"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 don't know anyone who hands over their offspring to childcare 'around the clock'! But I guess it sounds more effective if you want to liken mum and dad both having a career as some form of slavery ....

Ok, so it's offensive to suggest that being a wage slave is a thing but not offensive to compare, however tenuously and subtly, sahms to black slaves?
Hypocrisy much?

I've spent many years being a sahm and now work from home, so have no axe to grind. Unlike those like Jilly who think the way forward is to return to work within days of childbirth and compare sahms to prostitutes.
Any other oppressed minorities you'd like to compare to sahms? So far we've had black slaves, victims of Isis, prostitutes....

considered the norm to have 2 working parents earning money which they can hand over to a childminder to look after their offspring around the clock.

Oh it's much worse than that fur lots of people. I worked with women who would finish a 10 hour nightshift at 8am, rush home, look after their children and friends children til 4pm then husband/friend would take over and they would get some sleep til start of shift at 10/11pm. Fortunately they were not permanent nightshift so would have a few days to recover.

I worked with women with tiny babies who would work until 2am, drive to parents house, pick up baby, go home and try to sleep/care for baby until they started work again at 5pm.

Oh there are much tougher ways to be a working parent

Exactly Ubik and that's probably why some Wohps are insecure about comments like 'I don't have to work, financially'. Who wouldn't be fucked off and resentful of a family with the choice to have a sahp when they're working under those conditions? It's hardly living the workers dream is it? It we're pulling in high 6 figures and have a round the clock brilliant nanny, it might be easier to reflect in a rise tinted girl power way.

I rarely get angry at SAHM comments, I honestly don't care what people think

I do get annoyed with generalisations "SAHM do this" or "WOHM do that"

The words are "some" or "most"

But the one thing that gets me very angry (see angry face...) is comments about housework

And that's from both "sides" my house was tidy as a working woman, it was tidy as a SAHM to pre schoolers and it's tidy now...it's not because I have nothing to do, I do about half an hour a day

So no, I don't just do housework I don't think it's a great thing and I need respect for it (I know that's not what was meant by that comment), if your husband doesn't help and you want him to "sort yourself out love" if he doesn't help and that fine with you "go for it"

And I think I get annoyed because I do see housework as a chore (a chore masses of working women do at least a little bit of ) and I find it very insulting that people think that that's all I'm good for and all I do

morethan

I knew you'd done more...I was just waiting.....

personally I find it weird that posters like Word, (who's admitted that her partner earns 'ridiculous money' whilst she too writes novels and earns a fortune) and Jilly who owned an island and put 5 kids through private school, see fit to project their ideas about working parenthood onto the vast majority who earn national average salary and are trying to keep their heads above water.
And I speak as someone with salary way above national average. I like to think I can empathise with the work/life balance dilemma of a school teacher, doctor, nurse, traffic warden, refuse collector...we're not all in the top 5%
We don't all want to leave our kids with someone else for 50 hours a week.

I've been a SAHM, part time shift worker and now ft working mother (at home with tonsillitis)

Looking objectively I think good quality heavily subsidised childcare needs to be available universally. This would help many women back into work and help their future financial planning.

The whole debate around 'choice' and 'parenting' etc is just irrelevant to many people - you play the cards you are dealt and your children have to just get on with the situation. That's the truth.

and in the past I've outsourced our kids to daycare our of necessity and not because I was harnessing the spirit of Emily Pankhurst and banging the drum for the sisterhood.

It's not feminist to suggest that a woman can't be a sahm and it be a positive thing.
You're just exchanging one form of oppression for another by implying that all women should work fulltime and leave their kids with an (always female, always low paid) carer.

i don't know why you're accusing me of hypocrisy- I've never likened SAHP or WOHP to slavery!!

My view is quite simple: SAH if you want, perfectly valid choice as long as your partner is happy with it too. What matters is raising well adjusted young people- which can be done in many different ways

has anyone said yet
Wohps do everything sahps do and work too?
I'm waiting for that crap nugget of wisdom to surface

I am a SAHM and when I worked my husband and I did most of what I do now. The only difference is now I don't have to start my day at 5am having has a maximum of five hours sleep and the meals are better.

