Men - a meal ticket for life?

[marantha]

Reading the amount of abuse the poster Washwithcare has received here over the past few days for suggesting that her husband does not offer more money to his ex-partner (not NOT married, no contract signed) and her (not biologically HIS) children it strikes me that feminism doesn't really exist- or only exists when it suits women.
Women are still baby machines that try to get as much money off a man as they can, when the chips are down.
AIBU?

Why are there all these threads about me... and how come people posting here have read everythign I have ever posted on Mumsnet... eek... feels a little creepy...

Personally, I think if parents have a moral obligation to make some sort of contribution to jointly raising children (whether that be money, time, cooking the tea or whatever), and if one has made a career sacrifice to do their part, then it seems only fair they are compensated accordingly if the relationship fails.

The problem is that we dn't have any legal mechanisms in place that do this. A cohabitting SAHM will receive CSA CM at the same rate as one who maintained her career - and if the children are of age, she will get nothing.

On the other hand, whilst marriage provides some protection for a SAHM, the purpose of marriage is to protect the needs of the children first, and then to meet the obligation for spouses to support each other.

This tends to work out ok for SAHMs with small marital pots - as cash tend to follow the children. However, without dependent children still at home she will do less well.

There's a lot to be said for maintaining one's foot on the career ladder - even if it a precarious balancing act - as it does provide an assurance that is't there in law... it is well established that men recover financially from divorce far quicker than women...

Then it is her own fault for being childish shatteredmumsrus.

Yes sm there is that approach and the approach which xenia prefers.

But I don't think that back to work in a few weeks etc etc is the right choice for everyone. For people who prefer to take full mat leave or BF, I don;t know it all seems like a very hard approach.

such grandiosity and inflated ego yet no insight.

bampot

Is it really wrong to expect people to support their families, whatever gender the main earner is, and have laws that relfect that?

Currently the divorce laws do reflect that AFAIK.

WashWithcare: the poor man's Xenia.

ISNT,im not saying back to work immediately.i am saying maintain some financial integrity and way of making money,being wholly financially dependently upon someone is imo risky.

xenia is witty and incisive.i like her posts

Men are the ones who get the meal ticket when they marry. Some woman to look after them, clean up after them, entertain them.
Lots of men are 'kept' by their wives who earn shed loads more than they ever could
It should all be about co-operation, with men and women, sharing all the burdens together.
In an ideal world...which this isn't

xenia is impressively singleminded but her message does fail to take into account that other people aren't the same as her. "Women all you need to do is go out and earn a 6 figure salary, a nanny can look after the children" is wonderful advice but sadly only attainable for a handful of people, of either gender.

Personally I like my financial independence and enjoy working. At the same time I have sacrificed my career by having children. I will still have a career, but it won't be as good as it would have been if I had not had children and just worked. Even time out for maternity leave - that 6 months or year counts against you. Hence my few weeks comment - and I know that is what xenia did with one (some?) of hers. I admire her singleminded pursuit of success, TBH, but it's not for everyone.

Whatever people may think, in a lot of relationships it is accepted (in an old fashioned way) that one will work full time and the other will work part time or not at all. The one who drops the hours is usually the woman. She does this on the understanding that her DH will "look after" her and the kids, and that assumption is built into our divorce laws, and of course works the other way around when the woman is the higher earner/takes on the main provider role.

The idea that people should be solely responsible for themselves under all circumstances therefore in our society leaves a conundrum for women. And would leave an awful lot of older very happy men gadding around and an awful lot of older very miserable women dependent on state benefits. The children would likely lose out as well, through inheitance etc.

I just don't see that it is a fair or good idea.

Anyway I'm off to bed, may mull this in the small hours while BF

No bugger compensates me for that, now, do they

ImSoNotTelling, I feel the truly risky situation is if the woman decides to give up working completely and become a SAHM for long periods.

The risk is sufficiently mitigated IMO if the woman continues to work pt in a reasonably responsible position (not minimum wage) and 'keeps her hand in' to an extent that she and her dh decides is suitable for the family work-life balance.

If her dh were to become abusive, leave or become disabled, she can then step up her hours to fill the breach.

Her being at work pt is simply insurance for the unforeseen. The main beneficiaries of this insurance are the dcs.

