“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?

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom - I agree. I know plenty of well-educated, professionally qualified women who have "sacrificed" their career to enable DH to pursue his. However, I know for a fact that for many, this was not a sacrifice at all - it was always what they wanted.

I think what can cause friction between SAHM and WOHM is that false narrative that some SAHP create - "i sacrificed my career" or "it's different for me because xyz [some supposedly "unique" circumstances that the SAHP uses to justify why they couldn't work]". If a SAHP was prepared to be honest and say "yes, I hated the corporate world and would much rather stay at home with my kids/cooking and cleaning and luckily, DH can earn enough to support us both" it would be much better.

What really hurts is when a SAHM justifies their decision to stay at home using hidden criticisms of the WOHM like "I didn't want anyone else to raise my children" or "it's different for me, Santa, I need my house to be clean" or "but unlike you, I really love spending time with my children". (All of which I've had said to me).

“Why do you need the sacrificial narrative?”

Er, I don’t.

Why are you telling me I feel I have made a “sacrifice?” This is your agenda, not mine.

Clearly, any decision involves some level of “sacrifice.” If I was at work, I would have sacrificed time with the kids. As I’ve been at home, I have “sacrificed” a career. It is what it is. So what?

I have been SAH for 17 years. If I had a different husband or different circumstances, I might not have been in a position to SAH. So I would have worked, obviously. But who goes about second-guessing how things may or may not have been? We make our own lives.

@jillypill - seriously, take off your rose tinted spectacles when reading the OP.
“ 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.” These men sound pretty psychopathic to me, yet the OP thinks they are the norm - they didn’t need wives or family for anything and would have been just as well off without them.

I think the issue stems from stay at homes pretending their choice is anything other than basic laziness

@WhatWillSantaBring - so, you don’t want SAHMs to acknowledge any kind of sacrifice, because you don’t want to admit to having made any sacrifices yourself?

@Walkaround are you always so condescending? Stop being so defensive.

I think the issue stems from stay at homes pretending their choice is anything other than basic laziness

I disagree with that

@jillypill - I have nothing to be defensive about. I was a SAHM, then returned to the workplace. I’ve seen it from both perspectives and find people like you come across either as very disingenuous, or weirdly blind to an obvious undercurrent.

Why are you telling me I feel I have made a “sacrifice?”

I'm not. I'm talking in an abstract about it because it's the point of the thread (see the title), and I was in discussion with someone who, like many others, is very adamant that it is inherently a sacrifice.

It often is, it frequently isn't. Yet one seems to cause a lot of offence by saying that it frequently isn't...

What am I disingenuous about?

I do think some wealthy men have psychopathic tendencies.

I also get the OPs point that the narrative of SAHMs having to facilitate their husbands is not always true & unhelpful.

I think the issue stems from stay at homes pretending their choice is anything other than basic laziness
Are you just being goady or incredibly rude?

Choosing to be a SAHP is a totally valid choice for anyone to make. I couldn't do it, and they certainly aren't lazy.

But what are posters bitter about?
This is almost never answered, and when it is it usually comes back to either 'they feel guilty about someone else raising their children' or 'they are jealous that my husband is so successful and I don't have to work'.

It's really odd deciding that those who question the default expectation that men require a woman at home to function must be bitter.

[quote Walkaround]@WhatWillSantaBring - so, you don’t want SAHMs to acknowledge any kind of sacrifice, because you don’t want to admit to having made any sacrifices yourself?[/quote]
No, not at all. I fully accept that for some SAHM, there is a real sacrifice, and that must be really painful for them. (Sacrifice meaning "I have given up some of my paid employment and I did not want to give up that work"). But I also know that for some SAHM, there is no sacrifice at all.

Equally, I think some WOHM should be more honest and admit that working out of the home can be much easier than staying at home. I freely admit that looking after under 5s is much harder than working in the office. I freely admit that sometimes, I prefer working to spending time with my DC.

I didn’t hate my previous career. I have a masters and a professional qualification. I didn’t set out with any defined plan to “sacrifice” anything.

I met DH at 27 and we were married within 8 months. I had our first DS at 30 and the fact was, when all is said and done, I realised I didn’t want to leave him. It was that simple, to be honest. Obviously, if I had needed to return to work, I would have done. At the same time, DH was starting his own company at that time. In a ten year period, it grew from its beginnings in our bedroom to something that employed thousands internationally until he sold it some years ago. It was a very intense period, to say the least. Also, in my 30s, I had 3 more DC with roughly 2 year gaps between them. I am the way I am and DH is the way he is and we just accept this. I guess that’s why we are together really.

Also, it may be relevant that I had always worked in a therapeutic capacity with children anyway, so it felt more important for me to be with my own, rather than stretched to the max with other people’s DC. DH has always been in the same page and preferred the kids to be with me than elsewhere. We have no family support. Obviously me being at home made life less complex too. So it was a collision of lots of factors and suited us both.

No SAHM that I know (and most of the women I know are SAH so this is a lot of people over the years) has ever referred to her life as a “sacrifice.” Sorry to disappoint the agenda, but I really have never heard this word uttered in 17 years. Nobody does this level of naval-gazing in real life. If your DH is successful - great, but most couples see the lives they build up together as far more than about money. Success is the fact you are still together and the conditions, emotional stability and opportunities you can provide for the DC. This involves effort and sacrifices from both parents in different ways, regardless of whether one is a SAH or whatever.

