To think only women with rich partners are encouraged and celebrated as SAHM.

[malificent7]

If you are skint or single then you are seen as lazy for wanting to be a SAHM.

This is following from my 'terribly entitled' thread. I made it very clear that I had to give up my teaching career as it was destroying my mental health. I am now a skint TA but much happier at work and I alos have time for dd.

The amount of people suggesting that I go back into teaching to balance the books even though it nearly ruined me was strange.
I was being encouraged to take up a more family unfriendly job.

Whereas if a woman in better circumstances comes on and says that she is struggling to balance work and family life she is often encouraged to give up work if she can afford it an did celebrated as being a good mother.

AIBU to wonder if SAHM are less stigmatised if well off?

Part of choice making is taking responsibility for the implications of that choice, if that means surviving on a lower income then that's your prerogative but expecting your DF to routinely take up your financial slack as a result of your choice, isn't ok

OP, you need to consider not whether these questions are right in the abstract or not, but whether or not this particular line of argument is likely to help you and your dd at the present time. You may well be right in fact, but how will spending time thinking about how hard done by we are help any of us? To paraphrase an utterance by a previous poster, who has ever died wishing they'd spent more time feeling sorry for themselves?

You are trying to deflect an argument by envisaging an unfair situation which isn't even about you. You are digging yourself into these thoughts because it is easier than thinking about actual changes: planning your spending, spreadsheets, establishing a new relationship with your dad which does not involve money. But it's those changes that are going to make a difference. Thinking about how hard life is will never make a difference.

Accepting that you cannot get a job as a lawyer or a doctor or any of those other well paid careers often held up as a mark of "success", and that teaching is not for you, is there anything else you could look into that is only slightly better paid, but might still make a difference?

Is there any way you can organise your finances so they become a little more predictable. Lots of suggestions were made on the other thread, but you don't seem very interested.

Having read your other threads OP, you do come across as entitled. As adults we make our choices and shouldn't be relying on a parent to prop us up financially.

You mention that you are a qualified teacher but work for minimum wage as a TA and enjoy the fact it's literally school hours only and low stress. So that's a choice.

I'm a teacher- head of faculty in a big secondary school. Yes, I could work as a TA and have a far easier time of it, working far fewer hours with far fewer responsibilities. But I've made a choice, and I prefer to use my qualifications and earning potential to the max. It doesn't mean my choice is any better or worse than yours- it's about making choices (in so far as you can afford to make them) and then taking the rough with the smooth. I have a few colleagues who are trained teachers but choose to work as TAs. When it works well (e.g. If they have small kids, don't want the pressure, want to leave on the dot of 3.30 ) it's brilliant. They know that they're getting what they want from the job. It works less well if they become resentful, moan about the low pay and lack of good pension etc

We all have various pressures, health, needs of our own kids, financial constraints, but being an adult means making choices within the parameters available to us and not relying on others to prop us up.

Op: my dad isn't giving me as much money as i think he should!
Mns: you're entitled.
Op:my dad goves me money but i don't like his attitude about it
Mns: you're entitled and lucky
Op: but i struggle because i'm not good with money and in a low paid job.
Mn:can you get a different job,work as what you qualified for,subsidise your income with extra thing?
Op: i can't get another job because i can't afford to retrain,and i don't want to do the job i'm qualified for. I just want more money.
Mn: try x,y,z and stretch the money you do have while planning for the future.

OP: only women with wealthy partners are encouraged to be SAHM.

What. The. Fuck?!?

Where we live noone with anything other than a high earning partner can afford to be a sahm

Munstermonchgirl, to be fair to the OP, MH issues is something that cuts down on choices to a great extent. It still doesn't mean that the OP's attitude is going to help her in life- it clearly isn't- but it may be a little unfair to suggest that she has a choice about a job that she may well be unable to do for health reasons.

I'm another one who was a SAHM with no choice due to having a disabled child. I would resent suggestions that I had the same level of choice about that as my colleagues with no disabled children. But at the same time, it didn't stop me from thinking about ways to improve our life within our limitations. Which is what the OP should be doing.

I am a SAHM to school age children and most of the mothers (and it is always other mothers) who are derogatory about me not working have family they can rely on for childcare, attending school events, help with cleaning, cooking etc.
I'm pretty certain if they had to pay for all the free services their family provides they'd find it wasn't in their favour to have two working parents either.

