"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?

Ressy yes!! Why can't women ever decide something without others second guessing and forcing her to "justify" (ie make it about other people not her, because she's not meant to matter).

Imagine if both SAHM and WOHM said "I did it because I preferred it that way." And didn't have to faltering ly explain it's better for kids, partner, society ... who should her life choices support? HER. What's wrong with that!

I always feel I have to justify being a SAHM and find it a bit embarrassing that I don't work (I do bloody well work though don't I?! Can't say that though can I). But the truth is that I am very lucky that we can afford for me to stay at home while the kids are little so why not say it? I will go back to work when they're both at school and I worked for 17 years before they were born so I've hardly been a lady at leisure all my life!

Oh and DH had no money when we got together. He's worked very hard over the years to get where he is now.

It is smug. And more than a few of them will be left high and dry in the future. They don't seem to realise that 'our money' is only our money whilst they are with the person who earns it. It will disappear into the wide blue yonder if the relationship breaks down.

My life would be unchanged with or without dp and when ds was young it was the same. Not all women who can and do support themselves do it off the back of a man.

Agree noddy.

Hate all the justification

This is just a consequence of the fact that mothers get criticised (usually by certain areas of the press) whatever they do, so many women with children will end up trying to justify their personal situation even to people who wouldn't ever criticise them.

It's a pre-emptive defensive thing. Loads of women do it whether they are SAHM out of necessity, SAHM out of choice, WOHM out of necessity or WOHM out of choice. Someone somewhere (and often quite vocally via the DM and the like) will take a view that what she is doing is WRONG.

It's awful.

I am amazed that so many people think that it is smugness when people say this. It is just a fact.

Exactly that.

It seems that nowadays you cannot make any statements without offending someone.

I'm a SAHM. I went back to work PT after my maternity leaves; after first DC it worked brilliantly as he was at a private nursery so no worries over term times/holidays. After DC2, it was considerably more problematic as DC1 had started school by then and I had to work around school hours and we had to take opposite holidays to cover school hols. We don't have a support network close by to help with childcare.

The oppurtunity to apply for voluntary redundancy came up and I took it. DH got a new job to 'make up' for losing my salary. He couldn't do that job if I wasn't at home. We both took the decision to have kids so we make it work.

Now that DC2 is at school I am often asked if I'm looking for work (someone once asked if I was being sent back to work now). These days I just say "no. I'm very fortunate that I don't need to at the moment." I'm not being smug. I'm being honest and answering the question.

I wish there were a mn emoticon for the faces people pull when I say I'm the main wage earner ... and went ahead and MADE A BABY knowing this was unlikely to change.
So much opportunity to judge me ... and poor dh who has a perfectly good job himself, similar hours, just less take home pay.

But it's the reverse of the usual ... so I'm either a piss - taker who will be a millstone at work or a heartless career mum. My dh should magic up a job where he's paid more to restore the status quo or ... I dunno his willy will fall off or something.

The child is oblivious. They'll have the same kind of childhood as any with 2 working parents, same income as their mates... let's hope they never look at the statements from the house account and discover our sick role reversal shame!

YABU.

I'm a SAHM and have had people ask me outright how we can afford it, what am I supposed to say???

Maybe they have their own income, maybe they rely on benefits (which many working families do to), maybe they did marry money, maybe they planned and saved, maybe they can't afford childcare, maybe they just want to SAH. You really have no idea of their circumstances so stop being so judgey. They probably don't imagine you still thinking about their finances and childcare arrangements after you've seen them so don't watch everything they say!!

I think it depends how it is said? It could be said in a very smug and annoying way, but it could also be said in a very genuine 'I really do realise and appreciate how lucky I am' kind of way.

If the first, I'd be inclined to tell them that I'm doubly lucky. Lucky enough that I don't need to work financially, but also lucky enough that I enjoy my work so much that I choose to do it anyway. Doesn't have to be true!

"It's smug and will bite them in the ass when the man leaves and takes his wallet with him

You sound pretty bitter snow"

Not at all bitter. My marriage is great and stable but I live in the real world. My mum always taught me to keep your own income stream as nobodies future is guaranteed. I also don't want to be dependant upon any man to fund my every need and can't see so many people are quick to brag about that.

