To think we don’t realise what modern life is doing to families?

[MrsGrindah]

I’ll own up here.. not a mother myself but a stepmother.
But I spend a lot of time travelling on trains for work and see so many parents on the phone to their kids ( in the mornings and before bedtime). Yes it’s great that technology allows this, but I just feel sorry for people missing out on being with their families. Last week there was a man talking to his little boy, apologising that he had gone before the boy had woken up and wouldn’t be back by the time he went to bed. I felt so sorry for everyone
Not blaming the parents and of course we all have to work. My point is as a society we are becoming used to this and almost expect people to be prepared to sacrifice a significant chunk of family life. Just makes me feel sad to see it and I wonder whether we’ll regret it in years to come.

Whatshallidonowpeople

Thats not what i see, i see people just trying to exist. Working all hours to satisfy their landlord and doing ludicrous unpaid overtime so they don't piss the boss off, not asking for time off to save their mum getting three busses to the hospital appointment.

I’m questioning why anyone would idealise a set up where one parent is financially dependent on another.

This is the absolute heart of the issue I think. To me, to be financially, emotionally, socially, intellectually, physically intertwined with, if not dependent on another person is EXACTLY what family is about. That’s the whole point. Both parents need to understand that whoever is earning is earning for the family; that they need and rely on that income. Everyone in the family needs to understand the sacrifices that person is making to earn. Both parents need to understand that the parent who is staying at home is doing so for the good of the family. Everyone in the family needs to understand that the sacrifices that parent is making.

It’s a team effort. It’s family. When and if things go wrong, the parents turn to wider support structures: extended family, friends, and if all else fails the safety net of social security (think what those two words mean - the security of society) until things settle down again.

What’s happened is that over time men (largely) have taken for granted the work women have done at home and belittled it. They’ve also lost their sense of duty and responsibility. Inevitably, women have suffered for it. Equally, women have greater choice, to earn or stay at home, but when they do earn there’s no corresponding obligation felt by men to take up the slack of home-work and child-work. So things start falling between the cracks. Eventually, each parent sees themselves as a separate and independent unit, co-parenting, sharing a sex life and social life, and that’s it. Scared by tales of stay at home mothers being left high and dry by their husbands, they also justify this as self-preservation (not arguing with that).

It’s madness. Everything is backwards and upside down. In all the run, run, run, we’ve lost sight of what it’s all really about.

In the last few years I’ve had 2 different jobs and am now between jobs. The first job I said I was a single mum and what were their hours. They said normal office hours. I said “great, because I really want to be there in the evening for my kid.” They promptly scheduled me to work from 2:00pm till 10:00pm and got shirty when I asked about day shifts.

Next job was daytime and after 9 months of full-time I felt that my teenager (who has anxiety issues) could benefit from me being around just a bit more, so I asked to cut my hours to maybe 30 hours a week. I offered to work more in the busy periods. They would not budge so I didn’t renew the contract. And thank goodness, as my kid is the most important thing in the world to me (& his adult sister) & he has needed me in spades this year.

Where I live there is record low unemployment, places are closing as they can’t find staff, and still employers won’t make the workplace a more long-term prospect.

Thats not what i see, i see people just trying to exist. Working all hours to satisfy their landlord and doing ludicrous unpaid overtime so they don't piss the boss off, not asking for time off to save their mum getting three busses to the hospital appointment.

Totally agree

Hear, hear Plums!!! I agree wholeheartedly. Despite being divorced and a former SAHM, I find it very cynical to talk about being “financially dependent” on your spouse. Inter-dependence is what family is about, to me. Give and take. When I was a SAHM I absolutely made his life easier, it just happened not to come with a salary.

That is so frustrating. I'm lucky in my profession that we are in high demand. But high demand for 60 hour weeks only. We are short 5 people in our team but they would rather the rest of us work 12 -14 hour days than hire someone for 2 or 3 days to ease the workload. Then they wonder why people get sick of it and leave. Leaving us more short staffed. I know at least 3 people who would happily work 25 or 30 hours a week but won't do long days all year any more. But there seems to huge resentment against that

Interdependence is what family is about until you break up.

