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Original poster

So, us rotten lot....

999 replies

scarredpierced · 11/04/2013 10:19

How many of us actually meet Shona's little sidekicks criteria?
She states that all of us on Mumsnet are in our 30s, living in London and have a degree. How many people here meet that criteria?
How many are popping prozac depressed at the shit life we now have with kids?
Damn that woman is nasty!

OP posts:

Thumbwitch · 18/04/2013 23:05

I definitely had more assets than DH, in every way. I also chose to be a SAHM. He quite fancied being a SAHD but I wanted to do it. Plus, he was missing some equipment.

mathanxiety · 18/04/2013 23:59

It is, Juggling, when you think about it. It is maxmising your own resources. Same as putting money on horses or investing in a fund in its own way. You look at what you have and the best possible use it can be put to. Anyone who makes their money work for them (by investing, betting, etc) is following the same principle.

Men use the advantages they have too, in the marriage market -- in a world where they get paid more the best paid have their choice of available women (give or take/in general)

exoticfruits · 19/04/2013 06:44

Marrying up has masses of appeal! I missed out there!

Sparklingbrook · 19/04/2013 06:59

Marrying up just sounds soooo romantic doesn't it?

exoticfruits · 19/04/2013 07:11

I was just thinking- big house, holiday home in the alps for skiing, huge garden to keep me busy and give scope for creativity. The money to follow all my interests without having to juggle the money. Able to take up any voluntary work that I would find fulfilling - even set up a business if I wanted to - perhaps start a portfolio of properties, buying them in auction and doing them up. I could get right off the career ladder or even start on another or just do something like become fluent in another language.
I can quite see why people do it!

JugglingFromHereToThere · 19/04/2013 07:44

You mean all Jane Austen Sparkling - funnily enough we did "Pride and prejudice" for O level at my all girls school, so literally a script I grew up with !

UptoapointLordCopper · 19/04/2013 08:16

Marrying up is mercenary, marry down is romantic. Personally I married sideways.

mrsjay · 19/04/2013 08:43

marrying up makes me think of simpering and fans and empire lines nobody does that do they

apparently my nana married up her MIL owned a shop ( it was out of her kitchen )

exoticfruits · 19/04/2013 08:47

I think that people realise that 'marrying down' isn't romantic after children, or for the long term!

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 09:35

does Xenia ever respond to anyone who challenges her dogma? I've been reading this with interest as I too gave up a promising career in engineering to take time out with my children; mainly due to severe PND meaning I would not have been able to juggle work and children and would have done both very badly and made myself more ill. I have now scuppered my chances of getting back into engineering, but you know what, I don't care. Too long hours, a lot of travelling, missing out on time with my children, stressful and demanding job. No thanks. I now work part time in adult social care, there is always either myself or my husband here for the children, we earn enough to get by (his job pays well, but mine would have paid better had I still been an engineer). Our decision for me to stay home was initially, I wanted to; they were my babies, why would I not want to nurture them? I also had the breasts to feed them with. Nothing at all to do with him being the higher earner (he wasn't) or the head of the household (he isn't) or more superior (I think we all know that women are better than men at most things) or any other perceived anti-woman sentiment.

Surely Xenia, you must see that indiividual circumstances hugely come in to play? and that what works for you doesn't work for everyone and that just because others choose a different path categorically does NOT mean that they are wrong or stupid or fawning to their dominant husbands.

And I should very much like it if you could repsond to my direct challenge of your rather blinkered world view rather than just spouting off more of your claptrap.

mrsjay · 19/04/2013 09:37

not directly no

Glittertwins · 19/04/2013 10:12

DH and I are very much a team. I used to be the higher earner when I was full time. Then DH got a better paid job which made him the slightly higher earner. We decided that I would go part time (I tried full time but that's a different story) because my company was more supportive of part time, and his line of work is not compatible with part time neither would he have been in a job long if he had asked. My full time salary would be a little less than his current salary in a new company but again, we discussed it and I have remained part time so that I can spend more time with the DTs outside of school.

Glittertwins · 19/04/2013 10:13

What I should have also added is that DH works largely from home so he also gets a lot of time with them in the evenings.

Xenia · 19/04/2013 10:25

ALl these teams, all these huge coinicidences that is it the women who shot their career to pieces to be a home drudge for a man, the decision plenty of women then regret.. it just cannot be pure chance. Also it is not true that women earn less than men. Up to age 30 in the UK they earn more now. They get 60% of the university degrees. Even so they marry men who are older and richer then when it comes to giving up work is it Mr Big bucks on £100k a year who has more sense than to want to be chief com and bottle washer at home or Ms Stepford on £50k a year? Now if she were on £100k and married someone on £40k then women's careers tend to be preserved.

I just cannot all these excuses on all these threads ever time that someone is just a coincide that ultimately the woman gave it all up for her man and that it was purely chance that he earns more.

Feelingood · 19/04/2013 10:32

BOLLOCKS I'm bloody fed up of it all.

Women still do not have equality.

But then you can be equal but different.

Glittertwins · 19/04/2013 10:36

I did not give it up for my DH, I can go back full time any time I want. My manager would love me back in full time. I have not shot my career to pieces, I got a very good promotion last autumn, still on (my) part time conditions.

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 10:38

I am not at home being a drudge for my man; I am at home being a drudge for my children so that they can have the very best, loving start in life where they feel valued and not shunted from carer to school and back to carer, never seeing me as I'm too busy or at work, or away on business. BIG differrence! I would do the same whether I had a husband or not.

Neena28 · 19/04/2013 10:40

In 30's and a degree. Not pill popping apart from the odd nurofen though.

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 10:41

and Xenia, you have hit the nail on that head "plenty" of women regret it, but for each one that regrets it, there are more who don't or there would be more women agreeing with you than disagreeing on this thread. Why can't you get that into your ever so educated, bright, clever and high achieveing yet strangely obtuse skull?

Xenia · 19/04/2013 10:41

Plenty of full time working mothers are at work to give their child the very best loving start in life. Most housewives do not home educate and do not co sleep so are arguably unloving on some bases.

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 10:45

Ah well then, I am clearly unloving as I don't home educate .

Shame on me

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 10:47

And I AM a working mother. I work almost full time hours, but thsoe which fit around our family life. As do the majority of working families. YOUR experience is the one that is abnormal.

mrsjay · 19/04/2013 10:50

xenia i don't understand why you don't understand that women can chose to stay at home and look after their children just the same as women chose to go to work and have high flying careers why does womens choices that is not your way of life stick in your throat so much, for somebody who advocates womens rights so much you don't seem to like women who chose to live differently very much ,

Feelingood · 19/04/2013 10:51

It depends how well established your career was before you took time away from it for whatever reason. And it depends on sectors you work, how easy it is to find a job - supply and demand.

LackaDAISYcal · 19/04/2013 10:58

that's what is pissing me off mrsjay. I care not a jot the choices that other people make, as we all do what we can with the life we have made for ourselves, but I object strongly to be doing told that my way of life is intrinsically wrong just because it is different to someone else's and that I am being oppressed by my dominant husbeast because I have been forced to give up my lovely career to pander to his every whim. That is insulting in the extreme.

and for the record, my husband does, on balance, more childcare (he gets up with them and puts them to bed, I do the school run and make tea) and domestic chores than I do, and he goes out to work to earn the larger part of our family income. Now just who is the drudge in my relationship?

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