Almost every woman who works is doing so for money. They may be able to pay the bills on their husband’s paycheck, but they still want and need their salary. For some even wealthy women it could mean not employing a nanny, not having a second home, etc. Or it’s because it’s difficult to quit a high earning job Most people would quit their job if their employer stopped paying them.
Plenty of women have seemingly convinced themselves that there are other reasons they are working, but the #1 reason is money. That’s all it boils down to. Very few people would work for free.
My job is fairly interesting and I don’t mind it. It’s high earning and allows me to employ a fantastic nanny. I find watching young kids 24-7 rather difficult. But if I won the lottery? I’d never return to work, would retain my nanny and would enjoy my hobbies and socializing.
My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
Anonymous wrote:Almost every woman who works is doing so for money. They may be able to pay the bills on their husband’s paycheck, but they still want and need their salary. For some even wealthy women it could mean not employing a nanny, not having a second home, etc. Or it’s because it’s difficult to quit a high earning job Most people would quit their job if their employer stopped paying them.
Plenty of women have seemingly convinced themselves that there are other reasons they are working, but the #1 reason is money. That’s all it boils down to. Very few people would work for free.
My job is fairly interesting and I don’t mind it. It’s high earning and allows me to employ a fantastic nanny. I find watching young kids 24-7 rather difficult. But if I won the lottery? I’d never return to work, would retain my nanny and would enjoy my hobbies and socializing.
The funny thing about this claim is that many rich women do indeed work.
Anonymous wrote:My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
Anonymous wrote:Almost every woman who works is doing so for money. They may be able to pay the bills on their husband’s paycheck, but they still want and need their salary. For some even wealthy women it could mean not employing a nanny, not having a second home, etc. Or it’s because it’s difficult to quit a high earning job Most people would quit their job if their employer stopped paying them.
Plenty of women have seemingly convinced themselves that there are other reasons they are working, but the #1 reason is money. That’s all it boils down to. Very few people would work for free.
My job is fairly interesting and I don’t mind it. It’s high earning and allows me to employ a fantastic nanny. I find watching young kids 24-7 rather difficult. But if I won the lottery? I’d never return to work, would retain my nanny and would enjoy my hobbies and socializing.
Anonymous wrote:I work bc I make $250K plus generous benefits in a flexible job from home. Not a fortune, but own my home outright and DH makes $600K so really, what’s the problem.
SAHM considering going back to work. A few years ago, I posted about actual hours worked in a day at a work from home job. I was criticized and told to not take a job from someone who needed it if I planned to work part time. I would love to work part time. Any decent job is full time though.
In my experience, it is hard to get *hired* into a high quality part time position. I have been with my office be my kids were born. I was ready to quit when my oldest was born but rather than lose me my boss offered to let work part time. I retained partial WAH flexibility. It was a good balance for my family. Now that my late in elementary school I work exclusively during the school day. Most days I work full out from the minute they leave to the minute I get them, but this week has been unusually slow so I have time to read insane threads like this one.
Anyway, part of why I continued to work when my kids were little was to keep up the relationships that game the great set up I have now. I don’t think you could come interview at my office and ask for this set up. But you could find a job you like and prove yourself and then ask for what you want. I have chosen flexibility and interesting work over money and prestige every time and I have no regrets (and appreciate it’s a privilege because my husband earns enough money that it doesn’t matter I don’t go after raises etc)
Anonymous wrote:My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
The working moms see these men more often than their wives do. They know the truth. Situations like your husband’s are rare.
Anonymous wrote:I'll go. DH and I both come from generational wealth and have worked for approx. 20 years (we are 43 and 45). I will continue to work for a million reasons but the highlights are:
- Genuinely love my job (big 4 consulting; I like the subject matter, my clients, and the substantive work).
- Continuing to build nest egg for my kids and not being the generation that drops the ball. Although I recognize that family money got us to where we are today (paid for education), I'd be embarrassed to be living on what we inherited rather than what we earn.
