Why is SAHM/ wanting children such a taboo?

[Jadeyspade]

I have always wanted to have a large family - 3-8 children would be my personal ideal however I understand why this would not be for everyone. I work outside the home however I prefer any work to be secondary to home responsibilities/ care of children.

It seems to me that to want a large family/ SAHM/ a family setup that would be completely the normal 2 generations ago - in these days (and especially on mumsnet) is a taboo?

My Grandmother was a SAHM with 5 Children - her role in life was "Wife and mother".. Deep down I have always wanted what she had. Since been an adult, I have worked extremely hard to get career/ delaying children etc to achieve financial stability. Despite this I feel trapped in this career and unable to afford the children I want despite working so hard. In all honesty, I would trade my career for the life my Grandmother had given the option

i am accepting that the reality is I may not fulfil my "large family dream" due to finances/modern lifestyle pressures etc however it seems to me that to admit to wanting these kinds of things in the first place e.g. SAHM/ a large family/ traditional setup attracts judgement and been frowned upon

I spoke to my 80year old neighbour recently - he was telling me that in his day, it was seen as a shame if a woman had to go out to work as it meant the husband not providing well for his family. I definitely feel it's a good thing that society has moved on from this and that women can choose careers/ not have children if doesn't want

However I feel it's a huge shame that society has gone so far the other way and on some level I don't think feminism has done all women favours. women are often forced through financial reasons to return to work and been a SAHM/ wanting children seems to be quite judged

I am unsure about feminism and it's place here. i basically believe if a woman wishes to work/ focus on career she should be free to do that. If a woman wishes more fulfilment in family life/ motherhood that's fine too.

I have been reading more recently about the rise of one child families/ threads about women feeling they have no choice to have a child/ another child due to nursery costs/ finances etc and think it's actually quite sad that society has gone so far this way in supporting family life

Thoughts??

I think that it is harder to choose to be a SAHM nowadays but that is more due to economics than feminism.

Housing costs are ridiculously high whether buying or renting which means that families need two working parents to live comfortably.

We bought our house 25 years ago but there is no way we could afford it now. Our joint salaries have doubled but the cost of a house in our street has quadrupled in that time.

When I was growing up in a working class area in the 1970s nearly everyone in my class had a mum at home. Many went home for dinner. There were about 7 of us latchkey kids. I doubt it is like that now.

So what was a choice is now a luxury.

I think personally, part of what rankles me when someone says that their dream is to be a SAHM is that it always sounds to me like they're saying 'I find working outside the home unpleasant and would rather be at home with my kids and so in order to achieve that I want someone else (husband/partner) to do the thing that I find unpleasant and miss out on their time with the kids in order to fund my wishes'. I may be coming from this with my own biases - I earn more than my husband and he would love to be a SAHD, but he accepts that it would be very unfair to ask me to work all the hours that God sends and never see our son in order to facilitate his preference. Instead we both work reduced hours and get some quality time with our child whilst still being able to pay our bills.

Now, obviously there's nothing wrong with wanting to do that - I would love to somehow be independently wealthy so I can stay at home too - and if you're in a partnership where both parties are aligned in that desire then that's great and of course its a completely legitimate choice (though noting what others have said already about potential vulnerability). But if parties aren't on the same page then I don't think it's a great look to resent your partner for refusing to give up time with their kids and their quality of life to earn enough to support you giving up work altogether.

I absolutely agree with the feminism part the balance is incorrect it's gone way too far. Everything cannot be equal.

How old are you OP? Fertility won't wait for you personally there's planning finances and then there's an unrealistic expectation are you sure even if you cut back you couldn't afford a child?

I don't find wanting kids in frowned upon but there's a differences so having 1 to 2 kids is VERY different for 3 to 4 kids that's what I notice.

I don't think it's taboo but long gone are the days when the average earner can support a wide and large family on one income. Of all the families I know, most rely on either two full time earners or 1 full and one part time. I only know one managing off one wage.

If you can afford it though, crack on. I'd love that life!

I am unsure about feminism and it's place here. i basically believe if a woman wishes to work/ focus on career she should be free to do that. If a woman wishes more fulfilment in family life/ motherhood that's fine too.

There's a fair amount of feminist literature about valuing women's unpaid labour, including looking after children. Really, so many people say they aren't feminists without knowing the first thing about it. There is a tension with being dependent and therefore beholden to a man. Leaving with 8 children and no job really isn't a thing someone can do. You are very reliant on a man being good, in good health, in a good economy. It's precarious.

