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'?

No not everyone can gwen but that includes men too
Honestly women who want to marry a roch man meed to get some self respect in my opinion. Be a grown up

I'm torn

I do not think marrying well should be any sort of substitution for having ones own security, but also think "love is all you need, so long as you're happy and love each other" is bollocks that nobody who has ever been properly skint believes.

It make an enourmous difference if you have someone who can carry the batton for you if you have a break in employment for any reasons forseen or unforeseen.

I think marraige is important, and not at all anti-feminist! I would discourage my daughters from co-habiting with someone who was reluctant to marry - I've seen enough in RL and on MN of women who lost everything after a separation when they would have had some safety nets when married.

Money helps, it's not everything but it helps. Even more so as you get older, I know a pensioner who didn't think that marrying well was important and ended up with someone who was exciting when young, but had no pension and he relies on her sharing hers and it's pretty un-romantic to be that skint!

I would never ever rely on a partners wealth, I'ld never put all my eggs in someone else's basket like that, but I also wouldn't want to share my life with a free spirited cock lodger who then forces me to by default be the financially sensible one!

But that's about attitude. I'd take three jobs if it kept the wolf from the door and dh woukd too. That's nothing to do wih "marry a high earner"
Anyone seen wolf of wall street?

I agree StealthPolarBear , my idea of marrying well = ambition and drive/work ethic, a bank balance at one point in time is no indicator of security.

If you have someone hard working and driven who loses their wealth they'll take any job going to keep food on the table

Likewise, I know some women who have married rich men who are SO TIGHT and expect 50% contributions from their wives on everything even if their wives earn many times less than they do..

Still don't agree that love is all that matters in a partner though. If you're desperately poor it's difficult to enjoy each other (or anything), I'ld wanna know I was with someone who would help me dig us out of a hole rather than someone who "goes with the flow" even if that leaves us fucked financially

I was when a friend's well off husband reminded her that she owed him £3.

Totally agree with alwayslearning -

The day that men can breastfeed and carry babies is the day that a man being a provider becomes not important."

This does not prevent women doing anything. It does however offer the OPTION for them to stay with their babies if this is their instinct.

The increasing trend to force women back to work before they are ready is anti-feminist and playing into the hands of the "patriarchy", just as much as if they were forced to be housewives. Sexual equality is not the same thing as "sameness".

The rationalle behind women not relying solely on her DHs income is the same rationalle as saying that women should chose partners who can share the financial burden

Health can fail, industries can collapse.
Its all well and good to say that women should earn their own money (and they should) but having two potenital earners in the marraige (even if one is chosing to be a SAHM, so long as they have earning potential ) is going to weather storms better

Breast feeding is such a red herring in the majority of cases. Only 1/4 are EBM by 6 weeks.

There is no reason women should have a superior right to stay at home with a baby over men.

Both men and women should have the chance to stay at home if they want and both should have the chance to go back to work if they want.

Batterie I had a demonic womb that kept up the bullshit till 16 weeks post partum (when I had to have a D&C). I don't see what that has to do with being a SAHP though. It was a medical problem associated with birth but treated in the same way any other medical problem would be. You get time off work to have the procedure.

There's no reason a man can't carry the baby for the all important 4th trimester. In fact I definitely felt after I'd done three it was certainly DH's turn to carry the velcro baby.

Yes dh and I have both spent time out of work supported by the other and also spent time with the other as the higher earner. At all times its a partnership. Between us we keep ourselves afloat. And I can see that with a wohd and sahm as well but not if thay is the reason they married!

I strongly disagree with that Morphene. I EBF all of mine until 7 months as it was easier that way, for me. To have forced me back to work at 6 months would have felt akin to being deprived of a limb. I have had 4 children and in that 14 years have never met one woman who returned to work before 6 months. Nobody at all out of what must be hundreds of women.

Cesar0, honestly they exist, they're not unicorns! Think low income families, self employed, 2nd time parents with less savings, families with SAHD's etc. And doesn't that contradict your earlier point about The increasing trend to force women back to work before they are ready

Ssh Pesto Low incomers are the elephant in the room on this thread.

Pesto - no, I would argue that 6 months is still too early for most mothers. Mothers will be ready at different times, but the fact that there is an arbitrary return to work date is unnatural and likely to be stressful. It's a shame that weaning is often determined by government or corporate maternity pay, rather than the mother and baby.

Of course there will be mothers who can't wait to get back to work and that's fine if it's genuinely what suits them. But for those who feel forced back, this is where it's important to have a husband who can financially provide in this interim if required. Every family will be different, but options are never a bad thing. You never know how you will feel until you've had the baby and plans change.

When it comes to working, I've just suggested on the returning to work why BF post, parents really wanting their DC to pass entrance exams, I'm confident they would pay for tutoring. Not only that but SATs, core subjects where a DC struggles.

I said about on Amazon Carol V doing books that are £3/4 to give you a base for the curriculum.

I would look to your strengths and see what you can do from home.

