“He wouldn’t be where he is if I hadn’t sacrificed my career”

[BooFuckingHoo2]

I am expecting a flaming for this .

AIBU to think this is often untrue? I know many men with stay at home wives and kids who, in all honesty, whilst happy to have kids (because the wife does all the wifework) would probably have been equally happy with either no kids or extensive wraparound childcare and an equally high earning wife.

I often see it trotted out on here “I sacrificed my career to look after our children” - but the for the majority of women (aside from some exceptions e.g. husband working abroad) I’m sure it was a welcome choice and not something they were strong armed into. In my experience (unless childcare costs eclipse the wife’s salary) the husband is usually indifferent (aside from the wankers who want a trophy wife) as to whether the wife works or not.

Equally “he wouldn’t be where he is in his career if it wasn’t for me”. I’m sure there’s a small minority of women who’ve accelerated their husbands career but I think for most, they’d have been the same with or without their wife, although granted possibly with no children or higher childcare costs.

AIBU?

This is such an interesting thread.

I suppose it comes into it, what you mean by "where he is". Obviously it often is taken to mean career success. But success can also mean strong mental health, a good work / life balance, feasibility of the number of kids he wanted, safe and appealing home. So in that sense, a SAHP can (imho) often contribute over and above services that can be bought in, by keeping wheels turning smoothly and contributing to overall quality of life.

I move in much less illustrious circles than those on here - I genuinely don't know anyone who earns a 6 figure salary and we - my friends and I - tend to banter that "earning your age" (as in, £35k at 35 etc) is doing pretty well round here. However I haven't ever heard the term "sacrificed my career"... it is often acknowledged that life is much more dealable-with once kids are on the scene if one or both parents take the foot off the gas with their career.

Sometimes the middle-class navel-gazing on here really pisses me off. There are loads of SAHPs at my kids and mostly they're just doing what gets their family through.

The problem can be that a short term solution becomes an embedded dynamic. If something has become the status quo, then it can feel like a sacrifice to change it. That goes for a SAH or pt working parent increasing their hours as well as a parent of a new child reducing them. Often the parent who has worked out of the home feels stepping up the domestic or childcare duties would be a "sacrifice" to "enable" the formerly less career-focussed partner to return to work. It's probably a very unhelpful term to use and a ridiculous mindset to get into.

@MarthaWashingtonsFeralTomcat - I think you’ll find that’s because some people rather arrogantly believe anyone can earn their way out of vulnerability, and they despise vulnerability.

You have the information to make an informed decision

But sacrifices are by very definition a choice. Otherwise you aren't the one making a sacrifice someone else is depriving you of your needs and wants. And choice to be a true choice should be an informed choice.

Another example. Someone who willingly joins the army might have to make the 'ultimate sacrifice'. That choice is informed within the recruitment process. They might enjoy a lot of aspects of their army career, travel, promotion, the sense of good done in protective peace keeping missions. Would you say because it has been planned and informed that is not a sacrifice?

And SAHMs aren't asking for much really, apart from some respect. Which is what we should do for any other human being, really.

[quote Walkaround]@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom - funny how so many people berate SAHMs for sacrificing financial independence, status and respect and argue that a “fair share” of assets should not be half if they didn’t do paid work, then, isn’t it, given the lack of sacrifice you claim they made.[/quote]
I have never said this.

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom - yes you have, because that is what you give up when you give up a career in this society, and you say that is not a sacrifice.

What baffles me, is why anyone who is not a SAHM, would give a flying monkeys about whether women who are SAHMs perceive themselves to have “sacrificed” this if that or whatever.

Please ask yourselves why this matters to you do much.

As pensivepigeon says, most people are just getting by in whatever way makes more sense for them.

Life is all about opportunity cost. Most decisions involve some level of “sacrifice.”

@rathertalktothecats - the only reason I can think of for someone who is not a SAHM starting this thread is to try to put others down and minimise them in every way possible, because the poster looks down on them and thinks they are harmful to their own personal agenda.

I don't think it's baffling to have a debate about why some fathers are reluctant to share the load & compromise & why it's generally mothers who have to give up something be it work, me time etc.

Please ask yourselves why this matters to you do much.

Because I have sons & daughters.

Why do you think it shouldn't matter to me?

Or possibly the OP just thinks wealthy men are psychopaths who have always been indifferent to their wives and children, feel no need to have a family except to appear normal, and could have used anyone to get what they want.

@Walkaround

Or possibly the OP just thinks wealthy men are psychopaths who have always been indifferent to their wives and children, feel no need to have a family except to appear normal, and could have used anyone to get what they want.

I used to work for incredibly rich clients in another life, and that’s not such an unfair characterisation...

the only reason I can think of for someone who is not a SAHM starting this thread is to try to put others down and minimise them in every way possible, because the poster looks down on them and thinks they are harmful to their own personal agenda.

I just don't see how the OPs was minimising & putting all SAHMs down.
Plenty of posters on these threads & similar say they hate the idea of childcare, or someone else raising their dc. Because I use childcare does mean there can be no debate about the types of childcare there are? No. Does it upset me that people may think I'm a bad mother because I use childcare even when I don't necessarily need eg on mat leave or during school holidays? No.

Ime some wealthy men are very much like that!

jilly - but the debate was not presented in that way, was it?

It’s the usual, transparent agenda of trying to present SAHMs as a certain stereotype - supercilious, self-obsessed, yet misguided - “Oh he wouldn’t be where he is today without me... yadda yadda.”

The whole agenda here is a misogynistic load of bollocks, sadly perpetrated by bitter women and / or the most unpleasant kind of men. It happens time in time again on here and it’s pathetic, frankly.

