"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?

I also enjoy the independence and extra life experience working has given me .I worked pt when dcs were little and saw 3 mornings a week in a fab nursery as a great addition to their little worlds.The situations i have been in through work and the people i have met have also helped me to parent my children .I did see it important to keep my skills up when i had small dcs and its important now that i am getting a divorce.I am working towards being financially independent now although it may take me another 2 or 3 yrs.If i were to win the lottery i would start another business but be in a situation to delegate so i can always be in a position to put my kids needs first ,illness etc.But that is just my opinion ,we have all walked a different path ,i enjoy working for the opportunity it brings me and i think it enhances me as a person and a mum.

I say that, but TBH it's in the context of - I'd like to get my career back, but it would be very difficult with the hours that DH works. So I try to convince myself and other people that I am lucky to not have the pressure to go back to work. I know that it would open up a whole new world of pain and I would miss my DD's.

I suppose what I am saying is I am lucky to have the choice.

Maisiethemorningsidecat Fri 01-Oct-10 19:27:10
Really? I'm 5' 1" and manage to change the king sized duvet and drag a chair or stepladders to the tall cupboards. I must be more of a feminist that I thought.

lmao at this. Not sure what the 'feminist' position is, is it the one where the woman gets someone else to change the bed or the woman who does it herself???

This 'choice' is moreso for those that don't work (work/home choice and not life choice) because if they decided to work then their lives would be improved financially, if a parent decides to give up work then changes have to be made. I know very few people who earn so little, that bother to work, whose wage is incidental.

I dont know any families at all (unless on benefits) where the mum stays at home full time.

Virtually all people in the UK now and in the past have had to work. Many of our grandmothers and great grandmothers worked and before them most of them would have worked the land whilst older sibilings minded babies. This women not working this is a very very new choice which a very few women have and indeed it's either women who married a man who could keep them or who are single and the state (tax payers like the women on this thread) pay.

It's a kind of irrelevance as most people have to work to eat. Most women prefer to work. The vast majority ot women in the UK with chidlren udner 5 work in some shape or form and many know that that is the best way to protect their children long term too in case their husband dies or runs off and many feel it is their responsbility to support their husband and children anyway. A good number now earn more than their husband and plenty of us are single parents.

I have however always worked from choice just as I had a large family from choice because I adore my work and all the children. Most adults have that balance - most work and most have children. It tends to be what keeps most of us motivated and happier.

Posie - you get your dh to change the bed because you consider yourself unable to because of your lack of height. Even my DD of about 4' 8" is capable of changing a duvet cover or pulling a chair over to a high cupboard. I think a 'can do' attitude is more liberating than sitting back and handing over to someone else something which you are perfectly capable of doing yourself. Being a feminist surely means more than abdicating responsibility under the guise of 'choice'?

I don't work at the moment and consider myself lucky to be able to stay at home with DS.
I won't forever, just while I have pre-school aged DCs, and then I will re-train and go back to work and have 25 years of career.

The piece of advice I will give to any daughters I have, and have already given to my 12 year old niece, is to choose degree and other qualifications with care so that when it comes to wanting to a take a career break to have children, or even just maternity leave, you are able to go back into the workplace without having to start again.
I wish someone had given that advice to me.

I have to say that when DSs started school I was very surprised at what seemed to be the general assumption that one parent didn't work.

This comes from the times meetings were organised for, requests to come into school and do this and that at all times of day, casual and last minute arranging of events/fixtures that would require change of childcare arrangements/the taking of leave, birthday parties arranged after school at 3.30 and so on.

I honestly had no idea that so many women didn't WOH. DISCLAIMER - this is not a value judgment.

But to answer OP's question of does scoiety expect it - then yes, IME it does seem to.

I fond these debates frustrating because they seem to float in the clouds above the difficult, imperfect, unfeminist decisions made in everyday life by women, because they have to be made this way in this imperfect world.

So our city council, overnight cut all partnership funding to private nurseries for childcare places. This prompted a stampede for local authority places.

Som families will inevitably decide that it's too expensive to work. For 'me, this is the case. I want to work. I will have to retrain. I have no childcare provision. The only answer is to rely on DP for a few years until DD3 is old enough to start local authority nursery. Then I can start working.

I think you last sentence is key - you will start working as soon as feasbily possible. The woman in question in the OP didn't seem to consider that she should work, but instead chose to live her life dependent on someone else (unless of course she had independent means, but that wasn't made clear in the OP). I know plenty of women who consider it almost a badge of honour to not have to work ie they've married 'well', their dh/dp is earning enough to keep them until long after the children are old enough not to need them/use afterschool care and they can opt out of working and contributing to the economy or their pension fund. I find it really odd that anyone should consider that dependency 'lucky'.

