the cost of working - SAHM vs WOHM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I admire all those with successful one earner marriages. But this scenario left me in different shoes after 15 years of marriage. I was running a huge household with $1mm income from several rental properties, exH with international travel and autistic son. Yes, as I stayed home, my exH income tripled and our rental properties were fully paid off. He never noticed or appreciated who gave him this freedom.
Instead, just before selling his company for millions, he asked for a divorce and told me I wanted to become a multi millioner at his expense. He cheated for years secretly with a co-worker and told me I was nobody and she was a world known expert. The lady had 2 kids and never stopped working.
Just as I was hoping to get back to work, get a new degree to do something for myself after many years of hard unpaid home labor, I ended in a rush looking for ANY employment to hire a lawyer. My exH hid assets abroad.

Women - DO WORK! All these high earning husbands may be there with you for the rest of your life!

Sadly, a similar situation happened to my MIL. My FIL made millions for years while she had to quit her job, as they moved around for his job. He left her in her late 50s for a much younger woman and she had to go back to work in her late 50s/early 60s and she's still working now. He retired and brags about how smart and successful his new wife is, which is pretty sick. He hid a ton of money and moved a lot of the assets to the mistress and also her grown children, so my MIL got some but not enough to maintain her standard of living from before the divorce. The alimony was short term and whatever she got sharply decreased after he retired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever calculated how much it costs to work?

I was chatting with a friend who lives in the NYC area about how much it costs her to work (suburban train, after school care etc etc). While SAHM is not an option for them, she has a hard time accepting how much it costs her to work.

It got me thinking....how much do a spend to WOHM? (Not an argument on the long-term financial security, retirement benefits or earning potential....just a budgeting/expenses question).

Me? I estimated some average monthly costs I can attribute to WOHM.

Daycare - $3300 (though part of that is preschool I would have likely had to pay for, at least a few days a week)
Commute - Gas, wear and tear (?) - $100
Parking - $120
Cleaning Services - $400
Clothing - $200 (suits, dress shoes etc)
Dry Cleaning - $100
Lunches - $80
Coffees/Breakfast on the Run - $30
Takeout - $200


Yikes!

Why is this conversation always about whether “it makes sense” for the mom/wife to work? What about your spouse? Why not run the numbers to decide whether he should go back to work or SAH?

Because IRL and also mirrored here, the husbands do not pull their weight in taking care of the household and kids and the women take care of the vast majority of the burden. So most of them decide to stay home because they have to do 2 jobs - WOH and WAH taking care of everything, from managing appointments, to cooking, cleaning, homework, shopping etc. Add several kids or a kid with special needs and the double work becomes unbearable and sometimes impossible, if the kid with special needs requires multiple appointments. I have a unicorn - a very well paid job FH and a H who is very hands on and does things without me asking, in addition to making $$$$. I bet if other women would have more opportunities like mine and involved spouses, the selection would change. But corporate America is not kind to moms, despite all that lip service, and lots of men are too good to do homework with the kids or laundry properly or take the trash out when needed and not when asked.

You don't have a unicorn, you just made a good decision as did I! Most people choose a dud husband and complain incessantly about him and his lack of childcare/involvement in home etc. Buck up women!! Raise your expectations if you want the world to change! You are in the driver's seat of your life! Make better choices or stop whining about your bad choices. You chose to marry that dud.

I tell my daughters the biggest investment in their career and self is choosing a spouse that wants for them what they want for themselves and vice versa. Childcare and the cost of work (or not) is purely a family decision. It is definitely NOT the cost for a WOMAN.. that thought pattern holds us back. It is a family cost that supports the whole family PERIOD.

I hear you, but I'm bone tired of the task changing men to be one more thing for women to do.

Telling women they just need to "raise their expectations" isn't at all helpful. Do you think any of us married someone we thought would be an unequal partner? Of course not. Practical advice would be appreciated for those (such as myself) who find themselves in an unequal marriage. Like the guy is generally nice, shovels the walk for the elderly neighbor, will take the kids either if you ask or if you're at your complete rock bottom but not before, and even then often his version of time with the kids is everyone on their devices. Eats anything you cook/reheat and tells the kids to say thank you, but the only cleaning he can remember on his own is to roll the garbage cans to the curb once a week. Anything else needs multiple reminders and even then the response is just a shrug "yeah, I guess I didn't do it" or "well doing X was worth keeping the peace" comment. No, I didn't see any of this before we got married. He either had roommates (and as it turns out enough social sense to clean up behind himself in a communal living situation) or in student housing (most grad students did this where he went). Should I have dated only men with enough $ to already own their own house and lived alone? (I probably would have wondered about their lack of financial sense). My spouse feels like he wants for me what I want for myself. Wanting and doing are 2 very different things. He feels I'm free to clean up behind everyone if it matters so much to me. He'll cheer me on from the couch. Wanting isn't enough. Blaming women for men's failures compounds the problem. "I had no idea my wife was so unhappy. Why didn't she say anything." Even that blames women. And I'm sure she did say something. Many. Many. Many times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

