"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?

Ubik that reminded me that I really need new masonry bits.

Realise my post made it sound like DH does all the fun bits. He does also do about 35% of the grotty housework stuff - he would do 50% but I like him available to make me relentless cups of tea and listen to me talk rubbish all evening so I make sure a lot of it is done before he gets in.

blue just said that her children told her they liked her being home

If you've got a problem with that comment take it up with her kids for goodness sake!!!

If it helps you at all my children do not appreciate the fact that I'm at home at all...I think they are convinced I'm too lazy and stupid to work

Sorry...that first bit did not come over in the jokey manner in which I intended it . It came over as very arsey...sorry

Rufus I simply wondered why "they raced home " to her ??
Just a simple question ?

Ah Ok - no worries .

Rita I "raced home" to my sahm when I was older (during her periods sahm-ing) because I was old enough to walk to 500yards home from school without being collected.

Ha ha- they "raced home" partly to see me, but also to see what was for dinner! They would play games sniffing the air as they approached the kitchen guessing what I had cooked.

Is it a bad thing to be excited at coming home?

No problem rita

As soon as I reread I realised

I collected my children until the 3rd child finished junior school

10 years of dropping off and picking up....seems weird to have stopped

I know some parents have done a lot longer

If "not remembering" is a criteria for how we treat our children when they are young- then why bother?

I was responding to this

No but if you collected them why did they race home to see you ???? They would have been with you ?

They raced each other home when they were older- obviously before that I collected them.

My siblings and I raced each other home to our mum. She remembers it very fondly! I vaguely remember it.

Do you know what, there's nothing wrong with serving others. It's a perfectly valid life choice. Money, wealth, power.. Lots of these things are absolute bollocks. Serving others is seen as lesser precisely because it has predominantly been carried out by women through history. The answer to women's subjugation is not to denigrate the women who through the millennia have cared for and served others by buying into the fiction this is boring/unnecessary/lesser/unworthy, but to have proper recognition for the validity of caring for/serving others as something human beings need and value through their lifespan.

I expect it will be a cold day in hell before it happens.

And yeah, I work for money, use my education blah blah.

Thank you duplodon. "he answer to women's subjugation is not to denigrate the women who through the millennia have cared for and served others by buying into the fiction this is boring/unnecessary/lesser/unworthy, but to have proper recognition for the validity of caring for/serving others as something human beings need and value through their lifespan." This exactly.

Yes, duplodon. Well said.

Who cares. Just do what you want to do. I stayed home as it suited us due to DH job. We did at first both work full time but it didn't work. But we are not well off we just live frugally. However am always sensitive what i say to other mothers. I can afford now to work but not because we are rich. More because we have a low mortgage, large family and share a car and live frugally. Also childcare would be far too much. Luckily I wanted to stay home.

i am a sahm have been for 16 years. Loved every minute. But there are penalties to pay. Status, guilt, pension and divorce worries etc. I am glad I didn't miss kids plays and events. Time unrushed with them has been precious. However I am returning part time in a short time to a new career. My five children are all school age now. I still have a few worries as am so used to being around for them all the time. but I feel part time is best of both worlds now.

rufus

I did it for 18 years would have been 21 if dd had completed primary school.
That's scary.
I guess it will be collecting gc next, but not quite yet.

Without the 'service' of others nannies au pairs cleaners etc many career woman would also be at home. Room for all makes life interesting

Yes, YABU - and just a tad jealous perhaps?

Why does it mean they have a rich husband? I am a sahm. I've said that before. I don't need to work, because we made adjustments to get by. We moved out of town to a smaller flat so we had a lower mortgage. We do not go on holiday unless it is to the in-laws house a couple of hours away. (Except once when we booked very cheap last minute flights for a long weekend). Days out involve walking and picnic. The large majority of the children's clothes are second hand, ours are worn until they are worn through, we don't have luxuries like make up, eating out, cinema, alcohol (except on the rare occasion we have guests) etc. We have just enough to cover mortgage, bills, food and payment into a mortgage plan. So, yes, I'm lucky that I don't need to work, financially. and if I did, we'd probably be running at a loss because of childcare costs but that hardly means I married into money.

duplo I'm not sure that the answer to women 's servitude through history is to respect it more.

Would we say that about black people?

Would we say that black people have done a jolly good job and should be thanked for it? Or do we recognise that it's been a bloody disgrace?

I didn't work. It's only recently that we've had money. For a while we were living off one very modest salary. Yanbu that it's irritating that people would say that. But if you don't say anything to 'justify' being a sahm people say "is your OH well off?" and look at you a bit if you say no. So maybe they're just pre-empting that. But yabu about marrying a man with money. Is that ever really the case? Have you been watching too much Real Housewives of Atlanta?!!

Also I hate when people resent me for being a sahm when they've chosen not to do it because they want all the things that come along with having 2 salaries (holidays, second car, new clothes etc) when they can see quite clearly that I don't have those things.

Absolutely, Word. The glorification of domestic work is used mostly by men and sometimes other women to keep women down. You just enjoy being at home dear; I could never do what you do; hardest job in the world - enjoy being power behind the thrown, much better. Wonderful sainted woman just to want to be done, clean and do childcare.

I and most women in theuk (most of us work) do not find housework or day in day out childcare and the like interesting and wonderful and we want the balanced life most men have which is a mixture of loving our children and family and caring for them whilst also working. That is what works best for most women and men and always has. I have never thought putting caring on a pedestal as anything other than an attempt to ensure women are chained to sinks. it's a bit like an ISIS/fundamentalist religious con to make you think you know your place, like the black African slave and a Victorian servant but never dare to rise above that and please think that that place of domestic boredom is just as worthy a calling as leading the country, the board or the factory.