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.

That's true, but since it's almost always women working PT or doing no paid work, and men still progressing their career and earnings after becoming parents, it seems to be a factor in maintaining the status quo in terms of women (or at least women who are parents) and work

I think the main thing is that what each of us says about our own choice (or situation if not by choice) does not judge the opposite choice.

I would not like to sahp. I work p/t and often from home. I talk about work as "using my brain" in a way I don't talk about my days with toddler ds but then my work is very cerebral. I don't think anything bad about sahps or their brains.
I'm also very glad I don't need to send ds to nursery more than 3 days and I love my days with him but again I don't think anything bad about those parents who do use 5-day a week childcare.

I think is it right that we do not judge on an individual level, but equally that we do not ignore the larger landscape in which we live and the impact on women at a societal, rather than individual, level.

At the moment the default is that women care and men earn. That seems to suit many families, so is that OK? Is there a link to women's lower pay and lack of representation at senior levels and do we think that is a problem?

Many on this thread value and defend women caring, to change the status quo may mean giving that up so the man provides the cares at the expense of his career, and I am not clear if that is what is really wanted.

I don't think SAHP who make it easier for partners to work long hours are holding other parents back.

There are parents who have more flexibility because they have grandparents, neighbours or siblings to help.

There are lots of who people who have no kids and no caring responsibilities of any kind.

What if the woh parent pays the sahm parent the going rate for a full time nanny. How would that change things?

No I know that you can only work with the situation you have, and that one family making a feminist/equalist stance isn't going to make a jot of difference. It's the world we live in.

And yes, it is employers' fault. Because it's unreasonable to expect any parent of children to be out of the house 14 hours+ a day, or travelling away all week.

But unfortunately, this is partly why the situation for women will never change. Because men with SAH wives, who frequently think they could never have earned as much money as their husband (why not?), will always be able to just opt out of being a parent for days at a time meaning their career flourishes to the detriment of many others'. Until it's expected/assumed by employers that all parents have parenting commitments to balance with their job, it will always be like this.

The only problem I have with being a SAHM/P (as long as the state isn't funding it) is the financial dependency. I couldn't count the number of times I've heard/read about women who are stuck in a relationship where they are being abused or cheated on because they have no way to support themselves financially. Other than that, do what suits you.

I just wish it was easier to get back into work after taking a considerable break. There are lots of off ramps for women, but not many on ramps.

I think it's our loss as a society that somebody like Betrand can't find challenging work because, at 47, after a long career break, she is all washed up! It's silly. A 47 year old person still has another 20 years of career in front of them.

In an ideal world a family should be able to decide to have one, or both partners share, 5-10 years of stepping back to nurture a young family without throwing their future away forever. After all we can now expect to live to 90+.

Yes Heigh, exactly.

There are always going to be people who have more hours available.

I want to be able to throw myself into my career over the next decade throughout my forties as my kids will be adults. I know lots of other people can't do that because their circumstances are different.

It might not suit everyone to have a break when there families are young, and that's ok too. My friends who've kept working without taking more than maternity leave have lovely, intelligent children. The children can obviously thrive and bond with us even if we work outside the home full time.

When I took a career break, I did it thinking it was for my children. I now realise it was for me. I was the one who needed it. I found it hard to be maternal. Hard to understand my children's needs and rhythms. Hard to feel deeply bonded. Slowing down and being with them fully for a long while is what it has taken for me to feel fully competent as a parent. Am I unusual?

Of course now that I am feeling "sorted" on the home front and secure in my relationships and with my children growing older, I want to go back to work! It looks like an uphill struggle. I am sometimes on the receiving end of comments that seem to more or less bluntly say: you were self indulgent and took some time out, so now you deserve to pay the price. I think it's an odd attitude. First, if I've been on a jolly, surely it's high time I got back to proper work. And second, with life spans being so long, and our youth, when we are young and fertile and having our babies being so fleeting, why shouldn't we give full attention to each season of our lives without being undermined?

Let me just add, so no one assumes differently, I recognise that I am now behind where I would have been had I been gaining on the job experience for the last 10 years. I don't expect to have my cake and eat it too, just not to have inadvertently retired at 32!

Aye I have supported DH's career - we now co-own a business, I'm a director and 50% shareholder. There is no way on this earth he would have got where he is without me, he would be the first person to say that.

