"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've never been dumped by a husband or boyfriend actually. Not sure why but it's never happened.

"Washing the feet of the poor in a care home"
Wow! Just wow.

I cannot believe someone can be so high achieving and presumably intelligent but be so out of touch with reality.

Oh wait is Jilly in fact, David Cameron ...

Tell your daughters most people cannot earn much and she should know her place by aiming no higher than her local beauty salon.

I will explain the realities of living in on certain incomes. I want my children to be happy and fufilled. Not everyone requires a large salary to be happy. You are not mediocre if you are doing a job you love for money you are satisfied with. That includes working in a salon and nursing, both jobs which, along with being a florist come out top in the "happiest" jobs surveys.

I won't be encouraging my daughter to aim low at all. But I certainly was taught throughout my school days that prestigious jobs weren't really for the likes of me and that I would be happier if I knew my place. My father threw up his hands in horror at the thought of me studying law and so I didn't. He told me he thought that medicine would be far too much responsibility for me. His response when I was successful in a job I had applied for was 'aw, they couldn't fill the vacancy then, so they gave it to you? That's really lucky for you'. I'm making him sound like a monster and he's not, but he is of a generation where people were taught to know their place and he thought he was doing me a real favour in life by not letting me get big ideas, because it was better to accept from the start that I wouldn't succeed than to aim high and fall short. I have no real belief that I have an ability to do anything, because life has indeed taught me that it's not to be. I often wonder if things would be different if I had been told that I was just as good as everyone else, instead of to remember thqt probably everyone else is actually better than me.

I will never do that to my children, ever, either my son or my daughter. But nor will I teach them that the only way I will value them will be if they earn a fortune.

Good. I want to live in a country where people have different views but I do think it's a shame where parents like treacle's put daughters off well paid work. Of course none of us will tell a child they can do X if they clearly cannot but having self confidence is a great thing to give a child and letting them realise most of them if they work hard enough can get to be whatever that high paid job might be that could suit them is a good thing.

I don't think many of us disagree with each other on this thread. Just because someone is a parent at home does not mean they have to encourage their child to pick work which enable them to be at home with children or not get a job although I am not saying those cultures in the UK where girls marry at 16 and do not work should be made illegal or anything like that.

Jilly, you're a high flyer, an educated ambitious woman with lawyer daughters.
I'm assuming you gave the same encouragement to your son who you've mentioned previously is a postman?
Despite your encouragement he became a postman not an equities trader.

Jilly.

For somebody with so much intelligence I don't see how you fail to see that some people are happy to work in a job/career that suits them irrespective of huge amounts of money.
you seem to tie self confidence and esteem to how much money you earn.
Some of us are confident and have high self esteem without finding the need to work.
If our children work hard they can choose what they want to do, this is a bit different to assuming they will have low self esteem if they have a poorer paid job/career.

jilly has gullet gulped capitalism.

I feel sorry for her.

There's nothing wrong with an honest bit of capitalism ;)

Some people become lawyers and choose to practise an area, for the public good, which earns considerably less than their spouse's "lower status" job. Are they aiming low? BTW this is a male partner, very well respected but socially/intellectually rewarded whilst his wife has climbed the ladder in her "job for the girls".
Just throwing that into the mix.

And - gasp - he wants to take a year or two out to sahp when wife returns after maternity.

Shockingly some people think this is a bad thing (it's been called "unnatural" - the breadwinner role reversal thing, the fact he put ethics ahead of earnings and the man "giving up" work temporarily ) ... a hands on dad, a mum supporting her family, a child with 3 years of max parental input.
But it's the reverse of the norm...

Oh and my dh always politely corrects people when they talk down to me. I have equal qualifications (from a less well off background) and just like him chose a job I enjoyed ... and got several promotions in.

My mum was a WOHM and balanced things well, I never felt alone or anything so I'm happy to follow how she did her thing.

My DH had a SAHM and wants to emulate her. Himself.

Both happy ... hopefully happy kid too!

Jilly who will wash your feet when you are old and in a care home? SOMEONE has to do it, no? All these unambitious low paid grunt jobs you eschew, you must surely be intelligent enough to realise that SOMEBODY needs to do those jobs?

Also "we are doing God's work"? What, like washing feet?

Doing God's work, as most people on the thread will have realised was the famous Blankfein of Goldman Sachs' line. And he was right.

As for my graduate son currently being a postman I am the one who am happy to say he is and surely anyone reading my posts can see that is entirely consistent with all my posts - give children opportunities and they make their own choices. What I want for everyone's children is to make informed choices and I am not sure all children particularly girls realise what huge opportunities there are out there for them.

I've heard this so many times. Without a doubt there a some who say it in a smug way, but I'm sure there are others who are just stating the facts. I always think those who say it smugly will have karma knocking on their door when their rich husband trades them in for a younger model. I prefer having my own money, its not a lot, but its mine and I don't need to worry about my lifestyle changing because of any dependence on a bloke. My lifestyle did change but I adapted to it on my own and that's fine. I generally see women who wouldn't have a clue how to manage on their own. They brag on facebook about their new car, new kitchen, multiple holidays, dinners out etc. However, I have always thought that they are probably fairly insecure to feel that they have to keep selling their lifestyle to others. If you're really happy with what you have and how you live your life, there isn't any need to go brag about it.

