and disloyal to womankind to NOT find this offensive?

[Astrid28]

I am now a SAHM. DH runs his own company and it got to the point where I could give up work if I wanted to. I wanted to, so here I am.

DH transfers money for the food shopping into my account and I also use the joint account for other things, like birthday presents, DD's lessons/pre-school clothes shopping etc.

A friend of mine has described me on several occasions as being an old fashioned housewife.

I laughed and said I suppose I am! She then went on to say that I shouldn't be pleased with the situation. Don't I find my life boring, and what about my life when my kids grow up and leave home - what then?

I'm still very happy with my situation, but should I be?? Am I 'letting the side' down?

oh yes, I should add that I still have a pension fund too - have paid into it for 20 years now and am still paying into it.

Could someone clarify the pension issue for me? As far as I understand it, my DH's pension is not ours, it is his. If he dies, I will get around one sixth of his pension as his widow. So unless a woman has her own pension, if she outlives her DH (as most women do), she will spend her retirement years in poverty.

Is that right, or are some pensions not like that?

yeah she should get her own pension - or rely on state...ha haaaa ha haaa ha

it wont exist if you live that long

I spent 8 years as a SAHM and I loved it. I did loads of mentally taxing things, and did lots of community service.

When my former colleagues would ask me what I did all day, I relied, "whatever I like". That soon shut them up.

My DH didn't transfer money into an account for me. We just had one current account - he earned it and I spent it. I would not have been comfortable with being given an allowance as I am intelligent enough and responsible enough to be trusted.

Milly I meant it's ours in a moral sense not a legal sense.

I am trowelling vitamins down his throat daily to deal with this problem.

Just wanted to echo what a rude, an controlling woman your friend sounds! I'd never say such a hurtful thing to someone I cared about, unless I knew she was really unhappy and needed a push in the right direction.

I'm also enjoying a stint of being a SAHM. I couldn't wait to take a break from working after 11 years, and actually feel that getting my life the way I wanted i.e. marrying someone who would/does support this wish and equally will when I decide to return to work. He is also well versed in childcare and can happily cope with his children for a weekend or so, and always helps at bedtime.

I feel this equality and respect for each other the ultimate in feminism and freedom of choice (for me). Not that I consider myself a feminist. I just like equality. If my husband wanted to take a break with the kids and me work I would seriously consider it. Everyone has a right to do what they want with their lives.

Some friends of mine find they have to work, for their sanity, and one or two never plan to be career girls again; thank god we are all different as it wold be rather dull..

After three years at home I am actually itching to get back to work within a year or so, and to try a different career, not sure how long it'll last though

We are not all the same and your friend should've minded her own business!

Some pension schemes are more generous than that, but most are getting less so by the minute, pretty much.

Although it is also looking more likely that younger people will have longer to save for their pension, as the retirement age is likely to go up before very long.

Well at the end of the day, everyone chooses what they can, and if your h is happy taking 100% responsibility for finances, then its none of anyone else's business.
So from that pov, you arent letting the side down.

I was married to a man who gave up work because he could, after marrying me. I would never willingly enter such a relationship again. The loneliness of the 100% responsibility for the family finances is immense.

Also, I don't think that I could ever give up work totally, and be economically dependent upon someone else. This is an artificial situation, created by the idle rich, and the middle classes after the industrial revolution. For the most part, women through the ages have made families and homes and earned money on the side.
If you only do the home-making part of the deal, you risk ending up as one of those ghastly people who go into a spin about tiny little events in their child's life, and unable to cope with 2 appointments on teh same day. (There are loads of them in our town.)

Milly you're absolutely correct about pensions. My DH's pension is his - I wouldn't get the full caboodle if he falls off the perch first, which is why I've darn well got my own.

BTW - I didn't mean to sound as if I don't enjoy my life now - I certainly do - but realistically, if I'm going to have 20 or so years after I finish working,I am going to want to spend it doing enjoyable things and not living in penury!

