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?

You’re clearly a young woman with modern views and nobody would do anything but applaud that

But let’s say we’re going back 18 years
For argument sake
The landscape was very very different
And if we’re going back 30 years, imagine all of this was fields … and men most certainly did not do 50% of house work

The stay at home partner is extremely unreasonable. Indeed, unless there are other circumstances (waits for @Equalitystreets' drip-feed), they're a bit of a parasite.

Why does it matter what sex they are? Maybe both are female or both are male. I think that's the most irrelevant part really.

We don't even know if OP is a man.

Even if they are, you can't just decide that he's lying because it doesn't suit your argument.

You don’t need 30 hours a week to cook and clean and run errands. A few hours in a week to clean the house is plenty. Lots of working mums like me don’t have a cleaner or a personal chef and still manage to cook nutritious family meals and maintain a clean house. I also take the kids to appointments when necessary. All of that is certainly easier when it’s your only job (plus you get to relax more because you’re not doing those things on top of working) but it still gets done if you’re not a sahp.

I can see that it seems unfair, but it's hard to see how the SAHP could make a significant financial contribution if they are starting all over again in paid work after 50. Would it be an option for the emplyed partner to cut their hours down or take a less demanding job, and for the SAHP to also have a job? That might be more equal?

I have both SAHM and SAHD friends and the sex seems relevant from the perspective that none of the SAHDs do as much as the average SAHM. All female working partners are more involved in childcare and housework than the male working partners.
So if OP is a woman then yes it is entirely believable she has done 50-50 or more - statistically female breadwinners still do more housework than their husbands.

The stay at home parent should have got a job years ago. Not waited till the kids are at uni. They need to get a job not freeload on the working partner.

We don't know their sex. Also not sure why you should automatically assume they're lying.

It doesn't mean it is always true though and applies to every single family.

I'm the higher earner and I don't do more housework than DH.

Speak for yourself. My husband I became parents 35 years ago. We both worked full time. Ok we had a cleaner but the load was equally shared other than that.

Did they claim they did? Do you contend that none do now? If not, then what point are you making? If I say "I don't go out harpooning whales" am I lying because in the past, people did and happily admitted to it?

In one breath you are talking about how women should be careful not be forced into becoming a corporate/capitalist wage slave, then in the next breath you are slagging off people 'who will never do a day's work in their life'.

What is the difference between the two?

How absurd.

Any financial contribution is better than zero.
Especially over 15 years. The SAHM in question is probably only 45 years old.

And the breadwinner cutting hours in the prime of working life is a disaster in terms of retirement preparation, paying off mortgage, etc. Not to mention paying for the kids’ uni or training.

Do some people here really have such poor financial literacy???

My parents had a similar arrangement to you. My mum was a SAHM with three kids, two with disabilities. Actually three, i had adhd, but that wasn’t diagnosed…

She had given up her accountancy career when my dad was relocated across the country. She did all the cooking, housework, hospital appointments for my sisters. She got a very part time job when my youngest sister was 10 but that was restructured when she was in her early sixties and she didn’t consider reapplying or looking for anything else - she had had some ill health to be fair.

My dad retired a few years ago - he has done no house work or cooking for years and no considers it his right to do exactly as he pleases. So in some sense my mum never gets to retire!

As soon as the kids were in school the previously SAHP should have started atleast a part time job. It still isn’t too late for them to start but expecting the other person to fund it when they are not so inclined is unfair. I know in previous generations where it was mostly women doing the childcare and managing the home they didn’t really go back to work when kids were older but they did all the housework and that was never a 50/50 split. So it made it fair as one partner worked outside the home and the other managed the house.

Being a working parent is doing all these things and going out to work to do a paid job too.

The house doesn’t bloody clean itself whilst you are out at work!

I think the answer to your second point can be found in the fact that they thought they knew the answer to your first.

If you have a tiny house then maybe a few hours is all it takes to clean per week, but maybe op has a very large house with a massive garden/land and many pets/horses etc and there is a huge amount of work involved.

Don’t forget most working partners have the benefit of relaxing weekends, and lots of free time to themselves as everything is done. This improves the quality of everyone’s lives. Especially the children whom have well rested parents that can spend time with them.

I know it’s easy to be disparaging about a traditional family set up, but there are many, many benefits to both people choosing to enjoy their families like this. Whether you are working to look after the home or working at the office - it’s all contributing to family life either way, and is equitable.

I think some people seem to believe that the OP wants their partner to start working so that they can stop - I have no idea where they got this from.

Horses, ffs??? Horses??????

Maybe they've got a fucking safari park and she spends all her time wrestling wildebeest. Unlikely though, don't you think?

You could look at it a different way though. In many households the SAHP has likely worked more hours over the past 25 years while the dc have been growing than the ‘working parent’ has.

the domestic work and parenting and mental and emotional load has probably been every waking hour for the last 25 years whilst the ‘working parent’ had had more hours of then time and non mental load time. Do you could say the SAHP has done their fair share even if the other parent is working for some years more

You sound very uptight and mean spirited.

It isn't equitable when you aren't looking after small children all day any longer.

Don’t forget most working partners have the benefit of relaxing weekends, and lots of free time to themselves as everything is done.

Well presumably the SAHM did the domestic duties as part of their work during the 5 working days so there should be little requured from either at the weekend.