To ask if you are a 'housewife' with no children?

[crochetmonkey74]

I know the term housewife is outdated so first off apologies.
I've always wondered about this , I had a great aunt and uncle who never had children but she never worked. I've always been interested in how this would be (been a bit of a fantasy of mine)
Do any of you have this life ? What is it like?

I mean, what has happened in your life to make you so bothered about other people’s marriage set-ups?

Okay @randomiser here's one of many examples of why I'm interested:

I spent last week trying to convince a managerial team of mostly men about the need to embrace work life balance and explaining that some people (women) can't work in the evenings because they are doing the '2nd shift'. It was hard to make progress. Most of these guys have had someone at home making their meals and doing their laundry for years so this stuff doesn't cross their mind. I'm getting tired of working with men like this. All this makes change in the workplace harder.

Creating enabled facilitated men generally has knock on effects in how men expect to be treated, how they see women and how the workplace is set up amongst other things. These men also generally see their role as more important bc they're the ones bringing in $, even if you are a 'team'.

Live the way you want but choosing to enable a man for one's own ease has consequences even if you don't see it or want to turn a blind eye because corporate life is 'urgh'.

One might say that blaming women for the uselessness of men is pretty ‘urgh’ as well.

@Bosephine

One might say that blaming women for the uselessness of men is pretty ‘urgh’ as well.

Was just thinking that…

@MadameHeisenberg

There's a proportion of people on here who see people's value solely in terms of output- if you're not currently either stacking shelves or scrubbing the floor, you're a scrounger

But we live in collective societies and our daily lives are dependent on this system; we need people to pay taxes, operate power plants, produce our food, police the streets, diagnose and treat us when sick and a million other things.

If your entire existence comprises only doing things that primarily please and benefit yourself, with no input to wider society and only ‘taking’, then to be honest you’re a bit of a parasite.

through my life, both when I have worked and I have not worked, i have paid and still pay other people to do stuff for me.....stuff I could do myself, ironing, cleaning, and so on. I also pay tax and council tax and of course national insurance, as did my late DH. Is that not a contribution to the community?

@ButtockUp

Strictly speaking, I'm a housewife. I no longer work and have a few years before I get a pension.

I know that the term 'housewife' is outdated but that's what I am. To be fair , my husband has taken early retirement so in effect , we're early retirees.

To actually live with a partner, who works, but you don't work is very rare. Generally done by the upper classes , I expect.

not at all upper class but it was not uncommon in the industry my DH was in.

@Waferbiscuit

I mean, what has happened in your life to make you so bothered about other people’s marriage set-ups?

Okay @randomiser here's one of many examples of why I'm interested:

I spent last week trying to convince a managerial team of mostly men about the need to embrace work life balance and explaining that some people (women) can't work in the evenings because they are doing the '2nd shift'. It was hard to make progress. Most of these guys have had someone at home making their meals and doing their laundry for years so this stuff doesn't cross their mind. I'm getting tired of working with men like this. All this makes change in the workplace harder.

Creating enabled facilitated men generally has knock on effects in how men expect to be treated, how they see women and how the workplace is set up amongst other things. These men also generally see their role as more important bc they're the ones bringing in $, even if you are a 'team'.

Live the way you want but choosing to enable a man for one's own ease has consequences even if you don't see it or want to turn a blind eye because corporate life is 'urgh'.

Brilliant post.

I couldn’t really care less if people choose to devote their whole life living like this.

But the people keep posing the question as to why other peoples marriages and domestic setups matter.

They don’t matter in and of themselves. But when these domestic setups are the default they make it much more difficult for women who want to live independently and finance ourselves by perpetuating structures which entrench male power and advantage in the workplace.

As in the assumption that any successful person has a non working spouse to support with childcare and housework. This sustains a needlessly inflexible approach to work which makes life much harder for working women.

So, while I don’t blame people at an individual level who decide for personal reasons not to work and to essentially devote their lives to servicing their husbands, it’s not really true that it has no impact on us. At a societal level it has a very damaging effect on working women. You may not care about this but at least acknowledge it’s a valid issue.

@thepeopleversuswork

Yes, and there’s research that backs this up. Male managers whose wives don’t work have more regressive attitudes to women in the workplace, considering them inferior to male employees and consequently hampering their professional development.

So indeed, don’t try to pretend that feminism is simply about choice because it isn’t. If you make a choice that has negative ramifications for other women’s careers, because it reinforces male misogynistic attitudes in the workplace, then you are not supporting feminism, you’re undermining it. Even if you’re not wilfully doing it, the result is the same.

Men don’t get a free pass, they are the main issue, but indirectly choosing to support their prejudice is not a feminist decision.

There's an unusually high amount of women on this thread, who are in very high, super-amazing positions, in very niche industries, and right at the top of the tree there. And in many cases are the only woman in that field, (or they were the first woman there,) and they are the highest paid, and have massively important careers that the world couldn't possibly do without. Did I mention it was NICHE?

