Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

[ISaySteadyOn]

I am a SAHM and I am growing a little tired of what I perceive to be a large amount of negativity towards SAHP in general. Now, I learned from this board that SAHMing and feminism are not mutually exclusive which is why I am posting here. Ironically, given this board's reputation, I feel less likely to be flamed if I post here.

It seems, and please tell me I am wrong, that SAHP especially SAHM are often perceived to be braindead dependent freeloaders. The oft repeated quote' Oh, I could never be a SAHP, I have to use my brain' really hurts my feelings. This is because it suggests that the things a SAHM does don't require brain power and maybe for some it doesn't.

I am someone who is struggling with learning basic housekeeping as my parents thought that sort of thing was beneath them and juggling 3 small children as well. Maybe this sort of learning uses my brain differently than my failed attempts at academia did (and that really hurt as that is what counted in my family growing up), but does that mean it has inherently less value?

I suppose I'm wondering whether SAHPing has a negative reputation because women do it or is it primarily women who do it because it has a negative reputation?

Anyway, those are my thoughts, would love to hear some others.

summer

Are you sure your dh boss refused? I'd be asking myself if I were you.
You may have a point about a sahm perpetuating the problem of inflexibility, but we as women fought long and hard for choice and now we have it we don't want to let it go.
There are more women working than ever and with assisted childcare it's getting even better. There may still be some way to go but this isn't the fault of those who have chosen to sah.

Newlife, I'm not saying it is the sahm who are at fault but the businesses who automatically expect men to be able to drop everything at the drop of a hat and expect someone else (likely a woman partner) to just 'sort everything'. This leads to lack of choice for all concerned, other than the business which just continues to expect employees and their families to dance exclusively to their tune. It is this I would like to challenge.

Oh, and yes, I can imagine dh's boss saying that as he's a wanker .

Dh and I both work away and dh's secretary checks with me if it's ok for him to be away and my boss never assumes I can be away. Working in this way dh and I have always both worked together to meet our various work schedules. I would say this has 90% been when the company would like and 10% of the they have had to accept a bit of flexibilty.

summer, it's a bit like dads'employers assuming that it will always be mum who looks after the children if they're ill. DH and I have always shared this, but I know other couples where it's been a real problem for the dad to get the permission for time off.

Summer

You are right to challenge, and I totally admire you for this.
it is wrong if even a small percentage of women don't have free choice.

I have often wondered though if it is the same for women who have a sahp?
Or whether it is just the women who suffer who have a working partner.

It hasn't always been easy for my dh to get time off work when the dc were ill and I must admit to being the one constant carer, but that's because it really wouldn't be possible, not because he thinks he shouldn't.

Saying that I must admit to being mighty pissed off if I have an appointment and said person has gone home to sick child and appointment can't be rescheduled, especially when dh has taken time off to attend and it's important.
This isn't a female issue though I hate it whoever has done it.
I may be flamed for this but some jobs I don't think you should do under these circumstances, because you need cover.

Yes absolutely Slippery. In our case DH usually takes time off as I work PT so my office days are usually more intense.

It is stuff like this that means that women often have to stay at home and give up good careers or other jobs. Its not the lack of opportunity for women to work (albeit this could be improved)that is the problem imo its the underlying structural expectations of businesses. Everyone just seems to bang on about there being no choice for women (eg jobs offering pt/flex) rather than flipping it round and challenging the patriarchal structure and expectations of the workplace for men so they can help facilitate their partners working

summer, I wish there was a Like button for your last post!

Thanks Slippery . I think men being given the right to share paternity leave is a good start. Men are unable now to put their hands up and say 'well, of course I would stay home and look after the baby but I cant.....'. If this does become more of the norm then further flexibilities may be extended to men.
I also disagree that people need more external childcare provision availability to enable them to work which seems to be the 'go to' solution. We ALL need more flexible family friendly work schedules so men and women can both work and both be responsible for caring for their children.

Why is caring for children seen as low value peoople asked. You could say the same about cleaning too.

Isn't it because just about anyone with arms can do it whereas most people can't do what I do and most people can't do brain surgery etc.

That doesn't mind even women and men like I am who earn quite a bit don't want to be with and love our children - we do and we are the same as any man or woman who does the same things but for more hours a day with the 2 year old. Most of us think higher of colleagues and friends who are a good parent and a good worker - we all know that in life a balance of work and family obligations tends to be what most people want and is best for all. Being a full time working parents doesn't mean you pack the children off to boarding school at 7 and not see them until they are 18 as happened to a few children sent home from british India 100 years ago.

Women can network well and they are increasingly doing it better than they did. It's all very encouraging. One of the only reasons for 30 eyars I have gone on about how you can have children and wrok full time is because women don't see enough positive examples of that even now. So those of us who love it and make it work can help. Just as men smilarly are often "working fathers" (i.e. they work and are a father). Make that your watchword of the week - are you a working father, ask the men. Get the phrase into use. I know some gay men with children and these issues are interesting to discuss with them as they don't have the same gender roles (and both work full time so have to manage childcare etc like a male/female couple).

