Equality at home - Can this really be achieved?

[marga73]

There is an issue I've been wanting to discuss for a long time. It's the issue of equality inside the house.

Even though women now work and are able to gain respectable positions in the workplace, and we can say that some level of equality has been attained, it seems to me that once they have children, women lose more than men in terms of work opportunities and financial independence. And all because the house and the children still seem to be a "woman's job".

It's all great to find women who are happy being the SAHP, but don't these women feel sometimes that being 100% financially dependent on their husbands is frustrating? Doesn't this situation make them feel trapped and powerless? Is it OK for women to sacrifice their independence for the sake of their children and the house keeping?

I work part-time, and have two small children, and still feel trapped sometimes. I'm grateful in many ways that my husband earns enough so we don't have to worry about paying for mortgage, food, childcare etc - and I contribute to this too - but I feel it's far beyond from the ideal I had when I was young and it really annoys me. If I'm honest, it makes me very angry.

I would like a society where men and women work part time, share domestic tasks 50/50, and look after their children part time, and therefore pay for everything on equal terms. Is this too much to ask in the fierce capitalist society we live today? Am I naive to think that should be the case?

yep god forbid a woman should stay home and look after her own child and get benefits - no make her go to work and pay someone else to look after her child even though in many cases that will mean paying more out in child tax credit, child credit, hb top ups etc etc than she was getting on benefits before working.

but hey it's the principle isn't it? ok for married women but those single mums shouldn't have the privilege of looking after their children.

it very often costs the state MORE for a single mum to work than not.

I'd like to see the quality of childcare upped, so that children who are not being cared for in the home have a secure, enriched and loving environment to spend their days in. I think so many issues that arise in the early stages of a child's life, from socialisation and relationships to early language acquisition to skills development could be solved by having truly excellent early childcare facilities.
Because for many SAHP, it really is a case of watching JK and prioritising the adult's wants over the child's needs and this has a huge impact on the baby, the toddler and the child that it becomes.
It is dreadful that nursery and childcare provision for many under 5's is so poor.

Don't twist my words. For me the idea of being forced to stay at home instead of going to work fills me with dread, and I rather earn a taxable income than rely on benefits.

This is not to say that everyone on benefits is a JK watching layabout. I haven't said that and don't know where you got that from.

I still believe situation where going out to work for an income, paying taxes and NI leaves you worse off than not going out to work is terrible. Going out to work it means that the state gets my taxes plus I contribute to the creation of further paid employment (i.e. the nursery I pay to look after my children) - so if I stay at home instead of getting two lots of taxes and NI, the state gets zilch, and pays me benefits, that just doesn't make sense.

My point is simply that calling one person's career dependent on another is a bit in most cases.

it's a bit of a fallacy for many these days ww - working means taking far more in tax credits and childcare credits etc than how much given in taxes.

the fact remains that it is actually often cheaper for the state for a woman to stay at home on income support than to go out to work and receive 15k in tax credits.

the issue obviously being that wages are not high enough, cost of living is too high rather than benefits are too high before we go down that old chestnut of derision.

might be to your tastes bunny but still a total fact.

you're also dependent on the transport system to get there and the education system to have taught you the skills needed to do the job and the etc etc. independence is a bit of a fallacy for all of us.

I would just like to see a society where working 'part-time' is not seen as being less good or less committed. For any reason...

I work from home with multiple clients, thankfully none know how many other clients I have so nobody can ever know if I have 'full time' work or 'part time' and judge me.

I actually know quite a few people who work part time to pursue caring responsibilities (children or elderly parents) or artistic projects. But in my DH's profession that would never be allowed - even though he also has lots of different clients and none of them would know how many hours he's working in total...

SAF - oh why don't we just stop sending girls to school and university then - once they sprog work's too expensive for them anyway, and they can always opt for something unskilled in school hours when the children are old enough. And if it's cheaper for the state to just keep them on income support it's win all around.

I hope my daughters will aspire to more than that.

But it isnt a fact. It makes no difference to my career whatsoever.

