AIBU Mumsnetters are being disingenuous about the need for women to be financially independent

[Waferbiscuit]

MNers regularly stress the importance of being financially independent and any post about SAHMs usually has lots of cautions about being financially reliant on a partner. A recent post about marrying into money had virtually ever poster stating that telling our daughters to marry into money is a horrible idea and that the key thing we should be doing is teaching our daughters to be financially independent.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4234513-to-thin-k-women-still-teach-their-daughters?pg=2&&reverse=1

This is all good in principle, but it feels very disingenuous, almost like virtue signalling, because in reality only a minority of women are financially independent/support themselves financially.

Look at the stats (ONS 2019/2020):
• 29% of women of working age (16-64) are economically inactive! Only 71% are in some form of work. (Of course some of these will be students, but not all)
• Of women with dependent children, only 36% work full time, 37% work part time and the rest don’t work at all. For those working part-time unless you’re on a very high income you wouldn’t be making enough to support your family and will be contributing a lesser amount to the family.
• Anecdotally I’m in my 50s and I’ve seen so many women my age dropping out of the workforce or moving to very limited part-time. They can do this not because they’ve amassed huge savings over their career, but because they have a partner making a lot more money than them.

My question is why do we pretend to value financial independence for women when the majority of women are not. Most women don’t make enough money to support themselves on their own, they rely on someone else’s income to maintain their lives, and the vast majority of women with children wouldn’t be able to raise their family on their income alone.

I sound like I’m being critical but I’m not – this is reality for women: the gender pay gap and time off having children means they make less than men, having children makes it harder to work FT, and we live in an economy where you need two incomes to survive.

So why can’t we just be honest and tell our daughters ‘Yes, it’s good to have a job and an income, but if you want a good lifestyle you need to have a partner working to support you. And if you have children you will probably not make enough money to support your family solo, you will end up being reliant on someone else, so please be aware of the risks.’ Why BS about being financially independent when only a small percentage of women are – or can be?

My POV on this is that I’ve been single most of my life and aside from 7 years with someone, I have had to live and raise children on my one salary. So I do fall into the financial independent category, but it’s been a slog and frankly a lot of women are having a much easier time than me by being financially dependent!

I've been a LP for 16 years, DD has now just started to work, and I have a small business so I could be financially independent. My DM pushed this as crucial because my DF was out of work quite a lot so money was difficult. I feel she pushed me too much and I've ended up prioritising work over relationships and my quality of life isn't great because I do have to spend so much time working or looking for work and then I'm too knackered to do much else. DD wants to be a trophy wife! I do talk to her about financial independence, and she has started a job that will give her lots of options in the future, but I look around at my friends and actually I think those with high-earning husbands and part time work do have a better quality of life where their relationships are good, so I also think if I can support DD to choose a partner well and to have good relationship skills, that is also important in living a happy life. I do wish I'd made different choices.

@LibertyMole

Gappy, because our current economy won’t work if most people earn 65 grand, so it isn’t achievable by most people.

Are you proposing that cleaners get paid 65 grand, or that only childless people become cleaners?

Something that is achievable by most people doesn’t mean everyone is going to achieve it.

But it means you don’t have to have a masters degree, nepotistic contacts book or a desire to work 60 hours a week to get it.

There are millions of people for whom a £25k salary is exactly what they want in terms of stress, hours, commute length etc

But that doesn’t mean it is a pipe dream to imagine they are capable of earning more if they wanted to or needed to. Those roles exist but I wonder how many women would assume it’s impossible for them because threads like this scoff at the idea

Financial dependence can work. If you have a very very decent husband in a very well paid and crucially stable job but in my experience that is a rare combination and of course even with that combination there can be a huge loss of self that comes with not having an independent life outside the home.

I was so glad I could step back into my career and become financially independent when my (now ex) husband became abusive when our first child arrived. He had been largely decent until I was pregnant.

And now, with a lovely and decent husband in a stable well paid job I am still glad I could afford an independent existence if I needed to because no one ever knows what is around the corner in terms of work or health etc.

Plus there is the sheet fulfilment and interest that comes from having a good career.

@LibertyMole

‘Jolly good!! Someone is stopping you but actually no one is confused I have no idea what you are on about !’

I am really not sure what is happening here. You seem to have jumped into the middle of a conversation about SAHMs and now think people are arguing against you, but nobody is.

