What's wrong with being a SAHM?

[Roseandlily]

I am not a feminist (I don't think). I currently earn more than my partner but when our baby is born I will be a stay at home mother. I love the idea of striving to be the best mother, home maker, having the tea on the table for when he gets home stuff. I love the idea of it all. But when I talk to people and they ask "oh what's your plan, how long to you plan to take off work?" And we both say I won't be going back and this will be me at home for say the next 10years give or take.

I would like to add that we would like to have 3 children so I will be at home until the last child starts school.

I don't care about amazing holidays we have done that :) or fancy cars, both had what we wanted and now have got sensible cheaper cars. We are married and have a lovely home.

What do feminists think is so wrong with this? And why do people make me feel weird about this?

We have a joint account and a joint saving account, we each have our own also. But I have control of them all. He does not have the details of my accounts.

If you are not married to your partner thrn imho it is a very bad idea to be a sahp. In the event of a split you have no right to spousal support for yourself, only child support, which can be pitifully small and nowhere close to what it actually costs to raise a child.
I would advise all women to never ever give up their own earning potential to support a man's career/look after your shared children, because he is under no legal obligation to protect your financial interests if you split up and you could find yourself well and truly buggered if he dies.

Unless married, I mean.

Sorry to be late back to this, went out.

Clarity the reason why changing your name on marriage is not a feminist choice is because it is something we do in this country within a sphere of patriarchy (ie the historical background of women being possessions of men) and inequality. I doubt you get one man in 1000 marriages who even considers changing his name.

I don't judge a woman for doing this - I've done it myself. Twice. But I judge it to be an unfeminist thing to do and in fact if I could go back to marriage 1 (quite apart from not going through with it) I wouldn't change it.

OP - you say you live the 1950s housewife ideal - so you'll be knocking back the Valium and hitting the gin at 3 pm, then ? Your choice, but I do question the sense in becoming financially dependant on a man who is so bad with money he has to have pocket money doled out to him like a child.

Would you say you were a controlling person? Because that's the impression I'm starting to get.

No I'm not I'm very organised :). We started this when saving for our first home then came the wedding so we just kept it up and it works really well for us.
I think maybe they did that in the 50s because they didn't have a choice and were stuck. Whereas I guess I do have the choice and can change my mind if I wanted/ needed to

I do think woman should be the care giver and the man should be the protector and provider. I don't understand what's wrong with that?
Also if our baby is a girl she will be educated and she can be whatever she wants. I will be happy as long as she is.
I would just like to add my dad was a stay at home father and we loved it! He was amazing at it and much better as a parent than my mother was and still is!

This is the most contradictory non sensical thing I've ever read.

You think women should be care givers, but will teach your child she should be whatever she chooses? Even though you think she as a female should be a care provider?
Your dad was the amazing stay at home parent but you think it should be a woman's job?

Why can't you explain what you think? Why can't either gender be the care giver? Why can't it be shared and both work? Why can't women be the provider and rhe man the carer, why does only one option work for you?

Your post actually infuriates me because you bucket women into that old domestic drudgery role as if by their very gender they should do it.

No they shouldn't. How appalling. It's about what's best for them and the family. Women fought for years to have choices. And they fought hard. But you just think that way?

I don't judge a woman for doing this - I've done it myself. Twice. But I judge it to be an unfeminist thing to do and in fact if I could go back to marriage 1 (quite apart from not going through with it) I wouldn't change it.

I would only deem a decision unfeminist if the reasons it were made were due to not wanting to challenge patriarchally enforced gender stereotypes. That means only the person who made the decision could tell you whether it was an unfeminist one.

Otherwise all sorts of decisions could be deemed unfeminist.

Single sex changing rooms could be deemed unfeminist, reinforcing gender stereotypes, if the reason they are wanted, is seen as being due to males being seen as stereotypically violent aggressors against women and not wanting to challenge this perception or statically actuality. That is, they equally could be seen as a result of male oppression against women. In highly traditional societies safe segregated spaces are highly prioritised and women generally are less safe in mixed spaces. Yet single sex changing rooms are not seen as unfeminist because many women feminists prefer to change amongst the same sex due to privacy reasons.

I see challenging one, the surname, might be seen as easier than the other, the need for segregated changing. Violence is more difficult to tackle than disapproval. However, depending on the context, violence could be a realistic threat in either decision. Both decisions are made in the context of patriarchy but not always necessarily directly due to patriarchal oppression.

