Who is living life the right way?

[flowergirl24]

Sister A and Sister B met up over the Christmas period. Their lives have gone in different directions and they are both late 30s. They both have 3 DC.

Sister A works 60 hours a week in a stressful job. She manages to take the children swimming at the weekends but they don’t do activities after school during the week. She has invested money in rental houses, and is concentrating on being able to have a better quality of life in the future.

Sister B works 8-10 hours a week. She has ponies and the children enjoy riding after school. She is not focused on a career at all, but does a lot of driving the children to after school activities. Sister B has expensive cars and is living for today, with no concern for the future.

Who is doing life right?

@Ineffable23

I guess I would say "it's not ideal" to anyone who told me they worked 60 hours a week every week, including every evening 8-11pm and over weekends. Whether they have children or not, a partner or not, whatever the circumstances. Because whether it's seeing your kids, seeing your family, seeing your friends, playing on your local netball team, crocheting a blanket or reading a book there are a million things to do that mean you don't just think about work. I wouldn't suggest most people just crochet blankets all day every day either - for me it's about balance, and never having an evening isn't balanced.

It's not ideal of course and its perfectly legitimate the question whether it works for you. But as I mentioned to the PP very few people are able to parent in an ideal way and "work/life balance" is something very few people can afford without significant trade offs in other areas of their life.

What I slightly bristle about is the suggestion that a working mum is always the "least ideal way" and that a woman stopping or reducing work is always the best trade off to make.

Well families will still try to do the best they can do, whatever that means to them. @Thepeopleversuswork - you say you are a single mum to one DD so that's your context. I'm in my 50s now and have seen / am seeing how parenting (particularly teens) is harder than ever. I can't see this improving until something is done about social media. If you have several teens, it can be a total minefield. The govt obviously push for the default of two parents working all hours and using paid childcare because that's three sets of taxable income. But nevertheless, the strain on families can get too much. So many teens who go down social media rabbit holes - if you have several children you're unlikely to escape unscathed.

Imagine @Thepeopleversuswork, if you had a husband, but you had say, a 14 year-old who is a school refuser. Perhaps also a 13 year-old with an eating disorder and and 16 year-old with SEN doing GCSEs. And all you get with them is two hours in the evening? Sometimes it just all gets too much and something has to give and at that point, you're not going to be worrying about which parent is the one to reduce hours or what 'most' men / women may or may not do. You just have to do what's most practical.

@cosima4 I share your feeling about social media and as a working parent it is much harder to police this. This is one of the reasons why lockdown was such an unmitigated disaster for children's mental health. I found being expected to work while my child was sitting in an adjacent room watching endless YouTube one of the most painful experiences of my life. Which is partly why I can't tolerate the guff some people come out with about how wonderful lockdown was.

But I also don't think having a parent at home is a panacea for this. I have friends who are SAHMs whose kids are struggling with mental health and pretty much all teenagers spend too much time on social media. We're all struggling with it in various ways. But even a SAHM can't stand over a child 24/7 keeping it off social media. Nor should they, really.

That sounds like a difficult and incredibly painful position and I have huge compassion for anyone in this position.

But becoming unemployed or reducing your hours doesn't necessarily square this circle either.

Maybe she is incredibly senior. If she is the breadwinner, she’ll also have to consider the financial impact.

No having a SAHP is not a panacea and nobody is immune from anything. I'm just saying every family has its breaking point.

I have 3 children too. I still agree with@Thepeopleversuswork

How old are your children though @SouthLondonMum22?

It doesn’t miss the point though. It just shows the double standards and sexism that are still prevalent in society because as @Thepeopleversuswork said, it always seems to be women working that is seen as less than ideal.

When it is the woman working less or not at all and picking up the slack from the man working long hours. He’s a provider, he’s a hard worker and he’s viewed in a positive light.

He isn’t met with “they are only little for such a short time”, “you can’t get that time back”, “money isn’t everything”, “it isn’t ideal” etc.

