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?

I don't find this baffling, I can see how this happens (this does not mean this is how I want things to be, can you appreciate the difference?)

Yes Bravepotato I can but maybe I was reading an inference into your post you did not intend. I read it as a bit of a 'shrug' 'it's biology that means women stay at home' which implies it isn't something to be changed.
I am aware of the historical context that our current bias to women being the main carers and men being the main earners has sprung out of....I am just baffled as to why we are still wasting so much energy discussing it as a solely female choice - to stay at home or not to stay at home. Why aren't we focussing our efforts more on driving change and real equality of choice?

I am a SAHM. Left work at 28 on >£50k and about to make a bit leap up.

Four years later I have two children and absolutely adore being a SAHM.

Life is long. So I see this phase as a wonderful career break. I will return to work in a few years, but I honestly think that my daughter's ambitions would be remotely affected by whether or not I return to work.

My mother was a SAHM, from the moment she became pregnant with me and never returned to work. I never thought about it as a child, but as I grew older, I knew I wanted my children to have what I had. A mother that was around a lot of the time. It certainly didn't affect my ambitions. I had a Protestant work ethic at school and university (I recall my parents begging me to take a break), and then I went straight into a graduate
Training scheme.

Exactly who says being a sahp is a negative thing for a woman?I read the blog Tales a From a Happy House where the blogger raised this point last week in a post entitled Intelligent People Don't Get Bored.

Some women and families crave being and having a sahp. Circumstances,jobs and people differ.How dare anybody ask me to justify my choice, it's so rude.I know several sahd,do they get asked to justify their choice? No siree they're just heroes.

When I became a sahp it was after 7 years of trying to be a parent and two stressful pregnancies.We both wanted a sahp and were both earning the same. Neither job would have enabled a part time worker.There was no way after putting my body through utter shite and carrying those 3 kids inside me that I was going to be the one not there with them at home.I wanted it more so my dp let me have the role for which I'm very grateful.Once we made the decision we decided to build up dp 's career and I funded his Masters both the cost and the maintenance as the only working partner at the time.

This has worked for us.I am an intelligent woman and not some weak,lazy sap others would like to portray me as.The relationship isn't going to collapse and leave me on benefit street,I can think and weigh up pros and cons.

I'm staggered at the way women are portrayed on here - weak saps bullied into staying at home,hitching up with sexist men who dump you further down the line.It's bollocks.In RL most women I know are and do argue for what they want,are able to pick a decent partner and are happy in their choices.Interestingly the ones that aren't seem to be the full time workers but hey lets not pick them to shreds.

I think children will be most affected by their own peer group and the job market of their era.

And yes life is long.

The vast maj of sahm will gave worked for it,worked before and will work again after.

This portrayal of sahm as life long sponging scroungers is shit and not what I call feminism which I thought was about choice.

Can I ask a question that I think is relevant to this thread ?

Would those who are longterm SAHP ie to teenagers have made the same choice to give up WOH if they had the support provided to them that they give to their partners ?
This seems to be the issue, although it is presented as their choice to SAH often the backstory is a man (usually) who wont spport the career ambitions of his partner/ take an equal role in child caring.
So to achieve anything remotely resembling a balanced family/working life the woman becomes the SAHP.

This is always presented as "better for the family" but is it really better for the woman or even the man who works long hours and doesn't see his DC during the week .

Disclaimer :WOHP 50/50 shared parenting with DP,no childcare.

I don't see why a SAHP needs to justify it to their DD. They may wish to discuss context etc. No doubt they will wish to point out that each family and situation is individual. Fat worse would to speak in general terms about what is 'right' or 'best'. Those conversations are both sexist and really really shit parenting.

yy to this!

I live in a part of the country where many people like a life balance so you see more 2x part time workers I also know many who would like 2x but the jobs simply aren't there.If my dp decided further down the line he wanted a part time job in his field he'd be laughed at.

Interestingly my dsis has had 2x part time jobs with her dh but has found it hard to hold onto as have friends of mine in similar positions.You also get treated less favourably with things like time tabling,working unpaid hours,redundancy etc.

2x part time is a lovely idea(which I'd like for my dc to have as a choice)but in reality an awful lot of jobs don't lend themselves to it and actually tax wise surely it would reduce revenue.

MrsCripps We make it work. I'm not as long term as you say (quite yet) but am a SAHP for the foreseeable. Tbh, my career was never as lucrative as DH's. Different professions...

So should I have chosen a better paid profession? My skills would have to have been elsewhere. Should I have concentrated more on those subjects earlier on in my schooling? I don't know. I focused on what I enjoyed and what I was good at.

We are happy. I was not happier when I worked full time at all, at times I hated it and I loved it when I could leave one job and have a break because DH's job relocated.

I am never bored being a SAHP. There is always loads to do...

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

No, none of these are new phenomena. The industrial revolution started in Britain in the mid-18th century. Women in the lower classes, as well as men, worked before marriage, even before that; women joined the professions from the late 19th century onwards (albeit not in huge numbers). Education for everyone was introduced in 1871 in England.

