Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

As for earning less than your male partner. Putting my feminist hat on, I think girls are conditioned from a very young age to choose career paths that lead them to earning significantly less than males. We know females are not more stupid (in a population sense) than males. We see it in school exam results and university admissions. But when it gets to their 30s, you can guarantee that the males on average earn a lot more.

Well even if you earn more there's a perception that you don't. I earn slightly more than DH. He takes on a lot of childcare responsibilities, like pick up, drop off and sick days. His boss always make off hand comments about why I'm working. He gets upset about him not being able to go on last minute work trips etc. (The assumption is that men should put career first). His standard reply is always that I earn more and his boss seems to never remember it.

It's also harmful to working mothers because bosses automatically put you up for the mummy track.

We are very very far from the more equal society in scandanavia.

I am SAHM through personal choice.

I think Capitalism is part of the problem - the view that to be contributing to society you have to be earning money.

I am not much of a capitalist. I would hate it if people asked me what I did for a living when they first met me, as if that is what we are defined by. And in turn, I am now defined by being a Mother (and not favourably sometimes.)

Some of the worst comments I get are from close friends who are WOHMs. "I couldn't do what you do, I need to use my brain" "You must be rich to be able to afford to stay at home" etc. As a feminist, it is the comments from women the hardest to swallow. It is my belief that women should be free to choose their path in life, and any feminist who disagrees with SAHMs is really undermining that sentiment.

^^This.

I think there is negativity BOTH ways - to SAHM and to working mums.

Sexism. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

I don't think there are any negativity towards SAHMs at all. Where do you get that from? I work full time and I know people says here all the time about full time working mums are delinquent. And that why should I have children when I don't want to spend a lot of time with them? But in real life, I only ever get surprises when I say I work full time. I think most assume mothers work in part time jobs.

Are you sure it's not you being sensitive?

I don't care what others think of sahp. I've been home prior to kids as a carer for my mil. Then I had children, so from the go I could never have gone to work even if I wanted to. She refused to have outsiders care for her even for a few hours.

I do feel guilty if I get a bit of free time. But I think its well deserved just like the breaks employees get at work if full time. I usually scoff up my lunch or miss dinner, breakfast I have standing whilst making the kids lunches.

I like the point someone made about the disparity in hours between people who work outside and sahp. I do sit down between 9.30-10pm most folks get in from worker earlier, then sit with their feet up.

Also for the large part women even if they work outside come home and prepare dinner. Some men help but the truth is it still primarily falls on women. I think it is feelings of inadequacy from themselves that makes working parents to turn to hateful comments towards sahp.

sometimes people make assumptions when they see mothers outside with their buggies shopping, they see these women as lazy, shopping having a good time rather than being productive. Or they assume they must be on benefits. It never enters their head they may need these items and their partners aren't around or refuse to go shopping on their free day?

I do agree there is an issue with being financially independent. I do worry because I don't know what the future holds, my husband could die before me, or the relationship could fall apart then I would have a hard time getting into work having not worked for soooo long. But right now I have no choice, 4 kids, mil and father to care for. I'm saving tax payers a lot of money doing the caring rather than dumping them on the state.

As for guilt I have no guilt about husband earning, I work damn hard, he can come home and put his feet up I have no such luxury.

YY to earning less than male partners. I think this is especially true for working class women who IMO are more likely to have 'jobs' rather than 'careers'. I used to think that it didn't really matter how long I was at home for because I knew I would be going back into the workplace in the same position I left - the bottom. And I had less to lose financially. My £200 a week from working full-time at minimum wage (6 years ago) would be very useful of course, but it's a lot different than losing £500 a week, if you know what I mean? It changes the decision, anyway.

A bit of an aside here, but I also think carers of adults are even more invisible. It's generally accepted to be a SAHM to pre-school age children, but the vitriol is saved for those who choose to do it once their children are at school, even if in that time they are caring for a disabled or elderly relative, which can also make it difficult to have a 'regular' job.

I have been a SAHM for yonks. I can't say I've been a stellar childcarer nor a particularly good homemaker. In fact I am absolutely terrible at housework and have no interest in anything beyond keeping things reasonably clean. I have no interior design flair whatsoever, and not a creative bone in my body.

