about dh's bonus

[bath4]

Dh has a good job and earns enough for me to be a SAHP. We have a joint account which I rarely use and a joint credit card. I use this for day to day stuff. I don't spend a fortune on myself. Just buy essentials.
DH has just received a bonus. He has spent £200 on stuff for himself and £50 on each of 3 dc's. He has never said to me why don't you get something too.
Now in theory I could buy something but its not really about that.
I just want to treated as an equal. My contribution to household may not be monetary but its still important.
AIBU

" rights" to the cash or not, he sounds like a tightarse

Lots of research to suggest that daycare settings for very young children is damaging, just for arguments sake.

Do you not hold that research in any etseem, SM?

latrrygrylls oh thank goodness you said that! I completely agree, the freedom to be able choose not to work is electrifying.

why does this always end up as a blinking bunfight?

some people work outside the home
some people don't
some people enjoy having the option to chose
some people would dearly love to have a choice
some people feel happy and valued and equal, others don't

It isn't that one thing is better than another or that one choice is better than another.
A lack of choice or a lack of appreciation can be damaging. Discussing better ways to enable women to have those things is worthwhile. Shouting
" I'm right" or "No, I'm right" is not helpful to anyone and unconvincing at best

its mn folk fight about ff,childcare,mil and sausage rolls
no point handwringing about it.is a mn perennial
and imo quite interesting debate. until mn i had never heard anyone express a desire to not work and be kept by partner,with no intention of working again.

Scottish.......you must of led a very sheltered life then.

Oh I know a few who have no intention of ever working again.

However, I know more women who felt almost cornered into giving up work, in that they couldn't see a way forward to make it doable.
But once in this position they make the very best of it and are not unhappy.

Finances obviously come into it.

Holy cow, SM, I've never seen you use so much punctuation! (10.23 post)

I do actually agree with your bullet points above, but I never realised your opposition (if that's not too strong a word) to SAHMs was limited to those with school age kids.

Met too.
DH and I both had challenging careers and were both on an upward trajectory. We just found it more and more difficult and reached the point where it was hire a live in nanny or one of us give up.
We chose the later. And with many misgivings I gave up.

But I have made the best of it, and carved out a new life for myself. I even make more money than I did before. But I still miss my old career, for a hundred and one reasons.

I'd be seriously pissed off if my DP tried to lay a claim to my bonus. I'd share the love a bit, but just how would be entirely up to me.

It's a shame SAHPs don't get bonuses, but I can't see annual performance reviews going down terribly well.

I don?t have any so called opposition to sahm.i do ideologically think it?s precarious and certainly I would not choose it. I do acknowledge its hard physical and emotional graft being at home with pre-school kids. Of course I do. I do think women shouldn?t completely give up work. at all. I do think a mum if possible should combine work and babies/kids. Pragmatically however, the cost of nursery is high and can be prohibitive to some. I think a lot of women assume its them who have to do the giving things up. Fall almost unwittingly into its women?s work/mothers labour, and end up facilitating their male partner job and career. To have a trade off that he continues unimpeded and female career/work progression just stalls

Naturally I want to see a workplace with the women active ,participating and progressing. and that doesn?t happen by giving stuff up to prioritise a partner. To end up dependent upon the sole wage earner is imo precarious. And not what I want to demonstrate that to my kids

Oh boy I have a weird existence right now, I worked since leaving Uni, and before actually, even when DC were little when I would have really quite liked to have been home with them. Have just been made redundant and am struggling with the whole idea of not having my own earned income coming in each month. I have savings and a small redundancy but I did earn a good salary and will miss feeling able to just buy whatever took my fancy (yes very materialistic, fond of clothes and shoes and stuff... shoot me) for me reading the op where it sounds very much like he thinks he is the man bringing in the money to 'keep' his wife and family with his money,I immediately recognised that it is about feeling valued not just about the money, I know my family appreciate the clean house, washing, ironing and home cooked meals and actually I appreciate sitting around on Mn having time to relax and potter as well as do chores in my own time not in a rush after work and at weekends, I am less stressed and happier in many ways, I just don't have the money, but even though I know what I do is appreciated wish they would show that more with a thanks once in a while, presents accepted also . FWIW op and its already been said, there needs to be groundrules on the money, DH sees ours as joint money and whilst I have no problem using it for household costs its the flexibility to buy the things I used to for me that I am struggling with, he is at me when I say this but does understand, he would be the same. I guess like the op I need to be clearer about the whole joint money thing, get used to it and it is for these reasons that I will be looking for a new job (after a bit of a break) but actually this is scary as I have no idea what I will do, I don't want another high powered stressy job again but don't want a low paid job as I did 4 years getting a degree and seems like a waste not to use it. sometimes it feels like us women just cannot win, work and you are selfish if you have children, don't work and you are a sponger off your partner.

