Generation gap and attitude to working parents

[Nelly123]

I earn double what my DH does and just about manage to work full time. I am facing redundancy and will HAVE to find another job. We live in a different city to our families and do not have any support. I am envious of my parent?s generation; it seemed they could have a stay at home parent (mum usually) and a breadwinner. Comments like ? you should think about staying home when your littleun goes to school next year? are infuriating. They have no intention of providing practical support and should keep their judgments to themselves. I try to understand they have different life experience ? why can?t they?

Sorry about your redundancy, and hope you do find another job.

I sympathise - have always worked at least part time even though dh earns 10 times what I do.

I blame house prices myself. I bought early, when Iwas 21, so we're ok, but young couples now will have to wait until they're practically middleaged.

Is it your family who are implying that you should be able to afford to stay at home? If so maybe you should give them some facts and figures from your budget and see if they have any bright ideas about how that may be possible.

This drives me mad to so YANBU. I've lost count of the number of times my parents (in another city) or their friends have expressed their dissaproval of me returning to work 6 months after our baby is born next year. We have no choice!!! Yes the nursery fees are extortionate and yes it will reduce the income I bring to the relationship but we still need it!!

I think they assume that I earn a lot less than DH does and is therefore an insignificant amount that we shouldn't miss. I don't want to go into our financial details with the parents friends or how much I earn in comparison to DH so I just nod politely and say "I wish we had the luxury of choice". Drives me mad and it'll only get worse next year when I actually do return!

I have explained many times about the financial situation. If you want to live in a modest 3 bed home near to OK schools then the mortgage dictates that you both need to work. I think working presents a good example to kids and prepares them for life (pending a massive lottery win). Each to their own and my life would be far less stressful if I could stay at home, especially during school holidays - don't get me started.

I agree with you and if I wanted to work then that is my choice.

So sorry to hear you're facing redundancy, it's shit isn't it?

I think our parent's generation need to be told stuff about wages, mortgages etc as they often just don't get it. Have you tried saying "well staying at home would be lovely, but as I'm the main breadwinner, we'd lose the house if I didn't work." or just "We can't afford to live just off DH's wage."

I know it still surprises my parents when they realise in some couples the wife earns more than her husband. They just assume whatever the man earns, the wife's wage must be less.

Lulabel27 - thanks you described the situation better than I did. I returned to work full time around the same time as you plan to and it is manageable (JUST). I have got to the point of describing finances but they don't seem to understand or believe me. I try to take comfort that they would not be able to do what I (we) can.

fakeplastictrees - I will try your lines :)

I also think what people buy and expect from their lives have gone up we didn't have a dishwasher/tumble drier/sky tv/mobiles/computers and all the associated costs

far few people had a car (or two)

much less holidays (especailly abroad)

ate out about once a year and never went to cafes

kids played out on the street (no expensive days out/toys/ computer games etc)

no such things as expensivbe baby swimming

baby equiptment was much less/reused much more

house prices much cheaper,

most people also didnt spend so much on furniture

much fewer presents at christmas and easter

Much less clothes and we had to have patches on trousers etc

People hardly ever drank at home, and went out much less,

rarely went to concerts/festival

we had less. bought less. did less.

This is of course a massive generalisation and never buy my kids new clothes/go on holiday but on average as a nation we do far far more.

I had this from my DM when the DDs were younger.

I earned more than DH.

It made me angry as DM never worked because she was too lazy.

DF worked 90 hrs a week, to make ends meet.

This is what many families were like.

I told DM you should not make a judgement unless you have all of the facts, and as it's none of your busines, you don't.

I agree life is more expensive but my parents generation partake of what you describe more than we can (and good for them). We have one car, one holiday a year and my wages pay the mortgage and the nursery fees.

YABU. I don't think you can generalise about 'parents generation'. Your parents might think what you're doing is awful but that's their opinion & it's not universal. Both my parents worked full-time throughout my childhood (60's/70's) just to make ends meet. So did everyone else's in the neighbourhood. They didn't have nurseries or official child-minders but people looked after each other's kids where necessary and most women were back at work after the children started school.

I agree that house prices and the resulting mortgages are mostly behind the massive social shift for mothers working. Our parents and grandparents just can't grasp how much it's changed.

When my IL's were alive they never once asked me about my career. In their eyes my raison d'etre was to be the mother of their grandchildren. They always supported DH in his career choices, and took a great interest in his work.

