AIBU to think many women put themselves in a bad financial position?

[Sunflowers095]

So there's a lot of talk about the gender pay gap and also how women have been more affected by the pandemic and had to take on more caring responsibilities. While I understand there are single parents etc. in most situations what I don't understand is:

• why don't women go for higher paying careers or marry lower earning men, therefore being the main breadwinner
• why don't women choose partners who will take on 50% of caring responsibilities, chores, etc. rather than have kids with someone who doesn't contribute and just put up with it?

Another thing I see often is women deciding to be SAHM, come back part time, extend maternity leave. Nothing wrong with this choice but in the context of a career surely it's not the best way to support that goal? Especially when many SAHM say that they decided to stay at home because their wage would barely cover childcare. That's not the point! Long term it increases the earning potential if a woman stays in work.

While I agree that a lot of inequality still exists I feel like many people make conscious choices that make their financial situation worse. Women I know who decided to take shared parental leave, go back to work full time, make their partner take on equal responsibility etc have all had great careers. Am I missing something in this conversation?

I'm not trying to be judgemental in any way towards non career driven women or women who want to be homemakers as I think it's great people have a choice and being a SAHM is an important job! I just mean purely from a financial/career perspective here.

@FuckyouBrennan plus childcare vouchers or tax free childcare.

Yes, tax free childcare provides £2 for every £8 you pay in, IIRC?

@FuckyouBrennan I believe so, we use childcare vouchers as it's better value when childcare is under £900, £75 saving a month which is a good chunk when our childcare costs (two kids) is only around £200.

I'm aware that cost and provision does vary but wraparound care is significantly cheaper than nursery and in most cases you can use childcare vouchers/tax free account.

But the thing that makes the biggest difference is both parents taking responsibility. Many, many jobs can offer staff that flexibility but in my experience it only tends to be women that ask for it.
We need more men ( and specifically men in senior positions) to actively request flexibility and take responsibility for school pick up etc.

I was so keen to do shared parental leave - my husband's company offered women full pay for 6 months but men were only offered statutory pay - financially it could never have worked for us. When I took mat leave my husband's pay rose by 30% during that time

@Dazedandconfused28

I was so keen to do shared parental leave - my husband's company offered women full pay for 6 months but men were only offered statutory pay - financially it could never have worked for us. When I took mat leave my husband's pay rose by 30% during that time

Couldn't you have saved some of that 30% pay rise to pay for shared parental leave?

My observation is that when women are the higher earner, the couple find the money for maternity leave but when men are the higher earner, it becomes the reason why shared parental leave is unaffordable

DH and I are currently expecting our first child and are planning to do a year of shared parental leave (Me 9 months, him 3) and then both reduce and compress our working hours so we are both equally responsible for the finances and the childcare. We both feel this will work for us, but I've had VERY negative comments from female friends, family and colleagues about our planned approach. I've been told it isn't fair for him to take 3 months parental leave at the expense of me because it's my body that'll be giving birth/feeding etc. I've been told that I'll find it more difficult to be at work instead of with my child than DH will. "There is no way I'd have let my husband have any of my maternity leave" has been a common one.

It has made me wonder how many fathers would actually have loved to have worked less and been with their childrens more but their wives simply wouldn't allow it, preferring to take a step back from working life themselves and thus ending up in a worse financial position.

I suppose we are privileged to be able to choose this set up. We earn similar (although we aren't high earners by any stretch), both enjoy our jobs but aren't obsessed with climbing the career ladder and most importantly want to be equally devoted to our family. And of course work in industries that allows it!

I can understand why women might choose to make their families a priority over their careers if they were a much lower earner, or their partners work in an industry with minimal paternal leave or flexibility for childcare. It's the way most of the world seems to be set up unfortunately. And there simply aren't enough high paying jobs for all women to just go out and get one go make themselves more secure.

It wasn’t us who took away women born in the 50s rights to our pensions. It is not us that fires us when we are pregnant .

