Whats you opinion of "stay at home wives"

[strawberryperogi]

After reading another thread about SAHMs I am curious about what people would say about SAHWs, I know you will all say it should just be unemployed but if the person isn't looking for a job then are they really in that catagory?

Could you respect or be friends with a woman who didn't work and earn or at least look after her children?

Just curious!

I attended the funeral of a SAHW recently. The eulogy went something like, "She was really supportive of her husband, fitting around his working hours and looking after the home for him. She was a happy little soul. She liked her neighbours. The end." I thought it was quite sad. She didn't seem to have been a person in her own right.

Calling it prostitution is completely devaluing the idea of a relationship whether or not both partners work. Do you really think all you provide in a relationship is sex? No companionship? No affection? No socialising? No doing practical stuff for each other?

Those who are so dismissive of non working women, who the hell do you think it is the runs, fundraisers for and donates time to volunteer community organisations, Playgroup’s, senior lunch clubs, support groups, foodbanks, church groups, youth clubs, literacy groups etc etc etc.

Why would anyone who spends hours a day as a volunteer or running a charity call themselves a stay at home wife?

By that reasoning, anyone with a job is also a stay at home wife.

I for one, bloody love spending my dh's hard earned money

Well, it depends on the person. Someone who literally does nothing, like nothing at all, then probably not.

But I know one published emerging poet, and artists of various kinds who are intermittently employed in the traditional sense, and I have lots of respect for them. It’s about your worldview really and what you want out of life, isn’t it?

I wouldn't judge anybody on their lifestyle choices whatever they may be.

Friends to me are people who are kind, decent and who's company I enjoy. How they live their life is none of my business.

I'd have more of an issue being friends with someone judgemental than I would with someone who chose not to work.

Bluntness I didn't really mean my partner, I'd like an extra person to be housekeeper! Like having "staff". But if others are happy for their partner to do those things instead of working then it's not something I'd judge them for.

Op it is annoying that you are refusing to acknowledge that housework IS work. It may not be paid, but it is still has value.

The amount of time and effort it takes to do the housework, laundry, admin etc. It could be that they would pay more to get that done by someone else (cleaner PA etc) than she could ever hope to earn so it does not make financial sense. My cleaner easily earns more than her husband, and he is a manager working every hour under the sun for a leading supermarket.

There is value to all work whether at home or outside the house.

Coffeeforone, would you mind explaining why you would find it hard to respect a SAHW or be friends with one? What reasons would you deem as valid?

I have quite a large circle of friends/family and they all either look after children and/or work. I just don't think I'd have much in common with someone who does neither without good reason.

I'd think 'valid reasons' would include anything health related or if they were doing something productive with their time, like volunteering.

" their husbands happened to get to the top of their careers in the years they were caring for their children and are very high earners"
What an amazing coincidence.

Those of you who are saying it's a job someone else needs would you genuinely have that attitude i the wife was the higher earner?

Worth mentioning that sex isn't a requirement of any marriage so it's really nothing like prostitution.

i think it’s sort of selfish to take up a job and earn more money if your household has no need for that income

So what’s an acceptable income? Why shouldn’t we enjoy having extra money?

You might allow him to be an sahd but would you think he SHOULD from a moral perspective?

I think that if both sides of the partnership are happy with the arrangement, then that's fine.

For a while before having DC I worked part time. It was very helpful being able to stay in for boiler services, taking MIL to hospital appointments, doing admin so we didn't need to do it in the evenings.

Wow, these threads are depressing.

I'm planning on being a sahw when my ds goes to school in September.Pmsl at the prostitution comment-green isn't your colour is it love?

In fact presumably all these coincidental high earning males refuse pay rises above a certain amount as the money should go to creating a lower paid role for someone else?

i think it’s sort of selfish to take up a job and earn more money if your household has no need for that income

Do you feel the same way about men who are the lower earner?

Why are folks taking it to extremes? Wives with a portfolio of properties to look after. Wives whose husband has reached the top of their careers and so they spend busy fully scheduled weeks in charity work.

I don't know any of these people. How many folks do? They will be the minority.im sure they exist, but let's face it, property barons and full time charity workers ain't what the op is talking about. I certainly wouldn't classify someone as a stay at home wife if they worked full time in charity or looked after a major property portfolio.

Well going by some of the previous scathing replies, I'm a lazy arsed prostitute living off my hard working husband.

i would struggle to respect or be friends with a sahw

Personally I would struggle to respect or be friend with someone one doesn't know that 'I' is capitalised and acronyms are also capitalised.

To be quite frank, I could not give a damn what anyone thinks about me. We both live a very nice life and are very happy with how we choose to live it.

HagSeed Then it was a badly written eulogy! I am sure there was much more to her, but maybe her family were so grief stricken (as we have been in the past) they found the whole thing quite unbearable to talk about.

I always feel sorry for the people where work was their life, those funerals are very sad too, as if all that mattered to them was working to the grave and there were not a full and complete human being.

Personally I think they are taking a risk.

I've worked with a couple of women whose husbands left them when their children were adults who didn't work. Luckily in these women's cases they were educated and manage to find an employer who would take them on with limited experience - incidentally both had done OU degrees sometime in the past - otherwise they wouldn't have been able to find a job.

In my own extended family's history there are men who have died before retirement, had illnesses which meant they couldn't work and men who have lost their jobs. The reason the women was able to maintain their lifestyle is because they worked.

Up against that was fintress :=

I don't know any of these people. How many folks do? They will be the minority.im sure they exist, but let's face it, property barons and full time charity workers ain't what the op is talking about. I certainly wouldn't classify someone as a stay at home wife if they worked full time in charity or looked after a major property portfolio.

No, and I would be a bit hmm about anyone who classed themselves as a stay at home wife if they did all that. Everyone is trying to be super non-judgemental and that's great and all but do people think it's an issue that women in 2018 define themselves by their marital status over anything else that they do?

I am woman who happens to be married it's not my reason for being.

well said pratrocket sex is not a requirement of marriage.