To prioritise my husbands job

[Yellowsun11]

Back ground is I have a decent degree , but due to mental health issues proberbly haven't gone as far as I could . I'm
Not particularly interested in a career . Iv had jobs I like but my priority is balancing my home life while children are secondary age and younger . Part because husband earns a fair bit more than me but also because the strain of us both doing full time with my health and family is to much . A couple of friends are horrified by this and have hinted it's not the done thing in this day and age ! Just wondered others views -and situation . I surely aren't the only woman to work round her husbands job? If I could earn as much as him I'm sure he would be part time , - but I can't. And we want one of us to be home for them ( the majority of the time )

So I as a SAHM should be helping the lot of working women?

Ok I think we need to give up them, I've made the point in a number of different ways. I'be also seemed to somehow get myself on a few different but very similar threads so my post may not make sense in this context as I might think I'm on a slightly different thread iyswim.

stealth, please don't give up I am genuinely interested in your point. Sorry if I am having trouble understanding , but I am happy to listen if you could explain more.

I think the point that Stealth is making (apologies if it's not!) is that you are a feminist and there are lots of things you might do to further the equality of women, but in this instance your choice has meant that as your DH can now work relatively unfettered by the demands of childcare and domestic duties it gives him an advantage over mothers in the work place who are more likely to be doing a dual role. IMO a choice that would support equality between men and women would be for both partners to share both roles - if we all did this it would create a level playing field.

That's not to castigate individuals for their choices in a broken system, they are made for good and rational reasons - it's the wider world that needs to be changed. As I said in an earlier post I think men need to step up and do this, work less and take on family responsibilities more - it's not something that women can do on our own.

Most women have chosen to do what's right for their family yes. I am baffled to think that you don't realise that yes some women WANT to put their family first and WANT to spend more time caring for their family. Many people actually do put others before themselves and their own ambitions because they want to. Hard to understand if you're not that kind of person.

Let's all blame mums who stay at home for the fact that women don't have equal pay. While we are at it we can blame working parents for all those lonely, misguided, delinquent teenagers who are smoking on street corners and eating mars bars for tea.

Great post Waitingfordolly

Women are paid less on average for the same role. Women reach the glass feeling quicker. Women on average take lower status and paid jobs than men.

You of course do right for your own family and yourself, everyone would, but when your daughter is 30 and struggling to get promoted because all the panel think she's about to have babies and take loads of time off and come back to work all half hearted 'supporting her husband'... You might wish it wasn't like that.

waitingfordolly- but that's a bit of a narrow view. Yes the system is broken, but we need to explore ways to increase freedoms from every angle.

One of the many things I did as a SAHM was to become a qualified breastfeeding counsellor. I saw women become strong as they overcame physical and social challenges to claim part of their womanhood. In that role I became part of a group that implimented a new law giving women much greater rights to breastfeed in public. I saw young women who were able to overcome subjugation in their lives and find strength though nurturing.
Yes the workplace is an arena that needs to be challenged by the feminist idea, but not at the expense of children being lovingly nurtured at home.

Oh goodness pearly mum no one is saying that children shouldn't be nurtured. But mothers are not the only ones who can do that. I showed this thread to dh last night and he couldn't believe all these women hadn't given their dps the opportunity to be equal parenting partners, he felt that was a very selfish ( on the part of the women) decision, to effectively opt out of the workforce, because it forced the men in to the long hours culture and effectively excluded them from their children's lives.

stillwish what a mysoginistic attitude.

Lets blame women for making men's lives a misery shall we.

pearlylum that's exactly what I mean by we can all be feminists but that doesn't mean that each individual choice that we make furthers the equality of women. I lived through the identity politics of the 1980s and it became incredibly oppressive that everyone was supposed to live in a perfect way to match our politics. I want both men and women to have choices to be able to work less, to get involved in communities, to be carers, or whatever else is important and for these choices to not be split along gender lines, so that fathers / men are just as able to make that choice as well as women.