- The biggest one: my daughters and, to a lesser extent, my young female colleagues. I am beyond disappointed by my friends who are smarter, better educated, and (formerly) higher earning than their husbands but who have chosen to SAH. I fight the gender battle every. single. day. at work and I don't think these women appreciate the larger repercussions of their decisions. They make hiring, retention, and promotion SO much harder for their daughters when they embody the stereotypes/expectations that I am always fighting against. At this point most of my friends are no longer working or have "mom" jobs (self-employed consultants, tutors, etc.), and maybe I am crazy but I hate that my young daughters are growing up in a world where they see that, where they unconsciously internalize it and what it may mean about them, and where in the workforce they will have to battle expectations not that different from what my mom fought in the 80s. That is insane to me, and it is really difficult for me to understand how my friends don't see that and what sort of example/precedent they are setting.
- I hate cooking, gardening, and cleaning, and having a job gives me an excuse to outsource them.
- Prestige. This is probably a DC/NY/SF-specific thing, but it makes me very proud to tell people my job. I especially love watching men who completely underestimate me, and saying something snappy to the (typically older) women who rudely check in all the time to see if I am still working. They are ALL expecting that at some point I'm going to cave and join my friends, which I guess gets back to the point above about feeling like those of us working are trying to carry the mantle for our daughters.
I get that in a Barbie world, it would be liberating for women to have the choice whether to remain in or leave the workforce. But men aren't doing it; so until they are, all the women doing it -- even those who feel like they have "earned it" or like it is temporary or for their kids -- disappoint me. And don't get me started on the women who are staying at home to raise the next female CEO/president -- unless they are idiots, they are lying to themselves if they don't see that this is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lol. You’re working so…your daughters and her friends might not internalize that they too can make choice to stay at home? How about recognizing the autonomy of your fellow women to make the best choices for her and for her family? I hate when feminism gets twisted into the morality of mandatory paid employment. Gross.
Perhaps PP is extreme, but we have teenagers and you would be shocked when teenagers say their SAHM is "unemployed" or "doesn't have a job". I don't know if they realize their mom was some high-powered whatever, but it comes across as pretty demeaning.
Anonymous wrote:Everyone contributes to society, what's the difference between raising your children, caring for your parents and managing your household vs doing it for money as an employee?
For me it’s because once kids were in school there was not much “raising kids/caring for parents/managing household “ to do.
I’m always surprised when people say this. I don’t think that my day to day changed that much when my youngest went to school. I just didn’t have my little buddy with me anymore.
I guess I don’t go to the zoo as much, but it’s not like I was spending hours a day playing CandyLand with a four year old before he went to school.
You don't think your day to day changed when you arent responsible for a human for most of the day? That's a huge difference to me!
I’m still ultimately responsible for all of my kids every day.
But yeah, it isn’t that different.
Now I go go book club on Thursday mornings on my own. I don’t have to bring stickers.
When I fold laundry, I listen to an audiobook instead of his little stories, and I have to match the socks myself.
I usually make dinner on my own without my little helper. (There’s too much going on after school to cook then.).
I mostly kind of miss him.
Sounds like you don’t do much of anything.
She cooks and cleans and takes care of her children after school. That’s plenty.
DP here. I have 3 kids in 3 different schools. I basically have 5 hours from last kid drop off to first kid ending school. I work out, shower, run errands, cook, clean up, etc. There isn’t that much time left. I do meet up with a friend for lunch or go to the spa but it is like once per week.
Your time management skills are severely lacking. I guess it's good you don't have to work because it doesn't sound like you'd make it through a day.
So much hate! How do you know that her time management skills are lacking?
You’d put all three kids in the same school, right? Because you’re so brilliant, yeah? That actually sounds lazy to me. Maybe she’s chosen to make her life a little more difficult to put each kid at the best place for that child. She’s doing it because she can and she wants the best fit for all three.
For a third party like me, it’s obvious that you are seething with jealousy that you do not have the resources to send your kids to three different schools.
No it's pretty obvious she has 5 hours a day, but can't get anything done. Poor time management is most likely it. I say that as SAHM . I see many other SAHM claim it's just so hard and they don't have time for anything it almost always comes down to poor time management or undiagnosed depression and ADHD both of which have a time management component
What exactly am I not getting done? I have three kids and take care of them. I keep our house going. I am not saying I am doing anything more. I am planning a birthday party for one of my kids, spring break and summer.
