Expectations of mothers includes financial abuse?

[clairemcnam]

We all know that mothers do much more than their fair share of housework, childcare and cooking than fathers in the vast majority of relationships. But there also seems to be an increasing expectation that as well as this, mothers should be contributing 50% of the family costs. Given that mothers are on average paid less than fathers, this means that mothers are being expected to contribute financially a larger proportion of their earnings to the family pot than fathers.

So mothers are now being expected increasingly to contribute more than 50% to raising a child on all fronts.

And yes, if fathers refuse to pay for things for the children like presents and birthday cards for a party they are going to, or for children to go to activities, then it is not surprising the mum just pays. Because most mums don't want their kids to miss out.

You know, that's probably not a very common example. I haven't seen it. I have seen dads say that they should spend less. That's a defensible perspective.

Has it ever crossed your mind though that the less intensive father parenting style might actually have things to recommend it? Maybe it would even be nice if the approach of the mom and the dad could balance each other?

Sometimes its good for kids to miss out, especially if the cultural expectations are out of whack. There is a point where if the mother won't stand for that and wants to spend her own cash, she's free to do so. You can't assume based on that that the father is wrong not to spend it.

The real issue is often that they never really sit down and figure out who spends what or what they agree yo spend together. People don't seem to communicatethis way for some reason.

What is spent on children, and why, is definitely something parents need to discuss together.

I actually support a less intensive type of parenting. But in the present day for many kids, that would mean them being at home every evening. When I was young kids would be out playing as a group every evening and weekend. Now no kids play out by themselves where I am.
Also I totally believe in parenting the kid you have, not the one you want. I am in my fifties and grew up at a time when kids from a poor background like mine did not go to organised activities. I loved organised activities and went to every one I could find - generally run by religious organisations.
Just dictating what you want to spend your money on as an adult, and not thinking about the child you actually have, is not a great idea.

Also I have seen plenty of mums posting on MN saying that they basically pay for everything themselves for their kids beyond basic food and very basic clothes. If you are very poor, fine. But I don't want to just have basic food and clothes and no money to spend on anything else for myself, so why should kids put up with that?

Maria The disagreement is about dads who refuse to fund anything for their kids beyond basic food and clothing.
When I worked with kids I can across this as well. Dads with expensive hobbies and clothes, and kids in basic clothes who were not allowed to go on trips or join clubs because of the cost. And I consider it abusive.

Ive said time and time again that just because a man believes in going halves on paying for dates does NOT mean he believes in equality. And occasionally a thread comes along that proves this point.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3577265-To-tell-him-to-go-back-at-the-1850-s

A better carer’s allowance would be good. We are going to be hit by a huge need for elderly care in the next 20 years. This used to be met (and in some cases still is) by sahm ‘housewife’ who also would also sometime care for relatives children (eg if parent died). I don’t think the govt really thought through the implications of losing this unrecognised labour when they wanted to increase the size of the workforce.

Well we can forget it now cant we? With the changes to Pension Credit coming in for pensioners with a younger partner. A lot of these younger partners (most of whom will be women) are not only providing care for an older disabled/ill partner like yours truly here, but some will also be providing unpaid childcare to other family members. Yet when i started a thread on the Money Matters board plenty of women were cheering on these cuts.

Well I sometimes goes the other way too, my ex got our child coal for Christmas... :|

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/3479693-Changes-to-Pension-Credit

HelenaDove

I saw your post at the time and thought how pithy it was:

Its funny how these men want a 1950s service................oh but wait with 2019 bits thrown in.

I actually had missed those changes to Pension Credit. It’s very clever (in a cynical way) from a political point of view because it’s less common for couples to be exactly the same age - even if it is just one or two years - so the age at which couples can apply for Pension Credit will rise. And women are less likely to have second pensions.

And don’t get me started on the lack of support for family carers....

I only know one couple who are exactly the same age and thats my parents. There is three months between them.

I probably should have posted on this board initially as it is a feminist issue as its the woman who is more likely to be younger although obviously the changes will affect the whole household.

lack of support for family carers

Oxfam this year put out a report on the unpaid work done by women around the world. It is worth $10tn (£7.7tn) a year

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/a-sex-strike-is-not-enough-women-need-to-down-tools-completely

The unpaid work we do as women would have to be paid for if we didn't do it.

Men wouldn't do it for nothing.

They would also refuse to be stitched up by pension theft after a life of unpaid and underpaid work.

Patriarchal theft in plain sight.

The harsh reality, is only the essential unpaid work needs to be cared for. Not the unpaid work that makes life better for elderly people.

Men do very little of the unpaid household, nursing, caring and child rearing work.

Why should we?

Why should we be having to ask this in 2019?

Ive seen posts about the huffing and puffing from NHS workers to family carers when they cant care due to other commitments.

They need to get used to it though because when the conditionality comes in this week for younger partners of pensioners that is going to cause serious knock on effects.

I think, that generally marriage and cohabitation does not work out as well for women as it does for men...

