To think SAHM with young DC deserve more respect

[CheekyFawn]

I work full time but currently on maternity leave looking after my 5 months old baby and a toddler DS who is 3 yo.
I just don't know where my time goes. Between breastfeeding baby, getting DS ready for preschool and tidying up the house, cooking meals etc, it just feels like there is no time at all even to have 5 mins of coffee break. I feel it was much better when I was at work couple of months ago when DS was in nursery that I used to get at least a lunch break for an hour or 30 mins at least or time between meetings to have a coffee and look at my phone in peace. I imagine this is I think how a day looks for SAHM with young DC and it's bloody hard. Many people just assume they are not doing much but I think they deserve more respect.

'What kind of a question is that?'

@MissScarletInTheBallroom - I'm trying to understand what you're advocating for. You seem to argue that strategic planning around career breaks for a family is 'limiting girl's choices.' So what then? Just stay in the corporate lane at all costs - is that what you want for your 2 year-old?

It was a goady question and I think you know that.

What do I want for my 2 year old? I want her to be happy. I want her to realise her full potential. I don't want her to be held back by regressive ideas such as "if you love your kids you don't put them in childcare". I want her to be financially independent.

My children have a much better quality of life than they would have if I didn't have the job that I have. In terms of the salary that I take home vs the effort I actually expend to earn that salary, I have a pretty great deal. And a lot of flexibility.

If I didn't have the job that I have, we would live in a smaller space in a less nice area and my children would have a lower quality of life and fewer opportunities than they currently have. So I work. And I am the main breadwinner.

For me it is absolutely clear that any short term benefits my children would get from me staying at home would be more than offset by the disadvantages of me not working.

As it is, they're thriving and we are all happy.

So yes, this is what success looks like to me.

You don't need to justify why you work @MissScarletInTheBallroom . I respect that.

Your daughter may find herself making decisions in alternative contexts. That's all.

She may well do. I want her to have the choice of all the options available to her, which is why I certainly won't be suggesting that she deliberately looks for the kind of career you can take extended breaks from.

Bloody hell, I mean, I have a friend who always said she wanted to have children before she was 30. Her own mother has never worked, as far as I am aware. She ended up getting into a career path she is passionate about but which definitely doesn't allow for any significant breaks. She's married to the guy she's been with since she was 17, and is now approaching 40 with a cat and a dog but no children. Somewhere along the way she just decided she didn't want them more than she wanted the other stuff in her life.

The choice is always there to leave a high powered career if you want to stay at home with your kids and aren't bothered about getting back in again. But it's much harder to get into one later if you regret having chosen the slow lane.

The most successful people I know (financially) got out of banking or the corporate world by their late 20s max and then worked for themselves. They are the risk takers, essentially.

For my daughters, I don’t want them to miss out on career opportunities because women are more likely to take long career breaks so they decide to hire a man instead.

I want the expectations for men to be the same as women excluding the obvious time to recover after giving birth and for it to almost always fall onto the woman.

You know that working for yourself is even less compatible with taking extended time out, right?

It really depends @MissScarletInTheBallroom.

@SouthLondonMum22 - that's great, but what if your daughter just wants to focus on her own children for a few years and, when all is said and done, she feels strongly that that's her priority?

I’d be disappointed and worried but ultimately, it’s obviously their decision.

How long would she be allowed to stay with her baby before you were 'disappointed?'

Also, if you had a son and he wanted to take a few years out to be a SAHD, would that be acceptable?

How do you think @SouthLondonMum22's daughters or sons would support themselves financially during this period of time?

Well if their family couldn't support a SAHP set-up, then obviously that's that. This would be assuming the family could afford it.

I'm not asking how the family supports itself. I'm asking how the individual supports themselves.

Assume the family can afford it (even if it comes at a serious cost to their lifestyle), because otherwise it wouldn't even be a question.

How does @SouthLondonMum22's son or daughter, who isn't working, pay for the stuff they need?

They are a family - so all money is shared. That's kind of the whole point.

What you mean is that the spouse or partner who is working pays for everything.

OK.

And if they stop?

If they decide that actually they don't want a joint account and instead will give @SouthLondonMum22's daughter or son an allowance of 50p a week?

How does the SAHP prevent themselves from being financially abused?

How does the SAHP retain the freedom to leave the relationship if they need to?

Some answers/solutions to your questions:

• Think very carefully about who you marry in the first place.
• Accrue your own savings in your own name.
• Own your own home in both your names.
• Don’t keep upgrading everything and living beyond your means to ‘keep up with the Jones’ in the first place.
• Stay living near your own extended family if on good terms.
• Maintain prior career contacts/make new ones through volunteering.