NP. This isn’t really a matter of “belief.” Organizations like Pew have done polls.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/03/23/americans-widely-support-paid-family-and-medical-leave-but-differ-over-specific-policies/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever calculated how much it costs to work?

I was chatting with a friend who lives in the NYC area about how much it costs her to work (suburban train, after school care etc etc). While SAHM is not an option for them, she has a hard time accepting how much it costs her to work.

It got me thinking....how much do a spend to WOHM? (Not an argument on the long-term financial security, retirement benefits or earning potential....just a budgeting/expenses question).

Me? I estimated some average monthly costs I can attribute to WOHM.

Daycare - $3300 (though part of that is preschool I would have likely had to pay for, at least a few days a week)
Commute - Gas, wear and tear (?) - $100
Parking - $120
Cleaning Services - $400
Clothing - $200 (suits, dress shoes etc)
Dry Cleaning - $100
Lunches - $80
Coffees/Breakfast on the Run - $30
Takeout - $200


Yikes!

Why is this conversation always about whether “it makes sense” for the mom/wife to work? What about your spouse? Why not run the numbers to decide whether he should go back to work or SAH?

Because IRL and also mirrored here, the husbands do not pull their weight in taking care of the household and kids and the women take care of the vast majority of the burden. So most of them decide to stay home because they have to do 2 jobs - WOH and WAH taking care of everything, from managing appointments, to cooking, cleaning, homework, shopping etc. Add several kids or a kid with special needs and the double work becomes unbearable and sometimes impossible, if the kid with special needs requires multiple appointments. I have a unicorn - a very well paid job FH and a H who is very hands on and does things without me asking, in addition to making $$$$. I bet if other women would have more opportunities like mine and involved spouses, the selection would change. But corporate America is not kind to moms, despite all that lip service, and lots of men are too good to do homework with the kids or laundry properly or take the trash out when needed and not when asked.

You don't have a unicorn, you just made a good decision as did I! Most people choose a dud husband and complain incessantly about him and his lack of childcare/involvement in home etc. Buck up women!! Raise your expectations if you want the world to change! You are in the driver's seat of your life! Make better choices or stop whining about your bad choices. You chose to marry that dud.

I tell my daughters the biggest investment in their career and self is choosing a spouse that wants for them what they want for themselves and vice versa. Childcare and the cost of work (or not) is purely a family decision. It is definitely NOT the cost for a WOMAN.. that thought pattern holds us back. It is a family cost that supports the whole family PERIOD.

I hear you, but I'm bone tired of the task changing men to be one more thing for women to do.

Telling women they just need to "raise their expectations" isn't at all helpful. Do you think any of us married someone we thought would be an unequal partner? Of course not. Practical advice would be appreciated for those (such as myself) who find themselves in an unequal marriage. Like the guy is generally nice, shovels the walk for the elderly neighbor, will take the kids either if you ask or if you're at your complete rock bottom but not before, and even then often his version of time with the kids is everyone on their devices. Eats anything you cook/reheat and tells the kids to say thank you, but the only cleaning he can remember on his own is to roll the garbage cans to the curb once a week. Anything else needs multiple reminders and even then the response is just a shrug "yeah, I guess I didn't do it" or "well doing X was worth keeping the peace" comment. No, I didn't see any of this before we got married. He either had roommates (and as it turns out enough social sense to clean up behind himself in a communal living situation) or in student housing (most grad students did this where he went). Should I have dated only men with enough $ to already own their own house and lived alone? (I probably would have wondered about their lack of financial sense). My spouse feels like he wants for me what I want for myself. Wanting and doing are 2 very different things. He feels I'm free to clean up behind everyone if it matters so much to me. He'll cheer me on from the couch. Wanting isn't enough. Blaming women for men's failures compounds the problem. "I had no idea my wife was so unhappy. Why didn't she say anything." Even that blames women. And I'm sure she did say something. Many. Many. Many times.

