"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?

Well of course I shudder at the thought of my DD doing a low paid job where she receives no respect until she can give it up to look after children!

What sort of life is that?

What if she never had children or her DP doesn't want to be a sole breadwinner? What if he doesn't earn enough? Or what if she didn't enjoy being a SAHP?

Where would that leave her?

NickyEds- that's not a partnership based on an unequal footing then is it?
I wish people would read what others posters are actually saying rather than jumping in defensively.

I wrote about partnerships where the man has access to interesting work and the woman doesn't. That clearly doesbt apply to partnerships where both partners have interesting well paid work, but come to a mutual agreement that one will give up

I'm not talking about career sahms who've never had a job and don't intend to work. I'm talking about the vast majority who take some time out (some. Not their entire lives. Some) and then return. It's perfectly possible to take some time out to look after children full time and then return to work later. You don't have to take a fortnight off to return successfully to the world of work. You can enjoy a full twelve months maternity leave and return to work without losing your mind brain or ability.
You can even, god forbid, take a couple of years out to cover the preschool period.

When I returned fulltime after our eldest was born I was surrounded by fellow wohms who were torn between their work and not wanting to miss time with their babies. And yes, it was the women feeling this way, not the men. Perhaps this is a social construct, a patriarchal cliché, a sexist nightmare. Or perhaps it's because they were still breastfeeding and had to stop. Or because they have a uniquely different bond having grown that child for nine months. Who knows? I know that I had a strong desire to get back from work and always felt that I had to apologise for that. We were even told that our line manager took a dim view of parents who 'took the piss' with sick kids and parental leave! When i had our second child. And decided to becomebecome a full time sahm for a while, people were quite aggrieved that a degree educated capable woman like me would want to.do that.
But I was happier doing the sahm thing for a couple of years and sad that I felt the need to apologise for it.
Whatever we do as women is wrong.
I'm now working part time and despite the fact we've a great income, little debt and a mortgage almost paid off, people are still asking me when I'm going to do a full time job again. It's none of their business just as I wouldn't dream of asking them why they don't work less!!

Just to make it clear: I was referring to the partnerships which are described regularly on mumsnet, where the woman States that she is the one to give up work/ cut down/go part time, because she is the one who has a lower paid/ less interesting job. This is the position they are starting from. It's not that they genuinely believe a woman is inherently more skilled at changing nappies/ playing with toddlers/ doing housework (although who knows, maybe there are some women out there who do genuinely believe that!) but that staying at home is the default position for them because they don't have the same work opportunities as their husband. And yes, I do find that surprising in this day and age, and I hope that we continue to progress towards a more enlightened society where it's totally normal for mum and dad to share parental leave, and where there isn't an automatic assumption that having children means mum will always take a back seat career wise.

Careers, jobs and money aren't everything. For me, there is no comparison between getting to spend my days with my DCs whilst they are little and making more money and developing my career. Five years out of a fifty year career isn't that much. I am doing what makes me and my family happy. People who go round shouting about how looking after your own children before they start school is a blow for feminism just sound like they are obsessed with gathering more and more money to me. Work if it suits your situation. Don't be pouring scorn on others because they want to take a few years out to care for their children.

It doesn't have to be a fight though. I absolutely adored my days off with my children when they were pre schoolers. Loved every moment. Just because I combined it with working, doesn't mean I cared about money or career more.
I've said it before: having children was the best thing I ever did; holding onto my career was the second best thing.

No scorn here, towards anyone who works or stays at home.

Btw These threads make me very relieved I'm now long in the tooth, with grown up children. In my child bearing days nearly a quarter of a century ago, I had friends who worked full time, part time or not at all. I'm happy to report that our children, now in their 20s, are not in any way defined by that fact! Good parenting is what matters, and raising children to be happy and fulfilled individuals

The thing is that statement doesn't mean they are rich . I don't work and am a sahm . My husband is a relatively high earner but we aren't rich! .. We choose to have second hand cars and spend money on a nice house . I know people who work part time and have cars on finance that are £4-5oo and a month which is roughly what they earn and small houses ... To me that is bonkers but each to their own . It's all about priorities ..