I bit my tongue - I think we owe it to our children (and especially our DDs)to be good role models; to show that mothers can have careers and be productive without falling short on the love and support they give their children.

I agree it is a generalisation and is based on the negative comments. Not many complements coming our way.
Things are different with childcare. A cooperating arrangement after school would be fab but not sure it could work.

Sorry you're in this situation.

I sometimes wonder if some mothers/grandmothers are a bit defensive - I know a few women that age whose comments about 'ooh, why don't you stay at home with the children?' are at least partly motivated by them wanting to validate what they did, which is fairly understandable.

However often I explain it to my parents, they don't really get it - they think that they've understood the 'modern' situation and that both parents often have to work but they also think this is compatible with about 5 years maternity leave! It can be hard to explain.

Totally agree. They don't get it.

The other day I was in the supermarket with DS1 and picked up a packet of babygros for imminently expected DS2. Older couple nearby said "Of course, nowadays you just get everything new, don't you?" or something very similar. I explained calmly (still quite smug about my calmess) that of course not, we had everything saved from DS1, but that I had realised that his smallest clothes were all borrowed from a cousin, and we needed some of our own this time. WTF?? And there are we, paying for their extravagant pensions and handing over our hard-earned in rent to money-grabbing, middle-aged absentee landlords.

But I also agree with pumpkin - realised a while ago that almost all advice/comment from mother/MiL/grandmothers is actually rooted in justifying what they did, not in understanding of my situation.

Umf I'm surprised you stayed calm actually. I would be fuming if I heard a comment like that directed at me.

"Fuming" Really?

Do you think possibly that the comment 'you can get everything new' was a wistful remark reflecting on how they had to make do with second-hand? Hate all this 'old people had it so cushy' rubbish. Sour grapes is not an attractive trait

It completely depends on your parents' situation. My mum always worked part time to make ends meet when I was a child, and still does now, in her 50s. And that wasn't to fund a large mortgage or holidays abroad because we rented til I was 12 and went abroad for the first time when I was 14! But YANBU to feel annoyed with your own family. Just tell them straight what it is like.

umf, when you can buy a pack of babygros for a couple of quid these days, I can sort of see what the older couple meant. But you shouldn't feel the need to justify yourself to complete strangers! Who's "extravagent" pensions are we paying for exactly, I'm a bit or perhaps naive??

Exactly Chil1234.

So what? So it's not 1970 anymore. Yes, teh world's moved on.

'Oh, we didn't have that back in my day.'

Well, no shit! We didn't have a lot of stuff we do now and I'm not even 40 till next year.

That's got to be the weakest argument going.

The fact is that property has gotten so expensive that often enough, even if private renting, both of you have to work like donkeys to keep the wolf from the door.

We don't have all those gadgets or sky. A lot of people don't and are still majorly struggling.

And does it occur to anyone that the reason a lot of women (now in their sixties and seventies) stayed at home to look after children in the past was because they had no choice in the matter? Working class women have always held down jobs but the middle-class ones were expected to be housewives & mothers, beholden to their husbands for money and forget any silly notions of a career. And if they did earn their own money or have investments it was treated as their husband's anyway... so they couldn't even walk out easily if it became too suffocating

I don't envy those people because they had much fewer choices than we do today.

So basically, some people struggled then and some are still struggling today. Some women worked back then, some women work today. OP has annoying family who don't understand she has to work.

My parents both worked full time, with my mum having to have a 3 year gap from when my brother was born to when I was old enough to be parked in a pram in the corner of the classroom while she was teaching. In between, they ran their own businesses to make ends meet until mum had a permanent job again.
They didn' have any frills, no holidays at all, so it was just to pay the bills

Agree with that chil. That's certainly what it was with my mum - I wish she'd felt more able to get a job. I think she has to think that it's best for children to have a SAHM, because if not, why did she spend so long being a (miserable) SAHM?

Doesn't stop comments like the OP's getting from being annoying though.

Annoying comments come with the territory. If you approach parenting with a thin skin, don't stick up for what you want and are determined to seek offence in every chance remark then you'll live in a permanent state of irritation. If you don't want an opinion, don't ask for it. And if you get an opinion you don't like, deal with it.

Whining about 'our parents generation' and trying to make sweeping generalisations hold water is no better than the type that roll their eyes when they say 'single mums'....