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I know the term housewife is outdated so first off apologies.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’m on mat leave with a baby and a 4 year old and also fantasise about this sometimes 😂. I would : learn to cook properly and make lovely tasty meals each night rather than throw together something quick, learn to bake properly, make own bread, do gardening, do charity work/volunteer but change what I do each month, join walking groups, go out for lunch and coffee, read a lot, long walks…do more home improvement projects, travel and visit places in UK I’ve never been. I think I pre requisite of enjoying this lifestyle is having the money to fund it and and friends in similar positions to meet up with. If you were skint and no friends, or. It very sociable it could be quite isolating I imagine. I think it would be a bit like retirement?

There isn't really a word to describe it when you don't work, aren't looking for work.

I had it when I took voluntary redundancy. I had a big lump sum, my mortgage was paid off already, I didn't actually need to work.

I applied for a credit card but how to describe myself. I wasn't really a housewife (not married,no kids) and I wasn't unemployed. I was 40 so probably not retired yet.
I think I put down independently wealthy as I was living off my savings.
Wonder how a man would describe himself .

*not very sociable. Ooo also I would take up cycling again properly and go on long bike rides.

If you would be 'bored shitless' not working then what are you planning on doing when you retire?

I think the people who say they’d be bored shitless are the same ones who plan to work until they drop. Which to me is no life.

Also, I don't think having a few months off work because of furlough or garden leave or a natural break between jobs or something is really the same thing as not working for years on end - it's an extended holiday which you know has a finite end date. After a while, isolation can set in, the undermining of your confidence, cognitive decline (yes, really; there's research, you use it or lose it). A holiday reprieve from duty is sweet because it's a change from the usual and you know it's going to end.

Just to be clear, it's totally fine with me if you want to do this and fill your time baking, volunteering, doing a PhD, whatever.

Three years' doctoral research is full-time work and hard intellectual graft. They don't give away higher degrees like sweets: they are challenging and not everyone can cut it.

Easy to start one. Not so easy to finish, submit and make it through the viva.

I do think there's quite a judgmental attitude to being 'unproductive' ... it is almost a badge of honour to be 'busy' all the time, rushing from one thing to another, even on here someone is almost proud to admit that they never have time to clean a shower. Many people (women) seem to love boasting about how busy they are and how they struggle to get 'me time', they won't delegate anything because no one else 'does it properly', get anxious about - for example - going to a wedding because of the logistics, cost etc but wouldn't dream of tuning down an invitation, you only have to look at the Christmas threads on here and the great list of events etc that people (again, mostly women I suspect) plan and consider 'essential'.

Slow down .......

I wouldn't be bored shitless, I'd love to not work! I just roll my eyes when people try and justify it with "running the household" when most employed people manage that as well as working.

I'd also never want to rely on a man for money, I've just not been raised that way. I did it when I was a SAHM and hated it, I'll never do it again. I'd only stop working if I was independently wealthy.

Aname but people can be just as boring with nothing to talk about if they work ... some people are boring full stop. Not all jobs are 'interesting'.

I've got a wide circle of friends, some work, some don't .. if I am honest the most interesting ones don't work, they have so many interests and hobbies to talk about.

That would be great! Once on top of housework you'd still have hours a day to do as you please! I'd much rather engage in my hobbies and passions than work for someone else where I have to work with other people, some who are lovely, and some I'd rather run over in my car.

For the people who are talking about 'being dependent on a man' you're not dependent, you're a team, he's bringing in the cash, you're spending it. GO TEAM!

@InisnaBro yes, hopefully, but as I said in my post, my husband will still earn far far more than me for the rest of our lives. Just because of the nature of our fields. I already ‘contribute’ financially through my PhD funding and I’m unlikely to earn vast amounts more than that in the future. The point I was trying to make is that there are other ways to contribute to a household that aren’t financial.

If you're talking about a 'great' aunt and uncle then presumably this was some years ago when they would have first been married, when regardless of children fewer women worked and were more expected to stay at home, so I don't think they'd have been that unusual.

And, before the advent of automatic washing machines, and vacuum cleaners and supermarkets etc. Running a house 60 years ago was easily a full time job.

’You need a project and a purpose.’
Who does? I don’t.

Childfree, work part time, despise every second of selling my labour. I’m happiest at home, doing my hobbies. Having a kid or working full time would bore me shitless.