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.

It is offensive, quite simply, because you are putting yourself above them in the sense you feel you have greater expertise to define somebody else's life choices than themselves.

I really don't understand how some posters are perceiving sacrifice on this thread.

People have to chose it, it is an action they make with intention. Choice needs to be informed otherwise is is not true choice. There is always the promise of some perceived good to come from it otherwise it would not be worth making. So people can be satisfied with the sacrifices they have made. Yet there is always something given up which people can be simultaneously a bit sad about.

A woman purposely giving up a career in order to raise children and allow her husband to devote more time pursuing his career would fit the definition. Whether it is a successful sacrifice or not, the intention is there. Whether the woman has reached a successful point in her career or not she has still given up many opportunities of progression whilst she takes time out from paid employment.

It often is, it frequently isn't. Yet one seems to cause a lot of offence by saying that it frequently isn't...
Exactly. The idea that SAHP/WOHP arrangements are largely a choice based on what the parents/couple want seems to cause a great deal of offence.

Personally I dont care what people choose, I'd just really like fellow women to stop doing the heavy lifting for the patriarchy by arguing the value of being a SAHM is because it makes life better for their husbands/ their husbands couldn't possibly manage his job without them being at home / their husbands are simply too dedicated to their job to have time for boring childcare things / their husbands wouldn't be as successful if it wasn't for them. It's such a pathetic view of masculinity that adds to the idea that it's unusual or lucky for a man to do his share.

Instead of framing everything around how poor men just can't manage to juggle a job and a family, it would be good to have it framed as 'my husband chose to prioritise his job and I was happy to be a stay at home parent because it's a perfectly valid choice'. It's choice. Having children is a choice. Having children when one of you has genuinely demanding job that is incompatible with family life is a choice (setting aside the useless men who have normal jobs but claim they can't do housework or childcare).They are all valued choices, but they are choices.

I wish we would stop perpetuating the idea that women have to make sacrifices for poor men who are apparently incapable of managing a job and family things.

Partly in response to another poster who raised age gap and partly to why some of us became SAHMs.

DH is 2 years younger than me. I was 29 when we met and he had barely started on his career. I was working in the City and earning a hefty salary. I don't have a degree and started work at 20. When we met I owned a house in London with significant equity. He was the one with significant qualifications and better prospects and by the time DS was 2 his earnings outpaced mine.

However, at 35 I was ready for a career break and to be a mummy and had that choice because of the financial foundation I built before marriage and children.

I lived being a SAHM although I did return part time when ds was a baby but thank goodness I had the choice because he had chronic asthma and ear infections after bronchiolitis and if I'd had to work as well through the endless sleepless nights life would have been hell.

And the sacrifice might not often be mentioned because the good that comes from it might be mostly at the forefront of someone's mind.

And as for “lazy,” I don’t think I was lazy when I had 4 under 10 at home and DH often away in business, working evenings /weekends and as needed. DH is not lazy either. He’s the least lazy person I’ve ever met, to be honest.

These days, I would say I am quite lazy, yes. DH can also afford to kick back a little. But why not? There are no medals for making life more hectic than it needs to be. Life changes and you adapt with it.

I really don't understand how some posters are perceiving sacrifice on this thread.

Well, it might be the tone of offence that appears when we suggest that many SAHPs have got exactly what they wanted without giving up anything they would ideally have kept. You yourself just accused me of being offensive and the poster I was responding to was clearly annoyed ("the sacrifice you don't think they made" or words to that effect).

Let me be clear: if you freely chose to SAH and didn't have any desire to work and don't consider it to be a sacrifice, then I'm not talking about you.

But such people still keep taking offence when I or others suggest that in many cases it isn't a sacrifice...

“I do think some wealthy men have psychopathic tendencies. “

Please do elaborate..., Is this based on any empirical study?

Nah anecdotal, I've worked with a few including Philip Green & some in the fam.

Oh and what I meant to post was that after a very high pressure, long hours job for 15 years (out at 6.50 - home at 8ish) being a SAHM was absolute bliss and the house was almost always immaculate even when dd came along. I had never had so much free time in my life or so many opportunities to wander at leisure around the shops. Most days we were in the park before 9am and once ds was about 15 months we often went again after tea getting home for bath, cuddles, stories and bed.

@rathertalktothecats are you going to elaborate what some women are bitter about?

I wish we would stop perpetuating the idea that women have to make sacrifices for poor men who are apparently incapable of managing a job and family things.

I have never framed it as that. I am pretty pragmatic. Choices often are made very early on due to socialisation before a child is fully independently informed on that mean men often go into more lucrative professions which do not offer much flexible working. So the woman sacrifices her career due to financial reasons which allows the man to further progress his. That is the Patriarchy at work. Not because of women's actions but the whole of society's.

@jillypill - I think you are being disingenuous about the opening post.

Really, the main disagreement amongst those not trying to make this a loaded debate appears to be a semantic one on the meaning of the word sacrifice and on what it is that you are actually sacrificing. I still think that to claim you sacrifice nothing to be a SAHM is disingenuous, just as it is disingenuous to claim nothing is sacrificed if you continue your career unchanged after having children, and nothing is sacrificed if you alter your career trajectories as a couple for the sake of your family.