Why aren't men fighting for more family friendly stuff? You know, like women did over many issues? Proper balls on the line stuff, like women being force fed and dying to get the vote? (I know that's not the whole story)

It's almost like the status quo works for them...

Because for many men and a good few of we women it can be ... actually a bit boring ... and we like to have work plus home rather than just home.

However increasingly younger men DO want to have rights to work part time, to take some paternity leave, to rush home once they have children certainly amongst the men I know that is so. My father even in the 1960s came home for lunch every day, drove us to school every day until we were 18, got home on time every day and did the bed time routine too, house cleaning weekends and night feeds (because he was used to being up at night and my mother wasn't).

DH and I both work full time (me from home at least one day per week to be at the school gate), DH travels a fair bit, and we have no local grandparents to fall back on.

We have live-in help from an au pair - it's the only way that between the three of us, we're able to ensure school drop-offs, after school care and sick days can always be covered without concern or stress. There is also cover in the evenings and weekends (the latter of which we rarely, if ever have to call on, but it's there and it provides flexibility).

We're not loaded, but we're (touch wood) comfortably off due to maintaining two good careers. It was hard at times, especially after emigrating and (for me) having to switch careers, but in hindsight, completely worth it. After five years at university (and a long slog of paying back my student loan), I wasn't prepared to sit back and let DH's career go full-steam ahead, and he certainly wouldn't have been either.

You do need somebody to help keep the home fires burning when you have young DC, but it doesn't have to just be a wife. So many people seem to be resigned to thinking it has to be. There are solutions, and for me, both of us in decent careers simply means there are more options available to us. Now, and into the future, should something unforeseen happen.

I am still here reading and enjoying the discussion, but have not been posting as our family has been struck down by a virus and none of us can do much atm. Just didn't want anyone to think the op had just disappeared .

That's good and I hope you don't feel it's been hijacked by women who work full time either. it has been an interesting discussion.

Right extra hour so am at my desk albeit in my cosy home office. teenagers won't be up for a bit. Busy week for work comingup and children off school.

I see the papers report today that employers may be required to disclose what men and women earn and all male boards might be controlled. That will be quite helpful.

I don't feel it's been hijacked at all.

Loving your posts summersazz, really interesting points to think about.

Isn't it because just about anyone with arms can do it whereas most people can't do what I do and most people can't do brain surgery etc.

This is an interesting one from Grazia. Basically, I think she has nailed it.

But there are people like me...
I could have stayed in work at £60K, paid a nanny £20K, and pocketed the £40K differences (pretending we live in a world with taxes, ha, ha ha! but trying to keep this simple.) I baulked, because to me (and this is a very personal opinion) I thought I could do it better than someone else. I felt that the someone else wouldn't have as much "skin in the game," as I did. I also wanted my children interacting all day with someone as intelligent and as educated as me, which I wasn't so sure I could find for less than the £60K I was earning.

Now, I am very happy content with the children I have, our relationship, and how they are turning out to be. So, I could take that as a sign that I made the "right choice." On the other hand, for all I know, it would have all turned out the same or even better if I had done something else. It's only now that the children are growing older, that I am coming out of a fog of intense emotion, that I can even consider things in the round.

In my case, I have a few job interviews coming up, fingers crossed! And perhaps this decade as a SAHM will just be one, lovely, much appreciated chapter in my life. If so, I wont' have any regrets.

But, having lived it and made the choice, I will admit you have to pay the price in your career and financial outlook. And I will admit that the children of full time WOHM seem to also be doing OK. In truth, I don't know many dual fulltime, workoutside the home couples. So many are able to do 4 days each or work at home a bit, or mum works 3 days. So maybe we are already seeing the change in work culture happen before our eyes.

(As I have said upthread, the career break and the chance for perspective and introspection has been invaluable to me as a person and my development. Clearly this is very much an indulgence not afforded to most people.)

HH, yes well put.
It is perhaps, and I'm being provocative, mother as God v mother with humility. So I could think my chidlren's father might well be better than I am with them and their nanny or nursery even better and even if they aren't having 3 influences on a probability calculation probably means one of the 3 mights be great and ameliorate the influence of the one or two of the 3 of us who aren't very good. Others might be in the mother knows best camp.

Now that doesn't mean those men and women who work including most of the fathers of children whose mothers are on this thread don't value their own contributions to the children. I've spent 30 years bringing up children and every day I am doing loads even though I've always worked full time. I would say those nights of cuddles, breastfeeding (almost all night it felt at times) and the cosy bed times were lovely times working fathers and working mothers have as do parents at home. it's just parents at home have more with the under 3 s than parents who don't work.

You can draw a graph - children whose parents are very badly off and perhaps have problems do much much better when put in childcare which is why the state is going to offer 30 hours to all and wants to get those childreni n homes where not many words are spoken, times are tough etc into day care - that works. Then there are many other parents who are very good with their children and they may well do better at home with their parent or nanny. I liked children in my house with their siblings with not too much noise around - so a daily nanny looking after my 3 under 5s or later the twins was best for us and cheaper than 3 nursery places and financially better. At one point my children's father nearly gave up teaching in the 1980s as his salary was the same as the nanny's (as was mine in year 1). Then suddenly teachers got a 20% pay rise and the maths was different so he carried on.

