Justifying long term SAHM to DDs?

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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?

And then there's New York or wherever hasn't changed the culture and the UK doesn't look so attractive when it takes so much longer.

Marsha a great many jobs in the financial sector (for example) could be done from a home-office anywhere on the south coast (for example) with plenty of video-conferencing and the odd day in Canary Wharf (for example). A parent doing such a job might still need a nanny (for example ) but could also have the freedom to do things like have lunch with the DC, duck out to see the school nativity for half an hour and clawback some of the 15+ hours per week time they would otherwise have spent commuting to spend on the beach with the family (for example).

It's hardly a ludicrous idea. The technology exists. Where's the downside?

I think you have completely drunk the koolaid of corporate presenteeism Marsha.

I haven't bought it at all, I have opted out and work from home and earn whilst being around.

I know some people who just can't do that, they are travelling or they are in another city or they are in back to back meetings all day - thinking of friends in the city. It isn't possible.

They are there because they physically have to be, not because they think it looks good.

Fideline great post!
hear! hear!

Fide

I agree.My inlaws work for a high profile US company(they have skills few others have). Company desperately wanted to keep them but they wanted to come back from the US and work from home?They got the lot,full time at home for both,computer equipment,the works.Funny that.

My dsis managed to wangle a day working from home(again sort after skills).

Dp has broached the subject but got nowhere.

It can be done when companies are forced to.

They are there because they physically have to be, not because they think it looks good.

I'm sure some jobs require FT physical presence but most don't. I'm talking about the essential requirements of the job BTW, not how they are currently designed.

It would be impossible for the few people I know that work in particular posts in finance to duck home for lunch. I'll ask them why they don't, I think they'd laugh tbh

They are trying to cram everything in to a 18 hour day, there's no time to waste on commuting twice. If they are close enough, not in a meeting, or not travelling.

I worked from home once a week, a City job. It was great in terms of reducing my stress levels but I could never get as much done as I do in the office. There is nothing like face to face contact, discussing work over a coffee with colleagues, turning around and asking someone behind you a question. I'm in IT so I'm very aware of the technology. And yet, it is not the same. I had plenty of videoconferences with my team in NY and yet there was nothing like travelling over there in terms of getting shit done.

My dp works in IT and reckons he'd get more done at home as he wouldn't be pestered so much.

I'm talking about walking 3 yards from one's desk to one's kitchen to have lunch with one's DC Marsha not 'wasting time commuting twice'.

Marsha that kind of life sounds like utter hell.

There is no way I'd ever in a million years want a job like that.You can keep it.

They don't have the time Fide. They not faffing about on stuff all day looking present, they're trying to get it done - with colleagues -who are also present. And a few are in other countries and cities 5 days a week.

I dont ever plan on returning to work but i do home educate my kids so i guess that is a little different.

I just think we should all encourage our kids to do what makes them happy,they wont automatically copy us when they leave home.I didnt assume i would meet a rich man who would pay for everything,it just happened,and actually i met dh before all that,he was earning peanuts when i first met him!

In an (my) ideal world my children would all find things to do that that they love that they can do from home so they can bring up a family and do something for themselves,but in reality they might do something completely different.

They are trying to cram everything in to a 18 hour day,

Eighteen hour days are lunacy. They are a very long way from being the norm for British working adults and shouldn't be encouraged either - bloody unhealthy and a dreadful example for a parent to set a child.

Retropear, oh yes he would . Just over the phone/messenger/chat/any other system instead of face to face. And all of that is slower, and working in IT from home a faff unless you have a really good setup. I have a big ass screen at home, but at work I had four and the lag in the remote connection, although barely noticeable to "normal people" drives me batty.

Retro I don't have it. I am at home. But yep a few of my friends' dhs do. And yes they get paid enough to compensate, them.

Messenger is fabulous when you are working on a team project from home. Mine is constantly open when I work mostly for virtual office banter

Agree Because.

I am a long term SAHM.

Also in that time I have acquired a degree, almost finished a part time MA (in a subject directly used by my family so useful), become a Carer, taken on all childcare so husband can build a family business, done voluntary work.... I am also hoping to return to work one day but that depends on my caring responsibilities.

The one thing I have never been though is unoccupied and I do believe employment is far from the only route to living a useful, valid life. now many of my decisions weren't made by me as much as for me (the caring thing), and Dh is no longer high income, but validity comes in many forms and we have to make our lives the best we can. At times DH has been a SAHD, whilst I did two jobs to gain career advancement, things changed and now this is our life but we are a team and work together. My sons don't think all women are SAHM- their friend's parents are not, my sisters are career women- and they know the life events that lay behind the decisions we have made and the solutions to bumps in the road we encountered.

Do would be good at ignoring e-mails.

Sil and bil's jobs are in IT too( for a huge US IT company) and they set them up with top notch equipment at home x2!Dp was uber

They've done it for years since they returned from the US,had 2 babies,pre-schoolers etc.They do everything together. Never been summoned back into working from the office or US.

It seems to work.The rest of their team are in the US.

Dp

It's probably easier with some things. Others you have to be in that meeting room with everyone else.

There's a funny scene in the Good Wife where there's a meeting person on a screen on a stick and they put paper over it.

They've never had to pay for childcare either.

Dream jobs!