Anonymous wrote:DH doesn’t seem to care what I do so long as I am happy.

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Anonymous wrote:I actually think it is friends who post on DCUM who are jealous of their friends who are SAH parents.

Agree. Sounds like OP is the jealous one but acts judgmental instead of jealous.

Who isn't jealous of a woman who doesn't have to work AND has enough time and money to spend her days working out, shopping, and meeting friends for lunch at the country club? If you have a full-time housekeeper and cook, it's not a big deal to shuttle the kids around in the evening. I only have one friend living this life, and yes, I'm jealous.

I have a friend who is a SAHM and her husband makes millions. She has no idea about their financial situation because he controls everything and she feels like she has no ability to do anything other than be a mom. He literally brought her home a new car last year and said, this is your car. She didn't pick it out or anything, he just decided that would be her new car. Sure, from the outside I can see how her life is enviable - massive house, one kid, tons of money, spends a lot of time with friends, works out, always looks great, has cleaners, etc. But I know more how she feels and it isn't great. Her husband also never changed a diaper or put the kid to bed. So no, I'm not jealous of her.

You just described my mom. She's never had access to money besides the cash she gets in an envelope at the beginning of the month. My parents have plenty of money, and she has always had a nice car and a nice, big house, but she is entirely in the dark about my dad's finances, and she's basically lived as a child relative to him their entire marriage. Their marriage is why I work even though DH's income is enough to support our family.

You realize that you could SAH and not have a dysfunctional nightmare as a husband right? Most SAH parents I know are also in charge of the household finances and taxes.

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Anonymous wrote:I have seen a generational shift in this attitude. It seems like having a long term SAH princess wife was a huge goal and status symbol in the older generations, but Gen X and especially Millennial men resent it. Not saying every man under about 50 feels this way, but significantly more do than Boomers and up.

The other thing is that younger women have changed. They are realising it is rewarding to have a successful career. Also older women who have made it professionally often have a lot more free time but are also paid a lot. So are able to take on things like going on boards and networking with other successful women. The SAHMs that haven’t worked for 30 years by this point can’t access this world

It's the opposite. Younger women realized that majority of women trying to have fulfilling successful careers and functioning family/households fail and are miserable and don't want this. They see their mothers unhappy when they failed to "lean in" or got ousted after giving birth and wanting some work-life balance or had to resort to middling jobs just to pay the bills. They saw them tired and irritable, juggling messy homes and sleep training their infants and offloading their toddlers to the uneducated barely English speaking foreign nannies, or schlepping them to the dodgy daycares barely awake on their way to a meaningless middling job. For every woman who is a C level exec, a partner or an owner of a successful company there are many thousands whose lives reflect what I said above. It's the truth. I am no SAHM, I am an equal earner with my DH having contributed half of our NW.

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Anonymous wrote:I have several good friends who stay at home. One has forever, one recently left their job. Both have kids in school full time, and one has a nanny as well. They both have cleaning help.

Both of them live very leisurely lives. Manicures, gym, lunches, beauty appointments, watching tv, going to the pool by themselves during the summer while kids are in day camp, etc.

My friend without the nanny is however, constantly shuttling her kids around, cooking full dinners etc - so a slightly less leisurely life. The one with a nanny truly seems to relax most of the time, nanny does the kids activities etc.

My husband would be okay if stayed home with our kids, but would absolutely resent it if I stayed home and relaxed all day while outsourcing all childcare and not contributing to our finances. And I’d probably resent him in the reverse scenario. How does this dynamic play out in marriages? Even if the spouses are relatively high earners, do they care?

I am not asking about stay at home parents of young kids or stay at home parents who don’t have full time nannies - their life is a grind, too. I am talking about stay at home parents who focus on themselves most of the day.

You are not a good friend. It's too bad your friends don't know how you feel because they'd drop you in a heartbeat. Nobody knows what goes on in another person's marriage and family life.

Why? I’m sure there are things my friends wonder about with me as well. I would feel strange lounging by a pool or working out daily knowing my husband is bankrolling all of it. My husband makes more money than I do, and I still have elements of this feeling - but I am the default parent and manage a ton around the house. I would legitimately feel weird just hanging by a pool all day while someone else takes care of my kids and my spouse works. The only exceptions would be if I was retired or had some huge trust fund and I had contributed/wasn’t entirely financially dependent on my spouse (and even then I’d still want to do some stimulating project.)

What many people seem to forget, is that the DH is only able to "bankroll" anything because the DW is taking care of everything else[b], thereby giving him the time and mental energy to do his job really well.

People who get their fulfillment from an office job are sad AF.
-mom who has stayed home, worked full=time, and is now part-time.

Many successful men at my work have successful wives, so the bold is categorically false for some/many people. Maybe some men cannot do menial things like cook, clean, and organize home maintenance - most men can do this just like most women can work.

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Anonymous wrote:I have several good friends who stay at home. One has forever, one recently left their job. Both have kids in school full time, and one has a nanny as well. They both have cleaning help.

