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?

Yes history. A lot of my friends are high-pressured academics. They're nice people but they can be quite small-minded. I was recently at a dinner party with a good friend and her two friends (all non-parents). At one point the host commented that SAHMs only talk about their children. I said "I'm a SAHM, what's my son's name?" He blushed and replied he didn't know. I said, yes, that was because I hadn't mentioned him all night, and then I named his manager, his PhD student, the office he worked in, and I reminded him that he'd been talking about his job for practically the whole night. He took it in good grace.

He later commented that SAHMs only put pictures of their children on facebook and that he defriends people like that. I replied that I have a lot of pictures of my son on FB but he could ignore them if he likes, just the way I'll ignore his pictures of his night out.

Even my own friend, thinking she was defending me, said "Yes but you're interesting, you're not one of those mums whose life revolves around their child." To which I replied that in fact my life does revolve around my child, just like her life revolves around her job, but I don't witter on about it as I can listen to other people even if what they're talking about doesn't particularly interest me.

There's very much a sense that if you're a SAHM you have nothing interesting to talk about. Well excuse me but hearing about some random job or the latest night of drunkenness isn't exactly fascinating either, but because I'm a good friend I listen politely.

scottishmummy
'SAHP' isn't work'
Really have a problem with that.
I work. At home. 14hour days

You and Molly are right OP. I haven't seen this but would view it appropriating the partner's professional status, in a very old-fashioned, rank-based way, still current in the military but that otherwise went out with the idea that women didn't work after marriage so would forever be defined, in a more socially rigid society, by their husband's status.

SAHMs do a great and valuable job but they do roughly the same job, whatever their partner, if any, earns. In fact those with higher-earning husbands are likely to have an easier time because they can pay for help and convenience. Single parents generally do a harder job.

So basically, I'd think SAHM partners of high-earning people are probably being smug show-offs if they talk about the household income openly at all. If they are claiming it as their earnings, I'd think they'd either lost all perspective, become complacent in their assumption that their partner's high earnings will flow forever, or become so out of touch with the world of work that they feel quite insecure about their ability to re-enter it, so can define their relationship to it only in terms of their partner, who is in fact a different person, with different skills, training and experience.

I'd imagine that people who never really wanted a career and have always been focused on family are more likely to do this, in an old-fasioned 'Mrs Doctor', Mrs Farmer' sort of way. That doesn't make their partner's careers any more dependent on their staying at home than others, people make all sorts of arrangements and compromises to enable earning and careers but it probably makes them more likely to emphasise that aspect.

I agree with you Catgirl - my DH earns a wage and I'm the one who takes care of kids/home.

It's his salary but our household income IMO. YANBU!

I have organised my life so I can work FT and do the childcare during the week.

This enables DH to earn his salary. It doesn't mean I earn his salary.

His salary is 'family money' as is mine.

It might be yours to spend, but you didn't earn it, you enabled him to earn it, at best.

BTW - I work in in a "demanding" job.

Looking after my baby is a billion times harder, more intense and tiring (and better). I have huge respect for SAHPs.

I feel slightly different when children are of school age, but that is probably just because I don't have school-age children yet and don't appreciate the different challenges.

After all, I though maternity leave would be all feeding the ducks and drinking lattes in Starbucks. It isn't quite like that :)

Also, really simple practical response: where both partners have been working FT and decide that one will SAH with a child, it's usually the lower earner who gives up their job. Therefore demonstrating in a quantified way that they did not and possibly will not ever earn the same as their partner.

Maybe I just feel this as a [working] lone parent, but I actually think the parenting challenges increase as the DCs get older and the work of parenting gets harder.

(Afternoon, catgirl. )

Dunno whether YABU or YANBU, it's not something I often hear so don't really have an opinion on, though I heard someone I work with once say "I don't have to come to work, it's only for pocket money as my DH earns x amount." I still thought she was a lovely woman and I suppose she was just stating a fact of their own family circumstance!

It is a strange thing to say. But only in a kind of 'we're pregnant!' way in that it doesn't really make sense. To be overly irked by it suggests to me that someone resents anyone other than themselves benefiting from their salary because they earned it.