I agree (unfortunately)

benefitsinthefuture.com/identifying-the-needs-shortfall-for-older-people/

From elsewhere on the above blog

"My husband I couple be affected by these changes, there is roughly 19 years parts us, that is 19 years of living on or below the bread line. I have been doing what I can to campaign around this issue, to hope gain changes to Universal Credit to help mitigate the impact to couples where the oldest of the couple is getting State Pension, in many cases will be higher than the couple alliance of UC, which means they will receive no help, not one penny even toward rent. Then there are health, heating cost, basically mixed aged couple will be set adrift with no help. It will have a wider affect on society where grant parents provide free childcare now may not be in a position to offer this help to their adult children, also this will impact on some types of care packages that aim to keep people included in society, they will become unviable if a couple cannot afford to fuel their car. This will disastrous for couples with are in private renters property as the older person pension will end up going on rent with nothing left, so I think we will see an increase in homeless pensioners as result of the bad change of law"

"My husband and I are absolutely devastated. We love each other dearly but will likely have to divorce.
He is in his 70s and I am in my 50s. He has an age-related cancer that is only going to worsen over time. Our only remaining parent has mid-stage dementia. If we inherit a modest amount when they pass and our ‘savings’ exceed the limit temporarily we are finished.
His state pension will stop our entitlement to UC , so unless I find some fairly well-paid work almost immediately we will have to switch off heating, scrap our old car, which is our only means of transport for his hospital appointments or go without food if we can’t do without it.
This specific targeting of mixed age couples for severe punishment will leave us with the choice of divorce or die. He will be in his late 80s before we could get pension credits back.
Ironically, if we split up it will cost the government much more in benefits and social services care than if they left us as we are with me taking care of him.
This seems to be punishment for the sake of it, incentive to divorce and leave the duty of caring to to the government, not incentive to work.
Incentive to work would involve giving the pensioner his entitlement to PC and HB and allowing the younger person to claim UC , carers allowance or work to improve their income and save for their own later life – without deducting it from his entitlement."

I think that there ought to be a requirement for SAHPs to attend baby/toddler groups. There is so much that could be done to improve outcomes for both children and parents with a bit of education in parenting.

You won't learn anything at baby/toddler groups about how to parent. I never did anyway. My children have turned out fine. Help should be there if you need it, but not everyone does.

Snout the theory of what you would do wrt financial contributions and childcare is often very different when children are a reality rather than hypothetical. Often you just feel differently and want to be home more, sometimes childcare is too expensive or hard to find in the place where you live and sometimes work just isn't conducive to sharing equally.

I am a sahm. DH has a job which involves long hours and travel. Mine was, on the face of it, more child friendly. I have heard on MN that sah isn't a feminist choice, is sponging off DH etc. But for me it is a feminist choice in that I'm damned if I'm going to work and getting lumbered with all the domestic work just because my hours were technically more family friendly. Sharing childcare and work 50/50 just isn't possible in his job so I know it would have been me taking on more than my share. So I've opted out of doing both. I'm happy to do more domestic stuff, but I'm not willing to do it all. We share all money and back when we were younger and I earned more, we still shared. We are a unit with different but equally valid roles. I also am not willing to do some dead end job during school hours just because someone who isn't in my marriage thinks I should. I think it's anti feminist to give up a career so you can care for family and then be stuck in a Mc job that you don't need, just because society can't stand the idea of a woman pleasing herself and not feeling obligated to do more than she has to.

I have heard on MN that sah isn't a feminist choice, is sponging off DH etc.

This really boils my blood (and other fluids), they're essentially imposing a specific gender role on you.

I think it is a feminist issue that women do generally end up doing all of the unpaid and low status caring work. Still many more women than men are doing this - there’s a lot of evidence that for professionals women earn more or the same until they reach child bearing age.

The structure of our workplace and cultural expectation that women do all the caring is leaving women (as a whole) poorer economically and doing a lot of extra unpaid and low status work. It’s certainly a feminist issue that women feel they have no choice but to give up their jobs when they have children. The number of men who do that is still minuscule.

A requirement for SAHP to attend mother and toddler groups.....I'd rather enter Dante's inferno thank you very much.

I found out recently that my cousin splits all the costs 50-50 with her partner... her little girl is 2 so she works part time as a shop assistant and their daughter is in childcare 2 days a week (which she pays for all herself, it's not included in the household expenses that they split 50-50), she looks after the little girl on her own the other 3 days a week, and her partner works full time and earns a mint (relatively speaking) - which means that he has loads of spare cash while she has to scrabble and save to even buy her own daughter a birthday present. It's the weirdest set-up and I think it's so wrong. I know they're not married but surely when you've got kids you become a team? One of you being poor while they other has tons of spare cash is not being a team in my book, when both of you work every hour god sends to contribute to the family.

Applestrudels, one of DH friends visited us from Ireland for Easter, his GF did not come as she had no money for the flight

10yrs together, and than that...?!

Hope it was an excuse and she just did not fancy it!

...fits the picture though

Must be more common than I thought

Sadly it is more common than you thought.