However, I like to think I'm not brain dead. Why am I necessarily thicker/less interesting/less opinionated that someone who works... anywhere? I read a paper cover to cover every day, other periodicals, I listen to the radio and am a voracious reader. I've always got something to say! A recent insult was from a woman - a consultant - who said, in response to hearing that I don't work, "Oh, I couldn't let my brain rot." Five days a week this woman's mother turns up to look after her dcs at her house. If I'd have had a quarter of that level of childcare I may have bothered the world of work more.

I suppose working outside the home is working for 'the man' and staying at home is working for 'a man' - you give up your career so he doesn't have to.

Working for the man, you are protected by employment legislation against bullying and harassment and unfair dismissal. Also, you develop skills you can sell on the open market, so if you don't like one employer you can go elsewhere.

Staying at home, you are vulnerable to bullying and harassment, have little protection if your man legs it and lose marketable skills. Obviously on a personal level, it can work, but on a macro level it is very much a feminist issue that so many women make themselves so vulnerable to the ultimate benefit of a man. So that is my feminist take on SAHM.

"*I almost wrote that he's the one doing all the work - which is not true!"

I think you've hit the nail on the head - this is a huge problem. In every one of those threads on here where someone asks a question about sharing incomes, you'll hear many people saying that caring work isn't 'real' work or that a SAHP MUST should do all of the housework to 'pay' for their 'leisured' life - even if that means they are effectively working for twice as long. It's breathtaking just how invisible this labour is. Marxism has been guilty of ignoring it in theories of labour and value too, which really hasn't helped.

There's often a judgement in there that someone this work is emotionally rewarding so that makes it less 'onerous'- when anyone who has had to sing 'The Wheels on the Bus' for the 17th time, or cope with the fourth tantrum of the day, knows full well that it can also be frustrating, boring, even quite literally maddening and far from being leisured or enjoyable 'play'. Equally, the idea that paid work is just 'onerous' is simply untrue.

Without wanting to disrespect the decisions of any SAHP, I do also think that the way that society is gender-biased affects a lot of these decisions. Many of my friends have gone down the route of becoming SAHM, and two of the many reasons they did so was because, as a couple, they earned considerably less than their male partners and that childcare for more than one kid was unrealistically expensive. However, those things are both hugely affected by sexist structures of power that we have all inherited, and it's hard to see how these can be changed when the system turns and turns and perpetuates itself. (I am absolutely not blaming SAHP for this - just highlighting it as an area where work still needs to be done). I do think this is what makes free childcare a potentially radical development for women.

I also think that starting from a basis of absolutely equal contributions to domestic labour and then working out where the practical balance lies as an individual couple can be tremendously useful in highlighting inequalities. In my ideal world, both parties would sign up equally for childcare, domestic chores, a job, and self-development and there would be ways of 'accounting' that would take those contributions into account.

I think it relates to the issue in wider society that a persons worth is determined by their paid employment status. SAHP-ing is undervalued because it is unpaid work and women's work and women's work is worth less.

Also, it seems that women are supposed to go to work and be good little citizens but also feel guilty about leaving their child in childcare. But at the same time, women are also being made to feel guilty about SAHP-ing.

My DH recognises that his life is easier because I'm at home. I do sometimes feel guilty that he's the one earning all the money* and I do worry a bit about what would happen if we split up, which is partly why I've gone back to studying.

*I almost wrote that he's the one doing all the work - which is not true! These thought processes are very ingrained though. We need to start including un-paid work in our definition of 'work' rather than just 'paid employment'. But we don't say "I'm going to the place I do my paid employment".

I don't have a problem with how others see me as a SAHP. I'm glad that I have the choice. Nor do I feel somehow beholden to DH or like the little wifey. When we first met, I was the breadwinner for a number of years, and now he is. It's just a partnership thing.

I think most feminists want to enable more choice and flexibility to decide how the childcare is split AND to build in financial and time safeguards if someone becomes an SAHP. I agree SAHP risks more financial insecurity longterm, compared to some earlier decades.

Those who look down on SAHP tend to believe that the worth of a person is defined by their financial worth - a political viewpoint rather than feminist / not.

Sorry Dowager I was interrupted before I posted - I would paradoxically encourage my daughter NOT to end up a sahm because I do feel the loss of what might have been for me career-wise (at the time of pfb's arrival I was the one with the more promising prospects but circumstances changed and I opted to stay home for the first year - which ultimately became 14). But tell me it is not hard to hand your baby over to someone who will love your child less than you do - I know I would struggle if I had chosen to go out to work. I do not think there is a happy medium for mothers.

