to be totally fucked off with the antisahm comments on here?

[slackers]

Wtaf are you only a good role model to your DC if you are in paid employment?
Why does someone only be valid in society if they earn?
Why should I work only to pay someone else do a job to look after my DC? wtaf is the logic in that?
ffs

'Well, I suppose before the industrial revolution there wouldn't generally have been such a separation between work and home in any case, so probably WOHM are just as much a social construction as SAHM. '

I agree with this too.

What you mean when women had 14 children? When their entire adult life was filled with pregnancy? Oh and they worked at home too. I have done my family tree back to the 1500s. I know what those women were doing. Quality time it wasnt.

agrarian and agricultural work was undertaken by women and children.there was no sahm.pre factories was heavy physical work undertaken by those able to

PlentyofPubeGardens is right.

no.before industrialisation agrarian and agricultural work was women and children too.no sahm

Can you imagine the amount of work a woman would need to do to keep a house and family without modern amenities and supermarkets? Huge families too in a small space. My 19th century ancestors, living in those cute cottages in the Cotswolds that are 2nd homes to the rich now, made gloves, worked as charwomen and laundresses, worked on the land, did washing, grew food, made clothes etc etc. I have ONE child and a washing machine and find life hard. They were NOT pfaffing about quality time. They were probably happy if they could feed their children enough that they didn't die.

Actually, I very much doubt that mums would have had the DCs with them all the time in pre-industrial society. My in-laws live in a very traditional peasant farming community, and the kids there certainly don't spend all their time with mum! Childcare is much more of a shared pursuit in such communities, and kids are frequently left with neighbours or extended family while women are in the fields, doing their washing in the local stream etc. Quite often, kids of only eight or nine are left to babysit the younger ones - my own DH was brought up as much by his big sister as his mum.

So I agree, the notion of staying at home to look after your children is a fairly modern one. That isn't to say it's wrong, but I don't think it is necessarily "nature's way" as some would have us believe.

There is a story in our family, on my mother side, my great grandmother worked the fields on par with my great grandfather, she herself had eleven children, only six survived, all of them born at home(some in bedroom and some in the actual field).
Lives women led at the time were not about "quality time" these times were about survival, and line between SAHM and WOHM was blurred, non existent.
Everything fell on the shoulders of those women, all the chores plus hard labour work, and of course they never had any choice, we have choice today, well majority of us do, we should embraced it.

look,wood cant compare 2011 postmodern society to pre industrialisation.and whilst grandparents et al may help out its not same is it.cant possibley say cause you knwo some rural folk it was like that in ye olde times

and besides adult life expectancy preindustrialisation was 30/40's no one was age of grandparents now

your point is way off mark,comparing now to a v different time

Most children died under the age of 5. Women always worked. We always have and always will. Work and home integrated. In some cultures the baby would be strapped to a board (Native Americans). In others people shared the load of childcare. No wonder so many women are fed up who are housewives onmum snet because it is such an unnatural awful model. It leads to depression and an unhappy life and is not natural to be kept like some kind of owned possession by a man who works all hours to ensure the woman doesn't lift a finger in terms of paid work or agricultural labour. It rarely makes women happy long term and ensures they have little financial security as there is just one income. Not a good arrangement.

SM, that's a very patronising response. I don't just know some rural folk, I have observed a very isolated community over a period of many years, and actually, I think you can compare it to pre-industrial society. There are many people around the world who still live in communities that are barely touched by the modern world - no electric, no running water, all manual farming etc - and I doubt that their lives have changed that much over the years.

In any case, I was agreeing with you, so not quite sure why you were so keen to diss my point.

Oh, and life expectancy is still very low in many parts of the world but in DH's community, most people are grandparents by late thirties so there are plenty around!

you clearly seek offence were none intended wood

This book is interesting.
In one of the cultures described, you have to find a 10 year old girl to carry your baby for you while you work in the fields and give it enemas so it won't poo on her.

Just a small technical point scottishmummy. Life expectancy in pre-industrial socieites was low mainly because infant and child mortality was so high. Once you'd survived early childhood, chances were you'd survive way beyond your 30s and 40s. High infant and child mortality lead to low life expectancy and often life expectancy as age 5, for example, would be higher than life expectancy at birth. Sorry, just had to point it out, I know it's nothing to do with the debate (agree with most of what you say btw)

Not seeking offence at all SM. But still don't think my response was way off the mark. I guess you've never been to my DH's village.

thanks.v intersting

thanks.v intersting NYCorLondon

wood no 2011 village is in any way comparable to pre-industrial agrarian agricultural community.at all

I work part time, 3 days a week so I can spend time with my dc and take dd to after school activities 2 days a week which she loves. But it's shit, I work my arse off in a professional role with all the stress for a pittance. I do it for my dcs, not for me.

I've been a SAHM for a when on maternity leave and the year off I had with ds my 2nd was amazing, I did loads, went out and about all over the place, pottered in my lovely garden, grew vegetables, oragnised barbeques, socila stuff, went to the theatre, read loads and loads of books, it was brilliant. I was literally filled with creativity.

Now i feel like I'm stuck on the treadmill, exhausted and stressed to f**k not doing either task (work of parenting) particularly well. I've nothing against SAHMs, but it's pisses me off when SAHM of school age dcs complain about being busy...do one love, try living in my world, then you'd know "busy".

I disagree. I'm not saying that they are exactly the same, of course not. But imo my DH's agrarian community has infinitely more in common with pre-industrial societies than it does with modern British society.

They are completely self sufficient subsistence farmers, use traditional technologies and traditional farming methods. No access to modern technology, no "jobs", no modern medical care etc. Live in extended family units as they have done for centuries, people and animals all under one roof. DH is one of only two people from his and surrounding villages to have left, and the only one overseas.

Yes, of course there will be ways in which this community, like any other, is touched by modernity. But actually very little, and I would say definitely not enough to have touched on the basic fabric of family life. In DH's community, life is all about survival still. Men work, women work and yes, the kids do all work in the fields and help with tending the animals. And the very young are left with whoever happens to be around to take care of them, whether that happens to be a neighbour, grandparent, sibling or whatever. The notion of "quality time" would be a mystery to these people, and our lives - whether WOHM or SAHM - are unimaginably far removed.

Xenia you over generalise to such a degree that I can never take your posts seriously.

My DH and I decide what is best for our circumstances and it is no one else's business. I really don't understand why people feel the need to be so rude about the way others live their lives.

no.a rural village has roads,utilities,clean running water free schooling, free health and social care provision,access to medicine and no kids working physical hard labour in a field. access to the benefits of a highly industrialised state to access if required

so not comparable at all

Once the kids are in school how is glam mums going to yoga and on to starbucks sans kids contributing to society though? I do have full respect for housewives who do a lot of work around the house whilst kids are in school. and who jlloin commitees and have bunting/cupcake businessess. I wouldn't have much respect for someone who just hired a cleaner and spent all day going to spas. I am a bit jealous of those lucky enough to have the optiion but also very glad that I am employed and love getting away from mummy/baby talk all day.

SM, there are no roads in my DH's village, only dirt tracks. Only form of transport is a bullock cart. No running water, clean or otherwise. No electricity. No free schooling, no modern medical care, no social care. Only source of fuel is dried out buffalo shit. And yes, the older kids do backbreaking labour in the hot sun. My DNephew died in the fields at the age of just 17. No warning, no explanation.

Surely you do not assume that villages all over the world are just like rural communities in the uk?

If only my DH's village was as well provided for. :(