to be annoyed that my dp gets paid a fortune and just coasts....

[PosieParker]

Today my dp's equal has been promoted to a new post that makes him my dp's boss and I'm really angry. I'm annoyed that my dp just coasts in his role and complains and doesn't try new things or work his arse off for his pay. Quite ridiculous to be annoyed as it keeps us in a nice lifestyle and I cannot work out why I'm so angry but I could cry with temper.
Is it my business, even? When he told me I went nuts and I can't explain why. Pregnancy? Jealousy? Worry? Over involved because I don't have my own job? I just don't know.
Trouble is I'm sure I've made a horrid situation worse for him but I couldn't help it and told him they'd (his bosses) had made him look stupid.

Re lilies: I think Jesus was just reminding us not to put earning a living at the very top of the agenda every time. He also said "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's."

You are intrigued by this respect for giving birth idea too, aren't you Xenia

I asked DH if he respected me for having children. He thought I had taken leave of my senses.

Me? I like the whole idea of respect for having children. I'm taking a little time-out right now to celebrate my womb.

I do feel that I haven't earned sufficient respect yet but I am still young enough to cure the production deficit if I get cracking now. Wasn't it a stalinist policy to respect mothers who had lots and lots of children? I think it was.

As for being lilies of the field - the thread's gone quite mad. I'll be your lily Elasticwoman, providing you pay me £200k a year to keep me fragrant.

EW, I know but I do remember my mother, who I am sure saw herself more like the biblical Martha than Mary, complainig that if Martha hadn't been running around getting food and looking after everyone the rest of them couldn't have sat around pontificating about the after life etc. I think she had a point too. However the English ideal was always idleness - only those in trade or professions who certain classes would look down on "worked". The English upper classes never thought work was up to much. The ideal was a load of servants to look after you and an estate to pay for you and you enjoying yourself. I suppose some of us must have had the Protestant work ethic kind of view - work good for work's sake, the devil makes work for idle hands kind of thing and I think that can be so. You only have to look at what some people do when they get too much money and aren't able to manage with it whether that's antics of some professional footballers or some (not all) trust fund young people. You certainly need some sense of purpose.

But I was just looking at our views of if a parent chooses to be home and not work and not mind their children all day if that is "worse" than a parent who either works hard at work or who is a househusband/wife but with a nanny.

On respect I think it's a word bandied around a lot and not really meaning very much. Isn't it slang too - "Respect" people say. Every mother has been through a process -pregcancy and birth - which sets her apart from others and therefore we feel we have something in common with her as mothers. I am not sure that is respect but it's an understanding of what she's been through. Ditto fathers to some extent. I prefer men who are fathers because they too usually have been through sleepless nights, giving for their children, sharing their lives with a child, coping with teenagers etc. But I'm not sure I'd use the word respect.

I suppose my core belief is we should respect all people whoever they are and whatever they have done.

I know this thread has moved on a bit and I am in a bit of an early morning fug to join in the eloquent discussion but I just wanted to add my piece.

I can kind of see where PP is coming from. I wish my DH had more ambition, he has a degree, is very intelligent, used to run his own photography business but due to various circumstances work in a shop. I do wish he earned more money. I earn more than he does but the amount I earn is essentially less as a percentage of it makes up the shortfall in his earnings. Neither of us earns loads, we are talking values one 10th of what PP's DH earns.

Due the way nature works I am the only one with the ability to have a baby, I am the one who's career takes a hit when I go off on maternity leave. So yes I wish DH had more ambition and motivation to find a better job, if not financially, then one that would make him feel more fulfilled or mean that he wasn't out of the house 7.30-6.30 on the days that he works. I would like us to be more comfortably off. Unfortunately my job is fairly unique and I can only do it within the parameters that I am in so I can't make any more money doing it. Even if I did I would feel that I was working harder just to plug the shortfall in my DH's wages. Don't get me wrong, if was a job he loved, his vocation I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it. But it is a job in a shop, and if it were my job I would be doing everything in my power to be getting out of it. We live in an expensive town (again, a necessity of my job) and are barely making ends meet (we are now both working part time and sharing care of our baby). Sometime I feel that my DH should be able to provide better for me and my DD, or at least as much as I do.

I'm sure people will have something to say about that, but that is how I feel. It's a similar situation to PP's (with about 10x less the money!)

"Wasn't it a stalinist policy to respect mothers who had lots and lots of children? I think it was."

In France women who have eight children get a medal - the médaille de la famille française. And there are all kinds of financial benefits for families (same 2 parents) with three or more children, starting with an extended maternity leave for the third child.

Repressed ambition of your own, imo. (similar situation in the duchesse household btw)

You can't force him to be ambitious, but you can manage your own life/career. If he's happy to coast, then he'll surely be equally happy to be the one to adapt to the children's needs if you're back at work...

