Do housewives still exist?

[Mumteedum]

Had a funny moment in the supermarket this week where a lady was grumbling about something and we had a little small talk about how busy it is at Xmas and supermarket moving things so you can't find stuff. She referred to 'harassed housewives ' and I said 'yes and non housewives too'. She sort of apologised but I hadn't meant it to be as if I'd taken offense so made a joke of it all and all nice and fine, the end.

But it just felt like a word from another era. I remember mum saying she was a housewife. Are there any housewives these days?

I found it really odd that the lady would assume anyone was a housewife these days.

I know loads of "housewives", though no idea if they'd use that term or not. But half of them haven't got kids so can't be a SAHM and the other half their kids are in their 20s now so equally aren't SAHMs.

My dd is in her mid 20s now and in my friendship group of similar aged women I am unusual in that I work. The majority of women I know have not worked in over 20 years. Some of them made a few noises about working when the kids finished school but realised after 18 years of not being employed they couldn't even get a retail job (not sure how hard they tried). They've all got loaded husbands and spend their days in the gym, having lunch and booking cruises. Nice life :)

But why would you be harassed? Surely the advantage of not being in paid employment is that you have plenty of time to do all the extra Xmas tasks. If I didn't work I'd have bought and wrapped all my presents, done all my baking and decorated the house.

Instead I'm harassed, but that's because back in November I was doing 10 hour days at work then being called up overnight to give guidance to the shift workers. So didn't start my Christmas shopping until December. So it's now nearly 10pm on the 17th, I've still got presents to buy and I'm fitting that in on my lunch break and after work. I have
done no wrapping and haven't finished decorating the house.And I still have a bag of bulbs that should have been planted in October but won't be done now till after Christmas.

Every housewife will have different responsibilities. I'm a housewife and have an easy and relaxed lifestyle but there will be housewive's out there who don't for many different reasons. Off the top of my head

Large family to buy for including spouses family
Family in other countries to send parcels to
Decorating relatives house if elderly or disabled
Baking for own household and those of relatives, friends and other groups such as church group or fellow volunteers
Very large house
Lots of pets
Lots of land
Elderly relatives to help out
Relatives who need help for other reasons
Disabilities
Spouse could have disabilities
Renovations
Helping with spouses business
Hosting various groups of friends, family, acquaintances or people from spouses work
Volunteering

That's a real reach. You're throwing together things that are also necessary for people who work FT deal with (caring responsibilities, disabilities, spouse with disabilities) and things which are completely voluntary, like having a large house, volunteering, having lots of pets or hosting lots of people, baking for people outside your own household, posting presents overseas.

It's hardly a reach, a list of things off the top of my head that makes people busy. Whether other people do them or you do them voluntarily, they could still make people feel they're very busy or under pressure.

There was a thread not so long ago by someone complaining that her friend called herself retired after having been a housewife.

Pointless to send parcels abroad since Brexit. The customs tax makes it not worth it. They can do an online delivery in the country concerned, leaving them time to get a job :)

"But why would you be harassed? Surely the advantage of not being in paid employment is that you have plenty of time to do all the extra Xmas tasks. If I didn't work I'd have bought and wrapped all my presents, done all my baking and decorated the house."

I think the lady probably used 'housewife' to mean something like 'mistress of the house' e.g. a woman who's in charge of the preparations, whether she works or not. (I know that's not what housewife means, but there's no easy word in English for what I'm thinking about).

"When my mum was a housewife, the house was always tidy and clean, and things organised and home cooked meals every day. It's lovely really if you can have that. "

When my mum was a STAHM (It was until the youngest was at school, so I suppose that's a better term than housewife) it wasn't like that. It really doesn't suit everyone!
My DF also did some things on the list posted above like the budgeting, the food shopping and cooking on the weekends.

