Ok, this is my question...if you know anyone who has never really worked? All her life being SAHM and even now when children at uni...

[btfly2]

This lady is the only case I knew. Please enlighten me with your stories!

Yes please do elaborate OP on whether you were after feckless benefit scroungers never done a days work in their lives or lazy Land Rover driving yummy mummies who own most of the Cath Kidston shop and clog up cafes, then we can give you the right tales.

My mum tends to say that when my grandmother got married, you gave up work when you got married (she was born in the early 20thC) and when my mum started work, you gave it up when you had children (she did retrain and go back to work though, once we'd started school. I was born in the 1960s and have one younger sibling).

My grandmother left school, did the lower level teacher training that they had in those days, worked as a teacher but went on exotic travels in her summer holidays with her fellow teachers and fancied a colonial expat life and needed a proper qualification for that so went to university where she met my (younger) grandfather who was a student. So she gave up work.

She spent the rest of her life, apart from being a SAHM, running the house and meeting her friends for lunch I think. She used to keep count of every penny they spent in little notebooks - I think she was missing marking the pupils' books or something!

They also had her mother living with them in her latter days, I'm sure she did lots of baking etc. and I know she sewed as I got her sewing machine when she couldn't use it any more.

Yup, me. Went on mat leave 25 years ago, was offered a huge voluntary severence, took it, paid off a chunk of the mortgage. When my daughter was 3 they asked me to come back to a better position with a great salary but I turned it down. Now I sit on my arse reading MN all day.

While you're here DM, when's your xmas TV guide out?

Fintress quietly cheers

My mil. FUL didnt want her too but she did t want to either. No one in her family worked. Mind you she did the typing pool for a couple of years until she met him

Shabby journo.

My mother. She never worked. Well she was a Nanny for a bit before she got married at 18 but other than that no.

My mum did. She stopped working when my oldest sibling was born, and never returned (eldest sibling is 44). She did loads though.

Sat on PTAs and school boards, involved in local gala days, guides, once we got older she did various voluntary work, then there were aged grandparents to look after.

I don't think it's unusual.

I even know two women who are SAH who never had children...

My cousin never worked but started a lucrative freelance career as a webcam girl when her children left home. Her punters liked it really dirty. Sometimes she'd even splay open the Daily Mail right in front of the webcam.

HTH.

My sister has never had a 'paying job' a day in her life as her husband made 'mega-bucks'. But IMO she worked pretty hard! She and BiL had what one would think of as a '50s-style marriage. He brought home the bacon, she fried it up. But it worked for them. She never felt the need to 'apologize' to anyone for their choice nor did she ever feel she was 'just a housewife'. She was (as her DH said) the cog that kept the wheels turning. And the reason that he was as successful as he was.

Once the children were 'launched' she still kept pretty busy with volunteering and helping out other family members with emergency childcare, etc. And there was still housekeeping. Just because your children leave it doesn't mean the house cleans itself!

You don't have to justify your choice to anyone! It's one of the frustrating things about women's domestic choices. We all say we have them, but there's always someone saying that we've make the 'wrong' choice.

I workedonce upon a time, may do afain, may not. Ill health here.

My MiL stopped working when she got married. Previous to that she was a house mistress in a finishing school in Switzerland! I suppose that you could say she and my FiL (especially him) always make it clear that they prefer "traditional" gender roles. FiL said to me once that he didn't want his wife to work, it wasn't how he'd been brought up (He was born early forties, MIL is younger so would have been more likely to work after children etc. Based on her friends). I do find it weird that she never went back to work though, especially since their only child went to boarding school at seven and they often talk about how difficult it was to pay the fees. MIL has lots of hobbies that fill her time but hasn't ever volunteered etc. Nor has she ever been a lunch/gym/spa type. I think she was just happy at home.

Neither of them have ever questioned my working and they take equal interest in my career as DHs. Can't complain really!

I think those who say that women have always worked don't look at the bigger picture tbh and mostly throughout time they haven't.
There were spells during the war for example when there weren't men to do the jobs and women stepped in.
There have always been pockets of women working, but only since childcare has been available has it become the norm.
Women used to give up their career on marriage and it was expected if you were a teacher or married to a Policeman, or if you were a nurse etc.
Then others gave up when they had children as there was no readily available childcare.
I'm never surprised by the amount of women who give up work to become sahm's or sahw.
It's great that we have more choice than ever and it's much easier for women to keep their jobs and career going, progressing much higher than previous generations.

