What's wrong with being a SAHM?

Staying at home with the children is all very well and good until your marriage goes tits up and you need to support yourself. I am very grateful that as a lone parent I was able to earn enough to support my children alone. Never give up your financial independence. People never think bad things will happen to them, but they do.

There are so many threads which demonstrate the risk. There is a new one today, sahm mum whose husband has just ended it via phone and one of her very first thoughts was " oh god I'm going to be skint" and to work out benefits. It clearly demonstrates the risk.

Qualifications are useful beyond employment because knowledge hugely enriches your own life, never mind anyone else's.

The other thing about working when you have small kids is that it is a whole load of extra stress. I want to enjoy my life at much slower pace.

I don't follow your logic butter

I keep hearing how the priorities of famines have changed. Can you give some examples? Because one parent not working to take of children isn't new.

Butter,

What a waste! Why don't you value yourself more. Since when do the kids matter more than the parents in a family? A relatively recent phenomenon.

Why don't you value us, our opinions, more? Are you saying we love our children more, value our children more now, than in the recent past? Ok, but how can we 'turn that off'? Should we? Yes, parenting is up for much more scrutiny than years gone past but this is probably partly to do with feminism. Prioritising children over men. So we should prioritise women more. But does than mean we can ignore the needs of our children? I can bet your bottom dollar we'd then just be accused of neglect.

A lot of people are talking about what's best for the children. What about what's best for you?! Don't you count? Have you spent 30+ years developing yourself to just throw it under a bus? What a waste! Why don't you value yourself more. Since when do the kids matter more than the parents in a family? A relatively recent phenomenon.

natalia its true you really don't know what's an imperative part of parenting and what's not.

Certainly not at the time. So many things intersect. And even with hindsight it's hard.

With my DC now having left school and about to turn 18 very soon, DH and I have tried to analyse what we've done right not least because people keep asking, but it's not that easy. Some things are self evident but mostly not.

Good childcarers can do a lot.

You sound fortunate with your childcare, Loopy. Not everywhere has such a good choice in high quality, flexible, affordable childcare. It's probably why a growing number of Grandparents provide childcare whilst their children work. But that is not always an option for various reasons.

Good childcarers can do a lot. One of my DC has speech/language problems: her CM did a fantastic job in helping with this, she read up on it, used her skills. This and her other experience helped her get a job in a special school.

If I was paying top whack for a nanny I would definitely want them to assist with DCs' education.

(....last point obviously not aimed at you, GetaHaircutCarl - sorry if it read that way! A purely general point with which I hope you will agree.)

I didn't say the main benefit of WoH was financial, I said the main DIFFERENCE was. IMO.

I agree in one sense, Carl - you don't spend much time talking about nuclear fission or optimum capital allocation strategies with a toddler! But take it out more widely. One of my DCs is really interested in the Second World War. Not something I knew much about. So I've got up to speed - read several books - and now I can take her to museums and explain things to her in an age appropriate way. You couldn't ask a nanny to do that. And that's without casting aspersions on anyone else's intelligence: you don't want your childcare provider reading up on your children's interests when they are supposed to be looking after them and it's simply unreasonable to suggest that they do so in their spare time. Could I do the same if I worked? Yes, I could - but I'd have a lot less time to do it. So I reject the idea that education is wasted when you look after your own children.

But - at the end of the day (as we were discussing on another thread, Carl), who the hell knows? You get one shot, you make the best call you can at the time and you hope it works out well. If you choose one way (which will have some advantages), you don't choose another (and therefore lose the advantages that would have had). There are pros and cons to all scenarios. Pretending one way is right or wrong is just over simplistic.

Who is blaming mothers for their decisions?

Get

TBH I think high levels of subject specific qualifications aren't particularly useful in the parenting game - and I say that as someone with bloody tons of them!!

Mine were. But then, I've studied child development and education, as well as English literature, language and linguistics. I can see being in medicine, psychology and psychiatry also being very useful! Really lots of qualifications are useful beyond employment.

TBH I think high levels of subject specific qualifications aren't particularly useful in the parenting game - and I say that as someone with bloody tons of them!!

I'm also baffled by the implication parents who work aren't benefitting their children  NataliaOsipova you seem to think parents who work don't spend any time with their children giving them the "benefit" of their education, which is clearly untrue.

Anyway this thread is ruining my morning and I have a lovely day with parents ahead so I'm off, will endeavour to learn my true role as a female soon.