I do agree with your points on the whole SM, but your view on things does not wot=rk for every family, therefore there will be a variety of things going on within families. And you say "and this doesn't happen by giving stuff up to prioritise a partner" I thing women give things up to priorities the kids, NOT a partner.

On the whole I don´t care what other women do.

If they have made a choice & are happy with it-what´s it to anyone else?

I am the main earner in our household simply becuase the nature of the work is more highly paid. DH does work part-time and picks up more of the childcare and housework.

However, we do use outside help with childcare too and I find it astonishing that Zenia could not 'appreciate' someone who carries out her childcare - that to me would suggest that they are not doing a good job.

The fact that you, Zenia, find it boring and unfulfilling and would therefore be likely to be fairly poor at it if you were to do it full time, means that you should appreciate that someone does find it interesting and fulfilling and is therefore able to do a much better job at it.

That the job pays minimum wage is a problem in our sexist society that pays what it perceives to be women's work lower than male roles involving a similar level of qualifications.

It does surpise me that Zenia and SM care so much about what people choose to do, each to their own I say. I would certainly agree with other posters that it seems a case of 'the lady doth protest too much'. I rarely see them contributing anything other than to have a go at SAHM's most of whom seem very pleased with their decisions regarding work.

Tangerine - don't be . I couldn't work with my health atm.

oh for goodness sake overcooked are you clinging to some psychobabble about projection and does protest too much. you know what mn is a discussion forum, i discuss and actively participate.as do others.the participation its not indicative of a thwarted choice.and yes i do express consistent opinion, as thats the thing opinions are usually held consisitently for one to maintain congruence

im waiting on you saying well if you were happy with your choices...

SM, ideologically, being an unmarried mother is a precarious position and I certainly would not choose it.

overcooked it is all well and good saying that we should just leave everyone alone to their choices but there are some issues which I do think we need to address as women.

First, if we want more women in positions of power and influence, and surely we do, then women have to remain in the work force. It is a case of the chicken and egg.

Second, if we want the work place to become more family friendly, if we want t stamp out discrimination, if we want women to be taken as seriously as men, then we need women to remain in the work force.

There's a discussion to be had, if not for us, then for our DDs no?

To be fair SM - it perhaps might have been a bit hasty to lump you in with Zenia. However, your stance appeared to have softened somewhat from the outset where you appeared to be saying that being a SAHM was not work and therefore the OP was not entitled to any money to your much more reasoned appraoch at 10:23 today.

Certainly when you began posting you were suggesting that the work in the home was not as important as the work out of the home and as someone who benefits from the extra work that is done by my DH in the home I find that a difficult thing to accept. If my DH did not do all of the drop offs and pick-ups from nursery then I simply would not be able to do my job to the level required similalry if he did not do the extra housework etc then either I would have to do more or we would have to pay someone to do it. I consider DH's input just as important as me earning the money (or the vast majority of it).

Additionally, if I got a bouns, which I don't, there is absolutely no way that I would dictate how it was spent. We are a partnership and a family and DH has as much input as to how we spend our money as I do. This works because I would not be with somebody who either did not pull their weight and work as hard as I do - either in or out of the home or somebody who spent money without considering the other people in the family. We work together, I am as good as but no better than him.

SM, you still haven't answered my earlier point about what happens if you earn less than your partner? Or he earns less? Are one of you going without or do you share , yunno, like SAHP do.

I do agree Wordfactory that we need more women in positions of power for several reasons. However, surely it is important that women have the same choices ad men and that if they want to stay at home then they should be able to (obviously provided it is agreed between the parties).

I can't see how we, as women, would benefit where women went out to work as some kind of duty to society and I don't think that a women in work that so desparately wanted to be at home would be giving her job her all and as a result that would do more harm than good.

The best thing I would want to teach my DD is that she has a choice. On balance, I would prefer my DD to have a career that she enjoyed so much she would not want to sacrifice it to stay at home. Obviously, I would not want her to be forced as a result of finances or any other reason to SAH or work if she did not want to.

Yes, I agree that everyone including men should have a choice.

But it should be a real choice.

At the moment I think a lot of women give up work because they can't secure appropriate and affordable childcare. Because their employers are discriminatory. Because of societal and family pressure. Because their DP won't even consider being the SAHP.

And I think it should be a choice taken in full acceptance of the facts ie that once you step out of the workplace it can be very difficult to step back in, that being reliant upon a partner can have its downsides, that you must make provision for your retirement, that you must consider what would happen if your partner could no longer or will no longer support you etc etc

sahm isnt work,and no financial remuneration is required. its a set of tasks. private individual choice, but definitely not work or equal to paid employment

How odd then, scottishmummy, that some people (housekeepers/nannies/cleaners etc etc) are paid to do those "set of tasks"?