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

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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.

dreamingbohemian We are not "doing it for the money" - my husband does his job because he loves it. He will never be rich (unless he goes into the private sector) but he does get fulfillment from his job and I get fulfillment from supporting him and raising our children.

um, no, she doesn't, exactly. she talks about 'lots of money' but its not clear what that means - i don't see how someone outside the couple can make that call, really.

she says she doesn't mean couples where both work to survive - but sometimes one person is working so that the family can survive, and her OP didn;t seem to account for that (although yes, perhaps she intended it to).

my point is that "lifestyle choices" - which i gather is code for "materialistic jerks choosing money over their kids" - can look very different on the inside.

Dreaming,

It's not even that it's necessarily money motivated but my husband is just so driven and ambitious and clever that he would never have settled for less and and as a consequence the jobs that involve travel, living overseas and fortunately a good pay cheque just came along as part of all that.

Trois, sorry couldn't reply earlier to be busy preparing lunches for dh and dc1 and making tea for us both! Dh rarely cooks dinner, once every few months maybe when he is off for a day or something. He helps bath the children if he is home because he wants too, infact usually he ends up bathing with them lol! I do all nighttime wakes with the children, even at weekends and holidays. I have no problem with this. The only times I have disturbed him is if one is sick and that is normally just to cuddle the child while I strip the bed or when I have been feeding one and another wakes (only happened a couple of times). It was dh's choice more than mine that I sah and as I said he worked the hours anyway, we just do not have as much disposable income now.

YABU

Is it a myth that lower-paid jobs are shorter hours and more family friendly? Presumably some people work loads of hours because they need to due to low pay.

Eg security, retail, nhs (people doing extra shifts, second jobs etc), care work, agriculture.

I love our set up [heart emotion]

This is one of THOSE questions, it is down to people's choices and things that happen in peoples lives and is a question like should women stay at home or go to work? When I first met my husband I'd come out of a very violent relationship - he's always worked hard but I had nowhere near the qualifications he did. I don't complain - I have 2 lovely kids, as far as I'm concerned he's enabled me to set up my own business. I can work the hours I want so I can take my kids to school and to pay for childcare is a decision we decided not to take as then I'd be working for nothing. For us both to be earning £30,000 a year we'd both have to work full time with very rigid hours and then what? We then both lose out as we are both so flexible with our lives. My husband can work from home and when he's here it's alot. He can also choose his hours as he can bank them up and then take time off for half terms which helps us financially but he can be there more for the kids. Sometimes it can get lonely when he's not here but it can be lonely even if you are in a relationship and you see each other every night. We both share household jobs, both cook dinner, washing etc. I see that I enable him because yes I have supported him and moved halfway across the country twice to support his career, he sees that he has enabled me with my business and supported me. I am annoyed by the generalism that comes across because it is down to people's choices and I don't like the Victorian implication..

I'm not a fully sahm (do supply teaching plus some tutoring) but I am definitely one of those with a dh who works away.

In his field of work, lots of the work is away from the UK. Simple as that. It's been like that for the last 18 years or so. I don't complain(too much!) and have at times worked full time. I do most of the housework though he does stuff as and when he's home too, and have from time to time had a cleaner for eg when children were young. To be honest, a 5 bed 3 bath house really doesn't require full time housework, just an organised person. I'd probably lost the plot way before now if I thought my role in the family was as housewife!

It's just life. I don't complain - his earning potential is well above mine as a teacher and we have always made the most of travelling to where he is over summer when we have had the chance. It's just the way we live.

I would defend anyone's right to moan occassionally, even DH who adores his job hasn't got the perfect life, even me who adores being a SAHP has a things in my life that aren't top notch.

Just because people moan doesn't mean they aren't happy with their choices overall.

So yup, I will moan about clearing up vomit for the day when he calls from his 5 star hotel room to moan about how bored he is... and we're both entitled to do that.

Our marriage works, my DH's a brilliant dad. He isn't here as much as we'd like, but when he is here we are a team - all five of us. Like LeQueen I just want to be with dh and vica versa, I didn't want a 9-5 man and he didn't want a traditional housewife. I may be a sahm, but I'm certainly not a traditional housewife. It works for us.

Nothing wrong with wanting to earn lots of money though. It's nothing to be apologetic about. And it may involve some sacrifices like not seeing each other as often as people on lower incomes. Different things drive different people.

And Would't you rather have less money but bring your children up together? could apply to any working situation. Work less, earn less and therefore have more time for your children. Even if you work a few hours on minimum wage that still applies.

JaJas Brdgrl was using that as an example to dig at the op then I think, she's pointed out you can't judge from the outside

Snd nothing wrong with driving a van 80 hours a week either

JaJas . S'only cause some one posted something similar the other day and a mini bunfight immediately ensued.

But see, some of the posts here are implying that if you are clever and driven and qualified then of course you will end up in a good job and the money aspect is just sort of incidental.

I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but it does sort of imply that low-paid jobs are not for clever or driven people.

Some of the most clever and driven people I know earn very little, they work for charities or in developing countries, or they're investigative journalists. Low-paid jobs but definitely not boring!

Reading this no wonder men earn more than women.

Good point, dreamingbohemian. My present job is decently but not brilliantly paid (I moved from the public sector to a big charity rather than waiting to be made redundant, and had to swallow a big pay cut to make the move). It's really interesting work but I'm very conscious of how much extra work it's landing on my DH because I'm home late or travelling. I definitely have to change jobs: the question is whether I look for more money or fewer hours in the next one. At the moment I'm leaning towards more money because if you're senior enough you can often wring some flexibility out of a job, but you can't make them pay you lots more than they said they would.

I haven't read all the responses but I find the OP rather strange.

My DP works away for 8 weeks at a time. Yes I miss him and my boys miss him. He is 99.9% likely to miss the birth of our first child in June.

But he loves his job, he's very good at it and he earns enough money to mean we don't struggle.

I let DP work away because I love him and I understand he's worked very hard to get to where he is.

I used to earn the same as my male contemporaries often more stupid observation based on this thread.

I had to give up my own (pretty well-paid) job so that my husband can do his, and we don't even have children. But he was sent overseas by his company. Did I "enable" him to carry on with his career? He definitely "disabled" me to carry on with mine at that point.

It's not a complaint, I've landed on my feet and life goes on.

But it irks me when people can't see it's not always a choice.

What baffles me most in these threads is the disdain some people obviously have for the non-working partner. The number of people that agreed that housework and childcare was "not work". How do people who think like that manage to convince their partners to have children with them?

DH works very long hours and travels for work a lot.

I am not lonely, I am a loner, they are different. The boys don't seem to miss him very much, he has been like this since well before they were born and when he is here, he is properly all theirs. He will not answer his phone or look at an email on family time.

We do it for two reasons, firstly DH loves his work, he really really loves it and is constantly amazed that he gets to do something he actively enjoys and gets paid for it. Secondly, the money.

The money is fantastic, he makes a lot, I grew up poor. It fucking sucked, really really sucked. My kids won't grow up poor if I can avoid it. I make no apologies for that. I have been rich and I have been poor and rich is better. DH agrees.

It works fine for us, neither of us are the type to need to be together constantly, the boys seem happy as can be. I have just gone back to work part time and they have both taken to daycare like fish to water.

For us our arrangements are perfect, they might not work for someone else, I make no judgments on other people's set up and don't feel the need to defend my own.