Let's face it divorce ia very common.

Interdependence is what family is about until you break up.

Well, I fully expect a flaming, but yes divorce is all too common and I don’t think it necessarily needs to be. Of course I’m not talking about marriages that end up in dire straits. But a corollary of independence within marriage is seeing the other person, always, within the optic of what benefit they are to you - because if it’s not enough, you’ll go your own way. Personal happiness, personal fulfilment ranks these days so far ahead of doing one’s duty to others. To me this applies as much to men as to women.

I live in New York City, arguably the epicentre of personal gratification. Seeing what I see, it’ll be just one more generation before men will simply refuse to marry at all, on a whole scale level, because - from the viewpoint of personal gratification - they don’t need to. They don’t have the biological urges to reproduce on the scale that women do (to generalise). They can wait till their 40s and 50s to reproduce. There is no point for them in marrying as long as they can pay for the children they do have - after all, women compete in the workplace. And of course, there will be plenty of women who feel the same. But there will also be many many more whose biological clock is ticking deafeningly until they hit 40-odd; whose careers will take a nosedive if they choose to stay home with their babies for even 3 months; who literally pay financially for choosing to breastfeeding their babies. And so on and so forth.

There’s an inexorable march towards independence on both sides, and it’s th family unit that suffers.

Whatshallidonowpeople well lucky you for not having seen poverty then! I'm a single parent, have lost 3 stone in a couple of months because I can feed my son but not always myself. We live in a rough area and there is no public transport at the time I need it so need my car. I don't have top of the range anything and haven't had a takeaway for roughly 3 years. And I've never had sky and live in the north. It's the reality of surviving on minimum wage on a sole income. I'm lucky and have managed to get a new job with a promotion. Many others aren't so lucky. You sound like one of those people who says young people could afford a house if they didn't buy a coffee every week.

Great posts plumsofwrath.

I gave up my career after DC1. It was a cost- benefit decision, as I saw it, and the "cost" of the extra stress on me and the whole family outweighed the benefit of the career and future earnings.
My work was very stressful (health related), but in a totally different way to DH's (banking, now entrepreneur - no limits in hours etc). We would have been like "ships in the night" - constantly tired, increasingly distant, relying on childcare (which would have stressed me out far more than him). Just co-parenting and existing really. I knew it wasn't the life for me or our 4 DC. We live in Central London - schools are pressured and life is frenetic enough as it is. In retrospect, I guess it was a risk in some ways, but the fact is we are emotionally and financially better off as a family for having the "split roles" or "codependency" family model because over the years DH has been able to give 100% the financial provider role and his earnings are on a different scale altogether. We could never have got to this point had we both been taking it in turns to rush home for the DC or not travel / take time off for school holidays. I have no issue about the fact that everything we have he has earned, because equally, he relies on me for support and the wellbeing of his 4 DC. I don't see how it could work out otherwise - something else would have to give.

Plums, your ideals do not work in practice. Divorce, death, disability happens. Men are not suddenly going to rediscover the value of wifework. The NYC scenario is an extreme extrapolation that I do not agree with.

blushoes

I agree, mean aren’t going to suddenly —re—discover the value of wifework. No great cultural shifts happen suddenly. That doesn’t mean we don’t raise subsequent generations in the spirit of the change we want to see.

I don’t think you or I agreeing/ disagreeing with the NYC extrapolation matters. It’s here already. I personally know four single, healthy, heterosexual, high-earning, good-looking, charming men in their mid-late-30s who openly say they’d be crazy to marry and sign away half the wealth they’ve worked hard to accumulate. They’re brazen about it. I talk about family values, the very values each of them were raised with - they’re like rabbits in the headlights, and say there’s too much at stake for them, compared to their fathers. The one I know especially well, I joke openly with him that he will die rich and lonely, that he can’t take his $$$ to his grave. He shrugs and says we all die alone, kids and wives are expensive, he’s having lots of fun they way things are. He may well change his mind some years from now and settle down, who knows. He’s lucky he can. My single female friends in the same boat can’t.