On another note, I also think that old saying 'No one on their death bed wishes they'd spent more time commuting on the tube' etc is a bit of a red herring. No, I don't think anyone would think that. And much as I enjoy my commute, radio 4 in the car rather than what the kids want, it's not the commute that I'll look back and be proud of. But I will be thankful that I've had an interesting and fulfilling life, of which being a parent and working in an interesting career are facets. These things are not mutually exclusive. It's been said many times before - you can enjoy every aspect or parenthood as well as having interesting paid work!

violet hill I think the problem (like so many in this world!) is that it is not individuals who peddle the myths, but society, and in particular, the media as a whole.

Most woman, regardless of who they are and what they do, do not spend an great deal of time considering the way in which the rest of the world perceives them: they get on with the life that is theirs in the best way they are able.

I know that when I was a working mum my life was spent considering the mundane aspects of everyday life (much in the way I do now). I certainly wasn't thinking how bloody fab I was to be a "sucessful mother of two". But there was a part of me that believed I should have felt like that: I had a career, children, a big house and a flash car. (Not to mention a nanny that had to do more overtime than I care to recall and a husband I barely saw!)

TBH I did feel like there was this mythical status of "having it all" that I was supposed to have achieved. (No doubt it was driven by a male dominated media who largely believe that working woman are great provided they work twice as hard as men and don't dare suggest a day off cos the kid's sick. - think all those tedious articles on Nicola Horlick types) Not to mention a government whose idea of assisting woman to work is the promise of credits towards childcare that don't get anywhere near the real cost...anyway I digress) But I didn't. Because I hadn't. My whole life was a compromise and it felt quite brave to admit that, for me, my life was a huge compromise.

I think that it is the fact that a lot of this debate is defined in a moral sense that worries me.

Morally, if you are the primary carer of two children then you have a job as important and valuable as anyone else in society. You certainly have, from a moral perspective, a right to have as much say in the financial running of the family as the earner has.

But legally you don't. If you get divorced, you can get some of the assets, but while in the role of living together or married SAHM your legal rights are pretty much nil. Your husband can't let you starve, but legally he can eat out every night, bet large sums on the horses, wear expensive clothes, go on holiday without you, and let you and the children sit at home with not so much as bus fare and dressed in rags. You have no rights.

An employer can't do that. Legally, an employer has to pay you a fair wage for your work. They have to give you working conditions of a reasonable standard. This is not true of a SAHM. It is completely up to your husband to decide your standard of living. Your only option if you don't like his decision is to leave or stop being a SAHM.

Some women have a wonderful time as a SAHM, and there is no reason for them to be criticised. Well done them for picking the right man. But sometimes the right man turns out to be the wrong man, so if my daughter became a SAHM, I would want her to make very sure that she never lost the ability to swiftly re-enter the job market. Because being a SAHM is a very risky profession with no legal safety net.

Where's Xenia? Has she left MN? She normally takes the attitudes of OP's friend.

tinkerbellesmuse - very good post. I'm sick of the label 'having it all' which is only ever applied to women.

The few 'have it all' women I know don't have it but what they do have is 24/7 nanny cover and very little contact with their kids except via mobile phone.

The choices you made and the reasons you made it are the reasons we made before we had DCs too.

stuffitllllama - "Oh abatdead no one thinks the normal stay at home role is that. I'm sure you don't."

Yes, of course, I agree it is not 'normal'.
However, in certain parts of London and the South East it is exactly the life many women have who's DH works in financial services, law, accounting, business etc. Go to some of the tennis clubs in North London and it is quite frightening to see women who have a life revolving round their tennis lesson.

Well I couldn't if I wanted to.

I don't have "opinions" of women who work outside the home: in my eyes we are all equal. But many women and men who work outside the home seem to have opinions about me.