Statistical actuality. Typo.

Bluntness100- yes it may be contradictory but it's what I think. Don't stress over it, it doesn't mean I want woman to go back to having no rights. And like I said my dad was the best at being at home.

Clarity I don't agree with your example but yes, lots of decisions are unfeminist. I think the difference between your feminism and mine is you are all about the individual whereas I'm looking at women as a class, and I also don't think we exist in a vacuum so a great many of our choices are not truly free choices.

River

Clarity I don't agree with your example but yes, lots of decisions are unfeminist.

Where do you think I've gone wrong in my thinking?

I think the difference between your feminism and mine is you are all about the individual whereas I'm looking at women as a class, and I also don't think we exist in a vacuum so a great many of our choices are not truly free choices.

I agree, we don't exist in a vacuum. However we cannot deny we are individuals. No matter what group we belong to, if a choice is not one we agree with, but we feel pressurised to make it, in order to conform to that group, we are oppressed. However if we willingly make a choice, even though we know what the agents of oppression are, the disadvantages, the choice is likely to be our own. I think it is being fully informed that offers greater freedom, not blindly following the herd that says they care for us, yet insist on us doing as they say.

OP I'm lazy and haven't read the full thread but to answer your question I think it's your idea of striving to be the perfect 'housewife' that comes across as weird rather than being a SAHM. Seriously, nothing can prepare you for being a parent and the intensity of it. You really can't make any assumptions about how you are going to feel about it until it's a reality. You might find yourself desperate to get back to work, so don't burn any bridges yet.

I never thought I'd be a SAHM, but I've just handed my notice in following birth of dc3 last year. It's what I want and it's the right decision for us as a family, but it's taken me a while to make peace with the decision. I'm degree educated and professional qualified in a pretty male dominated field and I feel guilty for not making the most of the opportunities that feminists past have fought for. Kind of like I'm letting the side down. The way I'm dealing with it is, even though on the face of it we are perpetuating the stereotypical male/female roles, by trying to make sure our household does not place more value on DH's role as the income earner over mine as the primary caregiver. It's really really hard in practice though! If as a society we achieved this then maybe we could stop beating ourselves and each other up about whether it's unfeminist to be a SAHM.

I agree that our choices are our own, but I can see beyond the individual to see when my choices are not feminist. You seem to be really taking offence that someone might consider your individual choices to be unfeminist, I don't have a problem with it.

With regard to your example of single sex changing rooms, it is a fact that men commit 98% of sexual crime. Again, for me any sensible man knows that even if he personally wouldn't assault a woman, he knows that it happens far too often and therefore won't object to sensible precautions (ie not putting the individual first).

Sorry, I'm probably not explaining that very well.

My mother was never at home. She worked all the time! And when she wasn't working she was nagging and cleaning.

This suggests to me that your dad might've been a brilliant stay at home parent, but as a man was not expected to be a housewife/housekeeper at the same time. Nagging and cleaning indeed. I should imagine there are very very few women who could say the same.

I am a stay at home mother and proud feminist. It is very difficult to talk about the choice to have a parent staying at home with the kids without it sounding like criticism to those who don't. I have been in plenty of arguments on here about how WOHMs cannot possibly do all the same things as SAHMs as well as working (purely because they can't be in two places at once) and the attitude towards SAHMs is revealed as often contemptuous and resentful of that choice.

I won't pretend that I made my choice from a completely level playing field - I earned much less than my H because of my traditionally feminine education, training and career 'choices'. It made no short-term financial sense not to stay at home (but I should've considered the long term prospects more). I truly think my children have benefited from my being at home, but people will always take that as me thinking working parents are doing their kids a disservice.

Somehow the work of caring for and educating children is only valued if you are being paid by someone else to do it. I suppose ultimately it's capitalism, because you stop being an economic unit for a while and therefore you're not a valid member of society.

What I can say about being an SAHM is that it is rewarding in some ways and very frustrating in others. It's lonely and you don't get any immediate positive feedback the way you do if you're doing a good job at work. You don't get an annual review and the positive results are almost impossible to quantify and take a long time to reveal themselves if they ever do.

So as long as we're capitalists, and as long as we don't pay SAHPs, and as long as the decisions made are based on unequal beginnings then it's not the feminist choice. But then I'm not sure being a WOHM is either.

