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?

"I haven’t attempted to denigrate any working mums and you reading that into anything I’ve said is an issue you yourself have to come to terms with. You can think whatever you wish to about my life, it doesn’t change my reality and my happiness. I hope you find peace and stop seeing offence where there is none."

@ForestFae you literally said that having children and putting them in nursery was like getting a dog and then not spending any time with it. You then said what was the point: as in, what is the point of having kids if you were going to put them in nursery.

You've also called it alien and unnatural and said that people who do this don't value family. It's all terribly defensive.

So: Don't be disingenuous. You're not a naïf. You know exactly what you're saying.

You're not peaceful, you're judgmental--and slightly malicious to boot.

Stating something is unnatural is just correct or incorrect. If someone takes offence to something being unnatural, that’s their own issue - I live in a house, that’s unnatural. But it’s something I feel comfortable with departing from nature on. Everyone has their own boundaries with that. Modern society is, in my opinion, too divorced from nature.

I am not placing value judgements on people or having a pop. And me saying I don’t understand why someone would do something again, isn’t saying I think they’re terrible people. I don’t understand why anyone would live in London, but I don’t hate anyone that does or think they’re horrible people.

you’re taking what I’ve said far more offensively than it’s meant.

Sorry, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt initially. Just not buying it now.

I said what’s the point when it’s a choice and not a necessity - I think that’s a fair question. I’ve said society doesn’t value family, which I think is true. Saying something is unnatural or not is just a statement, plenty of things are unnatural - driving cars, for instance. Using online forums!

I’m not being judgemental. I don’t understand why someone would do it and I don’t think it’s the best for children, hence why I didn’t do it myself, but I don’t think anyone who does it is a bad person or terrible parent. I’m going to stop replying because you and a couple of other posters seem determined to find offence where there is none. Continue to make the choices you’re comfortable with, and I will do the same.

I guess you can't have a baby if you don't want to stare at it 24/7 until it's one and squeeze every last exhausting minute out of the preschool years. Wanting to have one because you will eventually enjoy having an older child and another adult in the family isn't acceptable, I suppose.

If you aren't being deliberately offensive, then I can only conclude that you must be astonishgly stupid if you are unable to comprehend why the statements that you have made would be considered offensive by the vast majority of people. Are you usually this lacking in empathy and basic understanding?

My money is still on the fact that you are deliberately out to cause offence, but if it is sheer stupidity after all, then please accept my apologies for misjudging you.

You really are determined to be snide, unpleasant and unkind. I won’t engage further with someone who’s determined to be rude while attempting to maintain some sort of moral high ground. Have a pleasant day.

I was consistently polite until I saw the game that you were playing. At that point, I decided it was time to tell it as it is. After all, it would be unnatural to carry on being courteous to someone so clearly out to cause offence.

I am not the one who has criticised other people's parenting choices on this thread. That would be you. So yes, I think that does give me the moral high ground. (Though tbh, it isn't so much high ground, more that you're standing in a hole.)

@ForestFae

Even my husband, who has a “good career” doesn’t do it for any fulfilment, he does it to provide.

Does he not do a 'meaningful' job then?

If not, why is that ok with you? As you said everyone should have a meaningful job.

@ForestFae

I just don’t get the mentality of not wanting to raise your own kids

If you see working as 'not raising your own kids' then ask your husband to explain the mentality. When he gets back from work.

I am not intending to be offensive. I don’t think critiquing a societal structure is necessarily offended and I don’t understand why people need to take it personally when my criticisms were clearly aimed at the society and culture rather than individuals.

They weren't though. You said that parents who work aren't 'raising their own children'. That is a clear criticism of those parents and their choices, not society's structure.

I haven’t attempted to denigrate any working mums

You can't have typed this with a straight face after your posts!

You can’t help the culture and society that you live in - many people have no choice and have to work because dual income are needed. Criticising the fact that they have to leave their kids with others while they work isn’t a criticism of them.

As for my husbands job - it’s a job that’s necessary in our current society, but wouldn’t be in an ideal society. As I said, everyone has to work within the society and culture they live in. Both of us agree the primary caregiver is the one doing the majority of the raising of the children.

The only thing I criticised individually was I said I didn’t understand why someone would put a baby in nursery full time out of choice when it’s not a financial necessity. And even that is societal - society pushes the image of a lifestyle where both parents work, it’s seen as “empowering” to do so and raising a family is often seen as pedestrian and old fashioned. It’s trendy to not like spending time with your kids. So again, it’s still a criticism of wider trends.

