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?

Of course there's nothing inherently nasty or offensive in speaking the truth or having and stating a differing opinion. It's just that your comment had a tone that seemed pretty mean, hence my question.

so I am not convinced that everyone working needs to work for financial reasons as one poster suggested
But people posting on Mumsnet AIBU are not really a representative sample of everyone in the country or world. So you see/notice comments from people on here that lead you to believe that some people want to WOHP - that's still a big leap to think the majority on Mumsnet or in the country do and an even further (and offensive) illogical leap to conclude that people WOH don't enjoy spending time with their children as much as SAHP.

There is nothing nasty Camel in taking a different position to you- I have a different position and we often take a different position because we think that position affords advantages that we do not see in the contrary position.
You don't know what my position is or whether I see the other positions :)

Too much talk of positions for my comfort...

Your post was hugely judgemental missic. Whether or not you intended it to be. You don't seem content to accept that you have made your own choice about your own children. You insinuate that working parents don't enjoy spending time with their children as much as you do with yours. You then make judgements about people who use forms of childcare which you don't choose to use yourself.

Look: the bottom line is: a working parent will invest huge amounts of time and effort into selecting the optimum form of care. And we don't just hand our child over and pick them up 5 years later- we are the primary carer, the child is with us most of the time and we KNOW when our children are happy, unhap

Unhappy, unsettled, tired etc - just as you do. And as i said before, If a woman is forced to work for financial reasons and cannot afford to be choosy about her childcare (which usually means relying on a free relative) then have a bit of bloody compassion fgs

What really comes across more than anything missic in your posts is that you kind of pay lip service to saying its ok for people to work if they must or want, but that you secretly wish it would result in slightly less good outcomes for their kids. It's almost as though you can only be happy with your decision if you can tell yourself that WOHP's children must be not quite so happy or confident or clever as yours. You may not mean to sound like that but you do.

I am not trying to make out my children are any better for me working. Neither do I think they're any 'worse'. They are happy confident teenagers and no different to their peers, whether those peers had mums who worked or stayed home. As I said before- the benefits to me working were about me- I enjoy it, I like the stimulation and satisfaction, salary, social life and pension. And yes, of course I get satisfaction from other things too, including time spent with my kids, but for working parents it isn't an either/ or thing- we can get different satisfaction from both things.

I agree with the poster who said you should look at how you word things. You come across as less secure in your position because you seem so determined to convince yourself that the children of working parents won't turn out so well

Hear hear Callmemrs.

Wamster, I never said anything about rolling up at a bank and trying to access another person's account. That isn't what it's about, at all - as I explained, in relation to contractual obligation and consent.

The only point I have made is that the assets of a marriage are joint assets, no matter which party to the marriage earns those assets. I don't know why that's such a difficult concept.

'I do not want to start a SAH / WAH bunfight'..uh huh...

In fairness I don't think the op did. I still don't see what is contentious about the actual op. The person working for remuneration is the person earning. All the work I do in the home, whether it is caring for children , cooking, doing paperwork, is not paid and therefore I don't earn anything to do it. It makes total sense for me to say 'our family income is XX' and include my dh's salary as well as mine. But if I were to say I earn that amount it would be daft. I don't. I earn my salary, be earns his, and together that forms our family's income

See, I still think that one partner helps the other to earn, by enabling them to focus on work and not worry about pick ups and who's looking after the dc when they have to work antisocial hours. I think society should recognise that there is an economic benefit to that help - if the sahp isn't actually bringing money in, they are certainly stopping lots of money from having to be paid out.

I guess that help is less valuable in households where both partners are high earners, because they will still have money left, once they've paid for outside help, but for many people that help is essential for the family to function, if only one of them is a high(ish) earner.

But yes, technically the wage is earned by the person actually 'at work', even if they could only do the job by having the help of the other partner.

I believe I have indavertently now started two WOH/SAH bunfights......

that'll learn me...... :(

Not sure that it was inadvertent, anyone reading the thread header alone would have known how this would kick off.

I don't disagree karma , but how would you propose society recognises that economic benefit? That's the area that's unclear. Sometimes people propose a 'wage' for staying at home, but that's a really strange idea (as well as not being viable). Who would pay that wage? And why? I have no problem with a parent staying at home if the other partner is happy to support them financially, but it is unrealistic to think a 'wage' could ever be paid.