Anecdotally, every woman I know married to a man who doesn’t do his share, actively does things to enable the behavior. From quitting her job, EBF, not sleep training, never leaving the kids to go away for a weekend, not demanding her husband takes any parental leave etc. I am in a egalitarian marriage with a husband who does 50/50 and supports my career. I have taken a different path than some of my friends but they would probably describe me as lucky to have a husband who actively parents and does his share.

But my friends never:

1. Formula fed so their husband was responsible for a window of time for the baby
2. Left their young baby without instructions for the day with their husband
3. Returned to work
4. Went away for the weekend with girlfriends
5. Refused to have more kids if their husband didn’t take parental leave

If you EBF and quit your job while your husband returns to work, you’re essentially saying the child is 100% your responsibility and not your husband’s. You’re saying your husband earns the $ and you do the housework/childcare. It’s very hard to break these habits. Men get very used to having a career while their wife stays home and does everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

NP. This isn’t really a matter of “belief.” Organizations like Pew have done polls.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/03/23/americans-widely-support-paid-family-and-medical-leave-but-differ-over-specific-policies/

I mean who doesn’t want something for free? Of course someone in a poll will say they want paid leave. But does the average MC/UMC woman really want 12- whatever weeks of paid leave and then to be required to return to work? Nope. They don’t want to work at all, which is why so many stay home with young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever calculated how much it costs to work?

I was chatting with a friend who lives in the NYC area about how much it costs her to work (suburban train, after school care etc etc). While SAHM is not an option for them, she has a hard time accepting how much it costs her to work.

It got me thinking....how much do a spend to WOHM? (Not an argument on the long-term financial security, retirement benefits or earning potential....just a budgeting/expenses question).

Me? I estimated some average monthly costs I can attribute to WOHM.

Daycare - $3300 (though part of that is preschool I would have likely had to pay for, at least a few days a week)
Commute - Gas, wear and tear (?) - $100
Parking - $120
Cleaning Services - $400
Clothing - $200 (suits, dress shoes etc)
Dry Cleaning - $100
Lunches - $80
Coffees/Breakfast on the Run - $30
Takeout - $200


Yikes!

Why is this conversation always about whether “it makes sense” for the mom/wife to work? What about your spouse? Why not run the numbers to decide whether he should go back to work or SAH?

Because IRL and also mirrored here, the husbands do not pull their weight in taking care of the household and kids and the women take care of the vast majority of the burden. So most of them decide to stay home because they have to do 2 jobs - WOH and WAH taking care of everything, from managing appointments, to cooking, cleaning, homework, shopping etc. Add several kids or a kid with special needs and the double work becomes unbearable and sometimes impossible, if the kid with special needs requires multiple appointments. I have a unicorn - a very well paid job FH and a H who is very hands on and does things without me asking, in addition to making $$$$. I bet if other women would have more opportunities like mine and involved spouses, the selection would change. But corporate America is not kind to moms, despite all that lip service, and lots of men are too good to do homework with the kids or laundry properly or take the trash out when needed and not when asked.

You don't have a unicorn, you just made a good decision as did I! Most people choose a dud husband and complain incessantly about him and his lack of childcare/involvement in home etc. Buck up women!! Raise your expectations if you want the world to change! You are in the driver's seat of your life! Make better choices or stop whining about your bad choices. You chose to marry that dud.

I tell my daughters the biggest investment in their career and self is choosing a spouse that wants for them what they want for themselves and vice versa. Childcare and the cost of work (or not) is purely a family decision. It is definitely NOT the cost for a WOMAN.. that thought pattern holds us back. It is a family cost that supports the whole family PERIOD.

I hear you, but I'm bone tired of the task changing men to be one more thing for women to do.

Telling women they just need to "raise their expectations" isn't at all helpful. Do you think any of us married someone we thought would be an unequal partner? Of course not. Practical advice would be appreciated for those (such as myself) who find themselves in an unequal marriage. Like the guy is generally nice, shovels the walk for the elderly neighbor, will take the kids either if you ask or if you're at your complete rock bottom but not before, and even then often his version of time with the kids is everyone on their devices. Eats anything you cook/reheat and tells the kids to say thank you, but the only cleaning he can remember on his own is to roll the garbage cans to the curb once a week. Anything else needs multiple reminders and even then the response is just a shrug "yeah, I guess I didn't do it" or "well doing X was worth keeping the peace" comment. No, I didn't see any of this before we got married. He either had roommates (and as it turns out enough social sense to clean up behind himself in a communal living situation) or in student housing (most grad students did this where he went). Should I have dated only men with enough $ to already own their own house and lived alone? (I probably would have wondered about their lack of financial sense). My spouse feels like he wants for me what I want for myself. Wanting and doing are 2 very different things. He feels I'm free to clean up behind everyone if it matters so much to me. He'll cheer me on from the couch. Wanting isn't enough. Blaming women for men's failures compounds the problem. "I had no idea my wife was so unhappy. Why didn't she say anything." Even that blames women. And I'm sure she did say something. Many. Many. Many times.

