To be amazed how much women benefit financially from marriage

[Singleparent78]

I've been single most of my adult life, worked FT and built up a good career but despite this... I'm always struck how much better off women who are married are than me.

It's not just about the merging together of two salaries, but about how much easier financial life is when you have the benefit of a man's higher average income, giving many women a lifestyle they could never afford on their own salaries.

Consider:

• the many women I work with on low salaries or working part-time who are living much nicer lifestyles than I as they have a man significantly supplementing them.

• the married women I know at 45+ who have moved to part-time or stopped working as they have accrued significant savings with their dh but, critically, their dh is now a high earner who can pay for both of them.

• the girls from school who didn't go onto further education, got married soon out of school and haven't worked at all or a bit of p-time - they mostly live in nice houses and cars, have enjoyed nice holidays etc. There hasn't been much 'penalty' for not being independent or not having a career.

All in all these women, by way of marriage, seem to have an easier go than solo me slogging it out for 30 years working FT and trying my best to be independent.... like the teachers at school told us girls to be!

I understand: all the constraints on women to generate their own income esp the gender pay gap and the impact of childrearing; that the above scenarios don't apply to all couples; that I'm assuming a heterosexual set up; that women contribute within marriages in other way than bringing in income; and that assets in a marriage are shared as is any income that comes into a marriage. I know people might think I'm being anti-women for challenging women's choices or women's rights or just plain bitter...

Still, AIBU to wonder:.......Is it not depressing that the best or most common way for women to be financially comfortable or create wealth is still through marriage and the merging of assets with a man?

Expected by whom? I don’t expect that of my wife. My parents don’t expect it of my wife, her parents don’t, and she certainly doesn’t, so where are you seeing this expectation manifested, and how?

And it’s overwhelmingly men in senior positions because it’s overwhelmingly women doing the childcare.

Perhaps it's overwhelmingly women doing the childcare because men in senior positions claim that they can't?

Whereas women in senior positions seem to manage to do both?

How can they do both? They can’t - they either work and outsource childcare, or work part time and outsource childcare part time, or stop working and do all the childcare.

It’s you who’s calling it a compromise. Others think it’s good for the child too. You need to understand that your views on how parenting should work count for no more than anyone else’s.

OP, are you jealous of the married women you know whom you believe to have blagged themselves a financial advantage by marrying for money? Or do you despise them? Or have quite another feeling towards them? Obviously, you have some strong feelings regarding them or you’d not have made this post.

I still think you’re trolling btw.

But your compromise was your children having to be in wraparound childcare from six months old.

@Pumperthepumper - are you still going on about that? Nope that really wasn't my biggest compromise. My children genuinely enjoy wraparound care and they thrived in daycare. I is possible.

Genuinely the compromise was the lack of time and money - it was having no hobbies or leisure time, not being able to afford holidays or new clothes for years.

Who thinks full time wraparound childcare from six months is best for the child?

But you might have made a different childcare choice with more options? Why? If you really think that was best for them?

I’ve never agreed with anything you’ve posted before, but you’re quite right. No one can be working full time and be caring for a child/children full time. Who on earth can be in the workplace and giving their job their full attention and simultaneously be at home caring for a child full time? It’s simply impossible 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone who claims to be doing it is lying I’m afraid.

@Pumperthepumper there were no other options for me, unless I quit my job and went on benefits, so I'm not going to feel bad about the choice I made.

But that’s exactly my point - that’s the compromise in your family. In others, it’s a salary.

I do. Both or ours have absolutely thrived on it. A mixture of nursery and nanny, but with the parents from 6pm every day, all day on the weekends, and continuously for the seven weeks per year we are on holiday from work.

From six months old?

Question to those of you whose children adored wrap around childcare from six months or similar - how do you know? Did your children tell you they much preferred their other carers to spending time with you, their parents? I’m curious because it wasn’t my experience, but maybe some young children do prefer not to spend too much time with their parents?

So how do the women manage it?

why is it unlikely that men can manage that. I am the sole earner, look after the children (when they are not at school or childcare obviously) and do the “background stuff”. I have a cleaner etc and have various other help over the years but I manage. Why do you think men can’t?

Why do you think men can’t?

It's not that they can't, it's that they don't.....

why would op be jealous of women who marry for money? I can’t speak for her but I am definitely not jealous of that! Can’t think of anything worse.

@WorriedWoking - why do you think it’s something to be jealous of? Is it a great achievement to marry someone richer than yourself?

I don’t think men can’t. I think a lifestyle of working full time means that lifestyle is being facilitated. So for you and the OP, that’s by outsourcing childcare - as it would be for anyone working full time.

But that post specifically mentioned men in senior positions whose wives don’t work. Yet the women in senior positions all have husbands who work. And that’s the difference - if one half of the couple doesn’t work, it’s them who is facilitating that setup.

I think what irks me in your post is that you say women profit from marriage when it is really both sides, husband as well as - arguably often more than - wife.

Very practical reasons: pooling of salaries if both work; efficiency gains if one side gives up their career. (Those mum's I've known who were solely 'running' their families certainly dropped less balls than my DH and I, sharing thr care work while both working FT.)

I suspect it's single women with children who skew the statistics, as they have a really tough time accumulating assets. I'd be surprised if unmarried women w/out kids were really worse off than married women, especially if taking into account who actually controls assets in a marriage.

Not a great achievement in my eyes, no, but then I’m not the one who started a thread about the subject am I?

Obviously they are not caring for their child full time same as the men who work full time Are not. The childcare is outsourced to someone else when they are at work. Same as for the men. And before you start guilting women for having other people look after their kids - why is it ok for men?

i used to work in the city and as I said while my male colleagues sometimes (but not always) had someone at home to pick up after them, the women never did. Why can women do the same job but be contributing at home when their male colleagues can’t?

No, I agree that you can't work and do childcare simultaneously. That wasn't what I was saying. My point was that women in senior positions typically have hands-on roles with their kids and still do an awful lot of childcare. They don't typically have a SAHP or PT working partner who "facilitates" their career by picking up all of the domestic stuff for them.

Of course they won't be caring for a child full time if they are also working, but they may still do a lot of childcare. In our case, we only used 4 hours of paid childcare a day before dd started school and we shared the between us. My dd was actually asleep through most of my working hours when she was little. Once she started school, we didn't use paid childcare at all.

Yeah I agree. But not always of course- lots of men do contribute at home, especially those with spouses who are also working full time. NAMALT!

Why can women do the same job but be contributing at home when their male colleagues can’t?

I don’t understand what you’re asking here @Villagewaspbyke - women are overwhelmingly responsible for childcare, regardless of hours worked. So men in senior roles who have non-working wives at home are being facilitated by those wives. But none of the senior women are being facilitated by men, because all of those husbands also work. Nobody is saying men cant do both.

You have to remember that this is mumsnet with a particular subset of men. Here most have chosen to marry lazy men who want little to do with their children.

Most of those who married men who actively take part on family life aren't on mumsnet.