@Sprockerdilerock shocking the reaction you've had. I think it's trailblazing and you should shout about it loud and proud so others catch on. The problem with parenting is everyone has an opinion, and because you're pregnant they are just going to play the infuriating "just you wait card" and patronise you. Smile, nod, and do your thing. I hope, and have no doubt tbh, what you're doing will become the norm, eventually.

[quote timeisnotaline]@SmokedDuck for your data collection my daddy’s boys were both ebf till about 8mo (obviously I weaned them, just didn’t switch them to formula also).[/quote]
Alas, I am unlikely to ask enough people about this to constitute data, nor do I have any really good way of assessing the level of attachment to an individual child to its two parents, nor to compare the attachment of differing children to their respective parents.

In fact that comparison would be difficult to express in some form that could be recorded for science, I suspect, and I wonder about the extent that research of that kind could be replicated generally.

I went pt, havnt progressed my career treading water - my kids are more important to me right now 🤷‍♀️

What, like entirely breastfed kids are overly reliant on the mother to meet their wider needs and that their attachment with their fathers is under-developed?

Oh no, silly me - you meant that they’ve have a special magical mummy bond!

I’d bet good money that’d you’d see neither if enough studies were done; there would be no difference.

For someone claiming a scientific perspective, you are using rather bizarre and emotive language. Why would you use judgemental language like "under-developed?" No one has suggested that.

And I suspect full well that you know this idea is not about "mummy magic." Most people who have any experience of spending a lot of time with a breastfed infant knows that in the first months the baby doesn't entirely even differentiate itself from the mother, and to some extent that seems to influence them well beyond those first months. It also tends to mean that it's the mum, not the dad, who does all the feeding, and often they sleep next to each other too. They will often want to comfort-nurse when upset right up into the toddler years.

I think it's very likely that those things will all tend to have an effect on a child's perception of their world, and that it would be surprising f it didn't We know very early experiences around attachment can have significant ongoing effects, even in infants removed from mothers early on.

That's not magical thinking, it's a reasonable theory, which is no worse logically, and no less a product of observation and experience, than your particular theory is.

@OlympicProcrastinator

I think a huge part of this issue is plain old biology. As women are the only sex that can have children this often places them at a financial disadvantage. Women who do not have children do not see their career suffer in the same way.

You simply cannot equalise everything. Women generally need longer parental leave to physically recover from birth, breastfeed etc. And I know it’s not very popular these days to say this but women who have given birth, for a whole host of hormonal reasons are more in tune to their babies waking at night, emotional cues and are often far less inclined to leave them all day to go to work than a man. I’ve lost count of the times over the years I’ve heard women say they cried as they left their children at nursery when they headed back to work. Never, ever heard a man express any guilt or worry about it.

All mammals have clear sex based behaviours in relation to raising young and as much as we humans like to think we are different, we are not. I know how unpopular this view is these days but I think regardless of whether or not laws are changed, structures and barriers are altered to make things more equal in the work place etc, for women who choose to have children, a higher proportion of them than men who have children, will actively choose caring for them over their career.

In summary, I believe it’s biology and women’s stronger connection in GENERAL, to their children that drives these decisions. Women who are child free do not, as a whole, have the same financial disadvantages.

Yes men and women are different (but not that much different) and women go through more biological and hormonal changes after having children but we really need to stop using this argument to excuse the system that keeps women disadvantaged and vulnerable. Parents should be supported with family friendly policies like at least 12 months of properly paid maternity leave, affordable childcare, shorter, more flexible working hours. This is already happening in other European countries where working mothers are the norm and their children are absolutely fine. Women are less likely to leave their careers if they are supported by the government, partner, employer and can balance work with home life. Life choices are not made in vacuum.

Men also should be expected to step up. Children need their fathers as much as they need their mothers and there are also things important for child's development that fathers are statistically more likely to provide. Patenting doesn't end at breastfeeding.
Of course being SAHM if carefully planned can be a great option for some families but it should be a choice, not something women fall into because or discrimination, lack of childcare or social pressure.

Maybe some simply women don’t want to be away from their children full time.