(we have very good "death benefits..")

betadad why do you do that judgey thing? do you know them? do you know what else they do? how do you know they don't spend the rest of the time writing letters to AI prisoners or helping children at school to read?

YANBU. Dh and I have a similar financial arrangement which works for us. He travels a lot for work and has to claim expenses back (no he's not an MP ), so chunks of money disappearing from our joint account wouldn't be helpful for me. Therefore a regular direct debit transfers 'housekeeping' into our joint account from his own account where his wages go.

Not a problem and I certainly don't feel like a down-trodden skivvy.

However, a friend who I hadn't chatted to since I'd given up work commented, when I mentioned the change to being a SAHM, 'just as long as dh understands that it's temporary' . I hadn't said how long it was for or that I was unhappy with the arrangement. It might be temporary, it might be more long term, we'll see how things pan out and what our needs as a family are. I certainly don't see it as second-best in the way that she does!

The whole point of feminism is CHOICE. You sound happy with your choice, so your friend is being rude, jealous, etc. I like working, but only part time, and thats my choice. Every woman is different and I think you should remind your friend of that.

Not when they spend all day there. I know some of them.

then they are keeping tennis coaches and groundsmen employed and all the fixtures and fittings thereof

a great public service

op,if you are happy with your decision.fair enough

there is no "side" no woman is individually answerable to the collective of mums

in fact it is such damaging assertions that there is a right and only way,that is so divisive

some mums work
some sahm

what matters is choice,and having confidence in your decisions

being a sahm doesn't give mum a bigger halo
working doesn't mean you don't care and leave children with reprobates

Well, my version of 'having it all' was to do it in serial, rather than parallel mode - I'm now in my early 50s, since I left university I've spent roughly 10 years each training & working as a librarian, pregnant and/or raising children as a SAHM, and now working as an IT support manager in a school, term time only (which is hbow I have the time to spend on this thread; it's half term) I regard all three as equally valid lifestyles.

In another few years, I might actually end up as a SAHGrandmother, (if DS or DD provide me with any) Not sure whether that would be regarded as 'letting the side down' or as supporting another woman's career (DD's or (hypothetical) DIL's.)

I think I "have it all" and suspect I fit the profile that upsets ABetaDad so much (with the exception of the nanny - even that is a selfish choice, I don't want to share my son's affections). But then my DH "has it all" as well.

If you define "having it all" as being fortunate enough to have your life going exactly how you want it to.

When people talk about what the "original feminists" had in mind, I do wonder how their wishes would translate to current times. Emily Pankhurst and co. took extreme measures to ensure women had a voice in a time untenable for women.

Although I'm not sure they would feel the need for such extreme views in todays modern (Western) world really. We still have a way to go in terms of equal rights, (and equal pay in my former industry at least), but I would love to see how a cryogenically frozen Suffragette would react waking up today..

Abatdead I suspect you would have a similarly low opinion of me if you saw me out and about.

Whilst the children are at school I can often be found at the golf club (not actually playing golf you understand - that would be beyond the pale! , maybe in the gym, by the pool or having a coffee with friends.

I have flirted with tennis lessons (although not the coach) and get out riding a couple of mornings a week. Jeez sometimes I go and get a pedicure!

To outside eyes it may well appear that I'm a lazy arsed b!tch who likes nothing more than spending DH's cash and I cannot say much in my defence to that particular charge. But come 1:30 I am at the school gates and the children get my full attention until bed time - we bake, we read, we play, we swim, we ride our bikes and paint. I ferry them to ballet and football and we have FUN.

When DH gets home from work he doesn't have to worry about whether the bills are paid or there is food in the fridge, whether the children have read their reading books or the post has been collected. I have dealt with that stuff that means he gets to relax. He doesn't have to wonder when I will be home from work or whether I have an early start that will have me in bed at the same time as the children.

That is my contribution.

Oh and I am studying (just for fun) and I have a pension and if all that fails there is always the life insurance !