I see it as a family flying on 2 engines, one main engine and one auxillary. Complete division of labour between the man and woman is not wise. Whilst potentially more efficient in good times, in bad times can leave a family dangerously exposed eg if breadwinner becomes redundant. Each should be able to cover the other's role to a large extent in case something unforeseen happens.

She can take maximum maternity leave and thus bf for a decent time. She will probably bugger up her promotion chances but that still leaves her the option of 're-inventing' herself in another job if the need arises. I think what you are doing is sensible and works for your family.

The upshot is that women should think long and hard if they are thinking of de-skilling themselves workwise by becoming a ft SAHM for a long period.

I mean this particularly for women in professional, managerial and executive type jobs. Obviously if you were working in minimum-wage type or other jobs which you can hop and off with no penalty for long periods out, then this does not apply.

Also, keep contributing to that pension, even if it is just voluntary NI contributions to keep you on track for the full state pension.

I am really sad to read about women who are left in poverty in their old age. Women should look out for themselves: get married or sign some agreement before having children, keep working to some extent, make sure pension is on track, keep some savings/investments aside.

Marriage may protect to some extent, but is often inadequate and won't prevent a sharp dip in standard of living upon divorce.

I actually do agree that it is a bad idea to completely devote yourself to a man/give up everything for him. Over the years I have been careful to maintain contacts in my industry, I dip in and out of part time work/consulting and have picked up the occasional relevant training course. So if push came to shove and DH did have a total personality makeover and do a runner I could support myself and my kids well. Not as well as we do as a team though. "The whole is the greater than the sum of its parts" really applies to family units.

Also have ensured that all property/accounts/assets are in joint names, everything.

You do get compensated for late night feeds ISNT, you get that lovely hush and the warm milky breath of a little baby all snuggled up. (can you tell I am pregnant and really looking forward to a tiny newborn again?)

Lucky you that you are able blueshoes.

With the first two,I went back to work at 9 weeks; ended up in a skilled demanding job having to spend timeaway from home, 4am trains, etc.DH was also working long hours in the transport industr- noted for long sjhifts and breakdowns. His hours plus commute were meant to be 14; they were more like 18 - 20. 6 days week.

DH had a breakdown and was at homewhsilt I worked.

Dh got back into a job,weboth worked and then we planned ds3.

When I was on mat leave dh was amderedundant, westruggled and then he found another job. Duringt hat timre we realised ds1(then about 3) had SN and his new job didn'tworkfor chidlcare with the lack ofcar etc (car essentialfor both jobs).So I gave upmine,didn'tgo back.

DS3 had more severe SN.

When ds3 was almost 2 I went back to college and started working towards Uni, graduated in 2008and am doing an MA oneevneing a week now so not exactly sat on my arse, but working would be impossible-we'vetried to work it out and cannot. DH was maderedunant again last year (should point out after 6 years in post as it sounds bad otherwise!), that industry is collapsing lcoally so he has started up a small businesness PT whilst retraining at Uni.someone on here toldme he wasn't entitled to Uni as he could train in less time-well this year gets him his electricalregs, and the next two years brings in rigigng and pyrotechniclicences- all 3willfit in with the small business. So the 3 years of Uni is very very relevant to our longer term total independence.

given that I now get CA I would love someone totellmeexactly how eieht of us could have mainained totalindependence from our mixed bag?Fortuantely I love dh dearly and hopewe will never split, but whist we are blessed in many way, in other ways we have been thrown enough bad luck to make anything but surviving hard at times.Maintaining separate independence on a JIC basis was not even on the agenda.

I think it is worth bearing in mind Peachy that not everyone does split and not all men are bastards! Easy to get a skewed view of marriages/men on Mumsnet where people mostly post about the bad stuff and the good stuff isn't really mentioned...because that is normal and not really worth mentioning.

I know Morloth,and I do think DH are pretty well likely tos tick through it- we'vehad our tests after all. given that I was living with him 1month after first date, enaged a month alter,pg a month alter and amrried a year after that I don'tthink technically we should still be together at allLOL,esp.when you throw in the stats for marriages with SN. We'llcelebrate a decade amrried in AMrch.

OTOH DH's Dad left MIL after 40 years so I do know that you can never ever be certain.