Doesn't feel nice to have your choices criticised does it, NoLove? Perhaps feminists should be more supportive of women in the different choices they have made as women? Instead of making each other feel crap?

NataliaOsipova you seem to think parents who work don't spend any time with their children giving them the "benefit" of their education, which is clearly untrue.*

Go back and read my post, which was a response to an assertion that the main benefit of using your education out of the home was financial. I put a different spin on that. Nowhere did I say that parents who work don't spend any time with their children. Nowhere at all.

Anyway this thread is ruining my morning and I have a lovely day with parents ahead so I'm off, will endeavour to learn my true role as a female soon.

I don't see why I shouldn't be able to aspire to have a great career and children if I wanted them but my brothers should.

I'm also baffled by the implication parents who work aren't benefitting their children NataliaOsipova you seem to think parents who work don't spend any time with their children giving them the "benefit" of their education, which is clearly untrue.

I certainly don't regard sah as 'giving up'.
Parenting is what you make it - it is an active choice to be a good parent because good parenting doesn't happen by accident.
As I said upthread though, how a family divvies up the job of generating income, has no bearing on good parenting. Somehow we have loaded the choice with more significance than it deserves.

I'm a bloody good role model. I am a kind, decent person. That is what I'm showing my children. My woh dh is also a bloody good role model. He too is a kind, decent person. We give our children our time and attention, we teach them that eduction gives them opportunities and choices in life. Feminism is about equality of opportunity and freedom to choose.
When other women say that a choice has no value, they are just buying into the patriarchy.

It's only a risk because society allows it to be. In accordance really equal society provision would be made for those who look after their children (or if we were going down the collective upbringing route, early childcare would be free).

NoLoveOfMine you misunderstand. Women are told they can and should be both career powerhouses and be 1950s soap box housewives at the same time. My parents both worked too, and my mum was worn out and cross most of the time because she was having to do everything (having to in the societally pressured way). That's not the ideal but for many it is the reality.

And it's really important to try not to take personal offence -or even make it personal - during these conversations because otherwise these conversations are impossible.

True loopy.

Working is not just about money for many people. Certainly me there is absolutely no need given how much DH earns and how financially inclusive he is to me and DC.

Working matters to me for all kinds of reasons on a personal level.

But if we take this from micro level decisions to macro level ones, surely we can all see that men run the world.

The macro level decisions taken by men affect us all and of course our DC. And those decisions haven't historically always been in women and children's best interests (understatement).

Whilst of course that does not mean that all women can or should attempt to form part of a new macro decsion making process in the work place/ at a political level etc we, as feminists, need to at least acknowledge that the lack of women's voices in those arenas does impact on us all both as a society and individually.

It's one thing to not take part in the bigger picture but to not even see it. Well sheesh.

It irks me that women are so underrepresented in many working fields and at senior level and men so underrepresented in SAH and PT working.

But why do people who claim to be feminists spend so much time and energy criticising those they see as oppressed rather than tackling the oppressors?

There are still significant barriers to both parents working whilst having a family. In some situations SNs, health issues) it becomes near on impossible. Men's salaries still, statistically, exceed women's which supports that SAHP being the woman.

Why blame the women for, pragmatically, making the 'best of a bad job' in a patriarchal society? Why dismiss the voice of those that are oppressed? Instead of supporting them and actually fighting to tackle the patriarchy instead of demeaning the victims of it further?

The main difference between using your education AH and OH is obviously financial

Or, put another way, using your education at home directly benefits your children, whereas using at work directly benefits your employer. (It may also then indirectly benefit your children, I grant you, because the money you earn may benefit them).

It's also the direct counterpoint to the "good example" tosh point that's often spouted on here. I've never met a nanny or nursery worker with an Oxbridge degree. Or an advanced professional qualification (outside childcare).

I think the idea of 'having it all', being made to feel you have to have a great career and a family is more detrimental to women's rights than relying on a partner for income.

Should we teach girls to aspire to be mothers who stay at home then, not to careers? This may not go down too well seeing as I don't know any girls who aren't already keenly planning future careers, myself included. You enjoy your situation, don't suggest the opportunity to have a great career and being free to pursue one is "detrimental to women's rights". It's hugely disheartening for girls my age that you think we're "made to feel" we want great careers. No-one makes us feel it, we do.

Anyway my parents both have the day off today as we're all off out and going to eat plentifully later on, yet more excellent time being spent with my full time working parents.