Plums sure, let's talk about reversing the tide. In the meantime, women are allowing themselves to get into a vulnerable position.

NYC is a bubble, sorry. It is not representative of anything other than that intense over-achieving self-gratifying self-important extreme that a certain sphere inhabits. I have worked in various City law firms in London over 2 decades - the NYC equivalent and admittedly also a bubble. Almost all the youngish male straight lawyers (early to mid-30s) with children are married. Wanting to start a family is usually the push to tying the knot. And it is still a very popular aspiration.

plums you have clearly been lucky enough not to be in an abusive relationship. If you had been, you would understand. I am lucky, because I worked I could escape. I would probably be dead by now if I hadn’t. Go idealise that.

nevertwerk

I’m sorry about your experience. I did specifically exclude marriages that are in dire straits. I didn’t think I needed to specify what that meant, but obviously an abusive one is included in that. One would have to be quite obtuse to make the comments I made without that exception.

But the fact is plum one doesn’t go into marriage knowing it is going to be abusive. Often the abuse only appears when the first child arrives, or later, when one becomes financially dependent on the other.

Also, I have seen enough SAHM on here going out of their minds with stress when the spouse they depend upon is made redundant to never want to put my family in that position if I can possibly help it.

I completely agree OP.

I get so sad sometimes. All I want is to spend more time with my family. I'd love to be a SAHM, but we can't afford it so I work hard and long hours, so does DH. We miss our children. We never have weekends as a family as DH works weekends in order to have one day a week with our youngest so he at least doesn't have to go to nursery ( days.

DH is knackered, in knackered, our kids are knackered (because they have long day of nursery or a full school week with after school clubs to accommodate our working hours)

I just don't know how to escape this crazy treadmill. We can't reduce our hours or we'd lose our house (just a regular 3 bed semi).

I would love to ditch it all and take the kids to New Zealand, or the highlands, and do something completely different, but DH isn't keen, and even if he was, where would we even start ?

Actually family life if changing for the better. Fathers tend to be more hands on and less willing to be away for long stretches.
The baby boomer generation dads were often hardly there - it’s just not the case anymore. My dh has noticed this in recruitment. The jobs that involve extensive travelling, being away from home a lot are much harder to fill, people just don’t want to do it. They want to spend the weekends with their family, take their kids to school occasionally etc. I see loads of dads at the school gates.

Nursery '5' days - sorry typo!

'I'm knackered' not 'in knackered' - you can tell I'm knackered!!

Bodicea - I disagree. It used to be dads working long hours and mums at home. Now it's both working long hours and kids in afterschool club. I personally would welcome a return to '1 salary' being enough to support a household - fine if that is split between Mum and dad

Actually family life if changing for the better. Fathers tend to be more hands on and less willing to be away for long stretches.

I read an article that said, while things aren't better at the moment, it will get better as long as employees stick to their guns about the important of family time. We're at a cross-roads now, I think, it that women have been accepted into the workforce and are starting to be treated the same as men. That means that they have to work the same long hours that men have always had to work. Meanwhile, men are starting to take on board that working long hours means less time with the family and less time helping in the household.

As long as men keep wanting more family time, I think you'll see employers react by lowering expectations.

I work ft in a well paid job and have 3children.

It’s not about iPads and consumer goods etc (we don’t own an ipad, we run a small car etc)

The cost of living is rising so fast that we cannot rely on one income. I would disadvantage my children if I didn’t work.

We need to be able to cope financially if the washing machine breaks down etc

I think Dads are less willing to travel because they don't have a stay at home wife. Not because they don't want to miss out on family time. It's just not workable for a mom to work full time, commute, do creche drop off and collection, shopping and cooking cleaning homework after school activities bath time and breathing, so DH can hardly swan off on work trips every second week.