To wonder why SAHPs enable their OH to 'do long hours' and 'travel a lot'

[ChristmasPlughole]

OK so it is a thread about a thread but on the SAHPs don't earn the income, their dps do thread, lots of mners are saying 'dp can only earn lots of money if I stay home with the kids so they can travel/ work late'. And the implication is that's OK as they earn lots of money.

But why? Would't you rather have less money but bring your children up together?

What is the extra money for?

It's an honest question, I have friends who are almost 'single parents' during the week and their dps travel a lot too. And they have lots of money. But it seems such a lonely existence.

(I am asking about couples who choose to have one high earning parent - not couples who work all the hours god sends to survive).

I don't get it. I love dp and would hate him to do long hours and have two weeks go past before we spent a nice evening together.

It seems so Victorian.

You are either money motivated or you aren't IMO, if you can be happy on a limited budget then good luck to you and I sincerely mean that. I can't I just can't and if that means making sacrifices then so be it.

As I said my husband travels away for weeks sometimes but also can be at home to spend lots of time with the kids that dads working 8 till 6 or whatever can't and we have a very comfortable lifestyle. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, what's not to like?

You wouldn't like this set up, OP, so I assume you don't have it. That's fine and no-one else's business. Other people do something different because it works for them. That's fine and no-one else's business. So YANBU to wonder, but the answer's pretty obvious, surely?

That's how I read it too, just let everyone get in with whatever makes them happy.
And don't pass judgement on how other people choose to live OP, maybe you don't have to worry about money but trying to imply you are a bad person if you enable your DP to work long hours (and wondering what we might need the money for?!?) isnt nice

So lets say you're a lawyer working in an area of the law that at times requires long, unpredictable hours. You love your job and have been doing it for 15 years. Should you resign and both get (much) lower paid jobs or one of you keep doing the job you love and one become a sahp?

Well you do whatever works for your family and relationship obviously.

Sometimes people just have to do long hours (for not much money) but for a longer term investment in their career. IME its not 2 weeks away anyway as the OP describes. It's more the freedom to work away at short notice or stay in the office all night with no notice. Its hard to have both people in the partnership doing this (without a live in nanny of course which is the route some people go down).

You still bring your children up together!!

But even if a parent had a 9-5 job you still need someone to looks after the children between 8 and 6. If that is a SAHP, they are still "enabling" the WOHP.

I repeat. It depends whether you value looking after children as highly as any othr job. Which we should, but which we don't.

we're currently hugely skinter but happier

Penny c'mon give the op the benefit of doubt I'm sure it's just healthy interest and the desire for a frank and enlightening discussion.

We are not rich, dreamingbohemian and we are not poor. However there is no alternative and few equivalent jobs for my husband - he works in a specialist field in the Forces.

So if there's no SAHP then we don't "value bringing up children" ??
Really?

not everyone who works long hours or travels does it for "extra money". some just do it for money. you know, to buy food and have heating. while their OH stays home because that is more financially feasible than work and childcare. or because the OH can't get a job.

YABU, because your perspective assumes that the DP is out earning money for luxuries or to support a middle-class or higher lifestyle. Not always the case.

True I used to work nights - Dh got shit for "lettin me" work nights from his work colleagues (hugely penis driven enviroment), and I got fed up of people going "oh you work? I thought you were a Lady of Leisure" and other such shit, if I had the audacity to decline accepting parcels or volunteering.

This is one of the causes of the glass ceiling for women. It pisses me right off.

Just to reiterate, if people are happy with this setup then that's great, honestly I'm not trying to be judgey about it.

But I think Heswall has nailed it, I'm not really money-motivated and so it's difficult for me to understand why people would make these kinds of sacrifices. Not saying it's bad, I just don't get it, the same way I don't understand why people like sticky toffee pudding.

Hmm. My decision to stay at home DOES enable my DH to do the job he loves which involves him working long and irregular hours in unpredictable locations without having to worry (or more importantly from my pov, squabble) about childcare pickups, managing/cleaning our home, organising life - it may sound Victorian to you, but we're all really happy and I can't really see how that is wrong.
In your ideal world would we both be doing a job that we don't particularly want to do just so that things are "fair" and equal?
It doesn't matter how you choose to manage your life as long as it suits everyone involved. Every choice has positives and negatives and I guess one of the downsides of this life can be some loneliness during the week - but we have fantastic family time at weekends and on holidays and really have none of the stress that some posters here have about stuff like which parent takes days off work when DCs sick etc. Horses for courses I guess

LeQueen aw that's sweet will remember that dinner of herbs line!

CharlottePerkins - v. succinct. Like the post. Like the name.

DH travels, because his team is spread over the globe, he also has responsibility for suppliers who are overseas.
Sometimes he has travelled more, sometimes less. He does it because it is a job he enjoys and gives him the challenge he wants.
He doesn't actually work that long hours at present, and we see more of him than we have at sometimes in the past. He may have what seems like a high salary to some, but we have needed it just to pay the mortgage, and still can't afford private schools. Most holidays have been camping in France, and we have one car.
I'm lucky to mainly be a SAHM, but if I worked a proper full time job, we would need a Nanny and neither of us would be really be there for the kids.
We do bring up the kids together, just I take on more,of the day to day stuff, and we share big decisions.
I don't really see you problem OP, unless it is jealousy?

Charlotte do you mean because women are less likely to have a SAHP?

I took the value as in paid labour. i'e at certain times you have to pay someone to be the caretaker of your child and some people consider that more socially acceptable than choosing to be the caretaker unpaid.

not the emotional and social value of child raising. which depends entirely on the parents regardless of whether they work or not and is ansolutely no ones position to judge as long as those children are happy and healthy.

The money's kind of beside the point btw. We can afford for me not to work and could afford to shop at Ocado (though don't because I think they're rubbish) - but more important to us is that we're both happy with what we're doing

I'm not a SAHP but I dramatically reduced my income when the DCs arrived and left my fairly full on job as a senior manager in the NHS. DH works away a fair bit. He spent 8 years qualifying as an actuary and he loves his job, despite actuaries being notorious for being people who found accountancy too exciting. To be at home every night he'd have to move out of his field. He'd hate it so I'd never ask him to do it.

Besides I really like a couple of evenings a week without him walking in halfway through a tv programme and saying "so tell me what's going on here then".