Was life really worse as a women when they were expected to stay at home and look after the dc

[hibiscusjam]

And what happened when the dc flew the nest?!.

I wish I could be a sahm but I can't afford to. Curious to hear from people who think it was terrible when society expected women to raise the dc once they had them vs go to work.
I find myself raising my dc and going to work most of the time. It's stressful. My dh travels for work but does help when he's home.

I hated being a SAHM when the kids were young. I felt so much pressure to be both a Mum and a housekeeper. Subsequently I felt like I was failing at both. It wasn’t good for my self worth, my pension, my children.

Another problem with being a SAHM is that unless you eventually return to work (which can be difficult), you will always be the housekeeper. No retiring from that rubbish role.

We now both work and both share housework equally, but As a SAHM DH didn’t do 50/50 housework.

it isn’t being a lady of leisure in my experience

I think we have more choice than men nowadays tbh. We can have a good career or be a SAHM.

It's less socially acceptable for a man to be a SAHD and the statistics show that a woman is far more likely to file for divorce if the man is a SAHD or a lower earner.

Obv they tend to be the higher earners but we still have more chance in general of a good career than most men have of staying at home.

Unfortunately there are more useless/awful/rubbish men with bad attitudes towards women than there are good ones who view women as true equals.

I don't agree at all. Most men are decent.

^
Due to the imbalance of power, most men are not decent. If they hold all the cards and have all the power, it's very difficult to say 'oh, I'll give all this up'.

Unfortunately there are more useless/awful/rubbish men with bad attitudes towards women than there are good ones who view women as true equals.

I don't agree at all. The "decent" men are pretty much invisible, they settle down and stay with their partner/wife for the long term.

It just "looks" like there are a majority of "bad" men because they drift from one partner to another, so several women have the bad experience, but it's the same man! So a kind of "multiplier" effect.

The vast majority of men that I know, either through family, friends or work, are (or at least appear to be) decent enough and aren't abusive nor leaving a trail of broken relationships behind them. The only "broken" marriage in my immediate family is my sister and brother in law, but he never had affairs or was abusive, my sister just got bored of him and wanted to look for more "excitement" (which she didn't find!).

I'd say the majority of men are "decent" and it's a minority that are the bad ones.

If a woman is financially dependent on a man, he has power over her
spot on

I know 2 women like this . if they were on MN giving their bad experience you would assume it was 2 separate men . In fact both these women lived with the same guy .

If a woman is financially dependent on a man, he has power over her

He may actually be dependent on her too - there are far more factors than money!

And even if he was more 'powerful' due to his earnings, he will not necessarily abuse his power because he is very happy with his partnership.

I've worked in investment banks where it helps massively to have a partner at home to support you and your family.

So dependency can go go both ways.

Well marital rape was legal and contraception was rare.

He may actually be dependent on her too - there are far more factors than money
few things talk like money does
he will not necessarily abuse his power because he is very happy with his partnership
well all know that power corrupts don't we
I've worked in investment banks where it helps massively to have a partner at home to support you and your family
a partner at home who sacrifices herself and her ambitions to support the man so that he can fulfil himself, gather more money and power, yeah that's so equal isnt it
ha ha ha
you're so funny aren't you

I've worked in investment banks where it helps massively to have a partner at home to support you and your family

of course it’s beneficial to have someone at home taking care of the family business but tell me what the person at home is providing that can’t be outsourced if you have enough money?

What a lovely way to look at marriage and family 😂

I’m not saying it’s a lovely way to look at marriage. It’s a partnership but it’s not an equal one. If the person who earns the money decides to bugger off they hold a lot more of the cards than the person left at home.

Do they though? I think the main carer of the children holds quite a few cards too, tbh.

Is it ok if the person earning more is a woman? Or can we have that power and use it and that be ok?

When was contraception rare? 1840s?

You're asking completely the wrong question. There's no right or wrong whether it's better to be a STAM or a working mum at all. The questions are whether society should expect this of women, what are the negatives if so and how can they be mitigated so women who choose this path aren't looking put at the disadvantage they so often are. The questions should always be about freedom of choice rather than others expectations.

Oh dear, do a quick Google search and you'll realise just how embarrassing this post is. Quick ask for it to be deleted before many see it 😳

of course it’s beneficial to have someone at home taking care of the family business but tell me what the person at home is providing that can’t be outsourced if you have enough money?*

No, I'm not going to spell that out. Use your own imagination!!

When was contraception rare? 1840s?
I thought all women had at least a rough understanding and timeline of legislation of women’s rights over the last 60 years.

I think it's different for everyone OP, my nan loved it. My grandma was the hardest working single parent ever and very driven but I know that she would have loved a loving husband and the chance to stay home with her kids and not work so hard. It's an awful thing to only be able to SAH if you'd hate it, though, so choice is always the important thing. In this day and age there are some people who would love to stay home and just can't because most households now need a two parent income, but we generally have more choice and that's obviously a very positive thing.

Only read the first and last pages but to reply to all those 'it's much better now because women have to choice to work or not'. No they don't! Loads and loads of women have no choice but to work, whether they want to say home with their babies or not.

Again we have this middle class idea, that women can choose to stay home while their high earning partner supports them or they can go back to their high flying career, lucky us! Except it's not! Many, many women have no choice but to return to their low paying job because they need the money, to pay the rent.

And this time in the past were women didn't work is another myth. Middle class women (those same ones now choosing between SAHM or high flying career) may not have worked, but working class women always did. They took cleaning jobs, or shop work etc, again, just to make ends meet (much like they do now).

Go and have a look at your family tree. You might notice the nine or ten kids born. Maybe five might survive if you were lucky. Even when the pill was introduced you had to be married. There were condoms but depends on the man wanting to use them...

My grandmother would tell me she had it better because she wasn’t expected to work, but the reality was that she was a nurse, a job she loved, and was fired when her matron found out she was married (she’d tried to hide it to keep her job). When she did have children money was tight and she got up at 5 to mark up papers at the local newsagent then went and did the twilight shift at a local factory when my grandfather got home and gave the kids tea and put them to bed. She must have been utterly exhausted and my mother and aunt were expected to do a lot of housework as soon as they were able. No central heating, no refrigerator, keeping house was tough in the 1950s/60s.

My mother was also expected to give up work in the 70s/80s. She was earning more than my father but couldn’t have her income taken into account when they got a mortgage because she was of child bearing age. When she had us there was no childcare so she stayed home, did job shares and weekend work to make ends meet, hated being at home but didn’t have a choice and couldn’t go back to her professional career. It was crap for her.

Women were expected to be at home when it really wasn’t viable for them to work without access to domestic staff. It’s well documented that huge proportion of married women in the 70s were dependent upon drugs because depression was so common.

Marital rape was made illegal in the mid-90s, 1990s. Contraceptive pill became available to married women in the 1960s I think.

A loving parent for the children rather than a childminder /nursery/ nanny?

Interesting points on here. All this about women who don't earn as much as their partners. My circumstance is that I will never earn what my dh does and nor will I ever catch up because he will continue to be promoted but meanwhile maternity leave and PND left me dragging behind at work in comparison to him.

I am still financially dependent on him despite working. To unwind what we now have would leave me and dc much much worse off if we divorced so it's not always the case that being a working mum eradicates the issues of a dh being financially better off than the dw. I don't think it's always as simple as not being a sahm = a woman being financially independent .