It's a message I would teach any future daughter, just like we ensure DS knows that couples should share all aspects of married life and that his future wife can work and be a parent. Having read the depressing thread on here where lots of women openly admitted they chose their husband for his earning power I want him to find the complete opposite. Boys should not grow up believing they have no choice but to work as they are male just as girls should be taught to aim high and go after any job they want.

Yet you assume any woman on a career break is doing so curtesy of a rich DH?

Depends on what context - if you're all talking in general about the SAHM situation and she comes out with it almost out of nowhere then yes, I think they're being smug and insensitive. But if it's more specific, as in they're being asked why they don't work then it's fine to give their reason for it.

It's because they feel criticised for being sahms. All the can't win shite around parenting, y'know someone has a pop whatever.

Think i may have been guilty of saying those words in the past or words more akin to 'we manage to get by on dh's salary for now'. i do now work part time and run my own business...but, we rent dont own, and have little savings and no pensions....so it is and was a choice that some will consider very foolish (we dont at all).
I don't think you can assume its always said smugly because sometimes its just to explain why you dont go back to work as soon as you've had kids as a lot of people choose to....there can be quite a lot of pressure for you to explain yourself when you dont make that choice.

The determination with which women judge other women is relentless.
Why do people see the choices of others as a judgement made upon their choices?

I've been listening to this shit for 22 years now. If anything I think it's getting worse.

Just to be clear, I dont care one jot what anyone else does as its their choice entirely and think the whole sahm/wohm debate is bollocks. We all have kids we love and we make the choices we can...or sometimes that we have to.

X post Pag, that wasnt in reply to your post. :)

All this talk of "You'll be up shit creek when you DH leaves". Most of the families I know would be in the shit to a certain degree if one partner upped and left. If, after dc2 is born I pissed off my DP would be, despite being a pretty high earner.
SquizitaIt's pretty shocking that you've encountered that attitude nowadays. All of my friends have returned to work (but all of them are still on baby number 1) and most either earn the same or more than their partners. Only one could carry on as they are if their partner left.

so they married guys with money, so what? Did they? They don't have savings, or investments, or incomes that mean they don't have to WOH? You are assuming they are 'kept' by their spouse, which is rather unfair.

why add the caveat that you've got a rich husband? They didn't say that, that is your assumption. And possibly incorrect.

It isn't smug to suggest that they are lucky, I am lucky that we live frugally & can afford for me to be at home. I am lucky that dh has a car through his job that he doesn't pay a penny for, enabling me to use the family car, I am lucky that our cost of living is such that we don't (yet) need a second wage.

Dh earns enough to keep us going. He isn't a high earner at all. Certainly isn't rich by any means.

I am fed up of worrying about offending someone whatever I do. If you think I am smug for thinking I am lucky to be able to stay at home, that is your issue, not mine.

There are lots of threads on MN about women left high and dry by men financially. To pretend it doesn't happen is plain daft. We both relied on each other financially. But to be in the vulnerable position of being married to a person who earns a lot of money and not working for years. That is a vulnerable position. IMHO.

That's alright TheWidowDonkey.

You said what I said but much more succinctly

I say this all the time. But only when asked why I don't work and expected to somehow explain or justify my choices. I wouldn't just randomly inform people of the fact. It's not 'insufferably smug' at all - people who say it's smug just end up sounding like they have a bit of a chip on their shoulder.

It's just an honest explanation of the way things are. And by saying you realise you are lucky to be in that situation it's an attempt to downplay it, to actually not seem smug, to be a little bit modest and humble about the fact that you are in this fortunate situation. But God forbid that anyone who isn't struggling financially should attempt to be a little bit humble about it. We can't win, can we?

Stay at home and languish on benefits - lazy scrounger
Stay at home on the strength of partner's salary - lazy, spoilt and smug
Go to work when there's no real financial need - bad mother, putting wealth and material possessions before your children's needs

But go to work because you really need the money and suddenly you're a Saint/Martyr/Grafter who puts all other women to shame.

Of course it happens Viviennemary.

My issue is not with the suggestion that it happens but with the assumption that it will happen.

Not every woman is financially dependent upon their DH.
Pretending they are is nonsense.
Delighting in the likelihood that they will be screwed over is something rather worse.