As a SAHM who’s own Dad died when I was 4, I thought through very carefully what I would do if my own husband were to die. His Mum also died when he was 9, so it’s one we both are very aware could happen to us. If my DH were to die tomorrow, our life insurance would ensure our home was paid off. I have enough savings in my own name that I saved whilst teaching prior to starting my family to live off whilst job hunting. I could afford to run my home alone teaching 2-3 days per week as we haven’t over-extended ourselves. I have built a very strong relationship as a governor and reading volunteer with my children’s school, and other local baby/toddler group leaders who have actually already offered me work. Failing all that, my Mum lives 10 mins away and has 2 spare bedrooms, so I’d move in with her whilst job hunting and trying to get back on my feet.

Similarly, if I were to die, my husband would instantly request to drop from 5 days teaching to 2-3, which he could comfortably manage due to our past 15 years of careful, joint financial planning. I actually also have legal training, and personally ensured our wills and trusts for our children are watertight. Having a parent die young has made us both planners!

Is any individual within a couple truly financially independent? Several of my closest friends are married to people with both earning a high full time salary, but because they’ve taken on much bigger homes and mortgages, neither could actually survive if their spouse left them. More to the point, surely the point of being part of a couple is to work as a team, share finances and lessen the load?

I can't speak for everyone, but personally I wouldn't be a SAHM indefinitely if it was wholly dependent on 'his' income. That's not enough security at all. What happens is - you need to weigh up the whole financial picture - eg. what are your family's savings; other assets; joint investment portfolios; do you own your house or is it mortgaged; any other properties etc. In other words, if you did split, you know exactly where you would stand financially and you know where your children would stand financially. You also factor in how easy it would be for you to return to work if need be - how and when. And my advice - NEVER be a SAHP to anyone who even remotely has a mindset of 'my money is mine, yours is yours.' Well I wouldn't be with that type of individual anyway, SAHM or not. And anyone who is secretive about finances in a marriage - run a mile would be my recommendation and certainly do not have kids with them.

But you're talking about the sort of planning which is only really possible if (a) you've worked to become pretty financially stable prior to pregnancy and (b) there is no abuse.

The most common time for abuse to start is during pregnancy or postpartum, by the way.

The person you end up married to might turn out to be a very different person to the one you thought you married.

You can't accrue savings in your own name if you aren't earning your own money.

Savings you accrued in your own name when you were earning your own money can rapidly dwindle if you are no longer earning and your partner doesn't give you full access to family money.

Owning your home in joint names is helpful, but doesn't solve the immediate problem of how you leave a toxic relationship with no ready access to cash.

And so on.

There are a depressing number of threads on here every day by women who have no financial independence and are stuck with men of varying degrees of awfulness. Sometimes the worst of it is just that he treats her like a skivvy and doesn't clean up after himself. Sometimes it's so bad that she fears for her own and her children's personal safety. Invariably, she has little or no access to money. Invariably, posters tell her to just leave with whatever she is standing up in. (And call Women's Aid, the suggested solution to every problem.)

Barring the unthinkable, such as my child becoming addicted to heroin or turning to prostitution or having such terrible physical or mental health problems that they feel their life is not worth living, the worst outcome I can think of for my children is that they end up like those women.

But the likelihood is that they won't. Because even if they do decide (unwisely, in my opinion) to become financially dependent on their partner and end up in a shitty situation with no money of their own, I would always bail them out.

Of course, the only reason I will be in a position to bail them out is because I have money myself.

Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you choices. And I want my children to have choices.

It's all very well to say that in advance, but you really have no way of knowing how the other person will behave once the balance of power between you has shifted.

I'd be disappointed either way. I think it's important to be financially independent, I suppose especially for women as they are the ones who go through pregnancy, give birth and take maternity leave but I don't think solely depending on anyone financially is ever a good idea.

She didn't ask for "the same level of respect". She wants "more respect".

"More respect" than what?

She's not even a SAHM. She's on maternity leave and I think we've all been in the trenches at that point in our lives!

I think it was pretty clear what she meant from her increasingly bad-tempered posts!

I don't even understand who she wants more respect from.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom There is no 'balance of power' when everything is joint in the first place. You are not income-dependent, in other words. He can take his income with him and you still know you would be ok, or more than ok, based on your share of assets alone.

Again, this is only my scenario, but even though DH earned the money while I was a SAHM (though he always paid himself, he never worked for anyone since the age of 30), I invested our money in ways that were profitable or provided passive income (property renovations basically). Over the years, you build lives together and make mutual decisions and everything is intertwined.