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.

Still need an income, you can rarely live off capital.

Half of what?
Rent?
Why you live in 60s where being married for several years equals fully paid off house?
And you don't suddenly get monthly wage once you are divorced lol

I’ve done both.

The worst is working FT with a long commute. I was out 60 hours a week with young DC at home. That was too much.

Being a FT SAHM/housewife is just boring and unfulfilling though (IMO). But it’s easier. And less stressful day to day.

PT and/or WFH/hybrid gives a nicer balance and keeps the money coming in. One thing I have to thank Covid for - my industry was always a polish chairs with arse industry, but now most roles are hybrid!

I would hate to live in an generation where we had no choice.

In my community, women can have the most high flying successful careers but for both themselves and the wider community, their biggest achievement is their family and plenty of them decide to go part time.

I agree with you op.. I just love being at home. Had my own business but was never really a career girl, and now in my 50's just like pottering around at home, my pets and entertaining. Not sure about the cleaning though!

There is a great book called “Out of the dollhouse” by Angela Holdsworth.
It describes the changes to women’s lives over the 20th century. There was a TV documentary series that accompanied (1988). But I don’t thing it is currently available.
It would be great to see the book updated to the 2020s since the digital age has further revolutionised women’s lives.

I think that young women today have a very romantic view of being a woman who stayed at home before the 1970s.

I think that it is a great shame that the hard work our mothers and grandmothers put in to encourage us to be financially equal and independent is being thrown away by the current generation of very lazy young women.
Being a SAHW/M was nothing like that of today. I would strongly advise reading about how women managed to change their lives for the better in the 1960s and 70s with the help of modern inventions such as automatic washing machines and microwaves. They campaigned relentlessly for equal rights and financial independence within their marriage. Have a look at “The Married Women’s Property Act “ of 1964.

Even as late as the late 1980s women were actively discriminated against in university admissions.

I sometimes find modern feminist issues a little tame compared to those that our mothers and grandmothers were addressing when they were young.

Any women who prefers to live off their husband is in my opinion bone idle and short sighted. With divorce being so easy, house market now out of many people’s reach and future pensions devalued by a volatile investment market, now is probably the worst time ever to sit back and expect to to be looked after.

Finally OP, how would you feel if your DP decided to give up work. Would you be happy to support him while he watched daytime TV, did coffee with his friends and played golf 3 times a week?

Cooking and cleaning all day, wow no! Especially the cleaning. Can't imagine anything worse.

As for wishing women didn't have to work though, I'm sure some men wish that men didn't have to work.

I'd have no problem filling my time with hobbies if I didn't have to work. I've had to grudgingly give up so many.

I'd start programming music again (was always too fried after being on a computer eight hours a day), maybe finally dive into the rabbit hole of modular synths or MAX/MSP. I'd start Thai boxing and Brazilian jujitsu again, maybe even compete like I used to in the former. I'd read philosophy and science stuff, I'd maybe start writing again, treat myself to a gaming pc/racing simulator rig and race in an online league. Loads more.

In fact, even with no job I might struggle to do it all. 🤣

Finally OP, how would you feel if your DP decided to give up work. Would you be happy to support him while he watched daytime TV, did coffee with his friends and played golf 3 times a week?

Interesting point!

Sorry to hear that, sending you best wishes and lots of good luck and hugs.💐

I'd rather set my daughter an example. Why should she try hard at school if all she sees in her main female role model (me) is me at home, not using my skills and spending someone else's money?

I love my job. It isn’t full time, it’s creative and it makes me so happy. I never plan on retiring either. I’ve had periods of not working and found it really boring.

For me and DH, our dream is both working part time which at the moment we’re managing. It means between we have time for family and domestic life without the inequality of just one of us doing it all.

I remember when I was in junior school in the sixties being a bit embarrassed that my mum worked as it meant (to the kids anyway) that you must be poor (we were, not in poverty, but poor working class).

I think as long as you are in a great relationship and the working partner is making sure you are not financially vulnerable then yes, I’d rather be at home than working.

