Living off a man!!!

[iabr]

If you are among the posters on here who always sneer at SAHMs for 'living off the husband,' do you also -

• sneer at women who work PT and therefore earn less than their husbands - so are, by definition, also 'living off the husband" to a greater or lesser extent?

• sneer at women who work full-time, but still earn significantly less than the husband, so the house and other expenses are largely funded by his higher income anyway?

• sneer at any woman who has a dual income lifestyle that she couldn't maintain on her own salary / wealth?

I really don't want to get into endless personal anecdotes of - "Well I earn £x and DH earns £x..." This is about the issue of 'financial independence' within families per se. - ie . recognising that it's accrued family wealth that determines financial independence and it's not necessarily always as simple as who earns what. A SAHM may well have greater financial independence than a woman on a high salary, depending on that family's underlying financial circumstances.

So AIBU to say to MN - Stop telling SAHMs they are 'financially vulnerable' - unless you know the details of their unique financial family circumstances!

If you call working so that you can pay your bills “working for personal benefit.” Your post completely overlooks the privilege of having the choice.

And I can’t “ask my husband to be a SAHD” unless I want us to lose our house

It's because for some reason SAHM are held to a higher standard than the rest of MN.
Acknowledge the privilege of your financial vulnerability.
Understand the impact you not working has on your husbands career but do not take any credit for it.
Know the strain you are putting on the breadwinner but if you do anything to make their home life easier you will be criticised.

@the7vabo paying your bills is your personal benefit. Just as additional time is mine.
Im not swimming in money - there are things I don't have that other people do. We all make our choices, you included. I just don't think that mine is worthy of insults, just as I don't think yours is either.

This comes up frequently on these threads. And while I certainly agree that parents who stay at home to raise children should be "respected", and that they should be treated respectfully, I'm never clear how exactly their contribution should be "valued".

In practice, when you talk about "valuing" them you're talking about a monetary value and a financial transaction. How does that work? How do you put a monetary value on the work of someone who has opted out of the economy?

The person staying at home with children will receive financial reward in that her upkeep and that of her children is paid for but that comes from the working parent. I don't really see why society/the government should further reward the non-working parent for something which only the woman and her immediate family directly benefit from.

Unless you're suggesting that there should be tax incentives for parents for staying at home? Frankly that would make life even harder for women who do choose to work and would be a huge disincentive to a lot of women to go into the workforce in the first place.

If women choose to stay at home to raise their children and as long as their partner can afford it then fair play but I fail to see that the rest of us should also have to pay for this. Particularly those of us who are already working hard to support our own families.

Neutrality is fine!

But what you do have is the privilege of the choice to stay at home and not earn money. You get your bills paid and you have additional time. Why not acknowledge that?
I am not swimming in money because I work nor are most people.

I think that since the govt lumps couples together for benefits assessments, then it would be fairer to do that for all couples who live together and allow a household where one person works and pays tax, to pay the same as a 2 income household where the gross salaries are the same combined as the single earner. But only if that reduces tax for the sole earner, not if it raised tax for the dual income couple. Or allowed household income to be 'split' between both partners for the purposes of child benefit allocation.
Its not do much about advantaging sahp, just not disadvantaging from a tax pov.

It comes across as so defensive when SAHM make the argument that they need to be “valued”. As you said respected absolutely, but SAHM value is to their own household. I’ve seeing people say “Being a Mummy is the hardest of al jobs”, it really really isn’t.

My point was whether something is a privilege if it comes with lots of disadvantages and the majority don't want to do it anyway. At that point it is just a choice - an exchange of some things for other things.
You had choices too @the7Vabo. But it seems that only those whose choices led to sah are expected to express eternal gratitude for them on MN, even though this site views it as foolish and don't want to do it themselves anyway!

To have a choice is a privilege. Many parents, whether SAH or WOH, don't have a choice; they're doing what they have to do. Anyone who has the option to do either is in a fortunate position.

The right to be taxed as an individual was a hugely important step forward for women, who until that point were viewed basically as an extension of their husband. It would be a massive step backwards to do otherwise

But the state does it for people on benefits? They aren't allowed to claim as individuals.
If it would be bad for women overall, then I'll accept your judgement on that - tax isn't my strong point.

@the7Vabo

It comes across as so defensive when SAHM make the argument that they need to be “valued”. As you said respected absolutely, but SAHM value is to their own household. I’ve seeing people say “Being a Mummy is the hardest of al jobs”, it really really isn’t.

I can sort of see where the first point comes from. I guess if you don't get paid for the work you do (other than being supported) it may rankle when other women do get paid. But aside from the point I raised about how you "value" someone who has chosen not to work there's another problem with this argument.

The logical conclusion of saying "we need to be valued" is that those women who haven't opted out of the workforce should be deemed to be of lesser value to their children, their family and society. If you, as a SAHM, intrinsically believe you are offering more "value" to your family by virtue of the fact you don't go out to work you are effectively saying women who don't or can't offer this "value" are of lesser status to you. And that takes us all the way back to a place I don't want to go to, thank you very much!

The majority can’t afford to do it which is quite a different thing, so not everyone has the same choices.

There is a difference between acknowledging your privilege and “expressing eternal gratitude”.

I have rarely seen anyone in the SAHM mother debate say lucky me I’m fortunate that I can stay at home and someone else worries about all the external stressors.

This comes up frequently on these threads. And while I certainly agree that parents who stay at home to raise children should be "respected", and that they should be treated respectfully, I'm never clear how exactly their contribution should be "valued".

