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.

@Iceskatingfan your points about missing firsts is a totally sexist stick used to beat women with. Men go out to work when babies are what? 2 weeks old. ABSOLUTELY nobody asks them if they’re sure because they’ll miss the firsts. In addition to that, you don’t actually KNOW that a first step is a first step unless you spent 100% of your time with them, no popping to the shop and leaving them with dP. It could happen anytime and you wouldn’t be any wiser.

I agree in part but really, the problem is men and society. Society shouldn’t promote the male breadwinner/female carer set up as the default. Workplaces should be more flexible and promote options for parents not just mothers. Financial education and the importance of being able to financially support yourself as an individual should be taught in schools (that doesn’t have to be a high flying career, it is possible to be financially independent on an average wage).

Men need to view parenting as a 50/50 task. Men need to ask for flexible hours and make themselves available for their children, and scale back their work commitments as much as they might expect their partner to. Men need to stop thinking it’s optional for women to work (it’s said on here a lot, “my husband says I don’t need to work if I don’t want to”). But why would they not think any of this when society tells men every day they’re the default earner, the default leader, the default important one, and many men, rather than thinking critically about how the patriarchy benefits them, jump on the defensive about how they’re ‘not like that?’

Women do have personal responsibility, of course, but their choices aren’t made in a vacuum. I do think some women need to put more thought and effort into their own individual well-being (financial or otherwise) before even thinking about marriage and children, and most people, men and women, could do with thinking more about what they actually want for themselves and their lives, rather than just doing things the traditional way because it’s ‘what you do’. I think it’s eminently sensible to plan your finances and life as if you’ll be single forever or as if your marriage will break up. Maybe it won’t, but I think it’s foolhardy to get into a situation that you couldn’t afford to leave even if you wanted to.

Sadly because women settle for men and compromised work arrangements.

@B1rthis

Because it's not normal to leave your baby who is emotionally and nutritionally dependent on its mother just like every other species in the whole world. We produce thin milk like elephants etc (that keep their young close) but not like lions etc (that go off hunting for long periods of time so milk is more fatty) meaning our children are meant to be nursed regularly so need to be kept close for "survival" if we were to live in the wild. We are hard wired to love our babies and each time we breastfeed the oxytocin reminds us of this. It's important to financially support your family; career, savings, pension etc but returning to work at the detriment of your child's emotional development and attachment? Nope. Also, you can't plan for every eventuality? Relationship breakdown/furlough/redundancy etc... all you can do is care for the future adults of society as best you can.

You have a year maternity with 26 extra parental leave unpaid if you like. That’s 1.5 years you can stay home to nurture your baby then hop back into work. That’s the point of mat leave. Breastfeeding is not an excuse to quit your job.

Some really good responses on here. Parenting is such a massive life change, I think it's often overlooked. People don't (usually!) choose to marry/partner a feckless shirker but after having a baby (which is overly romanticsed IMO) previously hidden traits come out - hidden because how are you supposed to know your partner will revert to a pattern of parenting, often from his own childhood, that is rubbish and relies on the mum doing the majority of home/parenting heavy lifting? We don't often, as parents, go into it with eyes wide open, talking about who will be responsible for what. And even if this this was discussed, it's a world of difference when you're actually living it. Parenting is hard, being a working parent is hard. So no, women don't blindly put themselves in financially precarious situations but may find themselves almost inevitably compromised - well paid role won't offer part time, it's well paid because it's senior and they're not budging, can't actually work 40+hours, commute and parent my kid, my husband doesn't want to stay at home, on and on it goes.

That's not true is it?

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/parental-rights/maternity-leave-what-youre-entitled-to-and-how-to-get-it/

"You don’t have a right to more than a year of maternity leave, but your employer might agree to let you take extra time away from work. Any extra time won’t be classed as maternity leave, so you won’t have your maternity leave rights for that time."

But do you really not know before having children that your partner won't be capable of sharing that workload and responsibility with you? Do men do 50/50 chores and when childcare and work is discussed they lie and then suddenly change completely overnight?

