you talk about. I would not be willing to do anything more than the odd basic favour for relatives (beyond parents), friends or local residents in need. I would, however, be willing and able to pay higher tax to pay for better public services - but many people (including older people) are not.

In societies where care of the elderly is usually done by family, women are the ones providing the care (unpaid). Saw an interesting article about young women in China rejecting this and moving for jobs. My DM (British) did the same in her late teens.

And of course it is usually women who care for DC and adult DC with disabilities or health conditions requiring care. Men often leave!

In my area a lot of volunteers, eg residents associations, neighbourhood watch, running the library (the council fired the paid staff due to cuts ), are retired people of both sexes in good health.

I wouldn't ask SAHM friends to care for my DC except in a short term, true emergency, because DH and I cannot reciprocate in ways they would find helpful. I also don't think they should have to justify not doing paid work by doing additional stuff for the community.

It baffles me that people believe that society was better in the 50s/60s/70s captain. In that time, being gay was illegal, a man could legally rape his wife, domestic violence was tolerated, lack of work prospects meant women were trapped in violent relationships, single mothers were forced to give up their children, or were treated like shit, racism was pretty much par for the course, child abuse wasn't really treated as a crime, genuine, grinding poverty was rife. Life was great if you were a straight white man in a decent job - you had women slaving after you, and you didn't have to lift a finger to care for your own children. Other than that, the potential for life to be very very bad was high.

Also I think religion or at least Christianity ( I can't comment on the others but I am sure they too are the same), we are taught to look out for our neighbours, taught the story of the good Samaritan etc. These teachings have been given for centuries in this country.

I believe its only been since the 80s that the truly money=status, me-me-me culture has really developed. Before then I am not so sure, communities were very close knit, and cared for one another. And yes a lot of mothers didn't work in employment, but in raising the family and looking out for their relatives and friends. Society has become more fragmented, dual incomes required to sustain a decent standard of living. Materialism etc. These things as much as politics are at odds with SAHPing. We have come to a point in our society that if you don't earn money or enough of it you are to be looked down upon. Stealth wealth boasts on FB etc.

LetGoOrBeDragged - I don't think it's about being useful. It's the way I have been brought up, when I was a child my father used to go and do odd jobs for neighbours and others on our street because he wanted to help them (putting up a fence or a plumbing emergency). They were elderly, they never paid him. They may have let us play in their garden for a treat to return the favour. This would have been when dad was out of work and had the time. I find it quite an insular life and quite lonely to just focus on my own immediate families wants and needs. But that is how I have been raised and I know no different.

You have said yourself that you would watch your friends children, presumably if they had no relatives and all your peers worked they would have to pay someone to do this for them. You see on many threads on mumsnet, can you ask a friend to watch your children for you? You do it because you care for your friend and you have time. This is what I mean about a SAHP being not just a benefit to the WOHP and the children. We benefit society as a whole.

If everyone worked Full-time i.e. 40 hours pw who would do these things? Retired people?

The point I am trying to get to in my round about way is that sah is so devalued that sahm feel they have to be 'productive' in some way to society, in order to justify it. So ingrained is the idea that only the direct grneration of money is valuable in a human being.
I am tryong to get away from the idea of feeling obliged to be 'useful'. Taking care of my own family really is a 'good enough' use of time.

We should really talk about SAHMs: only a tiny proportion of SAHPs are men.

My Brownie leader is a full time worker. I will take in a parcel for a neighbour but tbh I don't look after other people's dc for them because they are 'busy'. I too am busy and am a sahp for my family, not to benefit others by providing them with back up childcare, although obviously I would help out my friends and I would expect them tp help me. But that's to do with friendship, not working status. I don't consider my time as available to those who woh because my time isn't less valuable to me, just because I don't spend it in paid employment. So you see, not all sahp are more 'available' to society as a whole and not all wohp are less available. I don't think you can generalise except to say that of sahp who do volunteer, they are more likely to be around during office hours.

LetGoOrBeDragged - I didn't say we were all fitter and healthier did I?

But on the whole how many workers of 40+ hours a week volunteer at say Brownies? Yes you do it for your child but it benefits everyone's child in the end doesn't it.

No a SAHP doesn't have to justify themselves to anyone, but often we are doing things for others that you may not even realise. Popping to the shops for an elderly neighbour, running a relative to hospital for nothing, taking a parcel for someone who is at work, watching someone's child for an hour or two because they are busy...

I also disagree that sahp are fitter and healthier - some are, some aren't. I also think the world is split into those who like to volunteer and be involved and those who prefer to just do their own thing. Again I dont think it has anything to do with woh or sah.

Personally, I am a sahp now and I help out at my dd's school because she gains from it, not because I feel I owe it to society. Of the volunteers I know, they do it for their own personal reasons, again not because they feel they owe it to anyone else.
I dont consider that sahp should have to justify their existence by using their time in a way others consider to be 'productive', be that volunteering or anything else. I do it simply because it suits my family. I dont want reward for it but neither do I want to hear shit like 'I couldn't do that. I need to use my brain' from people who woh.