Shall we just say this then - “Yes these silly SAHMs. Thinking they are superior. Believing they have contributed to the husband’s success. We all know they are deluding themselves and should have just gone to work like me instead because look at me and DH - we’re fine aren’t we..”

Would that make some people feel better?

The OP said that in some cases it would be true just not all. I don't see what is so bad about that.

GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom
Me neither. If anything I see countless posters explaining that common law marriage isn't a thing and encouraging women to make an informed decision before staying at home so that family assets are fairly split in the event of relationship breakdown (rather than moving into DP's house, paying towards a house in his name, giving up personal pension contributions, losing their earning power and financial independence and finding themselves trapped or shafted). Yet again, the men of this world are very clued up on how to ensure they can maintain their advantages.

Sadly any discussion of norms, gender attitudes, division of home responsibility, questioning the default assumption that mum steps in to save dad, ends in the same place where any questions about why it's socially accepted and implicitly assumed that men are too big and important to manage family life is taken by some posters as a personal attack on their circumstances. Even if you're absolutely explicit that you don't give a damn how individuals structure their family and thay SAHP is a perfectly valid choice, some people cannot (or choose not to)comprehend that discussions on a society level aren't all about them.

rather
Do you think there are some mothers who would like to work but can't because their partners refuse to make compromises?

Would that make some people feel better?

What do you think people need to feel better about?

sadly perpetrated by bitter women

Am I one of these bitter women & if so what am I bitter about?

jillypill
Someone yesterday explained that they were a high earner and their husband told them he would move internationally for his career so she had to pick whether to live as a family or keep her career.

I believe that the SAHM contributes something to the man's career.

but that something is the same level whether the chap is a £40k civil servant or a £2billion Richard Branson.

So people like RB would be where they were regardless, that's the man they are. They didn't need the support of a wife as such to get there.

Thats what annoys me more, claiming the other person's success as their own (unless obviously its a joint business they run together and both contribute equally)

(equally applies to rich business women)

And I think most of these men would not be fussed if they had kids or not particularly. Nice to have but not necessary.

Well I don’t know who is bitter or not (only posters know that) but these threads do speak volumes, to be fair.

Yes some women may well like to work but they can’t because their husbands won’t make compromises. Just as many women do, in fact, work and their husbands still don’t make compromises.

The issue in either scenario is the DH.

What does that have to do with SAHMs supposedly perceiving themselves to have made some great “sacrifice?”

[quote Walkaround]@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom - yes you have, because that is what you give up when you give up a career in this society, and you say that is not a sacrifice.[/quote]
You were complaining about SAHPs being berated and people saying they don't deserve half. I didn't berate them (unless you take "it's not a sacrifice when it's both a free choice and your ideal life, which for many people it is" as castigation, which it isn't), or say anything about half the assets. I was no more specific than "fair share" because this depends hugely on the individual circumstances. Half should certainly be the starting point. It might be more.

I am starting to wonder why so many people are getting so offended and defensive about the idea that it's not a sacrifice to be a SAHP if you actively wanted not to work, and to stay home to run the house and raise the children, as many people do.

Why is it so offensive to say, "This is your choice (on the occasions when it is), it is valid, it is fine, it is true to you and right for your life, and in a great many instances, it is not a sacrifice because you haven't given up anything you would have liked to have kept"? Sure, you've lost earning power, but in many instances, the SAHP doesn't care about this because they're financially secure without it and they don't get fulfilment or satisfaction from earning or working. It's not, for those people, a sacrifice.

Why do you need the sacrificial narrative? The choice is fine and stands alone without it. Others not recognising this is a different issue; that alone doesn't mean you gave up something you would ideally have kept.

(Generic you, of course.)

i have always worked f/t and have 2DC. Two years ago, when my DC were 5 and 7ish, I worked on a critical project in the company where I was working with the senior leaders (C-suite and exec management) plus the "up and comings" - i.e. the next generation of leaders. In the team of about 50, there were about 10% women (two single, me and two others with youngish DC). Of the men, most had DC. Almost all the men had SAHPs or wives who worked P/T. Occaisonally on a Friday, or on Hallowe'een, one of the men would leave early to pick the children up, or take them trick or treating, but most were free to focus 100% of their energy on work, knowing that they'd go home to clean houses, happy children either in bed, or ready for bed, and an evening meal prepared for them. It made some of them do a double take when I mentioned that I'd be going home to pick the children up and cook the evening meal, or that I'd have to WFH for a day because one of the DC was ill. (One of the men I worked with most closely, in his 50s whose wife had been a SAHM, was visibly changed over the course of the year, as he realised what I had to do in addition to the paid work - and started recognising for the first time that he'd been able to get to where he was because his DW had picked up all the pieces for him).

Anyway, the point of my rambling post is to say that the OP is right when she says that some men (probably most successful men) have got to where they are because the SAHM has enabled them to do so. To get to the top in a corporate environment (which, lets face it, is where the £££ is), you need to be working late, present in the office, travelling to the meetings etc to get yourself noticed and get the good work, and therefore to get yourself promoted. It is almost impossible to do this without a SAHP OR enough money to pay for the live in nanny or boarding school.

I discovered this to my cost as it took me two years to recover from the project (after a bit of a breakdown as I burnt out trying to "have it all").

Who are “these men” anyway? Have we been out and find a national survey recently?

What a load of bollocks, seriously.

Well I don’t know who is bitter or not (only posters know that) but these threads do speak volumes, to be fair.

But what are posters bitter about?