I've always been quite perplexed with this obsession some people have with things - don't get me wrong, I love my home and making it nice etc, but I have done it on a budget over the years and waited for things rather than making do with things I don't really want. I have a friend who only presents as being happy when she can ring and run off a list of what designer things she has purchased or when they spent 50k on their kitchen etc - however within a week of a shopping spree she is on the phone depressed. Some people only have an identity if they are spending.

I spent all my money years ago on sending my son to private school as he is ASD - I worked additional jobs to my corporate career for the £25k per year for 7 years. I was forever ducking and diving to make things work financially as I watched my friends have their multiple holidays, bursting wardrobes, new cars etc. As a result I am still catching up financially and also remortgaged several times versus most of my friends now being mortgage free. However, I might not have the decent car or holidays etc, but what I do have is a happy young man as a son.

Several of my friends (not all) seem to spend their time phoning me slagging off their husbands; he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that - or the builders are really getting me down, we've been converting our house so for so long - its so stressful...

Seriously! I love my friends, but I wouldn't want their lives.

Jilly, presumably someone took care of your children when they were little?? You have been pretty dismissive of people who do such work on this thread. Were you the same with them after they'd taken care of your children all day?
You've said that your mum doesn't wish to be a burden to you when she needs care. How will you treat the people who take care of her (and perhaps eventually you)? Will you thank them for their mediocrity as they wash your mother's feet?

never been dumped by a husband or boyfriend actually.

did you chuck your ex-husband out then? Coz you were furious how much money he got in the divorce.

The statistics on mental health problems among Oxbridge students and medical-law-vet students are scary. I don't want to see that happen to any of my kids. There are other good strategies to ensure financial security.

jilly yes I'm probably the only one here uninformed in the warped self aggrandizement of bankers. Or maybe you are one of the few in the world who fail to realise how (deliberately) wide of the truth his defense of the behaviour of his company was?

I worked at Deloitte once. There was one female exec who was an amazingly rude arse. I remember her to this day for her incredible rudeness and entitlement. Manners are free but still unaffordable for some, eh?

You still didn't tell us who is going to wash your feet when you're old? A merchant banker?

The best surgeon I ever met always thanked the staff who assisted in his operations, thanked the sister who scrubbed and took charge of the instruments, the anaesthetist, the runners, the porters and the bin emptiers.
why ?
Because he had the sense and humility to know that without them he could not do his job.

Sadly he died young but he has always had such an influence on me.

Be polite and kind to all you meet .
Snotty blinkered judgements about others, their circumstances and abilities get you nowhere.
In birth and death we are all the same

jilly "We do God's work, earn a lot and love it. I highly recommend it". Quote or not - seriously surely you don't take it literally?!!!! As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter what job anyone does they are equally valuable. Without what you deem as unambitious jobs - your life wouldn't move forward, rubbish collectors, hairdressers, cleaners, waiters, care workers etc etc, As someone pointed out the 'statistics around mental health issues for Oxbridge graduates are hugely worrying'. In my opinion a healthy life / work balance is far more valuable than killing yourself for status. What I've seen over the past few years is a huge growth of those leaving the corporate sector to do something much more worthwhile for a lot less money as people have recognised having loads of money just isn't the be all and end all. A good example is a great website escape the city - their success is a direct reflection on how people have wised up and put two fingers up to the high earning corporate world they were slaves to.

Many PR roles are low paid but hardly all. I left my (FTSE100 in-house) PR role 15 years ago on a salary of £60k. Perhaps Jilly considers everything under £100k to be low paid! Had I not switched roles I could have ended up on much higher pay and that was quite a few years ago. PR is like most areas- target where you want your career to go, and there are opportunities. I'd be quite happy for DD to go into PR.

So long as my children are happy and financially solvent, I'll be happy and will feel I have raised them well. money is nice and all, but I was just as happy when we had a fraction of what we have now.

A banker doing God's work? I seriously doubt that either Jilly or Blankfein are doing God's work, unless God has turned into a blood sucking capitalist fatcat when I wasn't looking...

My god, it's really scraping the barrel when you have to belittle the work of carers to score a point

Perhaps you should practice more of the silence you mentioned

Blankfein felt he, like God, created wealth. Except actually he diverted. Money. From poorer people. To richer people. That sort of God's work where you fuck little powerless people right over to help bigger people who don't need any help become bigger and more powerful.

In fact in that context jilly's comments make perfect sense. She HAS to despise the little people, those who are exploited to make the super rich richer must deserve it after all. It is not the actions of the likes of her which render the poor and trapped poor and trapped, it is simply that they lack ambition because their whorish mothers stayed at home with them a bit when they were kids.

To cling to that thin and sour excuse is actually quite sad for someone who seems quite intelligent, but I suppose we all have to sleep at night.

I don't know if its as simple as holding up everyone who drops corporate earning/city life as an example of how to live your life best. Some people are more motivated than others, some can do things for so long, etc.. People are different. There is no one way fits all. If no-one had any ambition or motivation to see through a task or improve their living standard, we would still be living like cavemen/women.

I think more people are realising that studying hard, passing difficult exams, doing a mentally difficult job, etc. is no longer a guarantee of a good standard of living. So whats the point in doing it when you could be doing something easier for maybe £15 a week less after tax? Or something...

I get more cynical as I get older. The medical and legal professions (in which I work) are now beginning to move towards majority female. Yet you can work damned hard in the law in particular and not earn that much (outwith the big city practices). Yet various government licensing and regulating regimes seem to have raised the value of manual trades mainly staffed by men.