I agree with your comments about partners supporting eachother, but I think it's a broader issue than simply SAHP enabling WOHP. Dh and I both work, and always have done, and provide mutual support to enable each other to do so. Obviously we used paid childcare, so it's not as simple as looking after the children during work hours. But because we both earned, we were able to keep our working hours reasonable, whereas if one of us had had to be the sole earner, there would have been more pressure to work longer hours and take promotions even when we might not have wanted them at that point. We also supported eachother by eg splitting domestic chores equally, and looking after the children in the evening when one of us wanted to do an extra course of study to benefit our work.

So I agree entirely about good partnerships being mutually enabling and supportive- but I think it extends beyond one partner being at home and supporting the working partner. Many couples nowadays dont want polarised roles- they both want to work and do hands on childcare/ running the home- and they support eachother to enable this

From the landmark House of Lords judgement in White vs White, 26 October 2000:

"If, in their different spheres, each contributed equally to the family, then in principle it matters not which of them earned the money and built up the assets. There should be no bias in favour of the money-earner and against the home-maker and the child-carer...

...Today there is greater awareness of the value of non-financial contributions to the welfare of the family. There is greater awareness of the extent to which one spouse's business success, achieved by much sustained hard work over many years, may have been made possible or enhanced by the family contribution of the other spouse, a contribution which also required much sustained hard work over many years."

The full judgement can be read here:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldjudgmt/jd001026/white-1.htm

I definitely don't think that people should be paid a wage, for looking after their own children. Having children is a choice, although it would be nice to see proper paternity leave (that isn't stigmatised if men choose to take it) and subsidised child care for people who want to return to work. That would recognise that although children are primarily their parent's responsibility, having them is of benefit to society too. Continuation of CB for all families would be a good thing as well imo.

Perhaps recognition of the contribution of sahp, could be in enforcing proper maintenance when relationships go wrong and pursuing people who hide their assets, so they don't have to pay a fair amount. That would give a clear message that what the sahp did was important and helped the wohp. It seems that the sahp gets screwed over when a relationship ends, even though it was a joint decision for one parent to stay home and it comes at a cost to their own career prospects.

I can only really comment on my own situation, but I know my dh couldn't do his job on reduced hours - he would have to do something completely different. We live in a place where wages are not high and he has been fortunate and worked hard to get in a position where he can work from home quite a bit, so it has given us freedom to live where we choose. We wouldn't have that if he had a lower paid job and we would have to live somewhere where we could both work full time. We would then be balancing the whole child care thing. It's easier for us, not to. If he hated his job/life, we would reassess - I don't want him to be unhappy.

He does still spend lots of time with the dc and is very involved as a parent, it's just that he doesn't spend his time at home doing 50% of the house work (don't want to give the impression he's waited on hand and foot - that's most definitely not true ) and he isn't around at the same times every week.

missic I don't think from anyhting you've said you have any empathy whatsoever with other mothers whether they work or not.

You seem to think it's allowable in Missicworld to work but only to avoid starvation or homelessness. And then I assume you still belive childcare is damaging but...you know...you'll condescend to feeling sorry for those Mums and Dads because what choice do they have?

As for women who just about break even after childcare in the early years, you seem to have no concept that those women may do it for pension continuity. What will those women do if their husband has a small or no pension? Stop work anyway? Who will look after that woman if her husband dies? The state? Her DC?

And what about women who are anxious that if they stop work they won't get back into the job market? Can't you understand that? It's really not that difficult. There are endless threads here of women who have damaged their job prospects and are really worried about what happens next.
This isn't scaremongering.
We would all love to belive that having a few years off will make no difference whatsoever. And indeed, in the past I've had periods not working both pre and post DC. But I did it in a very conscious manner so the hole in my CV would look like a positive thing to employers.
But the world has changed massively. Getting back into work is very very hard. Jobs are scarce for everyone...so please have a little understanding for those women who may be concerned.

If you really think work and the reasons why people do it can be measured in whether you are £x better off each month, then you really have no clue at all.

karma sure, sometimes taking everything into account (loss of earnings, pension contribution, continuity of CV yadda yadda) a family may still decide it's best for one person not to work.

I once gave up a good job to follow my husband (then not) to France. L'amour .

But I did it in full consciousness of what I was doing/giving up and having put in place a plan of how best to overcome all those things I was losing.
For us, it was worth it.

I think what I object to is those women who insist that all women must take those risks for their DC, without any reference to the vagaries of other people's lives.
And the idea that women who decide not to take those risks somehow love their DC less, or don't wnat to spend time with them is facile no?

