A 23 year old wants to be a stay at home wife?

[Ludlow2]

Friend's son had a girlfriend and both are 23.
She was keen to marry. Friend's son not so and his parents agreed.
Told him sort your career out,save up, find somewhere you will live. He agreed.
They split.
Both his parents work. My friend, his mother has always worked full-time and has a side business too. She is a great role model an although she is the breadwinner the father also works considerably hard.
Their children have and will benefit from this. They have also instilled good work ethic in their children too.
The friend's son and his ex girlfriend remained friends. She is keen to be with again and said she is happy.to wait and will continue with her studies maybe get a masters etc. She has then said that after marriage she does not want to work.

She thinks work is a want and not a need?

Obviously son Friend's son has run for the hills.
He did tell her it is impossible to survive on one income bla bla. But she just responded with we can move to a cheaper area and I'm not materlistic?

Im.just surprised at this attitude.

The girl's father left the family (Mother and siblings) whilst they were young.
Mother found another partner who comes and goes. Maybe it this why she is craving to be looked after by a man.
However, it sounds all so sad.

@Camillasfagwrinkles

That’s called age discrimination and can be challenged. As well as discrimination against parents.

Again, she has not interest in career building. But if she wants “a job”, she is liable to be able to get one. And she won’t be in a mandatory worker role.

I mean, what do you think Mums who’ve taken a career break do?!

So basically any partner the son has who doesn’t want to be work focused will be viewed as sad, needy and a drain?

Not everyone has the same outlook. Not everyone wants to dedicate their life to working. Some people want to work enough to live but not live to work. Some people actually want to be a home maker.

You have a very negative slant on her family background and it implies you think they’re not good enough for him.

Would you view her the same way if her family were wealthy and her daddy was offering to buy them a home as a wedding present?

I'm a 'career woman'. My quality of life is far from crap, as is my baby's.

I love my career, I love earning my own money and it is incredibly positive for my mental health.

To start with
this isnt about a SAHM

I was a Christian when I got married and we were advised to do a pre marriage course, following a book that advocated the wife giving up work. It was very old fashioned and stuck to gender stereotypes - wife makes dinner and looks pretty for when husband comes home etc. I wouldn't have entertained the idea then and I would be disappointed if that's what my DD planned to do.

I guess it's always for the couple themselves to choose but I'd feel it was an unfair burden on a husband to bear all the financial costs (especially in the current economic climate) if their partner was fit and able to work, and had no caring responsibilities for children or older relatives.

I'm also interested why not working (when no other responsibilities) is seemingly a valid choice for a woman and not a man.

You need your shit together, home, job etc before even considering you’d be okay on one income. For most, it’s a fucking pipe dream. At 23 you shouldn’t aim for that.

I was a "housewife" for 2 years before having children, and I enjoyed it. The first year I spent wedding planning and doing the interior design of our new home, then I went back to work for 2 years, then I gave up work a year before I had dd1.

It was jointly our decision as a couple and now I am a SAHM with 2 children and we are both still as happy with the decision as we were when we first made it.
Both people just need to be on the same page, it will never work otherwise

If this girl is as far removed from you as you claim then you are absolutely bat shit!

Agreed!

I would certainly feel that I had failed as a parent if my dd had such small aspirations for her life. And I would absolutely warn her to run a mile from any potential spouse who wanted to opt out of supporting themselves financially. Not that I would need to...I think she would find the lack of drive and ambition deeply unattractive in any case.

Yes, I would, as long as being a SAHH meant he was doing the running of the household and whatever else you'd expect of a SAHW. If he's staying at home and gaming, then I wouldn't be supportive.

It's rather odd to aspire to be unemployed without actually having children 🤣. It isn't much different to the many women that get pregnant young and think that their job in life is to raise children, often because they are uneducated or just don't want to work. Do I agree with either as a lifestyle choice? Well of course not, I followed the standard path of uni, higher degree, job, marriage, kids, carry on working ft. Once upon a time saying you wanted to be a homemaker aged 23 was normal, now it's obviously frowned upon and viewed as an easy way of life for a lazy person. Some women will continue to aspire to follow this path. It's an easy life if you can find a bloke with a decent job to fund it and aren't worried about the financial implications should he ever leave you.

@SouthLondonMum22

I wish you luck as your baby becomes a child and will have homework 4/5 times a week, football, gymnastics, swimming, other extracurricular etc etc and the demands keep on growing, along with the mess.

Husbands are always very idealistic when they are babies. It wears off. They become refocused on their careers.

