I want to be SAHM, do I need to marry a banker to become one?

[PoliteEagle]

After being single for a couple of years and doing all the healing, I am now ready for a relationship leading to a family. The thing is, I want a kid but I want to be SAHM, at least till they go to school and then part time max. I have a good professional job but I don't have career aspirations and not really passionate about my job. I just don't see myself juggling work and childcare responsibilities. I have only 3 friends who are SAHMs, two are married to traders and one to big3 management consultant. In nowadays economy is it the only option to be SAHM? to marry a lawyer, banker or a consultant? The last thing I want is to choose SO by their job as it feels incredibly shallow. SAHMs how did you became ones?

Maybe find a less ‘meaningless’ job? Non-office jobs also exist.

I'm not negative about sahms at all. But I do think if it's something you value and know it's a priority for yourself, you have to make preparations over a number of years to help make that dream a reality rather than only specifically target rich men as this is more likely to help achieve the thing you want. I mean there's lots of other things that a dad should bring to the table than a wallet. To find a rich man, who wants a sahm, who is also all the other things you need from a father is a gamble and I would be concerned that the op would overlook other important things to stay at home which she might not have overlooked if she had a bigger saving pot.

The benefit of staying in a job is having more autonomy. My dc are in primary school (later yrs) & Im still p/t. I’d rather be p/t forever then have some time off and go back f/t.

I also spend a lot on stuff like overseas travel (go abroad 4 times per year), beauty, gym and other hobbies. If I remove this, I will be living very unhappy life

You realise this is likely to all go out the window when you have children anyway? Regardless of your DH’s income, you won’t have time for all of that.

Look, if you can find a tech billionaire to marry, good on you. If you end up with Andy the perfectly nice actuary for Aviva, living in Burgess Hill, you’ll need to decide then whether you want to be a SAHM and forego your holidays and Botox, or keep working and still afford the gym membership.

Make a decision about it when you actually find somebody to marry you. planning your married life now when you aren’t even seeing anyone is like me planning my future renovations for the new Omaze house. Fun but pointless.

at 45 i think considering being SAHM is not longer an option. If i were this age, I would just look for a partner with similar values, interests and level of income so that we could enjoy childfree live together like sharing hobbies, going out, travel a lot and so on

@Inlaw you agree then 👍

If your post is legit without being harsh you sound a bit naive.

If you meet said rich man, hit it off and he pops the question, what happens if he’s infertile? Are you going to make him do a sperm count before marrying him?

Hopefully that won’t happen I’m sure it won’t, but what if it does or it takes years to conceive?

What if he loses his job and you have to work?

If you have a baby, how are you going to maintain the tidy house you like, cook meals, get up in the middle of the night as befitting your gender stereotypical idea of a sahm and still look immaculate each morning? Or will you have a Nanny?

What if you get postnatal depression or you just hate being a stay at home mum!

Life can throw you a million curve balls which is why marrying for love is best. Filter the dating pool by all means but if you don’t love your dh and / or he just sees you as a trophy wife then when the chips are down you won’t have the support you need.

I think a bit of self reflection and growth is needed before you’re ready to get into a more serious relationship again.

I wouldn't want a guy who earns less than me. I would struggle to respect him. At least someone on my level of earnings. Hypergamy is a real thing

I didn't like my job and really wanted to stay at home with any future children. I met DH later in life and had made considerable savings, and he was also sensible with money. We paid off our mortgage which obviously helps a lot. He earns around 80k so we are not talking banker salaries. My wage would barely have covered childcare so another incentive.

My DH is supportive. If it was his free choice though I think he'd choose for me to work. I will go back when dc is at school. He certainly wasn't seeking a sahm and I wasn't seeking a man at all when we met!

I know three sahms whose DHs aren't rich at all. In fact, all three are in church work (two youth club workers and one vicar). They all live very frugally (and the vicar of course has a house provided). I know another who met later in life like me, and another whose parents sadly died young and left an inheritance.

I always think many people could afford to be sahms if they wanted to, given the cost of childcare, but most I know either don't want to be sahms, or like working, or are single parents, or don't want to give up their current lifestyle, or don't want to risk bring financially dependent.

We don't have foreign holidays every year anymore but it's so worth it to me.

I think the issue you might come across is how many men are aware of a rather common problem many have faced due to no fault divorce laws:

• Woman wants rich career man to marry and wants to be SAHM.
• Children reach primary school age, SAHM has less to do, is bored because career man is busy doing career things to fund a household budget.
• SAHM divorces career man and court awards her +60% of absolutely everything and she never has to work a day again in her whole life.
• Career man is left thinking WTF just happened... and tells everybody.

