More women have to accept they can't be the default primary carer?

[Babycham1979]

Inspired by another thread, I'd like to ask others what you think about the myth (as I see it) that women can 'have it all'.

I know many educated, professional women who have still insisted on being their children's primary carer as soon as they're born. The fathers' preference has always come second and they invariably end-up acting as the primary earner (often against their wishes).

It seems as if many women are asking for the impossible in expecting to fill very senior positions in business and politics, but simultaneously assuming motherhood to have primacy over fatherhood.

Parental leave is almost equally available now; women out-earn men up until child-bearing age (29); and more girls are graduating (esp in law and medicine) than men. Now is surely the time for the sisterhood to actively encourage men to be the primary carers of their children? At least half the guys and dads that I know would love this option, yet it's not been made available to any of them.

Are we really saying that women can do anything in the public sphere as well as men, but men can't parent as well as women? Either we're equal or we're not.

Only when we have real parity at home can we have parity in the workplace, no?

My dh is working part-time to look after the dcs. How is he being denied this chance, or rather why are the OP's male friends being denied it? Not wanting to do it is another matter.

I'm in that demographic babycham and I know very few men who'd want to be the primary carer. I know plenty who'd like to see more of their kids, but not many (if any) who would be willing to take over all the admin, chores, drop off/pickup responsibilities and corresponding career death/salary drop that tends to come with being primary carer.

Anyway as others have said - I don't want DH to be primary carer. I don't want to be primary carer either. That's not equality, that's exchanging one kind of imbalance for another. I'd like us to be equal carers and both cut back a bit at work to allow this. But because the job market places a much higher value on full time work, we are better off if one of us is primary carer and cuts back a lot on work, and the other stays full time, than if we both cut back a bit.

You. DH and I have both always worked- downside was horrendous childcare costs which ate up my entire salary for a good while. Upside is neither of us felt compelled to become so high flying that we worked crazy hours. We always felt it was better for our children to have two parents with a decent work/ life balance, than one working all hours and the other stopping work

But it's different for other families and its about agreeing what works for you as a couple and your children

Beginning of that post got lost! I was responding to mini pie.

I know lots and lots of opposite-sex couples with little kids/babies where the woman is the primary carer, one or two where the man is, and for every one of them the decision was taken according to what would maximise their income/what was possible without getting sacked. For us, my DH earns more than me (partly because in the years when we were trying for kids he felt more able than I to take risks with his career) and for me my company paid a generous subsidy on top of my statutory maternity pay so it made sense for me to step away from work. Competence didn't come into it at all - we're all incompetent when we start looking after kids but you pick it up.

I'm a bit pissed off at the tone of the OP though. "Having it all". "Have to accept" we can't be the primary carer. It makes it sounds like SAH parenthood is a blessed holiday and women are skipping between that and jobs like we were playing ourselves. Parenthood is hard work whichever way you cut it, and trying to manage your affairs so you've enough to live on and can survive illness or redundancy isn't really about whether you get to "have it all" or not. Unless the All is financial security for your children. I'll have that.

I am the primary carer and can't imagine it any other way in this household. I was a SAHM for just over a year as severe PND made it impossible for me to work. I didn't plan to be out of paid employment for very long, but it was very necessary.

Over the years I have gradually increased my working hours so I am now full time in a senior management level, but I still do pretty much everything for DS. DH earns more and is able to commit more to his profession so will continue to increase his wages, mine are unlikely to do the same.

However, DH has come to realise that he can't juggle the demands of working and caring. I went away for 3 days last week and DH found out how much time DS needs in terms of organising and ferrying about. DH had kind of forgotten that 9 year olds need a lot of stuff!

I think some women can manage to have it all, but then a lot cant or don't want it all. I wanted to ensure I was the primary carer before my children went to school, which would have really compromised my career had I focused on that first. I paused my studies, to return to later, and got for a job that would provide the flexibility I needed to not depend on childcare. Quite often it's about compromise.

What kind of sad excuse for a marriage or life partnership involves one partner "insisting" and the other "coming second"?

I'm sorry for the OP, who seems to not only think this is normal, she genuinely doesn't appear to be able to imagine any other way of living. Her world is filled with couples who are concerned first with getting their own way and second with being exactly like everyone else.