Anecdotally, every woman I know married to a man who doesn’t do his share, actively does things to enable the behavior. From quitting her job, EBF, not sleep training, never leaving the kids to go away for a weekend, not demanding her husband takes any parental leave etc. I am in a egalitarian marriage with a husband who does 50/50 and supports my career. I have taken a different path than some of my friends but they would probably describe me as lucky to have a husband who actively parents and does his share.

But my friends never:

1. Formula fed so their husband was responsible for a window of time for the baby
2. Left their young baby without instructions for the day with their husband
3. Returned to work
4. Went away for the weekend with girlfriends
5. Refused to have more kids if their husband didn’t take parental leave

If you EBF and quit your job while your husband returns to work, you’re essentially saying the child is 100% your responsibility and not your husband’s. You’re saying your husband earns the $ and you do the housework/childcare. It’s very hard to break these habits. Men get very used to having a career while their wife stays home and does everything else.

Wow. I guess I'll just respond that anecdotally I did 4 of the 5 and yet an egalitarian relationship eludes me.

1. Formula fed so their husband was responsible for a window of time for the baby - Our kids got formula and breastmilk. And I pumped milk so my husband had plenty of turns feeding the baby.
2. Left their young baby without instructions for the day with their husband - Not sure I did this one. I missed the kids too much when I returned to work.
3. Returned to work - I did. Twice. I eventually decided to quit, but it was well over a year after going back to work twice.
4. Went away for the weekend with girlfriends - Never did this. I missed the kids too much. I did go away for a business trip for a week. Does that count?
5. Refused to have more kids if their husband didn’t take parental leave - I refused to have more kids but for a different reason (DH got and took 2 weeks for each kid). My reason was that I carried (and still do) way more of the load. Does this count?

I highly doubt that if I'd done #2 my DH or relationship would be drastically different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

NP. This isn’t really a matter of “belief.” Organizations like Pew have done polls.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/03/23/americans-widely-support-paid-family-and-medical-leave-but-differ-over-specific-policies/

I mean who doesn’t want something for free? Of course someone in a poll will say they want paid leave. But does the average MC/UMC woman really want 12- whatever weeks of paid leave and then to be required to return to work? Nope. They don’t want to work at all, which is why so many stay home with young kids.

Is this the same PP just making stuff up based on “beliefs?” Only 4% of SAHMs are highly educated with a husband who makes 75K or more. Motives are going to vary but so you think all the rest of them really just don’t want to work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it insulting that a woman who is highly educated will be willing to SAHM, to do all the housework etc. I wonder if this is also what they preach to their daughters? Yeah, I will pay for your college and grad school but please find a high potential husband so that you can be a good SAHM for him?

I find it insulting that you don't think women who are highly educated should have the choice. My parents were like you. I no longer speak to them. I am so thankful my husband gave me the choice (and financially it didn't pay for me to work but he would have supported me if I choose to work) was I didn't realize it was even an option. I regret going back at all before quitting. I was miserable. Child care was as much as my take home and it was impacting my husband's job because I often could not leave on time to do the day care pick up.

It sounds like your husband didn't give you the support you needed at home, which is why you quit your job. Since you didn't need to work, why didn't you get a nanny instead of day care? You wouldn't have had to worry about doing day care pick up. Also, maybe your husband should have done some of the pick-ups, too.
It also sounds like your parents didn't help either. My parents would be livid if, with my PhD, I quit my job. (But, I understand your frustration, my parents didn't help us very much when our kids were babies. I thought about quitting then, too.)

My bigger concern is that the more often highly educated women, with graduate degrees even, quit to support their husbands and children, it makes it harder for women who stay in the workforce to get promoted because bosses will think that they'll promote moms only to have them leave.

Ladies, we need to get our men to do more of the heavy lifting!!! It may be too late for this generation, but let's raise our boys to learn to carry the mental load.

This is exactly the point. By volunteering to take care of home and kids stuff, SAHMs are keeping the traditions in place both at home and also for the ones in the office. That is why we still don't get paid leave, day care subsidy and other benefits as a society, because there is always a woman who can take care of these at home.

