"Oh I'm lucky that I don't need to work, financially"

[TerraNovice]

I'm going back to work next month and while chatting with other mums about it I've come across the above phrase a few times. Perhaps IBU but it sounds insufferably smug to be - so they married guys with money, so what? There's nothing wrong with saying you're a SAHM so why add the caveat that you've got a rich husband?

I'm SAHM and dread saying it to people. Some are very judgemental. Working became impossible logistically for me...2 dc...Dh works away a lot...no network for support..and I had a job which I loved but couldn't not be available for if I was contacted at home on days off etc. So 12 months ago I stopped and life is less stressful for all of us. I am lucky we can afford it and I do get lots of snide comments about being lucky/ aren't you bored/ what example are you setting you're children/ you must have a rich DH. Fwiw he's not.

We were very cautious with our mortgage as we bought as the recession hit and were mindful that our situation could change. We have always saved. We've done little to our house over the years...kitchen and bathrooms are old..TV ten years old. So it irritates me that people think we are wealthy. We are in fact careful and cut our cloth accordingly and made some sacrifices.
I don't make any judgements on how anyone else chooses to live. Our Dm and DGM fought to have the choice to be able to work or SAHM. Why can't we be supportive of each other in whatever choices are right for our family???

Absolutely, Arcticbunny. Dh leaves the house at 6 and returns at 8, with a very long commute. We're all sooooo lucky!

6 am to 8pm, that is - it would be lucky to have a two-hour day

Exactly Mrs Thor. I try and help out my working friends when I can because i know they have it tough trying to juggle everything. I really respect them and it can make me feel a bit spoilt that I have it relatively easier not working.

This comment, all depends on the circumstances whether it's smug or somone just trying to say they know they are fortunte to have the choice.

Yep same here Brenda. I did actually find it less exhausting when I worked

I have been guilty of saying this. It's absolutely not that I am smug, but that I realise how very, very lucky and privileged I am to be in this position, to the point of feeling acute guilt about it. I am currently unable to work because of illness, and I am in the amazing position of being able to focus on fighting through and getting better without any hassle at all from the benefits system, because we are living on DH's wage. The illness that I have is something that is very minor in most people, but I have it to an extraordinary and extremely unusual degree, to the point that it is very debilitating. A lot of people have said to me 'Oh, I had that - it's nothing really' with the implication that my experience must be identical to theirs and that I am therefore malingering and on the make. I cannot even begin to describe how that judgement feels.

I know that I would struggle against all kinds of similar administrative and bureaucratic assumptions that would be made about my not working with this condition if I had to negotiate the benefits system. I cannot imagine how I would cope with having to deal with constant assessments and mistrust and the awful, awful assumption that if you don't work you are somehow a scrounger. I know that there will be women out there who are having to do this, and frankly I do not know how they are coping and I absolutely do not think it is fair that they should have to.

This is why I try to say 'I'm lucky that I don't have to work'. Because I am. But it's not like my life is great. I sit at home in pain and very isolated. I am on medication that makes me depressed. I barely recover from one operation and I have to have another. I look at all my friends on Facebook getting on with their lives and careers and moaning about things that I would just love to be able to do, and I feel like I am old before my time and that time is just running like sand through my fingers - I can't grasp it or make the most of it.

shovetheholly . I know flowers don't help. But neither do words, so have them anyway. .

I'm in that position. Maybe when someone speaks to me about it, I should tell the full story?

I stopped work due to bereavement, relocation and then illness, and also now, even though the illness is finally getting better, I have been out of the job market so long I would really struggle to get back in.

I am volunteering now, but I know I have a long road ahead of me. Until recently due to the state of the economy and jobs market in this country, I would have genuinely felt awful about taking a job that someone else might have needed a lot more than me (a single parent or a person whose partner was also out of work).

My career was in a sector with a severe skills shortage at the time, so taking a job someone else could have had was never an issue for me before, but having been out of work for 5 years now, I would struggle to get back into that and so would be looking for quite a generalist job now. In my area, the jobs market is getting a little bit better the last few months or so and places are struggling more to get staff, so I can see how maybe it wouldn't be a concern now.

So I do feel grateful that I haven't been forced to go back at the expense of my health and that I do have some time to rebuild my cv.

And some of the reason I have been able to do this financially was because my mum died and she left me some money which I could contribute to the household even though I wasn't working (I paid off a chunk of the mortgage and then we remortgaged to reduce our monthly repayments). I would much rather still have my mum and not have to look after her whilst she died a horrible, horrible painful death, not have had to resign because she needed more care than the system was able to give (especially as she was so terrified, anxious and in pain I felt she needed someone she knew and who loved her around for her last weeks).

Also losing my mum when she was relatively young (67) made me realise that just working away as hard as I could until I retired and then enjoy time with DH and DCs then maybe isn't always on the cards for everyone, so if you have the chance to take some time with the people you love, take it while you can sometimes, don't always put things off until tomorrow.