Fwiw I think Jillys views are mostly bizarre and I totally disagree with likening SAHM to slavery.
I just find it equally bizarre and objectionable to try to counter her argument by talking about working parents as 'wage slaves' and 'oppressed'.

What is key here is choice. Sure, a couple working crazy hours through necessity may well feel oppressed. But a woman stuck at home unwillingly for years because she can't earn Enough for childcare is equally oppressed.

Running a house is now a skilled job and more difficult than an office job Yes as food shopping and cleaning needs a degree.

Whether a person has children or not, every household has to clean, pay bills and shop. Millions manage to do it and work.

More housework falls to women as men rarely get the chance to quit work and are expected to keep their wife to her required standard. Where both work, it is usually shared a lot more.

Not working doesn't make a parent skilled and is quite offensive to the husbands paying for that choice.

There it is again, the only work that's important is work you've done a degree for.

Men rarely get to quit work and are expected to keep their wife to her required standard? There's a neat little patriarchal syllogism. As men are, you know, lining up to care for kids and run their houses. Chomping at the bit they are - rushing in from work, desperate to get at it because they value its importance so much.

Actually my husband has always loved being hands on with our children... And has always got the dinner going if he's first home from work... And indeed shared the nursery pick ups back in the day when our kids were small.
I guess a lot depends on the kind of partner you choose, and the lifestyle you shape together

So you think there are no broader social issues or concerns, it's just what partner you choose? That men, in general, aren't cultured and conditioned to view domestic work as being a female enterprise? Do you think all women can easily find partners who will share all aspects of housework equally? Why do you think they don't?

SnowWhite did you actually read my post? I specifically said that I am not equating running a house with something we should have qualifications in.

What I said was that I personally have done paid jobs that are a lot less intellectually stimulating. A lot of office jobs are hideously repetitive and deathly dull, and whilst staff may well have the ability to think for themselves, they are not allowed to. At least when I am at home I can think for myself and do things the way that works best.

And obviously if you have a job that you enjoy, that you find stimulating and demanding, and enjoyable, and that brings you something above and beyond a salary at the end of the month, of course you won't find budgeting for your own home more interesting than that. I understand that.

I am really just pointing out that the whole thing is often considered in terms of women's brains rotting away whilst they change nappies, when in actual fact plenty of intelligent hardworking people don't do jobs that are interesting of rewarding.

I wonder, those on this thread who's work meant a 6 figure household income, who coincidentally have a LOT to say about what other women "should" be doing, who cleaned your loos, cared for your kids and did your shopping?

A cleaner? Childminder/nanny? Housekeeper/online shopping service?

Somebody has to do those jobs. Poorer (than you) women often do them, on a part time basis. It is very disingenuous to say SAHM are enslaved by their domestic tasks while simultaneously paying some woman peanuts to do them for YOUR family. Have you checked you are paying a living wage to those who do your domestic tasks? What magic transition occurs that makes me cleaning a toilet a worthless task of subjugation if it's my loo but a worthwhile career choice if it's yours?

I personally think housework is boring and unfulfilling, but it still has to be done. I get my excitement and fulfillment in other ways. Does that make me any more horribly oppressed than the average WOH person who isn't fulfilled and excited by their paid work?

This idea that attaining happiness is easy and that the answer is formulaic is so childish. Any sentence that begins "All women should.." is antifeminist. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Our family has a six figure income, we have always cleaned our own loos.

And all the rest?

I have had two jobs that I have loved, I enjoy running my home as much. However doing a job that I loved and running a home filled with children and animals was exhausting. Just running that home is relaxed and therefore right now that is my choice.

Is that directed at me duplodon?

We have never had cleaners because I don't feel comfortable getting somebody else to clean my house. The only exception has been during very difficult pregnancies but even then I cleaned my loo!

I have had somebody at home when I was working to feed the children breakfast and collect them from school and look after them until DH or I got home.

Tbh any mention of feminism is redundant until women have real choice.
Most working class women don't have a choice - they struggle. They are not worrying about Tybalts secure attachment a d range of emotional expression. They are worrying about picking up extra hours, shift changes, the logistics of ad hoc childcare ie: can they look after Julie's children after nightshift so she can watch them the following day?

Choice and domestic cleaning...meh...it's what irritates me about feminism