to think we should encourage our daughters to marry men who earn AT LEAST as much as them?

[StripeyBear]

Quarter of a century ago, starting university, I would have furiously disagreed with this. Women should make their own money, and marry who they like!

Now, looking back, I'm not so sure. Nearly all my female friends, however successful in their careers prior to children, have compromised work success to raise their children. (I do have one friend who has a house husband, but that is the exception rather than the rule). Consequently, the lifestyle of my friends has been largely dictated by how much their husbands earn. So the nurse who married the mechanic is run ragged with extra shifts, juggling small kids in a tiny house with a large mortgage, indifferent schools and holidays in Haven or not at all - whilst my midwife girlfriend who married a consultant, is living in a huge detached house, with kids at private schools and just does a few shifts to keep her registration and to keep out of the way of her cleaner.

So AIBU, should we tell our daughters to marry someone who can provide the material stuff, or in another quarter of a century, will the world have moved on again, and fathers will be equal parents, and none of this will matter a stuff?

[amillionyears]

carabos, wouldnt your DH take half of your assets?

[timidviper]

I think we're mostly agreed that money isn't everything but, if all else is equal, it can make life easier.

I want my DD to have a happy and loving relationship. I also hope she will not struggle financially and, to that end, have encouraged her to get a good education and have ambitions for herself as well as for her partner. Exactly the same as I hope for my DS actually.

[cory]

I fell in love with and (after a 10 year engagement) married a poor man. What I knew was that he was caring, committed, with a sense of humour and a willingness to pull his weight.

20 years later we are not quite so poor. We will never be on the level of the OPs friend who married a consultant, but we are comfortable.

In that time, shit has happened that no level of money could have eased. But that same care, commitment, sense of humour and willingness to pull weight has seen us through.

[touchlight]

Life is definitely easier with a husband on a good salary and imo it makes sense to make decisions in life that are going to make things easiest for you and your family. I married DH for being a loving, kind, respectful man, who pulls his weight, is a great dad, and very attractive - but on top of all that, is on a six figure salary. I don't like the assumption here that if a man is rich, he can't possibly be a nice person, or is bound to be unfaithful, or won't share parenting equally. I don't believe in The One, I think that for every woman there are lots of potential partners who would be fine to settle down with, and out of those, it's sensible to choose the one who is going to provide well for the family. It's very simplistic to put relationships into a binary of marrying for love/marrying for money.

Now, I did date men in younger years who were just as kind and respectful, but due to their career choices/academic ability/ambitions, my lifestyle would never have been as comfortable as it is and looking back, I'm glad I didn't settle down with them. I would never have been able to be a SAHM, or pursue further academic study in a subject I'm passionate about.

[StripeyBear]

akissisnotacontract said
"YABU. I earn double what my DH to be earns. We are very very happy together though. We play to our strengths, he's much better at household stuff than I am and when we have children his career will take a back seat to mine. We are very lucky to be living in a time when we can make that choice."

I'm glad you're happy together, but this would worry me a bit if you were my daughter. Until you actually hold your own baby in your arms, you really don't know how you'll feel. I know you think you do, but you don't. Before I had children, even when I was heavily pregnant with my first, I assumed that childcare would be easier for under 5s because you could use a nursery that works 363 days a year 7.30hrs to 18.00hrs. I was highly career focused, and expected to return full-time. When I actually had my baby I felt completely differently. The thought of leaving her in a nursery at all wasn't comfortable for me.

I will probably be jumped on for saying this - but women tend to find it harder than Dads to leave their babies and go to work. I think a hell of a lot of the surveys come out saying that many mothers would like to work less and spend more time with their children. I suppose that is why - given many women are highly educated and have great careers before children - women tend to do the bulk of the childcare and are far more likely to reduce working hours to care for children.

The thing is - having children with someone who earns half as much as you puts you in a position where you will have to choose to leave your very young (breastfed??) baby with her Dad, or accept a much lower standard of living than you can achieve if you were the working parent. Tough one...

[funnymum71]

I wish I'd married someone with the same earning potential as me. I am the main wage earner on at least double what my DH is earning. I married for love, FWIW, but love can fade. I'm now in the position where I am too ill to work at the moment and maybe for some time and we're finacially fucked because of it.

I wouldn't say to my DD, make sure you marry someone who can support you financially, but I certainly would say to her that unless she wants to spend her life with the constant pressure of having to support everyone regardless of her health, to at least marry someone who has the same level of education / ambition / career, so the pressure can be shared equally.

[funnymum71]

And yes to the OPs last comment about having children - We had to take out a bank loan to cover my last maternity leave. The loan paid the mortgage and bills while I was off work and I now have to pay the same outgoings AND the loan.

[carabos]

amillionyears no he wouldn't get half my assets. He wouldn't try to get them (such as they are) and I know from bitter experience with XH that it is impossible to enforce any order made regarding division of assets, especially when there are no dependent children to consider.

[cory]

"The thing is - having children with someone who earns half as much as you puts you in a position where you will have to choose to leave your very young (breastfed??) baby with her Dad, or accept a much lower standard of living than you can achieve if you were the working parent. Tough one... "

Not necessarily. Most mothers do not choose to breastfeed beyond the year, in fact many only do 6 months, and may well be able to get back into the workplace after that. Not everybody feels uncomfortable about leaving their children with the dad: dh and I used to share childcare, and my SIL was happy to leave my brother in charge while she did her university degree. I would have been happy to have let dh be the SAHP if I had been at a better point in my career. To me, that is nothing like leaving them in a nursery: dh is their parent! He is like an extension of me.