However, it has very little to do with time spent in the office.

He has always done his share of nights when the kids were small, when I had PND he would hurry to come home so he could cook the dinner and do bedtime with DS1. He has taken days off when I have been too unwell to look after the children, worked from home so that he can do school drop off and always pushes for Skype meetings/conference calls etc to reduce unnecessary travelling for not just himself but everyone else. He has never 'opted out' of parenting.

Strikes me as seriously unfeminist to find a way of blaming women for the fact that there is an unequal playing field in the workplace!

I don't think this thread has been about blaming men or women, which is why is has been so civilized. It has been a genuine discussion, so lets not lose that by finger pointing at other posters.

I do think the workforce needs to restructure to take account of longer working lives & later parenting. My FIL retired at 55 - for many women, who had children a bit later, they may just be wanting to ramp back up their career around that age.

If he could would work like mad and then retire at 55, I can't see why a someone can't do the same, but with a 10 year break in the middle for children, retiring at 65. However, I bet anyone attempting that would not make partner before they retired....

Most women including particularly working class women have always worked. In the 1920s my grandmother went to India to work as a nanny. A decade before that my father's aunt moved to London to work as a nursing sister and her sisters ran and owned a shop. These are not new issues. Older siblings often had to mind children because mothers were working. The village raised the child as it were.

It would not have suited me to stay home and it's well known I took only 2 weeks off and have worked full time for 30 years and that's worked very well and that I have concerns that as long as most women care and men earn as stated above it is harder for those women who choose to earn in careers find it harder to progress. If you aren't in a job where you'll ever progress the issues are different.

The problem in careers is if you take 10 or 5 years out to be at home in the years when most people get promoted it has a big effect. Now that we might work until we are 80 it ought not to but it still does and plenty of women on mumsnet moan every day that they stayed at home, thought they could pick work back up later and find they cannot easily get back into their career.

I don't blame women for women not progressing at work but it is partly the fact they do stop work that causes the problem. Now that might be because they prefer to or they had a sexist upbringing or in a religion which wants mothers at home or their husbands pressure them to go part time. It is also because women still tend to marry men who earn more. I didn't. I earned 10x more ultimately. However most women do. This might change and then decisions about who stays home will change because on the whole it's about money. If you need both full time salaries to pay a big mortgage you probably both carry on working. If you earn double what your husband does you probably carry on working. If he earns a lot more you might well not.

It will be interesting to see now my children are in the sixth form what impact that has on my career because for the last thirty years of full time work almost every day children have had an impact on my work - a nice impact but certainly an impact. As that goes, there will be much more time for career and other things. Even today I can work now my most productive time of day only because it's half term and I'm not getting children to school, when for the last 30 years instead I've been doing a school run or some equivalent.
I was talking to one of my daughters yesterday about her work (she's a 20 something) and she is keen to get promotion, pay rises etc. One of her older colleagues has children and a wife at home (one of the few men with a wife at home and apparently the most sexist man in the building by the way). Even he is affected by having children because he has to rush home and so far my daughter doesn't. There will always be people at work who don't have children or can't have them so it is never going to be quite a level playing field. There will always be people like who adore their work so much they are happy to spend a lot of hours on it and others who don't and there are consequences arising from that. There tends to be advantage in putting in the hours in plenty of jobs not least more pay.

When i was young my mum was called a housewife but had 2 jobs i never understood that.

It does seem strange that girls are consistently outperforming boys academically, but on Mumsnet women believe they will never be capable of earning what their man earns, so it makes sense for them to make the career sacrifice.

In fairness, men do earn more than women, so they may well be right. But how does the switch from girls doing better at school to men doing better in the workplace happen? Is 'my man can always earn more than me' to some extent a self fulfilling prophecy?

Try being a carer, it's flipping hard work but no one acknowledges you actually do anything. 45% of carers are men as well Fwiw

Grazia, you are right, working class women have always. As did their children in alot of cases.
Have you ever watched the Mitchell and Kenyon films?

Sahm are vulnerable. No doubt about that.
I try to negate that in a small way by having all the savings in my name :)
I think re training is the way to go for me.
I just wish I knew what! :)

Yes....when I was growing up (working class) my mum worked 2 jobs sometimes.
I do wonder if that he coloured my actions somewhat also.
It wasn't much fun running a household and looking after younger siblings when I was 11.