2 and 8 month old twins.

I totally agree with you @SouthLondonMum22.

Both sisters are “doing it right” using different methods…

He isn’t met with “they are only little for such a short time”, “you can’t get that time back”, “money isn’t everything”, “it isn’t ideal” etc.

I disagree completely, I think if OP was a man coming on here to question if their working pattern was the best thing for their family, and was obviously worried about whether they were doing the right thing (as OP is) they would be told exactly the same things, you only get this time once etc...

It's not about double standards, it's about one specific person realising that their 60 hour working week, which they always assumed was the best cause of action for their family in the long run, may not actually be the best in the short term and wanting to explore that.

Now this part may be sexist, but I don't think men value 'time being present for their kids' in the same way that women do, so as a whole, aren't as affected by inherent 'mum guilt' like women are, so I don't think you are wrong in saying it is a woman's problem most the time, but on a case by case basis my advice would be the same whether they were male or female.

@sandyhappypeople

I disagree completely, I think if OP was a man coming on here to question if their working pattern was the best thing for their family, and was obviously worried about whether they were doing the right thing (as OP is) they would be told exactly the same things, you only get this time once etc...

Come off it. You might get a bit of "well done, it's great that you're considering your family's needs" and a pat on the back. It would be seen as a sign that you're a great progressive to even be thinking about it. Whereas a woman gets those comments where you can almost hear the worried intake of breath and the underlying assumption that she must be a really hard-nosed ballbreaker to be working those hours. Even if people aren't actually rude enough to ask why you bothered having kids if you want to "farm them out" to childcare (I've heard all of this).

I particularly loathe the "you'll never get the time back" argument. It's breathtakingly stupid and patronising. What are you supposed to be able to do in practical terms about not getting the time back? I'll chuck my job in tomorrow, let the house fall into repair and get a time machine shall I? Problem solved.

Particularly because we're only really ever talking about 2-3 years of a child's life, as a trade-off against 18 or so years. Obviously one on one time with a carer in your early years is important but I just don't buy the idea that spending eight hours a day with your kids watching TV and clearing up toys for five years is ultimately more beneficial than working to create a better standard of life for them.

To return to the OP's original question, I don't think either scenario is inherently "right". The OP is being perfectly reasonable to consider whether the life she is living is right for her. But I dislike the default assumption that cutting hours or downgrading her career must always be the automatic solution.

@SouthLondonMum22 - your children are still very small. I don't know how old you are, but maybe you're in your 30s now? It's not that hard to imagine being mid-40s to 50s with three teens and associated issues. Honestly, god forbid if one of your children were ever ill or suffering serious mental health issues, but at that point, feminist principles or whatever most men may or may not do, now or historically, will not be your priority and this is obvious. You just won't care! You will do what you need to do to keep your children safe and well. If that means your DH taking time off / reducing hours, so be it. If it means you doing the same, or both of you, so be it. But you won't be prioritising your feelings about the patriarchy, that's for sure.

Like right now, I have a close family member who has had to leave work because her teen DD almost died from anorexia and has recently come out of an eating disorder unit and needs constant monitoring and support. The last thing in her mind is - 'why should I leave work and DH stays on. Is this fair. Why should I do this and he does that.' She can get another job, but she'll never have another daughter. It happens that her DH is the higher earner, but even if he wasn't and it was him to give up work, I still think she would have wanted to be around more.

I have a friend whose child has gender dysphoria. Try coping with that working 60 hours plus a week.

I was a SAHM and even then it's hard enough with 3 teens because you never know what they are looking at online. You feel like you're always playing catch-up. Even less life-threatening situations like bullying at school are very stressful. It's one thing after the next.

Well I can only speak for myself and I would give the same advice to a man that I would a woman, I can't speak for the whole of MN so maybe you are right, mum guilt is a thing and maybe women automatically transfer that on to other women?

it's not 2-3 years of a childs life though is it? Wraparound care can 12-13 years in some cases.

