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.

I feel like I was sold a lie

Yes @DontKnow1988 this resonated with me. We were all sold a lie.

We can't actually have it all because there isn't time to have it all. This is why a working man with a family (pre emancipation) needed a wife!

@toomanytonotice yes you are quite right.

In the olden days at least some companies I believe had a 'widows and orphans' fund. The non working parent has always been vulnerable.

It worries me. I freelance so my CV is up to date (mostly) but I am getting older and nobody wants to hire an old woman.

I would also like to point out that women of a certain type were also glad to live this life .Someone who her husband managed , and was well aware of her husband treated children/women .
There was women out there who thoroughly believed in slave in labour and possibly still do .That many reports out there have shown us that many women and men are so disgusting that they think nothing of using slave labour .
What I find so disgusting by so many in retrospect would find a so-called feminist being woken up by a child lighting their fire and bringing them a cuppa in the morning .

How many of us have seen how many posts when we have seen other women wanting to hire a foreign nanny and give her no rights whatsoever? not every woman is a feminist or believes someone of a lower class of them has rights . Do not trust them as a woman until they have shown you who they are .

It’s depressing to see. I have friends in Australia with kids. Some split the week 50:50, some the husband works part time and sometimes they are the full time person at home, often the man is working the 9-5 and the women part time shift so limited childcare needs. And I don’t mean high earners. It’s just feasible with normal jobs to be able to live a good quality of life (outside the Sydney Melbourne metropolis)

I'm a SAHM and while I feel lucky that I'm in a position to have this life, it's not all roses.
The days often blend into one big stretch of drudgery and endless tasks.

That's not necessarily true, a lot of rich kids are often spoilt, lazy and end up blowing their family wealth away. I think statistically family wealth only lasts 3 generations. And many people from humble beginnings often get out of poverty, and live a lavish lifestyle. It's all down to the individuals. Oh and route to acquiring wealth often isn't through "hard" work, but being smart. That's a topic for another day though.

"Clogs to clogs in three generations." Those old Lancastrians knew a thing or two.

My mother was very much of this mentality, to the point where she didn't know where her life ended and mine began. It led to a period of estrangement and risk taking on my part to gain my own sense of identity. It took a while but we did mend our relationship but there were some strong boundaries set by me. She also came out with a stronger sense of herself in the end.

It's not really a feminist choice, or any kind of choice for many women, though, who don't work because
a) they can't juggle it all because their husbands do fuck all with the housework and children, and/or
b) they've stayed home for years and years to support their husband's career advancement while their own stagnates so zero hours, minimum wage work becomes the only option. Then the 'it's just not worth it to us financially' argument comes into play.

I had my babies in a sling and talked and sang to them as I chopped the vegetables

Everything about this sentence is why we would never be friends in real life ;-)

Everything is a balance - at the extremes there will inevitably be examples of dysfunctionality and these should not be used to disprove the fundamental truth. For example, the general premise that 'breast is best' is widely accepted - but nobody would counter this fundamental truth just because a very small number of people take it to an extreme that causes them to significantly delay the weaning process!
Are you suggesting that your mother embraced the premise that her baby was best cared for by her, to the exclusion of all other social interactions? If so, then clearly that was dysfunctional behaviour - and should not, therefore, be taken to undermine the fundamental truth that young children are best cared for by their primary caregiver. Obviously (at least, I thought this was obvious), when I state that it is best for a young child to be routinely cared for by their primary caregiver, I am not suggesting that this is conducted in a weirdly intense manner - to the exclusion of the child interacting with other people! However, this is not the same as the child being left in a childcare setting, away from the primary caregivers, for a significant proportion of their life.
As an aside, I am sorry that you had such a troubled childhood experience. In normal circumstances, the right sort of parenting should not have such negative outcomes - but should produce confident, emotionally independent individuals.

That seems a bit of a mean response. Does your 'friendship selection policy' stipulate that you should always exclude those who sing to their babies, or is it multitasking whilst carrying the baby in a sling that gets somebody blackballed? Or maybe it is it simply the combination that you find so repugnant! I am genuinely curious (by the way, I don't sing to my adult friends as I chop the vegetables! 😂)

Exactly. Working class women in previous generations were working very hard and usually did farm work/gardening/additional jobs like washing for richer people on top of household duties and childminding/baking/lighter household duties was done by elderly women.

the ones we see in movies are usually the rich and not the poor, so OP should wish to be born or marry into wealth instead of wishing to die in childbirth or end up widowed in the poorhouse.

My childhood wasn't troubled or challenging. I was never abused or neglected. I simply was my own person. Compared to others, I had it really good. I do however take issue with people who saintify motherhood and parenting. I have witnessed some truly awful mothers and fathers, and the lingering effects that it has on children. One of my childhood friends mothers basically sold her to pedophiles for drug money. So don't tell me that the primary caregivers are always the best. My friend would love to tell you that, however she committed suicide I'm her twenties so she is silent now.

It was a jokey comment really, hence the winking symbol. But I generally don’t bond in life with people who come out with twee comments. Esp around childhood. The ones who when other mums are complaining about tiredness, just have to tell them that young kids are always a blessing and how they adore every second.

I knew someone like that who said she loved weaning as she danced round the kitchen feeding her baby whilst he was in his highchair. No idea if that poster is like that of course.

