Professional couple, now SAHM - does it change your relationship?

[mrschop]

I know having kids results in a big shift, anyway. But I had a good career - same field as DH - which I've given up (at least temporarily) to stay at home with the children and support DH. He's just had a big promotion at work, is under lots of pressure so I'm at home alone a lot. So our day to day lives, which had previously been very similar, are now quite different. I'm 18 months in to my SAHM role, and am quite happy, but I do wonder how things will be in 5, 10 years time: I always assumed we'd be 'equivalent' (socially/professionally) throughout our life, and now his career is motoring off while mine recedes in to the past. Although I don't like to define myself purely in work terms, I do think the woman I am now is quite different to the woman he married! I know others must have gone through this, I just wonder how you get used to your expectations as to how your life together will be being completely turned on their head?

CoV - don't worry, Xenia has this "thing" about women marrying up .

My qualifications are also far better than my DP's, and we met in an alumni reunion of a (very prestigious) firm we had both worked in (but me at a higher level than him)

LOL Anna, I met dh at a halls of residence bar, pi**ed as a newt playing pin bal - the fathering skills and the ear ing potential where there for all to see

earning

This thread has been playing on my mind.

I have three children and, after getting the older two off to school, had to take DD for a hospital procedure this morning. All the time I was thinking 'there are loads of women out there who think I'm wasting my education, letting women down, allowing myself to become bovine and boring, because I'm a SAHM'.

I will go back to work, but not till the youngest starts school. It's the right choice for the wellbeing of my family and it is a shame that many MNers just will not accept that and want to make SAHMs feel like nobodies.

"it is a shame that many MNers just will not accept that and want to make SAHMs feel like nobodies."

Being clear about this, it is not any MNers business how other people conduct their lives, unless I suppose opinions have been solicited (which they have not been in this case).

What slightly frightens me is not specific cases but the generality. Swathes and swathes of women start work and training and then give up. The fact that it is mostly women who assume responsibility for families and eschew responsibility for earning makes me think that we live in a more patriarchal society than I had hitherto imagined.

As regards the temporary nature of the absence from the workplace - I am a bit sceptical. I have heard it all before. "I am giving it up temporarily" "Just for a few years while the children are young" all at critical points of maximum career development. Roll on a few years and these Oxford educated lawyers suddenly find making curtains and cordon bleu cookery courses to be fascinating and absorbing activities. Very few of my friends and acquaintances have gone back to work with the exception of a teacher. The shift out of the high-stress executive environment is pretty permanent.

Whilst absolutely not critising any individual choices, what does this mean for society?

What does it mean for society?

Lots of well-educated mothers able to make informed decisions about matters concerning the conduct of their family lives; women with the availability and insight to discuss with their husbands and children their experience of the world and move forward in informed, meaningful ways; families who are well-cared for, and responsible citizens.

Women have a huge amount of power emanating from the domestic sphere.

The converse of that is also true though - little financial power, translating into little economic power, also little political power, under-representation in the work place, inequality in terms of pay and rights, and ultimately accepting that society should be run by men for men

"what does it mean for society?"

Lots of mothers take on those boring low paid part time jobs to fit in with their family life - jobs such as checkout operators, child-minders, pre-school staff, home carers, cleaners etc etc etc

They might not be doctors or lawyers, but they are all very important and valuable jobs to the well-being of society.

Oh fantastic

Working Women = part-time minimum wage jobs as checkout operators

Working Men = doctors and lawyers

Sorry, why don't we just not bother educating women again?

hardly

working women = professional career women + minimum wage part-time working women

and many shades in between

"The converse of that is also true though - little financial power, translating into little economic power, also little political power, under-representation in the work place, inequality in terms of pay and rights, and ultimately accepting that society should be run by men for men"

How odd. I don't feel that way at all. I feel pretty powerful and that I am able, in a society that does not treat women particularly well, to get the things I want out of life.

But I used to feel like that when I worked full-time. I felt totally powerless, a cog in a huge machine over which I had no real influence. I am far more in control of my destiny these days than I was at the height of my earning power.

mrschop are you me?!

Not that many professional woman over forty btw. You were saying how terribly valuable those minimum wage roles were, I believe.

Anna8888 - So what you're saying is that you felt disempowered and unhappy with your lot when you were earning. The point Quattro makes I think, is that we don't all feel that way. Some of us have successful careers which we enjoy and where we feel we have power and influence

And I also think Quattro makes the point very succinctly which is central to all of this: Why do we bother with educating our daughters? I like to think that my dds, who are as bright and able as my ds, aren't wasting their education and qualifications to spend the bulk of their adult lives folding socks, stuck behind a till on the minimum wage or filling their lives with endless lunches out and aromatherapy courses.

I still earn (though not nearly as much as at the height of my earning power). What I feel is that, these days, I make informed decisions about everything I do. When I was working very full time I had to make endless quick-and-dirty personal decisions that enabled me to survive; or else I participated in lengthy, laborious corporate decision-making in which I played a minor part and had little real influence on the course of events.

And, personally, I rate the ability to take my own decisions far more highly than having a large cash inflow each month but no power over what I was doing with my day.

Surely we educate our daughters so that they can make their own informed decisions, based on their own circumstances, as to what to do with their lives?

I loathe the kind of post where MNers say what they hope for for their daughters. None of a mother's business.

"How odd. I don't feel that way at all. I feel pretty powerful and that I am able, in a society that does not treat women particularly well, to get the things I want out of life."

Erm doesn't that just go to prove my point? A society that does not treat women particularly well? Why should such a society exist anywhere in Western Europe?

Well... I think French society doesn't treat women particularly well because it puts such great pressure on them to WOHM. So - no, I'm not sure that proves any point of yours. What do you think?

Completely agree, Anna. It is an individual's choice what they do with their education.

What an odd opinion Anna8888. If we didn't have hopes for our children, then why would we bother with nurturing them, educating them, raising them to love, empathise and take joy in various aspects of life? I have no blueprint at all for what I want my children to do to earn a living. I do however, have enormous hopes for them, and I think as their parent, it's very much my business!

Totally agree smallwhitecat. But many people who achieve a good education, high qualifications and a professional training so also want to utilise that within a work sphere. And our expectations for our daughters should be no different to those for our sons - unless we want to step back a few hundred years and go back to the days of no economic independence for women.

I educate my daughter so that she will know her own mind.

That is the only purpose of education.

She will in all likelihood choose a course of professional training after receiving that education. That is her own business - and she already has a large sum of money in the bank to pay for it, should that be necessary.

"unless we want to step back a few hundred years and go back to the days of no economic independence for women". I rather think that's what Anna wants. With an education though.