AIBU to think we should encourage our daughters to 'marry well'?

[windygallows]

I know 'marrying well' is something our mothers and grandmothers crowed about but it's not a phrase I've heard much these days and it feels quite an anti-feminist sentiment in a world where women can do well without men.

Yet I wonder if marrying well - marrying into money or marrying someone who is in a well-paid profession - is something we should be encouraging our daughters to do. Why? Because not every woman wants to have a career and if you want to be a SAHM then really that's easiest if your DH is well paid. Also women still experience a pay gap and are in lower-paid roles by comparison, so having a well paid DH really does make up that pay gap.

Plus - when I look around at my female friends and peers (I'm mid-40s) of the ones who have a comfortable lifestyle and are able to work part-time or be SAHM, for about 3/4 that lifestyle is attributed to having a well-paid or wealthy DH. The other 1/4 got there through their work/career, family money etc. This is purely a sample of my peers, by no means the norm.

I'm a staunch feminist so it's a bit hard to write this but I'm also a single parent and know what a slog it can be making everything work on my own salary. Marrying well doesn't mean a good marriage or relationship but it does make things easier. In the end shouldn't we be having an honest conversation with our daughters about this and encouraging them to think a bit more about 'marrying well'?

I am a single parent and I have a fairly decent full time career thanks. In fact I think it is made easier now my dp and I aren't together. Only one child to look after now. And dd is a very happy, well adjusted, well behaved child who is doing well in school. People who place real or perceived limitations on what they can achieve because mn/the dm/society tells them they have to, are missing out. They need to challenge those "limitations" (if they chose to) not just roll over and accept them. I couldn't be a sahm. Or a devoted housewife reliant on a man for pocket money. And for some reason something tells me dd won't want that out of life either. Who am I to encourage her to seek out that role? Each to their own though, I suppose.

I am not some high flying superhuman superwoman. I am flawed, sometimes lazy, sometimes disorganised, a procrastinator, and an ordinary working class girl. But it doesn't mean you can't achieve anything despite these flaws if you just keep plodding on and keep trying. And despite what the op says you do not have to possess some extraordinary talent to have a reasonable career. Everyone has their strengths, and most people can find something they are good at and build on that, even if they are not a genius or best in county at their sport (my friend left school at 16 and now earns £60k+ working in IT - she worked there since leaving school and worked her way up - her husband is a builder and earns half what she does. Her mother was an alcoholic so no "privilege" there). But they will never even attempt to do that if they are told by their own mothers, alongside the rest of society that they can only have a happy/successful life if they latch on to a man.

My dh was a bin man for a while. It took no particular skill and he wasn't very fit when he started (he was a couple of months later). I'd not suggest it as a job to either of my children because it's highly likely to be automated out of existence very soon (where I live there is just a driver). Unskilled men and women struggle to get jobs. So the lesson to us parents is surely to help our children uncover their skills and maximise their potential?

Whatever you do, if you have children with a man, you are vulnerable.

So what to do? Traits that have been mentioned:

Kindness:
I would of course advise any young woman to choose a kind hard working man, but many men are no longer kind once the expectations of middle aged married life kick in. Many men honestly expect a level of service from their woman that they do not expect to reciprocate themselves. And the kindness disappears.

Hard working
yes, but again don't expect the hard work to necessarily always be in your favour. but certainly don't pick a lazy man!

Willing to help out at home

Often men who express an interest in being a SAHD are just lazy and have no idea what the long tradition of hardworking SAHMs entails. just statistically true. Throw counter examples at me till you are blue in the face: they're anomalies and I won't advise my daughter to bet on an occasional anomaly.

Crucially, a lazy cock lodger seems to be indistinguishable in law from a SAHP so you could end up paying your ex to do a shit job of childcare in your house. Heartbreaking. I would advise against this against almost anything.

Good provider

Now this is the only thing that provides you with a measure of comfort once things go wrong. Men don't stay kind, or always listen to you or care about you, or even do much for their children, with any reliability; but if you marry a man the law recognises his duty to materially support you.

Now I would never advise a young woman to put all her eggs in any basket. So I wouldn't say "don't work, your man will look after you." But nor would I say "don't worry about your man's money, you can make it all" - because actually that kind of man causes the biggest problems in the long term though he looks superficially fluffiest and loveliest at the beginning

Often men who express an interest in being a SAHD are just lazy and have no idea what the long tradition of hardworking SAHMs entails.

Wow. I can't imagine why more men don't want to be stay-at-home-dads, given all the respect and understanding they would get.

AntiGrinch

Wow, you don't seem to like men at all. I hope you don't have sons

Willing to help out at home

Another good trait would be not to see it as helping out

My husband doesn't 'help' me by making the dinner, doing washing, ironing clothes etc. He does it because he is an adult that lives in this house, eats food and wears clothes.

Well, your daughter is likely to inherit your intelligence and to be growing up in an intellectually stimulating home, but some women don't get the academic or the practical ability and have nothing but a life of depressing jobs ahead of them Unless you are a top model, this is very unlikely- most professional men want to marry intelligent women. I know a lot of professional men and I don't know any who married someone with no career prospects/intellectually challenged but quite pretty!

Antigrinch, SAHPs who are male are cocklokdgers yet women who do it work so hard .... wow that's very anti men.

Being a SAHP is not had work, nor is it employment. It's called parenting and doing the housework. Something millions manage to do and work alongside it.

It's not helping out, it's called being an adult just like parenting your own child is not childcare or babysitting.