The stay at home mommies, and stay at home non-mommies, and under achievers who just have plain old ordinary jobs and careers, bow to your Greatness oh wise and wonderful beings. You are SOOOOOOO much better than us ...

Thank you for making the world turn. What would we do without your presence in our lives, and on this board, reminding us plebs how superior you are to us, and amazing you are. And a special shout out to the vastly important and highly paid expats!

@randomiser

Yes we know @MadameHeisenberg* You come in every thread about SAHMs / housewives and say the same thing. Why you care so much is bizarre. I’m surprised you find the time.

Amazing isn't it... MadameH is such a busy, super-highly-paid-professional in a very super-special super-important career, but still finds the time to post constantly on here. I only work 24 hours a week in a fairly normal job, and I can't find the time to post on here as often she her!

As often as SHE does! (not she her FFS!)

Madame H is currently off work with Covid.

@HelloFrostyMorning

There's an unusually high amount of women on this thread, who are in very high, super-amazing positions, in very niche industries, and right at the top of the tree there. And in many cases are the only woman in that field, (or they were the first woman there,) and they are the highest paid, and have massively important careers that the world couldn't possibly do without. Did I mention it was NICHE?

The stay at home mommies, and stay at home non-mommies, and under achievers who just have plain old ordinary jobs and careers, bow to your Greatness oh wise and wonderful beings. You are SOOOOOOO much better than us ...

Thank you for making the world turn. What would we do without your presence in our lives, and on this board, reminding us plebs how superior you are to us, and amazing you are. And a special shout out to the vastly important and highly paid expats!

Ok, but where is the rebuttal?

@MadameHeisenberg

Madame H is currently off work with Covid.

Of COURSE. Silly me.

@HelloFrostyMorning

The point is not to make out I/we am/are ‘better’. I’ve stated upthread that all kinds of work are necessary and important for a functioning society, including voluntary.

It’s been stated that women who work don’t really have the luxury of choice and actually need to do it for the money, because if they didn’t, they’d choose not to. It’s also been stated that women who work are jealous of those who don’t. I’m using my own situation to illustrate that isn’t the case, at least for not for me and probably for many/most others too.

Yes, isn’t it just a crazy co-incidence that I’ve caught an extremely transmissible virus in a global pandemic 🙄

They don’t matter in and of themselves. But when these domestic setups are the default they make it much more difficult for women who want to live independently and finance ourselves by perpetuating structures which entrench male power and advantage in the workplace.

These domestic setups are not the default though. Far more women work than don't. These men are more likely to be married to or living with the posters who 'do all that and go to work'.

There's always going to be people female as well as male who can put more time in at work than others for lots of reasons, that's life.
It only seems to be non working women who get blamed for it being an issue though.

I am a "housewife" with two secondary school aged children. I never stop during the day with cleaning, cooking, shopping , walking dogs, twice a week I go to an exercise class . I have a spotless house and cook everything from scratch for my family. I appreciate we are lucky enough to be able to live off one salary, but I have sacrificed my career to support my husband who works late most nights, and is away a lot . I don't stop until my children come home from school, then I ferry them to whatever club they are going to ( something on every single day of the week, and yes they are ferry lucky to be able to do it). I have also sacrificed friendships, people seem to have a huge problem with stay at home Mums who are "supported" by husbands . I have never had any help or support from family due to logistics . There isn't really any other way we could do it. But people have issues with me because of me not working.

@CeltictigerMum

I am a "housewife" with two secondary school aged children. I never stop during the day with cleaning, cooking, shopping , walking dogs, twice a week I go to an exercise class . I have a spotless house and cook everything from scratch for my family. I appreciate we are lucky enough to be able to live off one salary, but I have sacrificed my career to support my husband who works late most nights, and is away a lot . I don't stop until my children come home from school, then I ferry them to whatever club they are going to ( something on every single day of the week, and yes they are ferry lucky to be able to do it). I have also sacrificed friendships, people seem to have a huge problem with stay at home Mums who are "supported" by husbands . I have never had any help or support from family due to logistics . There isn't really any other way we could do it. But people have issues with me because of me not working.

That sounds like a great life!

But yeah, there are SOME people jealous women who will have issues with you not going out to work, some of them just can't STAND it that other women don't work. It rattles them and niggles them so bad!

Some women don't care of course, and are happy with their lot/their life/their job, but plenty DO care, and have a real bee in their bonnet about women who don't go out to paid employment - and there are a bunch of them on this thread.

Awww HelloFrostyMorning, are you feeling a bit underwhelmed at home/in your 24-hour a week job? Does it pain you to know that some other women love their work AND that it also pays well?

You’d probably be better off doing something to change your lot rather than protesting too much on here and hiding behind the very tedious jealousy card. Good luck!

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@neondino An awful lot of women without children work and do all those things you do as well. That is why people question how busy you really are.[/quote]
Absolutely, and I'm not knocking that. I used to do all those things when I worked full time. The difference isn't that people who work full time don't have to do it (or hire people to), it's that I can do it at my leisure. I'm always busy, because I fill up my days, but I do that because I have the opportunity to.

