Why is promoting the SAHM choice a feminist issue?

[HelenBaaBaaBlackSheep]

This kept coming up in the other thread and I didn't want to drag it off topic so thought I could start it here. I'm genuinely interested as I don't see any connection.

To explain, feminism to me is about equality of treatment (e.g. same wage for same job), equality of opportunities, the rejection of a system in which women are property to be exchanged, shared or abused. But I don't get what it has to do with lifestyle choices like being a SAHM.

You exactly articulated what I feel about the issue, thanks!

Youll - I think you were referring to my post about electing to be a full-time mum, even though DH offered to be a full-time dad.

To be fair, I should say that although previously I was the higher earner (and potentially, if I got myself back into my previous career I could be so again) at the time when we had DD we were both being paid exactly the same.

I had voluntarily changed career prior to that because I wanted to do something different.

There are other factors why I felt it important DH should work, but I won't bore you with our personal details.

also applauds herbex

Omg. It is very naive to believe that we don't have abject poverty in our country still, and, whatever you like to believe, women are affected by it more than men.

It is also ridiculous to say that, just because you haven't experienced something, it doesn't happen. Fwiw, I don't tend to experience much in the way of my work as a sahm being devalued because of who my family are who my friends are. I don't assume that that means everyone is lucky enough to have that experience. In fact, from reading MN, I know for a fact that sahps who feel valued are in a tiny minority.

This is from an article from the guardian which is about breastfeeding but makes a relevant point as to why promoting the SAHM choice is a feminist/political issue.

"The UK had a long way to go in normalising breastfeeding in the way other countries had done, she said. "In Sweden most mothers breastfeed because they are not forced to go straight back to work. In this country we are cutting benefits to single parent families and poorer people and mothers have to get back to work and earn a living, whether it's in Sainsbury's or the City ? it is what the government wants them to do."

I'm not preaching breatfeeding, I believe it should be a womans choice,it makes the point though.
www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/13/breastfeeding-child-brain-development

I do think that SAHM is a feminist issue, however, saying that men don't have to make sacrifices as parents is also incorrect. That they are not as affected in terms of work is mostly right, but I don't think it's correct to say that they have all the advantages.
Many men miss important stages of development/achievements at school and so on because they WOH. SAHM get to see and share these, on the whole. If a partnership works properly, in fact, then a SAHM is valued by her partner, both emotionally and has financial equality, whereas almost always the father misses huge chunks of his childrens' lives. This is not to say that a lot of SAHM do not feel undervalued (and they are right in this). But also SAHM should agree that there are significant advantages to SAHMing.

MN is weird sometimes. I got bored part-way through this but I'm not quite sure why the pro-SAH people are bashing omg who is, erm, a SAHD.

Those who think that SAH should be supported by the State: does that mean that it will be like any other job i.e. you have to do what the boss says. So you will be happy for the State to command when and how many children you have?

If you live in a community of emotionally mature adults with plenty of disposable income, SAHPs are highly valued and mostly enjoy their lives a lot.

No one's bashing omg, purits - we're merely disagreeing (sometimes vehemently) with his views on the subject.

I was honestly (and naively) shocked when I went back to work 1 day a week when dd was 7 months old. Male colleagues repeatedly said 'Oh I wish I could just work one day a week' or 4 days off a week is amazingly lucky'.
I had never thought before about how little a mother's (should be parent but we are nowhere near that yet) task is undervalued and ignored. Whilst no women said that to me they never once answered back to the blokes. It is culturally the norm to see time spent raising children as time 'off' from work. I wasn't prepared for that at all as have been able throughout my career to ignore any chauvinism by simply always being the best and never taking no for an answer. That does apply with raising children.

does not apply with raising children. grr.

Nah. That's presenteeism and the F/T mindset. I am freelance and work, regularly, in several different locations. The 40-hour workers always think that if I am not on the pemises then I am not working. They cannot seem to get their head around the concept that I might be working somewhere else.

I'm finding omg's argument that the SAHP isn't disadvantaged because they get state support bizarre.
I'm a SAHM and receive no state support because of what DH earns, and we will lose child benefit when those changes come in.

How I perceive this issue is obviously skewed by my personal circumstances. I am valued personally by my husband, my extended family and friends
I agree though that attitudes in general to SAHPs need to change. I find the people who are the most disapproving of my life are female ex-colleagues who are WOHMs, and I'm not sure what that says about the feminist cause.

From a feminist perspective, what would we want to change? Talking about valuing being at home raising children as being equal to working in the cash economy, implies that a SAHP should be paid (by who, the state, the working parent?).

I think it's about a bigger society-wide attitude change, Ali, where work isn't more or less valued based on whether or not money is involved. If everyone could see the contributions we all make to society, even if it doesn't involve paying tax.

If the work was valued then it would involve money.
If someone looks after my kid then I pay them because it is a useful service. If I look after my own kid, I don't expect someone to pay me. What next: be paid for mowing my own lawn?

Does mowing your lawn contribute anything to society as a whole?

Yes. It makes the neighbourhood look smarter, cuts down on weeds and vermin.

I have seen postings on here where people are TTC because they want a sibling or are broody or some other personal reason. Have you ever seen a posting on here where someone says that they are TTC becuae they feel it is their civic duty?

The point is you are not just raising your own kid; you are raising your DH's kid and he is being freed up to earn money which he may or may not share with you. If you're lucky and have been given the social and psychological tools to choose a good man, he'll share it with you fairly and respect your work and be grateful to you for enabling him to avoid the shitwork and do the high status outside of home stuff instead. If you're not, he'll tell you you should be grateful to him for letting you stay at home and do nothing, because he actually doesn't recognise what you are doing as work.

And the other point is that raising children is an activity that society needs to have done. Mowing your lawn isn't. It's an optional extra. Looking after kids isn't optional, it's a necessity.

It's like keep-fit. People do it because they want to be healthy or slim. It has a side-effect that it helps society by reducing NHS bills but no-one ever does keep-fit for the sake of the NHS.

Making a population for the next generation may be a happy side-effect of your decision to have babies but don't try to pretend that it was a deciding factor that should be paid for.

Of course it should be paid for.

What do you think would happen if world wide, women stopped doing the invisible, unpaid work that we do?

Someone else would have to do it.

So stop doing it then.

Why?

Purist, it's not about being rewarded for having kids, but if you don't bring them up well, then that has grave ramifications for society so the work being done to produce (for want of a better word) good, altruistic, co-operative adults should be valued as something vital to future society.

And of course no one does these things for the sake of society as a primary reason - that doesn't mean it doesn't have value for society though.

Purist - what agenda are you coming from? I can't work out what point you're trying to make.

Sorry for misspelling your name - dh's iPad keeps correcting it to purist without me noticing!

Good childrearing has a benefit to society but if you are going to do it anyway, for free, then it has no monetary value.
If parents went 'on strike' and stopped producing then society might pay them. But that's never going to happen while broodiness still exists.