It's not the traditional roles that are the problem but the way society assigns value to them

[Bumpitybumper]

I watch a family on YouTube (JHouse Vlogs) that are Mormon and have setup that on paper seems incredibly traditional and incompatible with modern feminism. He is a partner in a law firm and edits the videos they upload (big source of revenue) whilst she is a SAHM that home educates her 5 kids and takes responsibility for domestic things like meal planning, laundry etc.

However whenever I watch their videos I am absolutely overwhelmed not only by the amount of mutual respect that the parents have for each other and their respective roles, but also how equal and fair the power dynamic seems to be. They clearly have a healthy relationship where issues are discussed, important decisions are made together and they support each other wherever they can.

So although I wouldn't describe their setup as a traditionally feminist one, I think they have achieved a lot of what feminism is trying to achieve in terms of gaining equality for men and women. Obviously in the context of wider society then a lot of the issues around the wife's lack of financial independence etc would rear their ugly head but I really think most of these issues derive from the fact that society overvalues the role of the WOHP and undervalues the role of the SAHP in a way that this family doesn't. If proper financial protection was put in place for the SAHP then I don't see why her role should be viewed as less feminist option than if she chose to WOH? Does anyone else agree or do you think the traditional role she has adopted is intrinsically inferior to his?

Exactly this JellySlice, I don't know if I explained it well enough. I work term time only, a few hours a week, DD3 is left with DH. I take DC along on volunteering work or do it at weekends.

I do "worry" as in "am aware of" my lack of financial independence, however everything is in joint names, we pay into a pension for me and have insurance for DH's untimely demise or if he becomes unable to work. I am also reasonably confident that I will be able to return to work at a similar level to that which I was at before if DH was to leave me, although I will have to complete a return to practice course. I also wouldn't have become a SAHM if we weren't married.

I guess no one is truly financially independent - employed people rely on not being made redundant, self-employed on having customers and us all on the economy not totally tanking. Many WOHPs ime are also financially dependent (to a degree) on unpaid childcare from their parents or PILs, who are just as likely as a romantic partner to have a change of heart or health issues.

I would worry about it if I didn’t have a stable relationship. If that began to happen I would return to paid employment. If I couldn’t have the time I have now with the kids I would be unhappy about that also. I don’t worry about it. I don’t plan for it as I don’t see it as a risk factor in my life if that makes sense.

Sorry, JellySlice, I was referring to the last part of my initial post, too, re SAHPs often not being entirely in the domestic sphere re volunteering or taking temporary work when the overdraft requires it. Realised I made it all about me!

Well, it is about us as individuals. We may be conforming to a stereotype, but not in every respect.

Being in a stable, mutually respectful relationship is essential for this arrangement to work without prejudicing the mother.

And dh and I are both insured against death/incapacity/unemployment. I'd rather pay for that than for, oh, Sky TV or a newer car.

Jellyslice- exactly what you just said.

That's the thing - I have SAHM friends who don't bother insuring their own lives as "I don't earn anything"... but if they were to die, their DHs would have to stretch their one salary to cover childcare as well as all the bills, while dealing with bereavement. OTOH, the logical conclusion when the SAH role is totally undervalued and economically ignored. We're both insured, btw, but I haven't bothered income protection insurance for my c. £25 pw!

As you say, mutual respect, stability and imo marriage are essential to protect the SAHP / part-timer, which is of course disproportionately the woman.

With respect (not being cheeky), whether the individual SAH mother worries about her situation is beside the point. And this isn't about judging women for working within the home and prioritizing the welfare of their children over their careers. I understand that this is a touchy subject because, frankly, there are definitely assholes out there who look down on SAHMs.

However, to me this is missing the forest for the trees. The problem is the system which puts women in the position of needing to rely on her husband's good character in order to care for her family. I think (or would at least hope) that no woman marries a man they believe will abandon or mistreat them and their children. But it happens. And when it does, we see that the traditional system puts mothers, especially SAHMs, at a significant disadvantage.

Personally, I think we should have a hell of a lot more societal support for all mothers so that they can do the extremely important work of raising the next generation of people without tying themselves to an individual man and hoping he will hold up his end of the bargain. I think it is outrageous that we treat childbearing and childrearing as a personal hobby, like you're scrapbooking or scuba diving or anything else you do where the cost is rightly borne by you alone. That is a problem with the system, not with women who want to be with their kids.

What societal support would you welcome, lydia? Do you mean that it should be for mothers, or anyone who SAHPs? What about those who are carers for elderly parents instead? (I'm genuinely not being goady, I'm just interested!)

