To think if you SAH and your DP works and earns X, you do not therefore earn X yourself

[catgirl1976]

I do not want to start a SAH / WAH bunfight and this is inspired by another thread but......

A thread recently was asking people if they earnt over £40k and I was surprised to see a number of posters saying they were SAHM / SAHD but their partner earnt XX, so therefore they did too.

Now, I am not commenting on the value of the work a stay at home partner does - the value is huge and it is a tough, worthwhile thing to do.

But you do not earn. (Even if you should etc etc).

I work. My DH stays at home. If I heard DH saying "oh catgirl earns xxx so I earn xxx too" I would be really peed off and think - "no, no dude - you don't."

We don't have separate money - what's mine is his and vice versa, and I am happy with our arrangement. It is hos money as much as mine, but I earn it. He didn't spend 20 hours negotiating a deal or whatever - that was me.

It has never even occured to me before, but I was just surprised that people felt if DP earned an amount, they earned it too and would actually say, well yes I earn over £40k as DH is a GP or whatever.

It almost felt like some people were saying they were somehow personally doing better than others because they had "married better" which seemed really

AIBU?

Well it depends if you want to take the gamble of staying at home and hoping your marriage survives. I'm pretty confident mine will but also aware that that is probably true of people whose marriages have broken down.
Equally though I could be miserable and go out to work just in case and it would turn out I could have stayed at home.

And also elusive I think there are people on the other side of the debate who perhaps don't understand (or maybe do?) how insulting things they say can be to sahm's. I am also pretty thick skinned and confident in my choice so things like it not being real work, not being mentally stimulating enough, sahms being vacuous etc are water off a ducks back to me. But the insensitive comments aren't all coming from one side.

It's not a question of it being 'real' work or not, I can see that 14 hours looking after a small child is as challenging-if not more- than doing an 8-hour-a-day job, it's just that the default position is always that the person who earns the cash is the person to whom that money belongs.

A gamble is being taken by the non-earning sahp with no cash of their own should that couple split because they will be putting themselves at the mercy of their ex-spouse and court system with no guarantees.

But then the earning spouse is putting themselves at risk from losing cash, too.

That is marriage in a nutshell, I suppose! But being 'partners', though, really is a different kettle of fish. You're really flying without a safety net if you choose to put yourself at the mercy of a partner who earns when you have no money of your own to fall back upon.

The point I'm making though is that no sahms have said that it is a superior choice for anyone but themselves.
SecretMinceRinser Hmm :) I've seen quite a few 'Studies show it's better for children' on this and plenty of other threads when people are 'just talking about what's best for their family' ...

Even without those direct statements, it's a very fine line and tricky to discuss your own choices without some hint of disparaging others'.

but I don't object (which I have seen some do) to people talking positively about their breastfeeding experiences or talking about the benefits of breastmilk - that would be oversensitive imo.
But these are all topics that can be really emotive and people will have different feelings about them or be at different stages of coming to terms with what they're doing. Comments about SAH being better for children don't bother me 99% of the time, but someone who's just spent their morning crying in the loo at work after dropping their 3 month old at nursery that they're not that happy with because it's that or not be able to live might be 'oversensitive' about them.

Wamster your points about what people are entitled to are not entirely accurate but they bring me back to my point - which is that legal cases involving compensation, and family law have evolved to recognise that when one parent is not earning money in order to bring up children the family suffers a financial loss and the SAHP suffers a professional loss. that is an agreement the partners make, whether married or not and is always taken into consideration in separation case.

The SAHP is entitled to compensation for that loss - the fact that this does not apply when they are not married is simply because no 'contract' has been entered into, leaving them legally vulnerable.

The law recognises the non-financial benefits that a parent staying at home contributes to.

Personally I think that the way governments seem to value working at almost any cost to the family and the community is self-defeating and adds a lot of misery to many womens lives. In addition it reduces wages for working parents because of the competition - workers are prepared to earn less because they have two incomes per household.

But the insensitive comments aren't all coming from one side.
Absolutely, that is definitely true. However in these debates there is often a side that has a 'moral right' from widespread opinion/media coverage etc and the other side has that external guilt to deal with as well. It may well be an opinion they had before they found themselves, sometimes unexpectedly or not through choice, on the other side of the fence.

Well sm at the beginning of the thread stated categorically that it wasn't real work in her opinion. An opinion which she is entitled to. I have more respect for her though as while don't agree with her she doesn't go clutching her pearls and taking it personally when someone says something she doesn't agree with.

Well research is something a lot of people take into account when choosing childcare - one of many things.

I disagree that sahp is seen to be the moral right. Most parents I know work. If you work you will likely notice negative comments about working mums more because they will hit a nerve but I can assure you people also have a lot of not so nice things to say about parents who don't work. All best ignored imo.

It seems to me that in a marriage BOTH earner and non-earner are taking a chance of losing money should things go wrong, but that is the gamble every married person takes! If marriage is going well, who earns what is a non-issue.

But there is no doubt that the default position is that the money belongs to the person who earnt it unless challenged by the law.

So a sahm with no income of her own is going to have a battle on her hands should her dh leave her.

Wamster- the capacity to be Flexible is key. If a parent is choosing to stay home, knowing that they could walk into a job without being miserable, and knowing they have kept their skills (and confidence) intact, that's an important position to be in. Likewise, it's good for a WOHP to know that in the event of redundancy they could happily spend time at home.

