To wish woman didn’t have to work

[Blueberryancakes]

I think I was born in the wrong decade.

Somedays/Most days I wish I lived in the days when once a woman got married she would give up work. Stay at home have children, cook and clean.

I know it’s such an anti feminist opinion but I guess that’s how I feel.

I enjoy cooking and cleaning. I hate going to work. I wish we lived in a time when 1 wage would pay the bills.

Anyone else think like me?
I know woman now have so many career options nowadays but house wife seems to be a very privileged one.

@Beekeepingmum
Who is going to do the job you don't want to do? I bet you are happy but if all women said it was their right to potter at home, society goes under. There are some incredibly selfish posters on here.

I think this opinion should be supported for those who wish that life. SAHMs are frequently criticised on MN for giving up their freedom and 'power', but there's nothing unempowering about wanting to support your children and partner. If anything, I 'personally' feel you're doing a disservice to your children by not being around... and I say that as a child of two parents who worked. My best memories of childhood were from those times where one of my parents did not work and I got to spend time with them.

Obviously it does come with caveats, as the mum (in this instance) is around her children, and should have virtual absolute control over their lives, as she is around to know them better. The dad should have control over the money. People often say that is a controlling relationship, but to spend a lifetime with your children vs. 9-5 stresses in a job, alone... who really has the better deal?

That's fine if you have a DH/DP who will support you - enjoy it! I currently wfh to care for DH who is v unwell and we are making the most of our limited time together. However I've always worked FT and financial independence is important to me - it's something that was drummed into me and I've drummed it into our DDs! I've been lucky to work in a field that I value and work with people I like (well mostly! 😉)

For the last 3 generations before me each had lost their DHs when they were younger than me (whether through illness, accident, divorce or war). I come from a long line of working women (who were not especially well paid) but it enabled them to support their families through to adulthood and also gave them a life outside raising DC.
Life has many twists and turns and you never know what's round the corner. How often do we read that on here?

Look at @Revelatio statistics. So all you cosy, pottering women want to live in a country without healthcare and education?

@CroftonWillow

SAHM like to believe they are indispensable, but a divorced man can buy in services eg cleaner, nanny, ready meals

A SAHM is way more vulnerable. If relationship ends, they're screwed financially

Yes, I'm generalising, and home cooked meal better than M&S

But, I see it frequently

Iwasafool, good on you all. Funny, how these days with so many gadgets,a lot of women think they're hard done by. I had a twin tub on 1975(up till then,1 child, everything hand washed) it had to be taken out of the bathroom....that was the only space for it,to the kitchen,hose on tap. Hot water and wash, tongs, transferred to the spinning half,cold water added,ribse and spin.

I do that most days, but I have a limit to how long I can do that for. And these meetings I have with my manager are designed by my manager to be therapy sessions. My manager, like many cooperate robots, just isn't equipped to handle people being totally honest and upfront.

I only work half the week though and it's a nice balance.UCis a godsend as it tops us up and pays alot of our childcare

The benefits system shouldn’t accommodate “a nice balance” in this way. It’s a safety net, not a lifestyle choice

I think the problem is the need to separate childcare from work. Of course women have always worked, but, traditionally (as in, for most of human evolution) children would grow up in close proximity to their primary caregivers (with all of the emotional stability that would bring). We have developed a socio-economic system that depends on ultra-compartmentalisation of every aspect of our existence. We are required to outsource key aspects of what used to be integral to our daily lives, and probably remain integral to our sense of identity at a fundamental level. Babies and mothers risk being traumatised (even if parents refuse to recognise it) by unnatural separation. We are seeing the impact in terms of poorly adjusted children, exhibiting increasingly bad behaviour at school along with declining mental health amongst the population as a whole. We have a sick society that reflects the fundamentally flawed aspects of the economy that enslaves us.
I don't think I am being overly dramatic, and recognise that humanity has benefited in significant ways from 'progress'. However, we seem incapable of stepping back and asking questions about what we want to achieve and value during our short lives. We appear to know the cost of everything and the true value of nothing.
With an ineffectual social setting, in which there appears to be no meaningful overarching conversation about what a 'good' society would look like (never mind how we might seek to achieve it) individuals cannot be blamed for wishing to turn their backs on the current system, and seek personal happiness that is more attuned to what we are naturally designed to cope with.

It wasn’t a privilege because it wasn’t a choice. These days you could view it that way as women (financial implications aside), have the choice to do whatever they choose.

Just who do all these women choosing not to work for their own good or the good of their school age children think is going to do all the jobs?
Migration at three quarters of a million to support the economically inactive. So selfish.

He can but my point was he really wouldn't want to. A working wife is more 'dispensible' to him (horrible word yes). In the same way a husband is more dispensible to a working wife. Marriages are just a lot more flimsy these days which has its own consequences.