History is a bit of an issue as well. Your 80 yo neighbour aside, I'm the first woman in three generations to have a child IN wedlock. My mother, grandmother and great grandmother all worked. On both sides in the case of the grandmothers. Both working single mums. SAHMs are actually quite a historical and class blip. Mothers through history and in most of the world have worked and do work.

You do you though.

Oh and I love my only and am very happy thanks. 8 would kill me, literally.

One of my DC is severely autistic and I stay at home as his carer and after years of lousy jobs often 15 hour shifts on skeleton crews in nursing homes etc, I really appreciate my time at to be a stay at home parent.
But I would work 24 hours a day if my son could have a life with independence of sorts, so it's not really a win for me, if you see what I mean.
However I do have a large family, I'm due my DD later in summer.
My 4th child. My reasoning for a large family is because besides DP, I have nobody. No parents, siblings, no cousins or aunts, literally nobody. I couldn't bare leaving my DC to navigate the world without a few of them to stick together, they're all extremely close. Provisions already made for my little autisms future.

I'm understand the wanting a large family as a sahm, I think if you buy in a lower cost area, meticulously plan your budget, all those kind of sacrifices, it's doable, just maybe not 8 kids, as glorious as that would be!

I wish you all the luck with your dream x

Only if you've left yourself vulnerable in the first place. If I leave DH, it's him who will be worse off 🤷‍♀️

Seems ironic that you then judge 1-child families when that’s as much a valid choice. And much better for the planet. I would never want to be SAH as I believe parenting is shared responsibility and I’d never want to be entirely reliant on someone else. But if it works for other parents then great

I find the opening post quite odd.

Everybody’s job should be ‘secondary’ to their home and family. You work to live not live to work. I have a senior well paying role, my family don’t come secondary. For most people, this is the case.

Being a sahm isn’t a taboo. I don’t know where you have got that. This is website predominantly used by women. The risks of being sahm are discussed. The fact that a lot of people can’t afford it, are discussed. The vast majority of posters, seem to believe people should make the choice themselves but still be aware of the potential pitfalls. These pitfalls are dependent on the situation. Discussing this doesn’t make it ‘taboo’. I am confused about the point here. We shouldn’t discuss it, because it makes it taboo? I am sure there’s some posters who are militant about not being a sahp. Just like there’s plenty of posters who live to talk shit about mothers that work.

If you just look at threads here, so many women get screwed over being a sahp. There’s a thread running now where a woman was a sahp, her husband has left. Cut her off apart from a small allowance and she can’t get a court date for months. Even though she will probably be fine after the divorce, short term, she has huge financial issues.

Many women post where they have become a sahp and unmarried, living in their Dps house and find themselves ruined by the split, many of theme never realising how vulnerable their position was. Discussing these dangers doesn’t make a sahp a taboo subject.

Has it ever occurred to you, that your grandmother (the same as many women of that age) may have, deep down, wanted more than just being seen for how she was related to other people. Wife and mother isn’t a personality. It wasn’t who she was. She was a whole person. You position her as someone whose only role, is as a relation of someone else. Her entire being reduced down to the care she gives other people. Your grandmother may have loved her life. She may have learned to love her life. She didn’t have choice to live the life she did. That what she HAD to do. You may want that. But that doesn’t mean it should be the only option available for women. Because you think it would suit you. Would you take the huge downsides with it? You would choose to trade your lifestyle for the option of having hers. It wasn’t a choice or option for her. and had her husband died or left, she would have found life extremely difficult.

My great grandfather was extremely abusive. My great grandmother left him when my grandad was a child. She could because she had the money to do so. But that was extremely rare. She had to move area and tell people he was dead (family knew the truth) because she was so ostracised in the area she lived in. Many family members didn’t speak to her. No one knew she had sisters until she died. She never had more than one child as she couldn’t secure a divorce without risking her life and her sons so couldn’t remarry and having a child out of wedlock, wasn’t an option. That’s not a time I want to live in.

Feminism isn’t the reason people can’t afford to be a sahp now. The reach you have performed to blame feminism for the financial situation of society is impressive. Things are not perfect for women. One of the main reasons, is because society still expects so little from men. So you get women, working plus doing the bulk of childcare and looking after the home, because of how society (patriarchy) still views men and women. That won’t change until more men step up and actually act like partners. Changes in society take hundreds of years, the fact that we aren’t where we want to be (which is equality) doesn’t mean feminism was wrong or has failed. It’s a work in progress.

