Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

[whenwilltherebegoodnews]

I have a few friends who, because their DHs are high (6 figure) earners, are able to be SAHMs, and have no intention of ever returning to work. These women are all at least degree educated and previously had successful careers.

I just wonder, in such a situation, how a long term SAHM encourages her DD to realise her academic/career potential, if the example she sets is that her education is only a short term requirement until she meets a high earning man?

I'm not trying to start a bun fight, I'm genuinely interested. My own mother is university educated, and has always worked in some capacity, successfully managing her own businesses with being the main carer, and encouraged me to be financially independent.

Personally, I feel I have invested too many years, and too much money, in my education and career to give it up forever after only 10-15 years. I like to think I am setting a good example to my DD that career and family are not mutually exclusive.

So how does a long term SAHM reconcile this? Am I thinking too simplistically?

Deep in the Woods - so you are actually a working parent!

'Because they love to sit down with me and unload their day, they love a cuddle and a kiss when they come though the door. They appreciate someone there to pass the sick bucket or make lemsip when they are ill.

Do these things have no value?'

Really a 16 year old rushing through the door to see you, telling you all about the girls they have met, their fears for the future. are you joking!

And surely you arent justifying staying at home because one day they might need a Lemsip and the poor loves cannot make it themselves. What happens if they go to university? Perhaps you will go with them...

A 16 year old absolutely doesnt need childcare. If you think they do I dread what they will be like when faced with something they need to deal with outside of the home. Getting lost on the tube, getting on the wrong bus, getting into a fight at school, getting into trouble on the internet. All of these things are learning for them. You are certainly doing them no good hovering over them.

And someone UT who states why would they want to work... Well words fail me on that one....

Life is too broad to judge like the op is trying to prompt people to do.

This!
Some women (and men) are highly rewarded by SAHPing.
Some women (and men) would find it frustrating.
Some kids would struggle in childcare and learn better with a SAHP.
Some kids thrive in childcare.
Some women (and men) love having the dual identity of work and home.
Some women (and men) hate it.

...TBH letters after your name and so forth aren't going to change the dynamic of your own personality/your children's. There isn't a 'one' right way.

Sadly there are societal and financial pressures meaning some people are pushed towards options which aren't best for them: be that financial pressure to work when they'd rather not or pressure from F&F to stay at home for moral reasons when their kids are at school and they want something else (happens in my culture/area).

Ahh, how different I think this thread would be if the OP had said 'how do SAHD who are well educated justify their choice to SAH to their sons without sending the message that they don't need to work hard at school because they can grow up and find a rich woman'

To me there is no negative example being set in this choice when children are small , the challenge is when older (and I think there is broad agreement on this isn't there?).

I think most people would be applauding a SAHD for that choice.

I think from a feminist perspective ANY decision that conforms to a typical gender role feels damaging because it reinforces the status quo. But I suspect we all make these choice hundreds of times a day on small or large scales. The choice to SAH is just one of the really big ones.

As a parent the decision to want one parent to be at home taking care of young children is I think probably quite natural, as well as societal and structural for some (childcare cost = pressure to stay at home) though not others (mortgage costs = pressure to earn).

The feminist challenge comes in at the point that in almost every couple it ends up being the woman who stays at home.

can we not discuss that rather than our personal choices?

Going back to the OP. I know many men earning these sorts of money (and it IS men, I dont know any women!). I also know their partners who bar two have complaining and moaned that their DH's bring home work from the office, have audios during the weekend. Are always checking their Blackberry's and dont seem to understand the presssure THEY are under.

I also hear their DH's saying their wives dont understand the pressure they are under to provide for the WHOLE family, who really dont appreciate being moaned at when they have to work after hours. I work with these men.

It doesnt sound a great arrangement. Most of these women are well educated but my fear is that their marriage/partnership is going to fail when they are so far apart.

The person saying 'well why should I work...

1. To pay for the NHS (unless you want others to pay your share)
2. To give back something financially when you use schools for your children
3. To pay for your pension
4. To provide a good example to your children. What are you going to do when they decide to stop going to school because actually there is no point.

Thinkabout it makes a good point, however I dont know anyone who has a partnership like this. I know couples who both work, I know very high earning families where the wife stays at home (and allows the man to continue onwards and upwards without having to worry about the school pick up etc).