I was giving a course on Friday to younger lawyers. As ever babies and childcare came up in a break and I said I took 2 weeks off only and it was annual leave to have the babies. There just isn't that ethose any more. Mst professional women expect 6 - 12 months maternity leave because they must hvae a lot of savings packed away, have babies later, have rich husbands or in a few rare cases generous work maternity leave packages. In a peverse way my life happiness, my income, my chidlren's well being was secure by that lack of maternity rights 30 years ago - it meant I meant I kept up the full time career on the same terms as any male working father.

What I won't do is impose any views on any of the 5 children when they have children. They will make their own choices although they are all feminists thankfully including the 3 sons with whom I live.

Thing is grazia, might the "I only had a fortnight off to have my babies and I'm a successful career woman with x children" message just serve to discourage women who (for whatever reason) couldn't manage that? (Can only go by my own experience: after I had DC1 I still wasn't able to sit down a fortnight later, we had no family help whatsoever, and I ended up with severe PND. Going to work would have been impossible, and hearing how others were superwoman would have been awful.)

I see what you mean, slippery, but it's nice to have an advocate for a different approach, when IMO the dominant messages to women with DC is NOT to return to paid work, or to reduce hours.

dowager, I like the idea of "back up" help with DC and / or at home, in your case from au pairs (am of people with spare rooms!) in others' case from nannies or even extended family perhaps. When we had a great childminder it did feel like we had more back up than we now do.

I agree duck, to a certain extent - though I read grazia's post as saying that she'd had to work like a bugger in the early days to achieve the balance now. Maybe I misinterpreted!

When I had ds1 I went back to work when he was 8 weeks old - I was newly qualified and needed both the experience and the money. But I was lucky - my mum looked after my baby, so I was spared all the worry about childcare that other parents have. I couldn't have done it without her.

A year off for mat leave, isn't helping women imo. It is making employers see us as a risky option and all things being equal they will opt for a male employee (more so in small businesses where employees are soecialists and hard to replace for a year). My dh has ended up doing his job and that of female employees, simply because it is too expensive to invest in training someone new and by the time they can do the job the original employeee has returned from mat leave. I feel wrong and guilty in saying it but I resented them getting that time with their babies while my dh got less with his, as a consequence!

I think we have to make men share the mat leave - 6 months each, so employers stop viewing having children as a female 'problem' but as something which affects all employeess. Otherwise we will continue to be quietly discriminated against at interviews.

Oh yes, indeed, letgo. TBH I was ready to go back to work after 6 months (with DC1 I had to, as I was self-employed and the money wouldn't stretch). The 10 months with DC2 felt very long in comparison and I definitely suffered on the career front from being out so long (passed over for promotion etc).

I wonder if welsh would have married a man who was 10 years younger rather than 10 years older?

Firstly, I'm not married. Secondly, it is only recently he has become a much higher earner than me, although it happened before we had our dd. We were originally on very close salaries - me 30kk, him 35k. And yes, I would have chosen a life partner who earnt less/was younger than me, had I met someone who fitted the mark. Though as I was 22 when I settled down with my dp, I would not have been looking for a 12 year old.

I've been reading this with interest as I've been agonising about what to do at the end of my maternity leave (7 months of at the moment).

At the beginning of the pregnancy I was baulking at the idea of putting the baby in nursery for attachment reasons. Now I'm in my last few weeks of work I'm utterly freaked out by the idea of not going back.

All other things aside, I would MUCH rather me and/or Dh looked after our child at home for 2-3 years. My salary would only have 100 quid a month of so left after nursery fees, which is another factor.

However, DH earns twice what I do and there is vanishingly little likelihood of him being able to reduce his hours. Yes, we could share, but giving up that income would make the life we want for DCs impossible.

If I give up work even for a few years, I'm a) resentful that I lose a job that enjoy in a team a love in a company I like that I've put 8 years into and am likely to get promoted in a year or two and b) terrified that getting a similar job on the right pay and right hours after a career breakneck be difficult. Short term we can manage without my income, but medium term it would not be what we want.

Two things have occurred to me over the last few months:

1. we need a carer's allowance, equivalent to the cost of the free childcare currently provided. The state will pay for someone else to look after your children, but if you do it yourself you're on your own. Strikes me as ridiculous.
2. you can play an interesting mental trick on yourself...everyone always calculates whether the woman's wage would cover the childcare cost. Financial accurate yes, but v easy to end up in a situation where the net income gain is zero or minus. I suddenly realised that while obv the total sums are the same, it looks quite different if you work it based on both parties paying a proportion towards childcare. Suddenly you're both still bringing home a decent amount of money and it doesn't seem such a no brainer for the woman to quit....

Gracia

With respect though you haven't made it work.
Most people realise that everybody can't have it all and for some people, yourself included it hasn't worked out.
You are divorced and manage children when you aren't working and your job.
I still think most women want a partner and/or husband to share their life with. When you work full time and rush home for the dc, there isn't much time left for a dh let alone yourself.
It's the same for men who work full time, very little time for wife or themselves if they too rush home for children and to share the domestic chores.