I have plenty of time. What I don’t have time for is a full time job in my 5 hours the kids are at school. I like working out daily after kids are at school. I am not the type to wake up at 5am to work out before everyone wakes up. By the time I shower after exercise, clean up breakfast, it is already lunchtime. Then I have 2 hours before first kid gets out of school.
I am a fellow SAHM. I think it just boils down to phrasing. People get very prickly on here when you say you “can’t” work or “don’t have time.” Just say you could but choose not to and it works best for your family this way. Saying you don’t have time implies you think they are somehow short-changing someone and that is where they get defensive.
I agree with this. I think many families would function better with a stay at home parent. It’s fine if neither parent wants to stay at home, but there are a lot of families who wish they could afford a sahp and make the difficult sacrifice to work and prioritize their family’s financial well being. When a sahp claims they wouldn’t have time to work, that’s ridiculous and is a jab at the people who do everything you do to run a home and life, but also work full time. We all have the same number of hours in the day. You either don’t have to work or choose not to.
I actual think most families don’t function better with a SAHM.
I think that really bothers some SAHM’s to know some women work and run their house better/same and see their kids just as much,
I’m one of the SAHMs on this thread. It doesn’t bother me at all. Many of my friends work. Most of my kids’ parents work. I don’t necessarily think their house is run better but everyone does what they think is best for their family.
And there you have it. You have to believe they don’t run the same/better for done reason based in your own insecurities.
You are misunderstanding my post. We know many different families. I would say everyone we know is relatively successful. Everyone has money. Everyone has help. A good nanny will be better than a bad mother I guess. I truly sincerely believe a mom being home with her baby is better for the child. This is not insecurity. This is just my personal feelings.
And I think staying home is a cop out for people who can't hack it in the real world. That's not my insecurity. This is just my personal feelings.
See how that works?
You really think a woman who graduated from college, worked for years and got a very high earning man to fall in love with her can’t hack it in the real world? She couldn’t manage some basic job like real estate agent or store manager or executive assistant or something? Come on. You know she can hack it, but doesn’t have to for financial reasons. None of those jobs is fascinating and most real world jobs aren’t. People do them because they need the money.
Obviously, she’s not Marie Curie, but neither are you.
Maybe.
But I have friends who can’t. I have one Harvard educated friend who just can’t work but who cares she has a trust fund and had a nanny. Her children are amazing.
You think everyone can work? Nobody has anxiety so badly they can’t. You’ve never heard of a PhD who just can do school but work… not so much? You don’t know anybody who is disabled.
Come on now.
No, I’ve never known a highly educated woman who had previously been in a demanding job in the workforce being unable to currently work on account of anxiety. But I have known lots of rich women who don’t want to put up with many of the menial, boring aspects of work because they don’t have to. I’m assuming that you’d rather think they were disabled rather than highly privileged.
I know both. There are plenty of disabled people out there who can't work. Come on man, 1 in 4 women are raped as kids and have complex PTSD, do you know how many lawyers are alcoholics?
Now you are bringing in disabled women who stay home???
Do you not know any disabled people who are also mothers?
Are you think saying disabled is an insult?
I actually don’t think I know any disabled people who are mothers. I’m not trying to be obnoxious. We live in a very affluent neighborhood and I can’t think of any disabled mothers. There are some who have cancer or ill. I do not consider them disabled.
Intersecting. Yes a woman can be disabled and a mother. I actually have 1 friend who was not going to become a parent but became disabled at 38 and decided since she couldn’t work she adopted 2 children.
But I do know other disabled women who have children.
Actually my brother is disabled and has children.
Please do share which agency would let a disabled woman who was unable to work adopt two children.
So many able bodied people with jobs can’t adopt and yet, somewhere out that some agency is handing out multiple kids to disabled ladies on disability. Wow!
What a disgusting comment. You need to expand your circle beyond sahms because this is pretty gross.
Don’t change the subject. Who let a disabled woman who cannot work take home not one, but two kids? Share the agency or it didn’t happen. You need to expand your trolling repertoire to make it somewhat believable.