Feminism isn’t about women wanting to be like men. Or only wanting the life men have traditionally held. It’s about having the choice. About being seen as a whole person if you choose to not have kids. About being treated fairly in the work place and your effort and talent being the focus, not wether you have or will reproduce. That you can have the choice to be a sahp or working parent if you finances allow and both people want it. You talk about people talking negatively about sahp. It happens about wohm. Never about wohm dads though. Sahd often get more praise than sahm. So it still doesn’t follow that feminism is to blame. The choice of women being able to work or not, as always been finances dependent. That’s not knew. Many women did work, because there wasn’t enough money if they didn’t.

Did you ask your 80 year old neighbour why, he and his peers didn’t push for change to women’s rights? Many of you neighbours peers beat their wives, raped them, financially abused them and were sanctioned to do it. Sanctioned because it was known it happened and women were expected to stay. If he really believed a wife at home was so important, why didn’t his generation ensure women were safe doing so? How long did they expect women to treated as someone property, because it suited them, whilst being treated like crap before they wanted change? Why didn’t they (as they had so much more power than women) do something to protect women and children and not accept abuse as just part of life?

Again, you final paragraph is a reach. Feminism isn’t why people can’t afford loads of kids. It’s not why they can’t afford to stay at home. I don’t understand why you feel it’s sad that people plan and have the kids they can afford.

The thing that has the biggest impact on outcomes for children is poverty. It can’t always be avoided, but planning your children to minimise the chance of poverty is sensible. As an aside, women often end up as single parents in poverty, because of the male parent. The male parent. Not feminism. That’s always happened. Even in the ‘golden era’ your grandmother was from. But poverty less likely to happen if the women has an income or money of her own.

Will no one think of the planet?
There are too many of us humans already!

This.
And Feminism actually recognises caring for children as valuable work in itself.

I'm old enough to remember the switch over in the 70s when, for a very brief moment, wage-earning mothers did actually have some financial advantage and it seemed like a choice worth making for some. There was a husband earning a family wage and a wife earning a bit extra. Equal pay came in too, so that employers couldn't exploit women's position as secondary earner any more (in theory at least).

Then house prices shot up, almost overnight. And council houses were practically given away.

Suddenly women were coerced into earning instead of caring for their children. Even those who could just about manage were made to feel inferior if they didn't go on overseas holidays or buy expensive TVs and those ubiquitous 3 piece suites.

And what used to be valued - bringing up children - was diminished and looked down on. You were 'just' a mother. Families couldn't survive on one wage and looking after your children was a luxury you couldn't afford. You had a washing machine and a fridge, so what did anyone need a woman at home for? Underpaid childcare workers could supervise the kids for a fraction of the price with low standards of care.

So nowadays women are expected to take limited maternity leave, bottle feed, get their baby into childcare and get back to earning a wage as soon as possible. Unexpected pregnancies are terminated as unaffordable career breaks. Social media blames women for having children that 'they can't afford'.

It's Capitalism, not Feminism that has done this.

Several reasons it doesn't work for me. 1. It models outdated gender stereotypes to the children. Can't both parents work part time or flex? 2. Lots of children are expensive and consume a lot, which is bad for the planet and my purse. 3. Leaves the sahp(m) financially vulnerable, dependent on the working parent for money and with a big gap in your pension. 4. I work for mental stimulation and adult conversation. Toddlers need repetition which can be tedious. 5. Lots of children means none of them ever get the attention they deserve. Even if not working there's only so many hours in the day leaving not much time for one to one time which I think kids need sometimes. 6. Children grow up. When they are all out at school it seems bonkers and unfair that one adult in the house essentially gets 6 hours of leisure time every day. Once they are fully fledged, the sahp now has no role or function but also has fewer employable skills.

I think you have confused the role of the patriarchy/capitalism with the role of feminism in all of this.

The patriarchal, capitalist society that we live in will always try to push women into positions that are most convenient for men and the economy. In the past it suited men to have women at home as SAHMs devoted to raising their children, with no financial autonomy and total reliance on their husbands. This made women extremely vulnerable and in lots of cases very frustrated, unhappy and trapped.