How did the kibbutz system work? A group of parents caring for a number of children including their own, freeing other parents to work for the collective good?
I know little about it, but perhaps a more commune-based approach would give more parents the choice and freedom that they need.
Some are looking after one child now, some care for three or more, and it would pool expertise amongst the experienced and the inexperienced, giving some of the aspects of an extended family.
Rather than individuals at home caring for their own child or children in isolation, doing an excellent job or a crap one.

'sprog' - how offensive.

i am talking about specific women currently on benefits whilst looking after a small child who would be forced into poorly paid work at massive subsidy from the taxpayer during the preschool stage of their children's lives. that's a relatively short time in a relatively small amount of women's lives.

not a model for womankind.

and again for those specific women why does wanting to be at home raising their own children for the period before they go to school deserve such derision from you? is childcare worthless to you? is cleaning bogs for minimum wage really higher in your estimation than loving and caring for a child?

that seems deeply misogynistic to me.

At DH's kibbutz, mothers went back to work, babies went to live in baby houses at 3 months old and never lived at home again. They stayed in children's dormitories, visiting with their parents from 4-8pm daily. Past the baby stage, no-one even stayed with them at night - there was an intercom is they needed anything.

Some women had the job of childcare for babies, or nursery workers or teachers. Other women did other jobs in the factories, fields, laundry or kitchen. Parental impact on children's lives was somewhat reduced since they never actually lived at home. Although, 4 hours a day with parents is more than a lot of families get these days.

So I'm not sure that's something we should aim for!!

I think there's a lot be said for a more communal, community-based childcare system, but few communities are close enough for that to happen these days. I guess the closest we have is childminders, who are usually our friends and neighbours as well as our childcare providers. My childminder is one of my closest friends, but I realise I'm lucky to be in that situation.

There are a lot of classist assumptions being made on this thread. Most people who work don't have 'careers' they have jobs. The idea of a career is a middle class construct.

The model suggested by the OP assumes that 2 pt jobs would bring in enough income to sustain a family. For lots of working class people that is totally unrealistic. 40 hours on the min wage isn't even a decent standard of living for 1 single person let alone a whole family. Never mind that the new universal credit will force low income families to both work anyway.

Widow- I used to have 2 people on a job share as my line managers. It worked fine. I wish more employers used this model as standard as it has many advantages eg someone still there when one is sick/on holiday, specialisation of skills in different aspects of the job, more diverse creative input.

Bonsoir- personally I'd much rather have a nanny looking after the DCs than my smoking parents who feed them chocolate and plonk them in front of the screen. Childcare should be seen as a highly skilled profession and not just an extension of 'babysitting'.

SAF- very true that many people want married mums to sahp but single mums to wohp regardless of the actual economics.

tis true victor - also true that they don't even question the inherent misogyny, particularly towards non heteronormative women, in that stance.

Are those who want married women to stay at home really the same who want single mothers to work? Also does it make any difference wether it's a same sex or heterosexual partnership?

yes they are - they're called tories.

though i'm sure plenty of lefties agree with them too in private.

Maybe I'm an anomaly then, as I think it'd be better if WOHMing was the norm no matter whether partnered or single.

DH and I try to split things fairly evenly,we both work 3days out of the home. Although we do outsourcebthe cleaning and some of the cooking.I ddo shopping anmeal planning, and laundry he does home maintanence, DIY and the finaicial stuff. Not sure I would describe it as perfect, tere is a bit of a hotbadding problem mid-week with the "childcare handover" . We do have our weekends all together and occasionally we are both about during the day in the.week which is lovely :)

It is also worth mentioning this is the most tax efficient way to work.(we both earn just below the 40% cutoff

Each partner is dependent on the other.

If you have a SAHP, then as a working parent your career does depend on them being at home at that moment in time. It is true that if they disappeared off the face of the earth, you could make other arrangements and you would no longer be career dependent on them.

If you are SAHP, you are financially dependent on your partner at that moment in time. It is true that if your partner disappeared off the face of the earth, you could make other arrangements and you would no longer be dependent on them.

If a SAHP goes out to work, then both parents then become career dependent on the child care worker, and if the former SAHP's wage goes to cover the cost of childcare, then the other working parent is financially dependent on the former SAHP covering that cost.