Yep that’s what happened to me.
DH told me he had a new job that would take him away 1 month before dc1 due date. He had never mentioned applying for another job before.... Of course from that point everything got organised around me childcare wise and he had little input.

It's 26 weeks Ordinary ML and 26 weeks Additional ML.

I forgot to say that even in my relatively well paid career I have been asked if I’m pregnant in a job interview within the past decade, I’ve been told I didn’t get a job “because you’re a single mother and we worry you’d constantly be asking for time off for childcare” - like WTF have they never heard of nursery?! I’ve been utterly forgotten about when it comes time to find someone for the rung above me in the career ladder even though I have the skills and qualifications and I already work there - only for someone to belatedly point this out to my boss the day before the interviews for this non advertised role are due to occur (and even then my boss literally told me that “we’re really looking for a man, someone who will work full time”, without even asking me a. Would I consider working full time for this role? And b. Is it actually necessary to work full time for this role?). I’ve also found out that a male colleague with less qualifications and experience than me (to the point that he would come to me for advice), doing exactly the same job, was being paid about 20 percent more than me. Not to mention the fact that repeated requests for a payrise from me have been turned down with the excuse of the money isn’t there while I find out that the money was there to award a payrise to my male colleague. I’m just so sick of this shit, it is HARD being female in a world built for men.

It’s sex, not gender.

YABVU and judgmental. Alright for you that your plans worked out brilliantly, but lots of women don’t know their husbands will be crap Dad’s or just a bit useless round the home until they’ve had children, and it’s often too late by then.

Things go wrong, people make mistakes. Obviously women know they’ll earn less if they go part time, but it’s a totally different thing to just effectively blaming all women when there are loads of barriers and lots of factors which feed in to the sex pay gap.

@B1rthis and bingo! I thought we were supposed to respect all women’s choices. The 1950’s attitude to womanhood is deeply entrenched in many women and the way they judge working mothers is disgusting. I think that is a factor.

The additional 26 weeks is nothing to do with maternity and is for any parent: www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement

Up until the child is 18!

@FTEngineerM

The additional 26 weeks is nothing to do with maternity and is for any parent: www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement

Up until the child is 18!

I don't understand.

"Parental leave is unpaid. You’re entitled to 18 weeks’ leave for each child and adopted child, up to their 18th birthday.

The limit on how much parental leave each parent can take in a year is 4 weeks for each child (unless the employer agrees otherwise)."

There are loads of boys who leave school at 16, get an apprenticeship and are qualified as a joiner, electrician, roofer etc, earning £500 per week by the time they are in their early 20s. Girls who leave school at 16 go on (and I generalise here) to be hairdressers, nursery teachers, beauticians whose earning power is probably half of the tradesmen.

So when children come along, it's going to be the woman who says home as as a family, there's no point in working if it's costing you more than one salary.

You do know not all jobs are high paying? We need carers, nurses, teaching assistants. Should those women not have children? Not everyone can have a high flying lucrative career because society would collapse

@Ellpellwood ah shit, my employer said the 26 weeks unpaid until child is 18. They definitely weren’t talking about standard mat leave because I was always taking 1 year which includes the additional mat leave.

Point still sort of stands that you can get extra time out with your baby if you want. And still have a job.

'But do you really not know before having children that your partner won't be capable of sharing that workload and responsibility with you? Do men do 50/50 chores and when childcare and work is discussed they lie and then suddenly change completely overnight?'

Erm...yes. I doubt the men even realise what they'll be like when a baby appears. It's more than the shoving a Hoover round once a week and doing the dishes every now and then that you do before having a baby. You suddenly have this incredibly intense workload in the home, women end up doing most of it because they are at home on mat leave and are then just expected to keep doing that when they go back to work. It's not rocket science to see why this happens!