My Dm didn’t go back to work until I was 14, and considered mature enough to mind 2 younger siblings after school. We had no family nearby to help. Neither of my GMs worked until their children were teens or adults.

But as a pp said, no central heating - coal fires to be laid and ashes cleared every day in winter, no automatic washing machine* let alone tumble drier, no car…
It’s no wonder children were potty trained rather earlier - terry towelling nappies to be washed and dried every day - all very well in good weather, but I still remember them steaming on a clothes horse in front of the fire.

My dc are in their late teens now. I was a SAHM for 12 years during their younger years and can honestly say they were the absolute most happiest days of my life.
Over the last few years I have had to return to work because of the cost of living issues, two hungry teens don’t come cheap.
Although I only now work part time I still hate it. I am perimenopausal and have other health issues and I long for the days when I can go back to being at home.

But if I’m honest with myself I’ve probably always enjoyed being at home because a) I’m an introvert (and probably undiagnosed neurodivergent) and b) have never enjoyed any job that I’ve had because they have bored me senseless.
Maybe, if I’d had a career rather than jobs I may have enjoyed the working world a lot more and not yearned to be at home all the time?

Some people just love being at home and I find it really sad that sahm are frowned upon these days. Each to their own I say, if you can afford it, do it if it makes you happy.

That might have been true 100 years ago, but it’s certainly not now.
I’m a man and I’m also the cook in our house along with doing a host of other chores - and most of my friends are similar.

Raise your bar, if you’re spending time with men who just sit in a chair from 5pm you need to choose better friends / partners

Still no answer from these economically unemployed, SAH housewives about who is going to do the jobs that the migrant workers are at present doing? The UK cannot sustain the current level of migrant workers to do the jobs they turn their economically inactive people turn up their noses at.

I'm a SAHM (trailing spouse to be exact) and a lot of the time it doesn't feel like privilege at all except that I'm very glad not to have to trust my children to other people.

This thread and half of society can tell me how useless I am, how unequal my marriage must be (it isn't) or that my DH "supports" or "funds" me.

Fuck that. There's earning a living work to be done in this marriage and care of children work and there's more ways to split them than both straight down the middle. DH is grateful for my labour and he should be - never having to worry about who will look after or pick up the kids or who they're with, never having to say no to a work thing, being able to move countries multiple times and move up the career ladder with a stable caregiver for his children.

I'm building up freelance work but I do it at night when the children are asleep (they are bad sleepers and that means late.) Anyone who thinks I'm some pampered little housewife can go fuck themselves.

Twice you have stated that being a SAHP isn't 'worthwhile', or at least worthwhile enough. I find that quite sad. It's a very important job.

ooooh I found the tory!! Also I agree with you. After all capitalism is creating a utopia society where there’s absolutely no instances of injustice at all, ever.

No one is suggesting state provided childcare or anything else, unclench.

Using the USSR as an example against UBI is massively disingenuous, and I think you’re well aware of that.

The UK cannot sustain the current level of migrant workers to do the jobs they turn their economically inactive people turn up their noses at.

Any chance of a translation? 😂

Perhaps we need to examine how our economy is structured. Fast crapitalism relies on overproduction and overconsumption...and is reaping its rewards in terms of an increasingly mentally and physically sick population (which in turn increasingly burdens our crumbling health and social services). The environment also suffers from the many negative externalities that are generated by our impoverished and short-sighted economic system.
Do we have the ability to step back and have a major rethink about our collective priorities and restructure accordingly? I very much doubt it. So, we will carry on regardless on the treadmill that we have created, whilst everything unravels. Endless immigration to prop up what amounts to an economic ponzi scheme is probably not the answer!

Wasn't a lot of this was male driven though?

Proving that they earned enough for the wife to stay at home plus not wanting to be involved in housework/childcare?

Also from the pov of employers that the woman might have children & become an unreliable employee?

Good thing that things have moved on from that!

I wish we lived in a time when 1 wage would pay the bills.

It's not completely impossible is it?

It’s true that not all women are in fulfilling jobs and roles and many many jobs are mind numbing. That is also true of many many men btw. Who are doing mind numbing jobs but society/patriarchy and expectations have told them that there is no out and they have to do said job till they retire. The problem is that this means the vast majority of us cannot imagine a world where men or our partners are pottering around cooking and cleaning while we go to work and earn tons of money.

If we want a society where a single income can sustain a household (or two part time incomes) then we have to also be prepared to be the half that goes out to work (and also expect the men for those in heterosexual relationships to do all of the housework and the childcare if there are children).

So do we want a society that is less materialistic or do you just want to work less/stay at home but have the same lifestyle? Those two are not necessarily the same…

K, are you going to do one of those jobs then?

This is one of the reasons my relationship ended. But there are many men, that are still like that. From my own personal experience it seemed it come from his mother.