Oh gosh! Please stop thinking that I'm a journalist!!
Maybe my way of asking the questions sounds confusing but I'm far from being a writer, journalist!
Yes I'm curious, yes I love to listen different opinions but that doesn't make me one of them!
I'm a mum, cup of tea in hand my IPad and mumsnetters are good company except when some sound really paranoid. Thanks for your answers anyway!

I don't fit your criteria exactly, I worked before children and a small amount of less professional, very part time and some voluntary work since for some of the time, but mostly I am a full time carer for two children with disabilities. When they are grown and settled in their own lives (they 'should' manage this-asd/pda plus more) I fully intend to relaxed and get my life back. I may in theory work but I think I will just need to use those years to help my health and sanity. To learn to enjoy things again. I don't have any problem with how I see myself or how other see me -i think you asked something like this- my husband/family/friends and all the hcp think I am amazing and all ac knowledge that I do the hard work (compared to my husbands demanding paid work) and they all say our children cope as well as they possibley could because I am mostly at home caring and educating them. I think I may like to repay their incredible school with some volunteering, or help other parents, but mostly u intend to enjoy the success of helping our children get to a settled place. And relearn how to have quality of life.

Working isn't the be all and end all. Working harder or more or earning or achieving more than others is not to be admired imo. I try and teach my children to have balance in their lives, to enjoy the small things and recognise how much harder it is for them to achieve that than for non disabled children. Part of teaching them that is leading by example and showing them there's more to life than work, so I want to model how to find meaning in more than work.

My cousin is a stay at home wife. She is in her late thirties and gave up work to plan her wedding 12 years ago. No children or pets but she exercises a lot & seems to do triathalons. I'm not sure what she does all day TBH but im sometimes a bit jealous.

I am late 40's and have never been employed, other than in a shop for a year before my first child was born. My children are all in university or else out of uni and living nearby. Most of my week is spent doing voluntary work that is increasingly valued at a time when people have less and less time to spare. The work is intellectually demanding in the most part and preparation time for it adds to my 'workload'. I have two days a week when I'm not involved in community or voluntary activities or tasks. My partner doesn't earn a huge amount but we jointly decided this is how our family would be and my stay-at-home status has enabled us to have a very happy family life and the home to be a place of great security. When any of my children have been ill, either short-term or long-term, there has been no issue in being able to be with them for extensive periods, or to take them to appointments mid-week. Nowadays I am also child-minding a grandchild, so have less time than ever. Would I change a thing? No. Is it a perilous way to be (and with less money)? Yes, but we still wouldn't change how we manage our family life.

Neither has my brain atrophied. Free time spent in the last few years researching my hobbies and interests has fully engaged my brain more than it did when I was a student or in my early married life.

I know a few. Fucks me off when they say how busy/tired they are. I don't envy them because there is NO WAY I could ever be kept. Just feels wrong to be bankrolled by someone else.

eyeroll

I know a few. Fucks me off when they say how busy/tired they are. I don't envy them because there is NO WAY I could ever be kept. Just feels wrong to be bankrolled by someone else.

I LOVE being 'bank rolled'. Works for us. And I'm FUCKING SHATTERED.

😇

Rural women have always worked. Also, don't underestimate how back-breaking it was to run a house pre-labour saving devices. Those SAHMs of my grandmothers' generation were hand-washing bedlinen, blacking stoves, scrubbing doorsteps as well as looking after their large families. My mother's SAHM life in the 70s/80s was a massive doss in comparison. (Jealous as I've never had the chance to be a modern SAHM )

Absolutely nobody I know has never worked - one grandmother was a teacher, one was a solicitors' clerk, my great aunts were teachers and nurses. All these were before the Second World War. And of course my DM, DMIL and aunts worked throughout their lives.

Many of my grandmothers' generation did give up working when they married though - in many cases their employers simply would not continue to employ a married woman, and fifteen years later when all their children were independent it was too late to start a career unless you were absolutely forced to by financial disaster.