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?

it hasn’t- the o/p states they do their share of household stuff.

the sahm’s job has been raising the children. That job has now ended, and they are now unemployed. Not retired, or they’d have a pension to draw on.

the o/p doesn’t want “in” on the sahp job because that job doesn’t exist any more.

It stops being a job. What does my 82 year old mother's job of being my mother entail? How many hours a day do you think she works at it?

This is just nonsense.

6 hours to yourself is a luxury???
😄 those hours are used for cleaning, errands, appointments, errands relating to the working partner, cooking, shopping, laundry, more endless cleaning

This is nuts. Working parents do all that stuff too! Except the partner does their own errands, hopefully.

Once our kids were at school, my husband and I came home from work (or at the weekend) shopped, cooked, cleaned, did the laundry and all the things pertaining to housework and family admin. We didn't feel resentful, I didn't wish I was still a SAHM, we just got on with it as the daily tasks of family life.

It’s not some time off. Assuming she is the same age as her partner it’s 15 years.

With respect, it’s not an answer to the OP’s resentment to say that women should be allowed to live their lives as they want.

The OP (assuming is a man) is entitled to a partnership, to be viewed as a person with limitations, not simply as a provider.

His needs are equally as important, his work is as worthy he is also entitled to rest. The children are their children, not his children.

Oh no, all working parents have cleaners and personal chefs apparently. 😂

it hasn’t- the o/p states they do their share of household stuff.

Alrhough why they were doing 50/50 seems unfair given the SAHP had 5 days to do it.

Most SAHP will have more than 2 kids. You realise they don't all start school at the same time! Ours had 2 year gaps between them. So when the eldest started school aged 4, I still had a 2 year-old at home and was pregnant with the third. Two or three years later, when the second one was in school, the baby was now 2, and still with me. It was about 9 years before they were all in school. By which time, my DS was in a different prep so there were two school runs to different schools every day.

Also, having the elder one in school doesn't make life easier particularly, because you have to drag the babies with you on school runs twice every day. Especially in the afternoons, because as soon as you put the baby in the car, they will sleep. Then you can't get them out of the cat to get to stand at the school gate. Or you have to wake them up and then they're cranky all afternoon.

School does not make life easier until they're all there which, with three kids, may take the best part of a decade. Even then, by the time I was back from the school runs at 9am, I'd have to leave again at 2.30 due to London traffic. You only really get a 'whole day' when every child starts taking themselves to and from school at secondary age. In my case, that took about 15 years!

pp refuses to accept that because then her argument of the poor, overworked, hard done by not SAHM doesn't quite hold.

OP is lying about that part apparently. Mainly because pp thinks OP is a man and of course men aren't capable of doing their share of house stuff.

A woman who isn't jealous of another woman staying at home to raise her family doesn't get super worked up over them 🤷

If working and raising kids is so lovely, why get so worked up at the sahm who will have a reduced caring load

I'm not a troll 😄 and I am very proud of my beliefs, which come from lived experience. I am a feminist and I believe that a woman deserves to choose how to live her life, whether that be a working mum or a sah mum.

But to be with a man who you can't trust to take care of you is no way to live, sorry. Better to be single and have kids alone 🙌, which is a great way to have the family you want imo.

And being with a man who feels that working and providing financially for the woman who takes care of the home and the kids is unfair to him, is not the way to live.

Some of the attacks towards me on this thread are getting a bit much tbh 🙄, and that's why I think there's an element of jealousy in the responses.

We don't know the gender of the op, but women who say to a man 'force your wife back to work or leave her' are unhinged and scary and are very anti woman.

I can't be arsed to reiterate my point any further but - if you're a working woman and are unhappy, do make changes to your life where you can, you don't deserve to be miserable 🙌

Do the investment plans mature now or in 15 years? If her job is done now she needs to consider if she has money to enjoy her retirement as when you retire you stop being paid.

I thought that ending arguments with "you're just jealous" was something that eight year old girls did on the playground.

Grown women using the same tactic is just pathetic, frankly.

You could say the same about SAHM's who get worked up about others saying that it isn't really that hard. If you're a happy SAHM and it's so lovely, what does it matter what others think? Unless you're jealous that they have a career.

If you aren't jealous then they aren't jealous. Maybe it's just a discussion and no one is actually worked up about anything.

I don't want my DH to take care of me like I'm a child, I can take care of myself and want to take care of myself.

As they share the domestic chores 50/50, I fail to see how OP has taken complete advantage of their stay at home partner. Once children are secondary school age they can normally get themselves to and from school, so OP's partner will have had the days to herself.

She may not be able to find a suitable job, but it's a bit cheeky to announce that you are retiring when your partner has another 15 years at work.

I don’t think people are necessarily “super worked up”, people are engaging with you and you are equally engaging with them.

I very much consider myself a feminist.

Being a feminist to me is seeing yourself as an equal to a man, and developing an equal partnership with one on that basis.

Agreeing with a man how you’d like to raise your family and being open to continuing to discuss it as things change throughout the years.

Not saying as a woman I have a right to I chose how I want to live, and you the “provider” must support that.

I was probably assuming most people have two kids.

I think those are fair points.

In any case the OP’s partner is not at that stage of life now.

Stay at home parent now needs to go out and get a job - should have gone years ago really

if I was the working parent and the stay at home parent decided they were ‘retiring’ I’d be very resentful

I can't be arsed to reiterate my point any further but - if you're a working woman and are unhappy, do make changes to your life where you can, you don't deserve to be miserable

None of the posters who are disagreeing with you have said they are unhappy or miserable. That's your straw man spin on it. If anything where they have commented it's that they prefer being in an equal partnership.

And my “lived experience” is that no, you can’t ever trust a man to take care of you. You’re always better off being able to take care of yourself.

and no, I’m not talking divorce. I was 9 when my dad died and “stopped taking care” of us all.

if it is better to be single and raise kids alone than be with a man who you don’t trust to take care of you, who takes care of you then? Where’s your income coming from? The taxpayer may subsidise you while the kids are at home but once they’re adults you’re expected to work to support yourself.
so that makes no sense. You end up working or living on benefits either way.

I am unhappy in my current role, and I think I will struggle to find another but I didn’t mention that out of jealousy. I mentioned it because it’s very easy to say just find another job. I’m not happy in my job but I need it. Because that is the reality of life.
I doubt I’m unusual.

I have 3 but that includes twins.

Have one more they said...

😂

OP has said very little about their finances etc so it’s a shame the thread is turning into a competition (battle) between working and stay at home parents. Until OP elaborates more there’s little to add to their specific issue.

But the ones screaming 'a woman should try working and raising kids, how dare she want to stay at home after the kids have gone to uni' is jealous sorry

She can want all kinds of things - I'm sure being a lady of leisure is appealing to the former SAHM. Except in this case, the former SAHM has declared the working spouse must finance it, whether the working spouse agrees or not.

I think what I’m struggling with is the sort of vagueness/lack of reality it comes to money - make yourself happy, get another job, be a single parent.

Like where’s the money coming from?

It’s probably the reality for many men as well. But if they’re the sole earner then they have no choice.

that was another benefit of us both working. I was seriously unhappy in my job at one point, I was able to hand my notice in and take 3 months to find something else. Dh lost his job when his employer went bankrupt, again we had breathing space to find something else.

mental health of both parents is important too.