But there will always be women who genuinely prefer to stay home with their kids. And outside of the expensive city bubble (where people are more ambitious), that’s a lot more women than you might think. They don’t want daycare, paid leave, or their husband taking care of their baby. They want to stay home with their babies and young children. This is probably especially true for women in service jobs or other hard, boring jobs that are really the majority of jobs in this country. To me, there is a minority of highly ambitious women with jobs they love who want more childcare help, and they want every other mom in the country to sacrifice time with their children to help the ambitious moms achieve critical political mass.

+1 kind of. I agree PP is demanding women with low paying service jobs work, instead of doing what they want which might involve staying home, largely to benefit higher paid professional women.

But I also think PP is just wrong that the thing preventing us from getting paid leave or a childcare subsidy is women choosing to SAHM. I mean, there are SAHMs in Europe. And as in the US, it’s a choice made both by wealthy women whose spouses make enough to keep the family very comfortable on one income, and middle class women who find mothering more personally rewarding than whatever they do for a living and are willing to make the financial sacrifice for greater household harmony.

Many countries with real parental leave and subsidized childcare also provide payments to families with kids, and they are often higher for kids under 5. While many women return to work after their long leave and take advantage of the subsidized childcare (a very different proposition than what most American women are expected to do, which is go back to work while their children are still infants and then pay for childcare out of pocket), some women choose to stay home for several years and are facilitated by government payments. This isn’t super common but not unheard of either.

Blaming women for making choices that make sense for them in our messed up, cruel system that is aggressively hostile to working moms is backwards. Women in the US cannot “earn” access to leave and childcare by working harder. We have to decide as a country that paid leave is good because it’s good for parents to have time with new babies. That subsidized childcare is really the only way to make that industry function (because like education, if you privatize it, quality of care and affordability are always at war with each other). Whether women take advantage of these policies is an individual choice that is honestly none of your business.

lol you’ve been living in a liberal urban location too long.

Europeans receive paid leave but it’s not like it’s reported in the media. Most countries only provide 6-8 weeks of fully paid leave and after that it’s a measly amount that’s similar to unemployment insurance. In the UK, it’s around $200 a week!

There are also some major cultural differences that result in European countries providing paid leave. Many educated women have children out of wedlock and their finances are separate from their partner. How would they have kids if they earned $0? There isn’t this notion of men supporting the family like there is in the US. It’s also way way more expensive for the average family to live in most European countries. Paid leave is a necessity. I see a stark difference between my MC friends living in a flyover city and my MC friends living in Europe. They pay much higher taxes in Europe and their overall cost of living is much higher - especially housing. I am personally glad we don’t have a culture here where the government is paying women to stay home from work to take care of kids.

You seriously don’t get we don’t have paid leave because outside of small urban liberal areas, American men and women don’t want it. It’s fairly easy for the average American woman to stay home with kids if that’s what she wants to do. She doesn’t need a government hand out. The women who are poor and require assistance are already receiving it.

Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

You strike me as someone who is completely clueless about politics, and don't understand that just because we don't have something doesn't mean that most don't want it.

Most people have incredibly crappy, poorly paid jobs with little possibility of advancement. They don't take parental leave because it's not offered and they need to get paid, so FMLA does little for them.

My guess, PP, is that you've never worked pay check to pay check in a menial job.

[Anonymous]

Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where is gender equality here? If I was the breadwinner husband and if my wife decided not to work anymore, I think I would lose some respect for her. Will most of those marriages end when one of the sides hit a mid life crisis?

Well you are not everybody. My husband feels very differently than you would. For a lot of people it’s a contribution to the partnership, not a contribution to income, that matters. I never planned on being a stay at home mom but I wouldn’t have married somebody who didn’t have respect for them.

However lots of men (and women) feel like you, and of course if resentments build up marriages can end. I’m not sure about “most” though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Um, you're the one who is out of touch if you believe that Americans don't want paid leave, and that women can just stay at home if they want. That's seriously the dumbest and most out of touch argument I've heard in weeks. You seriously don't know how the lower middle class live in America.

I don’t believe most American families want it. It’s why we don’t have it. I know it’s hard for someone living in a liberal dual income area to understand, but it’s simply the truth. Most people simply don’t care.

NP. This isn’t really a matter of “belief.” Organizations like Pew have done polls.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/03/23/americans-widely-support-paid-family-and-medical-leave-but-differ-over-specific-policies/

DP. Most Americans also say the best arrangement for families is one parent staying home. If a family is forced to have two incomes, then of course they want paid leave when having a baby. But for a mom who works at an Amazon warehouse, do you really think her ultimate wish is paid leave? Or does she wish her husband made more money, housing were cheaper, healthcare was paid by the gov, etc, so she didn't have to work at all?