Do you really think the only reason to work is to make money?

For most people, yes. The average person isn’t researching how to cure Alzheimer’s or helping the disadvantaged.

No, apparently it's all about being trendy now!😂

What crap job did you pick that you're still poor after 30 years? Maybe the teachers should have expanded your horizons beyond the usual 'nurse or teacher' drivel and you might have one of those 'men's salaries.'

They're not 'men's'. They're the salaries of those who don't choose minimum wage work. Yes, it's noble and kind, but while women remain content to fill these poverty wage jobs, nothing changes.

If being married to a man is the only thing keeping you afloat because your job pays tuppence, that's a precarious place to be. Men don't keep leeches for long.

The only thing I criticised individually was I said I didn’t understand why someone would put a baby in nursery full time out of choice when it’s not a financial necessity. And even that is societal - society pushes the image of a lifestyle where both parents work, it’s seen as “empowering” to do so and raising a family is often seen as pedestrian and old fashioned. It’s trendy to not like spending time with your kids. So again, it’s still a criticism of wider trends.

So mums who work and continue to enjoy their demanding jobs are all brainwashed by society?
I have a female dentist. A female GP. A female mortgage advisor. Every single staff member at my child's nursery is female except the chef. My mum's autoimmune disease consultant is female, as are the 2 rheumatology nurses she deals with. If all of the women in these jobs dropped out of society for 5 years per child we would be absolutely fucked.

That’s a very horrible post - “poverty jobs” deserve to be paid living wages as much as anything else.

It doesn’t have to be the mother - I don’t think it matters what gender parent stays home with the child. I do think it benefits kids to have one parent home, and society should do more to accommodate that

The thing, the research evidence doesn't actually support the suggestion that kids are better off with one parent at home. So it basically boils down to a question of individual preference, which "society" does currently accommodate (quite rightly) for those who can afford it but doesn't seek to fund for those who can't.

Oof, I thought it but didn't say it. You have to wonder at the entitlement where they think the husband is there to worker slave away putting food in mouths as his "meaningless" existence, but they get the important job of sniffing the babies head and overdosing on oxytocin (while teaching them to forage for edibles as they don't have any money). The disdain for other peoples choices is mutual, most people have the self awareness to not open that box.

@ForestFae

It’s trendy to not like spending time with your kids.

Eh? I don't know where you're looking but this really isn't true. It's not trendy at all.

Most kids of working parents are cheered on at their hobbies by their parents, helped with their homework by their parents, read bedtime stories by their parents, go on holidays with their parents, enjoy fun days out and trips to the park and soft play with their parents... just not during work hours. You know, a bit like your husband does all those things (presumably) just not in work hours.

You seem to think that a parent can't have as close a connection to their child if they don't spend 24/7 with them and instead are away during working hours.

Bit ironic your husband does a job that isn't 'meaningful' don't you think? Hypocritical of you even.

It depends how you define success. Society today is very much obsessed with exam results and box ticking, but many young people have terrible mental health issues and we have a crisis of SEN kids struggling to get support in schools and out of it - I’d be interested in a study on whether having a SAHP is protective in those circumstances (as far as I know, no such study exists - at least I haven’t found one).

The main issue I have is the default assumption is two people work. A double income is needed for almost everything, including housing deposits, mortgage, the cost of living like a food shop. Therefore, most don’t have a true choice. We also teach kids from an early age that they should define themselves by their work - we ask pre schoolers “what do you want to be when you’re older?” ffs. I don’t want my kids to dream of labour! I want them to dream of whatever wonderful things their imaginations can conjure.

Another issue I have is with western modern parenting, children are compartmentalised and kept away from society. They’re put in a nursery, and then in a school, where they’re forced into artificial environments with kids of a specific age group. It’s not a natural (I’m not trying to be offensive with that) way to socialise or form relationships - in society, you don’t only function with people born in the September to September period that you were. And children are seen in public as an annoyance, something that should be kept somewhere else, rather than just a normal group in society. Parenting shouldn’t be compartmentalised, parenting should be something that goes on while you do everything else - kids should just come along with their parents and be seen as little people.

I don’t know if that makes my points clearer. If we had a society like the above and someone still chooses to work, fine, that’s not my choice but it’s not my life.

@ForestFae

Are you planning to home school your children until they are 18?

It does always make me laugh when people say that the wife’s contributed by raising his children and he’d have to pay Nursery fees if she wasn’t prepared to do it …. do we honestly believe men would have kids if they had to pay Nursery fees really ?

most of them have children literally to shut us up.