“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?

So rather than -

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

Shall I just start a thread entitled -

“I go to work because I am in a marriage if equality.”

I’ve never once heard any woman actually say this, but hey... why let a minor thing like reality get in our way, when we can just make up spurious statements instead!

Then, I’ll claim, oh nooo, I’m not trying to stereotype / bash ALL working mums as superior twits. Oh no, just those (fictional and unamed) ones who I have decided believe this statement. And by the way, how dare you accuse me of being goady . Me, goady! I’ll have you know, this intended as a genuine debate on the role of women in society. Ha!

@LolaSmiles clearly just as disingenuous as me.

@LolaSmiles clearly just as disingenuous as me
I know right.

Who'd have thought in 2020 wanting to value people's contributions because they are inherently valuable rather than promoting the idea that poor men can't manage a job and a family would cause so much offence.

Then again, I'm sure the men I've worked with who manage to be ineffective and socialise till almost 6pm weren't opting out of family life. I'm sure they really were the good eggs who genuinely couldn't manage dinnertime and bath time because of their demanding job.

“It makes me cynical as to how many of these men magically find themselves coming home from work at 6PM after their wives/partners have done all the house and childcare all day but claim to their wives that they couldn't do the pick up, couldn't be home to cook dinner, couldn't be back for bath time etc because they were 'working'.”

This is what I mean.. What if they don’t come home at 6pm? What if they’re away for weeks in end? I don’t know any men who could get home for 6pm anyway. [confused). What if 8pm or 10pm is a the “regular” time they get in in the week. Or more commonly, what if their work has no pattern at all?

And why do you assume the women are doing “all the cleaning.” Chances are, such families have regular cleaners, which is why SAHMs are less resentful of him working long hours, perhaps? I certainly didn’t become a SAHM to obsess about cleaning, that’s for sure. Yes, I would make dinner if he was coming home, but often, if he was away so I’d just eat cereal or whatever. You find a balance that works, in other words.

I don’t know any men who could get home for 6pm anyway.

I don't think I know any that don't have some degree of flexibility &/or can wfh.

My DH can be home at 6pm, we live in Z2. He works till 10 2 nights a month in the office but often just logs on to do a few things at home once dc are asleep. Obvs covid has changed that pattern.

“Who'd have thought in 2020 wanting to value people's contributions because they are inherently valuable rather than promoting the idea that poor men can't manage a job and a family would cause so much offence.”

That was not the intended tone of the OP and well you know it.

The OP literally said

aside from some exceptions e.g. husband working abroad)

jilly - he is far more flexible now. In fact he mainly works from home and sporadically / part-time now (he is 50). I’m talking about in the early days. He used to be abroad a lot.

But that's not the case for every role particularly now days.

My dad was a banker & frequently was abroad. He never worked from home but he's in his 60s now, it was different then.

My observation is that men aren't as good at parenting as women. Mothers are more vigilant, think more deeply about the issues, and are overwhelmingly less likely to take off or leave the care to other people. Could be culture, training, expectations, who knows. Point is, if men cared as much as women and took on the emotional, attentional burden to the same extent then probably their careers and mental health would also suffer. But they don't, so it doesn't.

Its meaningless to say that they could, or that theoretically this or that could happen, because parenting is about motivation and attention. You have to turn your mind to your children's well being and development continuously. The person who does that less "wins". It starts when the person who is more affected by the baby crying gets up in the night and then it's a game of chicken for who goes part time if the child hates childcare, or who calls in sick if the child is a tiny bit under the weather and could do with a day at home. It's not women deferring to the man's wonderful career, it's mother's caring more about their kids. Like, I know that's a controversial opinion, but it's what I see all the time.

Brinn - that is very true in my experience. You sum it up perfectly. Different motivations. Partly due to societal conditioning sure, but I do think there’s more to it that’s that and it comes down to instinctive differences. This affects couples to varying degrees, obviously. There’s no right or wrong. But it’s a very significant factor in how things pan out, very often.

@LolaSmiles - totally agree. I work in a job where a lot of men with children have sahw but women doing the same job have working partners. The women have to make the job and kids work but the men don’t even try. My male colleague has a wife who does occasional locum work and when she works, his mother in law comes round in the morning to give his kids breakfast and get them to school! I asked him what his kids were getting for Christmas on the 23rd of December and he literally had no idea. His wife just did it all.

We absolutely should not be letting these men off the hook for their lazy parenting. Nor should we be facilitating their careers at the expense of working women and the few men who do step up.

@Brinn - I don’t think women are just inherently better at doing shit work and being impoverished. We just are schooled to accept it and it’s time we stopped.

One way in which we can stop is to stop saying “poor menz need someone at home to do all the kids work for free so they can do their job”. The vast majority of jobs should be capable of being done by active parents without a sahp. We need to build a better society and workplace for women to stop horrendous inequality between the sexes.

@pensivepigeon

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.