I just can't imagine leaving someone after all that time. Can you imagine having to sort out a whole new life just when you would be wanting to slow down a bit? Waaaay to hard, I shall rely on DH's extreme laziness when it comes to sorting stuff to keep us together.

I think nothing is ever certain. But you can't live your marriage always keeping an eye out for getting out if necessary. It is madness.

LOL at extreme laziness; all the other women DH meets are about 18, he says he hasn't the energy LOL.

FIL left for many reasons- MIL has a lot of mental issues and she had effectively prevented him from seeing DH and his gransons,its had tremendous fallout and imo has genuinely wrecked BIL's life as MIL has managed to prevent him having a GF ever sie(BIL took over mortgage half, she has banned all GF'sfrom house- he is 35 FFS and it is that treatment FIL got so he knew it owuld happen- OTOH as I said BIL is 35,no is in his vocab.....).

I don'tgo through loife worried TBH: I feelsecure and I know that if I have to for any reason,I willsope-I think for us DH dying is as likely as a split and you can't prevent the risk of that. But I don't go through life thinking only of the worst- what's the point? I'd rather work it as best I can, fitting in my MA and enjoying ds4. We'dalways wanted a ds4 and tbh we thought as I was 'stuck' at home we may as well... and we're glad we did, very.

Sorry, the "you" in my posts should have been generally yous.

I agree with Blueshoes - I've always worked, albeit part time and even with a severely brain damaged ds and a dh who worked away all week, for just that reason, that if we split up I could be at least a bit independent, and also that I couldn't make a career out of caring for a disabled child, I've seen others do it and it's not easy or, in some ways, healthy. I appreciate, though, that lower end jobs would not have given me the flexibility that a professional job has always given me.

I find this idea that people simply advocate what is convenient/sensible/desirable for them as being the "correct" option, and people who choose to do otherwise should not be protected, a very hard approach too.

The idea of continuing in a high powered career (assuming that you have one in the first place) normally necessitates very abbreviated mat leave and working full time long hours (for all but the very lucky). This suits some, others find it undesirable.

The idea of going part time and taking full mat leaves (my choice) means that career prospects dip but are hopefully not completely scuppered. Again it suits some and not others. Many people do not work in jobs which pay well enough to cover the childcare. Many people feel that the early years with their children are something they will never get back and they want to spend their time at home with them. And so on.

Some people SAHP because they want to, because they can't afford to work, because their OH does a job which does not fit in easily with their OH working.

The thing is that in practice if women are to maintain their standard of living on divorce then they have to take the first option. The second and third options will mean less savings, a big hit to the pension, etc. (assuming that we are talking normal type jobs not extra super ones).

So women either need to knuckle down and work full time, stick with their men no matter what for the financial security, or face an uncertain retirement (at best). Of course the children will suffer in all of this given that they usually end up with the mother, and obviously if she is poor then so will they be.

It seems to me that the way our society is constructed, this idea of no spousal support under any circumstances only serves to allow men to do exactly what they want with no consequences, while women have to toe the line to their men or agree to working full time all through their children's lives. This feels like a real step away from the choice, felxibility & equitable approach that I thought we were moving towards.

For instance pension rules have recently been changed so that women can receive full state pension with less years work. Presumably this would need to be reversed for the sake of fairness to men.

This is all going backwards, isn't it?

Morloth yes it can happen after all those years - it happened to my mum (although he came back after a few years).

The idea that she should be left skint while he swanned off with his new younger woman, and his full pension and all assets, after decades of marriage, it feels so wrong.

She did work part time but her pension was peanuts and she had a few years out.

I am quite TBH this idea that SAHM are silly and deserve to be left destitute on divorce.

Its those women again, expecting years of love and work to be acknowledged by a man. Honestly, next we will be expecting them not to beat us when we get gobby.

It is quite an old fashioned idea really that men have all teh advantages and if women want to get a piece of it, they need to behave as men in the workplace ie not have children or at lease pretend not to.

My ideas about parental leave rather than maternity leave, and opening up flexible working options including part-time for everyone includng men, and more afforable childcare and so on and so on suddenly seem very out of synch.

I also feel it moves away from the notion of family, helping each other, and towards an idea of a house with some individuals living togetehr in it, each pursuing whatever is best for them.