Why do men assume their wife will become a SAHM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

[Anonymous]

Stay childfree ladies!

[Anonymous]

I think you need to look at religious, cultural and family background, too. I know a lot of SAHMs but I also grew up in a community with a lot of people whose religious background made that almost an inevitable choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just on my one little street alone, we have 4 families with a SAHM including me! Maybe we are an anomaly?

Nope! There are quite a few sahms in my neighborhood, too.

I know a few too, and again this isn't a knock on SAHM. My own mother was a SAHM, but she wanted to do it. I'm just trying to figure out why in 2020 in a workforce of GenXers and Millenials the default is still mom has to sacrifice her career.

Ideally, neither parent would have to sacrifice career, but that's a whole differ discussion.

[Anonymous]

Umm. Mine never did. He's proud of my career. And, we don't need my salary (though it's a great one!).

I am lucky I have always had great flexibility/WAH after kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

This highlights how differently males and females are socialized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to look at religious, cultural and family background, too. I know a lot of SAHMs but I also grew up in a community with a lot of people whose religious background made that almost an inevitable choice.

Oh definitely. Religion and culture play a part.

[Anonymous]

Its a US thing.

My SILs in my home country have careers that is pretty much wholeheartedly supported by the husbands and families because it generates income. In addition to all of that there is a huge amount of benefits like maternity and paternity leave etc given to women. Women are supported at home and can easily outsource a lot of housekeeping, and childcare is never an issue because of abundance of options.

US is a shithole backward country as far as women's rights are concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine expected me to stay home and handle all of the kid and house stuff.....while still making 6 figures. Not sure how that works. But when I was SAHM, he resented that I didn’t make money. When I worked, he resented that it infringed on his career.

I think males in our society are raised to be entitled, while females are raised to sacrifice for others. They’re deep seated cultural beliefs that most people don’t even realize they have.

I see it even among SAH parents - SAHMs do way more for their kids, while the SAHDs I see are focused on themselves and ignore their kids, play on their phone, etc.

This. I feel like my husband does an okay job with it, but by "okay" I mean that he has very slowly adjusted to reality over the course of many years. But I do think he had incredibly unrealistic expectations for every aspect of our lives (home ownership, having a baby, being a two-income family, etc.).

A very common conversation in our house is that I will let him know that I will need help from him in order to do something for our family (like taking a break from work to care for our infant, or later, putting our child in daycare so that I could return to work), and his initial response is that he "can't" do it. Like I would say "In order for me to stay home, we're going to have to be thoughtful about how we spend money on food" and he would complain that he simply wasn't capable of doing things like looking at prices at the grocery store, or packing a lunch. Or later when I returned to work, I said that I would need him to commit to either drop off or pick up from daycare and arrange his work schedule accordingly, and his first response was that this simply would not be possible and I would have to do both.

Then we have a fight, then he thinks about it and realizes he's being rigid and needs to give a little, then he does the thing I originally asked for.

This is how it always works. I really do think he was just socialized to not have to never have to compromise for other people, and he has learned to just say no whenever anyone asks him to do something he doesn't want to do. Whereas I think many women, like me, are raised to always put others' comfort first and to compromise without even making the other person ask for it. I've had to learn to ask, and he has very slowly learned to compromise. But it takes work.

We are teaching our own kids that they can and should always ask for help, or even just for more from other people. And we are also teaching them that part of being in a family or a relationship is listening when someone asks you for help or accommodation, and to treat others' needs as equal to our own. It's hard, but I do not want them to have to repeat all of this in a generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

Hear hear!!

[Anonymous]

It was an agreement with us, before we had kids. She would stay home so we wouldn't have to put the kids in day care.

Now that the kids are older, she's going back to work in the same field and making more than she did when she left.

[Anonymous]

I think two things are happening:

1) Most (not all!) couples I know, the husband makes more than the wife, so his income is the priority in maintaining the family’s lifestyle.

2) A lot of people don’t give much thought to childcare until the children are actually there. This is especially true of men.

It can become a very frustrating situation for both halves of the couple if the wife is pregnant and they have to make a childcare plan when they don’t agree. If the husband doesn’t want daycare but can’t afford to leave his job it can feel really crappy.

As with most things, this is a communication problem. (Of course, I’m assuming we’re talking normal couples where this is a difference of opinion and not as a means to control and abuse others.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to look at religious, cultural and family background, too. I know a lot of SAHMs but I also grew up in a community with a lot of people whose religious background made that almost an inevitable choice.

Oh definitely. Religion and culture play a part.

I know a lot of LDS folks and in those circles even if your husband is a student, you stay home. That’s why they’re so vulnerable to mlm stuff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a knock on moms that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career. Guys that get with a woman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did, that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?


Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.


To be fair, I know one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of expecting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?

I can tell you why.
Why does the wife stay home
- She makes substantially less than the husband because of career choice.
- She is being paid less than other male counterparts and she is facing the glass ceiling at work
- She is the one who is lactating, who gave birth, who is exhausted, who did not heal from the labor because she did not have maternity leabe
- She is the one who is dealing with toxicity at work and hostile/sexist work environment
- The baby or an older child has special needs and someone needs to be home
- A family member is sick or elderly and she needs to be the care provider
- Childcare is frequently failing and/or her children are failing to thrive mentally, physically or emotionally

Why does the husband stay home
- He is making less substantially less money than the wife
- He has pension from army, police or firefighting and he is retired, while wife has a great career
- He has dreams of starting his own private company or has some gig lined up or he is writing a book
- He has disability that necessitates that he stays at home.

Men stay at home when they need to look after their interests. Women stay home to sacrifice her own interests for the family. If women thought and acted like men, humans would become extinct.

Thank you! At this point, I think women should strongly encourage their daughters to remain child free and focus on their careers for their own sanity. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their interests for generations while men selfishly do whatever the hell they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its a US thing.

My SILs in my home country have careers that is pretty much wholeheartedly supported by the husbands and families because it generates income. In addition to all of that there is a huge amount of benefits like maternity and paternity leave etc given to women. Women are supported at home and can easily outsource a lot of housekeeping, and childcare is never an issue because of abundance of options.

US is a shithole backward country as far as women's rights are concerned.

Other countries definitely do it so much better when it comes to this issue, much more balanced.