Whatamidoing I am not blaming women for anything. In fact I put more of the onus on men who on the whole are the ones with the power and decision making within Government and companies. I have pointed out that these are rational individual choices within the system that I in no way blame women for making but but those choices that do have wider consequences. It also seems a bit of a leap to say that working women are not putting other people first - many women, myself included, are doing difficult jobs in the public or voluntary sectors that we get paid less for than if we worked in the private sector because we care about vulnerable people and want to make the world a better place.

Whois thanks!

I think it is sexist to assume the woman is the only one who wants to nurture or allow their career to take a back seat for a few years. In as far as possible dh and I have shared it. Our household income is around 130k. I don't doubt with absolute dedication and a SAHP one of us could be on a bit more. However what price both of us knowing the Dcs friends, teachers, hopes and dreams ?

waitingfordolly- but you have a very 1980s attitude yourself. ( and I was an adult in the 80s too)
Gender does play a role. Although traits are fluid between the sexes we cannot ignore the differences. To think we can all fit into an androgynous box is a little shallow.

I'm not suggesting we are completely all the same, I'm suggesting that our choices shouldn't be boundaried by our gender. Though I would suggest that men and women should be paid the same for the same job!

But when men express ( or more commonly don't even feel they can express) their desire to nurture , they get ridiculed (dh experienced this) or dismissed. But most of the time, I think they don't even consider the possibility. And women stepping back doesn't help this, in fact it hinders it.

stillwish- you are blaming women again. Yes of course men can nurture, but there are big biological differences in our capacity to do so.

I am blaming society

" big differences " I'm not so sure there are some pretty compelling studies which show that men who have ft care of an infant start to show brain activity patterns normally associated with mothers.

stillwish- remember I am a breastfeeding counsellor, so perhaps see things from a slightly different angle.

But breastfeeding even if you do it to 2 ( which tbh has dubious health benefits in the UK), represents a tiny proportion of what it means to parent a child.

We may disagree on that then.

I prioritised my DH's career, a move I really regretted when he had an affair with a colleague and I faced starting again with no career, no home etc. Apparently he was really impressed by her holding down a high pressure career. Pretty much says it all.

Prioritise your own career. Given my life again that's what I would do. It is naive to assume he'll always be there to look after the finances while you look after the house and the dcs. Life is not like that.

Still wish - while I agree men get ridiculed for wanting to nurture - (DH ridiculed by his family for taking three months shared parental leave)

To say breastfeeding has dubious health benefits in the UK is laughable. BF has no health "benefits". It's the biological norm. When babies of any species drink mum's milk they drink various bacteria and antibodies mum makes. This factors into their immunity. When that's not possible we have formula - a safe substitute which matches calories and nutritive composition to mum's milk but obvs doesn't contain living antibodies. None of this is dubious.

But yes back to your original point, men are ridiculed massively. My DH has had a hard time but will take SPH again.

It's a difficult question as to why it's mainly women who want to step back in their careers. I had 2 very abusive and controlling parents and I decided really early on in life to earn my own money so that I could never be controlled again ( financial control was a big part of my parents' way of making sure I did what they wanted).

Not sure if having a normal childhood would have meant I would be content to go part time? As it is I earn more and have always worked full time, although I only have 1DS.

For OP though I would say you need to do what's best for you, and that's something only you can be sure about.

Lots of references to 'what's best for you and your family' as if those are identical. Actually what is true a fair bit of the time is that a woman staying at home has advantages for the man and financial advantages for the household - it may not be so great for her personally but that gets put aside. And so begins many years where the logic of a woman sacrificing her own career plans, personal freedom etc is ingrained till she is regarded as less important as a person. I can't evidence a connection between the two things but think of all the threads on here where women don't get bought Christmas or birthday presents by their partners. That's exactly that attitude right there, that the woman is a family facilitator servant who has no needs of her own.

Plus it's not always divorce that means it's as well to stay employable. When my
DH was made redundant and couldn't get another job for a while, you bet I was extra glad I had continued with my career. We'd have been financially sunk otherwise through no fault of either of us.