Is this a ‘Soft life’

[Wellthatwasabrupt]

And would you want it?

Has Dh, one young Dc and dogs, lives overseas by the beach and countryside, nice house with pool and sea views.
Works 6 hours per week from home. Does all drop offs and pick ups, food shop, dinners, majority to do with Dc and sorting bills. Has a cleaner.
Dh works Mon-Fri -finishes 4.30, no one works weekends.
Days are free based around Dc school drops, coffee with friends, Pilates, yoga, studying or reading if you like, watching Netflix all day if you like, shopping, beach, pool, garden

Would you call this a soft life? Would you like it, be honest?

paid work is done to pay bills , and also to protect yourself so that you can be independent of for whatever reason you need to be, so you can pay your taxes and so contribute to society , so you can have some element of pride that you can look after yourself , and to expand your horizons meeting people not in your immediate social circle

Also to give your life a purpose

I suspect the OP things raising kids IS the purpose

although that seems rather shallow to me - raise kids so that they can go and raise kids so that ….

although I guess in OPs world the boys get to do stuff

if raising the kids was so rewarding and worthwhile men would fight women for the right to be the stay at home parent

Why I ly the mother? What about the father?

I personally find this really upsetting. Are we in such a capitalist society that spending time with family and raising children can’t be seen as a purpose?

Amen. It saddens me how much raising the next generation seems to be seen as something to slot in around a career rather than as an important endeavour in itself.

Finding purpose in work is not exclusively "capitalist"! Do you think in communist or socialist societies everybody gets to sit around and have coffee and do pilates all day?!

Work is part of contributing to society. We work together to provide services and goods to each other. I am a teacher, and I'll teach your kids while you deliver the post or harvest vegetables or cure illnesses.

If you opt out of society and become purely a consumer, that's not anti-capitalist. It's actually more capitalist because you're relying on your capital to do the contributing alone.

I do think raising children is contributing to society, but if you've got just one and they're at school all day, you could be doing a lot more with your time.

I'm chuckling so much here at a Dubai* lady of leisure spending all the school day sitting around at the pool and calling working people "so capitalist". Does that include your pilates instructor or the people who picked those coffee beans for you? I just can't even.

*or wherever

It can be. But it's not enough for me, capitalist or not.

I am not familiar with the term 'a soft life'. Sounds idyllic if the marriage is good and the DH is happy earning the money. The DW is taking some risk by not being financially independant to some extent. If you can afford it and it's for you great. If it's not for you, also great.

Why do you ask? Are you speaking in the third person or is this about someone in particular and their choices? It sounds like you approve but maybe someone has been critical? It's hard to see where you are coming from with this.

It can be. For some people it’s enough I suppose. But we do live in a society which operates through capitalism and most of us enjoy the benefits, products and services that it provides us - and delivering those also needs to be purposeful. I love my job - I work in an area of financial services which can be very complex for consumers, and our firm specifically provides products for consumers who are more likely to be of low or average income, less financially literate, less technologically literate, and with a low level of trust in the industry; and it’s a privilege and a real purpose for me to do the work I do which shapes how the business and the wider industry serves those consumers.

And everyone is supposed to be the same and just slot in like a worker ant until our extinction.

And I dont doubt that at all. We all have things we’re good at or enjoy or find purpose in. Just like how youre not a medical doctor but clearly value them. A lot of people on their deathbeds wish they spent more time with family. Some SAHP may miss more focus on identity and career. Ideally you have a balance. Personally I mix with a wide range kf people with different interests. I much prerer living in that kind of world.

That’s fine and good you know what makes you happy and gives you purpsoe. Not everyone is the same. I dont think we should be devaluing normal human things like spending timr with family, enjoying nature and focussing on health for example. We’re all different.

Well said

So true

I’d be shit bored but I’m the sort of person who needs to keep my mind busy otherwise I go stir crazy. I also love my job as an academic, we tumultuous as times are in my field right now. I couldn’t hack sitting around all day watching Netflix and doing yoga.

I’d love it. Not sure how you can get bored. Sitting at a desk for 7 hours a day is boring. I’d love to spend my time relaxing snd/or doing interesting things. Work is neither.

It's not so much a "soft life"; more of No Life. What IS your life? What do you achieve? What difference to you make? If you died tomorrow, who would notice? What do you leave the World after you die? Where's the struggle? Where's the achievement? You must feel very empty. You will leave no mark on this World after you're gone, sadly. But, hey, at least you are pampering yourself...

What an absolutely bizarre post. These are the kind of questions I'd expect being put to someone who spent all their time at work and didn't have an identity outside it. Work isn't the be-all and end-all of everything, you know. And, cliché though it may be, not many people lie on their deathbed thinking 'I wish I'd spent more time at work.'