To think, actually, WOH gets harder as they get older.

[Tournament]

I've worked (at least p-t) all my life. It was a choice for me, I wanted to get out to work, keep my career etc, although I did very much step back for a while, I always kept my hand in IYSWIM.

When DC were tiny, there was always some feeling of guilt at not always being there, but the day to day practicalities were easy. You got them up and dressed, bundled them in the car, handed them over to GP, childminder or nursery and then it was someone else's job to do everything for them until it was practically bedtime. They were cared for, fed and entertained without me ever really having to do anything. (When I was at work). I'd collect on my way home, take them home and put them to bed.

Now they're 9 & 11, there's homework to supervise, clubs to organise, taxi services to provide, sports and school events to watch (or to have to explain you can't) friendship issues or other worries to listen to and if I'm not around after school, they can't have friends back and they can't go to other's houses.

no, it's not a feminist issue. When a woman gets pregnant, gives birth, breastfeeds, takes maternity leave etc. there's a stronger likelihood of her being pulled to the role of sahm. Dads do it too and that's great, but women have a greater biological pull to their infants. That will always be the case until this planet burns away for the last time a billion years in the future.

Captsweatpants we were travelling all over the country to unis that she simply would not have been able to get to without me driving. (No easy access to national travel where we live).

If you work at a uni you should know that open days are mostly done in year 12 so they are 16/17 my dd is one of the youngest and was only 16 when we started and as someone else stated 90% of parents attend.

and I'm 99% certain that most women arn't working so they can bang the feminist drum. They're working so there's food on the table.

I'm not working to bang a feminist drum.

I am working because it is interesting goddammit. Interesting and fulfilling and provides stress and grief and heartache and immense satisfaction.

And I feel that my whole gender is being betrayed into baking when they can bake as a sideline and have loads of fun earning shedloads of money.

who are you trying to convince wudric and why are you so angered by sahm's? Why is it even any of your business? (utterly utterly baffled)

I do think people come on here with issues and that's why they're angry.
If they were truly happy, they wouldn't have to keep banging on about it, as if to convince themselves. And being 'angry' about sahm's is just weird. It's very odd.

and I can't believe I've wasted a day off work engaging with this bollocks. I'm doing what my username says now and stepping away from the screen.

Oh and as for baking being a sideline, tell that to Mary fucking Berry..
Right, I'm really off now..

It affects our daughters and their prospect. Every woman who sacrifices her caerer for a man makes it harder for women to get on and helps this planet ensure men continue to own 99% of the world's wealth. It is a huge and important political issue.

Let us leave banking to men as it's dull anyway and do interesting work. Baking epitomises so much which is wrong.... first of all the food - sugar, flour and all that junk which kills you and makes people fat never mind affects their brains and secondly the fact muggins mummies get lumbered with it and are conned into thinking they like it because that suits men to keep women chained to kitchen baking poison.

That isn't true, Xenia. Other women's choices don't affect women's career paths. Don't blame other women for your own career disappointments.

Fortunately in Paris there is zero temptation to bake - there are pâtisseries galore that do a much better job than any home baker.

Xenia - most proffesional bakers, as in bakers who make bread, rolls, morning goods etc are men. It's only thought that women do it most because the media make a fuss of women starting cupcake businesses etc. If you went into a real bakery with bakers who work nights it will mostly be men you find.

Working women may be more likely to be divorced because they can cope financially and practically on divorce so the argument that two working puts a strain on marriages cannot be judged on how many get divorced. Sorry if argument has moved on since then.

Other women's choices don't affect women's career paths

If only ...

Can you not accept that individual actions build into collective actions that in turn build into societal norms?

So for every woman who becomes a prostitute or a lapdancer, it debases us all?

Wuldric

"I don't know if feminism can be so simply defined - as being the defence of a woman's right to choose. Yes of course she should have the right to choice - but there comes a point when those choices impinge upon others. Take the right of a woman to choose to be a prostitute, or a house elf. Both those choices impact a lot upon other women - whose husbands use prostitutes or who then expect their wives to be house-elves."

seriously, you talk some amount of shite

I thought people like only existed in bad channel 4 late night debates...seems I was wrong

No, it doesn't debase me if another woman becomes a prostitute or a lapdancer. You need to detach yourself from others.

I know I said I was going, but fuck me...are you really putting lap dancers and prostitutes into the same 'examples of female jobs to be frowned upon' as sahm's?? Really? Really?

2 points.

1 If a man decided to leave the 9-5 corporate rat race and do something he enjoyed instead, he'd be unlikely to be told he was letting down his gender, or that his decision impacted on all other men.

2 A recent article I read by a psychologist stated that those who tried to persuade others that their decisions were the only correct ones, and that their way of life was the correct way, were seeking reassurance. They wanted to persuade in order to convince themselves that they were right after all.

I personally dont care what the wider world do, but admit I would be disapointed if my girls didnt grow up and work.

peterpiranha - will you support your daughters' careers by being the adjustment variable in their families, ready to pick up emergency childcare, holiday care etc?

Yes I will, but most people I know that both work full time dont need to use their parents.

Thank you Xenia. Yes this is exactly what i meant. not about banking or baking (!) but it's true that the collective action of many many individual women sacrificing their career and autonomy so that men can carry on working after kids DOES affect all our prospects and our daughters prospects (eg the fact that employers continue to discriminate against women wrt maternity leave). This wouldn't happen if it was the norm for leave to be shared and for women to have careers - men would have to be more involved because they can't assume there is a wife staying at home!

I don't think wuldric meant to equate sahm with prostitutes - she is simply highlighting that other women's choices do affect all women. And women are pressured into sah by society (eg if it doesn't make financial sense for both parents to work, the woman does it, because she earns less, because of the pay gap, etc) so it IS a feminist issue whether you like it or not!

Maybe most parents aren't judgemental? If you have a strong position about your adult DCs' lives, you need to be supportive of that lifestyle.

I know my parents would be very disapointed if I stayed at home to. I dont think there is anything wrong with that tbh.