For goodness sake, OP, in a happy, stable relationship, people don't "insist" on getting their own way to their partner's cost, they decide together what's best for the whole family. They take responsibility for their own decisions instead of blaming society.

Nobody can have it all. Surely almost everyone's figured that out by the time they are five?

This question is so relevant to us as a family at the moment. I have a much higher earning potential than my DH and he is older than me. So our choice was if I stayed at home we would have much smaller house, limited budget, etc. if I go out to work we can have a large house, private schooling for kids and holidays. Plus I'm not ready to stop working yet as I still have ambition. DH feels burnt out and ready to quit, So we have decided DH will be a SAHD.

We are both very happy with this decision but there is a tiny part of me that feels jealous and sad. I have friends who have also taken this decision and it works for them. My family is also very supportive of this approach so no pressure there. But for some reason I still feel like I'm the odd one out. But in the big scheme of things I need to do what's right for the family and overall this feels right to me.

OH is my our son's primary carer at present. When I go on maternity leave in a few weeks he will go back to work [he is self employed]

He has had DS since on and off since I went back to work in January. We are lucky in that he has been able to accept a few projects here and there as my sister has been able to offer childcare so he's had periods of FT work.

I had DS for the first 14 months though! Not sure I'd have wanted to leave him as a really small baby and go back to work??

That is exactly how I feel ShowMe - a great post imo!

Yes, great post Showme!

Great post ShowMe.

If I could add a couple more observations:

• It's no surprise to me that there should be a negligible or even negative gender pay gap in people's twenties. There is, after all, equal pay legislation. The gap starts widening precisely because women have children -- they take career breaks, work part-time or otherwise take their feet off the accelerator, and the majority of those who do then find it very difficult to catch up in the pay stakes.

-I love the idea of all these poor, helpless men who are dying to stay at home with the children but aren't allowed to. Since when have men not been able to exercise whatever choices they want? That's the point of feminism so that women have the same choices. If men want to share care or stay at home, they can as a whole load of posters above have testified.

• It's not a myth that women can 'have it all', but it is an achievement that is available to a miniscule percentage of women. This is basically because most jobs above middle management level require people to work very long hours. And if you're going to get to that level of seniority, you've probably had to put in the hours at a more junior level too. So you either need a partner who can take on most of the childcare or, if you don't have a partner or he or she is working full time too, you need a nanny. And try employing a full-time, into-the-evenings nanny even on two junior or middle-management salaries.

If you ask me, what's got to change is the expectation of incredibly long hours.

I don't quite agree with snow.
We are not taking about giving birth or even the first months of life for a baby. To say that a mother m
Needs to be the primary carer in those days because of bfing is one thing.
But it doesn't mean that she should be the only carer nor does it mean they once the baby is weaned (which re bfing will done fir most women by the time the child is 6 months old) then there is no reason why fathers can't be doing half of the parenting and caring.
Why us there even a need for a primary carer, leaving the other partner a secondary, therefore non important, carer??

I agree with the OP that things are not going to change until women are happy to see their role in life as something else than 'just' a mum. Just as that and nothing else rather than as a put down.

Also I do have an issue with the idea that nothing is better than being a mum and work us just work. Mi lovey work, I find it rewarding and exciting and satisfying. It gives pleasure than being a mum will never give me.
And that's because I am a mum but not just a mum.

And the reality us that if being a primary carer is a 24/7 type of activity then there is no room for women to do anything else. So if you want to opportunity to do something else, be something else, what ever it is, then you need to 'share' the responsibility of caring for the dcs with the father if your children.
Atm we have the worse situation where we are supposed to be primary carer, to stop work/vastly reduce hours to look after the dcs bit at the same time, if you get divorced/become a widow, you are suppose to stand on your two feet as if you had worked all your life as you had the same freedom work wise than a man currently has

My friend works full time while her husband stays home with their baby. you do what works for you surely?!

how on earth do you know so much about your friend's financial positions??!

I work and DH is a SAHD. We swapped over when dc3 was 10 months old. I still breastfeed. He was a SAHD to my eldest too before I had dc2.

We do what is best for the family at any given time, it works for us. Being a SAHP doesn't mean you are a failure. Some people aren't interested in high flying careers. I think if a woman or a man wants to progress in a career then it should be an option for both of them, but both parents have a responsibility to ensure their family is ok.