I think this is where there is a mismatch. Maybe not 40 yrs ago when it was expected and the norm for the women to stay at home but nowadays... I am not so sure.

For me its the breakdown of the family (married or not) that would make sure that any DD of mine recognises that she will have to make her own way in the world and not rely on a man to support her choices in life.

Handcream I think there is an underlying assumption in your points that not everyone on the thread shares. You assume everyone should be assessed as an individual contribution. Others are looking at a contribution as a partnership.

So if a couple make a choice to support themselves on a single (high in the OP context) income then the taxes on that income covers 1,2 & 3 in your points.

And point 4 is the essence of what the thread is about...

handcream, I also know of plenty of relationships that have broken down because the wife is working FT and is pissed off that she still does the 90% of the childcare and housework - the "wifework". Or because they are all so busy working that they never get any quality time together.

Sometimes on MN it's like it's a crime to actually want to raise your own children.

^ handcream My DH's income is our family's income. He plays plenty of tax and NI to cover us (there is no relief for being married / we don't claim tax credits for DC).

What example would I be setting my child by working? My DC has had SEN, which had a Statement (until recently), child care was not straight forward. Received flexible, part time schooling at one point. No relatives live near to help with childcare either. We don't need the money I would earn, I can support my child out of school. It works for us. Dealing with the Statementing process and SEN (appointments and so on), making sure everything was done correctly, would have been extremely difficult if I had worked. I don't resent not working.

Now I have had a big career gap, but we don't need the extra income. If we did there may be radical changes, downsizing etc, which we could do. We have a buffer though, equity in our house and some savings. It is enough security for me....it has to be, that is I don't believe in worrying.

raise stay at home with your own children.

I dont know anyone who has a partnership like this i.e. SAHD?

Me neither! That is exactly my point though. We are having the SAHM / WOHM debate but in the feminist section we should be having the discussion about why it is almost always the woman who feels this is the choice / option? And that it is her role.

My mum was definitely not educated to degree level but her sahm status vs the aspirations she had for me created major arguments during my late teens.

Then when I had kids and went back to work we had more arguments as she didn't think that was right either.

Sometimes your perspective changes when you become a parent, what was important to you in your life and career pre children is not always as significant post children, even when they are grown up. Becoming a parent made me more family orientated and suddenly had no desire to go gallivanting around the country with my career anymore and got the same satisfaction from being home with my family. Surely the importance of being happy rather than solely education and career would be better?

I will tell my daughter that when the children were young I wanted to look after them myself and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that as they grew and I ended up with three of them that it made financial sense to stay at home with them and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that I felt it was unfair that child number three would miss out on what the first two children had and I decided to stay at home until they were in senior school and I enjoyed it

I will tell my daughter that by the time they were all at senior school the job market had changed and it wasn't so easy to walk into any job but it was worth it

I will tell my daughter that if she is well educated she can chose to do whatever she wants

I will tell my daughter not to give a flying fuck what any body else says about her choices as long as they are the right ones for her and her family

I will tell my daughter that I did the absolute best I could

I will tell my sons the same

Sabrina

You say:
"Sometimes on MN it's like it's a crime to actually want to raise your own children."
Then you post
"raise stay at home with your own children."

Who is being accused of the crime here? Sounds trite but 'two wrongs don't make a right' so to speak.

I have seen equally negative language on this post from both parties, sadly.

Thinkaboutittomorrow,

but that is obvious, surely?

It is women who carry the child, who go through labour and breastfeed the baby. So women start out being a bit more invested in their offspring.

That is just biology. After that first stage, it becomes maybe a more rational "choice", but by then women will have had time off work, even if just to give birth! and will on average have bonded more with the mum.

Bottle feeding and breast pumps are a relatively recent invention, and for centuries, millennia, ten thousands of years, women (like all female mammals) have always taken "time out" to care for their newborns, and breastfeed them .

To deny any difference between the sexes in terms of evolution or biology makes any feminist debate a bit artificial.

I am not saying women should stay at home , I am a feminist and think women should have the same choices as men, and that includes men having the same choices as women (as ultimately that furthers women's advancement in the workplace and lead to more equal treatment).

But I don't get why people are baffled that it is so often the woman looking after babies and small children.

I also question whether being the SAHP is the "lesser" option.

Office work and carriers are overrated IMO

Surely people cannot be claiming that their parnter pays their tax for them! You have to be earning shed loads to make that work! And tax doesnt work like that.

