to think working parents don't 'do all the things SAHPs do plus work'?

[Sampanther]

I've heard this response an awful lot, particularly to that awful 'being a SAHM is the hardest job in the world' advert. I have worked outside the home and been a SAHM and I do not feel that working meant I did all the parenting plus work on top. For example, as a SAHM parent I'd deal with squabbling, tantrums, discipline, naps, take them to parks/soft play etc and help them to play nicely with other children, cook with them, do painting and play doh and so on.

As a working parent I had an hour of getting them ready in the morning, dropped them off at childcare, then an hour of winding them down and putting them to bed at night. I could eat and go to the toilet in peace during the day, the house was tidy and needed little cleaning as we were rarely in it and I had very little to do with discipline etc.

I'm not trying to say working parents don't parent, because obviously they do but AIBU to think parents who work fulltime don't 'work and do all the parenting as well'? I don't get why working mums respond that way and think they're right but if a working husband came home and said to his stay at home wife that he does just as much parenting as her then I'm sure mumsnet would not agree.

This has actually moved onto a really interesting debate, rather than the usual bunfight!

It's good to see that people are differentiating between one's personal circumstances and desires, and the wider societal
Issue of inequality. Permanentlyexhausted makes a valid point: often it is the woman herself who believes that she isn't good enough , that she has to defer to the man and be the one whose career goes on the backburner, or who doesn't feel confident to aim for higher career positions. And for some women it's not a lack of confidence, they simply decide they don't want a career.

It's so important to keep this discussion high profile though. The thing that always astounds me is that over the last decades things have moved SO far. We've moved from a position where women had no maternity rights and were expected to give up work when they give birth. There was no regulated childcare and no nurseries until recently. On a wider level , women were not even expected to aspire to higher education and a career in the way men were. All that has changed massively. Girls now outperform boys at practically every education level. Female graduates outstrip male. Maternity rights have improved beyond measure (I never dreamt women would be entitled to a whole year off for each child in my lifetime) Flexible working rights exist - ok, I know people don't always find they can get the terms they want In their company- but all these things are a massive step forward. And we now have some free hours of early years education at 3, childcare vouchers etc

So while the picture has improved hugely, we need to ask why the societal assumptions are still that the woman will be the one to lose out career wise.

I know there are some women who partner a man with hugely more earning potential than themself, and there are even women out there who may factor this into the marriage decision because they hanker after a particular lifestyle,... But surely that relatively rare nowadays? I consider myself a relative 'oldie' (been married over 20 years) but I met my husband at university, which was fairly common among our friendship group, so we were starting from precisely the same point: both had the same level of education and ability to enter a career. Surely it must be similar now... Most people tend to partner someone of similar intellect and ability?

All food for thought ... I admire permanentlyexhausted for her hands on efforts to empower girls to feel they can do what boys do. This is certainly something I try to engender in my dd and ds, and thankfully at the moment (they are teenagers) they certainly see themselves as having exactly the same opportunities ahead. My ds would be genuinely shocked I think at the idea that his role in life might be to be sole earner and that as a father he might be sidelined and made to feel second rate.

fid

Would just like to say well done for your attitude to this thread, whether I agree or not is immaterial, even when it was felt you had worded your posts wrongly you kept explaining and didn't flounce off or lose the plot (like I would have done!)

When I gave up work I earned half of what my husband did, just different jobs and responsibilities. I always liked my jobs to be with people who would have a laugh and probably didn't push myself as much as I should have done. Husband was the same but when ds1 was born it was like a switch was flicked! Even if I had stayed in full time employment in the job I enjoyed he would be on, best case scenario 4 times my wage

The economic climate has changed since I gave up work, it is more difficult to get "little" jobs and obey is short. I would advise my daughter to find a job that she enjoys and can easily slot back into, and that she keeps her hand in!

Ooooh just seen system s post

Exactly what I wanted to say...just much, much more concise!

jasmine, what's ok? What on earth do you think I said?

I think you misunderstand me. I am not saying "this is how to do it!" - in fact I specifically acknowledge that a person who is prioritising having children more than I did has to do it differently.

this thread is full of people saying "c'mon people do things differently can we not relax and accept that" - but who are they talking to? Who are the lecturers? Now I am being treated like one! - if my post gets interpreted as some lecture on HOW TO DO THINGS which it is so emphatically and EXPLICITLY not - FFS!