Captain, do you think that SAHP are the only ones volunteering? In any thread like this, there are always many people who either themselves work and volunteer in the community, or know many others that do.

I also call BS - and failing that, irrelevance - on your claim that SAHP are 'fitter and healthier'...

You're a SAHP because it suits you, and your family, for whatever reasons - great. I don't see what's gained by insinuating you're doing society a favour by being 'fitter and healthier' or contributing more than what you would have been had you been a WAHP.

That really is a great post captain, i think for me my arguments for SAHMing are tied up with lefty/greeny/socialisty ideals. I want to have time for my parents when they get older, I want to fix things when they break rather than get new ones because I'm tired/have no time.

But on the other hand it's tricky because just because I like and genuinely want to do very '1950s housewife' type things like volunteer at church or darn my clothes I also don't want my future DCs to think that 'mummies stay at home and daddies go to work on the train'...I'm hoping that just pointing out 'Yes but X's mummy is a doctor and Y's daddy stays at home' will be enough.

Great post Captain.

I have read the whole thread after contributing near the beginning. I find these threads always turn into how you can have a career and balance home life, spare time and keeping fit and healthy. Something that I obviously failed at because I am now a SAHM brought on by ill health caused by trying to fit everything into one day. No relatives or family to help and not enough money or space to afford an au pair or nanny. And yes my DH was also doing the same too. My health packed in and I suffered and I am now a SAHM.

Sure I was resentful, sure I believed from the first day I started my career, nothing not even children would stop me. But what I am willing to admit now is that when I was a teenager, I had a longing to be a mother and to look after my children. I am now doing that and it's not a silly childhood fantasy. I have had a massive change of heart. Our quality of life has drastically improved. There has been discussion that my parents-in-law move to be near us so I can help them remain independent for longer and allow our children to have a relationship with them. That would not happen if I worked. So there you have it, by me not working 3 children and 3 adults directly benefit from me not working.

I volunteer as do so many SAHP, retired and out of work folk be it through ill health, disability or little employment prospects. We give up our time for others, we see no financial reward and after having a city job I can tell you it is not mind-numbingly boring, it opens your eyes to the problems in society and gives you a chance to directly get involved. If we all worked who would do these things? How many children's groups, OAP groups, drop-in clinics for this, that and the other would shut down if we had to start paying people to work there?

SAHP don't just benefit their partners or immediate family, they benefit relatives, neighbours, society in general, because by and large we are fitter and more healthy than other groups of unemployed adults. This government made a big thing of society looking after themselves and not the state. I don't think they meant the 40 hour per week workers, they meant the likes of me who work for free for my family and for society. Yet we are seen IMO as lazy slackers by George Osbourne, child benefit went for us, and yes a transferable tax allowance would be fantastic, it would show that we are appreciated. Maybe even some kind of volunteers benefit a token amount to show we are appreciated.

I also think that it is SAHP families or at least ones where one parent works minimal hours are more likely to have more than 2 children. So many dual working families have only one or two and I don't actually think that is an economically good idea, just like at China and Germany. Am I right in thinking the most families in the UK only have one child? That is a huge burden for that one child when they become older.

Before that last paragraph sparks a comment about an over populated world I believe that the emancipation of women the world over would help sort that problem out. Once women have control over their own bodies and fertility I think the global birth rate would drop.

Because those skills are intangible Stella, and not measurable?

Exactly, why is 'women's work' so devalued? I completely disagree that 'anyone with arms and legs' can be a decent healthcare assistant/carer/childcare worker...why are the traits of emphathy, patience, creativity etc. seen as being worth less than more 'academic' skills - not everyone who is a surgeon could be a good nursery nurse (as an example) imo.

I'm pregnant with DC1 at the moment and I'm leaning towards becoming a SAHM and I have my feminist arguments all lined up for anyone who says won't you miss using your brain

Oh yes....transferable tax allowance. I'd implement that as well!

Yes, we now have the choice to go back to work. It's a looooong way from having to quit work as soon as you began to show. That's fantastic. But it feels like we're taking steps backwards at the same time. There's so little acknowledgment or understanding - let alone provision for - the unique choices and situations that women end up in. Everything is seen and discussed through this tiny prism of a man-centric and capitalist (economic value is the only value) viewpoint. It's such a tired cliche but how are we STILL here, with the women's work still exclusively women's work and still totally unrewarded? As if the only 'solution' is for women to emulate men as much as possible - be economically active as much as possible and have other people look after the children to make this happen. Great for some people, not for others.

As so many people on here have said - what if men became more like women? Took 6 months parental leave, worked part time / flexibly for quite a few years after that.

Dh is a hrt payer and I was very annoyed to lose cb, which was the only income in my name, when if we earned his salary between us we would have kept it and paid less tax. It makes no sense.