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?

This is pathetic. My comment obviously stung you, and as a result you’re now repeatedly sniping at me, like a dog with a bone. Grow up.

Its home educating, by the way. Home schooling is something else.

Because you're lying about what you have said there in black and white for the last pages. I am about the fifth poster to point this out.

I’m perfectly aware of what I’m talking about thank you very much. By 11+ I meant age 11+. Not a specific exam although I’m aware there is one because my poor eldest daughter was pushed through that. By me.

@Mumwantingtogetitright interestingly though did you have a choice is whether to do the international baccalaureate or A-levels or was one or the other imposed on you no matter which would’ve suited you ?
I am now teaching to my child’s individual needs and interests. Which frankly is the best education any the child could hope for, you couldn’t buy that level of personalised care, provided by somebody who actually cares deeply about the outcomes for that child. Additionally and more to the point would have to deal with the consequences if they were poor so I have an extraordinary vested interest in making sure that at the end of this process my child is self-sufficient and has the tools required to equip him to survive in the world and I’m afraid having had older children go through the system, 2 of which are at university, my experience of school as a concept is as it fails 90% of the students .

This failure may not present itself until even after university, it often pops up during uni though, but we employ a lot of graduates and believe me they’ve not been educated.

Not sure how you’re getting that from my posts. It’s clear that my point is that I believe it’s in the best interests of the children to be raised with their family. I’d argue that putting them in nurseries from very young means the children are more for the parents - to be wheeled out at weekends but not to do the day to day teaching and raising. I don’t see how it’s in the best interests of the child to do that. I think the child is missing out, personally. You don’t think that. That’s fine.

I’m also not saying kids can never be out of their parents sight. That’s a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said.

I’m not lying about anything. You’re taking one comment and divorcing it from the context of all the other comments it was made in, to try and misrepresent it. People do this online all the time, and it’s annoying.

@Mumwantingtogetitright interestingly though did you have a choice is whether to do the international baccalaureate or A-levels or was one or the other imposed on you no matter which would’ve suited you ?

I had a choice. I did IB. My sister went to the same school and did A-levels.

@Goodskin46 Perhaps we should give the experiment another go again then without a global pandemic going on at the same time, the children’s grandparents dying around them, The outdoor parks taped up and cordoned off, being prevented from interacting on any kind of social level and then compare the results 🙄
I mean you actually look back in despair at the whole situation but that’s another thread and yet another example of how the government who supposedly cares about children’s education couldn’t give a flying fuck about their mental health.

The takeaway is surely that the best way to be financially comfortable is to be a man. It’s not marriage that’s the issue but the gender pay gap.

I'm not going to go back and quote all the times you used pejorative terms towards other parents, in context.

Being such a terrible parent I'm off to a Forest School venue now to meet a friend. Who incidentally manages to home educate without calling me a pointless mother and comparing me to a neglectful pet owner. Enjoy your day.

These threads do always shed light on how language can be mobilised - even weaponised - without blatantly appearing to attack or judge.

words and phrases like - “palmed off”, “farmed out”, “wheeled out”- are fascinating examples which repeatedly appear on such threads (and such threads appear regularly!).

@ForestFae

I don’t see the issue with saying that to me, it seems pointless to have a child if at least one of you doesn’t want to spend the majority of your time with them (providing you have the means).

What a nasty post. Again.

Hopefully you'll be working on your own empathy skills rather than passing on your attitude to your kids.

And if you insist the above isn't offensive (!) then you need to work on your self expression as it certainly reads that way.

You've just told people them having kids is pointless if both parents choose to work. It's a ridiculous, offensive and frankly idiotic statement.

Every further post you share just exposes an increasingly mean spirited attitude, you aren't doing yourself any favours.

I don't know any working parents who only "wheel their children out" at weekends. What a curious idea!

Yes, it's true that people who use childcare/schools think it's fine to share some of the responsibility for the day to day teaching and nurturing of the children with other caring, responsible adults, but ultimately, that responsibility still sits with the parents and the parental influence will invariably be the most significant in the child's life. However, many of us feel that there are positive benefits to the child in being exposed to a wide variety of influences during their childhood, because we believe that the parents alone can't provide everything that their children need. I feel that my own dc has benefited enormously from having regular access to other trusted adults in her life. Of course, that can be achieved with a SAHP/HE too, if the parents actively want that kind of exposure.

You mention that you think children are missing out if they don't have a SAHP. What exactly do you think my child missed out on?

It’s a genuine question - I don’t understand why someone would choose to have a child if they have the means to raise that child themselves, but chooses not to. But that’s okay, I don’t have to understand. People don’t have to understand my choices to home educate and be a stay at home parent. It’s fine to make choices people don’t understand or agree with on a personal level. As I’ve said repeatedly, I support someone’s right to make that choice. You shouldn’t also need my validation and agreement, you should have that from yourself

I’m not lying about anything. You’re taking one comment and divorcing it from the context of all the other comments it was made in, to try and misrepresent it. People do this online all the time, and it’s annoying.

Then you need to consider the language you are using to describe people who parent differently to you.
The language you have used has been considered judgemental and offensive by a number of people.

You've berated people for working in jobs which you don't consider meaningful, suggested those that use childcare aren't raising their children, asked why people bother having children if they're going to put them in nursery, called dads secondary care givers ....... just to name a few.

