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 ...

I meant that we can drive a safe car... not all 4x4's are safe, quite a strange assumption.
Perhaps bitch is the wrong word to use but I do think that everyone belonging to whatever group has conversations about their choice that by it's very nature makes the other choice not as good. It makes us all feel like we do the right thing, as for never discssing your choice in RL, what a bag of shite.

Quattro, in all the sahm/wohm debates you had said many many ridiculous and untrue things SAHMs. As for men complaining about their wives staying at home they sound like complete wankers and maybe they are trying to make you feel better.

I think there is a genuine point that is not raised often and that is the issue of sole provider pressure. I work in a very competitive environment where redundancies are expected following the credit crunch.

It is only natural that people (usually men) who are sole providers should feel incredible levels of anxiety about the potential outcomes. It's different obviously with public sector jobs, but with most public sector jobs it must be really very difficult to survive on one income.

I only have sahm/wohm debates on Mnet actually, never in RL. Whenever men do complain about their sahm wives, I do the sisterly thing and say "Well I dunno abut you but I come to work for a bit of R&R from the children". Which forces a smile usually.

I agree about sole provider pressure.

Also think it's crazy when I hear of couples where the husband is working 70 hours a week so the wife can stay at home. Not convinced it's right that children should only have 5% of Dad just so they can have 100% of Mum.

Work in a very male dominated environment, and agree with Quattro that I have heard low level grousing and resentment from male colleagues about their wives reluctance to go back to work. I personally would find being the sole wage earner a difficult thing to do - the pressure must be immense.

I think there is just as much pressure on dual earners if they DEPEND on both incomes to survive, I heard this is the worst position to be in. If the second income is extra then that is good, or if the SAH parent can get a job if the main earner becomes unable to work. I am a SAHM at the mo as it is more economical and conveinient and I like being able to attend school events, but DH is also a big part of DC lives and only works 39 hrs a week. I wouldn't expect him to work 70 hrs just so I could SAH, I stay home as it works out better at this point in time and his job hours severely limit my options.

I am the sole wage earner and support 5 children and it is quite a bit of pressure particularly if you're 100% responsible for the children too.

I think women should work because it's better for children, society and the world though which is a very different argument than whether a man or woman is morally wrong to work because they happen to have an under 5 child. Also criticism is always of women by sexist women of course, never men who go back to work because women are often more sexist than men at heart. They all need the Xenia de-sexist decontamination programme guaranteed to ensure you lose your gender stereotypes.

What should be asked is why does the husband work if they could down side. Why is the question directed at the woman? Only because those who make those comments are sexist people .

Yes, Xenia, I quite agree. The question is always asked of women and never asked of men. We've not come as far as we think we have when the default assumption is that men go hunting and working and women stay at home baking.

The thing is, people think of women staying at home to raise the children as being how it's meant to be in a tribal or primitive way, but in many societies we would regard as more primitive women work and raise the children at the same time. Sometimes they work in the home, sometimes not.

In our current society, I think it can be very isolating for women to stay at home, which can lead to a higher incidence of PND and also can really skew the relationship with the father (sole provider pressure, lack of stimulation for the mother etc). In a society where the extended family all lives near each other and the mother has lots of contact with other adults, it's a lot easier, but I know that just me and DS at home on our own means we have to make superhuman efforts to see other mothers and children - lots of playgroups etc.

Or.....he could go to nursery and see lots of other children, and I could go to work and see lots of other adults.

My grandmother worked (she would have starved if she hadn't as she was widowed with a young baby in 1929 but even before that she worked for a few years in India as a children's nanny in the 1920s. Her mother worked (and had a lot of children, I think 17 by two husbands - the first one died). Women always have and most prefer the independence it gives them and also financial security. Although some mumsnetters might be able to rely on good men and it's great if they can, sadly not all men are like that and you owe it to your children to be able to provide for them.

But it's an issue for men as well as women and there are 250,000 stay at home fathers in the UK. More and more men are fighting to get the right to be part time and the wife to work and some women don't like it!

I'm not sure if anyone's brought this up but what about pensions? I have a fanastic final salary pension with my company and although retirement is a long way off, I feel it's part of my duty to not be a burden to my ds when I'm old by ensuring dh and I have enough to live. If I gave up work I would have to give up my pension, dh has one but it's not enough/won't be enough to support us both. Call me a nerd but I worry about those sorts of things a lot. I don't want to be making decisions about whether I eat or heat when I'm 80.

Xenia, I agree - it's always the woman who's criticised. I started a thread about this very subject a couple of years ago - asking why men aren't criticised for working full time and women are. In fact, men are thought a bit odd or lame for not wanting a full time job.

Because misogyny is engrained. You never see any press headlines about the damage men do to their families by choosing to go back to work after paternity leave. What we need is 6 months non transferable paternity leave (and/or pay - use it or lose it) and then that will be fun and more women marrying men who earn less and only then do you start to creak towards more equality.