Just avoid MLM's like the plague

I think the 6 weeks at 90% pay for women and just about nothnig for men rightly reflects that we breastfeed and recover from bearing the children. That is English law. I was back to work before that but expressing milk. It's not easy, I agree but most women in the UK particuarlys adly the lower or non earners don't breastfeed or don't for long so it's not really the reason many women earn less than men. That is instead a whole raft of complex reasons.

It is only the fairly rich or very poor who can (whether male or female) afford a lot of unpaid time off as mortgage continue to have to be paid and if you've an older toddler in nursery or whatever you usually cannot afford to lose the place or disturb their routine just because another baby is coming.

All my colleagues return to work between 3-6 months after giving birth. SMP doesn't cover the mortgage. Nor does DH's salary. I don't know why it isn't more widely accepted that women are the higher earners. Why isn't it 50% (at least before you take time out for a family)?

Lemur - a wise post.

Breastfeeding is a bit of a red herring. I don't dispute that there are women for whom EBF from the tap is extremely important and who do it for a long time. However, the reality is that the majority of babies in the UK are not EBF past a few weeks. That's not to say time off isn't needed. Mine were FF, but certainly it took much longer for me to physically recover than the average duration of exclusive breastfeeding, iyswim.

I also don't know how far there's an increasing trend to push women back to work before they're ready, tbh. Not denying for a second that it happens, but maternity leave entitlements have gone up, not down, and women going back before 6 months are in the minority (I went back early with one of mine fwiw). I can see that many women even after 9-13 months don't feel ready to go back, but not that it's an increasing trend.

Also on the subject of low income women specifically, although you get childcare tax credits when on the paid portion of ML, these stop if you're taking the three unpaid months. I was surprised when I found this out. Seems to go against the rationale for continuing them during ML per se. You're not working any more or less during the unpaid 13 weeks than you were during the paid 39 weeks.

Yes, E, when I had babies (I am now a granny but still have teenagers too) women took much shorter amounts of time off. In some ways that was better for your career as there wasn't the "break". We had a big mortgage to pay in those days and I did not even have 6 weeks at 90% pay so was back very quickly (and the "babies" have all done fine). Each couple has to make their own choices when they are lucky enough to have any choice at all.

didireally, same here. I earned the same as my husband when we had our first child a long time ago (that first child is now a working parent now even)... but very soon earned quite a bit more and ended up earning multiples of what he did. No way would my not working have been good for anyone, me, the babies, the husband etc.

However marrying well for me was someone I loved, someone with similar interests (in our case classical music, choirs etc - he is a very talented organist and good teacher, so he had a skill albeit not very well paid, I admired and a similar work ethic and view on children, money etc). We are now divorced after 20 years but that doesn't mean it was a disaster. In fact that's another thing - some women cannot leave their husbands even though they are miserable as they don't want a much lower standard of living. If instead they earn more money than their husband that tends to give them more choices and that choice might be to separate and that can be better for the children if the marriage is a bad one. All my children agree it was the best thing for us to part. now people will say if women work marriage break up I suppose but it was really nothing to do with that.

I think the numbers of women not going back to work after giving birth was higher then, in fairness, and that wasn't a good thing either since many of them would have liked to return in some capacity. But yes, the trend over the past 20 years has been more ML, not less.

I also agree about how 'marrying well' means different things to different people, and honestly don't reckon OP has taken this on board properly. You're a good example of how someone with the big earning important career can actually be detrimental to what a woman wants to do.

I agree that the 'system' might need changing, that it would be great for all women to have the choice of spending longer away from work on ML, paid if that's what they want.

I just don't agree that you disregard the need for reform by encouraging your daughters to marry well.

I think it's disgusting to encourage girls/women to "marry well", however I do think that people of both sexes should give some thought to what kind of lifestyle they might like in the future and how to achieve this albeit not through marrying someone wealthy. And people should ideally find someone with similar financial and family values before making any big commitments.

I always knew I would like a family one day but with hindsight, I would have thought about this before university and followed an educational/career path that would have set me up for a decently-paid career where working from home and/or working part time was a possibility. Luckily, DH and I have a very similar approach to money, similar work ethic and we both value having one partner at home, so we live within our means on his wage and I am at home with DC. DH knows that I pull my weight in the partnership and we support each other. That to me is marrying well, and I would say the same to DC of either sex; aim for a flexible career if you might want a family, and find someone who wants a similar lifestyle to you.

Joan has it right here -0 you both need the same aim. Eg we were both happy we would both work full time. We both were committed to working hard and were not big spenders. it is when someone is totally different -the spender with the saver or the lazy person with the hard working one you tend to get problems.

My advice to the children is pick work you like for a start and ideally which is reasonably well paid (same advice my parents gave us by the way) and also ideally work where ultimately you might work for yourself whether that's as an architect, web design agencies, lawyer(like I am ) or whatever. That gives you quite a bit more flexibility and choice.

Finding someone who wants a similar lifestyle is a good idea. My older son wants very little money and not to do much. Not surprisingly I bet he will find women are not queuing up around the block!