"I'm lucky that I don't have to work"

[AnnieLobeseder]

I was having a discussion on Facebook today about bread machines and cleaners with some women, most of whom I don't know since they're 'friends of friends'.

One woman, who seems to be older than me, maybe late 40s, early 50s, said, "I hand-bake my bread and don't need a cleaner, but then I'm lucky that I don't have to work."

So, this made me want to reply that technically I don't have to either, but I choose to for many reasons including my sanity and the fact that I love my job. But since I don't know her I decided it wasn't the time for an arugument!

But now I'm wondering...

1. Is there a general assumption that women only work when they have to in the older generation? Or perhaps in our generation too? Do people still really believe a women should stay home unless there's a pressing financial need?

2. Am I seeing sexism where there isn't any; perhaps she thinks that no-one, male or female would work if they didn't absolutely have to, because she's never had a fulfilling job?

Any thoughts?

nearlytoolate

that is interesting.
I guess I thought like that until i decided that making what I did all day the sole criteria for my self esteem was a bad idea.

I now quite comfortably have the view that I am great and fulfil both my own needs and those ofthe people I love and I don't give a rats arse what anyone else thinks aboutthat.
I am never sure which I dislike the most, the 50s family types sayingthat women have to be at home or the desperate earnest types insistingthat you have to get paid emplyment outside the home. I see either as astoundingly fucking interfereing

I am lucky that I get to chose what I do and that I don't care what anyone else thinks of what that choice is.
None of anyones business frankly

Interesting point about women's lower salary expectations Xenia. Saw this very often when I worked in the City. I worked in a support (business research) role with a salary structure quite separate from the brokers/analysts etc and had to fight like hell to be paid a "professional" instead of "administrative" rate.

I am 49 and am starting a full-time vocational degree course next week in order to retrain for a new career which will see me through to retirement. I am making a huge financial (and psychologocal)investment, but after 2 years of being a SAHM/WAHM (cirumstance not choice) I'm depressed, overweight and bored out of my skull.

And I will be using my student loan to pay for a cleaner.

nearlytoolate, I do sort of understand that (it took me ages to rebalance where my identity came from when I gave up work) but what if one of you had to give up work? Would that be a really healthy mindset then?

Just thinking about myself, I find I always put carer on forms etc and I do sense a stigma behind putting SAHM. Perhaps a thing of my own imagining; I certainly felt a sense of pride when DH was ill and I was the main breadwinner.

Exactly sancti

decidingthat x = self esteem and contribution to community and y = something less than that seems .....too prescribed

Why do we always judge other people choices by our own, let other people set down their own criteria for how we should live and what makes our contribution acceptable.
It seems anti-feminist to me.
I thought as a teenager in the 70s that feminism meant not having wankers tell you how to be a woman but it seems more and more that I was wrong

Back to the op - I don't understand how you can take an off the cuff comment from a stranger on fucking Facebook and extrapolate it to the whole population.

All she meant was that she was lucky to be able to make her own bread and thst js because she doesn't work. That's it. Nothing more.

As to the SAHM/WOHM debate - it's pointless. People do what they have to/want to. Feminism has nowt to do with it.

Mumsnet feminism pisses 'me off. It's just an excuse to stick the knife in most of the time.

Yeah I got all sorts of jobs too. Fuck's sake I don't expect to have my feminist arse kissed because of it (am not accusing you of this Lenin) and I am now a SAHM and do not expect feminist ticker tape parade either.

I'm driven though Lenin, it's just that of late that's been directed at causes outside the home. It's prerfectly possible to get the same adrenaline rush or whatever from bieng a SAHM if you recognise (and I am sure you do) the wider possibilities of being a SAHM: voluntary work, politics, whatever.

But whilst I pesonally will want to get back to work, I can see the benefits of being a SAHM far beyond teh age of 8 suggested; sick days, a partner working irregular shifts or bieng sent away at a moment's notice, moving location frequently... all things presumably coped with more easily by a family with a SAHP?

Which is why I refuse to judge I think;
famillies are very complex indeed and each one has to find the best solution to the challenges they are presented with. I see it as a team sport: right now the childcare and caring is my role, when DH finsihes training and works from home that will become his so I can finish up and get employed. If we both insisted on working becuase of our circumstances one of us would inevitably have to give in.... this for us is a much mroe sensible solution and there shouldn;t be any stigma to that.

If I hadn't been so driven when I was a child/teen/young woman then I wouldn't have the security that now enables me to choose to stay at home. I have created my own luck in that regard but it would be rather rude to phrase it like that in a discussion about breadmakers.

Obviously if either dh or myself were not capable of working, through ill health or redundancy or whatever, we woudl support each other through that. That is what a partnership is.
I don't think this is actually anything to do with whether your work defines your 'identity' or self esteem. I would not say that is the case for me. Work is however what puts food on the table - it is a necessity for living. I simply don't feel that I can opt out of responsibility for that.

Wow, nice to meet you too CommanderCool.

Lenin - even though I did always assume I'd get married and have kids some day, it never occurred to me for a minute that I'd be a SAHM. So I don't think your assumption that you'd always have to work and provide for yourself financially stems from your limited prospect of a traditional marriage!

It has also never occurred to me to settle for anything less than what I truly want, in the long term. I've had lots of jobs that weren't my ideal, but I did then with a smile and genuinely enjoyed them all. Even jobs that weren't so stimulating in themselves, I've always enjoyed the people, the challenges, the adult interaction. And every job brings some kind of skill and/or experience you can transfer into a new one; no job is ever a waste of time.

But long-term, I can't imagine myself ever 'settling'. I'm not sure if I want to stay in pure research or move into academic publishing one day. I like to keep my options open. But you can be damn sure I'll always push to move up, move forwards, improve my prospects and my salary.

I can't imagine being in a hated dead-end job with no ambition to make things better for myself. It might take a very long time (I didn't manage to get my true career going until I was 32) but if you don't have dreams and ambitions, what do you have?

People that don't have to work are bloody lucky, male or female.

I went back to work 3 days ago after a years maternity leave looking after ds 12m, I also have dd 4. I am gutted and i've missed my dcs each and every day with all my heart

My mat leave life was BRILLIANT, we did loads of stuff, gardening, camping, picnics, playing, being out and about, museums, seeing all my friends. I know I'm going back to irritability, stress, boredom and dissatisfaction, but unfortunately the mortgage and bills won't pay themselves.

I've always been a very "have to work" person but now I know there is another way, just not one we can afford to take at the moment.

But what about people who don't have to work but do?

Rupert Murdoch, Mohamed Al Feyed, Bill Gates? (And of course Bill Gate's wife, very sorry but I don't know here name They could have put heir feet up long ago. But they didn't.

One of the most unhappy people I have ever met was a man who's wife had a very high flying career. He didn't. He earned about £30K a year and had no point to his life, so it seemed. He didn't need to work because his wife earned 10X as much as him. They had no children, and never would as his wife didn't want children. He had nothing to do during normal working hours because his house was cleaned by the cleaner, and he didn't feel like spending all day at the gym or golf club. ( so he plodding along in a job he hated because he didn't know what else to do) I actually felt sorry for him.

Is it "un faminiist" to want to spend all day playing with your daughter, teaching her all you know, rather than pursuing a career you love, and deploying her weekday care to someone else?

To have the choice not to work is a privilege for anybody, IMO.

Lynette - that story is very sad, but I think he brought his own unhappiness on himself.

If you're not happy with a situation, change it! There's always a way, even if it seems huge and scary. But better the scary change than to plod along wasting this one and only life we get.