Both of them live very leisurely lives. Manicures, gym, lunches, beauty appointments, watching tv, going to the pool by themselves during the summer while kids are in day camp, etc.

My friend without the nanny is however, constantly shuttling her kids around, cooking full dinners etc - so a slightly less leisurely life. The one with a nanny truly seems to relax most of the time, nanny does the kids activities etc.

My husband would be okay if stayed home with our kids, but would absolutely resent it if I stayed home and relaxed all day while outsourcing all childcare and not contributing to our finances. And I’d probably resent him in the reverse scenario. How does this dynamic play out in marriages? Even if the spouses are relatively high earners, do they care?

I am not asking about stay at home parents of young kids or stay at home parents who don’t have full time nannies - their life is a grind, too. I am talking about stay at home parents who focus on themselves most of the day.

You are not a good friend. It's too bad your friends don't know how you feel because they'd drop you in a heartbeat. Nobody knows what goes on in another person's marriage and family life.

Why? I’m sure there are things my friends wonder about with me as well. I would feel strange lounging by a pool or working out daily knowing my husband is bankrolling all of it. My husband makes more money than I do, and I still have elements of this feeling - but I am the default parent and manage a ton around the house. I would legitimately feel weird just hanging by a pool all day while someone else takes care of my kids and my spouse works. The only exceptions would be if I was retired or had some huge trust fund and I had contributed/wasn’t entirely financially dependent on my spouse (and even then I’d still want to do some stimulating project.)

What many people seem to forget, is that the DH is only able to "bankroll" anything because the DW is taking care of everything else[b], thereby giving him the time and mental energy to do his job really well.

People who get their fulfillment from an office job are sad AF.
-mom who has stayed home, worked full=time, and is now part-time.

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Anonymous wrote:I actually think it is friends who post on DCUM who are jealous of their friends who are SAH parents.

Agree. Sounds like OP is the jealous one but acts judgmental instead of jealous.

Who isn't jealous of a woman who doesn't have to work AND has enough time and money to spend her days working out, shopping, and meeting friends for lunch at the country club? If you have a full-time housekeeper and cook, it's not a big deal to shuttle the kids around in the evening. I only have one friend living this life, and yes, I'm jealous.

I have a friend who is a SAHM and her husband makes millions. She has no idea about their financial situation because he controls everything and she feels like she has no ability to do anything other than be a mom. He literally brought her home a new car last year and said, this is your car. She didn't pick it out or anything, he just decided that would be her new car. Sure, from the outside I can see how her life is enviable - massive house, one kid, tons of money, spends a lot of time with friends, works out, always looks great, has cleaners, etc. But I know more how she feels and it isn't great. Her husband also never changed a diaper or put the kid to bed. So no, I'm not jealous of her.

You just described my mom. She's never had access to money besides the cash she gets in an envelope at the beginning of the month. My parents have plenty of money, and she has always had a nice car and a nice, big house, but she is entirely in the dark about my dad's finances, and she's basically lived as a child relative to him their entire marriage. Their marriage is why I work even though DH's income is enough to support our family.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it is friends who post on DCUM who are jealous of their friends who are SAH parents.

Agree. Sounds like OP is the jealous one but acts judgmental instead of jealous.

Who isn't jealous of a woman who doesn't have to work AND has enough time and money to spend her days working out, shopping, and meeting friends for lunch at the country club? If you have a full-time housekeeper and cook, it's not a big deal to shuttle the kids around in the evening. I only have one friend living this life, and yes, I'm jealous.

I have a friend who is a SAHM and her husband makes millions. She has no idea about their financial situation because he controls everything and she feels like she has no ability to do anything other than be a mom. He literally brought her home a new car last year and said, this is your car. She didn't pick it out or anything, he just decided that would be her new car. Sure, from the outside I can see how her life is enviable - massive house, one kid, tons of money, spends a lot of time with friends, works out, always looks great, has cleaners, etc. But I know more how she feels and it isn't great. Her husband also never changed a diaper or put the kid to bed. So no, I'm not jealous of her.

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Anonymous wrote:DH doesn’t seem to care what I do so long as I am happy.

As a DH this is pretty much it. I would rather not work but my job is pretty easy and I Make a lot of money.

The biggest benefit is that we can actually do stuff together without trying to match up calendars, lunch dates, last minute travel, both go to DSs school activities etc.

I can’t understand wanting or expecting your spouse to work if you don’t really need the income.

My wife stays busy. It makes both of our lives easier and less stressful.

Very high earners don’t care if the wife works. DH earns 2-3m. I used to work. I wanted to stay home with our kids and DH was fully supportive. I obviously would not stay home if DH didn’t want to support me.

If my spouse was earning millions per year and insisted that I had to put our kids in daycare/nanny care so I could work 8 hours a day at my 100k office job plus commute - I would of course keep working, but I’d also file for divorce.