to find it sad that women talk about their DH’a achievements like they are their own

[Curiositykilledthecat113]

On all these “how much do you earn” threads I find it sad to see so many women who gave up careers of a lot of money to be a SAHM and talk proudly about their DH’s income as if it’s their achievement. I wonder why it’s always the woman who cares for the children and how so many woman can decide to give up work leaving them in such a vulnerable position if the husband leaves them.

OP I am amazed at you. Nanny is as good as a parent. You live and learn.

I love my work and do not plan to retire
BUT
I've not worked full time since I had the kids
and do not plan to work full time even when they leave home
as I like to be able to potter in the garden on a sunny weekday

I'd love to have more money, but I'm more focused on time and enjoyment.
Being able to fit work around the needs of my kids has been a huge bonus that was worth the exams earlier in my career.

It is odd to co-opt into a partners work achievements. It's always high earning / status men, you never hear anyone going "oh yes Derek is a fabulous bin man, he'd never have done that without me cooking dinner and ferrying the kids about". At DDs independent school I reckon maybe less than 1 in 10 mum's are working, they are all graduates too.

redelephant "Personally, if I manage to raise happy, confident, kind children who contribute in some positive way to society then I'll feel like I have achieved something amazing"

Not trying to be sarcastic. Genuine question: do you feel you have any amazing achievements of your own outside of raising kids or being a partner?

This is the attitude I find so saddening if that is the case and someone's primary valued achievements are only reflected in others. Like supporting a spouse well or raising great kids. It casts women in the role of servitude to others. A supporting role. Mostly good for child rearing or being a good wife in the home.

If you do see other achievements as just as valuable/more worthy than what you wrote then sorry, but I think it's a point worth making anyway. Women are their own individuals and worth so much more than just being able to raise kids or support others. What about the things you do for yourself or that require your own special skills or talents?

Threads like this are enlightening, aren't they?

The saying goes "women have no idea how much men hate them" - but it seems women have no idea how much other women hate them either.

I actually would feel regret on my death bed if my career was sacrificed for kids tbh, but that's because my career is focused around supporting/helping others and makes a huge impact in society by lifting up those who are struggling. I would make a much bigger positive impact on the world working full time at this for the next few decades then I would raising 2-3 decent children. I love what I do so much and believe in its value I also do it voluntarily for free.

By which I mean to say maybe I'd feel differently if I was just working to make someone else money.

I have so much more autonomy at home than I ever have at work. This idea that by working women are fulfilled and only by working strikes me as a delusion of the middle classes.

When I was a SAHM (& now that I’m divorced when I’m between Work contracts) I could structure my day according to my needs, have creative endeavours, get outside, get exercise. When I’m at work I take breaks when I’m told to, I get spoken to like a naughty child by supervisors, I’m stuck indoors for 8 hours at a time, and I’m mostly sedentary. Oh, and I’m bored to death.

Give me the creativity of interacting with my kids who love me, and teaching them about the world, and teaching them skills anyway. I’m not sure why some women think being a mum is a passive state. Most peculiar.

I don’t think most women (or people come to that) are in exciting, fulfilling, stimulating jobs with autonomy. I think most of us would jack it in in a second if we won the lottery.

Stacking shelves, inputting data, ordering supplies, serving customers, processing paperwork ... the work world is not as exciting as the minority experience it:

I think most of us would jack it in in a second if we won the lottery.
Yes and no.
I deal with a fair few people who have won the pensions lottery
(index linked pensions that make them 40% taxpayers)
and many of them choose to work part time to stop their brains turning to mush.
Some work half of each week.
Others work every other month.
But many found not working at all quite soul destroying.

This is the attitude I find so saddening if that is the case and someone's primary valued achievements are only reflected in others. Like supporting a spouse well or raising great kids. It casts women in the role of servitude to others. A supporting role. Mostly good for child rearing or being a good wife in the home

Let's turn this around, shall we? What is paid employment? Most jobs involve working for someone else, don't they?

This thread smacks of a passive aggressive dig at SAHPs to be honest. I got six months full pay maternity then went back full time. I didn't really have a choice, but I think I'd have went back even of I did. My mate's taken a career break and I know a few SAHPs. I think all parents are just doing what works for them and we're all just trying to raise the children the best we can, every family's different. Doesn't bother me to be honest, why should it?

Atenco I'm not necessarily referring to achievements being only employment related. There are so many skills and talents someone may have outside of work or raising children/supporting a spouse. So many women I met when I worked with mostly middle aged women had no interests let alone skills/talents beyond their kids. Literally nothing else to talk about. Like they lived their whole life via their children.

Derek wouldn't be able to go out on the bins at silly o clock if it wasn't for Linda taking the kids to school but you don't hear Linda bragging on mumsnet. Only hear about the husband who is enabled by his fabulous wife to work all hours in high finance or law.

Well, I find work quite soul-destroying. No time to read the news or dig into a good book.

I am never bored at home (as books are available & the outdoors is there to be walked in). I am bored about 7 out of 8 hours at work.

My brain goes to mush at work, where as at home I’m constantly being challenged by books, online articles, friends’ conversations, etc.