This thread reads as though women returning part time, or not at all, are forced in to it by societal norms, government policies and Patriarchy etc, but why can’t it be accepted that even a woman who may earn a three figure salary may happily sacrifice that, and take a career and financial hit simply because she wants to be home with her child/ren.

I dropped my hours after my second son, so I lost a good chunk of my wage and yes, I believe I have missed out on promotional opportunities but I don’t care, because I want to be around for my children whilst they’re young. It’s got nothing to do with anything else.

I’ve got 25+ working years ahead of me so for now, my children aren’t priority. Sometimes it really is just that simple.

@ThornAmongstRoses what if there are men that want to stay home or work part time but the societal norms either make it very difficult or they just don't believe they can? I don't want to be all "what about the men!!" But if we take what you say at face value that it's a privilege to stay home, why should it be a privilege solely for women?

If both men and women are going to be able to make informed true decisions for what they want, home or at work, we need to wake society up, and stop all this "my wage is wiped out by childcare" "he earns more than me" "it just made sense for me to stay home" and tackle those, because those sentiments are very different from CHOOSING to stay home.

If men want to give up work and stay at home to look after the children then that’s a discussion to have as a couple, but generally, I can’t see many men actually wanting to do that.

@ThornAmongstRoses

If men want to give up work and stay at home to look after the children then that’s a discussion to have as a couple, but generally, I can’t see many men actually wanting to do that.

And why do you think that is?

I can’t see many men actually wanting to do that

You honestly can't see the hypocrisy and irony in this statement at all can you?

Whilst you spout out drivel like that, it enforces cages for women like me who don't want to be at home, if you don't open your mind and see it as a joint responsibility and possibility, even if that's not what you want for your own family, you are part of the problem.

And why do you think that is?

Probably because they think it’s tedious and isolating.

@ThornAmongstRoses

And why do you think that is?

Probably because they think it’s tedious and isolating.

Do women not find it tedious and isolating too?

Whilst you spout out drivel like that, it enforces cages for women like me who don't want to be at home, if you don't open your mind and see it as a joint responsibility and possibility, even if that's not what you want for your own family, you are part of the problem.

Saying that a lot of men probably don’t want to stay at home with children is me spouting out drivel?

Where did I actually say I don’t see it as a joint responsibility??

Of course it’s a joint responsibility, I just said that a lot of men probably wouldn’t actively want to give up their careers to look after children whereas a lot of women are happy to make that choice because they do want to be with their children.

I’m obviously referring to women here who make the choice to be at home, not ones who feel they have to give up their job for all the reasons listed by another poster further up the thread.

Do women not find it tedious and isolating too?

I imagine some do whereas others probably love it.

Personally I don’t find being at home with them tedious and isolating, but that’s just me. Many other women probably feel very different.

@ThornAmongstRoses

Whilst you spout out drivel like that, it enforces cages for women like me who don't want to be at home, if you don't open your mind and see it as a joint responsibility and possibility, even if that's not what you want for your own family, you are part of the problem.

Saying that a lot of men probably don’t want to stay at home with children is me spouting out drivel?

Where did I actually say I don’t see it as a joint responsibility??

Of course it’s a joint responsibility, I just said that a lot of men probably wouldn’t actively want to give up their careers to look after children whereas a lot of women are happy to make that choice because they do want to be with their children.

I’m obviously referring to women here who make the choice to be at home, not ones who feel they have to give up their job for all the reasons listed by another poster further up the thread.

Where do stereotypes and societal expectations for in?

@ThornAmongstRoses but ask yourself WHY you think men wouldn't want to do that? And WHY do, in your opinion though as a full time working mother I find it offensive, do you think more women "want" to stay home? Is it something in their DNA? No, it's conditioned, by people like you not opening their eyes.

@ThornAmongstRoses but ask yourself WHY you think men wouldn't want to do that? And WHY do, in your opinion though as a full time working mother I find it offensive, do you think more women "want" to stay home? Is it something in their DNA? No, it's conditioned, by people like you not opening their eyes.

Of course not all women want to stay at home! Where have I ever implied anything else?!

After my first son I worked full time for 3 years until my second son was born and I dropped down to part time. I still work 25 hours a week.