To choose not to work after DC? Why?

[Marghe87]

I totally get it. Childcare costs are ridiculous, better to spend time with the family than with colleagues as those years will never come back etc... But, in the long run, aren't the risks too high?
I mean, being a SAHP means:

• giving up one extra income that can make a big difference in a family life (ie: being able to afford a better house, family activities, travels, pay for the children's education etc... obv it is different for those with a partner that earns a big enough salary to cover all the above)
• giving up a job/career that was build with efforts and dedication and no longer being financially independent
• putting the future of the family at risk in case the working partner either: decides to leave you, dies, gets ill, loses his/her job etc
• stop paying into your pension which means a very low income later in life
• what happens when the kids are older and no longer need you at home all the time?

I don't mean to be harsh will all of the above but I am really keen to understand why a person (90% of the times a woman) feels like giving up their job is the best option for themselves and their families in the long run.

I'd like to hear from women that made different choices.

The depressing thing about some posters on this thread is that they think if you don’t earn xxxx amount & put your career on hold, then you are somehow a naive simpleton whose downtrodden as your DH/DP will royally fuck you over at some point. I don’t want to be the same as a man. If I’m doing the same job with the same hours I expect to get the same pay & treatment but we are fundamentally different & most women do take on the childcare role. There is nothing wrong with that and it’s so depressing to think that people shouldn’t view their relationships as a partnership for fear of it all going tits up. My DCs are older now but my DH can’t remember half the stuff they did growing up as he was out at work whereas I’ve been to every assembly, every parents evening, every school pick up & feel so privileged to be able to do that. If I decide to go back to work full time I certainly won’t be wishing I had been sitting in a office for the last x number of years missing it all. I realise I am lucky to have had the choice to do that.

Because I loved my DC more than I loved my 6 figure salary, and we could (just about) afford for me to be a SAHM.

Currently snuggled up on sofa watching Danger Mouse. I have the best job in the world.

And shouldn't your DH have experienced some of that?

I know you may say he didn't want to. He SHOULD want to.

Well we couldn’t both physically be there all the time. He has come to lots of things but not all of them. It’s the choice we made as a family. Like I said earlier in the thread, I didn’t have a career just a job, so it wasn’t a hard choice for me. Even if I hadn’t had children I still could never earn what my DH earns so maybe it was an easier choice for us as a family. My point is women shouldn’t be made to feel guilty if they chose to put their career on hold to look after their children, especially when they are very young.

Groan. Again. So why were your prospects so limited and DHs weren't?

As it is though, when two graduates end up so unequal as to have one only able to work on MW and one able to comfortably keep a family - something isn't right there.

You think there's something wrong there. But it's happening time and time again and it isn't changing...so maybe it's something fundamental, something natural that just won't change. Anyway, there are only so many jobs available that are comfortably able to keep a family so it's unsurprising that that inequality exists in many relationships. Quite apart from the fact that, as many people have said here, they aren't exactly existing comfortably, rather existing because they can't afford to go back to work. In which case it's not a matter of sexism but the basic problem that too many jobs are under appreciated and under rewarded in society... which goes for men and women.

I think as long as that attitude prevails, women will get a bum deal.

Because of unrelenting high levels of stress. You can live like that some of the time, but not forever. I worked FT with one and while it was hard, it was doable. Throw another baby in the mix and the balls start dropping all over the place. Throw a third baby and you live your life permanently in the fast lane. May be fun for a short while, but it soon wears off. I started falling apart mentally and physically. Relationships can break down because there is never any downtime and no slack whatsoever, you are both tired and fed up. Kids live their lives in childcare or strapped in car seats while you are trying to catch up on everything.

Now I more or less SAH (self-employed very part-time), stress for everyone in the family has considerably decreased. DH can concentrate on his work and knows he won’t be bothered about anything home/children related. I don’t need to stress because I have the day to fit jobs in. I now can do jobs that never got to be done when I worked FT. I am in charge of my time and organise it how I wish. I have time and headspace to organise/clean the house, cook proper food food, get all shopping done etc etc etc

I only really have 5 productive hours while the kids are at school, so it is not ‘all day’ by any stretch of imagination. With a family of five, I am very busy, every day. But I don’t feel stressed, because I am in control and if I need a break I can make time for it.

Kids also got much better quality of life, they can have their sleep in the morning, go home after school and play outdoors or go to activities. I am there to enable all of this.

Everybody has nutritious meals and gets to live in a tidy ordered house with no stress.