Meech

Sounds pretty similar to my story...Went back to work full time after a year but I felt like I was missing out on too much time with ds. Went job share then we moved abroad for a while and I didn't work, ds is now nearly 10 and I have returned to work on a part time basis and am thoroughly enjoying it again. I don't need to work either, partly because I have always been good with money and partly because my dh's salary is very good but I do it because I get a lot of satisfaction from it and who knows what will happen in the future and we could be reliant on me supporting the family

I always remember as a teenager reading Paula Yate's book & her stating most women's jobs were pretty dull & menial so they really should stay home with their kids. I always thought it was a suspect viewpoint & it certainly didn't seem to make poor old Paula happy.

Treacle your job sounds hellish, but honestly not all employers are like that. I have had bad employers, so I sympathise, but there are good ones out there.

Yes, many jobs have a dull element, but I have never found anything as exquisitely boring as endlessly pushing a child on a swing However, like many women, I have paid my dues with child rearing.

I have made many mistakes, but the one thing I did right was always keeping a toe in the world of work, even when I was pretty much full time at home, with a bit of freelancing. I would advise any woman to try and do something, even if just an hour or two a week - it really can pay dividends later.

I am delighted and grateful I have been able to reignite my career & look forward to the next few years of focussing on that, as my DDs are busy moving up and away.

Lines, is it because most women still marry men who earn or will earn more so when it comes to perhaps one giving up full time or all work the woman who had married a man a bit older (therefore who is likely to earn more) or who is better educated or whatever (the marrying "up" thing) the lower earner (i.e. woman) gives up work or goes part time. I think that is as much as the reason it is more often than not that way round rather than a woman saying she earns a lot and her husband had a business he loved but did not earn much in so now children are here he is the one at home.

I thought I read somewhere Jilly that younger women are marrying men who are not as well educated and earn less than them ???

Lines your post describes exactly how I felt.
I enjoyed my days at home and also went off to work and enjoyed that too.
I made a huge effort to be hardworking and keep up at work and it paid off .
I got a huge promotion as a result, over several full timers who thought the job was theirs on a plate

It would be a bit difficult to "marry up" if you've studied law, medicine, dentistry, accountancy, etc or are in a decent well paid job to "marry up" though. My degree class was slightly majority female, now apparently its something like 75% more female than male in just 12 years. Even 12 years ago, we used to look on the marrying an older man thing with revulsion. Maybe there were one or two in the class who did (although I don't know them), most of those I kept in touch with married or are living with people in quite similar careers to themselves. I remember one guy who was 6 years older than us coming on a holiday with a group of us, and having my friend then aged 24 seriously saying she found him good looking but she just found the fact that he was 30 really off-putting and she couldn't go there! I don't like older men but even I was surprised at that. And she didn't - she's now married to someone who did a similar degree to her and the same age.

I don't really know any of these women who marry up - maybe they only talk to other women who have also "married up"?

I'm sure in the past that was true Jilly. But I would imagine women of childbearing age now, tend to partner men of similar level of qualifications and skills. I graduated years ago (early 80s) and even then, I and many of my contemporaries had met our partners at university and were starting from a position of equality. So I would expect it to be even more true now that women and men tend to partner someone of similar level of education, skills etc

I can only relate my own experiences, but my SAHM friends are primarily the ex banker type, who downshifted because they were jaded working 70-80 hour weeks, and having children gave them the impetus to look at life a bit differently. Some plan to SAH for an indefinite period, and some wish to return to finance, but in a different capacity. Shock horror, but I also have full-time WOH friends, and have never been made to feel less than because of my choices, and vice versa. Sometimes I think that MN exists in a snippy, spiky vortex that bears no relation whatsoever to women's friendships in RL.

I have a masters while my dh has a degree...in his line of work though they can earn £1000per day, 10 times what I can earn, so who married up?

Of course I married him for his very large..............personality

I think you're right to an extent stopgap... I think we see extremist views on here that people wouldn't express in real life!

I do think there's a very useful debate to be had though- not as a WOHP v SAHP issue at all. But if, as I believe, most women and men are essentially the same in that we all want to live a happy, balanced existence without feeling that we are sacrificing one element completely, then it's really important to debate these issues. Things like the transferable parental leave legislation hasn't come out of nowhere.. It's come about because we recognise that a lot of men are jaded too with the 80 hour week you describe. We recognise in our enlightened times that children benefit from having 1:1 time with dad, we well as with mum. Most people no longer subscribe to a society whereby women and men are pigeonholed and their horizons are limited simply because of gender.