I am absolutely supportive of women who want to take on a role as SAHP. However, I believe that, within the family unit, they need to be protected from the vulnerability that this can create in a society where individualistic claims to a wage are still used to disadvantage women structurally. That means that wages that come into the household are pooled and treated as collective property, and that appropriate protections are put in place so that separation does not disproportionately disadvantage the woman, both at a familial level and at a judicial level regarding divorce. I also think that there should be a parity of hours - so that you don't get the common situation where the SAHP is working 16 or 17 hour days (and yes, bathing and reading bedtime stories totally 'count') while the wage-earner is only working 7 or 8.

Okin's Gender, Justice and the Family for all its faults conceptually is excellent on the practicalities of this.

It's a two-way street though Jill, because 'handing your child over to someone else every day' isn't exactly an unloaded statement, either.

I am a sahp, dh and I realise that I am the person best qualified to care for our DC. It is that simple. But while I would hate to be handing over my children to someone else every day I do feel the negative connotations of being a SAHP and it is women who make the most hurtful comments. "You're spending your husband's money" and "What do you do all day?" being common ones.

I would try to ignore people's rude comments.

I find domestic work and childcare quite intellectually demanding - to the point that doing and thinking about it affects my paid work! -and it makes me anxious because it's Neverending!

I do have issues so few men SAH or working part time and with the fact that men with wives or partners at home have a huge advantage over other working parents of either sex. Some of the SAHMs I know talk with pride about their husband's career success (these are men who do very little in the home and spend relatively little time with their DC). I find that hard to take.

It's not a career or nothing. You can mix SAHM and make a regular income stream at home. Just use your skills, think outside the box.

As an aside, I (naturally) don't expect DH and I to split up, but neither do I want to find myself out of the work place for a decade or more, him sick (or worse), and me trying to scabble together an income to support a family on.

SAHPing is a risky little game in this day and age, when relationships (thankfully) don't have to be forever.

It was more secure to be a SAH (let's face it) M a generation or so ago, when divorce was frowned upon. You could put all your eggs in one basket, and feel reasonably certain that that one person would support you financially for life (assuming they didn't get sick and/or die; so still fairly risky).

These days, it is just too risky, even putting the perceptions of it aside. I think many mothers - myself included - spend at least some time at home looking after children, and opting out of career advancement, an income, pension, etc, but it's usually just temporary.

Opting out altogether, long-term, is not something I would ever advise or encourage either of my DC to do, and it's really not so much to do with the perception of it, but the actual reality of it.

Finally I'm very sorry that you lost your Mum young.

I also tend to agree that it's not a good long term plan to be financially dependant on another person.

However it is possible to do both. I was a SAHM while my children were little and picked my career back up once they started school. Making the decision to be a SAHM doesn't have to be forever.

By the way - I work full time and I'm fantastic at housework.

I share child care with my husband - I don't feel it should be women who have to take a back step career wise. 50-50 split was the minimum I was prepared to consider and yes, I do feel that women who do it full time are foolish. My DM gave up her career to raise children, my (D)F left her for OW. We grew up in poverty, she was sad and always felt she had been cheated and we'd visited DF in his posh house with posh cars! Then my DM died young whist my twat of a DF is onto his millionth marriage, still living the high life! I vowed, not wait, my DM made me vow that I would never ever put myself in a position where I was subordinate/ dependent on a man. I'm sorry if this view offends you - it has been the most eye opening, character defining lesson of my life.

I was very much in that 'SAHM = Not-A-Feminist' camp until I had children myself and moved abroad for DH's career. Due to visa issues I became a reluctant SAHM and have really really struggled with the role from a feminist POV.

On the other hand it has changed my perspective on child-rearing and how society views it. It really is a tough job that is undervalued, especially the 0-3 years.

The problem for me is with the stereotype that SAHMs are at home because they 'love kids' or just find it easy compared to men who just 'don't get' young children. Many women don't get young children either but somebody has to take care of them! I think it is insidious but there still is an expectation in society that childcare comes naturally to women abd so SAHM work is not really 'work' because women want to do it. Well, plenty of men and women like programming and some even do it as a hobby but it doesn't mean it's not real work...

Being a SAHM has no value have absolutely no idea the truth. But i dont make judgements. And who cares anyway. People just jealous on both sides.