I can see an agency willing to have a wealthy slightly disabled woman take on two kids, especially if those kids had special needs or were generally hard to adopt.
But, back to the point of this thread. Women prefer working because the work is satisfying, it's a way of doing good in the world, the woman is really good at her job, work provides mental stimulation, work provides prestige, etc.
Women who don't work do not prefer working because they'd rather stay at home, they're incompetent (whether temperamentally or physically), they believe they'll never get divorced, they believe their husbands will never lose their jobs, they believe their husbands will never become disabled, they believe their husbands have enough saved for them and their retirement, they think that they can go back into the workforce at a high enough income level to support their families if need be, or they would rather just not think about the "what ifs."
Or maybe they just like being present stay at home mothers? Why do these women have to somehow be incompetent? This isn’t the 1950s when one income was enough to provide for a family of six or you could buy a ranch right by the ocean in Long Beach, CA for the equivalent of $150,000 (2024 money). The cost of living has gone up dramatically since the 1950s. These days most families are forced to be dual income.
It’s incredibly lucky in today’s economy for a mother (or father) to be able to stay at home. The women who choose to stay at home in these circumstances have different values and different views on what is most important than the women who chose to work under the same financial circumstances.
What’s interesting to me is how upset everyone seems to be that people make different choices. If we all felt the same way, we would all make the same choices. But it seems like both sides want an award or something. Or to be more precise, they want the women who chose differently to secretly envy them or something. They don’t, else they would have done the same.
There is no need for insults or calling others incompetent because they don’t agree with your decisions. When you make a choice you do it for yourself and your family, not so that other women will envy you or be amazed.
We never are.
You think it’s lucky to have one spouse be able to stay home while the other is away from home more? To have one spouse be solely responsible for earning money and provide for the family and the other to do everything with the house and kids? You think that’s lucky? Weird.
I think it’s lucky to have two parents who both work flexible jobs and make very good money, allowing both to contribute financially to the family and participate in the family in equal measure. My husband and I both work from home. We’re there in the mornings before our kids leave for school (we equally participate in getting them ready) and we’re there in the afternoons when they come home (we equally participate in their afternoon activities). We have dinners together, we don’t work on weekends so that’s 100% family or free time. We earn enough to outsource the stuff we don’t want to do (cleaning, gardening). We see each other every day for lunch so we have time together without the kids regularly. We’re lucky. I wouldn’t consider myself lucky to have a husband who made millions but didn’t know my kids’ teachers names and worked late nights and weekends. That’s not a husband and father. That’s an ATM.
You’re telling yourself a story that the SAHM’s are living in a household with dads who work all weekend and dont know their kids’ names. Do what works for your family, but dont delude yourself that that’s the family life of the women you are judging.
It’s pretty common. It’s not that they work all weekend either. But they aren’t really engaged. Since they don’t have any real home responsibilities, they disengage.
I’ve had multiple times when I’ve asked men, as part of small talk, what grades their kids are in. A shockingly high number have no idea or stumble over the question. I’ve never encountered a mom who didn’t instantly know what grades their children are in.
I’m not saying the dads with working wives are automatically better dads. Probably a good number would check out if they could, too. But having responsibilities at home forces engagement.
Anonymous wrote:I'll go. DH and I both come from generational wealth and have worked for approx. 20 years (we are 43 and 45). I will continue to work for a million reasons but the highlights are:
- Genuinely love my job (big 4 consulting; I like the subject matter, my clients, and the substantive work).
- Continuing to build nest egg for my kids and not being the generation that drops the ball. Although I recognize that family money got us to where we are today (paid for education), I'd be embarrassed to be living on what we inherited rather than what we earn.