This stimulating work people do - it’s not the majority of workers.

Slowly working my way through.
Sahp are not normally Sah for life. I worked for 18 years pre kids and will work again.
For me and our family me being virtually a sahp works. But hopefully my dds will have a career and they can take a career break for however long they wish.

I think being a stay at home parent is a valid choice. As is not working when the kids are older and living of your husbands income. It’s personal. It was and always has been a choice open to me, but not one I have ever considered for a second, I’m too independent to do it.

My issue, is the topic of the thread, where stay at home mums claim their husbands success to be theirs. The thread the op was referring to people were posting their husbands income in response to the question what do you earn. Someone even posted their ex husbands salary. And that’s where the discussion comes in.

Society may tell women that being a stay at home parent isn’t enough, specifically when the kids are out all day, yes they are urged to get a job, but those women who chose to not do so, do not need to feed into and perpetuate the myth it’s not enough themselves by saying they earn their husbands salary or that his career success is their achievements.

Having the life you want is enough achievement. Own your decisions, whatever they may be.

I don’t think most women (or people come to that) are in exciting, fulfilling, stimulating jobs with autonomy. I think most of us would jack it in in a second if we won the lottery

True, but many men don't seem to have the choice. What's the reason? Do men prefer working? Is their identity more tied up in work?

This is just a thread to bash SAHM wrapped up as feigned curiosity. Just concentrate on yourself OP.

I don't need to work. Never had to as DH is a corporate lawyer and very chilled about what I do with my time.

But apart from one period where I couldn't ( no green card), I've preferred to.

I love what I do. Consider my skills a bit of a gift, so wouldn't want to waste them. I earn well, receive a fair bit of recognition for what I do and perhaps most importantly I make people's lives a bit more pleasant.

If I felt that my working had impoverished my DC in some way, I'd have stopped I think. But it never has. And DH appears to have been able to muddle along in his career without me at his side 24/7.

So many women I met when I worked with mostly middle aged women had no interests let alone skills/talents beyond their kids. Literally nothing else to talk about. Like they lived their whole life via their children.

In fairness, though, I've met loads of people (of both sexes) who have no interests beyond their work and nothing else to talk about. It's not exactly fascinating listening to someone go into excruciating detail about the contract they priced last week, or the speech they made on shipping law at a conference. There are people who have a broad range of interests and are well read and informed and there are people who are narrowly focused on their own world. This does not break down across SAHP/WOHP (or not in my experience, anyway!). For what it's worth, I've found it very personally stimulating to spend time with my children as they've got older and developed interests of their own. I know all sorts of things about all sorts of things I'd never come across before!

This is the attitude I find so saddening if that is the case and someone's primary valued achievements are only reflected in others. Like supporting a spouse well or raising great kids. It casts women in the role of servitude to others. A supporting role. Mostly good for child rearing or being a good wife in the home.

But what achievements do the most of us have anyway - even in the workforce? Apart from very few people (and most people won't recognise the names of most nobel prize winners), what will anyone say we achieved by our work other than supporting ourselves by doing a decent job. Do we now say that someone working in a support role at work is sad? And who turned full-time child minding into a "support role" anyway?

There are plenty of boring people out there. People who only talk about their jobs are as boring as people who only talk about their children. The most interesting people are those who are curious and engaged in the world around them and have a few interests outside family or job (although sport/hobby bores are awful too). For every middle-aged woman with no interests outside her kids, there is a middle aged man with no interests outside his job. I know men afraid to retire because they know they have nothing outside of their careers and their wives often have busier more engaged lives even if they don't have a job.

What a depressing & goady thread. I feel sad for you OP that you seem to link your self worth and career so closely. You could give all your time to it and they could make you redundant without much of a second thought. I hardly see investing that time into children as being a waste or not achieving. And I’m someone who has had a great career which has meant a great deal to me.

It’s a choice. If working suits you then crack on but to belittle other women’s choices because they’re not your own is sad.

I am proud of what we’ve achieved as a family. And if one of us stopped working that wouldn’t change.

Wait until they're teens natalia it's ace!!!

They suddenly build their own world and introduce you to it. They get a bad press but are actually fascinating and because their generation is different it's a new exciting world. I've enjoyed so many things from The Walking Dead to Sarah Kane.

That gives me a lot of hope, Carl - the stereotype is that they get to 13/14 and don't want to know you any more, so I'm hoping mine will be out of the same mould as yours....!

I agree that most work is not fascinating despite the demographic on here going on about how they are changing the world with their jobs but those bringing up children or just hey doing not a lot are basically a waste of space .

I have lots of friends, most do work to be fair and some of them full time. I can only think of a couple who have genuinely interesting jobs that I would love to hear about what they do all day, the others sort out people's pensions, cut hair, walk dogs, do admin in offices, TA's in schools etc. None of that would make me love to go to work every day and I know for most of them it doesn't either.

As Natalie quite rightly said above, an interesting person does lots of things and takes part in different conversations, hobbies, work etc to say that you are scintillating if you work and dull if you don't is just ridiculous.