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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think that all those generations of women who battled for equality for women have actually achieved nothing!

601 replies

flixx · 02/12/2008 16:59

All that has changed is that women are now expected to go out and work and well as still being souly responsible for the vast majority of domestic stuff and childcare.

Womens lives aren't better or easier, infact they are now so complicated that half of us are so stressed and knackered we don't even remember who we are anymore.

The role of a mother is less valued by society than it has ever been when we all know that it truely is THE hardest job ever.

OP posts:
AtheneNoctua · 04/12/2008 11:08

The problem with what Daftpunk has said is that she beilieves all women with children should stay home -- which is very different from someone who chooses to stay home. No one has said anything against people who are SAHPs by choice.

Why should women choose between children and career while men are perfectly entitled to have both?

policywonk · 04/12/2008 11:12

I don't agree with what daftpunk is saying at all. But I did think that EPPM's post contained some rather insulting stuff about SAHPs - unless it was intended purely as a description of what she would have been like had she chosen to stay at home.

OrmIrian · 04/12/2008 11:17

"when a women decides to have a child she takes on a massive responsibility, and yes, it usually is the woman who decides to have children....why should i have a child and expect the father to stay at home while i go out to work?"

Because the child is the product of sex between 2 people. It has, if it's lucky, 2 parents who care about it and have responsbility for it. Not to mention that in some cases the mother has greater earning potential than the father. Should the family go without so that the father can exercise his right to be the big bold breadwinner while the mother stays at home?

And I object to 'should' because it implies some sort of unwritten rule about women's behaviour simply because they are female.

And you still haven't answered my question as to how a woman ensures she doesn't get into the situation where she has to go out to work? I'd be keen to hear your solution.

daftpunk · 04/12/2008 11:20

to answer your question, it's quite simple, you use contraception until you are financially able to stay at home.

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 11:21

Posting in a spirit of great thankfulness to those women who have struggled for all of us.

I'm grateful for my education. I'm grateful for my job which is always taxing often stressful but great fun. I'm gratified that I am paid more than all my male colleagues at the same level.

Most of all I am grateful for a society that has produced a man like my DH who shoulders more than his fair share of the housework/childcare stuff and is unfailingly supportive.

Just think, you naysayers. Imagine if we lived in Kabul where repression would be our lot for the rest of our lives.

Hurrah for more-or-less equality.

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 11:25

Oh and Daftpunk, you silly thing. I'd like you to meet my infants. They are 10 and 8 and the happiest and most secure people I know. I think they have a great model of equality and fairness in us as parents. It's nonsense to say that their happiness or security has been in any way compromised by my working. I'm sorry that you feel compromised but really it's all in your own head.

OrmIrian · 04/12/2008 11:25

How am I ever going to be financially able to stay at home daftpunk? When my DH earns peanuts and I have always been the main earner?

OrmIrian · 04/12/2008 11:29

In fact daftpunk you are calling for financial eugenics. Only those with money or a high-earning partner should be allowed to breed

Kewcumber · 04/12/2008 11:29

daftpunk - even my 70 year old previously a 1950's housewife mother who stayed at home with each of us three children is more progressive than you

She sacrificed a career in the civil service having passed one of the top in the UK in her exams before having children.

Having dovroced very late in life she is now very bitter that my father who never sacrificed anything is significantly better off than her n his old age.

If she had her time again I think she would have loved the opportunity to work at least part-time to keep her career options open. I'm not at all convinced that any of us benefitted enough from her being at home for it to have been worth her giving up a fulfilling career and a financially stable old age.

Thankfully most people accept that doing your best for your children doesn't always mean having to prostate yourself before them and take no regard whatsoever of your own life.

The wellbeing of my DS comes first, but it doesn't over-ride every other person in the family. Spenign time with a very lovely very familiar childminder whose chidlren and DH he adores is hardly sending him down the salt-mines.

Kewcumber · 04/12/2008 11:31

Social services allowed me to adopt a child as a single woman knowing that I would be going back to work perhaps you should contact them Daft and share your views that he is getting a substandard childhood.