I'm not sure how anyone can misrepresent those comments.

I think children miss out on the closeness of connection that one gets with a parent being at home, and I also think that the learning of skills is lesser. My children learn from me simply by being around me - they pick up on skills and real world interactions. Family traditions. Closeness with grandparents. I think children who spend the majority of their time in nurseries and schools miss out on these, or don’t get them to the same degree. But you’ve said you wouldn’t want your daughter having the same lifestyle that I have for my children, so you probably don’t feel that she’s missing anything.

@ForestFae , you have said very clearly that you think it's pointless to have children if both parents choose to work.

My DH and I both chose to continue working after dd was born. So, do you actually think my dd's existence is pointless? Or were you just trying to wind people up?

If she is happy and enjoying her life (which she undoubtedly is), please tell me why it would be pointless to have created that life?

I honestly don't understand your perspective, unless for you, having kids is all about the reward that's in it for the parent (presumably patting yourself on the back about what a great parent you are) rather than the life that you can provide for the child. How can you possibly say that the life of a happy child is pointless?

I haven’t berated them for working in meaningless jobs. I’ve said society creates meaningless jobs for jobs sake. You are misinterpreting my stance, which is anti capitalist, as anti worker, which is isn’t. I can’t tell if it’s deliberate or if something is being lost in translation with the fact this is an online discussion. Or maybe its just because it’s a sensitive issue and people take things more personally. I don’t know.

I also don’t know what’s offensive about saying there’s often a primary and secondary caregiver. Something my own husband, a working father, also agrees with.

I assure you i am not trying to offend you. The very fact I support peoples choices should show that. I don’t have to like a choice to support your right to do it

It’s not pointless for the child, but I question why the parent chose that, as in, I can’t understand why you’d want to create a child and then not do the majority of it yourself. You say to give that child a happy life - I suppose it comes down to defining a happy life. I see putting a child in childcare, full time from a young age when you have the means not to, as second best. I personally wouldn’t do something I thought was second best for my child. I don’t think it’s all about rewards for the parents at all

Most people have a baby so that they can dress it up and parade it round in a pram for 2 to 3 years by which point they lose total interest in it is it’s no longer compliant doll at which point they have another, so honestly to criticise a woman who is clearly very involved and enjoys a children’s company is really quite unreasonable.

No, I don't think she is missing out on anything at all. The closeness in our relationship is no different to the closeness that I had with my mother as a child. Perhaps you imagine that it would be, but it isn't. And as a teenager, she's closer to me now than many of her friends are to their parents, including those who had SAHPs, so I don't think your argument washes.

She is incredibly close to her grandparents, too, at least those who are still living.

I can’t tell if it’s deliberate or if something is being lost in translation with the fact this is an online discussion.

Or you're really bad at explaining yourself?

If multiple people believe your words and tone are offensive, are you so arrogant that you assume they are simply misinterpreting what you've said aka the issue is at their end? Rather than considering that you are saying things in a way that is offensive and therefore need to improve your communication skills in order to make your point without being offensive?

Because either that's the case or you're entirely disingenuous...

@ForestFae and @Mumwantingtogetitright you both need to account for the fact that children are as individual as fingerprints and that their relationships with each adult will be entirely individual to so you cannot compare your relationship with your mother with your child’s relationship with its mother equally you cannot predict which relationships with gel and which won’t there is literally no way of accounting for this until it actually happens.

So given you both seem to be very nice people we will assume that whatever your difference is you are both raising your children with the best of intentions

I’m glad.

My mum was mostly a SAHM. She worked very part time but for the majority of the time, was home. I had an idyllic childhood and I want the same for my kids. I can’t imagine it would have been the same if I had been in childcare - in fact I know it wouldn’t have. I also don’t think my children would be as happy and as confident if they’d been in a childcare setting, nor do I think they’d be as knowledgable about the things they are knowledgable about (foraging, cooking, growing food, folklore). I don’t think they’d be as close to their grandparents - my husbands parents live over an hour away and don’t visit that often and my kids aren’t that close to them, whereas my parents live 2 miles away and we meet up almost every day. My kids relationship with them is wonderful. I understand these aren’t important to everyone. I just personally think it’s the best type of childhood.

Yes, you see it as second best. Lots of us know that it isn't second best, it's just a different but equally good approach.

That's why people do it, because they don't see any inherent benefit to staying at home. And having seen my dd thrive and grown into a happy, healthy child with a zest for life and a talent for forming healthy relationships with others, I do not accept for a moment that she would have been happier if I had been home for a few extra hours each day. I actually think she benefited positively from the few hours that she spent each day with her nanny when she was small, as the nanny brought different qualities that neither dh nor I were able to offer.

Anyway, if you acknowledge that it isn't pointless for the child, then clearly it isn't pointless, is it? Because for any decent parent, it's all about the child.

why the parent chose it?

Really easy - they chose it because it’s what they felt was best for themselves/their children/their family. Just like you feel what you’ve chosen is best for yourself/your children/your family. I think you already know that though and the fact you do and are continuing to ask the question is probably why people think you are goading them. I am positive it wouldn’t be better for my kids to be at home with me or their dad rather than going to school. Kids are all different though and maybe yours wouldn’t thrive in a school setting like others do 🤷🏼‍♀️