Long time lurker (2 years +) , never felt the urge to post before.
But this is a very interesting, and important, thread. And, on the whole, is staying within the realms of reasoned debate; it’s ok to disagree, as long as you don’t denigrate. Too often, women attack each other for making different choices to their own. Generalisation I know, but on the whole (and I have four brothers) men don’t seem to feel the need to do this. Why are we our own worst enemies when we need to advocate for each other?
This is an important topic for me, simply I suppose because I have a daughter. What do I tell her? I don’t have a “career”. Like many people, I suspect, I have a job. I don’t love it, I don’t hate it, it is simply a means to an end. Luckily for me, it pays pretty well, but I don’t kid myself it’s making the world a better place or anything.
I had my children relatively late in life (39 and 43) and by that stage working was a habit. I could, I suppose, have been a SAHM, although I earned slightly more than my husband and dropping to one salary would have been tight. Doable, but tight. On the whole, I was in the “it’s better for the children to have a parent at home” camp. And yet. I couldn’t quite bring myself to relinquish my job, although I didn’t love it and I absolutely did love my kids. I took a six month sabbatical after my first, whilst my husband tried to persuade me to work locally and ditch my commute. I interviewed, and was offered, two local jobs. Only to find myself pregnant with the second (after 4 miscarriages). Economically, the sums didn’t add up. I would have been in a net loss situation if I’d taken either of those jobs. And whilst that wasn’t necessarily a deal breaker, accepting a new job Whilst pregnant, for me, was. I can’t know if it was entirely that tho, or some subliminal instinct, that insisted I stick with my City position.
15 months after the birth of my second child, my seemingly devoted husband walked out on our marriage and children with no prior warning at all. Desperate times. But, thank god, I can still support my children independently, and if it means working a job I don’t love or believe in, that doesn’t much matter.
As previous posters have said, this SAHM vs WOHM debate is so often not a matter of choice. We all cut our cloth to fit our circumstances. I am lucky enough to work a 4 day week. Do I feel my children are still short changed? Yes. Would I be a SAHM if the opportunity arose? No. The day a week I don’t go to my job is the hardest of my working week! I won’t give it up whilst my youngest is still in pre school ( tho I’m often tempted!) but I would be loath to do it full time. I understand the trope that says it’s better for a child to have a parent at home, especially in the early years. There is a part of me that still subscribes to it. I’m damn sure, that if you asked my kids, they’d choose for me to be at home. But they’d also choose to eat haribo for breakfast, lunch and tea and to go to bed at midnight every night. Just because they’d choose it, doesn’t make it right.
These days, I am less convinced than ever that this child centric society we are all intent on pursuing is the answer to all of societies ills. I am one of six and, for what it’s worth, my mother is inclined to say that if she had her time over, she’d have had a career and no children at all! I generally take that with a pinch of salt but ....
Women have always worked. Inside the home. Outside of the home. What remains constant is that, by and large, they are still the ones who take on the majority of the responsibility for childcare, and are the ones whose lives are changed irrevocably with the advent of children ( and yes, I know there are exceptions. Obviously.)
That being the case, I will be advising both my children to work hard and strive for financial independence. I don’t honestly see how anyone, whatever their own experience, could advise differently. Neither position is morally superior to the other. Neither benefits, nor disadvantages, the child more than the other. To think thst one upbringing is better than the other, is to ignore the myriad of other extenuating factors that come into play.
What is important and empowering for anyone, adult, child, woman, man, is choice. Everyone needs to have as many options as possible and, regardless of what you eventually choose, why would you limit that choice?