FTEngineerM yeah you’re right I knew it even when I was writing it and I actually apologise for that; internalised misogyny!! I did actually miss my baby’s first steps as I had to work full time financially at the time. I was a bit gutted for a day or two but I got over it because guess what I got to see him walk again, he does it all the time now he’s 13 😂 😂 I guess it was a clumsily worded explanation of how some women would just genuinely prefer to be at home seeing their child grow and change and keeping in touch with all the minutiae of their children’s lives, rather than being out at work all the time, and I am one of those women. But I know others feel differently, in my postnatal baby group, there was a woman who was so unhappy a few weeks into maternity leave she ended up essentially “swapping” with her partner to be the stay at home parent while she went back to her work full time. It worked out really well for them as he actually had been gutted to be out at work and missing time with the baby when she was just craving being back at work! I do think in this day and age couples just need to do whatever’s works for them as a family, but that often isn’t the same thing as what’s best financially for the woman because of the way society is structured.

[quote FTEngineerM]@Ellpellwood ah shit, my employer said the 26 weeks unpaid until child is 18. They definitely weren’t talking about standard mat leave because I was always taking 1 year which includes the additional mat leave.

Point still sort of stands that you can get extra time out with your baby if you want. And still have a job.[/quote]
Only sort of. I finished at 36 weeks for health reasons, so DS was just under 11 months when I went back. It was hard work and quite upsetting weaning him off daytime breastfeeding to do so, even though I mix fed at the time.

The final 3 months of AML are unpaid, so the absolute best I could have had was 4 months unpaid at the end instead of 3, taking DS to 12 months exactly.

I know many countries have less but let's not pretend that employers are keen for women to have a minute longer than the standard.

I knew this thread would turn into a SAHM-v- WOHM ding dong.

None of the choices you mention are made in a vacuum. It's not a perfect world.

I have married an excellent man. He earns more but we've worked it so that we have exactly the same disposable income after all the bills are paid.

He works full time and I work part time.

He does all the cooking and shopping. I always tidy up after.

We share the remainder of the house work.

He absolutely shares the mental load

He wanted to share the childcare load with me but his work refused his flexible working request. My work agreed to my flexible working request.

That's where the problem lies for us.

Our pensions are about the same value and we have the same disposable income. That's a fairly good outcome for me.

I think it's partly because I'm a radical feminist and don't put up with things.

For example my DH said to me (once). "I've put the washing on FOR YOU" (my emphasis). I soon put him right. i.e. he needs clean clothes as do the children for whom he is equally responsible!

@Iceskatingfan totally agree❤️ If it’s your calling in life and you have someone to support you then it’s absolutely the right choice. Not that my op matters 😂. But I worry when a woman doesn’t quite realise how vulnerable she is, it’s not often but I can think of a few I’ve met at work and such.

I think what you're missing OP is that people dont really know what they or what their partner will be like when they have a child. Your partner can say that they will do 50 50 all they like and then you get pregnant and have a baby but if they refuse to change their hours to do nursery runs (or lie and say their work refused), refuse any night feeds, lie about their work not letting them to take emergency leave etc that doesnt leave the woman much choice but to leave and do it all 100pc or stay and do the vast majority of it but get some financial support. Likewise a lot of women are financially abused and a lot of people will lose money sending their kids to nursery and cant actually afford it. And parents with SEN or disabled children don't actually have a choice about whether to work or not because there is no other support available. Of course some women make shitty choices but a lot of women are trying to make the best of a shit situation

I earn more than my partner ( if I was full time ) However I couldn't bring myself to leave son to do full time as it was causing me anxiety so we have took the fit financially for me to work part time. He is trying to get a better paid job . I currently earn more than him for my part time job.

I think women make their choices within a patriachy so looking at individuals and judging them is pointless. Its better to look a trends and work out how to support changes.
There are lots that want to support more men to do childcare and work less hours.
Two things i think are important are looking at career development for part time workers and working out hoe to value time out of the workplace more acuratley when people wish to return. Things like current references /return to wofk support.