Agree that CMS is unfit for purpose with all the loopholes, but I do think society is (slooooooowly) changing in that it is now pretty frowned upon to be an NRP actively avoiding providing for their kids. You'd probably have to lie about it rather than brag and if you did brag it'd be viewed pretty distainfully.

SweetheartNeckline

I will respond! Gotta take the cat to the vet, will return

SweetheartNeckline
OK!

That's a good question, and as someone who is neither a mother nor involved in politics/economics, I will preface my post with the caveat that I am obviously not in the best position to make good and helpful suggestions

That being said, I have been thinking about this for awhile. My pie-in-the-sky dream is socialized caregiving, including for children, the disabled, and the elderly. IMO, if you are the sole or primary caregiver to someone who requires assistance to live and function, then you should be compensated for doing so (since someone will inevitably need to care for them anyway). But because we do not live in a post-scarcity Star Trek world, I'm not holding my breath for fully taxpayer-funded caretaking stipends/paid and generous parental leave/etc.

Short of a radical change in how we set up society and our attitudes toward the value of raising children, I think just having local networks for parents where they can pool their time and resources and support one another would be helpful. Childcare co-ops are something I find very interesting, though obviously a lot of work and money would need to go into making them feasible on any significant scale. Don't know how to make a clicky link, but some info:

www.co-oplaw.org/co-op-basics/types/childcare-cooperatives/

@lydiamajora
I agree with you that a big problem of the traditional set up is it forces the SAHP to rely on the good character and commitment to them/the family.

I would support a system whereby SAHPs are formally recognised and therefore the WOHP has a legal requirement to support them both whilst they are together and in the longer term if the couple were to split and the SAHP needs time to recover their earning potential. The decision to have a SAHP should be a mutual one and one that places a financial burden on both parties. If this is clearly communicated to each partner before they made the decision and both are aware of the obligations that they are taking on then I think this would be far more ethical/fair than the current system which basically forces the SAHP to take on the financial risk themselves.

BumpityBumper

Now that you bring it up, I think I have actually heard about people making such contracts! Must Google

The decision to have a SAHP should be a mutual one and one that places a financial burden on both parties.

But this still puts the power in the WOHP - what if they don’t agree to this mutual decision? Or what if they change their mind? Would the WOHP be able to insist the SAHP work weekends?

I think the key thing I’d do is massively tighten up child benefit arrangements. I think it should be a greater amount and I think the government should pay it if the NRP won’t.

@RiddleyW
Then the decision wouldn't be mutual would it? I dont think it's wise for anyone to consider being a SAHP unless their partner is in full agreement
I also think there should be mechanisms to change arrangements if the SAHP/WOHP/both parents are no longer happy with this however there should be provision for a SAHP to find work and regain their earning potential if required.

I think for this concept to work it would have to work like an employment contract where you can't just terminate an arrangement without providing notice and in some cases redundancy money etc. Obviously it wouldn't work in exactly the same way but the principles would be the same that responsibilities should be outlined, the WOHPs obligations in terms of support should be clear and it should be explicit about what happens should the arrangement need to change for whatever reason. At least then both parties would enter the arrangement with their eyes open and the SAHP would be entitled to financial assistance should it all go sour.

I can understand your preference for looking at child benefit arrangements however, I don't personally think this is the answer as for me it doesn't solve a key issue which is that currently a WOHP (usually man) can profile massively from the labour and efforts of their SAHP and then walk away with limited obligations. It just reinforces that the SAHP role is intrinsically less valuable.

• profile = profit

If we were not doing unpaid domestic work they have to pay for it.
What does that make us?

There's a history of women fighting for societal restructuring to make sure that we are not put in our current position: Alexandra Kollentai in 1920s:
www.lagrange.edu/resources/pdf/citations/2011/11_Vest_History.pdf

Women fighting for wages for housework: International feminist movement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework

And the academic Anne Oakley has written analyses of it.
www.annoakley.org/quotes.html#hou

More recently the Lisa Muggeridge has identified the british state policy through 'austerity' of pushing women back into domestic servitude and heterosexual 'finance structures' in order to survive, and keep our own children.

It is deliberate. We are a billion pound service ( and production) sector provided gratis.

@woman11017
Interesting, thanks for your post!