You have to do what works for your family. I have a degree and worked in law, my DP has a manual job but what I earned in a week he can earn in 1 nights work plus his work is quite flexible. I've probably screwed my career over by becoming a SAHM but for us it was the only workable option. Plus I can retrain later in life before I go back to work. In an ideal world we'd be sharing caring for our son 50/50 and both be working but it just couldn't feasibly work for us.

At least half the guys and dads that I know would love this option, yet it's not been made available to any of them.

I don't believe you

As TooMuchTooOld points out- for a lot, if not most couples, it's a question of arrangements being decided on according to income and not getting sacked.

Op, you're falsely presenting an image of established equality in the workplace, with flexible working practices abound, understanding employers, sympathetic to the demands of 'family life'. A situation in which a majoroty of men could fulfill their overwhelming desire to be SAHP- have a little 'time out', relax a bit in their domestic havens with no effect on the family finances! This kind of work life balance is not a reality in the UK, not even in your 'London' high flying demographic. In fact knowing quite a few people that inhabit that world I've heard of quite a few cases of discrimination in senior roles both directly and indirectly. Your premise being that these conditions have been established in the workplace and that therefore women are to 'blame' for this default position. Women are at fault again which is hardly the argument of a 'feminist'?

Snow and when you have spent 20 years looking after your dcs and being a mum, then what do you have? Who are you? How are you going to define yourself? (genuine question there. If you define yourself as what you do for a living, whether it's your job, being a primary carer or anything else, what happens when that thing disappear? Who are you? I've seen so many people for example who just crumpled when they get retired because they were defining themselves as their job. The same happens with defining yourself as 'just' a mum. What happens when your dcs have left home? Who are you?)

I have no issue with SAHM. Hell I was one. But what I am saying is that women should never define themselves as just that because they are so much more than that. It is so reductive (??). And the alternative to not defining yourself as a mum isn't to be 'just' a lawyer or whatever.
I am all of those. I am a mum and I am a professional. I am also a friend and a member of a community. What should my option be reduced to just ONE of those things? And why should one of them automatically get more importance than the others?

re the long hours. It is an issue but then it also is an issue for men. The difference is that society is telling them that their main role is to provide money so their primary role is their work. So that's acceptable. Whereas women don't.
Eg: I have a job where I am working long hours. My DH is responsible to pick the dcs up from after school club 3 days a week whilst I m not back at home until 7.30pm at best. Now that was seen as completely unacceptable by women around me. It has been tutted, eyes browns raised etc. You see I must be one of those women who put their job before their children. I'm such a bad mother etc... (Read threads on here and you will similar ideas tbh)
When I reality, I see most of my clients at the end of the day (when they have finished work). It's allowing me to make a full time wages whilst reducing childcare costs and having 2 days where I pick to dcs up from school. And I LOVE my job. DH gets to be FATHER instead of a spare part that 'helps' with the childcare.

Last thing.

Society puts a lot of pressure on both men and women to act according to some specific rules.
Saying that men have all the choice they want is not the reality. They are under pressure, just like women, to act in a certain way. You know all the men don't cry, they are providers, they are as good as the size of their bank account, they can't be showing feelings and all that crap.
That's why so few men actually take on the responsibility of caring. The pressure and the feeling of worthlessness attached to it is too big for most men, even though they will hide under the fact that they earn more, don't enjoy it etc...
And women have their little box too. the one that tells them that women are caring, that being a mum 'is the best time in their life', that none will ever be as good as them for their dcs etc. (and a lot of other stuff along the lines of your looks are more important than your brain).
The reason it has worked so far is because the work is the divided between two groups. One does the caring & nurturing of the children (necessary to the species to survive), the other provides (to that everyone can eat).
To change that, you need for both groups to change and step out of their little box. For men to take over some of the nurturing tasks and for women to take on some of the providing tasks.
Because very simply, if women do all the providing and all the caring (the having it all type of scenario), then they might as well live on their own and use sperm donors!
On the other side, a system like this will feel very safe for both groups. Everyone has a role, will be looked after in specific ways by the other etc. That's why too it can just as hard for women than for men to accept change. Holding onto the female role is a way to protect yourself too.

All that being very generalisation around the way the society functions. Of course, on a case to case basis, things will differ.