Stay at home parent looking forward to retirement

[Equalitystreets]

One partner is and has always been the sole breadwinner.

Other is a stay at home parent who as the children have gotten older has gradually had more free time during the day.

They always share the household chores equally.

When the children go to University, the stay at home parent has said they will be retiring and ‘they can’t wait’.

The partner with the job has at least another 15 years of work to do (and all their retirement funding will come from this partner’s investments, or investments set up in the stay at home parent’s name that were set up and funded by the working partner).

Is the stay at home partner being reasonable to declare their job is completed when the children are 18, even if the other partner has another 15 years of work to do?

Yes, it's called retirement

They can make changes to bring that retirement earlier, reduce their workload, but the provider isn't done providing for their partner until they draw their pension

I was a working mother of teens too. So I know what that involves (and mothering adults, which somehow never ends!)

But I still maintain that teens and uni students are nowhere near as time consuming as young children and certainly don't warrant someone being a full time SAHP.

I never said being a SAHP isn’t work.

The work of a SAHP is listed in many conversations on MNs. I never said nor do I think that it’s not work.

What does the working parent do it depends on the individual but I only know a handful of couples where both don’t work, in the ones that do the working parent spends his time off off on family holidays or days out with the kids. They don’t act as if the SAHP is the solo parent. They take their kids to hobbies on the weekends, they cook the Christmas dinner, they clean the house, they do shopping.

My own dad was the one who worked & he did the hoovering & floor washing every Saturday morning like clockwork. He also took us to the playground on Sunday mornings for my mum to have a lie in. He was a bit ahead of his time but that wouldn’t be in any way unusual now. I don’t know of a working parent of either gender who doesn’t parent their kids.

I said what I feel is overlooked in general is how difficult putting in a day’s work is. People
list the task of a SAHP but work is just described as “work”. It’s not at 10 I met Jane who told me the project is going to shut and I need to turn out around. And at 11 I met Matthew who told me he needs me to hurry up and something completely different.
Or, as has actually happened in a a scandal involving Boots pharmacists made mistake because they were under so much pressure, or and a doctor in a practice being told you can only spend 15 mins with a patient, or a teacher having to deal with in unruly child and a parent who thinks you’re the problem.

Both parties work. Both parties need a break. Working parents do not generally act like their partner is a solo parent.

That's the type of insulting post I mean. As if working parents aren't also parents.

What's there to be jealous about? Especially when as OP shows, you can only be financially dependent on someone for as long as they allow it. If they get fed up, it's over.

Not a position I'd ever risk to be in.

That's nothing though. And some parents couldn't even cope with that alone.

I value the role of stay at home parents but I strongly disagree with your viewpoints, and certainly not out of jealously.

The reason we disagree is that we’re not discussing stay at home parenting, we’re discussing the distribution of labour in the period of family life once all children are adults.

You are advocating for the right of a former SAHP to unilaterally decide not to work once their children are grown. I’m not sure how disagreeing with your strange views can be interpreted as jealousy against SAHP since that partner is no longer a stay at home parent but quite simply voluntarily unemployed.

“At least 20% of your income will be spent paying somebody less educated, less capable less caring than yourself to supervise your children during most waking hours.”

This situation is not about children in nursery, it’s about when those children have turned into adults and moved away to uni. No childcare needed!

Check out your local golf course or David Lloyds Creche on every bank holiday and weekend. Full to the brim.
I remember some poor child screaming its head off in the kids club at Mark Warner and the parents berating the child carer who wanted to return the poor soul to the parents who declared it was their holiday too. Take it back

I was going to say. Are people forgetting that weekends, long bank holiday weekends, annual leave, unpaid parental leave etc exists? 😂

If the kids are older it’s not a sahp it’s a housewife/husband. Nothing wrong with that if both agree but they should do 100 percent of chores and life admin. No wonder working partner has the hump

You're being ridiculous. I've been both a SAHM and a working mum, and I'm sorry, but the two are not comparable. Of course baby and toddler time is exhausting, but once they're at school? No, don't pretend it's hard work!

As I said before, all the out of school parenting, both practical and emotional, still has to be done by the working parents, just in less time. I couldn't have justified not working to myself, once the youngest was at school. Why should my husband work his guts out in a very stressful job and me just do a bit of housework and the school run?

There was no envy from me. I wanted to be back in the work place, doing what I'd spent years training to do, and be around people. And contribute to our finances and security.

I think the SAHP is a cheeky fucker and should be getting a job, even once the kids are in secondary their justification to be at home is tenuous.
I couldn't be with someone who had so little about them and was willing to ride the coat Tails of the other partners efforts for such a long period of time.
Terrible behaviour

Some people are bringing totally ridiculous arguments trying to justify not pulling their weight. no, 'supporting kids in uni' really isn't a full time occupation.

'Strange views', okay 😄

I'd rather not marry someone who'd decide 'well the kids have left, off you pop back to work, lazy bones'

My step dad was like that - complained day in and day out about working, despite his family being very poor and then forced my mentally ill mum back to work, all whilst claiming to be a feminist 😩😄 - a man like that is to be avoided, far better to be single than settle for that

The right man will want you to carry on taking care of the home, as you have been doing, and to enjoy yourself now that you have a bit more free time.

If the op is finding work difficult, they should, as I've said, agree with their partner for ways to cut back on hours and expenses now the kids have gone to uni 🤷

Raising a man's kids for decades entitles you to rest and enjoy the fruits of your labour, ie visiting kids at uni, having more time to complete your chores, and yes, to say flippantly that you're retired

Edit, a lot of you are jealous of sahmums, sorry, and would swap roles with them in a heartbeat

The weekend is nothing for the "I a the great provider type" if he's (because it is usually men) only seen his kids for a few hours of an evening all week. It's just two days out of 7. And I doubt they could cope alone even on the weekend. As I say, a lot of people hide in their jobs.

Find it hard to believe that household chores are shared in this case! We used to work to “roughly the same number of hours of work” - who did what in the house changed over the years quite a lot but the sum of paid and unpaid work hours was always balanced

serious discussion required - if she got even a low paid job retirement for the other could be brought forward

no wonder divorce rates are so high.

sahp have no power to dictate once the kids are adults.

if your “provider” doesn’t agree to support you then what?

you may get half a house, half his pensions and marital savings but will that support you for the rest of your life? Half an average pension won’t be huge.

you have not paid full ni stamp so even state pension is greatly reduced.

so you end up in a small flat bought with your share of the sale of the family home, a small pension you can access in 10 years, UC and child benefit are gone because the state won’t support you to sah in case your adult children need you.

while the provider is still in their decent career, has money, which now goes much further as they only have one person to support not two.

And it’s not a man’s role to support a wife

it’s a partnership of equals

What?!

Keep banging that "you're jealous" drum. It get's more ridiculous every time you say it.

And as for "raising a man's kids" - really? Surely it's their kids.

That’s fair, but I’d imagine that benefit ends when the employment of being a SAHP does. If there’s no children at home, that’s not really your job anymore, so there’s no perks to either. Surely.

I wouldn't want to be with someone like that.

This is not real, surely.

I absolutely can cope with my children alone for the weekend, thanks.

so can dh, because us both working has meant he also cares for his children regularly and it’s no problem.

having a sahp means the wohp is less involved with the children out of necessity. I don’t know why this justifies a sahm- if both worked and both parented equally then both parents can cope equally well on weekends.