I pity your future SILs with that attitude, sounds like they would be expected to do it all whilst the delicate flowers cope with the housework.

I don't think antigrinch said SAHDs are cocklodgers, she said there's a higher chance of a man who says he wants to be a SAHD actually just saying that so he can cocklodge. Can't say as I agree with her, but it's not quite the same thing.

Encourage your daughters to grow up strong and independent. Tell them not to even think about marriage but to focus on establishing themselves in life and following their dreams and passions. As regards forming a relationship- perhaps they will be the major breadwinner in the relationship and their partner (male or female) will do the domestic side of things? There are many models for living that fit around a person's passions and talents- not the other way round.

Haha - agree I will encourage dd to settle with someone decent (no dodgy types!). But I will also encourage her to get a great career so she doesn't have to worry about money if the husband is a useless tool.

I'm a lesbian in a same sex marriage, but have born witness to many heterosexual marriages (and was in one, for many years). What I have experienced and witnessed with regard to the raising of children in a heterosexual relationship is that generally speaking women are better off on their own, or very much in control of the household. Things seem to go badly wrong, generally speaking, when women give up power to men who cannot handle it. This myth that 'the man is the head of the household' really is a myth- many men are useless in that role. SO I would advice any daughter of mine to be fiercely independent in the raising of children- to welcome a men in to be in partnership and to co-parent, but to maintain the power balance in her favour where her home and children are concerned.

Being a SAHP is not had work, nor is it employment. It's called parenting and doing the housework. Something millions manage to do and work alongside it.

I always have 2 preschoolers at home with me - we do not use childcare at all, although DD1 is at school 30 hours a week 39 weeks a year. Obviously I have all three full time in the holidays. I'm not sure "millions" manage the childcare for 3 children 5 and under while working full time without using any childcare, wraparound care or family help. Why would it be valuable to society to care for other people's children (as a childminder for example) but not my own?

Rainbows - being A SAHM is not employment, no - obviously. It is as "hard work" as you make it, like anything else in life, including any paid job.
You sound as if you view things through a certain cultural lens, which is fair enough. There are parts of the world which you may consider backward in terms of opportunities for women, but, for instance, in the culture my DH is from, although things are rapidly changing and the proportion of women working is almost the same as in the UK, they have not yet got to the point where the role of women in the home is totally disrespected and marginalised - just some crap that you fit in around the "real work". Child rearing and the home is still seen as essential to society. There is no concept about it being shameful to rely on your husband for finance and, unless they are in poverty, far less expectation that women should be "doing it all". I'm not for one minute saying women are less oppressed in this kind of culture, I'm just saying that there are other perspectives about what is "valuable" in life.

The closest I've ever been to SAHPing is maternity leave, but I must say I found that hard work. As I did looking after preschoolers on my days off when I went back to work, as DH did on his.

Additionally, while working parents are certainly parenting while we work, in that we are earning money for the family and providing for children is part of parenting, I don't know that millions of parents are doing everything a SAHP does plus work alongside it. Only those who are working while the children are asleep, really. Or while their children are alongside them.

The days I work, and the days DH works, yes we are still parenting whilst at our jobs. But we are not doing everything a SAHP does plus work on those days. Because the kids aren't with us.

Chickendipper if no offence was meant and you did not intend to come across as critical of working mothers then why did you use the inflammatory language about "shoving" kids into nursery? Do you not understand that the criticism/offence is inherent in your choice of vocabulary?

Why the fuck does it always, always have to turn into a competition???? "I work so I have it tougher than you" "I'm a SAHM so I have it harder than you" "you're dependent on a man" "you're shoving your kids into nursery". Ugh fucking judgy twats.

We do what's right by our family, for us that's me staying at home and him working. If that's what works for your family, great. If it's not and you both work, great. I couldn't give a shiny fucking shite what other families do, it's none of my business and frankly what I do is none of anyone else's business. If you are one of those judging or being a martyr, perhaps you need to ask yourself why????

At the risk of coming across as a sock puppet, polar bear I agree

Saor if you don't care why are you reading the thread and taking the time to post !!! 😂😂

daffodil because it's perfectly possible to post your own opinion and read other people's without being a judgy twat. HTH.

Doesn't marrying well mean different things to different people at different times ? From aged 18 I knew i would earn well, but need to do anti-social long hours. For me marrying well meant a husband who took his fair share of childcare and domestic duties. This was non- negiotiable. Marrying some one who for example needed to travel with work, wasn't possible. Their earning potential was much less important. (I knew all this by 20)

What about discussing the possibility of them remaining chlildfree by choice with your daughters.

This suggestion has not come up in 25 pages.

I know lots of women who never wanted/do not want to have children. It isn't a given requirement that all adult women have to have or want to have children. I know lots of women who have fantastic fulfilled lives as single people. Marriage isn't a given or desired goal for all adult women. I would bring a daughter up to focus on her own talents. passions and enjoyments. And the rest will follow. What is really important is that girls are brought up strong and even a bit rebellious- with a sense that what they think feel and want is very important. yes- they should be raised to be considerate and move with open compassionate hearts through life- but not at the expense of their own desires and needs. Women have been all too good at putting themselves on a back burner.

It does stillwish, but I don't think the OP entirely gets that despite protestations otherwise.

I could have written your post op. It's really sad isn't it but I agree most of my female friends with comfortable lifestyles and who are sahm/pt are able to do so due to their husbands earning well. I am the main earner, earn very well and am proud of that but being a sahm is simply not an option for me as my DH is not a high earner.