I am so FUCKING over words not working. I am talking and writing all the time and hearing other people talking and writing all the time and I am so OVER people being DETERMINED to hear WHAT IS ALREADY IN THEIR HEADS. It is fucking exhausting that people don't LISTEN

???? Just saying thats how society is set up but should be more help with childcare without having to wait but society currently makes that difficult. (shrugs)

I absolutely endorse the advice about encouraging our daughters ( well, and our sons too!) to aim for work that will have a wider sense of purpose than simply paying the bills, whether that be intellectual fulfilment or social value. The fact is, none of know what's in store for our children, whether they will even have children, but the one near- certainty is that they will have a long working life.

If one is doing a job one enjoys, finds stimulating and / or is of great social importance, then whether you decide to remain in it or give it up, you're at least operating from a position of greater enpowerment which is far better than the default position of woman giving up work because her job is menial and low paid

system you say "DH earns £X. If I were to do his job, that's what i'd get paid." the point is that chances are you wouldn't. That's my point. And the gap has gone up in the recession

I earn a lot more than my oh and have for some time. In my family it doesn't work for us both to work long hours in stressful jobs. We can't manage us both working full time with commutes and so dh will hopefully be cutting his hours. Although I would much rather it was me, we are doing what makes the most sense.

There are lots of women at my grade in work but very few at higher/ senior manager level. The next step up removes flexibility and so isn't suitable. More male senior managers seem to get more involved in drop offs and school events which can only be positive. There will be a massive shift by the time my ds is an adult.

I've been self employed which meant I had intensive work periods and then a few months off. IMHO I do think woh meant I did everything a sahp would plus work. I think the age the the children makes a huge difference. Toddler was really hard.

janey, I would advise my son the same. If he brings a child into the world, he has half the responsibility for looking after that child and should equally want to be part of that child's day to day life.

The point is that men also hhave a responsibility to work towards equality. It is an issue for my son as much as my daughter.

I am pleased so many of us earn more than men on this thread.

One issue not discussed is that even very well educated professional women tend whether consciously or not to seek out men who will earn more and / or who are a bit older so therefore already earn more. It can lead to the situations on the thread - woman on half what the man earns by the time babies come. That was never our situation and I earned 10x what he did - no contest but that was in part because I married someone in a lower status job than mine (teaching) I married down in a sense - awful phrase but it's at the heart of these family decision. The woman surgeon on £100k a year with the £20k a nurse husband is not likely to give up her career. Interesting point though is that until now those combinations were rare - the woman surgeon wanted the male surgeon or equivalent - not the gardener with the nice bottom who can get it up in bed and look good on her arm.

Now that 60% of graduates are female and women outearn men in their 20s those women are going either to be seeking the higher earner than they earn men in a very smaller pool or move to marrying men who will ultimately earn less than they do and be happy with that. It never bothered me at all what we each earned as we both worked full time and very hard but it still seems to put off some 20 somethings when choosing a partner -0 that he could never earn as much, is lower status and would not be the one to give up work when babies come.

Of course this is all a very very important topic and crucial we get knickers in a huge twist over inequalities between men and women. When I entered my profession 50% or more of us were female - 30 years ago. About 20% of those at the top now are female. That is a massive attrition rate in part caused by women being brought up in sexist homes where it is expected women serve and men work or marrying sexist men who want them at home; also because they married up - so the man earns more rather than down or the same; also because discrimination still exists at work although that is not 100% of the reason; also because women don't push much for more pay(one of my daughters just got a big pay rise having had one rise mid year too because she's lobbied so hard for it and we had an interesting chat about that - women tend not to and men do); and no doubt other reasons too.

(I don't agree with the criticism of the Lean In book. I don't think it suggests women need to do anything different from men. It just says work hard and you do well, which is pretty much common sense.

maria

I did ask dd what she wanted to do when she grew up...apparently its marry a rich man!! (Think she wants to be a movie star now, can't figure out how I failed her so badly!)

DH was a doped up, drunken 17 year old when we met...quite the catch!

I'll take the gardener, if he can do my garden (sorry...)

The Sunday Times article (which also quoted Justine R above) had another person who said the saddest thing (or it may have been another article I read yesterday) is everyone is always telling her little girl who pretty she is and always asks their son what he will be when he grows up and never the girl. It is as if no one expects her to work, just to look pretty. This is awful. We need to ensure little girls are not just praised on looks all the time and are asked what careers they plan as much as boys.

That's an interesting (and scary) thought that even highly qualified, high earning women tend to seek out men of higher status...

I must say, it's not something I recognise in my own close friendship group.. But I guess we subconsciously select a lot of our friends because they have similar values.. I don't know. But clearly this is still a massive societal issue. Pretty scary that in 2014 it's like this... Surely women and men should be coming out of education with similar skills, aspirations and so on... Maybe it all starts much earlier with those comments to girls about prettiness and the expectation even from a young age that boys need to think about what they will do when they're older. Aaargh! I thought we'd come further than this as a society!!