Obviously, all the negatives of SAH which you listed in OP are true. But you reach a point where life is ridiculously stressful for everyone in the family and you are all miserable, but you get next to no financial reward for putting all of you through this sh£& for years and years and years. You pay out for childcare, for work clothes, travel expenses, holiday clubs etc etc What is left is just not worth all the stress and misery. Obviously we now have to manage on one wage, but we have gained in a lot of other aspects of our lives.

I have got three children and no family support though. Somebody who has got one DC and family support on tap may have a very different experience indeed and can’t see the issue.

when two graduates end up so unequal as to have one only able to work on MW and one able to comfortably keep a family - something isn't right there

That’s life unfortunately. If one person gets their foot on the ladder and is able to climb while the other never gets the chance and is stuck at the bottom still trying to get on the first rung, after several years there will be a vast inequality between the two.

But they did "get the chance" in terms of opportunity, so something is wrong.

So, if they had a chance and didn't take it, maybe it wasn't for them?

You are not just shouting up the chimney artfully, I hear you!
But in my case you're preaching to the converted.
I think it seems too emotive a topic for unbiased discussion.

There is an element of ingrained expectation. Men who expect to be facilitated, and women who expect to facilitate.

It's not the bum deal. If both the man and woman have the same starting point (eg meeting during same course at uni) and the man goes on to have career while woman becomes SAHM, then it is YOUR PREJUDICE which is seeing that as the woman being worse off because you are judging success and a worthwhile education soley on earnings/money/career.
I think someone mentioned it earlier, but it's worth saying again - men and women are not actually the same, and biology probably does have something to do with the decisions we make. It is probably also no coincidence that it is (more often) the man who walks away from his family or leaves, rather than the woman. We are, very generally speaking, bound to our children in a different way.

haha thanks Zoom

Problem is Kitchen the majority of people on this thread claim their DHs went to work, they stayed home because their DHs were already massively outearning them before children. Something is hugely wrong, then.

I think once it becomes as socially unacceptable for a man to leave his family as it is for a woman it would happen far less frequently. The fact that it happens now is largely because society condones it, excuses it and permits it.

they stayed home because their DHs were already massively outearning them before children.

Well in my example my DH outearned me because even before I met him I had made the decision not to chase a career that I wasn't interested in. I still have no idea what I want 'to do.' I really enjoy customer service and the flexibility of jobs in the service industry. I have never had the desire to work full time, I would always have preferred to have less money and more time to do the things I enjoy. DH had found something he enjoyed and that just happens to be full time.

OP will never change their mind.

I can’t imagine they asked the question open to have their mind changed.

SAHM are stupid idiots whom deserve to be left by their husbands with no career prospects so feminists can say ‘told you so’.

You are kind of contradicting yourself, Artfully. You speak of the importance of a well paid woman to protect herself and her children from an errant husband and yet you say it shouldn't be acceptable but here you are, almost expecting it from them before it's even happened.

Huh?

Tbf raspberry most people don't have the luxury of considering which of their skills will be most enjoyable to the world, it's just paying the bills.

Yet you're saying we should all be working, regardless of paying the bills? If that is all that work is then you're contradicting yourself a bit aren't you!? Anyway I was trying to make the point that both of us actively chose the path we have taken, even before we met and chose to have a family. Believe me, both DH and I understand what it's like to have jobs that make us utterly miserable.

But they did "get the chance" in terms of opportunity, so something is wrong

In most professional fields there are more graduates than there are jobs. If there are two applicants for a job, only one can be successful. It might not be anything to do with qualifications or ability to work hard. Employers choose between candidates for a variety of superficial reasons. And there is still a lot of prejudice against women, especially women of child bearing age.

Not really Raspberry

My first post here did say that families need to do what's right by them and that's all fine. But to go back a step further than the "well this is right for my family" (OK) I am asking - well why is the right thing for the family to have the woman stop work or go part time?

Overwhelmingly the answers appear to be because there wasn't much to give up - in a partnership prior to kids when in theory all should have been equal(ish) the man's career was already bounding ahead while the woman's hadn't started.

That indicates to me something is amiss.

And that prejudice is there because ...

The prejudice is there because unfortunately women leaving to have children is often a net negative to the company. Whether it be expense, loss of skills, having to fulfill a vacancy, not being entirely sure they will come back.

Not because men hate women. Female bosses can also not want to take women on.

Overwhelmingly the answers appear to be because there wasn't much to give up

Sometimes there’s “not much” to give up. Other times it’s a choice between two people and the man is the higher earner of the two. Imo that has a lot to do with women wanting to “marry up”. There is still the ideal of the dominant male - taller, wealthier, more powerful - and many women purposely look for that. Then they have kids and the woman finds that as the lower earner she ends up doing more childcare and working less.