I think there are informal childcare co-ops all over, babysitting circles especially amongst trusted friends. For example lots of people split school pick ups with a friend, my friends and I swap babysitting for nights out and smear test appointment type ad hoc childcare a lot. Although can you remember those two policewomen who were pursued by Ofsted etc for working their shifts around each other for childcare swaps?!

Not sure how I'd feel about payment on formal terms as a SAHM myself - it's both simpler and more complex than that. Can you recall how drink driving went from socially acceptable to universally judged in a generation? Same needs to happen for shirking parental responsibility imo. Not sure the Government covering the tab will help. Linking children to parents' NI number would but men paying themselves in dividends or moving abroad would still happen.

Another point - coming from the posts earlier about volunteering.

Society is built on the unpaid labour of women, really.
Literally - in that we gestate and birth the next generation
And while we are doing that we keep the wheels turning
Homes going, everyone fed, organsied, clean etc
Volunteering, PTAs, charity work, all that
Caring falls predominantly to us - children, family members with disabilities, elderly relatives etc
All of this is supposed to happen quietly in the background so that the chaps can go out and do their much more important high profile work unhindered.
This is seen to be a contract - one that we never signed - and yet are expected to adhere to - and you can see this in the way that when anything goes wrong in society it is seen as the fault of women, espeically mothers.
Obesity crisis? We're not buying fresh food and cooking it from scratch. We're lazy.
Crime crisis? We're all out at work and our kids aren't looked after properly and they're going off the rails
Child poverty crisis? Lazy women are staying at home when they should be earning money
And etc and so on it's very stark when you notice it!

In other countries which are less industrialised we are of course farming the land, growing the food, carrying the water, grinding the flour and so on. And again it's all a job which somehow and somewhere we were contracted to do quietly and uncomplainingly and for free and forever.

The fundamental issue is that women are not valued as highly as men. I'm not sure how to change that.

The fundamental issue is that women are not valued as highly as men.

Totally agree. In a smaller way, in my circle of friends, the women often outearn their partners. But somehow their work isn't seen as being as important as their partners. And they still take on the majority of the household responsibilities too.

I don't think anything will change until it's socially acceptable for men to work part time and take shared parental leave. I'm lucky enough to work somewhere where this is the norm but I've still seen instances of dads being refused a request to work part time. We as a society need to encourage them when men do step forward. That and the equivalent of income protection insurance for SAHP.

Yes I agree. I think that the problem has been that women have often managed to have successful careers and outearn men but have found it much harder to shrug off their traditional childcare and domestic responsibilities. I guess the problem might be that all of this unpaid wifework doesn't just disappear once the wife is committed to working long hours and once children come along few parents are ecstatic about the idea of putting their children in childcare for very long days so what gives? Will men eventually step up if women refuse to be the ones to sacrifice their careers or will women always be the one's more eager to sacrifice their careers because of biology and the fact they carry and give birth to the babies? I also think there is a definite element of the sexes having different standards both domestically and regarding children, men as a class just don't seem as committed to their children and home as women.

I don’t feel at all contracted by society to be a SAHM in terms of it being some kind of female obligation in particular. I chose to do something I had an overpowering urge to do and could do. I would however agree that there is little option for contracts within the work place that cater to parents needs. I’m sure loads of parents look at who earns more and base their choice of main care giver on that. So that skews the result of long term earning potential in favour of men. Working hours that reflect school hours would be a god send to millions. I’d definitely do it. It would also enable people who don’t want their kids in child care to have more time with their kids if that’s what they want. Then again decent affordable child care options would be great. The after school club at our school would cost us around 45 quid per evening. Which is frankly ridiculous.
I have also been a caregiver for my parent through a terminal illness. The amount available to claim at the time was derisory. All it cost me was travel so I didn’t claim. However if I had to stop work to do it, I would have been unable to live. The whole care at home system is horrific in my experience . I believe no one person is capable of full time care for any person who needs full care- i.e. is physically incapable. Even with child care provided, or no kids it’s a slog. I’m not sure if caring in the home for ill relatives normally falls to women. I can well imagine it would. That may be another thread it’s a massive issue.

I think both roles would benefit by equal work opportunities being provided. So I know someone- very very talented designer who got told after maternity leave and returning to work part time that- clients just don’t want to deal with part time designers. She went before she was pushed in the end. It’s everywhere, I’m sure there are men who experience exactly this too- there needs to be proper legislation linked to care responsibility and not just for parents- for any part time care giver, so maybe caring for your own parent or sibling- so that a shared commitment to both work and family is possible for either parent or non parent.
I can’t see this happening in my life time in the U.K.