Its not an uncommon story and many many men know it, most have heard it first hand.
So they buy into the 'fighting for equality' argument too and say "well if I get married it's only going to be with someone in a career making as much cash as I do, otherwise I'm just sitting on permanent financial risk". Or they just don't bother getting married.

Good luck though, but there are very different schools of thoughts out there over the last 60 years or so, you just have to find someone who has values aligned with yours.

I'm a SAHM until our child goes to primary and will then work part time, gradually increasing as he gets older.

My husband earns around 60k. We budgeted for the 5 years on 1 salary.

We were together a long time before having a family. We come from similar families, have the same values in life and both wanted our child to have a parent at home in the pre school years.

My husband is great, works hard and is a very involved, hands on dad. We're very happy.

It's not always doom and gloom for a woman to be a SAHM. Sometimes its tough mentally but no more so than being at work could be - and I much prefer being at home! Worked very hard for 20 years and this is much nicer.

Yet you don’t think that a man would struggle to respect you, if you earn less than him?

Thank you :) I also think it is the best for children. So sad that nowadays it is viewed as materialistic by so many people.
How is your family managing? Is your husband able to support you? Or you rely on savings made during your preSAHM days?

So men have to work and have no choice because women want to stay home and play house?

I work in a field where salaries are high enough to support one income families - professional engineering types - traditional male dominated field. However I'm seeing that those of the age to be starting families want more equality in both working and raising children - eg two of the men in my team are currently off on parental leave, and quite a few of the men are part time post kids. These are the kind of men I'd choose to raise children with.

How old are you?

@Edingril Absolutely this. And if a man doesn't earn enough for his partner to be a SAHM and pay for all of her beauty treatments then obviously they're not a "real" man and shouldn't be respected(!)

Why would you struggle to respect a doctor, teacher etc? Tbh you sound horribly materialistic.

Love doesn't work like that. You don't fall for someone's bank balance.

You also said up thread being a sahm would be less stressful than working with a child. Not always true. I wfh pt when kids were small, they went to childcare give mins away, would have been much more stressful to be a ft sahm. I don't think you can understand the stress of 24/7 childcare before you're in it.

youre a gold digging prossie

you go girl

Partly. But also not. You would have to be someone who’s happy to live off c. 40k or less a year pre tax.

My inheritance will likely be around that amount. I personally don’t consider it never work again money. But some could sure.

I expect of myself to grow that wealth not dwindle it away. I can’t imagine being a person who would be given unearned wealth and eat away at it. That baffles my mind.

If my partner though that was never work again money then I wouldn’t marry him.

So I don’t know if you agree with me. But yes I agree someone could live off it if they lived incredibly frugally and the markets went in their favour.

Completely agree with cutting your cloth to your needs. We started off on very, very low income and lived accordingly as I wanted to be home with our children so chose very carefully what we spent our limited money on. Things have since swung the other way for us financially and I’m so happy I chose what felt most important to me at that time. It can be done and very happy children raised with limited money and a stay at home parent.

If both parents are at work they will just have to pay someone to "play house" then!!!

I bring a property in London, a car, two master degrees in STEM, a highly respected professional qualification, good job with good income. Plus I am looking after myself, cooking and eating healthy food, going to gym, swimming pool and yoga regularly. Travel a lot, including long haul, interested and can converse about literature, history, art, theatre, speak 3 languages. (Sounds like a bragging now :))) I bring a lot but also want a lot. And yes have traditional old fashioned values. I guess i would be better off being born in 1950s..
I am not coming from wealthy background and don't have those family links and connections, I am fully self made.
I dont necessarily want to be a trophy wife, just spend time with kids as much as i can while they growing up. Hard to understand for me why it is so bad nowadays, wanting to look after your kids, your husband and your house.

But you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be so worried about “lifestyle”. There are plenty of women who are SAHM in a household where the earner is on a lot less than £100k, yet you think that wouldn’t be enough because it’s only £5k a month after tax, and after mortgage and bills there would ‘only’ be about £2.5k a month to live on. So yes, you are a gold digger, as your concern is primarily for the money, not the husband or potential children.

As an aside, you mention that ‘our mothers and grandmothers generations didn’t have to work’. Are you from a wealthy family? Or a country where things are very different to the UK? Only I am from a working class family and the women in every generation had to work, even after after children, as they couldn’t afford not to. It’s just than in addition to things like badly paid cleaning jobs, they also had to do everything at home and all the childcare, without any labour saving devices. So I am grateful to be able to earn good money, and have a good job, despite being a mother.

@PoliteEagle yes I agree 45 is too late to be a SAHM but you've missed my point- she's 45 and single because it didn't work for her. She passed up on lots of lovely men because she was focusing on the wrong things.