Having a great job you love is one thing but working because you have bills to pay and no other reason (eg you’d leave the minute you won the lottery) then home is nicer.

Respecting your opinion but absolutely NOT! My job is my identity and I absolutely live for the times when I don’t have to be mum and I can be a teacher ! I’d drive myself crazy stuck home 24/7😞.

Dont get me wrong there are days when I’m shattered and not ready and don’t want to have to work but they are rare!

Some people on the site (not all of whom are on this thread) have the funniest ideas of what SAHM do all day. Want to hear what I did today? I took my older daughter to her therapy appointment and then took her to school. My husband took our other daughter to school. I took a nap, woke up and ate a late lunch, had loud sex with my husband (he works from home), and picked up our kids from school. Then I pretended I was Paddington Bear and drew pictures with “Judy” (my younger daughter). Now I’m sorting laundry (and, uh, typing on my phone) and after dinner I get to read another chapter of Harry Potter with my older daughter. Tomorrow I should get more tidying done, but I get to listen to audio books at the same time. I’ll probably work some more on my writing too.

I swear, some of you people think we spend our time scrubbing grout with a toothbrush or begging our husbands for “a bigger allowance.” 😂 My husband spent most of his day in a stuffy home office trying to make software work on a deadline, and barely noticing the beautiful weather. Not exactly envying him. I was clear with him before we got married that I wanted to be a SAHM when we had kids, and we structured our lives and finances around that around that.

I was born in the 50s until I was 9 my mum didn't work but that was because she was nursing my nan at home as nan had stomach cancer, my dad worked 3 jobs 18 hours a day 6 days a week, after nan died mum went to work, by then I had a 2 year old sister, my older sister (11) and myself picked up my sister from the child minder after school and looked after her until mum got home from work.

Home used to be like a prison for women in the past. Nonstop drudgery and no pay. You're better off with a job.

Would I want to live in an age where career advancement was pretty much non-existent because they were expected to leave and raise a family, even for those who didn't want children? ...Or one in which I'd better suck up to my husband because he holds the purse strings. And if he left me if I was obedient enough I could literally be left socially outcast and having to rely on relatives or worse marry someone else to keep food on the table for my children. Nope, nope and a fuck tonne more of nope.

I was born in the wrong class too 😭

What I would love is to do a days work and come home to a meal on the table and the kids ready for bed.
What I find difficult is working plus doing school runs, dinner, bedtimes etc… exhausting!

Women have always worked outside the home. We just weren't paid shit and largely ignored because the women working were poor. Who do you think worked as servants and laundresses? It was the working poor, both married and single. Feminism is about choice. If you want to stay home raising babies, I support that, remain childfree but career driven, I support that. But let not view the past with rose colored glasses.

Women not working is a terrible idea imo

Traditionally, it kept women trapped in bad relationships with abusive men. Even if the woman did work, unequal pay usually meant that she would be unable to support herself independently. Women weren't even allowed to have mortgages back in the day!

Most women had little choice but to get married. These days, many choose not to because they have their independence.

Don't wish to go back to those times.

I love being a SAHM, but I'm working full tilt here. There's not a minute to myself. When I do get time off, I'm working hard to retrain as a music teacher, volunteering in the NHS and doing a bit of self-funded scientific research, which I do publish.

So not having paid work doesn't mean that I don't "work", iykwim, and I am still employable because I'm keeping my skills current through volunteer work.

I'd love to have a housewife that did all the domestic drudgery whilst I'm at work tbh. I'd be bored at home FT.

As it is, we both do the chores and sort the kids around working FT.

The other thing that bugs me about romanticizing the past is people don't realize how much work it took to do basic domestic chores in the past. Laundry was literally a whole day affair, sun up till sun down washing clothes. You wouldn't be sitting at home reading a book contently watching your children play unless you were very rich. Women have always worked, and hoped that their husbands were decent and didn't abuse them, because they couldn't just leave.

OP isn't talking about doing nothing though. She's talking about spending her time minding her children, cooking, cleaning etc.

Why is this sort of work not worthy of respect too?
Why do you equate this work with someone having no self-respect?