That's why posts such as the one earlier where someone said 'I went to work once, I hated it, now I stay home' are pretty worrying

I've read this with a great deal of interest. I don't see a problem with a a SAHP saying "We earn..." or "Our income is..." Whether you are bringing money in, or saving money on outgoings - both roles have real, quanitifiable monetary value in terms of a family's finances.

The closest comparison with the work of a SAHP, a live-in housekeeper/nanny can earn you anywhere between £200-£500 a week NET (depending on location, amount of travel required etc), with no housing costs.

Unpaid work doesn't mean it's worthless - as any organisation which relies on volunteers can tell you. An unpaid SAHP adds real value to family finances - just as a WOHP does.

So a sahm with no income of her own is going to have a battle on her hands should her dh leave her.

That's not strictly correct. On divorce, the fact that a SAHP has given up earnings and pension entitlement, and the contribution they have made to the family, is taken into account.

I can't argue with anything you say, callmemrs, it all makes sense.

I suppose my main point in this debate is that nobody has an automatic right to any money that another human being earns and that it is foolish to think otherwise. My dh's money is not automatically mine, nor mine his.

olgaga, It will be a battle of sorts-just going to court is a battle. It is not an automatic thing that when you marry your spouse's money becomes yours.

A married person cannot just present ID and take their spouse's cash from a personal account they hold, can they?

Well no-one has an automatic right to their partners earnings but it is expected that a live in partner supports a sahp and their kids. A partner who isn't supported cannot claim anything themselves or live on fresh air.

Wamster yes, it is a process. I have a friend going through exactly this situation at the moment. I did not say there was anything automatic about it - the loss and contribution has to be shown. But when it is, the courts will take it into account.

SecretMinceRinser, I don't really see what you mean. I suppose society expects a live in partner to support a sahp and their kids. I also think that the dwp expects the live in partner to support them too, if, however, that partner -for whatever reason- says to that woman: 'I will not give you anymore money', then surely the woman can argue in all honesty and reasonableness that the relationship has broken down anyway and that they've split up and although sharing the same roof it will be only until one of them moves out?

A couple where the earning partner is not sharing the cash is not going to last. So she is in effect a single parent. There may be a brief crossover period before one of them leaves but that is 'allowed'.

I think it's interesting what ElusiveCamel says about one side being perceived as having the 'moral right'. I think that if you are a wohp, you perceive that sahp are viewed as 'right' and if you are a sahp, you perceive it to be the other way around.

SMR is right in that a sahp cannot claim income support, for example, because the state views her partner/spouses money as 'theirs'. Although the government does generally always load things in their own favour.

I have to say that I would never have been a sahm, if I wasn't married and i only did it once I'd completed my education. It would be hard for me to go back to work now, but not impossible. Even if you choose not to, i think it's important to be able to earn your own money.

I think everyone is a bit sensitive - it's true that it's hard to say what is best for you, without it sounding as if you are judging negatively someone else's way of life. I think that counts for both sides of this debate.

I think that if you are a wohp, you perceive that sahp are viewed as 'right' and if you are a sahp, you perceive it to be the other way around.
Hmm, not so sure. My son's 4 now and I was at home for 2 years 3 months of that. My views on what I feel is perceived by the wider public haven't really changed from before I had him, during time I was at home or now that I'm working again.

Aaaahhhhh

I went to work (bad mummy) and look what you all did to my lovely thread :)

However as I love you all and think you are all great parents regardless of your employment status you are all forgiven :)

We should have a nice picnic meet up in the parc when the snow melts

Better make it at a weekend though

I find the assertions that if you're a SAHP you're "depending on another person" for your income a bit odd. If you're a WOHP you're depending on a company or business or the government for your income. You're just as likely to lose a job as a spouse, in fact perhaps more so in today's job market. I'm a SAHM and I have my own savings and full access to the joint account. If my DH left me I would be in a similar position as someone who is made redundant - I would have a limited cash sum to keep me going and I would need to find a job pronto. Hopefully DH wouldn't be a dick about it and he would give me cash too in the meantime, but assuming he didn't, I wouldn't starve, I would be entitled to jobseeker's allowance, housing benefit, the whole shebang that a worker is entitled to. So I wouldn't really be in a worse position than someone who lost their job. In fact, given that my house can be funded on one income I might be in a better position in the sense that if I found a job I would probably be able to maintain the house by myself. If DH dies I will get a lump sum payout which will just about pay off the mortgage plus a pension for the rest of my life.

Everyone depends on someone for their income. Just because I'm depending on my DH rather than a company doesn't mean I'm foolish or not secure. I'm about as secure as most people.

The only thing in your post I would disagree with callin is that you would be in a worse position than someone losing as job as you would have ben out of the jobs market for a while and therefore be less employable. Given how few jobs there are things a very competitive and that tome out to raise children could have an impact on your ability to get a job.

CailinDana some very good points. Many WOHM's say they HAVE to work to pay the bills as they have mortgage on both wages etc. They will be just as screwed as a SAHP if the other half clears off as they won't be able to afford the bills etc. You are right that we all depend on someone. Many people rely on grandparents etc too. DH and I both have a pension and savings of our own. Many SAHP doo too.