One person earning say 50k isnt funding, his partner to stay at home, 3 chidlren at school, NHS, pension payments etc.

I do smile at people who say 'well my partner pays my tax etc.' No they dont!

What is plenty of tax and NI btw for 3 children, and a non working parent?

Handcream in two households earning the same amount of money, one with one earner and the other with two roughly evenly paid earners, which do you think pays more tax? Hint: I am not using my personal tax allowance.

Really a 16 year old rushing through the door to see you, telling you all about the girls they have met, their fears for the future. are you joking!

This struck a chord.
Well, he didn't actually rush through the door, but last night my teenage ds did start telling me all about the girl he has met, and then about something he was worried about re himself for the future. But it wouldn't have mattered if I had spent the day working in the home or doing paid work outside, as long as I was physically there to talk to at some point during the day and had a bit of time to listen. And it's personality as well - my dd wouldn't have told me about her boyfriends.

more income tax*

I think our children are glad to see us happy and living a lifestyle that makes us happy and content with life.
For us that means relaxed, chilled and not chasing around like headless chickens, juggling everything hoping it will all work out in the end.
I never wanted anybody to determine what I did with my time and when, so working for an employer was completely out.
I like to come and go as I please and not be answerable to others, outside my family.
Some people find their identity through a career or job, they like to be referred to as the job they do, others find this boring and unfulfilling.
We are all different and have different values.

Bottle feeding and breast pumps are a relatively recent invention, and for centuries, millennia, ten thousands of years, women (like all female mammals) have always taken "time out" to care for their newborns, and breastfeed them

And unfortunately some had no choice over when they stopped - either carrying them to the mill or farm when they would prefer to bond, or kept within the home with a large family because that is what society/husband demanded. In fact a lot carried their babies to unpleasant, dangerous workplaces where thy started work as soon as they could walk and follow basic instructions.
The idea of the historical, adoring 'at home mother' is a Victorian myth of middle class fiction.
The key difference is that for most women, the work was drudgery not what we would call a 'career' with opportunities, safety and interest for the woman herself.

Are modern men who want to be SAHDs (or just quite hands on when home) unnatural then? Because for centuries they'd be working or marauding with swords.

Office work and carriers are overrated IMO
if we're using the 'it's natural' argument, I was unaware FEMALE hands evolved for desk work..?
You do know that many, many women don't just work in an office.
You know, that overrated, unnatural work (and I am going for female dominated jobs here, so as not to be too shocking and unnatural) nursing, teaching, social work, animal husbandry, beauty and health etc'.
With those careers (in contrast to data entry etc') the reward isn't financial alone, is it?

Or would you, in RL, ask a pediatric nurse or a SEN therapist about their job being 'overrated' if they had kids? Several of my colleagues specifically trained for these jobs BECAUSE having kids changed their priorities... they started thinking of the issues and caring about them more and it MADE them want a particular career.

Hmmm many,many working mothers(and fathers)aren't paying tax,get tax credits and have help with childcare so not only contribute sfa but cost the country more.

When I go back to work it will be under the generous tax threshold(thus paying no tax) and I will be claiming for childcare on top.I will be costing the country more.

My dp pays more tax doing his job(which I facilitate)than 2 on the same salary split(who also get CB and childcare help).

Thinkaboutit - I mentioned upthread that that's basically what DH and I do. I got sworn at.

Bravepotato Paid employment is a relatively new phenomenon. Education for everyone is a relatively new phenomenon. Women working before kids is a relatively new phenomenon.

We are dealing in a world full of relatively new phenomena, the debate is about how we manage in this brave new world.

Beyond the first stage of maternity leave I am baffled as to why it continues to be the woman who is at home looking after children. I am baffled that it is so bizarre to image the OP written with a different gender - because the idea that a father would exit the workforce to stay at home is so rare. Why? Once there is no biological reason (around the 6 month mark in my personal experience) I see no reason why a 6 month break should knock earning power so much that it almost always makes sense for a woman to stay at home.

I took 9 months off work and it probably set me back about 18 months in total. Yet it would seem normal to everyone if I had stayed at home and truly revolutionary if DP had stopped work to swap with me. The pressure this creates on women effectively negates the illusion of choice. that is the problem. The fact that we are all beating each other up instead of challenging this is what baffles me.