We’re talking about how people on MN make out that being a SAHM destroys careers rather than simply delaying them. We’re not asking for parity with women who have had no career break.

Nobody is arguing against your point.

Ok I thought you said someone had acgually stopped you going back to work when it was just an opinion on MN.

I have two young children and I earn more than double what DH earns. I am completely financially dependent and comfortably off. I will teach my daughter to be the same.

*independent!

‘Something that is achievable by most people doesn’t mean everyone is going to achieve it.’

I don’t think it is achievable that our economy can work on most people earning 60 grand. I don’t understand why you do think this is possible.

It is within the top 10% of salaries.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@likeshellingpeas
This is where the issue lies and why women are financially penalised for parenting where men are not.

This is a bit disingenuous, it’s not women being financially penalised for parenting compared to men, but rather stay at home parents being penalised compared to working parents. SAHDs face exact same pay gap and loss of income and progression as do SAHMs. It only results in a gender pay gap disadvantaging women because there are far more SAHMs than SAHDs.[/quote]
Its not disingenuous.
Recent report by CII showed that womens finances are impacted directly by having children in a way that fathers are not.
Its not all about SAHMs .
Women pick up far more childcare and domestic work than men and so their earning potential is affected.

@LemonTT

I believe a certain Serena Joy took your argument and turned it into a book and political philosophy.

Not RTFT yet but had to acknowledge this little gem.

As a woman you won't get paid as much as a man

This is a bit of an unqualified and misleading statement. Men and women doing the same roles are paid the same in the UK, by law.

The gender pay gap exists because more women reduce to part time/lower responsibility roles, and fewer women made it to the highest paid exec roles historically, although this is improving all the time

That the economy is currently structured that some workers simply can’t support a family is really a separate issue. The first goal is that women should not allow themselves to be over-represented in that group of workers.

The discussion of a living wage or of even a universal wage is entirely different and that kind of change is not something an individual is going to be able to make happen.

Castle, that’s the key difference I think, whether you are talking about individuals or society.

I am interested in the well-being of all women, not just the minority who will be in the top ten percent of earners.

How can we made the country better and more secure for everyone, not just a few who make it to the top.

I don’t see telling my daughter or son to try and become really rich as much more of a worthwhile goal than try and marry someone really rich.

I want them to both be decent people who care about society and their own families and want to do right by both. I would not dissuade them from being a SAHP, a police officer or teacher just so that they could chase a 60 grand job and never need anyone.

I agree this may be a generational thing. Also a circumstantial thing. I missed out on uni due to my parents splitting up when I was on a gap year and not having anywhere to come home to, so I stayed abroad to avoid the toxic divorce and family disintegration that followed.

When I got married I was earning a similar amount to my husband. Couple of redundancies and then had a child because the clock was ticking and never recovered work wise. Exhusband turned out to be a selfish dick who saw parenting as nothing to do with him so although I did a degree and tried to retrain for a career to make me independent was thwarted at every turn. His career soared as he was barely around. I eventually chose to be home because our child would never have seen either parent and my income would have been zero after childcare.

In an ideal world I should have had a lucrative career. I was bright enough. However, I did get a very good divorce settlement because I stuck it out through court twice. How many of my friends took little to get it over with .

I tell my daughter to not have children with anyone unless you are married (legal protection) and to get the best career she can (fully supported by me through uni and now MA). I also encourage her to be self aware and hopefully choose a partner that is an equal and will share with her. I came from a background that saw females as second class citizens.

That's it
It should not be a gendered issue
Of course most people won't earn 60,000 and hence most people generally can't support a family on one income
Therefore most people will not be financially independent once they have children if you disallow benefits rather than most women

It's why women are less likely to earn that 60,000 or whatever the magic financial independence number is that needs to be addressed.

I work but only 25 hours whilst my husband works full time.

He brings home more than double what I do.

I could easily increase my hours, and so my pay, but it would come at the price of sacrificing time with my children and I don’t want that.

There was a post on here a few days ago about a woman who had a poor relationship with her children and the OP did say that she works and works and works in order to provide financial stability for them (resulting in them not seeing her particularly often), and the majority of replies said that her children should come first and time with them should take priority over her work commitments and she should cut back on her hours.