So, these are not new phenomena. Women have always worked in some shape or form. There was quite possibly a short period in the 1950s and 1960s where women were much more likely to stay at home, because priority was given to men returning from the war and this coincided with Bowlby's work on attachment, but the male breadwinner/SHAwife model is not a time immemorial trend that is only only recently being reversed. The male breadwinner/SAHwife model is far more recent.

But to be honest, I think the key point is that, if a man would not waste his time having this argument, why on earth should a woman? If there are not key policy implications that one can campaign on or advocate, then it is a rabbit hole, it really is.

I agree, working class women have always worked but let's not forget that it wasn't that long ago that working class children had to work too and didn't even receive a proper education.

Retro

your point up thread about some sahms costing the tax payer more if they were working would be me.
Whilst dh is around a lot of the time I can't guarantee this and as you can't say to an employer can't come in today my dh got last minute work, would need cc for the time I was working.
This would prob be 70% funded by the tax payer, and I would be entitled to tax credit in my own right too. I would be aprox £400 a month better off, just from benefits, without factoring any profit from working.

I think the only key policy implication is the lack of quality affordable childcare.

Was in Copenhagen a month ago, and there most mothers work, paternity/maternity leave is shared and everywhere in the city were these little groups of tots all dressed up in their rain gear, doing various activities, solemnly eating lunch, looked after - not by people barely out of their teens, but by mature women and men who were focused on the children.

I was fortunate to receive subsidised childcare (yes I am a drain on sociert) and still pay just £175/month for DD3 to be in ft nursery. This has enabled me to get back into work. Our family finances are much, much better as a result.

I don't care what women 'should' do, I care about women being able to make a real choice about how they want their family life to be organised.

I care about women being able to make a real choice about how they want their family life to be
this

Ubik

Totally agree, its having the choice that matters, not what you choose.
This choice has to come from the parents though and the perceived lack of choice realised.
We could have easily afforded a nanny when we started off with ds1 but we chose not to take this route and have a sahp. Its something we had discussed during the pregnancy and held as such importance to us.
We moved heaven and earth to be able to do this, just the same as some couples have to do this to enable them to work.

Ubik When faced with a DC's SEN the 'choices' in childcare come with even more complications...

For example, adequately qualified 1 to 1, is not as cheap. From society's view the numbers do not make group childcare any more economically viable prospect, that is if the child needs 1 to 1 care.

From a feminist viewpoint it is often the mother who assumes the primary caring role. Not many paid employments are flexible enough to allow both parents to work and care for a child with SNs. If the mother has already taken time out for caring for the child whilst a small baby, it is likely she will have already suffered a salary drop, so the mother often ends up taking on the caring role.

littleseahorse I was meaning a new phenomenon in the scale of human evolution that bravepotato was mentioning - where biological factors were the main driving force (arguably with a lot of help from St. Paul and his like) behind gender roles.

hey lets not pick them to shreds I did select some pages of this thread at random and there's about 50/50:
-SAHM aren't contributing etc'
-WM are upset, sad, having to do it and BAD MOTHERS.

Maybe just the 3 pages I picked at random. The WM seem to be more 'direct' and the SAHM seem to have more little comments about how WO (or their kids) can't possibly be happy. Neither is excusable really.

But this idea that people are being 'mean' to one group and letting the other go is simply not true.

Could you give directions as I'm not seeing posts saying kids with wm can't possibly be happy.Not one let alone several, it is a long thread though.

Would like to point out that an entire thread asking sahm to justify their existence kind of stinks to be frank.

Did you miss the 'pseudo mothers' comment?

Yup,still a way to go until we get to 50/50 though and then there is the thread title of course.

Could you give directions as I'm not seeing posts saying kids with wm can't possibly be happy

Me neither.

Herc That poster (beep?) was essentially saying the care provided by nursery/nanny/childminder is substitute 'mothering' during work hours. Had a slightly anthropological ring maybe, but she wasn't calling WOHMs pseudo-mothers.

I haven't read the whole thread, but what if someone asked the opposite question? How would a mother working outside the home, justify to her children that her employment was more important than them when they were little?
See, it's silly. As long as a child is loved and cared for then there is really no need to justify anything.

herc

What was wrong with the term pseudo mothers?
It was referring to the role of a cc worker in the absence of the parent.
Surely if you use childcare you would be glad your child was being parented in your absence.
Nobody was saying you were a worse parent for doing this, but that it wasn't their choice as that's not what they want for their dc.
I used the term in loco parentis, in place of the parents because this is the term.

The thing is what you think is suitable to do depends a lot if your experience.
Someone mentioned up thread that their childhood experience will colour their views. I think that your experiences as adult also colour your views.
As an adult I have been in the situation if being a SAHM and thinking about getting divorced. The jack if work and not being sort if financially independent scared the hell out if me and I vowed not to be in that situation again.
I also realized that, once I went back into work, the sort if power struggle between me and DH diminished, ie as an earner in the family, I suddenly had as much to say as he had (just as it was before dcs).

So because if that I would been encouraging any girl to carry on working whilst adapting both hers and her DH work to family life.

Education I think is different. A good education IS important to raise dcs too not the least to be able to talk about all sort of subjects with them. An example that comes into my mind is the comment if a childminder who was talking about her Y4 dd saying that her dd knew more than her now. They were talking about whales being a mammifere....