I'm sitting back and imagining a rosy future now where as many dads as mums are pushing prams mid week, or attending toddler groups...

I'm very interested to see how the transferable parental leave option pans out... Will significant numbers of fathers take it up...? Will significant numbers of women 'let' them....?

I'd love to see that too Janey re dads out more but sadly lots of mums believe only they can look after the child and lots exclude fathers from the day to day care. Neither is more equipped to look after a child but some act that way.

There have been a few articles recently re girls and their parents believjng they should just snare a man or have a child. Teachers spend so much time educating them but its of little use unless the person is strong enough to go against their parents if they are bought up to believe they dont need a job or career.

There was a recent post on MN where the amount of women who chose their husband based on his earning power so they could keep them as they desired was astounding. We do ourselves no favours sometimes.

I think it's the core issue. If your husband earns double what you do he will not be the one giving up work. If you marry at university stage as was very common in the past, particularly when sex outside marriage was frowned on (that is when my parents married - I think it was the only way in the 1950s they thought they could easily get to bed) then you might well have equal status. (My mother kept my father for over 10 years whilst he qualified as a hospital consultant in the 1950s).

If you marry when you are a woman nearing 30 you probably end up with a slightly older man and you might consciously or otherwise have picked him because he has a similar reasonably well paid job. He is probably a bit older as men tend to mature a bit later than women and more women than not like to marry someone a bit older.

Anyway hopefully in due course things will be more gender neutral. They are certainly finding women in high paid professions or with good university degrees tend now to marry men like that and men like that tend to marry women like that (rather than their secretary) so there is a move towards couples where both earn a lot and of course the other couples where neither earn much. I suspect that is part of equality and evening things out. Although there will always be the much older rich man with the very young pretty thing on his arm I'm sure as he's led by his loins not his head. (people laugh at him of course).

Hear hear Maria.

The only thing im not entirely sure about is whether the age for meeting ones life partner has altered that dramatically? I agree that the average marriage and childbirth age has gone up, but I imagine many couples are pairing up quite a bit younger than that; it's just that its much more the norm to live together and wait for babies now.

Anyway, I entirely agree with the hope that society moves even further towards genuine equality... And by that I don't mean everyone should be the same (how dull would that be!) but that there aren't automatic assumptions about women and men's roles in the family and in wider society

Surely equality means that you can CHOOSE. So you can choose to stay at home if you can (as can the child's dad), or you can choose to work. It doesn't mean you HAVE to work, just to be equal. I hate that. I was brought up to work and to keep my job whatever, which meant that I spent a miserable year doing what felt terribly wrong to me. In the end, my DH supported MY CHOICE and defended it to my parents. My dad has now accepted that this was right for me, and my family, but it wasn't easy for him. I have known several SAHDs through my work, and they did an excellent job. Whoever wants to stay at home, and can do so financially, should have the choice - be it mum or dad. If they can't do so then that's fine, if they don't want to, that's fine too - but don't try and say women cannot stay at home because it's not feminist. That is removing all choice just as much as the 1950s did - just in the other direction.

You're missing appoint Maria.becuse woman earns less doesn't mean she automatically give up work
The higher earner should proportionately pay more in childcare,support woman to work

I think we're all agreed that equality means not having to conform to any specific role, whether that be working or not. Equality is about accepting that women and men are equal as parents, and that there is no reason why both genders can't take on whatever role suits their family best.

Despite the huge leaps forward we are still a long way from achieving that at a societal level, as the statistics, and the many posts above, bear out

Great post HM32.

But the fact is having carried their babies for 9 months many women will want to be at home with their dc more than men.I also think given that birth and pregnancy are biological and physical processes women's needs and desires as regards being with their children should be listened to both on an individual family basis and in society as a whole.

The unequal salaries thing reminds me of my brother and SIL. They met at university, where she got a better degree than him and went on to do a PhD. By the time she'd finished her PhD he'd had 4 years working in a professional job and she (and I'd like to think was just her attitude but possibly more widespread than I thought) considered her starting salary on a graduate job to be totally insignificant compared to his. She worked for a year or 2 and then decided that since his salary was already so much more than hers there was no point in her working, fell pregnant and gave up work to be a SAHM. Whereas given a few more years there was no reason why she couldn't earn as much as him, or at least develop a fulfilling career.

I imagine women marrying men who are a few years older than them go through the same thing.

Whereas you just can't imagine the same thing happening if the genders were reversed. I have struggled and really can't work out why - are there so many less women who are less ambitious than men?

Indeed although those of us who cannot wait to get time away from the baby and housework in order to be back working in a few weeks also should be allowed a voice and choice as women.

hear hear Retropear.