Headfairy, what I think about pensions is that the vast majority of people in this country have completely abandoned making any form of sensible provision for their retirement. And that is an ENTIRELY sensible and rational choice for people who can't afford to fund pensions adequately. The way that the benefits system works in this country is that it penalises saving. So unless people can fund a pension properly and fully, why should they bother?

My pensions chappie makes me put 20% of my income into my pension fund. It is my single largest overhead. That's just to secure a barely adequate pension.

Indeed. Then no potential employer will eye up a woman with a functioning womb and see her as a possible liability . Any man could also be in the same position. Would be most satisfying.

And on the subject of men and their SAH wives, I'm afraid I have heard many of them complain about it. I have also experienced jealousy and resentment of me because I manage (ha!) to work and be a mother. I generally give them a metaphorical kick in the bollocks, but I'm afraid it happens.

the blokes I work with are all very appreciative of their SAH wives...I think they feel 'lucky' that they can decide when they go home without having to worry about the childcare, can travel on a whim etc.

"I do think that everyone belonging to whatever group has conversations about their choice that by it's very nature makes the other choice not as good" - but I don't and unless I live in a twilight world of a few selected aliees like me then a lot of WOHM don't have these conversations either.

If I took to discussing my childcare choices in work my colleagues would think I had a screw loose. Men don't discuss their childcare and if I want to be taken seriously I don;t either (other than in the most superficial of ways). Outside of work as I sadi my freinds are a mixture all types and therefore I'm hardly likely to be discussing it with them.

Genreations of women in my family have worked as they couldn't afford not to - SAHM's have often in history been the luxury of the middle and upper classes. Children weer farmed out to friends/neighbours/older siblings. It does amuse me how working mothers have been reinvented as a modern thing.

Come to post late and have not read all...OP is NU to think someone in a fortunate position has no right to moan about their choices. I know I have a friend who has 4 dcs and a 6 bed house and does nothing but moan about being a SAHM (hasn't worked since 13 yo was born). She complains I should not have gone back to work and put dd in childcare. Though I was a late mum and had just reached the point that I could afford a holiday and if I fancied a new outfit I did not need to worry.

Maybe me and DH could have scraped through on one income but I had worked hard to get where I am. It;s not just short term loss of a wage that I considered - more long term "could I get back on the ladder when I'm old" and what happens to your pension kind of stuff. Friend on other hand, complains that she cannot get a job (though originally highly qualified) as she has been out of it so long and any job must fit round kid's holidays....I have no real answers. You do what suits you. I did not want to live on the breadline and my dd is a happy well adjusted child. I am therefore happy and do not regret my decisions. What anyone else chooses to do is entirely up to them - they deserve no critism - but on the other hand no right to moan either...

Actually I don't necessarily agree with what I just said - bit sweeping statement. Some would love to stay home and really can't. Other's (like me) could have stayed home but chose not to for whatever reason. I know I got given lots of grief from work colleagues for dropping dd off late to nursery after doctor said her red blotches were just an allergic reaction and she was perfectly healthy and non contagious and could go. I felt like the worse mother in the world - and it was my party for leaving the company!

What do the men complain about? Surely it was a joint decision.

Well there's joint and there's joint. My colleague the other day complained because his wife was still at home when the youngest was 3 and the deal was that she'd stay at home for a couple of years (7 years ago). He feels that she is freeloading as she has lots of domestic support too. But then again, his income is £££ and any financial contribution she could make would be negligible, so I think he is being a bit unreasonable.

I must say most men I have worked with who have stay at home wives do love it. My brother says amongst his colleagues it's a matter of pride - I am so macho, so highly paid, so successful I have a woman at home seeing to my every need, particularly if she's Oxbridge and could be on £550k a year. Even more kudos in "forcing" a woman like that to give it up for you.

But men with wives with successful careers do often talk about them with quite some pride too. Many men do like working wives, do love their wife and the fact she is a successful surgeon or whatever it might be. Depends on the personality of the man. The problem comes if a man who really wants a housewife ends up with a woman who wants to work or a man who thinks all women should work ends up with one who wants to stay home.

I think my brother wants his wife to go back to work for the money and to make things fair, in a year or two and I suspect that would be better for them psychologically too but practically it will make their lives more complicated.

We need more women like me (and I think Mme Bovary) saying we work because it's right and as a choice, not just because otherwise the family would starve, that women accept that it's fine for a woman morally to make that choice, that she works because she gets satisfaction from the work and perhaps even, like me, does not enjoy being at home all the time anyway because it can get a bit tedious, rather than woman all the time saying they only work because they have to.

Certainly women always have worked anyway except a very few rich one and even they "work" - it is not that easy being a rich man's play thing, keeping him happy, being at his beck and call, getting your hair done, working out etc can end up being pretty much a full time job.

good post Xenia