I'm a SAHM. I see it as a great privilege too. I get to raise our kids day in and day out and don't have the stress of a paid job as well and finding child care. If I needed benefits to do this I simply wouldn't do it. Not only because DH wouldn't stand for it (if we were really skint he'd expect me to find a job) but I'd also feel like I needed to contribute financially too. We wouldn't accept me staying at home and the state funding it it just seems unfair when physically I can work but financially I don't need to. I think benefits should be for the neediest.

"Personally i couldn't possibly give up working once i have a child it ruins your CV having a gap of more than 3 months in it"

Complete mince! Uninformed and very silly comment to make.

Absolutely agree with you Monte. I am a SAHM and am fully appreciative that our situation is a fortunate one and that it could change at any given moment. At which point I would go back to work. I plan on doing this longer term regardless.

I agree it doesn't ruin your CV either! What nonsense. It's not like we're sat around all day doing nothing. Never worked so hard in my life as I've done since raising kids!

Poor people are always much more harshly judged for everything, like another poster said a mothers place especially a poor mothers place , is in the wrong.

Where I live and amongst younger people I know noone these days is celebrated for being a SAHP.

Only me and my old mum think it's a valuable contribution to the greater good. (If you do it diligently! -Just like any other occupation really.)

That's interesting Fresh which part of the country do you live. I'm in the NW. Don't meet alot of SAHM either. I've got 2 friends who live locally who are though. Some people seem suprised I wanted to give my job up. Not a chance I could have arranged childcare and I didn't earn enough to deem it feasible. My SIL is a lawyer and went back after 12 weeks full time. They'd lose the house car and fancy things otherwise.

I am nowhere very metropolitan but an area with locally high house prices and there has been a shift away from SAHP over the 15 years I have been here.

The private nurseries have expanded, most parent led playgroups have closed and there are many more grandparents pushing prams.

In the main it's the cost of living pushing it.

My SIL is a lawyer and went back after 12 weeks full time. They'd lose the house car and fancy things otherwise

A bit ironic.

You are judging people for working whilst complaining that others judge you for being a SAHM.

Some people need to work foe their own MH. My DSis had to.

You think I was judging my SIL? Just explaining their reason for having to go back.

Yes I can see that Fresh. We live in a cheap part of the country relatively.

Cory- I don't think I'm disagreeing with you actually... I did emphasise in my post that any choices are within the parameters which limit us all. Any type of illness or disability (whether oneself or ones children) is going to impact in some way.

The bottom line though, is that your circumstances don't have to totally define what you make of your life. You can take two people with similar advantages or disadvantages and they can make quite different choices.

Also quite apart from illness issues, people have varying 'thresholds' of what they find acceptable. Some women refuse to work if childcare is going to eat up most or all of their income. I know some of my friends thought I was a bit bonkers to work when I had 2 children in nursery and one in wraparound school care as there was no immediate financial gain. However, I took a long term view. It's not that any one way is 'right'- the point is, different people respond to the same set of circumstances in different ways.

The OP may well have mental health issues, but that in itself doesn't make her immune from behaving in an entitled way, and having unrealistic expectations of what she can afford if she stays in a minimum wage, short hours job.

I don't think anyone has a right to stay at home and look after children - men or women, bar a short period when they are newborn.

If people want to stay at home and look after children, and they can afford to do so, great, or if its more cost effective to do it because of childcare and its preferred, great. But I don't think choosing to stay at home with children should be state subsidised except for exceptional circumstances (ie a disabled child).

I don't think anyone has a right to stay at home and look after children - men or women, bar a short period when they are newborn

I think you'll find we all have exactly that right, and its not any of your business. (If you mean state subsidised, you need to make that part of the actual statement, and not another paragraph, because as it stand you are talking out of your arse)

You know exactly what I mean. There's no need to be so pedantic.

Though actually reading it through again, I stand by exactly what I have said.

Staying at home bar the newborn period (which is governed by legislation) is absolutely not a right.

If you as a family can pay for it do what you like no one elses business whatsover. If it works for you and your family it matters not a jot what righteous mumsnetters/the daily mail/your mother or father think. Agree with blueskyrain its unreasonable (and presumably unsustainable) to expect state funded SAHM dom.

My mother's GP told her that work was good for her and provides a protective layer against dementia in old age. She was in her 70's and still worked part time. He told her that the benefits of working were huge in terms of social and medical issues.