To suggest that a new mum who "has" to go back to work, reluctantly, after maternity leave, could down-size from her five-bedroom house and thereby afford to stay at home?

[Twoddle]

I have a good friend who really does have to go back to work when her maternity leave ends later this month. She and her husband genuinely can't afford to live without both their salaries so, as much as she'd like to stay home longer, she can't.

Another friend's sister, however, was pulling the "It's all right for some mums, hanging around at home all day - some of us have to go back to work" line. Knowing that she lives in a four-bedroom house and is having a loft conversion and buys everything new for the home and for the soon-to-arrive baby and has a bit of a clothes-buying habit ... well, I tactfully and carefully suggested to my friend that maybe her sister didn't have to return to work so soon if it was important for her to be at home for longer with her child. I said she could downsize to a smaller home, maybe cut back on some spending, and then be able to afford to extend her maternity leave - if she so wished.

Said friend warned me through a steely glare never to say such words to her sister, and the atmosphere was abysmal between us for the rest of the evening.

Was my suggestion so unreasonable, in the circumstances?

Silly me for playing devil's advocate ...

What is very prenicious though is sexism, when there are assumptions women will stay home and serve and men will make money, when women withdraw into the home, when the conservative Muslim way of woman in purdah, not allowed out without a man, cloistered away, not knowing about pensions and money, not earning a living, not taking part in the wider world becomes a norm. That is politically unacceptable adn I believe women owe it to other women and their daughters to play a part in the wider world rather than opting out.

It's a classic feminist debate - some feminist always said male world of power and money is dreadful and we want no part of it, women's ways are better and we can withdraw from the world of work, not sully our pretty little hands with it (which is all well and good if you have a man to support you but not much good in terms of being able to feed yourself so it's not a practical solution) and then the other side, my side, that women and men are very similar in some ways and some of us are ambitious, competent keen to compete, want to be the best surgeons, leaders, hedge fund managers or whatever in the country and we should not be restrained from being so just because we happen to have children and are female and that being part of that world of work is perfectly morally acceptable and indeed huge fun.

But Xenia, yet again you make the assumption that SAHPs play no part in the wider world. This is just nonsense.

You say there are two options, but I say there's a third: parents can choose not to be defined by ancient patriarchal norms, or newer capitalist ones. Let individual parents make decisions about how they want to bring up their children, and everyone can stop making braindead illogical leaps, like SAHP = incompetent.

But the supposedly individual decisions virtually always end up with women serving men and men going out to earn so left to their own devices all these women are doing is ruing things for the rest and destroying the hard won gains. They aren't capable of making right choices so they need to be told instead. The muslim girl who chooses to marry at 16 to a man she hardly knows, my aughter's Jewish friend who can't think of what to do now she's graduated so her mother is finding her a husband, these people all think they are making choices but they're just doing the normal of their patriarchal religions and cultures.

Stay at home parents aren't incompetent although a good few I knew couldn't hack the career they were never much good at anyway so the baby track was just about all they could manage. Those that were competent and out earned their man tended to stay in work and enjoy it.

Stay at home parents do play so role in the wider world - some have time to do voluntary work and virtually none these days give up work at 35 to have babies and then never work again. They go back to work after 5 years to lower pay, part time and never
being able to achieve their career goals.

But I don't think Xenia is saying that, policywonk - I think what she's saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is let's stop making this a gender issue - why is it always assumed that the women will stay at home, if anyone is going to? We need to get away from it being about 'does the woman stay home or go out to work' and make it about 'which parent does what' with no assumptions based on gender.

noone is saying that SAHPs don't contribute to society or play an active role in the community, but if we're talking about money, then it's the ones who go out to work who are involved in that. And while women are castigated for choosing to do that, while men are not, no matter what their personal home circumstances, then we live in an unequal society.

But I don't see it as serving my partner, because this is what I want to do. You could interpret it as serving my children I suppose (in that it's what I believe to be the best thing for them), but I don't have a problem with serving pre-school children when I made the decision to bring them into the world.

I do see what you mean about the situation almost always breaking in one direction, gender-wise, and as you've previously said, governments could do a lot more to prod men into doing more childcare.

But I also maintain that your argument only works if you accept the assumptions on which it is founded - ie, that childcare is servile and dull; that it reflects badly on those who do it; that paid employment is the source of status; that domestic activity is essentially worthless. I'm the kind of feminist who prefers to challenge these assumptions, rather than eagerly co-opt the dead hand of capitalism into the original feminist ideal.

Finally, both you and findtheriver are offering up rather unpleasant anecdotal characterisations of SAHMs as incompetent, materialistic, grasping, meddling, blah blah. I think this is pretty revealing about what you actually think about SAHPs.

LittleMy - I don't assume that it will be the woman who stays at home. But maybe if domestic/childcare work was treated with more respect and accorded more status, men would be more willing to do some of it? Attitudes like Xenia's are part of the problem.

