Why is it usually the woman who gives up work?

[Firedoll]

I'm on mat leave and have been asked 30+ times if I'll be going back to work and, when I say yes, if I'll be part time.

My DH has never once been asked about his working hours since our DS was born.

And if I say yes I am going back to work I get "oh, will your DS go to nursery/will you get a nanny?" The idea that my DH could look after DS for some of the time while I'm at work just doesn't even enters people's heads.

I don't blame people for asking because they're just making conversation. And it seems they are making a reasonable assumption as if one of the couple is going to give up work/reduce their hours, most of the time it will be the woman. In my experience at least.

But why is this? I see so often on here people saying that their OH couldn't go part time or is the higher earner. But all the latest reports suggest women in their twenties are now out earning men so that can't be true for the majority.

Is it just a cultural thing?

I out-earned my husband in my 20's. But 3 lots of maternity leave in my 30's meant that he now out earns me. We could not have afforded for him to be part time and me on maternity leave so him going part time would have made no financial sense until we had completed our family and, by that point, his salary had completely overtaken mine.

All my children's friends mums work part time or SAH. That is definitely the norm.

Such a waste of education and skills to train and then jack it all in to look after a couple of small children, fora couple of years.

Because the mother is the one who carries the child in pregnancy. Because she also needs time off to get over the birth. Because she can breastfeed. And because that's the way it's been historically.

Ok, the last reason isn't a good one, but it has come about because of the first 3, and they are still pretty good reasons for most people.

I'd always earned more than dh until we had our first child 11 years ago. My career has never recovered, but tbh that's largely because I lost all interest in progressing up the career ladder after having my dc, while dh began a fairly meteoric rise. I'd happily stay part time and in a minor role forever tbh or not work at all if we didn't need the money.

poster YelloDraw Wed 30-Nov-16 12:38:55

Yellow looking after your own child and not palming them off to Somone else is not a waste 😳

I was a latch key child and I can tell you know my mother thought it was a waste looking after me awsome she has a PhD sees none of her children and none of her grand children and sits alone evey christams while her colleagues who wasted there time in your view will be hosting there large families at christams

An education is never wasted. What a weird idea.

There is no child who ever things when there older wow mum I am glad you missed my school plays the talks we could of had walking t school my first steps Ect because now your a CEO

If anyone is getting the bum deal it's dh. He's missing dd birthday party staurday he has to work I can't belive Somone would actually say looking after and raising your child is a waste I am actually shocked

Things are changing. When I told my employer that I was starting infertility treatments the first thing I was asked is you'll be sharing your mat leave right. A year is too much for my career (I'd never be able to go back into it again), and so if I want to keep my job as is I can't take more than 24 weeks. Having said this because my career is like that, I'm able to work from home so it's likely I wouldn't even need 12 weeks if I was lucky to get pregnant.

I don't agree that looking after young children is a waste of an education. But I feel strongly that the best work in the workplace tends to get done by people with different outlooks and backgrounds working together. Mothers leaving the workplace means we lose some of that diversity, which I believe has negative consequences.

My mum worked full time as did my dad so all of us were self-sufficient by 10. In that we cooked, cleaned, and were responsible enough to babysit/bathe the younger kids, and organise housework shopping etc. I found these skills came into their own when I started work at 16- I had the planning organisation and life skills needed to make immediate impacts and was very quickly promoted. I am very proud of my mum's work achievements (she is a senior exec for a telecoms company) and never felt I missed out on a childhood. Maybe it's a sociocultural thing - I am the child of 1st gen immigrants (still British but not UK) and it was considered normal for both parents to work very hard.

Colby43443

Things are not changing maybe amongst the middle classes and in turn often the elite thing things are changing
My brother is a builder and I can tell you if any of the lads were having a baby are you sharing you may leave is a question that would never be asked lol

Tbh you wouldn't really be expected to take more that 3 or 4 days off and if yu said you were leaving to he a shad people would think you had lost your mind

This shad thing is a middle class London thing in my view

But you don't have to miss talks walking to school fish - either my husband or I walks my son to school every morning. If one of us had to be away (neither of us have roles that involve much travel at the moment) we would work round it. Neither of us think looking after our children is a waste of time, but neither of us wanted to give up work completely, nor could we have afforded it.

But I suppose when I first got together with the man who became my husband and father of my children, I should have stopped myself until I'd quizzed him over his salary and ambition. Thankfully I don't base my attraction to him on his salary. He's also capable of doing housework. Different things suit different people I suppose - if I had to spend 2 months sorting housework after being in hospital I would be furious.

I'm not sure if I'm going back permanently or not yet

If I don't it will be because dh earns 90k and I earn 30.

Builders are self-employed in the main though so if they took mat leave they wouldn't make any moneySame applies to contractors in my line of work. I was mostly talking about employees. DH and I are very much middle class employees.

Possel - my dh and I have a similar total household income but a bit more of an even split. We wouldn't be able to survive on a sole income

Tbh yu gets good idea of who earsn more but dint of what they do

I once dated a surgeon I fairly sure being a childminder he was on more

I think most people have a fair idea about if they earn more or less than Somone if they are being honest about there role and job so I think your being a bit off on that point also

I like a mans man were working class so I have no issue with not having a high flying job Ect happy looking after my own childr while dh works it's normal for my background and were I live and also my family

Were I from the men drink pints not wine
That is all

I think because of mat leave being until recently, for the mother only. Shared parental leave should help to change perceptions.

