Opinions on women who've never worked?

[mangomcjango]

Name changed to avoid being flamed for whatever reason .

What is your opinion about someone who's never worked - by choice or by situation? For example, someone who went to university full time, got pregnant, became a SAHM and then went into early retirement.

Does your opinion change based on things like disability - i.e. if this person has a disability like autism, or a demand avoidant condition that makes it hard for them to work? Or is it all just laziness?

Cheers!

Does your opinion change based on things like disability - i.e. if this person has a disability like autism, or a demand avoidant condition that makes it hard for them to work? Or is it all just laziness?

@HunkyPunk SHOULD PROBABLY CLARIFY, I am autistic (Pathological Demand Avoidance specifically) so obviously not trying to shit on other autistic people -- I'm just curious about public perception.

I don’t think I would ever think about it. I’m accepting of other people’s life choices. I like who I like and accept people choose to love their lives how they want. Work or no work.

Live not love.

Who cares?

@Mixingitall So you wouldn't have any feelings of thinking that person is lazy / incapable / insert other negative connotation here?

You seem kind

@joystir59 Quite a few people actually hahaha

I'm really envious of parents that choose to stay at home. I would love to stay home and just focus on the kids, my house and my partner.

(Don't get me wrong I know it's not easy!)

During maternity it was great being off from work just to 'relax' prepare for baby and really be there with my other daughter without the idea of work niggling away in the back of my head. Then the end of my maternity went straight into furlough. And I loved it!

I know so many people suffered with lockdown and furlough payments and I don't meant to come across showing off. But it was a better situation for me and my family. Now I'm back to work and I hate feeling like I'm stretched between working, the children and the house work. Like my mind can't fully focus on just one thing and I feel like I'm not giving my all to my personal life.

So yep total respect for stay at home parents, and totally envious.

Although I don't think I would ever stop working completely until I retire but it is nice having that little income I provide, and a bit of independence too.

I wouldn't judge. I've spent a lot of my adult life not working due to serious but not entirely obvious mental health issues. I know people judge me for being lazy but fuck them.

I think I would feel incredibly envious.

I'm autistic. I worked full time until I had a breakdown and lost all my confidence, then was unemployed for a while, then started a part time job, and am now working full time but finding it hard, although quality of my work is good; am not coping at home.

I wish I had the means to not have to work so I could focus on things I can do and could carve out a lifestyle that I thrive in instead of constant boom and bust.

People judge all the time. Doesn't mean that either the judger or the judgee are right or any better than anyone else.

I'd like to think that I wouldn't have a different opinion on a man or woman in that situation. Why women specifically?

If someone doesn't need to work financially and chooses not to, their choice

If someone can't work due to disability or illness (visible or otherwise, then they can't and should be supported

If someone can't work through circumstances such as needing to be a Carer (whether to a child or adult) then fine

If someone wants to work but can't get a job, then fine (as long as they're not hanging out for the perfect job as that doesn't exist)

If someone wants to be supported whilst they hang out at home, with friends or whatever then I'm not so willing to pay tax to facilitate that. I certainly don't pay tax so that people in that situation don't have to.

Is ' Demand avoidance' really a thing?

@StressedMom4 (obviously it's a shame that you wish you could be a SAHM) but I guess it's also comforting to hear you don't have immediate judgement or anything for people who are unemployed for other reasons... I'm trying to sort my own "life plan" (yuck) out, but it seems I often enjoy going for the option that people look down on

PDA makes working and studying difficult. No judgment here. How did it feel to have children who are high demand by nature of age?

Personally if someone told me they didn’t work I would think they were unwell whether mentally or physically I wouldn’t think they were lazy.

However, my own mother has never worked and that was laziness. Especially when we were very poor growing up. A few family members make and female have also never worked.

I think suggesting stay at home mothers don’t work is both mysoginist and unfair.

Lucky them!

If I knew you’d been diagnosed with PDA, my only response would be to wonder briefly if it had made it into the DSM or ICD yet.

@Bluntasduck Honestly that makes me feel a bit better (sorry I know that's not your job) but I've got some mental health stuff as well as autism symptoms that persists in making me really really hate the idea of working for somebody else / in any kind of "official" environment at all... I guess it's cool to hear of someone who has that " fuck you" attitude and lives her own way

@bitheby Genuinely congratulations on being employed, it's especially difficult for autistic people and I'm not sure I can do it myself so hats off to you x

PDA is a thing.

It depends. In my mother's generation, more women didn't do paid work but they worked hard for free in the community and caring. I really respect them and they are wise. But I know someone my age who married a rich guy and never worked, has live in nannies. She has used all her leisure time to cultivate her tastes. Like, she has complicated opinions about wine and art and she sort of basks in her own sense of sophistication, but she is strangely ignorant of life, keeps making naively racist or ableist comments. I mean, if you compare her to, say, a single mum who is also a health care worker, obviously the single mum is working harder and contributing more.

I know a few people either in this situation or likely will be as don’t plan to go to work now kids are older.
Honestly, at first I was curious but as I’ve got to know them I just see them as a friend. I don’t really care that much about my other friend being an accountant or another being in HR. I care about them being a good friend and being happy with their situations.

@Somethingkindaoooo and @SaintofBats - Pathological Demand Avoidance is a real thing (I think there's consideration of a new name, as well as if it counts towards the autism spectrum) but it is a real thing.

@CherryPavlova Not trying to suggest SAHMs don't work - they work 24 / 7, I just mean unemployed in the sense of no external body is paying them ... sorry not sure how to phrase it correctly!