That's great in theory, but in practise 2 parents sharing parental responsibility whilst juggling professional roles is really really tricky. In all the relationships I know, one parent is the primary earner and the other parent takes a step back to be around for the kids. Especially if they have 2 or more kids. There's are a fair few childless or 1 child families in my peer group and it doesn't surprise me. I know three couples who've actively decided to be childless because they both had full on ambitious careers which involved travel and neither wanted to employ a nanny to take over where they couldn't. I also know a fair few one child families, where the cost of 2 in daycare would've been prohibitive and again neither wanted to go part time or compromise, so they didn't have the family size they wanted. Certainly in the industry my dh works in, many of his colleagues have a sahm or sahd or are child free because this idealistic working life of compromise, flexible hours and parental leave just isn't happening.

Most of the 2 fulltime working partnerships I see are topped up by childcare vouchers, tax credits etc....The high income bracket earners don't get any help financially and their high earning wife or husband is out for 9-12 hours a day so it makes sense both financially and logistically to have 2 defined roles.

I certainly agree with all that Lines and I also hope we shall see fewer and fewer threads where women earn less than their other half so when babies come it is logical the woman exercises the "choice" to stop work and the man does not rather than about being even in terms of income and thus the choice is more of a real choice rather than one based on men picking higher paid work or women marrying men who earn more or who are more ambitious.

Jilly, sometimes women are happy to stay at home and be the full time carer. Often it's an active, conscious and deliberate choice. Try and get your head around that.

Oh I agree it can be tricky meechimoo. In many ways our lives would have been simpler if one of us had given up work and the other had forged ahead with their career. No early morning nursery drops, no juggling pick ups and no childcare bills! And that works for some couples and that's fine. I'm just pointing out that many women and men want more of a balance in their own life... Being at home and being work both have their own pleasures and pressures, and many couples prefer to work at balancing these so that they each get some of both, rather than taking on sole carer/ earner roles.
And I definitely don't think we should be surprised if in 2015 there are more and more couples feeling this way, and I think an enlightened society should celebrate that.

It worked well for us Meechimo and this is going back a fair few years.
What I observed was very few fathers actually even considering it and so when DH asked if he could compress his hours then answer was a bemused yes .

That's not possible where we are. Dh works in London and gets the odd work from home day, once a fortnight perhaps. But his request for a 4 day week was quickly denied. If he'd been successful, he would be the only person in his office working flexibly too. It's just not possible in all careers or with all employers.
I'm not sure the work life balance of part time flexible work for both mum and dad with both getting perfectly equal time with kids is what all families want.
There are many families, hard though it may be to accept, who feel content and satisfied with a full time sahm/sahd and a full time working Mum/Dad. 2 part time careers often not as lucrative as 1 full on high flying job either. The part timers where I work often cram a full time job into three days and are overlooked for promotion.

I don't know why you keep saying 'hard though it is to believe' meechimoo, because ALL of us (with perhaps the exception of Jilly!) keep acknowledging that yes, some families want one parent as sole earner and the other as sole carer. It's not hard to get our heads around. It works for some families. Great! All we're saying is that we no longer live in a society where it's expected that mothers give up work and fathers carry the financial responsibility. Times have changed, women and men are educated to the same level and have the same ability and skills. Therefore it's good that society recognises that by making things like transferable leave available.

As for whether one high flying job is more lucrative... Well, as has been pointed out countless times, some people see life as more than about money. My own line of work is in education- therefore socially extremely useful, and it also enabled me to keep using my professional skills, so it's not all about making money! Having said that, even though in the early days my DH could probably have forged ahead with promotions quicker if I hadn't relied on him to do some of the nursery drops , and although we would have not had the massive financial outlay of childcare if id stayed at home, The financial benefits would have been very short term. I highly doubt I'd be working at the level I am now if I'd stopped working completely, and I certainly wouldn't have the good pension.
But like I say- horses for courses. Couples can still opt to have the woman at home full time, it's just good that society doesn't expect it as a default any more

I think perhaps my friends are weird! I'm the only woman who's decided to SAH but there are three of the blokes who've done it (primarily because their wives are the higher earner). Of the rest maybe half have gone part time and half have gone full time, with the split being largely, but not solely on earnings ( those going part time earn less or the same, those going full time out earn or earn the same as their partners). A lot of the part time WOHMs say that they didn't go back full time because they don't want to, nothing to do with their earning potential/job satisfaction. All of the couples where both work full time find logistics are a bit of a struggle and sickness (which seems to be rampant at the moment) a nightmare, a lot have family help on stand by.