is it possible to be a sahm and a feminist?

[lottielou39]

I've had periods of being a sahm, and am now (after working for the past few years) returning to the role of sahm. For many reasons, but mostly because managing the care of three small children is a logistical nightmare and because I love being there for them all the time without having to juggle work around them. I've no issue with using childcare because I've done so in the past quite happily, but childcare times 3 (one of whom is a small baby) is not easy.
I've found the working situation harder now my eldest two are getting to the age where holiday clubs no longer accept them, but they're still too young to be left home alone all day. So after much thought, I've realised that I need/want to be a sahm again and my husband supports this 100%.
In the past, I've had women tell me that:

1. you need to earn your own money for self esteem/independence etc.
2. only women without degrees/careers stay at home. I've spoken to a few feminists about this online in the past and the feeling I get is that whilst they support a womans right to choose to stay at home (if she has this luxury) it's never a choice they'd make because it would conflict with their ideology. What do you think?

Yes.

Yes.

My cousin has a degree, a career (albeit on hold) and is a SAHM. She identifies as a feminist.

Nowhere in feminism does it dictate that you have to do x, y and z. It's about choice. :) You're making the choice to be a SAHM? Yay for feminism! :)

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

You need Andrea o'reilly and this organisation

Happy reading. X

Of course it is!

I do understand why financial independence is a key issue for feminism. But to insist that all women need to be financially independent means in practice that all women must work, even if they don't have to or want to, which seems pretty oppressive to me.

Definitely yes.

Of course.

Someone has to be looking after the children - if not you or your partner, someone else. It's a job that has to be done for society to continue.

Yes, of course.

Yes. Feminism is about choices. If you were in a relationship where the assumption of you both was that you would stay at home just because you were a woman, then this wouldn't be a feminist position. But if you choose to stay at home, then yes this doesn't contradict feminism at all.

I think some feminists struggle themselves with the idea of staying home because women's work is so undervalued in our society - and childcare is usually women's work. People can think one thing intellectually i.e. fine to stay at home, but not feel it emotionally.

I think this hinges entirely on how the SAHM status is managed within the family unit. If it has been taken on as an unpaid lesser role, to obey the wishes of the man in the relationship and means a woman has lost all their independence, financial and social, then I do not believe that is consistent with feminism. Too many women are trapped in that situation today, believing they are acting out of love for their children and are equal partners in the relationship only to find that they are actually treated with contempt. If staying home with children has been taken on as an important role that is fairly paid and respected within the relationship, and the woman can maintain a degree of independence then it could be consistent

I've stipulated 'paid' because - whether we like the idea or not - payment for a job confers status and financial independence means choices. To be wholly financially dependent on a man on the shaky basis of 'love' is something any self-respecting feminist would avoid.

I agree, except for the paid part. Surely money should be family money and both partners should have equal access to it? For the DH to "pay" the OP implies some subservient position imo.

'Paid' means to legitimise the role. Unpaid work is slave labour. There is a long tradition in my part of the UK that men tipped up their wages to the wife on pay-day and the wife would keep most of it bar the small amount she handed back to him for pocket money. The reasons for that are the same as why CB is paid to the mother and not the father. IME 'family money' only works in a minority of cases. Far too often, the one who earns the money thinks they have the final say over the money.

Agree that paid often means to legitimise the work. I see shared family money working fine - although I agree in some cases in reality it means that who earns it gets the final decision. But it isn't always like that.

I just think the idea that a DH pays his SAHW is actually a potentially oppressive one. If shared money would be problematic because the one who earns thinks they should have the final say, surely the same individual who pays his SAHW is going to think they have the final say over the job their partner does - after all he who pays the piper names the tune.

I am in the north and still see the tradition of the man handing over nearly all the wages to his partner. I think there is good and bad in this. Good because it gives the woman financial control. Bad because it usually means the woman has the work and responsibility of financially managing the family rather than it being a shared responsibility.

Lottielou. Yes....

But....

In your post you describe a lot of completely understandable issues that effect your family - logistics, juggling, childcare etc... and then you say you have come to the conclusion that YOU need to become a SAHP.

What you don't say is how your husband is juggling his career and his children, or whether and how you have considered options that protect both of your long-term careers (e.g. Both going part time)

It may be that you've looked at these options and they don't work for your family right now, or is it that your husbands career is non- negotiable whereas yours is?

Either way this is a pattern that lots of women fall into, and I think that is a feminist issue. You both have 3 children, you both want the best for them, you both have the same childcare constraints -- but the solution comes down to you.

Does your husband understand that in making this choice you are not just doing it to do what works for your kids right now, but also to enable him to work without disruption and distraction? If things change and you want to go back to work in future will he be willing to make the accommodations needed, perhaps putting his own career on the back-burner for a few years to enable you to resurrect yours?

"he who pays the piper names the tune."

If you work for an employer you get a contract of employment, terms and conditions, agreed hours, holiday pay, etc. in return for an agreed salary. It's to protect the worker. The only reason we don't treat the home working environment the same way is that we think we would never be exploited by someone we love and trust. I'm sure it works OK in some households but you've only to look at some of the stories on MN for a few minutes and it's clear that love and trust only go so far. Financial abuse is extremely common.

I agree with the general points you make, I just don't think being paid is the way to tackle it. Do you really think financial buse is extremely common in relationships? I am a lesbian and the majority of long term couples I know do have shared money and I think financial abuse while it exists, is uncommon. So interested in your views on this.

The reason that in some families the man hands all the money over to the woman at the end of the week - being the same reason that CB was paid to the woman - ie it was necessary as the man would squander it.

This does not sound like an adult relationship to me, it sounds as if the woman has to take responsibility for the man as well as the children. Not my idea of feminist marvellousness.

FWIW I do know 2 couples who operate their finances like this. As if they didn't the OH would blow it all in the pub after work on the Friday. It works for them and they are all nice people but it's hardly ideal.

Of course it is. It's not the action of being SAHM that causes discussion among feminists, it's the politics behind the decision making of taking and implementing that course of action, iyswim. How was the decision reached? Were all the issues (money, pensions, insurance, effect on career etc) taken into account? Have all the responsibilities for family tasks been discussed and agreed? Or has it all just defaulted along traditional lines?

I wouldn't want DH to pay me for the time I spend doing childcare / housework. Would it be minimum wage? I am worth more than minimum wage. In fact I used to earn more than him by some distance so would he have to borrow money to pay me?

Plus he does a lot of the childcare when he is here, I have a lie in, go out, that sort of thing. Do I need to pay him for that?

We are a partnership. The money and work are all pooled.

You don't think that the wife being an employee of the husband itself skews the power balance in a fairly fucked-up way? I mean, under that arrangement there's no doubt about who's the head of the family; it's written down in black and white. And if the husband is the employer he can presumably set out how he expects the job to be done and the wife (as an employee) will just have to go along with that. I really can't see how that is going to help with promoting an equitable power dynamic.

Yep, I'm an angry feminist and a SAHM.

"You don't think that the wife being an employee of the husband itself skews the power balance in a fairly fucked-up way? "

No. I think the wife being the unpaid servant of the husband fucks up the power balance - and that's the position a heck of a lot of women are in right now. Financial abuse is extremely prevalent in the . Why are so many women left destitute when a relationship breaks up? Because they have been kept financially subservient. By agreeing (key word) to a level of remuneration and how tasks are divided I think the power-balance is far more even and up-front.