In practice, when you talk about "valuing" them you're talking about a monetary value and a financial transaction. How does that work? How do you put a monetary value on the work of someone who has opted out of the economy?

As a SAHP, if I say I want to be valued I do simply mean I want to be respected, nothing more complicated than that.

Maybe semantics are part of the problem here!

Why should being a sahm be valued or respected?

Why are people arguing that a womans skills are being at home and a man's are for working?

Jesus it's like the 1950s in here 😳

@Marynotsocontrary

As a SAHP, if I say I want to be valued I do simply mean I want to be respected, nothing more complicated than that.

Fair enough: I am totally prepared to respect you and other SAHMs. It's hard work and it deserves respect. Certainly no-one should look down on a woman who doesn't work and is bringing up children.

But this phrase is endlessly wheeled out: "society doesn't value the stay at home parent". It's a bit of a platitude but if you unpick that its hard to escape the conclusion that what's meant is: "I want people to recognise that I'm a better parent because I don't work."

And I'm afraid I'm not down with that. I have to work in order to feed my child. I also happen to be a good and loving and involved parent. And I'm not keen to live in a society which deems me to be inferior to women who have the luxury of not having to do so.

But this phrase is endlessly wheeled out: "society doesn't value the stay at home parent". It's a bit of a platitude but if you unpick that its hard to escape the conclusion that what's meant is: "I want people to recognise that I'm a better parent because I don't work."

Thats not what is meant at all. It just means that society doesn't value childcare. Or rather, if you aren't doing something that directly generates taxable income, it isn't seen as having any value. So caring responsibilities generally.
And sahm mostly mean, just stop saying our contributions to our families are meaningless and then in the next breath blaming us for structural disadvantages.

I have rarely seen anyone in the SAHM mother debate say lucky me I’m fortunate that I can stay at home and someone else worries about all the external stressors.

I agree with this. They are too concerned with justifying why they should in effect be "paid" by the working parent for having a parenting experience which quite frankly to a working parent - You can't put a price on . To us it isn't a sacrifice - it's a choice and a privilege. And unless before kids you had a non challenging job requiring no responsibility or decision making it's not as hard as paid employment.

@ImAvingOops

Well I certainly agree that caring as an activity is undervalued by society (you only have to look at carers).

But the reason why childcare is not valued is because men have historically got it as part of the "deal" of marriage and no-one likes to start to pay for something they have had for free in the past.

Again, and I am at risk of being accused of inflaming the "structural disadvantages" point... but if families continue to divide labour along traditional lines ie men = earn money and women = look after kids and house, that undervaluing of childcare situation is never going to change.

The whole point about this, as a PP pointed out upthread, is that men will never value "women's work" until they have to start doing it themselves. And as long as women stay at home and do all of that for them that isn't going to happen.

The structural disadvantage point doesn't only negatively effect working women. It affects women with childcare responsibilities too because as long as men believe they are entitled to get this for free as part of the "package" they won't do enough of it themselves and won't value you for doing it. So its a net negative for women in more or less any any circumstance: its bad if you want to earn more money and its bad if you want to be "valued" in the home.

Again, to stress that I don't blame any individual woman for making this choice and I respect those who do it. But you're directing this at the wrong target. The problem you have here is not working women, its men.

And the only real solution to this is for men to step up across the board and create more equality in every scenario: in the workplace and in the home.

@ImAvingOops actually I think you'll find WOHM on this thread have said repeatedly that we totally get that what a SAHM does is of value - to her family. Presumably that's why she does it! It's the vague, amorphous wanting 'society' to value it which is the issue.

It can't be said enough times: society should value GOOD parenting. Not SAHM (or WOHM) as some homogeneous entity. Why should society value a parent who neglects their kids, doesn't attend to their physical needs or dumps them in front of the telly for hours a day? And let's face it, those parents do exist, in all walks of life.

Why isn't the discussion about the importance of good parenting, not the various family set-ups which can achieve this outcome?

But this phrase is endlessly wheeled out: "society doesn't value the stay at home parent". It's a bit of a platitude but if you unpick that its hard to escape the conclusion that what's meant is: "I want people to recognise that I'm a better parent because I don't work."

No, as a SAHP I can honestly, hand on heart, say I don't mean that at all. I think this is part of the problem tbh, people are seeing insults that aren't there.

If I say I feel my work at home isn't respected it's usually in response to someone who says that they're an equally good parent (yes, I totally agree) plus they work too. They seem superior about this last fact.

It seems that the extra hours of childcare I do - which I'd have to pay someone to do if I worked outside the home - mean absolutely nothing. This sort of unpaid domestic work has no value even in the eyes of other women. The fact that I'm saving my household childcare fees is disregarded as meaningless by some. And I'm a traitor to feminism and a drain on society who doesn't pay my taxes.
(All of this has been levelled at SAHMs on this thread alone.)

So I guess I'm defensive too.

OP seems to have spent the whole thread boasting about snagging a rich husband & getting cross that people might think she is financially vulnerable. If she wants to live like a 1950s housewife then the only person who needs to value it is her husband as he’s the one paying the bills. The fact that she can’t see beyond her wealthy bubble and realise her experience is not the norm is par for the course.

@BessieFinkNottle to be totally honest, I believe you're overthinking it. I mean, another mum telling you that they work doesn't negate the number of hours that you're at home, looking after children and doing domestic work. It doesn't affect it at all.

You say people seem superior when they say they work, but how do you know they're not simply stating a fact? I guess this is all about people's intentions and of course without being able to mind read then we can't know!

I'm just aware that when my kids were little, I might very well have been chatting to another mum and mentioned my work, and it would have been simply an exchange of information - not a judgement!