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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

for being a SAHM

492 replies

2shoeswhoismshadowsnumber1fan · 13/05/2007 10:12

i am a SAHM because
I have a severely disabled child. I have to be on call 24/7 as she also has epilepsy/
Dh is happy for me to be a SAHM and we manage finacially.
apart from respite we have no one to help if she is ill or in the school hoildays.

OP posts:
MamaMaiasaura · 14/05/2007 22:29

ture mamazon..

I love you too 2shoes LOL at least this thread got me chatting to you lots.. Lets look on the positive side!

rabbleraiser · 14/05/2007 22:32

Xenia, I don't recall saying that women didn't traditionally work, but perhaps I unwittingly implied it in an earlier post. I am aware of social history (I happen to be an intelligent bog cleaner ,) and my grandmother and my mother both worked ... but in the same way that I do, which is around childcare.

For what it's worth, I don't do too badly financially, but I take your point about the contrast. I made a choice ... I'm an older mother, I'm only ever going to have one child, and I clean other women's houses because it's an option available to me at the moment that suits my current situation.

I'm proud of the choices I've made. I can look my son in the eye when he's older and tell him that I cleaned other people's floors so that he could have a better start in life than me.

2shoeswhoismshadowsnumber1fan · 14/05/2007 22:33

rabbleraiser you are right to be proud

OP posts:
mamazon · 14/05/2007 22:33

roflmao 2shoes

Nikki76 · 14/05/2007 22:39

I think its up to people to do what suits them and their family - simple as that! Life is far to short to stress about what other people are doing regarding working or not working!

As for me, I'm profoundly deaf, its not easy for me to get a job as you wouldn't believe how many companies piss and moan about being able to use the telephone (not minicom I add) and so with my job, as well as wanting to go back part time for a financial pespective, I need to keep my hand in the work place as I don't need a career gap and a disability to contend with - it doesn't wash with the increasingly competitive job market these days!

Live and let live.....

DimpledThighs · 14/05/2007 22:40

I love pete burns

2shoeswhoismshadowsnumber1fan · 14/05/2007 22:41

he spins me right round baby right round

OP posts:
mamazon · 14/05/2007 22:44

like a madwoman baby round round round round

Nikki76 · 14/05/2007 22:45

Pete Burns?

MamaMaiasaura · 14/05/2007 22:48

see i looked byee x

Wotzsaname · 14/05/2007 22:48

I wasn't here...

mamazon · 14/05/2007 22:49

its ok cos i have already gone so didnt see you

rabbleraiser · 14/05/2007 23:00

And just who is Pete Burns?

I mean, we all know that peat burns. Just ask the Irish.

DimpledThighs · 14/05/2007 23:03

\link{ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands \pete burns}

feel this thread may have lost it's way a bit though!

DimpledThighs · 14/05/2007 23:04

crikey moses!

GiantSquirrelSpotter · 14/05/2007 23:15

Oh dear all this rubbish about "women have always had to and wanted to work"

No, the aim for most people historically has always been to reduce the time they had to work. Not just women. The fight for the eight hour day was all about reducing the working week for everyone. It was supposed to be only a start. Unfortunately, the struggle for a shorter working week appears to have stopped in its tracks about ooh, a century ago.

I swore I would never bother to counter any of Xenia's arguments again, but can't resist - the idea that it's a "risk" to be dependent on a man. Actually it's a "risk" to be dependent on an employer as well. Redundancy terms from a husband are generally better than those from an employer. Having a job/ career doesn't protect you from being dumped without money. Most people do not earn enough to cushion themselves against being dumped by their employers. Most of us are "a paycheque from poverty".

Yes I know, you're now going to tell us that that's why people who go in for low paid jobs where you are only a paycheque from poverty, like teaching, nursing, occupational therapy, admin, etc., are stupid and ought to only bother to do highly paid jobs. But that really is not a solution, if everyone wanted to be city bankers and no-one wanted to be nurses, the price of city bankers would go down and that of nurses would go up. As Gilbert and Sullivan so succintly put it "when everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody".

In answer to the op, of course you're not unreasonable, you don't need a justification to be a SAHM. Bringing up children doesn't stop being socially useful activity because you have an emotional and biological investment in the children you bring up (no-one has ever explained to me properly why it's work when it's done by someone who is paid and worth at least £400 a week, but not work when it's done by a mother and worth nothing).

lucyellensmum · 14/05/2007 23:26

squirrel, yes, i like that, "a paycheque from poverty", i know that feeling only too well. I try not to involve myself in a xenia thread, as i have termed the SAHM debate because its always hijacked and interesting points of view are not heard because certain people feel it has to be a feminist campaign, yeah yeah, well ive read the womens room, i did my men hating when i was in my twenties, now i think they really are rather cool and im happy in my domestic haven. One day, when im good and ready, i'll go back to work, just now, im going to enjoy my daughter.

rabbleraiser · 14/05/2007 23:52

Nice one, Lucy.