Anna8888 · 04/12/2008 11:33

Kew - do you mind me asking why you changed from a nursery to a CM? If you don't want to answer, no problem

Kewcumber · 04/12/2008 11:38

I never sent him to nursery. I chose not to despite there being a nice and well recommended nursery close to us for one practical and one emotional reason. Practical they are more expensive. Emotional, the nursery felt a little like the home he had been living in - very nice, lovely carers etc etc but I wanted a distinct change from what he had experienced before and to get used to a small family home environment which he hadn't ever had.

It has worked extremely well for us - it also means that he has virtual siblings of different ages who play football etc with him has also tunred out quite nicely for him.

Hopefully he will start preschool part-time in January when I think he is settled enough.

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 11:38

Fark me - where different worlds collide and all that - I have just read this comment:

"why would any mother with a couple of little kid's want the added pressure of a full-time job?"

I did. Kept me sane IMO. The fact that you cannot even imagine a woman wanting to work, let alone wanting to work full-time is jaw-droppingly weird. Where do you live Daftpunk? Somewhere in the 1850s?

daftpunk · 04/12/2008 11:40

maybe it is all in my head, and i know what i'm saying is just my point of view, i personally wouldn't have been able to have had my children and worked full time, it would have killed me emotionally (guilt) and physically.

i have 2 daughters, i hope when they eventually have children they are able to stay at home, but, if they want to go back to work then fine.

and sorry, no matter how far we come, childcare will always be the responsibility of the mother.

Anna8888 · 04/12/2008 11:43

Thanks

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 11:49

"childcare will always be the responsibility of the mother."

Not in our house it isn't. Not in many people's houses. Ye gods, Daftpunk. Truly you cannot make generalisations like that, which are based entirely upon your world view and the limitations you have or that you feel you should have.

sis · 04/12/2008 11:52

It might be your point of view Daftpunk, but it is very strange when you go on to claim to be a feminist. You want to stay at home and look after your children yourself so, in your view, every woman should want to do the same. Feminism is about choice and supporting others who may (or may not)want different things in life.

daftpunk · 04/12/2008 11:56

sis, that's fine, but i would imagin the vast majority of working women would rather be at home if they could afford it.

no one will agree with me, because no one ever does.

Kewcumber · 04/12/2008 12:00

some people will agree with you Daft. And thats fine.

What people object to is your sweeping statements about how everyone should do it and how our children are suffering for it.

I have a smiley face sticker from SS to say DS is doing just fine, thanks - doubt many parents even SAHM doing what they "should", can claim offical approval.

Or do you think that because he's adopted second best is good enough for him?

nkweto · 04/12/2008 12:02

I have missed huge chunks of this conversation since I last commented.. but Daftpunk you are exptrapolating your own personal experience and trying to apply to ALL women. In effect looking to remove choices.

You may believe, that there is some biological imperative that makes a mother a 'better' parent, I disagree.

I simply see no reason why "childcare will always be the responsibility of the mother". I know my husband, brother, work colleagues who are all actively involved fathers would be horrified by such a position.

I work in partnership with my husband in parenting. It is my Feminist position, that parenting responsibility must be shared and all of us (men and women) must take responsibility for our lives and the choices we make.

Do what works for you ..that is great.. but really don't try to demand it for all others.

blueshoes · 04/12/2008 12:03

daftpunk: "maybe it is all in my head, and i know what i'm saying is just my point of view ..."

Let's put it this way. It is all in your head. And what you are saying is just your point of view.

You would do very well in Kabul and in any pre-feminist era.

ditheringdora · 04/12/2008 12:06

But I don't want to stay at home! I would stay at home only if I had a nanny, cleaner & endless pot of money so I could study medicine or summat similar. I need to work for my own satisfaction, I like having a busy day, I like the fact that my lo knows about Mummy having meetings and an office...

daftpunk · 04/12/2008 12:06

yeah well, you may mock..but i can guarantee if i became the next prime-minister and brought in a policy that paid women to stay at home untill their children reached 5...i'd be very very popular!

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 12:07

And there's another sweeping generalisation about women. FWIW I do not know a single working woman who would rather stay at home. Their careers have been too hard won. I do know a number of men however, who don't enjoy their jobs.

Honestly Daftpunk don't you want your daughters to be happy and fulfilled? Don't you want them to have it all? Because they can, you know. They can.

MrsWobble · 04/12/2008 12:09

no you wouldn't. who will pay for this? you won't be popular with them and i think there are rather more taxpaying voters than mothers of preschoolers.