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.

Also this. ^ I wouldn't say 99% of people though, But maybe 92-93% yeah. The vast majority of people would not carry on working in their existing job if they won the lottery/had a massive inheritance etc... and ended up with a few million £££. Some may start up a little business venture of their own, but most people would give up their current job for sure.

The fulfilment isn't in the act of cleaning, it's in the sitting down in a clean and tidy home. I personally can't live amongst mess and clutter.

@Littlelillies

And many women derive purpose, enjoyment and fulfilment from looking after their families and their home, from caring for others, from volunteering and hobbies!

@Sharptonguedwoman

Don't honestly know any who have done or would do that full time. Seems more 1950s to me.

There's always someone who comes out with this pathetic, tedious comment. 'Ooooh it's just like the 1950s!' How terribly original.🙄

Not EVERYone is obsessed with climbing the bloody career ladder and working 60-70 hour weeks for 'the man!' And there's always an underlying air of jealousy, bitterness, resentment, and spite in the comments aimed at women, who actually enjoy being a homemaker/SAHM. And the barbed comments ALWAYS mention the bloody 1950s! Other decades featured women staying at home looking after family and home. Not just the 1950s FFS! Such a predictable, naff, unoriginal comment.

Some women who have to work can't bear it that other women DON'T have to! And the bitterness drips from their comments. They dress it up as caring about the SAHMs/Homemakers, by saying 'oh but you will be so lost when he eventually leaves you - and he will. You NEED to get some independence away from him. GET A JOB NOW, or you will be living in penury when he leaves you. AND HE WILL.' But the truth is, most of them are just jealous and resentful, and want these SAHM/Homemakers to be as miserable as them in a dead end job.

These posters are the same ones who encourage women to leave their husbands at the drop of a hat - often for the most trivial of reasons. Not giving a shit about how much worse the lives of many women will be if they leave the DH, and go it alone ...

You also get some posters claiming they earn 5 to 10 times more than their husband too, which, in probably about 95% of cases, is almost certainly not true.

Good gracious me. I am none of those things. I am not bitter, jealous or resentful at all! I’m just old enough to have lived through several transitions in society and have been a life long observer of people.
Firstly, I spoke my truth. As a child, amongst the people that I knew, every mum worked. For money, for intellectual stimulation, for company, I don’t know but mostly money.

I am aware that men sometimes leave women in poor financial situations. I have never, ever urged a woman to leave her husband (fortunately never known a case of DV). All I have said to my women friends is that they should know where to access the money. 75 yr old wife of accountant said she wouldn’t know where to start. Personally I think she and her husband need to sort that out. Financial ignorance leaves people vulnerable.

NB didn’t have a dead end job and I know they are soul destroying.

please don’t assume I’m destructive. I’m the one sitting in a friend’s kitchen listening and trying to help her make sense of the finances now her husband has Alzheimer’s.

Indeed.
People always assume that shit happens to others and lots are not at all prepared for things not going according to plan, be that illness, infidelity, loss of job or whatever.
Someone I know outwardly had a "perfect" life until recently - husband running a successful business whilst she stayed at home and tended to her beautiful big house and her 4 lovely children. They really did look like The Waltons but with money.
Then a couple of years ago after nearly 30 years of marriage and just after the youngest finished A levels, he revealed he'd been having an affair for years and was leaving her. Oh, and that the "successful" business was in fact massively in debt. To cut a long story short she's now in her mid 50s, working a minimum wage job and living with her parents. Nobody would have predicted it, and she certainly didn't. It's a salutory lesson to make sure that you watch out for your own interests no matter how secure you think you are.

So that's nice for people with huge incomes and big houses. For many though being SAHM means not affording anything except a trip to the park/ library ( other free stuff) maybe having to give up the 2nd car so reliant on public transport. No social life as can't afford it or baby sitters. No holidays either. Maybe not such a bundle of domestic bliss then

I am happy for you but your father must have had a good income to facilitate that.

