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

Cross posted with Xenia.

Damsel, as long as Xenia has posted the info on MN herself, I'd have thought that was fine. Anyhow, genuine discussion is not in any way the same as attack.

Nah, when we got married we were both poor as shit uni students. He makes more money than me because I am quite lazy.

I do not view this as a character flaw.

Money is nice, I quite like having lots of it, but I don't want to have to do too much to get it - you sound like you enjoy yourself Xenia, so do I.

Never get sexually involved with someone at work though, surely? Rule number 1. Don't mix work and play.

I wouldn't have married a sexist man. He worked very hard and we both did I would say equal amounts of childcare. I don't think I did less because he was out a lot even things like Easter and Christmas he would 100% be working because that's why you play the organ and I didn't always find that much fun having been working full time myself with lots of babies at home but it's much easier as your children get older. As for where the children live once they get to about 13 they can choose mostly in law although in my case as I say he didn't want them anyway and I would have been h appy with 50/50 i f he's preferred. I think fathers' rights after a divorce are very important. (He worked in the holidays too at summer camps etc and teaching and our nanny worked over the summer)

Damsel you can't 'unknow' stuff from thread to thread.

People build up a picture of posters over time. Just the same if you have having a discussion with a friend in real life. You can't just ignore all of the previous conversations you have had with them.

Xenia the better her education and university and employment opportunities, the less likely a girl is to marry either up or down. I think these are the couples with the biggest problems ahead.

Quadruple back-up childcare makes sense, but complicated!

Morloth, indeed not, But it makes it hard for other people to join in a discussion if you're referring back to other things. (FWIW, I've been on MN for five years under about 40 different aliases, so know a good amount about Xenia from her numerous posts. But I don't think it's justified to refer back to things she said four years ago every time I find myself on the same thread as her).

Xenia what was the main impetus for you setting up on your own? Your oldest DC was still relatively small. Very bold and very few could do it successfully, but was it purely a career move or was it to do with family as well?

wordfactory What about the possiblity that this man may have held back progressing in his career for the simple reason that his wife was a high flier and had a pressured stressful job? (a difficult situation to maintain if both doing it) This would have affected his earnings. Women do this all the time, does that mean they should get less of the family pot if they divorce.

We can't all be high flyers looking to get to the top of a lucrative professions. Who would be there to clean your houses, care for your children when you're working and working in the shops that provide your food. When you break down every job, they are all important and strangely many that are really important are the ones that get least respect and money.

begonyabampot Very true.

Yes I totally agree that 'you can't simply measure the worth of a job by its remuneration. There are some jobs out there which don't require great personal qualities or even high intelligence but earn big bucks, and there are others which are very poorly paid but require enormous qualities and Which make a huge difference to the lives of others.

But what always strikes me about Xenia is that aside from the shock value of some posts, I genuinely feel that in real life if one of her kids decided to devote their life to some lowly but worthy job, or decided to become a SAHP for a while, she would totally support them to the hilt. She refuses to see barriers and doesn't resort to self pity. From her posts its clear that she has gone through her share of scrimping and struggling and she's said when her eldest children were small, all her wages were paying for childcare- now for some women that in itself is a reason not to work, but I admire the fact that she is a grafter. Didn't she say her first nanny stayed with them 10 years too so she must be ok to work for to.

Still disagree with her views on flexible working though, I think as long as men take it up too. The important thing is for more couples to take this route, rather than assuming the woman alone has to go part time or give up work

It wasn 't about flexible work. It was just career progression. In fact I started working for myself only when all the children were at school. It wasn't linked to the children.

As for divorce settlements we would get too far off topic if we go on to that. The law should be and is largely gender neutral which I support. Neither of us held back a career for the other. Indeed our move to London although due to my career would have helped not hindered the children 's father.

Yes, of ocurse I'd support the children. I think we borrow our children, are lucky to have them and they are not little clones of ourselves. My 5 are so very different. Many don't even look like siblings. I think that's great. However I would prefer that they were able to keep themselves. However if one wanted to be a buddhist monk or whatever I'd not object. It's up to them. Most of them are pretty good at totally ignoring my advice on a daily basis.