I just hope all those who jacked in work or went part-time to stay at home with kids they had with 'DP' have independent wealth or some serious legal protection because doing this when you're unmarried leaves you incredibly vulnerable financially.

I don't live in London but I suppose I am middle class. I'm relieved that my husband isn't judged on the fact he parents his children. I wish we lived in a society where people make the choices that suit them best, whatever gender they are, and without being judged.

I earn less than DH. He's older and was already established in a better earning career than the one I was training in. He owned a house already, so that restricted my range of job seeking opportunities. I struggled to secure permanent work, but did well in temporary work. I did little work while pregnant (hard pregnancies) but did have enough earnings for Maternity Allowence. His position and necessity mean that there wasn't a need for some sacrifices that would have been necessary in other circumstances. His field doesn't lend itself to part-time work. Indeed many years ago he reduced to 4 days for study purposes, but increased it again as the workload meant he was doing 5 days worth for less pay anyway.

As a family unit we have to achieve a balance. We have enough on his income, and we found when I was working full time last year, that the costs of me working full time in terms of time were greater than the benefits of an increased income. DH can go away at short notice, and we have no support network. Whatever I do has to fit within standard childcare hours and be financially viable after that financial cost. My older DS wasn't happy at spending 50 hours a week in school/ childcare, so at present, the family benefits more from me prioritising free time over career development. He is more flexible to work from home, so has taken the brunt of time for sickness/ INSET/ strikes/ school events. For sickness/ strikes, I am the back-up due to the restrictions of my career.

The changes in leave are beneficial to the increasing numbers of women outearning their partners, and I think we are in the very early days of a change in culture which will take a long time to change.

Ultimately, the woman is physically impacted by pregnancy, birth and the option of breastfeeding, so she will always require some leave.

We have followed a tradional path because it works around our situation which was created long before children, but it hasn't been entered into as blindly as our parents' generation.

Combination of many reasons:

1. Woman has long maternity leave, man has short paternity leave. This may change in future due to new laws but has been the case so far. This leads to woman automatically being the "primary carer" as she's looked after the child for X months and knows the child best. Plus after having a baby, being up in the night etc she may well be knackered, have a head full of weaning/nursery concerns and as a consequence be less ambitious about work. Therefore it's seen as obvious that it's the woman who stops work.

2. Men have historically earned more than their female partners. This may not be the case for current generations but it was until recently. Many reasons for this, including the fact that men tended to be educated to a higher level, to be told to aim for higher earning jobs, expectation that husband would be slightly older than his wife, etc. Therefore, if one partner is to give up work, it "makes financial sense" for it to be the woman.

3. Women are taught/indoctrinated to expect to be the primary carer while men are taught/indoctrinated to expect to be the primary breadwinner. Many/most of us grew up with that as a model from our parents, and it's reinforced by all those washing powder ads, girls and boys toys, etc. So many women and men will see SAHM and WOHD as the obvious set up.

4. Women may have more of a natural desire than men to be at home with the children - but it's hard to tell what anyone's natural desires are given the all pervading influence of (3) above.

5. It's easier/more fun for women than men to stay at home because there are lots of other women doing the same. So they will be "the norm" whereas a SAHD is an outlier.

There are probably some other reasons I haven't thought of...

Its not always the case!
We adopted 2 under 2 earlier this year and my husband got offered redundancy around the same time so we decided he would stay home with the kids for 12 - 18 months as we could spread out his redundancy payment over the months. I took 4 months company paid adoption leave and then returned to work full time.
My husband loves being at home with them (most days) and even if he hadn't got redundancy then we would have probably had him either reduce hours or quit as he earned less than half of my wage.
He will look for work mid 2017 and then will be looking for part time until the kids go to school.
We are both in our 40's.

Interesting question. I have always earned more than my husband, yet I dropped to 0.8 after dd1 and 0.6 after ds. Stayed at that until I started uni after having dd2. I have always had to arrange all childcare and sort all school stuff/social stuff for the children. I did begrudge it now and again but really I probably would rather be involved in it all anyway. All of my friends are the same.

I am now FT so he has to do a bit more of the load. I really couldn't see him willingly reducing hours though. We did always say that if he got made redundant he would stay home and I would work FT but maybe he was only willing because it was hypothetical. I would rather be PT but my work is too short staffed at the minute for me to even ask.

poster expatinscotland Wed 30-Nov-16 13:12:02

That would be the same if the man gave up work wouldn't it though

Of course, fisherwife, hence why I wrote, 'I hope all who . . . '

There are still so many who think co-habitating gives you rights. It doesn't.

Reading this, it seems the main issue is why women earn less than their partners before they have a baby. I know I consciously stayed in a job that had decent maternity pay and family-friendly policies (local government) - could this be a factor?

DH and I took shared parental leave last year (I did seven months and he did two months), and I got quite a few comments about how unusual it was and how great he was for doing it, and the odd comment about how hard it would have been for me to leave my daughter so early (I felt upset the first couple of days, but then I was fine).

This was only possible because we earn the same amount, so two months of him getting SMP while I worked full-time was the same joint income as me being on maternity leave and him being at work.

Our original plan was that we'd both go down to 0.8 FTE, but his manager wasn't supportive of this. However, he has changed to compressed hours so has one day off a fortnight.

Looking at my friends, he's a rarity. Our of my ante-natal group, only two of us went back to work, and I'm amazed and horrified by how little their partners do. One friend (a SAHM) was complaining that she can't get her hair done because her husband won't watch the baby at the weekend and she doesn't have anyone else who could babysit. I find that so depressing - why won't he spend time with his own child?