I agree that our choices are our own, but I can see beyond the individual to see when my choices are not feminist. You seem to be really taking offence that someone might consider your individual choices to be unfeminist, I don't have a problem with it.

What constitutes a feminist choice? One that does not reference gender stereotypes and in made completely freely by the individual? Or one which references gender stereotypes and rebels against them?

With regard to your example of single sex changing rooms, it is a fact that men commit 98% of sexual crime. Again, for me any sensible man knows that even if he personally wouldn't assault a woman, he knows that it happens far too often and therefore won't object to sensible precautions (ie not putting the individual first).

So this choice references gender stereotypes. However how does it act in opposition do them? I can see it is done for the purposes of protection but how does referencing gender stereotypes and not acting in opposition of them particularly feminist? It is in one way, as it protects the safety of women but not in another, because it does nothing to challenge the gender stereotype of women being vulnerable, weak and defenceless.

Maybe there is a way to protect women and challenge the traditional gender stereotypes? Secure, staffed, unisex family changing villages and toilets, which would allow for complete individual privacy would do this.

I've not read the whole thread so just jumping in here...I've a number of friends who work full time,juggle childcare / housework/ cooking /washing....they have husbands ...who work...period...feminism did nothing for them..they feel everything should be split 50/50.. but their husbands .dont load the dishwasher properly,don't iron don't cook any kids meals other than pizza..in fact they do nothing properly other than work..my poor friend one in particular is run to the ground..all her wages go in the join account for bills...all feminism has done for my friends is drive them to exhaustion,ohh woopy do we can have a job .and still do everything at home...

Bluntness100- yes it may be contradictory but it's what I think

But it's a terrible thing to think. It really is. I can't understand how you could remotely think it. It's fine to think you personally should be the care giver but to think that all women by nature of their gender should be is appalling.

Will you bring your son up to believe his partner should care for their kids? He should find a nice wife who wants to stay home? Frown upon a daughter in law who works? Or a son in law who doesn't?

Women fought so hard to have rights, to fight against that horrible stereotype that women care and men provide, because history shows us that stereotype didn't work out well for women, did it? We are capable of so very much more. Yet you just think it?

Eezer

Most married women I know fir your description above.
It must be the reason for so many divorces, who wants to have to work and do all the domestic and remaining childcare.

I do think woman should be the care giver and the man should be the protector and provider.

I was going to engage and comment but not after this I can't!

This is an interesting discussion from the OP's point of view - she gets to ponder on her idealised view of life as a SAHM, without the inconvenience of knowing what it's actually like. Which is where everyone else is coming from.

She has it all figured out. Or at least, all decided.

Nothing will resonate, except true experience, hence the 'good luck' in my earlier post.

eezer women marry sexist men.

It's not confined to women who work or not. If you do find yourself saddled with one, it's surely better to at least have an income of your own?

all feminism has done for my friends is drive them to exhaustion,ohh woopy do we can have a job .and still do everything at home...

Yes, it would have been much better if feminism had never come along and spoilt everything. If only women were still confined to the home and had no rights to own property, have bank accounts, work and so forth. Inspired by this I shall endeavour to never have to work to strike back against the evil feminists who made this a possibility.

Oh and it's obviously the fault of feminism when men don't do their fair share of household work (even though there was a thread on here last week in which numerous posts were made saying it was sexist against men for someone on a Facebook group to have complained about her husband specifically not doing housework).

Ahhh the dreams of being a sahm...before you have dc. I think that most of what you are saying isn't relevant until you are a sahm.
Some people love it and do it for a long time, imo throwing away any chance of independence they once held with a job but if you're like me you will swan around pregnant saying how incredible it's all going to be staying at home enjoying baby until you get a smack in the face of reality when baby is here and it's so fucking hard you go running back to work asap to regain some kind of feeling of being a fully functioning adult again.
I also wanted three pre having dd and now never want another. Ever.
So there you go. I hope it all goes well for you though.

Maybe the point is, NoMine, that women who have decided to stay at work, upon having children are not necessarily furthering the feminist cause, any more than those who have decided to stay at home to rear their children. If they remain the victims of male exploitation both at work and in the home but still extol the 'feminist' virtues of themselves working, over than staying at home to raise children, without challenging their own oppression, it seems somewhat hypocritical.

Maybe we should start listening to how women as individuals, who have made different choices, and have had differing experiences, really feel and respecting that over any received ideology.