[funnymum71]

Don't get me wrong BTW - I love my job and the fact that I have a successful career and I wouldn't want to be a SAHM as it just wouldn't suit me, but I am very aware of the realities of being the breadwinner when you're a woman.

[grovel]

My Mum told me to marry for love. She also told me to try to "move in monied circles" because that way I was more likely to fall in love with someone with money/prospects. A tad cynical but basically sound advice.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

Illness.
Accident.
Bankruptcy.
Redundancy.
Divorce.
Career change.

Chances are that at least one of these things will happen throughout the course of the relationship, so I'm not sure that ensuring the DH earns more at the time of marriage means anything other than he can pay more of the wedding costs.

[herecomesthsun]

My gradnmother used to say, "Get An Education, Never Be Beholden to Any Man!

I did.

I didn't marry a high earner. I AM quite a high earner. It gives me a lot of choices. I would recommend it! The choices include marrying someone who earns a lot less than me, by the way.

[cory]

DioneTheDiabolist Sun 27-Jan-13 16:11:08
"Illness.
Accident.
Bankruptcy.
Redundancy.
Divorce.
Career change.

Chances are that at least one of these things will happen throughout the course of the relationship, so I'm not sure that ensuring the DH earns more at the time of marriage means anything other than he can pay more of the wedding costs."

This. There is no guarantee that it won't be the high earning dh who falls ill or becomes disabled or loses his job.

[manicbmc]

Precisely, Cory.

I'll never forget the feeling of horror I had when I was still at school and many of the girls were saying they could never marry someone who didn't have a lot of money.

[MarathonMama]

I think there's something to be said for making teenagers/ students aware of how their career choices may be impacted by family life.

I'd love to go back to work but my job can not be done flexibly or part time. To do something that fits with the family would mean starting again, which isn't worth doing when you factor in the cost of re-training and childcare. So I feel at the mercy of my DH's career and earnings.

I wish I'd originally gone into something that could be done part time. I feel like my career has been wasted.

[amillionyears]

That is a good point cory. Some men[and women for that matter] are poorer, because they are not willing to pull their weight.

[ThinkAboutItOnBoxingDay]

Good god. Our generation is meant to be making it easier for our daughters to soar, not giving them limiting beliefs like this.

My mum was raised to quit work when she had a family. She raised me to have options. I earn a lot. I see my role as a feminist in business as making sure idiots like the tutor up thread with their 20+ women are 'ticking timebombs' comment are shown to be idiots.
I have worked for 15 years and built a great career. Then I stopped work for 9 months to have a baby. Now I resume my career. What's the problem?

[morethanpotatoprints]

YADBU

So you want your dd to be a type of prostitute then, if her dh has to earn money to provide material things.

I am encouraging my dd to marry for love and this alone. Its hard enough when you do love the other person, take away the love and its misery, however much money your dh earns.

[AKissIsNotAContract]

I don't work anywhere near those hours to make a good wage though OP. I'm very lucky that my choice of career (dentistry) is very flexible. Even if I worked a 3 day week I'd have a good income and time to spend with future DCs. You're right that until I have a child I won't know what it's like to leave one with his/her dad and go to work. But having grown up watching my SAHM mother trapped in an abusive marriage I'll take my chances with the options I've made.

[DontmindifIdo]

ThinkAboutIt - but that assumes that what woman want is to be working mothers. What if you don't but then find you have no choice because you've married someone who can't afford to support you to do it? Pointing out that by marrying a relatively low paid man you are taking away that option, that no matter how you feel about it, you will have to go back to work after 9 months/a year full time isn't a bad thing.

You can raise your DD to have options, while at the same time pointing out that choices made in late teens and early 20s can take away options when they are in their 30s and to think about these before they make those choices.

I don't see anything wrong with pointing out if you choice a career that can only be done full time that means when you have DCs you will either have to work full time or not at all, part time not being an option (I know both full time working mothers and SAHM who would have picked part time if they had the option, most didn't think about this until they were already pregnant).

There's a big difference in telling girls that there are certain careers that aren't an option for them because of childcare issues, and telling girls that there are certain careers that they could do and do well, but to go into them with their eyes open that they aren't family friendly and that will mean they have to make tough choices when they start a family, if they start a family at all.

There's also a big difference between saying "you must marry a man who can keep you" and saying "if you marry a man who can't keep you, you will have less choices than someone who does."

[DumSpiroSpero]

I will encourage my daughter to be financially independent regardless of who she marries but also to bear in mind the implications of her future career on family life and vice versa.

She is 8 now and has wanted to be a teacher since the moment she set foot in her Reception class, so am kind of hoping that idea sticks tbh.

[cory]

So what advice would you give your sons? What if they want to be SAHDs? Or is it only women who get a choice? Or what if they don't want to be forced to do a job that doesn't suit them just because women have a right to be kept? Will you advise them that they can't get married at all in that case? Seeing that all women should marry this kind of man?

[DeepRedBetty]

yanbu when you say that you just don't know how you'll feel about your work/home balance when you become a parent until you experience it, and it is more difficult to spend a large amount of time with your children if their dad's earning potential is less than yours. One of my dsis's embraced sahm, she loved it and was sad when dnephew went to school, the other couldn't wait to get back to work, not because the mortgage needed paying but because although she loves her dc dearly she freely admitted she was bored rigid of baby stuff. And I definitely fell between these two extremes.

It boils down to the simple truth, that money buys choice.