India Knight: "Wives feel like chattels, scared to leave in case they find themselves on the breadline"

[WideWebWitch]

here

Does anyone feel like this? I remember an old thread called something like "SAHMS, what if he leaves you?" - what do sahps/sah women in this position feel? (I can see that it applies to men and women so sahps not just sahms but let's face it, the majority are women)

Btw, I have no issue with anyone being a sahp if that's what they want or a being wothp, interested to know what people think.

Rebelmum - Well I married him before his career became International. He would have had to make his career fit in with his family rather than making his family fit in with his career.

That is the contradiction with IK monkeytrousers. She's always banging on about not leaving it too late but she also thinks you should be financially independent. Sadly for most women the reality is that's an either/or situation. It's not a choice.

I think the statistics are very suspicious indeed.

Lies damn lies as they say.

I believe Xenia married young and had her first child at 22. She maintained her financial independence by continuing to work fulltime. I think the early days of her marriage were tight financially.

I represent the other end of the spectrum. Married at 33, first child at 34. I was already financially independent by the time I married, bought a property when I was 29. Felt I could go pt without compromising on living standards and it has worked out.

I appreciate that it is not a choice for a lot of women. Apart from when Mr Right turned out, I did not fall into this by accident: been thinking about it since I was a teenager and aimed my sights and chose my career accordingly. Together with hard graft during my early career, saving, being prudent financially - how boring I sound. I know I am lucky as well.

Swedes, an international job is particularly hard for a family life, and in lots of ways unfair for the spouse.

Well Xenia made a choice to work full time. Again, most women don;t actually want to do this, many want to spend the first year with their baby. It wasn't a dilemma for Xenia, she wanted to work full time. Again, she is in the minority there. If we are talking about choices, we need to hear what the majority choice is as well as the minority ones.

You also had great foresight and determination Blueshoes. Those are incredibly admirable qualities, but again, you might be in a minority in having them; not that any of these qualities are solely innate - it is mostly to to with environment and how you were brought up.

I personally ahve had moments where the OP would apply to me yes, especially when DH was / is ill (he's OK atm but has dips like anyone else with his dx).

But I don't have the option of working FT (2 children with ASD), pre-ds3 I was the working one whilst Dh was at home recovering and I imagine he felt pretty much the same way then.

Fortunately i love Dh but if soemthing happened I would feel my options were reduced through a situation not of my own making.

When my maternity leave for dd (first child) was coming to an end, I did not want to go back to work at all. But putting on my hardnosed financial security hat, I knew I had to keep my toe in the job market. Ended up hanging in there tooth and nail for a flexible role at my company - even consulted an employment lawyer when my application did not go my way, and it took a year of being in a unsatisfactory position before I landed the current role which is great.

Now I cannot imagine not working.

Our choices (heart) can be informed by certain personal goals (head) as well.

Blueshoes yu are right to an extent but there will always be poelpe whose choices ARE non existent- people like me whoa re acrers and don't have childcare. I didnt want to leave ds1 and ds2 eiehr and went back regardless when they were 9 weeks old, but no childcare was going to cope with ds1's behaviours after ds3 came along.

It is good to plan and make provision, but there is nobody who is completely safe from the unpredictable circumstances life throws at us. I am studying now to return to work when i can and Dh is setting up a business so he can be here for the boys when needed but no amount of foresight would have predicted where we are now.

Oh absolutely, don't disagree with that at all.

Thing is, we also don?t know how happy marriages ever were for the majority of people! We as women certainly do have more choice than we ever did, but many of us are also still trapped after we have kids because of the way the workforce is structured, still around male working patterns, not partnership working patterns.

This could be a major contributer to why we are unhappy in our relationships. I'd take a guess that it is the biggest contributer to relationship strife.

But the biggest problem is that our society still exploits a woman's choice to care for her infant and children by not valuing this essential and vital social role. It doesn't exploit it as much, and the gains should be noted, but it still has a long way to go also.

Peachy, agree about best laid plans ... I don't deny I am very lucky (it could all end tomorrow). You and dh are putting your dcs' best interests first - I admire that.

MK, "not that any of these qualities are solely innate - it is mostly to to with environment and how you were brought up."

If it is how I was brought up, everyone here has the ability to influence their daughters (and sons). My mother was an SAHM but that did not stop her from valuing financial independence, even if she did not have it herself. Actually, over the years, from sheer saving and canny investments, she is now more financially stable than my father in retirement - so it is still possible without an income.

For my dcs, I won't be shy to tell them they must study hard, get a degree that gives marketable skills (and avoid easy options), aim for high earning jobs, work hard and then the rest is up to them. Fingers crosssed.

Aim high, and hope for the best, is as much as we can do.

Yes you can learn these skills absolutley! But still, it's only fair to say it will be harder for some, depending on where they are starting from. But good on you and your mum!

Did anyone catch the telegraph on saturday city dads are being allowed to work from home now so they can spend more time with their kids, I think there is some recognition that kids benefit from seeing their parents.

here

They do as long as they are getting on. Dunno about you but I hate haviong DP here if he isn't able to 'engage' with anything domestic. It's still all about 'me breadwinner' 'you caregiver'

Yes they were all photographed next their sheds

Not quite sure what your saying but if you're not the bread-winner then you are the care giver. What alternative are you aspiring to?

I thought working women were worse off in divorce cases these days because their earnings were taken into account? SAHM are better off aren't they?

i have to agree with IK. I have often felt the way she describes in her article. not always, but often.

I, to a certain extent, do feel a bit like this. I went to university and chose a degree and a career that is highly specialised = very few jobs even less with a decent salary. I had to move to the other side of the country to get a decent job. Then babies came along. To have afforded a modest 3 bedroom house we would have to have moved even further from our work so maybe a 1 1/2-2 hour commute a day. So DD1 would be in nursery from 7am-7pm even 3 days a week I wasn't prepared to do it, I would have been working for peanuts especially after travel costs as well. I also had to travel at least once a fortnight overnight.

To allow me to be able to stay at home with DD1 we moved back to the other end of the country, I'm now pregnant with DB3 and a career seems a very long way away. We have no family support whatsoever so any childcare would be expensive. I am highly qualified in one area only cannot get a job up here so am unemployable. Retraining is the only answer and I will be doing something in the future once at least 2 of the DC are at school but even that is going to be difficult.

So sometimes I do feel really trapped but on the ohter hand I am grateful I get to spend the best years on my childrens lives with them. I couldn't have my cake and eat it (career and look after my children myself) something had to give and they are worth it

The law is very weighted on the side of the woman, men stand to lose a lot financially, to the point it can be just as unviable for a man to leave. Personally I wouldn't stay in a relationship if I was unhappy and would parent alone if necessary, even if that meant a reduced budget.

It's not really quality of life if your that unhappy, makes you wonder what we're aspiring for.

rebelmum that depends on how you are set up I think- if we had a mortgage in joint names I would be entitled to more.

But for example, we had to sell the house when DH was ill and now we rent in joint names. Should we split, I would have to move and take the kids as the landlord doesn't deal with benefit claimants (like many), and I couldn't therefore maintain the rent. We'd end up on an estate in a city over an hours drive from anyone we know (we currently live in a nice village close to city), without a car or any form of childcare etc as my family don't drive.

So whilst we wouldn't starve yes, it would be a very scary vision of the future.