Coming back to respect, whilst not ignoring contributions from duchesse (thanks, phew I'm not alone) and Bumper, I have to say I think the respect for carrying babies should come from the father of that child as a matter of course. Obviously if you're getting pissed everynight and chain smoking then he has a duty to stop you, for the sake of his child. But any woman that gives up her body, pauses her career and changes her lifestyle (even if she just stops going to the gym four times a week) deserves respect and admiration from the other parent.
Personally I like to think I would respect everyone as a human being, but I'm pretty judgemental and so it is merely a hope. Besides who am I to judge.
Anna, in this country we get a medal by way of benefits for women who have eight children !! I wonder what the social demographic is for women who have eight children, in the main. Just before I make a massive generalisation.

Interesting article here about how high flying women who have lots of children (e.g. Helena Morrisey who has recently given birth to her eigth and is a Fund Manager in the city) are more revered for having lots of babies than for scaling the career ladder.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's note of the fact that the parents spend no time with the children and have nannies that are mummy, not like mummy.
Thanks for the link, although I still suspect more children for most means SAHMs? and a little further down the social ladder.

Coming back to the respect issue again - I am like a dog with a bone - and to this comment

"any woman that gives up her body, pauses her career and changes her lifestyle (even if she just stops going to the gym four times a week) deserves respect and admiration from the other parent."

I realise now why I find this notion outmoded. The whole martyred mother concept comes from a history where women had no say in whether or not to have sex and no say at all in whether or not to have children.

In my world I am lucky enough to have a choice about when/whether/who to have sex with and when/whether to have children. The planet is overpopulated, positively the last thing it needs is anymore children, so having children in this world must be by definition an essentially selfish act (although raising them does demand a massive degree of unselfishness).

The benefits/tax breaks for 8 children are a lot better in France than in the UK .

I don't know any modern upper/middle class families in France with eight children, though I do know people in my generation from very large (up to eleven) children in the super-Cathos social segment.

Lots of full-time professional working women have four children in France - it's a badge of honour/status symbol.

Anna- I know of some with families larger than 5, including a girl I was at school with (very Catho de droite), who started at 23 to get her husband out of service militaire.

PP - is this just a 'boast' thread?? Not sure at all why you posted otherwise.
Not sure where your level of love and appreciation of dh and your life in general comes in??
You're at risk of appearing as someone who is never satisfied, though I am sure this isn't the case.

whoops! A bit behind the game, I see..

The link to the article shows there are a group of men and women in the City who have a lot of children. I have friends who have too. I had 5 and some of them have more and work full time and earn a lot. Why is that@ Because we have the resources to have them, because we love children, because we usually have the money and power to leave at 6.30pm as the 40 something Lawyer on that thread who just had baby number 8 does every day. I don't know any who don't see much of their children however. They are usually pretty devoted full on parents who have made a large family part of their life and lifestyle.

I suppose there may be an element of - aren't I great, I earn enough to support 8 children in some men and women and also aren't I great I have the emotional energy and organisational competence to manage so many and I am not one of those people who can only afford 2 but I think it's rare for people to have large families and then not see them.

(it's not a boast thread - pp is an unmarried kept woman - it's her husband who earns a lot; I must admit reading about the useless part time shop worker who used to run a photocopy business you do think why did she marry him then if he's so dull and unambitious and she wanted to live off his earnings or wanted him to earn enough to keep them all - what can be hard in longer marriages is when people change - the thrusting youg executive has his mid life criss and wants to move the mfaily down from £100k a year to £10k so he can learn meditation or whatver/

yes, having read the thead, I do withdraw the 'boast' bit. I do admire your ability for introspection and responses as you've gone along on this thread. Venting in a measured way is sometimes diffucult.
I would still come back to the point of "what makes you happy?". Acheivements in some ways can do that, but the 'benefit' of the acheivement is a little trickier.

Quattro, so if your dh gave up his career or took leave to care for your small children you wouldn't respect and admire him for it? Or does he only have value if he's working? Money being more important than nurturing your children. (THis is not WOHD/SAHD debate and so the nanny could nurture etc is not relevant) Does that mean that you don't respect people who look after children for a living? Or are they okay because they're paid? Surrogate parents, do they deserve respect as they get paid too?

Quattro, I am intrigued to know if you have any children yet?

I have two children, and two lovely godsons as well.

PP also - the earlier posters and yourself too I believe were insisting on respect being due for the act of giving birth. I said I would buy the argument of giving respect being due for nurturing and developing and generally bringing up children. I don't buy respect for the act of giving birth. The perfect example of why that argument is idiotic is Shannon's mother.

I've never given birth, just a slice for me!! I am pregnant and able to change my mind when people like you give me an argument, like Shannon's motehr, that I cannot refute.