A mum at home was the norm when I was at school, although they did sometimes have "mum jobs" in school hours (usually argos/shelf stacking etc.) There was a bit of pride that the husband could provide for his family. My grandparents were both of the generation that it was seemly to stop working when one got married - apparently my nan was congratulated and given a shopping bag!!! can you imagine that now. My Gran went to a sort of ladies college/finishing school and taught home economics to ladies until she got married when she stopped.

Its amazing the difference in class/area too. Where I used to live most women had children later and had some sort of career. A lot of the NCT class went back to work (albeit part time sometimes and as the area was so expensive to live!).

Where I live now is strongly workingclass, a lot of the school mums had kids 20ish, lots live a few roads down from extended family. The family unit seems to be prized and people that go back to work long hours almost looked down upon. Everyone is looking for the holy grail of "jobs that fit in school hours". The thought of anything different is almost not understood at all (and no afterschool club etc ...).

Why men earn more than women - not quite a self-fulfilling prophesy but a result of discrimination. Some thoughts in this sample chapter.

Yes, Badders, dh doesn't have a penny! He doesn't even know - or care - where our money is...

Alibabs - you are lucky to have a) a dh who is available and b) able to participate in a business. I would love to work in a family business but there ain't one. It seems ideal as you have involvement yet a certain flexibility (and can't be fired!).

I do find it's women who are in the most cushy positions who are the quickest to slate SAHMs. I mentioned upthread about the woman who has 100% gp childcare for her dcs sneering at me, but also I've had comments from old schoolfriend who has a Top Job but an architect dh who has always worked from home, and someone else who works for the parents' business and has complete flexibility. Some people have no notion of what it's like to have zero help or back up. Unless you (or dh) are in the megabucks league and can afford a nanny, normal paid-for childcare is unsuitable for two careers which are not 9-5 or with long holidays. And, moreover, whether it be mother or father or Mary Poppins, I think dcs need someone around at home.

Sorry, People, only just saw your question.

I think I'm not a good example because, even though DH is great round the house, we have perpetuated the stereotype that men earn the money, and women stay at home - even though we did it because DH had much more earning potential than I did. Even when I worked PT it was mostly at home. On the other hand, I have dinned into my DDs what was dinned into me: get good qualifications, get a decent job, keep your options open.

I agree that the "options open" will be even more essential for our dcs than for us. I don't think that being a SAHM will be financially viable for mc mothers any more as both partners will be saddled with student debt and a large mortgage - and I tell my dcs, do a health check on a future career as many are dying breeds, including SAHM!

Funnily enough, it is my ds who says he wants to be a SAHD. I've told him to get a career first and find a rich wife...

"Where I live now is strongly workingclass . . .The family unit seems to be prized and people that go back to work long hours almost looked down upon "

That's interesting, futureeme. Where I live (very rural area) 'career' type jobs are thin on the ground to non-existent. It doesn't really feel that there's the same overwhelming divide between SAHP / WOHP - it's really normal for a family to have an income made up of several small jobs. You're very likely to see dad or grandad picking up at the primary school gate or at the parent/toddler club, not because they're SAHD but because they've got an evening shift that day while their partner has daytime work. There's also an awful lot of self employment and family businesses.

I do know a couple of sort of stay at home mums, but both of them have had various jobs, and you couldn't really say that either of their partners had steady 5 days a week work either.

This is such a fiddly issue with so many aspects.

DH and I have 2 DC - one primary school age, one still in nursery. We split all childcare and chores 50:50, our salaries are almost exactly the same, we work similar hours.

Right now it all works.

But we're both at the stage on our careers where we'll be progressing to the next level in the next year or so. I recently got a taste of what this would be like when I was put in charge of a large project at work. The increased hours put a big strain on us. I realised then that if either DH or I were to get promoted, the one that didn't would have to take the hit on their career. Or we'd have to pay for more help (over and above the childcare we already pay for) and get a nanny, cleaner, etc.

Neither of us would want to take the hit. But we also want another baby, so I can foresee that when I'm on my next mat leave, it'll probably get decided for us and I'll end up going back part time or something.

It's very hard.