Karmabeliever - I'm not sure there is any greater economic benefit to society by having one parent SAH, than in having both parents out at work, so I'm not sure society should recognise it any more than any other working-childcare pattern is recognised.

I think society should recognise that there is an economic benefit to that help - if the sahp isn't actually bringing money in, they are certainly stopping lots of money from having to be paid out. How is stopping lots of money from having to be paid out, and therefore, presumably, keeping it for yourself, beneficial to society? Surely more beneficial is the two working parents who employ someone to do the childcare, thus creating a job or, at least, part of one.

karmabeliever - Yes, having children is a choice. Made by two people. Normally only one does the looking after them bit (or the lion's share of it at least.)

If you look after for other people's children, you get paid for it (and not a bad wage to boot.)

I'm not saying the working partner should, effectively, pay a salary to the other, merely for practical reasons. But I'd expect them to consider it work, and appreciate and value it as such. Exactly because it is a choice, and one that the stay-at-home partner didn't make alone.

To me all monies are 'we/ours'...

Librarian, when I talked about economic benefit, I meant it is of economic benefit to the wohp and that society should recognise that, when it comes to a relationship breakdown and ensuring the sahp gets their fair share of maintenance from the wohp. I didn't mean it is of benefit to society that one parent sah. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Having children, generally, is of benefit to society, so caring for them should be recognised as valuable and made easier, whether you woh or choose to sah. A bit off topic though.

wordfactory, yes, everyone's situation is different and every parent loves their dc and does what they think is right for their family as a whole. I'd never think that a wohp loves their dc less than a sah one.

destroyed, I couldn't be married to someone who didn't appreciate and value my contribution to our family. I agree that couples decide together that one will become a sahm, so in cases where a couple later split, the wohp shouldn't be allowed to conveniently forget that. For us, it made sense for me to be the sahp, because dh earned more than me. I'd like to see the state ensure that one parent can't just bugger off and leave the family in financial trouble.

' I think society should recognise that there is an economic benefit to that help'

I agree Karma. This is actually what familiy allowance (now CB) was based upon when it started in the late 1940s. Valuing women's unpaid labours in the home with children. There is economic benefits. Without unpaid workers/carers, society would be much worse off.

I don't think that anyone could dispute that, if a couple have jointly decided that one parent should SAH, the resources should be split fairly if the relationship breaks down, and the WOHP effectively "owes" the other partner a living.

But we are assuming that all WOHPs actually want their partners to SAH. In many cases, obviously they do, but I work with a couple of guys with SAH partners who would love their wives to go out to work. However, the wives prefer to stay at home with the kids because they don't want to use childcare and/or juggle work & home for relatively little financial gain. These guys have been persuaded to accept their wives' decisions, but it isnt necessarily what they would choose. So if these marriages break down, the husbands would obviously be morally obliged to provide for the children, but would they "owe" their wives a living in the same way as a husband who had actively wanted his wife to stay at home? Should the wife in this situation be entitled to half his pension? I am not sure that she should.

I think yes, Honey, because they have agreed to it, even if it wasn't their first choice and they have had children with someone who isn't happy to use paid childcare. It's something they should ideally have ironed out, prior to starting a family, because their marriage will work out better if they see the big issues, the same way.

I do see your point though, so maybe it hinges on just how much they would honestly be prepared to do wrt child care/housework. Would they really be prepared to work stable hours or do their 50% of child pick ups/ staying home when dc are sick/cleaning/shopping etc or are they paying lip service to the idea of it, knowing that they will never have to do it, as they have married women who want to sah.

Interesting point, HoneyandHaycorns.

I only know two couples where the wife stays at home (two young kids in each family). In both cases the husband's job is such that he leaves the house at 6am and gets back home around 10pm. Plus phone calls on weekends, overseas travel, the lot. In one couple there's the added complication that the wife is American and doesn't have a work permit to work in Europe. Oh, and she doesn't speak the language either.

Do the husbands "want" these wives to stay at home? It sure doesn't look as if they're willing, or able, to do much in the way of making it easy for them to find work.

People look at couples like them and say how lucky the wives are to be able to afford all the nice lifestyle, big house, holidays etc. Nobody ever says how lucky the husbands are, to have such high-flying careers AND children and a family as well.

Another interesting question (and another can of worms) would be to ask which half of the couple wants to have children in these cases.