Of course I am not everyone’s cup of tea either. That’s ok!

This exactly summarises why women need to work and see the actual risks of staying at home and being financially dependent.
What I don't understand is why is so difficult to see the scenarios you describe are very common. It's like if they deny the possibility of ever happening, it will never happen.

Fgs women aren’t stupid 🙄. Every woman I know me included who sahm it was a life stage of about 6-7 years when children babies pre school they had professional jobs before this and went back to those jobs or used those skills afterwards.

Its not all or nothing not normally anyway. Work is more flexible now . Every woman I know who stepped out is back in a good job or lucrative self employment. Employers couldn’t believe their luck.

I reiterate the fact that I don't think that anything can ever be presented in absolute terms - there will always be exceptions. Maybe part of the problem with the way that modern society is structured is the movement away from extended family settings, so that a huge amount of the care takes place within either nuclear family settings (which probably are too limiting) or, at the other end of the spectrum, nursery provision (which probably can be too impersonal, particularly if the ratios are stretched).
I am not wishing to be confrontational and I have huge empathy for the difficulties faced by those juggling childcare and work. People will, naturally, seek to defend their decisions at all costs. This, combined with economic drivers to increase economic activity (measured in the crudest way), is bound to skew objective discussion (and any attempts to address problems associated with the current childcare system) and supports sociocultural inertia.

Be careful with this approach because the believe of going back to the same position you left 7 years ago is mostly a myth.
I made that mistake so I know what I am talking about.
I stopped working for 4 years. The idea was to leave 3 years only but took me 1 year to return to the same industry (1 year of sending my CV everywhere), and when i finally found it i returned to a more junior position earning peanuts. It set me back a few years. That was ten years ago and I built my career back (by working really hard plus doing an Ms) so I'm lucky, but it was extremely hard and I wouldn't recommend it.

I was in the (wrong) and common believe it would be easy. It was not. Leaving a good job and returning after 6 or 7 years in most industries comes with a huge penalty. If you can go back at all.

Trade off worth it. Career not quite as stellar but still excellent and 7 years with my girls when they were tiny? I’ll take that.

Every woman I know me included who sahm it was a life stage of about 6-7 years when children babies pre school they had professional jobs before this and went back to those jobs or used those skills afterwards.

That's of course brilliant that all women you know managed that. But judging by countless posts on MN where women have very much the opposite experience, your situation seems to be rather exception than norm.

I think wishing that one income was enough to sustain a family is fine. Wishing for it to be the woman at home, therefore implying that the man will always be the breadwinner, is sexist and old fashioned IMO. If one of us was to be a SAHP, seeing as I earn over £30k more than my husband, chances are it would be him!

That said, I believe it depends on what you want from your life/your kids lives. We could get by on just my income but we’d be paying bills and eating and not really anything more, maybe a UK break every couple of years. Him working too allows us to have 3 holidays a year, kid in 3 different hobbies, football season tickets, family days out, birthday parties, etc. One income could provide survival in our case but two provides a lovely life that we all benefit from.

However I might feel differently if we were both in 9-5 outside the home jobs. My job is very flexible, I have to be onsite as it were from 8:30-3:30 but after that I can work anywhere, plus I get an additional afternoon at home so really just 4.5 days a week. DH works hybrid office and home and can set his own hours between 7 and 7 as long as he does his 7.5 hour day. So lots of flexibility avoiding childcare fees etc and no real need for anyone to be at home. Lockdown has been a godsend for many families in that respect as employers now see the value of flexibility and WFH.

Well it depends on your personal career position doesn’t it? If you are an excellent teacher in a shortage subject/ qualified solicitor in demand practice area / senior in a particular niche business you can get back in. Surely every one would assess their own particular circumstances? Rather silly and infantilising to make sweeping generalisations.

I agree. My partner works part time, and so does more than 50% of the housework, childcare, dog care etc as I work full time plus in a very high pressured, high paid job in London, leaving the house at 5.45 in the morning and getting back at 6.30pm (often later but I do my best not to). The comments he receives from men and women about doing menial work, or that he is not a proper man etc are frequent and pathetic. Luckily he is a 6 foot muscly ferocious looking man, and very happy to put people straight around his unbelievably important jobs in working outside and in the home. But gender roles are most definitely there and he feels he has to defend his status quite a bit. In the same vein I get a lot of comments about how selfish I am, how my kids will suffer. We work well together, I spend quality time with my kids and him, I give him breaks and he gives me breaks and hopefully we give a good role model to the boys and the girls in how to work. So different to my first marriage, where I worked and did the lions share of everything as well. Was always exhausted ad feeling i was doing a bad job everywhere. When my husband left me for a younger model, after the initial shock, it was nothing more than a relief. My job really helped with that and I realised I didn't need a partner. But now I have one who is great, it life is easier and better. But being on my own was easier than having a waste of space husband!

There are bad parents. But they do not disprove the general truth that a child is best parented on a one-to-one basis by a primary care-giver most of the time. Nurseries fall far short of this ideal, and the younger the child when put into a nursery the greater the effects. The primary care-giver need not be the mother (though if breast feeding, then this is easiest) - witness children being successfully raised by nannies, grandparents, fathers etc. It is the consistency and closeness that matter, which may be shared by brothers and sisters (and so makes a common bond) but not with strangers and maybe not consistently.