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?

Are you serious? I am speechless! Do you not think children deserve to hear that they are so valuable that a parent has chosen to spend time focussing on their well being and happiness whatever the gender of the child or parent!

I must say that it has never crossed my mind as a sahm that I need to set a role model of achievement in the educational or economic sense to any of my 3 kids (2 dds and 1ds). They know I am highly intelligent and educated and had a successful career (although more in terms of personally and community fulfilling as opposed to financially rewarding). Quite likely I will go back to that career at some point but see more value now in supporting my children. I suppose that's because I am confident and secure in my achievementsand choices, as i hope all my dc will be.

Hello OP, I haven't worked for 23 years approx.
I am well educated, had a thriving business and was a hr tax payer in my early twenties.
I gave it all up to look after my family and support dhs business, because it was my choice.

My dh isn't a high earner though, in fact quite the opposite.
I have modelled that it is important to live the life that you want to and not to let anything including social constraint stand in your way.
Our 2 older dc have a good work ethic and have supported themselves through work since they were 16.
Our dd already knows she wants to travel the world with her career, employing a nanny for her dd that she intends to adopt as she doesn't need a man (she is 10)

I think it is important to teach your dc that for a lot of families with both parents working something has to give that it isn't realistic to think you can automatically ensure all your relationships survive.
For me it was important to work at my relationship with my family and to be there for my kids, anything else would have been second best to me.

We are all different though, have different values, goals, etc.

I think that all adults in decent physical and mental health should make a contribution to the wider world... but that contribution should not be measured purely in financial terms. Looking after small children and elderly adults, not to mention voluntary work, are just as valuable as earning a wage. One of the most impressive women I know is technically a SAHM, but actually she spends at least three days a week running a voluntary organisation with amazing drive and commitment.

I daresay there are some women (and men) with older children who spend their lives enjoying themselves without any thought of how they could make the world a slightly better place, but I don't move in those sort of circles so can't really comment.

I don't work, though I see my role as being a carer rather than a sahm as my daughter is disabled. But I think the principle is still the same as in its up to you what you do and you don't have to justify yourself to anyone. I am one of those people who does no voluntary work either, I just walk my dog :o the worst kind of sahm who gets flagged off in here. I don't care!

Yes but some people just seem to take it for granted that it is a choice, when its only a choice afforded by a particular set of circumstances. It is not a choice that I have, for example.

The education as an end in utterly is something that troubles me. I'm not sure how moral it is to study something at uni, having been subsidised by the state, and then not use that skill to contribute economically. My sil has done this has never worked, and has also taken out a student loan which she will never pay back. But I do realise she is atypical as a sahm!

I'm a degree & postgrad educated SAHM, DH on a six figure sum.

I gave up work completely when he was posted abroad to a third world country and we all went with him. Now we're back after 11 years of me being the trailing spouse and we have all had a blast.

We are a team. He couldn't have reached the position he has, and have a family, if I didn't do everything else. He works long days with lots of travel. I organise the house/holidays/finances and raise our children. Each of us enables the other to do that. If I wanted to go back to work he would absolutely support me but I choose not to have my kids coming home to an empty house and be rushing round evenings and weekends to get the chores done.

I volunteer with 2 charities and am considering getting involved with local politics or being a school governor as the children get older. That is how I 'pay back' my state funded education, in my mind.

Don't daughters usually do the opposite of their mothers anyway? Currently my daughter wants to be a midwife - I couldn't be prouder. She has not chosen an easy path, for sure.

Oh I haven't paid back my student loans either

If I was a SAHM with children of both sexes...

I would expect them to learn that life experience is a set of choices. That they should endeavour to make choices that make them happy (and don't harm others obviously). That as long as you can afford to live, the actual way you live is up to you. That work is valuable, bringing up children is valuable, volunteering, caring, hobbies etc... All valuable and valid choices.

susannah - education for it's own sake - is not and should not be a worthy high ideal - I did have loans to pay back and I was employed afterwards and paid them off. But I think we should not have high fees for education - it is making education elitist and as you point out forcing students to choose courses that are likely to result in a career.

But the question was how a sahm reconciles eduction and employment goals for her children with her own 'choices' - that is the point of the thread - the fact is you are more likely to successfully complete a course that you enjoy and can relate to.

I dunno, I am another well educated hanger on. DD(18) tells me she is going to marry a rich bloke and buy a big house in the country and paint all day.

As all her boyfriends up till now have been penniless arty types, I take it with a pinch of salt.

I know no one has suggested this is the only thing they do, but I always find the argument that being educated helps people to educate their own children a little circular. Surely there needs to be a point to education beyond simply educating the next generation?

What works well in our family is both parents doing a mix of paid work, voluntary/community work and childcare. I know that's not a model that would suit all families, but I know it's an arrangement that lots of people would like to have, so I'm happy that that's what we're modelling to our children. Whether that's the life they eventually choose for themselves, of course, remains to be seen!