And all the judgy sneering about "living off someone else's money". Agree with @MumsTheWordFact that marriage is a partnership. If as a couple you have decided that the best thing is for one to work and one not, then that's fine. You don't need to justify it or explain it. Other couples make different decisions. It's not that he's bringing in the money and you're spending it though - it's that he's bringing in the money and you're contributing in other ways or doing different things.

In a decent partnership finances are split, the earner paying into pensions for both, savings held in joint names or split evenly, none of this asking for pocket money nonsense.

I'm a student and part-time worker, earn a ridiculously low sum compared with DH. I wouldn't splurge £100 on something without running it past him first, he wouldn't splurge £100 either without mentioning it first. Because it's our money not his. We've been married 20 years, and I have a good personal pension which we've both been paying into.

Of course there are some women who get themselves into the situation of being with a man (and it's usually that way round) where the guy earns a great salary and they're at home with no cash and having to ask for money to buy essentials. But that's not the typical scenario.

My friend fits in to this category. She married for the third time at 38, no children from either of her very short marriages. I guess you could say she did well for herself this time because she married a divorced man 12 years older with two grown up children and lots of money. She hasn’t worked since and four years later they haven’t had any children. She’s now 42 and he’s 54 and spends her days walking her dogs, going out for lunch, to the gym and spa. I don’t envy her life it looks boring and without a purpose.

I think it's a bit pathetic when people need a partner at home to "enable" them to work.

@Waxonwaxoff0 I get what you mean. I didn’t mean to say my husband needs me to do those things to enable him to work (he managed fine before he met me), more that he appreciates having certain things taken care of when he is working incredibly long hours. We are a partnership though and it goes both ways, when he has more bandwidth than I do he also picks up my slack. I was just trying to (badly) make a point that contributing financially isn’t the be all and end all in a partnership, because if it was then those of us who earn much less than our partners or work fewer hours would essentially be worth less. Which is a dangerous line of thinking that has been used to devalue women and their labour for centuries

I was a ‘house wife’ before we have kids at one point I suppose.

I went back to uni and was a student whilst DH worked. Honestly? I’ve never been so busy.

I couldn’t escape the house there was always SOMETHING that needed doing and I felt the need to do it. Cooking, cleaning, organising, tidying, errands, admin etc. It was endless and I think spending most of my time at home highlighted how much needed doing. If I wasn’t studying I was running around like a blue arsed fly.

@Ragwort

I do think there's quite a judgmental attitude to being 'unproductive' ... it is almost a badge of honour to be 'busy' all the time, rushing from one thing to another, even on here someone is almost proud to admit that they never have time to clean a shower. Many people (women) seem to love boasting about how busy they are and how they struggle to get 'me time', they won't delegate anything because no one else 'does it properly', get anxious about - for example - going to a wedding because of the logistics, cost etc but wouldn't dream of tuning down an invitation, you only have to look at the Christmas threads on here and the great list of events etc that people (again, mostly women I suspect) plan and consider 'essential'.

Slow down .......

This

And I'm totally guilty of this myself, obsessed with productivity, feeling I must constantly prove that i'm useful to society in some way etc But actually all this talk of being bored is so unimaginative and patronising. Obviously paid work isn't the only thing that counts.

Saying that, I think it's totally down to the individual family. I've seen families who this has worked for and those it hasn't. There are real practical benefits if you can make a partnership where one person works and the other takes care of all the dry day-to-day house stuff thereby freeing up time together in the evenings and at weekends, looks out for elderly relatives etc There's not much glory in it for the person at home but it often works well for the family as a whole. And the volunteering time put in by all those who don't do paid work is absolutely invaluable to so many organisations.

But also I do think it's a vulnerable position to put yourself in, being entirely reliant on someone else's income and that would bother me. I can relate in that DH earns easily 10 x more than I could (totally different spheres) and worked v long hours when the DC were small, a lot of travel etc so I took part-time flexible work that I was over-qualified and underpaid for because I wanted to keep working but also to retain a work/life balance for the family. It would have been more practical just not to work at all if I'd been able to come to terms with the idea. I've now had a couple of years of doing very little paid work (unsuccessful new venture) and although I have been super busy, it is actually making me feel quite purposeless, and uneasy relying on his income, so I'm applying for jobs now. But I'm quite torn about it because it's not necessarily going to work as well for the whole family, I'm really just doing it in order to feel useful, secure, like i'm somehow earning my keep etc.

