I chose not to have kids so I have no skin in the argument between SAHM and WOHM.
However....I am the daughter of a SAHM. I was born in the 70's and her tale was that she was forced to give up work (in a creative field). Except, she wasn't. Plenty of other women continued to work in that field after children. The truth was, my mother didn't bother going back after I was born and by the time my brother was born, she had been out of the workplace for 2 years.
We grew up poor. Very poor. Our father was a manual worker and although my mothers job wouldn't have been massively paid it would have meant the following, if she'd gone back to work...
- we would have had food every day....some days there was just a plate of chips for us. An egg if we were lucky
- we would have been able to have hobbies
- we would have learnt to swim (something Im still embarrassed about today and cover up by claiming I'm frightened of the water....im not...I have always yearned to be able to swim)
- we would have gone to school in clean clothes because we would have had a change in school uniform or enough electric on the meter to wash our clothes
- we could have had holidays like the other kids
- we could have had treats
Instead our childhood was dull and miserable and boring. Mostly it was insecure and stressful.
My dad had a heart attack at 50 when I was away at uni (no money from my parents to cushion me I had a grant and loan and that was it). They had bought their council house a few years before but once he was not working my brother (in an apprenticeship) and I ( a student) had to bail them out. I had no money for the usual student life of pubs and fun. My brother had no money for anything. And it was all for nothing as the house was repossessed anyway in the end.
But of course we had lovely memories of quality time with our mother at home in our childhoods? Like fuck we did. Our childhood was one stress after another. There were no days out, no crafts, no fun ....because there was no money for anything because my mother refused to work and my father was working himself into the ground.
I'll repeat that. My father worked himself into the ground while my mother stayed at home.
Reading threads like this, I feel for the men working 80 hour weeks so their wives can stay at home with the children. My father, luckily still,alive who,st she is dead, is finally spending the time with his children that he couldn't do when we were young because he always had to work - as he worked in agriculture then every summer he would do his day job, then do extra hours helping with the harvest.
If our mother had worked she would have been a happier person. She might have even been a better mother. Our dad would have spent time with his children who he worshipped. My brother and I might have been happier, had a more exciting life. We might not have Made the bad choices in partners we had - both of us going for the empty promise of financial security rather than waiting until we met someone we loved.
We might have had kids ourselves.
Of course, all the women who stay at home on here are going to argue that their children are grateful and they get all they need and want. Maybe they are telling the truth, who knows. I certainly know that I was brainwashed into believing that my mother was better than my friends mother because she didn't work.....that would be the friend whose parents were able to afford riding lessons and a caravan holiday in Cornwall, while we went to the local beach.
My childhood and disastrous first marriage taught me this....that it is insane to not work and earn your own money. Financial independence is more than treats and holidays. It is being able to pay the bills, the rent, the mortgage yourself and not have to spend sleepless nights worrying or dread the post coming.....it is what every girl should aim for.