No one with the least sense of nuance or smallest degree of common sense sees you as destructive, @Sharptonguedwoman. It's the 'working woman = bitter' non-correlation that is destructive, not to mention immature.

The prejudicial attitudes dripping from these posts ironically convey a far nastier, more unpleasantly misogynistic tone than mere snide references to the 1950s. Accusations of 'bitterness' (see also bossiness and selfishness) are the kinds of censorious epithets almost always used against women. I can't recall the last time I saw these adjectives used to describe a man.

That's not the only sweeping generalization here. There's a sneering tone toward women who have to work - as if that encompasses the sum total of economically active women - and that if they do work, the poor darlings are struggling from 9-5 in a dead-end job and don't use their intellect one iota. Now that attitude IS anachronisic. Where on earth do did all these female doctors, scientists, academics, airline pilots and entrepeneurial thinkers come from? Plenty of female professionals have actively chosen to pursue their careers because that was what THEY wanted to do. And many are certainly not sitting at a desk for 8 hours per day.

Regressive gendered stereotypes don't make anyone's point the more strongly; conversely, they undermine it. It would have been interesting to view the same thread had it been entitled 'dual income households', 'division of labour in the household', or 'why can't working conditions and hours be fairer for everyone'.

Of course, the OP didn't ask that. She asked if she was being unreasonable to wish women didn't have to work. As far as regressive gendered expectations are concerned, this says as much as anyone needs to know.

Feminism still has some uphill battles to fight.

Absolutely agree.

The irony of needing to explain 🤣

this post has been has been extremely unpleasant all round to sahw insulting me to my husband not earning earning enough to treating me like a slave .So please save your bleating where someone that actually needs it.

it Doesn’t have to be “obsessed with climbing the career ladder” OR sahm. There are several healthy options somewhere in between.

i am not bitter that other women can afford to sah. I could, if I wanted.

no I am the child of a sahm who’s dad worked himself into an early grave when I was 9.

my mum was left with 3 kids and no income. There was some insurance, but she absolutely needed to get back into the workplace to support herself.

unexpected, unpredictable. But I’ve been there and that is why I have always worked and made sure I can provide so I don’t end up on my bones.

if you think your lovely husband will always be there to provide just take a quick reality check. You may be lucky, but run through some what if scenarios and start making plans should the worse happen. Should that be paying into your own pension, putting aside money, or buying life insurance. Just don’t persuade yourself it will never happen.

and saying that working mums are jealous and bitter is original?

Lots of talk on here about ‘what would you do’ if XYZ were to happen. I’ve never felt so much concern by a group of people I’ve never met. Funny how that concern isn’t there for all people.

I think for most SAHM’s, if their marriage broke down then they would have a financial stake in their house and their husbands earnings - so they would find work and move on with their lives like anyone else. I don’t get this obsession and faux concern for other people’s lives and family set ups. SAHM’s don’t come from the moon, they can still re enter the world of work if they needed to.

Have you read the threads on here about financial settlements?

yes women can re enter the world of work. But the majority won’t be reentering at a six figure level. Try paying mortgage, bills, childcare, and all costs on a single average salary, with a bit of child maintenance if you’re lucky.

I don't believe that most people earn 6 figures in their lifetime, isn’t that the top 5% in the uk? I certainly would have been unlikely to earn that if I stayed in the world of paid work ….but I could get a job and earn an average wage. I didn’t have a lobotomy at the point of giving up paid work & can still apply myself and get a job.

Also, where has the husband gone in all this? If you divorce then they would need to maintain the lifestyle that you had in the form of spousal maintenance on top of child maintenance…

So that's nice for people with huge incomes and big houses. For many though being SAHM means not affording anything except a trip to the park/ library ( other free stuff) maybe having to give up the 2nd car so reliant on public transport. No social life as can't afford it or baby sitters. No holidays either. Maybe not such a bundle of domestic bliss then

Yes, and the op asked whether other women also WISHED that didn't have to work.