But one thing that has NEVER been a problem is filling the time: older relatives to look out for, house stuff, dog walking, planning ahead, food shopping, cooking, catching up with people, fixing stuff, dealing with bills/insurance claims/admin, volunteering, learning new stuff.

@ANameChangeAgain

My relative is a housewife and she has nothing (interesting) to talk about. She will talk about cleaning, cooking, her hair and her clothes, because that's all she is. Sorry I know it sounds horrible but she is an intelligent woman, no children, just a life of housework, Loose Women, salon visits and shopping.

That's got nothing to do with her 'role' and everything to do with who she is as a person. During lockdown I had the time to research and read deeply around the things I was interested in. It was amazing.

It was actually lockdown that gave me insight into the sense of superiority some people have over people who are probably introverts. I know now that some 'friends' of mine thought my life 'isn't worth living'. They're not friends anymore.

Not me no and most married women I know have worked at some point if they don't have DC.

For an extreme example of a housewife with no children look at 'Cathy' in Two Doors Down sitcom. Her time seems to involve exercise, annoying her neighbours, shopping and getting drunk .

Actually a retired housewife I know (kids grown up and moved out), she spent a lot of time helping her DH's business out, and doing charity work, studying and line dancing.

I quit my job a few months ago, so I suppose this is me. And, shock horror, we have a cleaner, so I don’t even do any housework.

It’s very pleasant. It’s the life both of our mothers had/currently have, so not strange to us. I was raised to ‘run a household’. And DH earns enough so that I will never need to work unless I choose to. I read, I workout, I cook complicated meals, I meet with friends. I like my life.

I might go back to work at some point, I haven’t decided. We are going to start TTC this year, though. So not sure that there’s much point. DH is decidedly unbothered, either way.

Seems bizarre to fantasise about having nothing to do

Seems bizarre to me to think that someone can have so little interest in the vast variety on offer in life, that they think that without their job they will have 'nothing to do'.

I know exactly what I would like to do if I didn't need to work and, frankly, I still wouldn't have enough time to do it all!

@RavenclawDiadem

And all the judgy sneering about "living off someone else's money". Agree with *@MumsTheWordFact* that marriage is a partnership. If as a couple you have decided that the best thing is for one to work and one not, then that's fine. You don't need to justify it or explain it. Other couples make different decisions. It's not that he's bringing in the money and you're spending it though - it's that he's bringing in the money and you're contributing in other ways or doing different things.

In a decent partnership finances are split, the earner paying into pensions for both, savings held in joint names or split evenly, none of this asking for pocket money nonsense.

I'm a student and part-time worker, earn a ridiculously low sum compared with DH. I wouldn't splurge £100 on something without running it past him first, he wouldn't splurge £100 either without mentioning it first. Because it's our money not his. We've been married 20 years, and I have a good personal pension which we've both been paying into.

Of course there are some women who get themselves into the situation of being with a man (and it's usually that way round) where the guy earns a great salary and they're at home with no cash and having to ask for money to buy essentials. But that's not the typical scenario.

Marriage is indeed a partnership. It is also a fact that 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. Hoping that someone on whom you are wholly economically-dependent will want to continue to be married to you, or will allot you a living wage after your divorce is a pretty unsteady basis for life.

Kind of me. Kids have gone to uni.
Perception is a funny thing. If I were a dog walker that would be looked at as employment. If I were a professional athlete the gym would be part of my job. If I worked in a restaurant I would be a chef. If i straightened the house daily I would be a maid. Collecting things, courier. etc etc. But as a housewife I don't do anything. In a funny limbo land waiting for our retirement plans to start. I "should" get a job but I have dogs etc and want holidays whenever I want. Bit boring at times. Don't have handouts or have to go cap in hand for handouts all accounts are joint.

If you would be 'bored shitless' not working then what are you planning on doing when you retire?

a) I would never want to retire: I can't think of anything worse.
b) You can't compare being a FT housewife all your life to being retired - its not remotely comparable.
c) If you are going to retire, surely better to do so on your own terms and with your own money and control over it than having your ability to retire entirely contingent on the approval of your spouse.