She'll learn. Already she's learned that her ambition and her relationship with your friends son are mutually exclusive. Later she will learn that it also excludes her from other excellent matches with decent men, and she will find her pool of takers largely limited to men who are a compromise for her. Much older, sexist values, controlling, wanting an unequal partnership. Even if she drops very lucky and finds an acceptable man who will take her on on her terms, she will learn that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and there may will be requirements on her that she may find more challenging and restricting than going to work. Hopefully one of the earlier of these lessons will make her reconsider, so she doesn't have to learn from the more painful later ones.

@SouthLondonMum22 by the by this is not just my own experience but looking at friends/family experiences. Quite a few divorced by the time the kids were 7-14.

True

@SouthLondonMum22
"Not long ago gender norms also included women not working amongst other things which are also different now. It can change, if we want it to. "

Working class wives have always worked, though not maybe in the type of careers thought of now. They tended to work in factories or shops. This 'women not working' only really applied to a certain middle class type of family from about the 1900s onwards, if that.
My DM born in 1911 always worked because she had to. It was not unusual at all.

Again @SouthLondonMum22 wait until the school years and when you have more than one child. When you will be sitting until past bedtime trying to get the homework done because you didn’t get in from work until 6. And then you spend your entire weekend shuttling from their activities and birthday parties.

There is time when they are babies. There isn’t when they get older.

Interesting, isn't it, how the phrase 'have it all' is never, ever used in the context of men. They have always automatically assumed that a family and a career is their right by default.

As for 'doing it all', this all depends on whether women are prepared to tolerate the assumption that a cock and balls disqualifies someone from reading a washing-machine operation manual. It's strange how some men apparently can't pack their own holiday suitcases, but are ruthlessly competent in commandeering and performing the majority of high-octane professional roles, not to mention being financially compensated accordingly.

If women do want to raise the bar as to what they are and are not willing to tolerate in terms of division of unpaid domestic labour, (or prefer to outsource this, if wanted), that is up to us.

I would find it odd to come across someone of that age who actively wants to choose this lifestyle nowadays so I can see why you'd be intrigued OP. I could never be financially dependant on someone and also feel that a lot of my personal value/self esteem is tied into being successful at my career, so I do struggle to understand it - my mum has never really worked other than the odd casual part time waitressing role or taking in sewing or similar and I'd find that quite depressing.

However it has worked for my parents, and thinking about it my husband is basically a house husband (he works but PT/casual and I am by far the breadwinner, no kids but he has some health issues which mean working FT isn't practicable) and it works for us so it really is just horses for courses in the end.

I can’t believe anyone is defending this! Work isn’t a choice in this day and age (and if you think it is, why does choice only extend to women and not men?)

Yes, I’d love to live in a society where we all got universal basic income, housing and life was affordable and everyone could work as little or as much as they wanted - but we don’t, so why is it fair to expect men to be the only ones who carry the financial burden in households?

Feminism is about equality, not blindly supporting anything someone chooses just because they’re female. This isn’t a feminist choice. Not only is it foolish on an individual level for all the reasons stated (the danger of being financially dependent etc) but it holds back progress in society and sets a bad example. It is not a feminist choice and certainly not one I’d respect, I fundamentally don’t respect anyone who thinks being a woman absolves them of the requirement to work.

As for the person who said women are rarely financially independent - absolute crap! I am, most of the women I know are. Most live alone in homes they pay for entirely themselves. Why perpetuate antiquated and harmful ideals when you have choices that mean you don’t have to?

Bit of a tangent but I agree. Working when you have one baby is easy... providing you have money. When you have multiple children at school age and 14 weeks a year school holiday to cover...good luck with that

That's just living. It's not something I'd give up my career for when my husband and I can share it between us.

Unless my husband has a personality transplant, I'm very confident that his values won't suddenly change. He isn't lazy, he isn't sexist and he believes as much as I do that both parents working is the ideal.

What a patronising post.

I'm genuinely sorry if you are married to a misogynistic twat who thinks that domestic work/childcare is mainly the responsibility of women, @Robinni. I can see why it might give you a warped view of the world.

However, not all men buy into those outdated gender norms, and many do manage to split things fairly between them so that both partners can maintain a career while contributing to family life. Right through until their dc reach adulthood. I'm sorry that wasn't your experience but please don't wish your bad luck on other posters... maybe @SouthLondonMum22 is lucky enough to have a partner who treats her as an equal.

Agreed

Oh dear.

Working class women have always worked. The idea of staying home to care for children is an invention that’s a couple of hundred years old. It begins with the concept of a merchant middle class and has never, ever been about the wellbeing of women or children. It was created solely to increase the status of non-aristocratic men who needed to show how successful they were, that they were wealthy enough to be able to carry another adult.

The other post referencing the 80s shoulder pads as the time when women started working made me laugh out loud. Imagine being so poorly educated/read and yet so proud to base one’s opinions an episode of LA Law. God help us.

Only read the title - I would love to not work - sounds like the girl knows what she wants!