Don't give up work to be a SAHM unless

[akaemmafrost]

You have a HEFTY private income or can work from home.

I gave up work, usual reasons, wages would barely cover childcare, WE wanted kids to be at home with a parent.

Fast forward. I now have two dc, the father of my dc cheated on me, physically, emotionally and financially abused me.

One of my dc has SN and cannot attend school for the moment.

I've been out of work for 10 years now, I have no profession. In 6 years time our child support will stop as will most of our benefits. I will near fifty having not worked at all for 18 years.

My future is shit. Utterly grey and bleak. All I have to look forward to is a state pension. While my ex earns a fortune, travels the world and has new relationships.

This is reality for me. So think long and hard about giving up work to stay at home because no matter how shit your job is it's preferable to my future don't you think?

And it was all decided for me by a man who decided he hated me and didn't want to be married anymore and a child being diagnosed with significant SN.

It's that simple.

I haven't compelled him to take promotions, our circumstances have. Just like circumstances forced me to carry two babies rather than the one we planned. He didn't make me have two babies anymore than i made him take promotions. Don't know where you read that? I don't make decisions for him.

If I have to take jobs I don't like, as I have done in the past, then that's what I'll do. What's your point? A second wife has a choice about becoming a second wife. Don't know why she'd complain about a husband fulfilling contractual expectations he entered into before they met.

Ah I see you said 1st wives. I wouldn't feel aggrieved because before I met him I was on benefits, if he left I would be much better off than that if not financially then economically because I have had financial investment from him into my dc and my home and my education.

Well, 70s liberation was supposed to liberate men from the grindstone as it liberated women from dependence. The objective was interdependence for couples.

As this has been effectively rejected by the male-led status quo, I can't help thinking the men reckon they've got the better deal as things stand!

I conclude, therefore, that women are kidding themselves about the benefits of SAH in order to keep men happy. Call me simplistic if you like, I've had 40 years to think about this and that's my distillation of it.

Except that it hasn't. Yes more women have jobs but they still do the childcare and housework as they always did and their work is low paid and part time and they are still dependent on husbands or the state because of individual taxation and joint welfare. Now they are oppressed by work and children and men. Wow! Really liberated!

Also the men who used to mostly have stable and secure work for life that paid enough to support a family and buy a home now are working for nothing and vulnerable to redundancy.

Everyone's life has become less secure and stable.

are you optimistic about completing uni,do you think it will benefit you
you said you anticipate a v good career,surely that's encouraging?
I think I've benefitted enormously from campaigning feminists,and legislation

Yes, what I've done already at uni (i'm doing modular courses which are capable of standing alone in combinations if not counted towards a degree) increases my employability massively as does the voluntary/community work I am doing. Before I had good GCSEs only.

My parents' generation had it better than mine; post war baby boomers who had free uni and cheap houses, good cheap childcare (although gone by the time my mum had me which was later than average to start a family) and benefited from some of the women's lib/EU gender legislation and still relatively secure employment at least during their youth. The eighties did not have such a debilitating effect on my parents as they had bought their house cheaply and it increased exponentially in value and although Tory reforms affected them they didn't effect assets they had already accrued which have secured them financially. Houses have been v. Expensive all my adult life, which is only 10 years. My generation has not accrued assets or had stable work, the value of their education has decreased as the cost has increased, things seem very bleak and as long as childcare remains unpaid and unvalued women are going to end up dependent. The cuts make things much worse but they were already bad.

childcare isnt unpaid I pay nursery fees?hope you don't mean pay housewives?
why should someone be paid for watching their own kids,it's private arrangement
watching your own kids isnt work.country on it's knees without paying housewives a wage

The country is on it's knees because of venture capitalists. There is a good argument for paying women to work in the home even in a capitalist system as it is dependent on consumerism, it makes no sense to say it is work to look after someone else's children but not work to look after your own. Women doing unpaid domestic work contribute huge value to the economy. It also makes no sense to make larger households poorer and smaller ones richer as larger households potentially consume much more if they are able to.

you already demonstrate you will stay at home unwaged,state won't pay you.rightly so
housewifery is private individual act it doesn't generate income,or benefit anyone other than their family
you're really in lala land uf you want paid for watching your own kids.risible

Except that isn't actually true. Women, working in the home unpaid, whether they are also employed or not do generate income. Mostly it is for the profit makers who are able to keep wages low (as any unpaid labour creates economic value) although this is being siphoned off out of our country through tax avoidance schemes and is not being put back into the treasury, it also saves the treasury money as if mothers/grandmothers refused to look after children in an economy where wages don't cover childcare the state has to step in to cover the costs (as they have been doing). Unless you are earning very well (relatively) the state contributes to the cost of childcare and this often outweighs the tax the recoup.

as a housewife of course you want paid for doing own tasks
how would you demonstrate adequate standards,how would state regulate quality
cm have to meet external regulated standards,and are self employed for profit

Childcare is only needed for a very short life in a child's life. What the state pays out in tax credit during that period it more than recoups in the long term by keeping that parent in work who continues to escalator up her career long after she no longer needs childcare.

As for paying parents to stay at home to look after their own children, words fail me. If you think that way, don't have children.

Unfortunately I didn't have much choice over having children but thanks for the shitty comment. I'm not saying I want paying for looking after my children. I'm saying in a system which trades in money when raising children is unpaid and unrecognised women will always be second class citizens and always be dependent on husbands. Untwist those knickers now.

It isn't true that childcare payments will be recouped and supporting families to care for their own children won't be. I'll pay a lot more tax when I've got my degree than I would have done if I'd carried on working in retail. Plenty of people in paid employment are not contributing much to the economy, unless you average 6th decile you will have taken out more than you put in does that mean you shouldn't qualify for tax credits because you aren't productive?

"Childcare is only needed for a very short time in a child's life."

NOT TRUE

What kind of job can you get that enables you to drop your child off at 8.30am and pick them up at 3.40pm? Pretty much nothing that is a career or a profession.

how could you not have choice in having children?
contraception,fertility determines whether one chose to have kids or not
motherhood isn't predetermined,it is choice.you chose to have kids,as did I

I'm not against tax breaks for people who have only one partner working outside the home. Like the at home partner claiming the other person's tax allowance. But paying people to work at home. Why? A person working outside the home has to iron, clean their house, look after their children. Should they get double wages.

Because I was in an extremely sexually abusive relationship and then when I decided to have a baby with my new husband I had unplanned twins... But yeah, maybe I should have tried harder to get xp not to rape me or take condoms off or let me go to family planning... Nice...

Why not Vivienne? Other countries give universal benefits to help support families as part of a more comprehensive system...

woah,you're disclosing unrelated trauma that you weren't asked about
theres no relevance to recalling past trauma on an unrelated thread
as you say you and new dh had kids,you made that choice together

You asked me why I didn't chose to have kids, that's why, it isn't a secret, I've talked about it before on here and I fail to see why I should be ashamed. My dh and I planned one baby, the twins were a huge shock and had a massive impact on our lives. I did not choose to have four children and I think it is a massive mistake to bang on about contraception and fertility since the only way you can guarantee no children is through abstinence and unfortunately women can't always control that.

*choose

22.11 you said didn't have much choice over having children,unprompted I didn't ask
I did ask about the choice comment as you'd made it.you later discuss you and new dh chose to have baby
I have no idea about your post history,how could I.but don't suggest you were forced into disclosing past trauma

It wasn't unprompted at all, it was in response to blueshoes' comment.

hang on,22.34 post you've answered that as if addressing me?you were answering someone else?

No, I was answering you.