Like you said, women can’t win.

I have always worked full time or 0.8 WTE with and without children. I was married, got divorced and had to give up any future stake in inheritance (ex H has gone on to inherit millions) so I could keep my child at her independent school. I'm happy with that sacrifice. I had a career to provide and not disrupting her schooling was a key priority for me. Next relationship with children. We never married. I am so relieved we didn't. I was always the high earner, I have public sector pension dating back 30 years, he has nothing other than little pockets of auto entitlement. He always planned to live off my pension. Looking at it all I am glad I never married my ex and being married for my first H have me zero benefits really. I earn and put for my children and don't need to worry about if a man is going to step up, step down, be a sick, be reasonable. The maintenance for the younger ones is sporadic and I use the money frivolously when it lands for fun times with the children. I am happy I am wholly responsible for their welfare and can cover more than their basic needs. I have advised my adult daughter to never have children or to only have them when she can fully independently provide for them without a man in the picture. If there happens to be a decent bloke in the picture that's great but always have the ability to extricate yourself from a duck head and still be able to cover the bills.
So I'm a nutshell I've done marriage to a wealthy man and cohabiting with a sackless one. Each time I kept my own position strong

I tell my daughter to not have children with anyone unless you are married (legal protection)

This is what my mum told me. She was wrong.

I was the higher earner with more assets. Now I’m married if i divorce dh is entitled to half my house, savings, pensions etc and I will be significantly worse off than if we hadn’t married.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

You need to replace the word woman with parent throughout for any of what you have said to make sense or be true

It is very difficult for the primary parent to be 'financially independent' once children come along

Families with children do often require 2 incomes and that is why lone parents are often eligible for state benefits

None of this is about being a woman though it's about being a parent. A single father or a father who is the resident parent after a divorce would be in the same position

What we have to ask ourselves is why is it nearly always the woman who is in that disadvantaged position when it takes 2
people to make a baby.

Why do we accept that we should be the only ones to take a career hit for childcare by going PT? Because 'that's a woman's role' because 'he earns more than me' 'Any real mother would not want to leave her baby to work' ' my husband could never do his big important job part time'

If we just said fuck off to all that patriarchal bullshit then let's see if women can support themselves

I think you're right in that it's those of us who considered this beforehand and refused to be sucked in by these sexist attitudes who have then been able to become self-supporting single parents with no state help when relationships sadly collapsed.

Auto correct fails dick x2 and auto enrolment

I wouldn’t set the bar so low

Sure, two parent relationships can be a wonderful thing , the love of two parents is lovely thing to have

But promoting a 100% Herero normative value set , can
Only lead to disappointment when not achieved
Plus women are getting educated faster then some men are changing attitude wise

It also assumed all single parents struggle financially , which many do but education means this is changing

reallyreallyborednow

Yeah
That’s why I never married

Every woman I know who has had a child in the last 5 years works full time. Most even earn more than their partners / husbands.

I think that's pretty normal for my age group (early 30s) and I have a daughter I will stress the importance of being financially independant. Obviously I will stress this to my son but that isn't what the op is about.

My auntie was in an abusive relationship with her long term partner (not married) and they had a daughter together. She left when his behaviour started to steadily get worse (four years into their relationship) and she said she was so glad she wasn’t married to him because it made it much easier to leave.

She said if she was legally tied to him she would have found it so much harder to walk away.

@LibertyMole

How high would someone’s income have to be to be financially independent and bring up two children?

Outside of London, for example? I know it gets ridiculous once you factor in London housing and childcare.

Well I am doing exactly that. I'm not going to state my income but I'm in my early 30s and worked very long hours while doing professional exams in my 20s, exactly so I'd have this security later. My children's father has paid no maintenance in months but I live in a lovely area with a 4 bedroom house, mostly worked from home even pre-Covid so I could be around for them, and can also afford to run a car, save a decent pension and have some holidays with them. 90% of it is about planning prior to having children.

@reallyreallyborednow, I take it your husband hasn't made any career sacrifices to look after your children? I don't blame you for feeling aggrieved at losing your assets.

I should clarify my advice to my daughter is to protect her if does end up at home and suffers financially as a result. I certainly benefitted from the protection.

If she did end up a really high flyer I would say consider the implications of marriage. How many women have children who are not married and end up in poverty if things go wrong.