SAHMs can be baby bores. But only in the same way that when something dominates your life it can become the main topic of conversation. People who work long hours in high-pressured jobs can be equally boring on their subject of choice.

:) I expect they will get harder LineRunner

I amaze myself with my constant naievity :)

We have not fed the ducks once as a) itis freezing, b) you are now not allowed to feed the ducks as they too are subject to government obesity drives and I don't dare go into Starbucks as DS will scream and I will be driven out by mums with silent children in bugaboos.

(afternoon x)

I'm not irked - I was bored and pondering. Now I am engaged

I do get irked when people look down on other people because of what they earn ,what their DP earns, what car they have, etc.

But I am not irked at the moment :)

Lottiegb- excellent post, agree entirely

Catgirl, is your DH a SAHP by choice or circumstance?

Like other people here say that SAHP don't enable the earner to earn, as it were, by staying at home and providing free childcare. That they could easily go out themselves, find a job and get childcare. So in effect they don't see a need for SAHPs (see Scottishmummy comments, Milton Friedman of MN that she is). How do you feel about that? Do you see your DH as carer for your child or someone that is unemployed?

It was circumstance boobie but at the moment is choice as well as he is not looking for a job as him being at home with DS is so nice for all of us and worth more than he could earn IYSWIM

He does some freelance work from home so does earn a bit as well

We would be worse off I worked - at first at least - as decent childcare for 2 would cost more than I would earn. It is as important as dh to me that the kids have really good childcare (and I'm not suggesting that has to be from a parent just that if it's not it's bloody expensive!) so he would no way be giving me any bullshit like 'I'm the one who's been out to work so the money's mine and I just let you and the kids have some cos I'm nice'.

In a nutshell. Anyone who says they earn their partners salary is factually incorrect and anyone who feels the need to go on their partner that it is they who earn the cash (when presumably one partner staying at home was a joint decision) is an arse.

I would agree with that secret

Yep,sahp isn't work
It's tasks,stuff you do to your own standards at your own pace
Work is undertaken to predetermined external standard and expectation,resulting in remuneration

Sahp isn't a job.at all
And no it's not ardest job in world either

I still find it quite incredible that all these men travel all over the world and work 27 hours a day in some fabulous money-spinning career, and that women think this is OK.
I too could be travelling all over the place and doing those long days _ I've certainly had the career opportunities, but here's a novel thought: I'd rather be a family with DP and DD. I don't think that that fabulous career is as important as my wife and kids. Earning a shedload of cash while seeing my kid for 10 minutes a week is not my idea of success. I suspect that women who trot out the line about "he could only do his job and bring home the megabucks if I stay at home" prefer that to their partners actually being *around".
Who would have guessed it was 2012??

Haha, usual SAHM bashing I see.

DH wouldn't be able to do the job he does without me. Partly because he is on call 24/7 and if I wasn't at home, we would struggle immensely with accommodating his job. Secondly I gave hima. Mother funking kidney to help him return to full health to do his job. I am not shitting when I say that without me DH wouldn't be able to do his current job.

However, I still wouldn't say that I earnt DHs salary, as that's just peculiar. I say our household income is X.

SAHP isn't exactly a job, but if that parent went to work you would pay for childcare - which is a job. So go figure. Whether it is work in the sense of a structured routines day, with the relevant outcomes and expectations of a certain role of paid employment - then its not like that. But caring for a little one, is a role in itself, which people pay others to do. You wouldn't do that if it wasn't a job.

YANBU. I earn my salary. I earn the same amount as a single parent as I did when dh was here helping a bit with the childcare. I am much more thinly stretched now I am doing all the nursery runs etc but I am paid according to what I do at work rather than who is looking after the kids when I'm there.

I'm lucky that my parents help out with childcare when I'm travelling but my mum and dad would never say that they earn my salary because they've looked after the kids for me this week when I've been away.

reindeer the only SAHM bashing on this thread has come from just one poster.

This thread is not about SAHM bashing and if you read the posts from everyone else you would see that it is just the opposite.

Take the cross of your back no one is bashing anyone

By that definition scottishmummy do self-employed people not work either?