I know someone who put their child in wraparound care from 6 months old, throughout their whole school life, to be able to both work full time, it hasn't made a jot of difference in reality, they aren't savers, so the extra money made has never made a difference to their long term plans, they were both working too much to have decent/frequent holidays, and yes, she has progressed in her career and earns well, but she is unhappy in her job and resents the stressful relentless nature of it, so was it really all worth it in the end?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think "creating a better standard of life for children" being better than "being present for them more" is not something you can say with absolute certainty, every family is different, but if you are in any doubt like OP is, then don't let those doubts turn into regrets, explore any options you can, while you can.

@cosima4

Honestly, god forbid if one of your children were ever ill or suffering serious mental health issues, but at that point, feminist principles or whatever most men may or may not do, now or historically, will not be your priority and this is obvious.

You just won't care! You will do what you need to do to keep your children safe and well.

I mean this with all kindness as the situations you are describing here are horrific and I don't want to in any way minimise this, but "doing what you need to do to keep your children safe and well" is a luxury which some people simply can't afford.

I couldn't "do what I need to do to keep my children safe" and just throw my job in if, God forbid, my child had anorexia. Life isn't like that for a lot of people.

If you are the sole breadwinner you need to work to support your children. That comes before everything else. I've had to deal with mental health issues in my child (thankfully less serious than this and thankfully resolved) and I took appropriate action, but chucking my job in just was never an option here. Think this through: if you throw your job in you can lose your home, ultimately be unable to feed these children.

@sandyhappypeople

it's not 2-3 years of a childs life though is it? Wraparound care can 12-13 years in some cases.

Well but all children (apart from those who are home educated) go to school from the age of five. Even if for the sake of argument you accept that its "better" to be at home full time with them before they go to school, and given that most maternity leave is roughly a year, it's still at most four years out of their lives. As against nearly two decades out of the workforce. It's not nearly as clear cut as a lot of people make it.

I understand that @Thepeopleversuswork. My point was, that when crises hit, families have to adapt as best they can with the means available to them. What women are not going to be prioritising, in such situations, are generalised abstract notions of 'would a man do this?' You just do whatever you need to do within the options available.

@cosima4 Of course, of course. And who could judge any family for adapting as best they could to a crisis of this nature.

But (and maybe this is a side issue but I feel really strongly about it) I also don't feel that "feminist principles" are just a fashionable stance that people adopt to make them sound more interesting at dinner parties but which can be quietly dropped when the chips are down (which is what your post sort of implies).

Feminist principles have allowed me the right to work in the job I work in, to be paid at parity to men, to be able to divorce an abusive man, to be able to open a bank account to pay the money I earn into etc. None of this obliges any woman to work when its against the interests of her children's welfare. But its not an a la carte indulgence which can be decoupled from discussions about work and childcare.

It just seems to me that whenever an individual woman is considering her particular work/life balance on MN, there is always a contingent who are unwilling or don't seem capable of commenting with anything beyond the 'would a man do that / think like that / want that' trophe - regardless of the individual circumstances described. We all know that real life is nuanced and unpredictable. And why hold up 'what men are more likely to do or think or want' as some kind of gold standard anyway? Why define or measure yourself against men at all?

I don’t think he’d be told that at all. He’d be told by some people that real men provide for their families, there’d be concern that the mother would possibly have to either go back to work or work more hours which just isn’t there with men working more hours.

Mum guilt is sexist in itself because society expects mothers to feel guilty for daring to have a career. The pressure isn’t there for men so they aren’t generally going to feel the same.

I’m the higher earner. If anyone was to quit their job, it would be DH but it would always be a last resort.

My principles stay the same no matter how hard life gets.

Because the comments always go along the lines of attempting to make the OP guilty for having a career and it needs to be pointed out every time that it’s sexist.