- The biggest one: my daughters and, to a lesser extent, my young female colleagues. I am beyond disappointed by my friends who are smarter, better educated, and (formerly) higher earning than their husbands but who have chosen to SAH. I fight the gender battle every. single. day. at work and I don't think these women appreciate the larger repercussions of their decisions. They make hiring, retention, and promotion SO much harder for their daughters when they embody the stereotypes/expectations that I am always fighting against. At this point most of my friends are no longer working or have "mom" jobs (self-employed consultants, tutors, etc.), and maybe I am crazy but I hate that my young daughters are growing up in a world where they see that, where they unconsciously internalize it and what it may mean about them, and where in the workforce they will have to battle expectations not that different from what my mom fought in the 80s. That is insane to me, and it is really difficult for me to understand how my friends don't see that and what sort of example/precedent they are setting.
- I hate cooking, gardening, and cleaning, and having a job gives me an excuse to outsource them.
- Prestige. This is probably a DC/NY/SF-specific thing, but it makes me very proud to tell people my job. I especially love watching men who completely underestimate me, and saying something snappy to the (typically older) women who rudely check in all the time to see if I am still working. They are ALL expecting that at some point I'm going to cave and join my friends, which I guess gets back to the point above about feeling like those of us working are trying to carry the mantle for our daughters.
I get that in a Barbie world, it would be liberating for women to have the choice whether to remain in or leave the workforce. But men aren't doing it; so until they are, all the women doing it -- even those who feel like they have "earned it" or like it is temporary or for their kids -- disappoint me. And don't get me started on the women who are staying at home to raise the next female CEO/president -- unless they are idiots, they are lying to themselves if they don't see that this is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lol. You’re working so…your daughters and her friends might not internalize that they too can make choice to stay at home? How about recognizing the autonomy of your fellow women to make the best choices for her and for her family? I hate when feminism gets twisted into the morality of mandatory paid employment. Gross.
Until men start becoming a SAHD, it’s not the choice and autonomy you say it is.
It absolutely is a choice if both spouses in the marriage can make the finances work, and yes, I’ve had close friends who are SAHDs. It’s unusual but they exist. Where have you been??
Nothing you said contradicts what I said. Yes I know SAHDs. My husband was one when our kids were younger. That means I was (and am) the breadwinner and I worked with plenty of resentful dudes who absolutely did not think they had the same choices as their wives.
Anonymous wrote:My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
OP started the thread because her husband was absent so there is that.
Anonymous wrote:I'll go. DH and I both come from generational wealth and have worked for approx. 20 years (we are 43 and 45). I will continue to work for a million reasons but the highlights are:
- Genuinely love my job (big 4 consulting; I like the subject matter, my clients, and the substantive work).
- Continuing to build nest egg for my kids and not being the generation that drops the ball. Although I recognize that family money got us to where we are today (paid for education), I'd be embarrassed to be living on what we inherited rather than what we earn.
- The biggest one: my daughters and, to a lesser extent, my young female colleagues. I am beyond disappointed by my friends who are smarter, better educated, and (formerly) higher earning than their husbands but who have chosen to SAH. I fight the gender battle every. single. day. at work and I don't think these women appreciate the larger repercussions of their decisions. They make hiring, retention, and promotion SO much harder for their daughters when they embody the stereotypes/expectations that I am always fighting against. At this point most of my friends are no longer working or have "mom" jobs (self-employed consultants, tutors, etc.), and maybe I am crazy but I hate that my young daughters are growing up in a world where they see that, where they unconsciously internalize it and what it may mean about them, and where in the workforce they will have to battle expectations not that different from what my mom fought in the 80s. That is insane to me, and it is really difficult for me to understand how my friends don't see that and what sort of example/precedent they are setting.
- I hate cooking, gardening, and cleaning, and having a job gives me an excuse to outsource them.
- Prestige. This is probably a DC/NY/SF-specific thing, but it makes me very proud to tell people my job. I especially love watching men who completely underestimate me, and saying something snappy to the (typically older) women who rudely check in all the time to see if I am still working. They are ALL expecting that at some point I'm going to cave and join my friends, which I guess gets back to the point above about feeling like those of us working are trying to carry the mantle for our daughters.
I get that in a Barbie world, it would be liberating for women to have the choice whether to remain in or leave the workforce. But men aren't doing it; so until they are, all the women doing it -- even those who feel like they have "earned it" or like it is temporary or for their kids -- disappoint me. And don't get me started on the women who are staying at home to raise the next female CEO/president -- unless they are idiots, they are lying to themselves if they don't see that this is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lol. You’re working so…your daughters and her friends might not internalize that they too can make choice to stay at home? How about recognizing the autonomy of your fellow women to make the best choices for her and for her family? I hate when feminism gets twisted into the morality of mandatory paid employment. Gross.
