Anonymous wrote:op - I'll TLDR it for you.
the answer is yes. I, for example, do.
But all the sahms on here will say 'no he is so happy for me to stay home and do f all! and also being a mom is a full time job even though my kids are in school all day! I still need to take them to sports sometimes!
Meanwhile every dude I know whose wife does nothing, while they may say they are ok with it, kind of isn't.
The very wealthy (like $1.5m+ HHI a year) a little more so but the wives are then expected to do a lot of volunteering/ have interests. It's a little embarrassing for the dh when they have nothing going on.

Anonymous wrote:op - I'll TLDR it for you.
the answer is yes. I, for example, do.
But all the sahms on here will say 'no he is so happy for me to stay home and do f all! and also being a mom is a full time job even though my kids are in school all day! I still need to take them to sports sometimes!
Meanwhile every dude I know whose wife does nothing, while they may say they are ok with it, kind of isn't.
The very wealthy (like $1.5m+ HHI a year) a little more so but the wives are then expected to do a lot of volunteering/ have interests. It's a little embarrassing for the dh when they have nothing going on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m around Gen Z women a lot and don’t see this at all. Don’t forget that for every SAHW married to a wealthy man who adores her, there are hundreds married to men who are broke, abuse them, keep money from them, cheat on them, treat them like a servant, etc. Housewives in the 1950s were heavily medicated because it’s such a dreary existence.

What I do see young women doing:
- deciding to be child free and/or not get married
- have much higher standards for men, they need to have a good job, understand equitable division of labor, and be emotionally intelligent
- focusing more on friendships and hobbies that being fulfillment, like travel.
- demanding more from employers. They job hop and will work at a job just long enough to get experience and move elsewhere
- holding much firmer boundaries with employers, such as not working off-hours


My company has altered its policies and practices to accommodate Gen Z. We use a lot of positive reinforcement, train people well, provide higher compensation, and don’t care what hours or how long people work (if you can get the job done in 20 hours a week instead of 40, awesome). It’s a welcome change and I’m glad we have bright, young women who demand more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m around Gen Z women a lot and don’t see this at all. Don’t forget that for every SAHW married to a wealthy man who adores her, there are hundreds married to men who are broke, abuse them, keep money from them, cheat on them, treat them like a servant, etc. Housewives in the 1950s were heavily medicated because it’s such a dreary existence.

What I do see young women doing:
- deciding to be child free and/or not get married
- have much higher standards for men, they need to have a good job, understand equitable division of labor, and be emotionally intelligent
- focusing more on friendships and hobbies that being fulfillment, like travel.
- demanding more from employers. They job hop and will work at a job just long enough to get experience and move elsewhere
- holding much firmer boundaries with employers, such as not working off-hours


My company has altered its policies and practices to accommodate Gen Z. We use a lot of positive reinforcement, train people well, provide higher compensation, and don’t care what hours or how long people work (if you can get the job done in 20 hours a week instead of 40, awesome). It’s a welcome change and I’m glad we have bright, young women who demand more.

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter who stays home in a marriage. Income and assets are equally both, and it's a decision among the couple. That should be discussed early on. If a woman wants to be a SAH then don't date men who aren't on board with that.

Anonymous wrote:DH prefers I stay home, even though our kids are teenagers. His life is so much better. I enjoy cooking. He never has to worry about laundry, errands, housework, even yardwork (which he doesn't like to do). He can work late and travel for work whenever he wants, which has benefitted his career immensely. I can't imagine him ever thinking about being resentful.

Anonymous wrote:I was a sahm when kids were young and DH has always said he’s happy as long as I’m happy and would support me in working or not working.

I don’t know if anyone can relate but I actually started to feel resentful. Not towards him necessarily but I felt like people didn’t see me as smart or capable; like I was just an extension of my successful and hardworking DH. He definitely didn’t see me that way and it’s not as though anyone said this, I just didn’t like the was I was showing up in the world anymore.

I should add, I think plenty of sahms take on wonderful projects in the community and use the time to do all kinds of creative and interesting things, I just personally never did. I felt too much like I was only valued as a wife and mom, not as an individual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.