Nice one, Giant.

Off to bed now.

LOVE YOU .................. MEAN IT.

Missing you already.

Judy1234 · 15/05/2007 07:53

In some areas though people's views are right, aren't they? Like say beating up your wife, children or husband is wrong. It's working which areas parents can differ and yet still be within a band the law should allow. For example I think it's fine parents can condition their children to be a particular religion but I wouldn't be very happy if it were an incest cult. There are also some men and women who think small children are damaged if they're not with their mothers most of the time - those who believe that really have a duty to try to stamp out the bad practice which is damaging the children in their view not just live and let live and allow the damage to happen.

So as to the question of whether women should largely give up work and be housewives and men carry on I do think there's an important political issue there to help women keep the rights they only really just gained otherwise employers do indeed say most women leave so what's the point in hiring them. If instead one man and one woman in a 1000 gave up work there would not be the same adverse reaction against female workers. In this unique period in British history only a few years since the equal pay legislation of about 1970 or whenever it was as I've said before there's almost a duty to put other women above your own children even if you think it's better for your children to be home particularly if you're working in a good job.

It's looking after under 3s which is the most hard work. I can see that some women do that for 5 years and then enjoy the next 5 not working whilst they are at school as a kind of bonus period off to make up in a sense.

As for financial investment - yes many men do pay after divorce but plenty more don't as countless debates on divorce web sites show, all kinds of schemes - men who truly loved you and respected your role as housewife whilst you were married and you could never imagine going off with someone younger who then does and engineers is to there's no money, who persuaded you to remortgage the house for his business or who hides assets abroad or moves away and can't be traced. Divorce is a much bigger risk than if you're dependent on a man than death and much more likely to happen.

lucyellensmum · 15/05/2007 09:40

right - here's my story. I CHOSE to stay at home and look after DD at least until she starts nursery when she is three, then i will consider returning to work or retraining. At the moment i have a very part time, very casual job and during this time my dd has some time with her nan. My DP would actually really rather i returned to work now but respects my choice and accepts that it is not for ever. ARe there really women out there who prefer not to return to work when the kids are at school? If so, i dont think they do it as a reward for the "hard work" and if they do, well then they are lazy cows and don't warrant discussion in this forum. I think that women's careers often suffer as a result of being SAHMs but that is a choice for the individual, there is always a payoff, it is about what works for you and your family. So please don't pity me for turning away from my career to look after my unplanned DD, i've never been happier. Just recognise that i have made this choice and i do a bloody hard but rewarding job. I have an older DD (16y) and i worked long hours when she started playschool and up until dd2 was born, i regret this immensly because i KNOW that i wasn't around for my DD1 when she needed me as i was too focused on my own career. So when i return to work, and i am in more of a position to be choosy now i will certainly be doing no more than nine to five. There was a thread recently where the poster's DH would not "allow" her to return to work and that is quite a different story. We do have to remember Xenia that not everyone is blessed with a decent education or the intellectual capacity to take on interesting and challenging careers, there are plenty of women and men who take on the menial jobs (i was one of them) just to pay the bills, now they certainly get my respect.

MamaMaiasaura · 15/05/2007 09:40

yet again xenia you talk complete and utter rot.

and I quote - 'as I've said before there's almost a duty to put other women above your own children even if you think it's better for your children to be home particularly if you're working in a good job. '

and surprise surprise you have managed to 'ignore' other posts with questions etc aimed at yourself. I am pretty much at the point where i pity you and your kids. I am so thankful for that fact that I am me and thatI have the partner and wonderful son that I have.

MamaMaiasaura · 15/05/2007 09:43

lucy - u couldnt keep away either morning.. shouldnt you be going around your duties and not on the PC

My dp is off today for our scan and laughed his head off at xenia's posts (btw dp is a very intelligent man ). If a man started spouting the stuff coming out of xenias mouth there would be uproar.. hmm there lies the truth.

good post btw lucy x

FioFio · 15/05/2007 09:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

southeastastra · 15/05/2007 09:55

oh fio quote of the week there

Elasticwoman · 15/05/2007 09:56

"Almost a duty to put other women above your children" - PMSL Xenia, you are priceless. Just glad you put the Almost in there.

Re your much earlier comment about Hitler - I found that v interesting. What you said, that Hitler wanted to keep women at home, was true, but provoked an outraged response from some one, as the subject of Hitler often does.

I would say that Hitler's attitude to women was kinder than his attitude to Jews, Gipsies, Slavs, the disabled, mentally ill and many other minorities who suffered wholesale slaughter under his regime. Hitler himself was "nothing but an ill-educated beer-hall demagogue" according to Ian Kershaw but that doesn't mean we should never mention him.

One thing he used to go on about to his inner circle was that smoking caused lung cancer. No one took him seriously at the time, and he certainly had done no scientific research in the matter.