A lot of womemn do make silly career choices where pay will be very low though. Daughters do need to be educated about the implications of particular career decisions and what that will be mean for their future lives.

How do you define 'silly'?

I don't consider myself dependent on my DH. Our family need the money he earns. But he can only do the job he does, working the very long hours he does because I have put my career on hold to raise our children. Children that he very much wanted!

When we married I earned more than he did, but I work in the public sector, so my earning potential has remained steady whereas his has taken off. I haven't met anyone who considers it a badge of honour - though I'm sure they exist.

I tend to think that a most women pity me and my "lost career," but that doesn't particularly bother me either because it is our choice and most of the time it works for us.

hmm am not sure where I stand on this.

My own personal pov is that things can change - I have always been an advocate of financial independance and keeping your hand in careerwise but unfortunately for los f women that is parttime leading the the mummycareer track and less earnings. It also traps you into jobs that you may grow to dislike or be bored of but cant leave because you cant replace the flexibility.

At present my job has become stultifying although it pays well for my industry and lets me work pt and from home etc - my choices are to find a fulltime job that will pay the same as my parttime job now because I will have to pay more nursery fees or become a sahm.

If I didnt have dcs then I could change jobs with ease as I did before dc or retrain but with them everything becomes very difficult. Especially if you are in a low paid industry - and yes Xenia I could have done law but someone needs to do the other jobs as well.

My mothers example was work mornings in a job that was beneath her and then do voluntary work for different places every afternoon to quite a high level iyswim.

Financially though, you are dependent on him - although you may not consider it! I know of 3 women who have found themselves facing divorce after 'not being' dependent on their dhs. He's taken his salary and her lifestyle elsewhere and they've suddenly found themselves having to try and get back into the job market - not easy when you've been out of the market for so long and your skills are obsolete. I know you can't live your life by 'what if' but equally you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket

I find this whole thread interesting in terms of how people view their choices as theright ones and everyone who differs as being wrong, ratherthan diferent

OP you seemed to find an implied insult in her choice of words when actually I suspect people say 'I don't have to work' to avoid the subsequent conversation about unemployment, difficulties of childcare, domineering DH who won't 'let' you, disability etc etc.
My experience has been that if you say you don't work people often wantto understand the reason - the default setting being that you would if you could.

It would be equally simple to trawl through posters on here talking about not settling or letting go of ambition and ascribing dullheaded witlessness to the choice of being at home.

If women could actually engage with the idea that what suits them is not the righteous route - that other choices are valid - then maybe feminism could become about supporting women and their chosen role in the world rather than 'do as I do', make my choice, adopt my values.

Staggeringly having been in a senior position in the city I still see my current role as of equal value. Shocking yet true.

And amazingly I am actually best placed to judge that, not some random woman on facebook

I think the OP was questionning the "I'm lucky I don't have to work" statement, which implies (to me) that she would consider herself unlucky if she had to work. The lucky part would indicate that she doesn't have issues with childcare (although judging by her age that perhaps wouldn't have been an issue), or that her DH is domineering and wouldn't let her, or that she is unemployed.

If she has independent means, then she is lucky to be in a financial position where she has the choice. If choice is solely dependent on someone else's income and career choice then that would worry me, for both the short and long term.

I am interested in this concept of "playing the long game" and ensuring your long term security and that of your children.

It works on the principle of insurance and of course there is no denying that it is important to have financial security but what if you never need "cash in" that insurance policy?

What if you would have prefered not to work, stay at home and raise your children or just do whatever it is you like doing but didn't because you felt that you had to "safeguard your position".

So you go out to work but your husband doesn't leave you for his secretary or run off around the world because he has had a midlife crisis. Or you do divorce but because you made sensible choices in relation to a partner (not because he is rich but because he is decent ) he continues to support his children in the way in which he ought to?

In those scenarios the fact that you didn't play "the long game" is not an issue. You are happy. What if you ^had "played the long game" don't you get to a point where you realise that great you have a nice insurance policy but actually it means nothing because you didn't need to use it but worse because you were so busy paying into your policy you never actually got what you wanted out of life?

Maisie - I think women are naive if they don't protect their economic position within a marriage/relationship.

DH pays into a pension for me, the vast majority of our savings are in my name and he has no access to them. I owned a house when we met, and the equity that transferred from that house is protected in my name by a clause in our mortgage.

So although I don't have my own income at the moment, I feel relatively financially secure in my own right.

Well put Nancy.

I think that is the position I'm in at the moment. I could go back to work, but to do the job I want to do means working shifts. With a DH who is away a lot this would mean employing a nanny and not seeing much of my DH or DC. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is not how I want to live. So, am I being naive? Possibly, but I suppose it is a risk I am willing to take to avoid living a life that is not how I would want just for the sake of the "What if's."