I think that education is a red herring tbh.
The successful business I had at twenty came through having no qualifications at all, not even a CSE.
Much later I am PG qualified and have never used my quals.
I have taught all my dc that education serves a purpose and really isn't that important. A good basic education is enough to get most people through life.
University should be a bit more elite, too many degree qualified people and not enough vocationally trained.

Susannah and amber, of course not all people have all choices That surely goes without saying! That doesn't mean being a sahm isn't an equal choice to having a job. I would love to be a sahm but can't as dh's job is so insecure.

Others have already said it, but I think it is terribly sad to think that education has value only if it leads to financial reward. That is certainly not something I want to be telling my children.

I went to University because I loved the subject and I came away with two degrees . Having a good education is something I value. I think it equips me to contribute to society in many ways. One of those ways was though paid employment and I have held fairly senior positions.

Now I want to put my children at the centre of my world and be there for them every day when they come home from school. I want to use my education to talk to them properly every day and to teach them to question the wold around them, form opinions and make good judgments.

I don't feel I have wasted my education or that I am somehow a less interesting or stimulating person because I do not go out to work. I hope my sons and daughters will share my love of learning and live up to their potential. I hope they will go to university. How they choose to use their education will be up them them. I would be equally proud of a captain of industry or a SAHP!

I don't think anyone has assumed all people have all choices in his thread. I think you've got a bit trapped by the language and missed the wider point on this one.

I'm not at all convinced that most children follow the same path as their parents.

When my eldest son - nearly grown up at the time-saw how much time and energy my career took when my other children were still quite small, he vowed never to have a "career" himself.

So it can work both ways, in that running found the country in a frazzle whilst juggling a home and family does not look a tempting proposition to outsiders!

I suppose what I'd like to teach my children is that it's important to (in no particular order) a) be financially independent, b) be a loving parent (if you have children, obviously), c) make a worthwhile contribution to society, d) do something with your life that brings you pleasure and fulfilment.

Do people say the same of SAHDs? Or are they brave for bucking the trend?

One of the big problems is that the media portray SAHM as something which every woman wants and should try to afford (by marrying a richer man) or they're not good mums but evil cold unnatural career women.
But once (or rather if) they are able to, it's viewed by the very same media/society as a luxury not a job IYSWIM. As the 'easy' option. When in reality it is so incredibly rare to have a woman like those "real housewives" stereotypes!

So precisely NO women win!

In my experience, pleasant DC of a SAHP appreciate the extra parental time, school pick-ups etc they benefitted from, pleasant DC of WOHPs appreciate the material extras it brought them. Why would you justify the choices you made to your DCs? Surely they will have witnessed the upside of the choice themselves?

There seems to be a slight assumption in the OP that all SAHMs have high-earning DPs. Not remotely the case. People in all income brackets become SAHPs for allsorts of intangible, values based reasons, family circs, illness etc and economise accordingly.

Surely nowadays a university education has to have a financial reward. Tuition fees are only going to get higher.

I don't think £50 000 of debt (the estimated average debt of uni graduates in a few years) is worth it just because you love a subject.

DM was your typical career woman, out before we left for school and not back till 7.30pm sometimes 9pm everyday. She had a good career but i hated the fact she was never in and I had to take on the role of cooking for the family and helping younger db and dsis with home work, DF was in an equally high powered job. Friend next door's mum was SAHM, I was able to observe how she would always have a meal ready when they got back from school, had time to listen to what had gone on at school, could help with school work in various ways and what should couldn't teach them was quick to arrange a tutor. Friend and siblings were a very confident bunch and did extremely well at school due to the close support and nurturing from home. Friend is now a top lawyer in her country, all her siblings have high flying careers. We did well too but struggled a lot more in ways we wouldn't have had DM taken some time out during crucial periods of our lives.

Of course there are working parents who also turn out high achieving dc, but my post is to point out that being a SAHM does in no way me, no ambition to succeed academically. In addition when ds started school, I was surprised to find that contrary to what I had thought, the children with SAHM could all read very well before they started to school, whilst ds and a number others who had been to nursery couldn't. I remember one mum commented.. "After spending hundreds of pounds!"

I don't think my older 2 dc will have huge careers as they aren't driven like dd.
However, I think they have realised what is important to them from dh and my values.
Not that I think anybodies values are better than anybody elses, we all make our choices to a certain degree.
My eldest has a long term gf who whilst works wouldn't use cc in the future, but her and ds share cc when the time comes.
I too don't like cc and didn't use it for any of our dc.
I think whatever you do in terms of work you may need to justify it to your dc.
How do you justify sending them to cc when you can afford to sah?
My ds have both said they felt sorry for the dc who didn't want to go to after school club but had to. They appreciate our decision to have a sahp and say they are thankful we did.

Really yorkshire? How sad.

I don't think £50 000 of debt (the estimated average debt of uni graduates in a few years) is worth it just because you love a subject.

But if you don't have the decent salary you don't actually pay it back... It's not 'real' debt and doesn't materially affect your life.

Education for educations sake.