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?

I think there are many reasons why women stay at home, many are economic and structural rather than about perceived 'opting out' or laziness or whatever claptrap makes everyone feel better.

The OPs premise was SAHM with husbands on 6 figure salaries. In that scenario benefits and 15% of the husband's salary (if he doesn't hide most of it) will in no way compensate for the income and lifestyle of a SAHM with a very wealthy husband. No way.

Well put ubik1.

You've cut through the fog nicely.

What is the lifestyle of a wealthy sahm?

Most of this thread concentrates on money, which people need to live. If you don't need more to live, whatever your lifestyle, who else's business is it anyway?

I haven't let the side down, I am empowering someone on it

How do any of us justify our choices? There are pros and cons inherent to every choice, you make the choices that best suit at the time.

I am a SAHM. I have no regrets, I don't believe in them. I can explain the decisions I make, but justify them? Why would someone demand I justified the decision to be a SAHM, other than my husband who was happy with this decision?

owllady are you not insured too???? That's something I'm fanatical about - my mum died when I was young. Uninsured. My DH's dad died when he was young (and his younger sister was really little). Uninsured. One of my closest school friend's parents both died (separately) around the same time as my mum, one before, one after. Both insured. Also small children (2) in the picture. The difference in experience of the properly insured family and mine (and DH's although I only met him 10 years later) was...striking. I suspect we are ridiculously over insured but it's not something I will ever leave to chance, given what I've seen.

Although I do sometimes wonder if it's wise that DH (and for that matter the kids) know how much better off, superficially, they'd be if I stumbled out of a moon door...

Nobody has to justify anything

I cannot get insurance hercshipwright
If anyone wants to guide me with that, that's fine :) I have no immediate or chronic health conditions

Do some posters really think that a women out of the workplace would really get a role as easily as some in employment. That just isn't true...
Someone who said well a SAHM could always go on benefits... Well no wonder our benefits bill in this country is so huge. Everyone working is paying for that choice!

I earn my own salary and of course wouldn't be in exactly the same position if my DH and I were not together but I wouldn't be badly off. I certainly wouldn't think I could always claim benefits. That is an even worse message to give out to your children. Do what I did, choose unwisely, stop working, and then when or if it goes wrong claim benefits

I am sorry about your mum too, and all the other death in young people's lives. It's devastating x

owl that's terrible! I don't really know much about insurance, just enough to know that we are probably over insured . My bank is always trying to persuade me to switch our insurance (which is with a patchwork of providers and mainly something to do with either our pensions or our mortgage) to them (I always nod smile and forget about it - I'm very change averse). Perhaps if you spoke to your bank you could find out what your options are? I know both people being insured for 50% of our mortgage was a condition of getting that mortgage... Sorry I can't be more help.

handcream

There are many sp on benefit, do you not agree with this?
Some don't have a choice and don't need to be vilified for this.
For the record, no I wouldn't have to go on benefits if dh left me. I have my own money. Everything is in my name and we owe nothing, neither of us.
My standard of living wouldn't change because there would be no reason for it to.
Surely my situation isn't unique.
As for gaining employment there are opportunities for work and employers are less picky in the min wage none career jobs. I have seen it with my own eyes. Long term sahp doesn't mean you have nothing to offer and employers look at the skills you have gained whilst doing this.
Hotel house keeping anybody.

I don't think being a long term SAHM needs justifying at all & actually think its a ridiculous thing to say.

So, my mum worked part-time, was a latch key kid & pretty much neglected. My DD's are almost 11 & 8 & I have, at the moment, no intention of getting a paid 'conventional' job...because they are my job.

I also hated coming home to no-one, I hated having processed junk for tea & eating alone.

Please don't underestimate the importance of being there.

We have insurance too. However some chose not to, like the chaps who demanded to be seen in the Far East a few yrs ago. They were English, had turned up at the hospital where I was waiting myself and who didn't have any insurance.