So maybe there are a multitude of more complex reasons behind a simple statement.

my Father worked and worked and worked and then died. Young. And then my Mum worked two jobs to put food on the table so we rarely saw her. That's why I've chosen to be mostly a sahm, on the whole. I realise that when people question my choice it's because they're insecure or envious. It doesn't bother me these days!

Sorry to read that Candyfloss However, OP YABU. They are merely acknowledging their good fortune. However this thread already seems to be morphing into a SAHM bashing session.....

In my experience women who randomly make self-justifying statements about how lucky they are often feel something different in reality, maybe a vague sense of unease with the situation but, of course, they know they are "lucky" to not work.

Put aside your own insecurities and ask "Why? Did you not like your work?" and see where the conversation goes.

Moustache what a tough time you have been through

I am volunteering too and have thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact it may now lead to some part time work which I now feel in the position to do....since I have been dumped by nearly 10 year old ds (in favour of mates, after school clubs and hobbies)

Surely the intention with that sentence is to say that they're lucky enough to be able to have the option of working or not?

Because ultimately that's all it comes down to. Choice. And that's where the luck comes in, whether it is because of careful planning or not; it's the ability to take the option that works best for you and your family.

DH and I will be starting to TTC again soon and after we have this one (fingers crossed), I won't be going back to work. I could - we've timed it so that we'll only have one at a time in extortionate childcare, and my salary makes it worthwhile - but I don't intend to. And I'm able to make that choice because my DM died and I now have a private income of my own which will cover the shortfall in our finances without my salary. I'm lucky that I'm going to be in a position to choose. I paid far too high a price for it, but whatever the route I still have options now that I didn't before. And I may find that it doesn't work for me - I'm not a natural earth mother and it takes a couple of years before I find children charming, even my own. At that point I may go back to work. My choice. I have choices.

As some have said, I would find it most irksome that it is assumed a woman would only work if her husband doesn't earn enough

Didn't know we were still living in the 1950's.

Everyone in the country could choose not to work if they wanted as benefits would keep them at home. So it is always a choice if you work or not. If someone says they are lucky not to work those of us who find work is better than being at home could ask what it was about their work they did not like and what a pity they did not find work they enjoyed and all manner of responses but I expect we just politely keep silent.

That's not necessarily true Jilly. If your DP earns over the threshold for household income then you won't get any benefits, so it's not as simple as just packing it in.

Thank you MrsThor

Great to hear that your volunteering is working out well for you!

V Late to thread but need to say:

I'm a SAHP and yes I do say I am lucky - maybe I should accurately say well we worked our fucking arses off for years - but maybe you'd take offence at that by implication you havn't.

BUT I did not marry a rich husband - how presumptious of you OP - how do you know I dont have my own money or family money.

What about the families who are not 'rich' but decide to go without what other may consider essentials so they can be a SAHP.

Comparing your situation with others is a dead end - it's like coparing apples and oranges - all of use have had multiple factors affecting what choices were have had and then we have all pursued different choices.

However very dare you OP.

Where does choosing a rich husband come into it?!

I was 17 when Dh and I got together so I would have had to have a bloody good crystal ball to choose him for financial reasons

I could say 'I don't have to work financially' as DH could cover everything with no childcare to pay. But that's not a choice we'd make as we'd have a much lower standard of living than we have now.

BUT I did not marry a rich husband - how presumptious of you OP

Actually, yes. DH and I were 16 when we got together. I was the better prospect back then. Perhaps he married me for my money

Ok scrap what I said - I didn't read the OP properly

So this woman didn't say that she didn't work because of her husband's earnings, you just assumed that...

So actually YABU - sorry!

Although I do find anybody who talks about the ins and outs of their finances (in RL!) a bit weird. IMO it's nobody's business.

Anything we say as women regarding our decisions to stay at home or go back to work, is judged... mostly by other women. This means we therefore feel the need to justify our decisions when we shouldn't have to.

Let's stand together and stop judging each other. Some people are fortunate enough to have a choice and acknowledge it. How sad that we feel someone smug because they feel lucky to have a choice. It's even sadder to feel that they stay at home because they were not lucky enough to have a fulfilling career.

We're all different, make different choices and we should be celebrating this- rather than hoiking our judgey pants up as high as they'll go!

We all do what we feel is best for our family and that's enough for me. If my justifying my decision to you when I don't need to offends...not my problem.

YES blastedchickens

sinkle yes I earned way ore than my DH for the first few years of our relationship - but I do have a DH who has now way way exceeded any potential earnings I could have achieved. But he wasnt always on this path. Talking about this just this weekend, he freely admits he would never have got himself to where he is without my support and continued support. We see ourselves as a team, just one of us has a monetary value attached.

Yes we have been through a temperory separation and i am full aware of the in's and out's of where that would leave me - but Oh wait I could go back and earn enough myself to run a house and two kids on my own if needed be.

Folk should get over themselves...really.

When are we going to simply just live our lives the way that works for us and let other people live their lives the way that works for them and then mind our own business and SHUT UP about all this SAHM vs WOHM rubbish?