But they're optional. If someone is feeling harassed and overly-busy, they can opt to drop them. It's not as though that someone is made harassed and overly-busy by completely non-negotiable things like working for money necessary to pay bills, and the necessary work involved in looking after dependent children, if any. Someone being frazzled by voluntary baking or sending vast numbers of presents abroad, is just opting for unnecessary 'work'.

same, carer to 2 autistic kids, they still young though, but guess I would be in that position if I wanted a job in the distant future.

Yeah, I just don't really judge people like that. I would never say to a housewife well get a job then or tell someone in a high up job to get an easier job, or tell someone will 4 children they shouldn't have had so many, or tell family carers to just leave the caring of their family to professional carers etc. Everyone makes their choices and sometimes those choices make their lives harder but I'm still sympathetic to them.

Yes, but those are not in the same register of being as 'I am stressed because I have to bake Christmas cakes for the people in my church, and send large numbers of presents to family overseas, and I am absolutely unable to divest myself of my large house and land or the obligation to host thirty people on Christmas Day'. You can't delete four children or caring responsibilities, and whether you can move jobs to something easier is largely going to depend on what your field is, what your transferable skills are, and whether your outgoings will allow you to take a pay cut.

All I am trying to say is that there's a gulf between being stressed because you have responsibilities that are absolutely not optional and completely optional things like having loads of pets or buying presents for family abroad.

I listed caring responsibilities on the list of reasons housewives could be stressed. Also if a housewives stress from a large house is her own fault surely high outgoings stopping someone changing from a high up job is also their fault.

Everyone makes their choices, some make people's lives harder to greater or lesser extents, I don't reserve my sympathy for the one person in the world who has it the hardest or tell people it's their own fault or they shouldn't be stressed.

I have a full time job and do about half of those things on top. As do most of the working mothers I know. If you don't do paid work then the unpaid work expands to fill the time, which is why retired people always claim to be busier than ever.

Right, but they are busy. And everyone has different stress levels and needs and disabilities and limitations and requirements and lifestyles.

I would feel no less sympathy for a retired person saying they're really busy and stressed than a working person, they're just different types of stress and the working person could have much more capacity to shoulder it than the retired person, I wouldn't know because I'm not them, I just listen and help if I can, I don't judge them.

How the other half live indeed! 🙂

It's not about being sympathetic or not to someone claiming to be busy, it's about someone being tone deaf and claiming to be busy when talking to someone else who by all possible measures is far more busy.

By that measure then no one should complain they're busy until we evaluate everyone against everyone else and find the one busiest person to give all our empathy to.

I didn't work for several years before I had dcs, so I suppose I was could have been described as a housewife at that time. I was studying at HE level during that time, so if asked I would probably have described myself as a student, but it was part-time and not with any aim of working in that field. I kept myself busy enough, with the course, healthcare appointments and some caring responsibilities and general domestic and life admin.

I'm a sahm now with a preschooler. When she starts school I don't plan to return to work. I'll continue calling myself a sahm in any official questionnaire, but generally I manage to avoid questions about jobs in casual conversation.

It’s completely different if you have a child/children with you at all times or for the majority of time.
Being a sahp or housewife with say children aged 6 months, 2.5 and 4, is completely different to being a housewife and having children who are all in full time school. Or maybe no children at all. I’d call the ones without children a lady of leisure to be fair. They 2 scenarios are worlds apart.
The latter is what most people can only dream about.

The proper term for today's " housewife" should be wfh.

@Whataretalkingabout but "WFH" means Work From Home.
I thought all of us housewives/SAHMs of school age children lounged around watching daytime tv or hung out at the gym/nail parlour/doing lunch 😂😂😂
(sarcastic)

No thanks.

I WFH. I’m most definitely not a housewife.

Exactly, @SouthLondonMum22 noone wants to be called a housewife today.
However by whatever name you call it , the work done at home by whoever does it ( except paid help ) is absolutely wfh.
Whycan't that term include unpaid work that everyone must do?
Or do we have to stigmatize sahp with a distinct term?