to honestley wonder, why have children if you WANT to work fulltime and are not prepared to make ANY sacrifices?

[milkgoddessmakesthefinestmilk]

i don't mean parents that HAVE to work to provide.

i mean the ones that choose to for no other reason, other than they enjoy their job so much.
if you enjoy your job so much, thats great.
but what i really do not understand is why have children?
no one makes any of these parents have children, you can go though life without having children.

this is 100% genuine question, i just do not get it.

Message withdrawn

Meaning, I think I have no reason to be competitive.

SAHMs have more defending to do in the real world, with other people not just mums.

.... and SAHMs are not valued by our society, WOHMs and women in general seem to pity us. Only today a friend who has one child and works emailed me to congratulate me on the end of the Easter holidays and my asuumed relief that it was over.

...perhaps an attempt at humour, Posie?

No, it's her 100th comment about how 'crazy' I must be!

LOL riven. Is your MIL a well-known MN poster by any chance?

You can't choose your family, Riven. But i suppose it also shows folks can turn out decent whatever upbringing they had.

Just an admission, I sort of hope my daughter isn't a SAHM until she's at least 30 and then let's hope her DH is a SAHD!!!

Know a guy who is a sahd
He loves it
His wife hates it and wishes it was her at home
In fact she hates it that much she has told him she is quitting her job so he better get one.He has till the end of the year

It was an arrangement they made 2 years ago she thought shw would be o.k it .but since has changed her mind

Whether we are SAHM/WOHM may have no direct influence on what our daughters choose, but if all mothers who don't need to work stay at home this will have a major impact on what our daughters are able to choose.
There aren't too many women at the higher levels of most professions anyway - if all mothers take 5 years out of work there will be far far fewer (it just isn't possible to go straight back in where you left off)and this will have an impact on all of us and the choices our daughters have, mothers or not.
We should celebrate that these days we do have these choices not be criticising the choices others make.

Futuna - I don't agree with that point.

Women ahve been able to choose any course of study they wish, within the limits of their individual talents, for a very long time now. Women enter nearly every field of work for which they are physically equipped on a level par with men - indeed in many higher professions they outnumber men quite considerably at entry level.

Women do not reach the top of many professions in great number because they have competing commitments in the form of children to whom they wish to devote time, not because there are not more women at the top of those professions.

IME women at the top of their profession are often less sympathetic to women further down than men are

They still earn a fifth less, even at the top of their game though (source BBC breakfast, maybe just a headline??).

That's because women are generally really bad at negotiating a good deal for themselves - at home and at work.

riven - what a delightful MIL you have. She deserves a thread all to herself!

I very much agree with Futuna. We will lose it if we don't use it. There's a public duty at least on those mothers able to be senior in jobs to do them and that is more important than their micro-domestic duty they might feel they have to their children at least until we reach a point when 50% or even 100% of the senior bankers seeing the prime minister are female. This week 100% of them were male. We have hardly begun to scratch the surface in the UK in getting women where they ought to be.

Anna - I don't think it's quite that simple. Women are penalised for having children, it's as simple as that. I've gone back to work (when my DS was 7 months) worked long hours and still been passed over for promotion. The reason? Becauses 'I went on maternity leave at a bad time' (my boss's words). I quit today.

There is an automatic assumption - still - among many men (and childless women IMO) that women who have children are not as committed as they were. The same does not apply to men who become fathers.

We have to get it to lose it!! A woman of child bearing age are considered a lesser option let alone those that have children, afterall if a child is ill who takes the timf off??

Especially if their grammar is as good as mine, bloody hell I write like Posh spice!!

very well said PW re cleaning and childcare.

Fab posts squiffy.

Well PP, I would hope that time off is shared if you're in a relationship. I'm a single parent so there isn't anyone to share it with. But I have a great family support network and even when my DS was in hospital for a week, still managed to work at least part time.

I always find the SAHM vs WOHM debate stupidly polarised because if you're single, there's not a decision to be made. It's either work or be on IS.