@Tartantunic

He works whatever hours he chooses to. He enjoys work, he is very driven by money and motivated by successful business transactions, he finds the bartering and making a good deal fun.

The above is how you talk about men working but you say this about women working:

slaving away at work for 8hrs a day, lining the pockets of people who meant absolutely nothing to me and vice versa, just so I could say I'd climbed the corporate ladder

Can you see why you are coming off a tad sexist?

Even if this 'someone you know' had spent all her adult life working, she would very likely STILL be in a position where she was struggling financially/on the bones of her arse, if her husband fucked off and left her in her mid 50s. Despite what some posters claim on Mumsnet, the vast majority of women are NOT high earners and WILL struggle on their own if the husband leaves. Even if they have always worked.

Because despite some women on Mumsnet claiming they earn £75K-100K a year or more, the vast majority are on basic pay/probably less than £35K a year. And despite some women on here claiming that they earn 3, 5, or 7 X what their husband earns, the vast majority earn less than him - some significantly less.

At least this woman (that you know,) had a wonderful life of luxury for 30+ years, and hasn't had to go into a tedious minimum pay job until she was 10 years off retirement. SOME women have to do shitty dead end jobs for 50 years (from when they leave school until retirement.) Even when they are married, and have children, and are taking on most of the mental load, and home admin, and housework, and gruntwork, and childcare.

IMO the women who are Stay-At-Home-Mums/Homemakers have the much better deal, even if their husband fucks off with another woman when they're 50-odd.

Seriously what married woman (especially one with children,) would choose to do some shitty dead end job working for 'the man' for a pittance, when you have a financially well-off man who is happy to support you, whilst you raise the children and look after the family home?! (And pursue your hobbies and interests that you have plenty of time for, because you don't have to go out 50 hours a week to a shitty, boring, dead-end, low paid job!)

Seriously, the Stay-At-Home-Mums have got it made! And they know it. And so do some women who are forced out to work because their husband won't let them stay at home! Or doesn't earn enough to look after them, the home, and the children! And that is why the latter (the working women) are bitter and angry. They won't admit it though, as many of them don't even realise it.

disclaimer I am not saying ALL working women are bitter, and jealous of Stay-At-Home-Mums, but some are, and there sure are a few on Mumsnet!

And so do some women who are forced out to work because their husband won't let them stay at home! Or doesn't earn enough to look after them, the home, and the children!

Again, this is such a sexist take. Does your husband feel forced out to work because you won't let him stay at home and don't earn enough to look after him and the children?

If you divorce then they would need to maintain the lifestyle that you had in the form of spousal maintenance on top of child maintenance…

Are they now? Have you read any of the child maintenance threads on MN?

Spousal maintenance is very rare in the UK nowadays.

And I don't think it was ever intended to keep an ex in exactly the same lifestyle that they had before. How would the working spouse/higher earner, however much they earned, suddenly double their salary to run two separate homes just like the one they just left, with none of the cost benefits of cohabiting?

Nope.

spousal maintenance is incredibly rare, and only usually in the case of vvv high earners.

women are expected to pay for themselves post divorce. The ex pays toward the children, they are not paying towards the ex’s lifestyle.

pensions are also not what they were and again unless v. High earner one pension will not support two retirements. If the sah spouse hasn’t been paying in while not working their retirement won’t be easy.

At least this woman (that you know,) had a wonderful life of luxury for 30+ years, and hasn't had to go into a tedious minimum pay job until she was 10 years off retirement

and how does she finance retirement with 10 years pension contributions? If she hasn’t worked at all she won’t even get a full state pension.

like I said one pension will not finance two retirements, even if she is awarded some of the ex’s. Plus there is likely to still be mortgage payments until relatively late if she’s had to buy him out the house.

From USDAW

Many married women are entitled to a basic state pension at 60 per cent of the full rate because of their husband’s record of National Insurance (NI)

HTH. 😎