I used to work a job with tons of overtime and super high stress (literally life and death in some cases), and I hated that any spare time I had went on chores or things I had to do. Now I do those same things but in completely different ways. So one of my favourite things now is grocery shopping, because I drive to a bunch of smaller independent shops like the nice farm shop and the butcher who can tell you the names of the cows etc, rather than going to Tesco on my way home from work and throwing into the trolley whatever I could cook quickly. We're going on holiday at the end of the year and I'm already planning and finding niche things to do etc, which I'd never have had time for if I worked full time. It's an absolute luxury to be able to do that, I completely admit, and I'm super lucky (as is my husband, as he also has that extra time because he's not working and then having to do DIY on the weekend or whatever, plus he reaps the benefit of me deciding to learn charcuterie from scratch or some other bullshit project I take on). I'm also that sort of person who doesn't just have friends over, but has a theme and makes all the food from scratch with personalised place settings etc. Which some people would hate, but I can spend weeks on because I have a secret yearning to be Martha Stewart.

It also have a lot of time to volunteer so I feel like I'm contributing to the world in a meaningful way, which a lot of women do by having and raising nice, well-adjusted children and I'm not going to do that, so we're both fulfilling the same role but in very different ways, and neither is right or wrong, they're just different.

I think if someone thinks that people who don't work must be bored, they wouldn't suit not working because their mind isn't wired to fill the time in the same way. In the same way I can't imagine working in a full time job and not feeling stressed and harassed all the time, but I know the reality is some people thrive on that - my husband does!

[quote MadameHeisenberg]@thepeopleversuswork

Yes, and there’s research that backs this up. Male managers whose wives don’t work have more regressive attitudes to women in the workplace, considering them inferior to male employees and consequently hampering their professional development.

So indeed, don’t try to pretend that feminism is simply about choice because it isn’t. If you make a choice that has negative ramifications for other women’s careers, because it reinforces male misogynistic attitudes in the workplace, then you are not supporting feminism, you’re undermining it. Even if you’re not wilfully doing it, the result is the same.

Men don’t get a free pass, they are the main issue, but indirectly choosing to support their prejudice is not a feminist decision.[/quote]
Yet, if you look at the stats there is a much higher proportion of dual-earning parents than ever before, so the likelihood is that the majority of male managers will have a working spouse.

Why blame women for the misogyny of men?

Should women be denied a free choice of whether or not to work (by other women) because some men are misogynistic? Could that be construed as female misogyny?

Why is not working seen as supporting misogyny rather than a stand-alone personal feminist choice? Akin to victim-blaming, when in this scenario there are no victims, rather, scapegoats for the behaviour of men.

Assign the blame squarely where it lies, with men who feel threatened by successful women, not with other women who choose to live their lives differently.

I encourage women to work if that is their choice, similarly, I encourage women to feel able to choose not to do so if that is their preference.

I do not subscribe to entertaining the judgement of others who, having chosen one path, blindly belittle those who choose differently. It is disingenuous and dishonest.

@mizzo

my husband works away more than 50% of the time. We have 3 kids. I do all of the things that you list as things that mean that you're busy. And I work 34 hours a week. And do a voluntary role that takes about 5 hours a week.

Posters talk about feeling like the maid if they didn't work. Not to offend this poster but this scenario would and did make me feel more like the family maid than I do now I don't work.

I agree, I don't feel like the maid at all. The way I see it we have a ton of work comes into the house and we divide it by our strengths and interests. From that, we also have a bunch of money comes into the house, and we divide that up too - it's never felt like my husband earns the money and I get an allowance, it's all joint responsibilities and therefore joint benefits. It's not like my husband is making me do the housework, I just do that bit of the work coming in because I prefer that to him working less to be able to do housework and me having to work a stressful job. I don't particularly like housework, but it's a necessary part of my job, like filing used to be when I worked in an office.

And sometimes I decide to have the day off and the housework doesn't get done. And that's fine, because I can unilaterally decide that. I couldn't just decide not to go into work when I worked in the office. The housework can be done tomorrow, because I have the time for that, it's not like I only have two days a week to cram in all the life admin and the volunteering and the hobbies I want to do. I don't think a maid is allowed to just sack off the cleaning because there's a new series of Line of Duty they want to watch.

I spent last week trying to convince a managerial team of mostly men about the need to embrace work life balance and explaining that some people (women) can't work in the evenings because they are doing the '2nd shift'.

It’s probably because their wives - not them - do the ‘2nd shift’. It’s entirely irrational to blame women who don’t do paid work for their attitudes. I was a single parent for a decade, I worked all the hours God sent because I wanted to advance my career and put some jam on the bread.

Men don't go through life making decisions on the basis of whether their choices help other people in the future - they do what suits them. I think it's a bit much to expect individual females to make our life choices taking what's good for all other women into consideration. That's essentially just more mental load. We only get one life and we have to make ourselves happy.

What women could do better though, is not constantly bad mouth the choices of other women. The sah/woh threads on MN get very nasty sometimes and it's not necessary - everyone is just doing their best to have a nice life.