I suppose you could say that in a partnership both people are involved in making the money if one staying at home is enabling the other to go out and earn a lot of money. I know both me and DH could both be a lot further up the career-ladder if one of us had stayed at home. Its swings and roundabouts. What you probably will find if we are talking about compromises (I prefer compromises because sacrifices to me implies something you are unhappy with), you will probably find that most working parents have made quite huge compromises in their careers in order to be able to juggle it with childcare.

But society does assume it will be the women who stays at home - hence all the questions such as 'will you be coming back to work?' when a woman announces she's pregnant. Noone asks the father that!

And as I said before, some SAHMs are rubbish mothers, and some of them were probably rubbish at their jobs or hated their jobs before they left, and that formed part of their decision not to go back.

Just as some women who work are rubbish mothers, and some of them are probably incompetent at their jobs as well - although probably fewer, given how hard it is to get a job after having a child.

I don't think domestic activity is worthless or dull or servile - but if we all chose to stay at home and do it as a feminist statement, not much would change, would it?

What we need is a world where it truly is a choice for every parent whether to work or not, and each option is valued equally. And that means not making it about gender, but about who is best suited to the jobs in hand.

Actually, DH is about to be a SAHD. He is taking 6 months unpaid paternity leave and then he will work from home and part SADH for 3 days a week. We have 4 children now and the last one sort of made it too much being two FT working parents.

We don't accomplish that by belittling the SAH role though, do we LMD?

If you read my posts, FallenMadonna, I have never once belittled the SAH role.

LittleMy, I don't think we're disagreeing about anything substantial, are we? Of course you're right (as I've already said) that society expects more, in terms of childcare/domestic work, than it does of fathers. This attitude should be challenged, of course it should. As you say, the only reason anyone should stay at home is because it's what they have chosen to do.

But to use that argument as a reason for sneering at SAHPs, or for saying that all SAHMs should get back into paid employment forthwith, is not the correct response IMO. The correct response is to challenge received attitudes, whether they say that ' a woman's place is in the home' OR that 'childcare is servile scut-work, and any woman who chooses to do it is not a feminist'.

I should make it clear BTW that I'm talking about childcare, not ironing DP's shirts or keeping the perfect home. Those are things that I never do.

I believe you LMD. But I disagree with you as to the thrust of Xenia's argument.

No, I think we're pretty much in agreement, policywonk - and I don't iron shirts either!

I think the problem lies in the fact that we are all so sensitive about our choices, because they are choices that are hard to make and provoke guilt and angst all around, that we very quickly think we're being judged or sneered at for them.

In fact, it's nonsense to judge a whole group of people based purely on their choice of whether to work or not. But society does this, every day, and that's what we need to challenge.

LittleMyDancing has a balanced view on all of this, in my view.

Xenia- I agree with your point on sexist assumption that it is the wife who will sacrifice her career. However, I object to the way you belittle women who go back to work on part time and lower pay. My wife is more talented than I am and highly intelligent and took 5 year career break. Means that she will not be aiming for board room/partnership; BUT what is wrong with that as long as she exercised this choice freely? Why do you talk like career goals are superior to other life goals?

But Xenia is just describing the way the world is right now - I honestly don't read any judgment in her post of the woman who stays at home for 5 years and therefore sacrifices her career prospects. I read it more as describing an unacceptable situation, personally.

"we should not be restrained from being so just because we happen to have children and are female and that being part of that world of work is perfectly morally acceptable and indeed huge fun"

I read that as wanting equal validity for women who work, and those who don't.

okay, i see

Xenia does talk a lot of sense. But she is also prone to making preposterous comments about SAHP, referring to them as 'glorified prostitutes' on one occasion. I'm afraid I am carrying over baggage from previous threads, which I know ia a bit of a MN no-no, but still...

Xenia - do you really own an island??

Ah, well I haven't really got any of that so that might explain my interpretations.

As LittleMyDancing pointed out, this subject is highly sensitive because so many are so defensive (and self righteous) about the choice they make. My view is that children are fairly adaptable and as long as we give them a reasonable platform then they will be alright in the end. One doesn't even need to be the "perfect parent". One sociologist pointed out to me that the "perfect parent" could end up nuturing a relatively unadaptable child, a sort of paradox.

They're like weeds, they grow no matter what you do

Much, much further down this thread I wrote "Really, there is bugger all you can say about it without causing offence"

So why I keep coming back to it is beyond me

We are yet to see the results of some of the "over parenting" of the current very comfortably off middle England generation? How will cope vs more hungry kids in other parts of the world. How will they cope with setbacks and not having it all on the plate. This thought haunts me and I sometimes feel like taking mine out of private school; make them a bit hungrier and tougher :-)

Interesting Toughdaddy. I don't think over-parenting is only done by sahms. I think children of wohms can ironically suffer more from over-parenting or at least over-stimulation. I know I follow my children around the house constantly when I at home and they don't have a minutes peace from me.