Apparently 25 percent of people going on holiday don't take out insurance. It's another example of people who think their choices are their own business until it becomes clear that they chose unwisely and then they look to blame others, look for others to pay for their choices

Oh dear! There are some things in life that an education or money can't buy. I'm hoping this thread is a wind up

We don't live in a vacuum. Our choices, and the OP's scenario is certainly one of choice, do have an impact beyond our own families. We make the society in which we live and in which our children will live as adults. Justifying our choices in terms of family interest is quite different to justifying them from an ideological perspective, which is what the OP was asking. I dare say a high earning husband and an educated SAHM wife is very beneficial to many families while children are young, but that isn't a feminist justification. Feminism is a movement against the oppression of women. Not for choice to make decisions which may impact negatively on the lives of other women.

That's not to say we always need a feminist justification for everything that we do of course. Another perspective may be more important. An economic reason for example. But I'm not sure about making it feminist just because it involves a choice, without examining the societal pressures that influence that choice.

Earning your own money allows more money into the family pot.

Well which is it handcream? Your own? Or part of the family pot?

More than - tbh there are many people on MN claiming that minimum wage roles are like gold dust and keep citing the Costa 1600 applications for one vacancy etc.

there are very few people who have no debt. No mortgage,no rent to pay,no credit cards bills etc.

Do I agree with many many sp on benefits? Partly, but not in all instances. It has become easier to take no responsibility for how many kids you have, no choose to mess around at school and then claim with 3 kids that it is not worth you working.

Please don't underestimate the importance of being there.

That is exactly what some people must underestimate willow in order to maintain their stance of sneery superiority.

I was responding to the poster who said that whether you were working or not if your partner left you the financial position would still be the same.

No it wouldn't!!

Whilst you are together (whether that be forever or not) both your salaries go into one pot. Apart the working parent has a salary and the non working parent doesn't. That makes the non working parent very vulnerable.

at the suggestion that £30k is a low salary. Agencies round here are advertising £12k as "good money". There are thousands of couples who both work full time and dont bring in £30k between them! DH was on just under £12k when he decided to become a full time student and retrain. That's why most women I know work, they have no choice, or at least feel that way, as you can't live on £12k without top ups which you are condemned for receiving it would seem. As for the message that not working sends out, it's complicated. I guess what the mum did pre DC is a factor if the DD asks.

The only people being sneery and claiming superiority are those bandying about terms like 'pseudo mother'. Let's hope none of them are bringing up sons who will have the same wrongheaded attitudes.

handcream I'm not vulnerable at all. As the non tax payer I look after our savings!

I have not read the whole thread but has anyone mentioned how sometimes the high earning partner in a relationship can only earn that much because there is a sahp.
Both my partner & I had well paid jobs in computing. Before kids we were both on callout every night / weekend. Not something you can both do when you have children. The way our industry was moving we had to move into consultancy. That meant being prepared to work anywhere at the drop of a hat. Again not something both parents can easily do. As a family we took the decision that I would become a sahp for a while.

Oh Herc, I have a firm grip on reality, don't you worry! I'm NOT going to let my dc (the future generation!) grow up contaminated by prejudice!

Pseudo mother or father, yes -that's exactly what a cm or nursery worker does - provides the same care duringinfancy which a child's real mother/father would have done during the week, had he/she sah instead. A working mother does not have to justify her reasons for working to me, she does what she feels is best for her and her family.

And yes, the decision to be a sahp/wohp can and should be at an equal playing field between the sexes. That of course does not happen in every household. It should, but it doesn't and that is an issue in itself to be remedied.

To the other poster: dh does do everything I do, but to a lesser extent and of course not the bf! I also see myself as the primary caregiver because I bf for longer than the societal average/norm and because I am using this time to better myself, for myself, as much as for my family.

I don't sah because I'm a 'wummen' and that is what we're expected to do - ie. be barefoot, pregnant & in the kitchen. Oh no, I am no door mat. I am.stronger and worth more than that.

My reasons to sah are no less justifiable than a mother who chooses or has to work by necessity. I don't judge working mothers, I just know working while my dc are little does not compute for me or my family.

I think I'm fortunate to be able to past my own nose, unlike... ahem... Cherie Blair Herc and her ilk.