Nowadays, men have realised that they can have their cake and eat it so the preference is for women to work, contribute financially whilst still shouldering the vast majority of the caring and domestic responsibilities (things that SAHMs would have previously done). Of course, the patriarchy makes sure that the workplace isn't truly even. Misogyny/discrimination is common, women are still penalised for getting pregnant and having babies and female dominated industries and occupations are purposely undervalued. Meanwhile many women feel that they must work a certain number of hours just to have a reasonable standard of living as a family and don't feel that they can spend the time they want with their young children. Spiralling costs and the burden of childcare mean that many women feel trapped in relationships much the same way as our SAHM predecessors did.

My point is both of these situations are a bit shit for women as a class and whilst you may prefer the former or latter depending on what you value, neither offer real choice to all women which is ultimately feminism's goal.

Exactly this. Your grandmother did it because she didn’t really have a choice. She was also at very low risk of becoming divorced and finding herself without a home or money because divorce was very uncommon. That’s not the case now. Mumsnet is full of posts from women who are dependant on their partners and are therefore trapped in abusive relationships.

It’s also almost impossible to live on one income these days.

I find it frustrating that the OP blames any of this on feminism.

Climate change is an issue that our grandparents didn't have to worry about. We don't need more people on the planet.

Also, those of you who say you know lots of SAHMs and it isn't taboo, do they have school age children? I think it's common to take time off work when the DC are little, but not to stay off when they're all at school.

One answer to your question is that things have changed, as they always do.

It is far more expensive and time-intensive to raise children to adulthood than it used to be.

The school leaving age was 14 until after the end of WW2.
Few people went to university
Car ownership was limited
Fewer consumer goods available
Fewer expectations for parents to support children’s education

Parents’ life spans are longer so they need to plan for retirement.

Plus the Pill wasn’t available until the 1970s!
Funnily enough, when it arrived, women chose to take it and plan their reproductive lives to have smaller families.

Even a family of three entails the environmental and financial impact of three lots of driving lessons, three lots of educational support, generally three lots of disposable nappies (unless they use cloth), three lots of university, probably three more cars on the road…

Is it sustainable in all senses of the word? These days I am not sure.

I absolutely agree with the feminism part the balance is incorrect it's gone way too far. Everything cannot be equal.

@AviMav, can you elaborate? What exactly has gone too far? And, apart from the fact that men obviously can't give birth or breastfeed, what exactly do you think can't be equal?

Having children can rob you off your self esteem very quickly. It’s a hard old job and I’m incredibly grateful I can work as well. When I was only tearing children my mental health deteriorated.

I wouldn't want to be dependant on my DH. Not because I think he'll leave me and screw me over financially. Pride means I feel like I want to contribute equally financially, and in every other way to our relationship and to our family.
Also to set a good example to our DCs.

I don't think the planet needs people to be having more than 2 children each and think it's selfish to have loads tbh. And the SAHM thing is because it leaves you so vulnerable. The choice is still there though.

I think some people criticise it because they feel like it implies a judgement on their own choices. Like the breast v bottle debate. Everybody would like to have total confidence that they have done the absolute best for their child. When somebody else does things differently it can knock that belief.
I'm a SAHM and I'm really happy and enjoy my life and don't feel guilt about no longer doing paid work but there's no guarantee I won't regret my choice one day, just as a working mum ir dad might one day wish they'd worked less. Equally working or not working isn't always a choice, cost of childcare and difficulty of finding good childcare and decent employers means that parents can't always have that free choice about how much work they do and when.

There are lots of different issues in your post OP.

With regards to the number of children - I would recommend anybody to start with one and see how you get on. Then decide if you want / are able to have more from there. It might not be exactly how you think.

I don’t see being a SAHP as a taboo. Just do what you want and respect other peoples wish to do the same.

The general cost of living is a big issue for a lot of people. Of course it limits what people are able to do.

Personally I’m glad feminism has given me the chance to have a career and have children. I was able to go back to a good job part time after having children. This was not possible in my mother’s time. But again - do what you want and are financially able to afford.

I was a SAHM for several years and am grateful that I didn’t have the stress of juggling work/kids for that time, however I was very lonely at times. Most people work, and mother and baby groups were full of grandparents and child minders, so I didn’t find friends/companionship there.
One thing I regret is the pension I missed out on at that time. Looking back I should have opened a private pension and made DH pay into it.

My mother and her mother both worked when they had kids, it was normal. I’m not sure where the not working idea from years ago comes from.