I did freely choose to stay at home. I didn't have any desire to work given the circumstances. My D.C. was diagnosed with significant SEN and I felt I was the best placed to advocate and support them due to me having a degree specialising in linguistics and early years education. I did give up future prospects. That was a sacrifice but didn't feel like one at the time, it just felt necessary. My efforts have been successful, my D.C. has achieved very well with my concentrated support early on. They got As and Bs in their GCSEs and expect to achieve similar at A Level then go onto university. Since then I have had cancer and am still not in paid employment, not sure how employable I am now, really.

I'm going to resist the temptation to get dragged into posters' individual experiences to explain how they fit in to my belief that many SAHPs are not making a sacrifice because they're not giving up anything that they miss or want on some level.

I'm just going to say that having cancer and children with additional needs creates a very specific set of circumstances.

I don't think it's that having a SAHP has been a help to the working parent and made things easier on them - and may well have impacted on where they are career wise because they have been able to concentrate on their career more (in some cases felt that they had to because all the financial impact of the family is on them)

However becoming a SAHP is not always a sacrifice. Thats not to say some people don't sacrifice their career, some do - but often it's not a career but a job - and for some their goal has always been to stay at home with their children, and they worked until the children were born - but for those people it wasn't a sacrifice - it was the aim

We absolutely should not be letting these men off the hook for their lazy parenting. Nor should we be facilitating their careers at the expense of working women and the few men who do step up.

I agree, but we shouldn’t blame other women for the crap, lazy men. There’s a fair bit of blaming SAHP on this thread - and I think @Brinn is right that a lot of the choices people make aren’t made in a vacuum- they’re made in the context of attentiveness to the needs of your particular children and the availability of suitable childcare.

Cayrol - That’s fair enough, but what would you like the wives of these men to do?

My observation is that men aren't as good at parenting as women.

I think women are better at care-giving & putting others needs above theirs. Some of that is nature but I think there is a lot more societal pressure on women. I'm sure more women would leave their dc as many men do but its a much bigger taboo for women. Are women better at cleaning because they are women? I can't cook for shit.

I also think whether that makes them a better parent or not is debatable. My mum was a very good mum but I'm much closer to my dad. Ive always gone to him for advice whether it was career or relationships but we are very similar in personality.

rathertalktothecats
I was referring to the fact that apparently posters who engage in that discussion are apparently bitter with their lives or are disingenuous.

DrRamsesEmerson
Men are responsible for men's actions. Always.

Women are responsible for women's actions.

I really don't think it's that unreasonable for women (as a class) to question whether all these men who apparently work so hard and couldn't manage family things CAN'T manage due to having a genuinely inflexible job, vs how many WON'T manage because they know that they can play the 'but my big job' card.
I also don't think it's unreasonable for women to be proud and confident in their choice to be a SAHP, without resorting to justifying it in terms of how it makes life easier for important men and their important, inflexible (or in many cases so called important and inflexible)jobs.

I have no doubt that there are some genuinely inflexible jobs out there and there will be some women who, for different reasons, had to give up jobs and careers they wanted. I just also think frequently 'I wanted to be a SAHP and my husband wanted to focus on his career' gets presented as 'I selflessly made all these sacrifices because my husband's job is ever so demanding'. It's that attitude that I object to because it continues to perpetuate the idea that men are somehow a special case who can't do housework and a job.

I'm just going to say that having cancer and children with additional needs creates a very specific set of circumstances.

Unfortunately, not as unusual as you might think.

'I selflessly made all these sacrifices because my husband's job is ever so demanding'. It's that attitude that I object to “

But who has actually said that Lola

Why do you repeatedly object to something nobody has actually said?

The OP invented the title statement as a “straw man.” (to use MN-speak). Just to get the usual, predictable reactions. Sadly, it has worked again (and I count myself in that number who is daft enough to respond to what is blatantly provocative nonsense).

@Brinn is right. My DH is a good and kind father but did not spot that our DD was struggling at school and has dyslexia. Nor does he do all the extra work with her that I do. I now work part time and the DCs and I are much happier. And he works full time and is happier being the breadwinner. So we’re very lucky in that we both agree on that.
I’d never give up work completely though as he can sometimes be stingy with money or controlling about how it’s spent. So I make sure to have my own money.
But I know many successful women who truly love their careers and would hate to leave them. They either have the phenomenal energy to successfully combine work with home life - not easy and not everyone can do this. Or else their children suffer in long hours of childcare and hardly see their parents at all. I know several like this!
When you’re young and in lurve you don’t think about these combinations or logistics. People should possibly be forced to do some kind of a course before marriage.

Or starting a family I meant.

'I selflessly made all these sacrifices because my husband's job is ever so demanding'. It's that attitude that I object to because it continues to perpetuate the idea that men are somehow a special case who can't do housework and a job.

I don't think it does that. I think it acknowledges the fact that within a patriarchal society men are often better paid, with better career prospects, childcare is inadequate and expensive and lucrative careers are often inflexible. Denying women's sacrifice in giving up a career denies this to some degree. It suggests that careers are flexible enough, the gender pay gap is a myth and childcare is fit for purpose.