Perhaps PP is extreme, but we have teenagers and you would be shocked when teenagers say their SAHM is "unemployed" or "doesn't have a job". I don't know if they realize their mom was some high-powered whatever, but it comes across as pretty demeaning.
Why would I have a problem with my teen saying I don’t have a job? How is that demeaning? It’s the truth. Other teens don’t need to hear about my prior career.
Anonymous wrote:My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
OP started the thread because her husband was absent so there is that.
She didn’t say that in her OP at all. She said she found working and tending the home to be exhausting so she left.
Anonymous wrote:My sole earner husband mostly works from home and is around and available as much as any working parent. The absentee-dad story is a myth that working moms tell. He will be retiring at 55.
How can he be available if he is working? The work from home people are not working in fact.
Anonymous wrote:I'll go. DH and I both come from generational wealth and have worked for approx. 20 years (we are 43 and 45). I will continue to work for a million reasons but the highlights are:
- Genuinely love my job (big 4 consulting; I like the subject matter, my clients, and the substantive work).
- Continuing to build nest egg for my kids and not being the generation that drops the ball. Although I recognize that family money got us to where we are today (paid for education), I'd be embarrassed to be living on what we inherited rather than what we earn.
- The biggest one: my daughters and, to a lesser extent, my young female colleagues. I am beyond disappointed by my friends who are smarter, better educated, and (formerly) higher earning than their husbands but who have chosen to SAH. I fight the gender battle every. single. day. at work and I don't think these women appreciate the larger repercussions of their decisions. They make hiring, retention, and promotion SO much harder for their daughters when they embody the stereotypes/expectations that I am always fighting against. At this point most of my friends are no longer working or have "mom" jobs (self-employed consultants, tutors, etc.), and maybe I am crazy but I hate that my young daughters are growing up in a world where they see that, where they unconsciously internalize it and what it may mean about them, and where in the workforce they will have to battle expectations not that different from what my mom fought in the 80s. That is insane to me, and it is really difficult for me to understand how my friends don't see that and what sort of example/precedent they are setting.
- I hate cooking, gardening, and cleaning, and having a job gives me an excuse to outsource them.
- Prestige. This is probably a DC/NY/SF-specific thing, but it makes me very proud to tell people my job. I especially love watching men who completely underestimate me, and saying something snappy to the (typically older) women who rudely check in all the time to see if I am still working. They are ALL expecting that at some point I'm going to cave and join my friends, which I guess gets back to the point above about feeling like those of us working are trying to carry the mantle for our daughters.
I get that in a Barbie world, it would be liberating for women to have the choice whether to remain in or leave the workforce. But men aren't doing it; so until they are, all the women doing it -- even those who feel like they have "earned it" or like it is temporary or for their kids -- disappoint me. And don't get me started on the women who are staying at home to raise the next female CEO/president -- unless they are idiots, they are lying to themselves if they don't see that this is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lol. You’re working so…your daughters and her friends might not internalize that they too can make choice to stay at home? How about recognizing the autonomy of your fellow women to make the best choices for her and for her family? I hate when feminism gets twisted into the morality of mandatory paid employment. Gross.
Until men start becoming a SAHD, it’s not the choice and autonomy you say it is.
It absolutely is a choice if both spouses in the marriage can make the finances work, and yes, I’ve had close friends who are SAHDs. It’s unusual but they exist. Where have you been??
Nothing you said contradicts what I said. Yes I know SAHDs. My husband was one when our kids were younger. That means I was (and am) the breadwinner and I worked with plenty of resentful dudes who absolutely did not think they had the same choices as their wives.
You wrote “until men start becoming a SAHD.” That’s been happening for well over a decade now. How does that not contradict you? People make different choices. Might not be one you would make, but don’t discount the ability of others to weigh the pros and cons and make those calls for themselves in a perfectly educated and competent way.
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