To not understand the nastiness that being a housewife provokes 2

[Alondra]

Apologies for making a second part to this thread but I feel strongly about this issue.

Topgub

Possibly because there aren't any benefits

Few countries have a government system caring about women and children. The majority of our governments don't care if all have to work for a pittance to pay mortgage, bills and food when children are small because average couples need both wages. A system where nursery fees are stratospheric and eating half an average wage, and worse still, because parents working full time, making an average pay to be able to survive, have few serious tax concessions. Those tax concessions go to multinationals.

It's a system that only cares about productivity attached to $. If you are an engineer with projects worth a million dollars, your salary will be minimum 15% of that money annually. If you are a carer or a parent, there is no quoted money attached to your work, so you are in a low wage or no wage at all.

A woman with two kids working full time for an average salary has not gained much from my mother’s time. Working full time, taking care of the kids when they are home and doing the lion share of housework and rarely free time at all.

With housing costs, bills and health systems collapsing, I really fear for women in the next few years. We will get the short straw as we've always done, but it'll be a plus if, at least, we don't turn on each other.

Ooooh.

I've just remembered who you are.

The poster who goes on like women having to "give up" their careers, as if having a career is the goal and a child is a consolation prize. No one forced them to have a child.

He would give up work tomorrow if we had enough money. He's very hands on with the kids when not at work. He's actually always dreamed of having children since he was very young, as have I.

What's your solution if both parties want to be the SAHP? What would your solution be? He would've happily done it if I'd have been really into a career. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@AMorningstar

Where did they actually say childcare was an unpleasant task?

Not wanting to sacrifice your career doesn't mean you think childcare is an unpleasant task.

It just means you think its perfectly possible to do both.

If both want to be the sahp the only fair option is to both work part time and split the childcare

That's the ideal any way.

Topgub - if my DH has felt strongly about SAH he would have said that and it would have emerged as a discussion and we would have worked it out. It didn't though. It is what it is. Why do you insist couples have to feel / behave / respond the same when the fact is they just don't very often.

It's not about children being damaged in childcare necessarily. Tiger in childcare have no other experience to compare to anyway. Its simply that my children would have been less happy in childcare. Obviously they are better off with me, who loves them unconditionally and knows them inside out, instinctively, than a woman on £9 per hour who sees them as a job. That's all I needed to know.

children in childcare, not the tigers!!

@zeven

But you weren't talking about your children

If tigers or children aren't damaged by childcare, much like they aren't damaged by school. Whats the problem?

The idea for you. Not for everyone. Why do you not understand that everyone is different and different things suit different people?

That's the biggest issue I have with your comments. You do you, that's absolutely fine, but it's so odd you can't understand there's not one standardised way to raise kids that's ideal

I find it weird. It's like she thinks everyone is a robot, a blank slate, and we all feel and think exactly the same and should want exactly the same things and everything being divided exactly 50% is optimal. People aren't like that lol. In reality some people specialise, some people vastly prefer one thing to another.

@Topgub do you support equality of outcome? Are you a communist/marxist - not meant as an insult, I'm curious because your posts strongly suggest a focus on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.

@AMorningstar

Pffft.

Your comments are the same as mine. I'm not sure why you keep pretending otherwise

Plus you asked for my solution!

If you dont want my solution why ask?!

It's entirely unfair to say your oh wanted to be a sahp but do did you so tough shit.

@AMorningstar

No.

I'm not a communist.

I'm a feminist socialist if I'm anything. With some small c conservative leanings

You keep banging on about people not being the same and everyone should be able to think and do what they want. Then getting pissed off that I have a different opinion to you

It's hilarious

No @Topgub my criticism is that you seem to want to enforce your way of living onto everyone else.

I've asked you before what your endgame here is but you won't answer.

@AMorningstar

I have answered

More than once.

You just don't like the answer

What's your end game when you describe society as a neo Liberal he'll hole?

Or other marriages as cesspits?

Or the disparaging comments about dating and casual sex?

I think it would help if you distinguished between "SAHP" and "housewife". They aren't the same.

Caring for preschool aged children is valuable and often financially more sensible than working full time, due to the costs. Its labour that needs doing.

Being a housewife, in 2022, when the various domestic chores to be done fill only a fraction of the 32.5 hours a week that children must be in school, is unproductive. People choosing this are opting out of contributing socially, while consuming the output of others.

As a society, we'd crumble if everyone made lazy choices. We need people to work and produce food, transport things, mine & refine fuels & materials, build our homes & furniture, produce the materials & make the clothes & shoes we wear, produce medicines, preservatives and cleaning products, provide services as doctors, teachers, nurses, write and edit the books we read, produce the materials we use in hobbies.

All we are saying OP, is its a lazy choice, and a good thing not too many people make it or we'd be collectively fucked.

@AloysiusBear

It's labour that needs doing.

It doesn't need to be done almost exclusively by women

Topgub

Thats true. It can be done by either parent etc. I do think one of my biggest issues with OPs post is the assumption that man must work & woman must stay home. I mean ftlog. I can understand why in some households, there's a choice that one parent will temporarily stop woh when children are young, logically it should simply be whoever is the lower earner/has the poorer job prospects etc. Given young women pre kids earn the same & more than men, it stands to reason this won't always be the mother stopping work.

And before I'm accused by op of jealousy and bitterness.... DH earns 180k, we can afford me not to work. I'm working because i like it, i'm good at it, i'd be bored shitless sat home for 32 hours a week while kids are at school.

@AloysiusBear

Excrot unfortunately research shows that even when women earn more it's still them taking the break.

And it more often than not is the woman earning less/with poorer prospects

Because WE LIVE IN A SEXIST SOCIETY

@Topgub No you haven't. Do you want to force people to stop doing it, yes or no? I'm not asking whether you have the power to do this. I'm asking whether you want to.

I'd like a societal shift away from consumerism and capitalism, less of a push for modernity and a return to what is a more natural way of living in harmony with the environment. In none of that am I saying women should be forced to be SAHP. I do think more would naturally choose it if they had the finances to do so though.

I'd also like to see people take marriage seriously and an end to hookup culture. I don't want to ban it or anything though lol, at the end of the day people's freedom to live how they wish matters more than my distatse of it. I wish they didn't want to live that way though.

@AMorningstar

Yes. I. Have.

Lol.

In exactly the se way you have

Im not the op of this thread but was of te original - I actually don't have an issue with men staying home and women working. Whichever suits the family.

Out of interest why do you think so many women fought to be allowed to work and have careers if they wouldn't naturally choose it?

If the majority are forced into it?

Why bother?

It's a chi

It's a choice isn't it?
I respect people who make choices that works for them.

Plenty didn't for one, two wanting equal rights isn't the same as saying every one wants to work two, back then one wage was often enough to support a family of five but flooding the labour market with excess workers has had a massive negative impact on that. Thirdly there's quite a lot of women my age and below who want to be housewives and SAHP, so clearly there's a significant amount of us.

You think women wanting to work are to blame for flooding the Labour market?

Why am I not surprised.

Women have always worked. Its not a new thing.

I dont think there are a lot of women who want to be housewives. I dont know anyone who does

I'm not sure what you're basing that on.

Most stats and research (which I already provided) says the opposite.

It certainly hasn't helped. And your stats showed people are trapped by childcare costs not that if money was no object they'd still choose to work.