the downside to feminism

[glitzyglamgirl]

I wish I could just stay at home and be a housewife instead of being expected to work and contribute financially, Im sure that without the stress of work I would have been pregnant ages ago!

Wasnt that long ago it would have been the norm for me to stay at home with or without children, and when we do have kids you bet i'll be expected to go back to work at some point.

*sighs*

 

[frangelle]

I'm not going back to work til this LO is at school and then only if the hours fit conveniently around schooling hours, I definately want to be able to take them and pick them up from school.

 

[beanie]

I think feminism has given us the choice to either stay at home or go back to work. Its more the cost of living thast is responsible for so many mums having to go to work.

 

[laetitia85]

for me it's the opposite. i'm pregnant and i wanna go to work to make my own money and not have to depend on DH so much. he pays for absolutely everything around the house and insists i should stay home and not work, but i wanna be able to pay my phone bills anad transport by myself. but i see where you are coming from, it's so much stress and not ideal when you are trying for a baby. is there anyway you can work part-time?

 

[trixipaws]

i am the anti-feminist! lol

i do all the housework i dont expect boyf 2 lift a finger (apart from the cat poo he deals with that hehe) and i get up in the nite for our daughter (and do 90% of nappy changes etc)

but he takes me out and pays for my drinks, meals, cinema tickets etc when we go out, he holds doors open for me, buys me gifts, carries my bags or whatever for me, and contributes 50% more than me towards bills etc, and when i do go back to work itll be part-time so he'll be supporting me a bit more

i like old-fashioned gender roles!

 

[laetitia85]

trixipaws, my OH tells me I have no right to tell him not to wash the dishes in his own house
i don't want him to do it but he offers all the time, especially now that i'm pregnant. he can also cook which is nice, and he knows how to work the washing machine as well!
but i'm a bit like you. i take on all these tasks quite naturally because i am better at them than him, and i think it's my role, as he pays the rent and other things around the house, he even does the food shopping on his own when i give him a detailed list (he's becoming better and better at it overtime, before i couldn't trust him!) and he does all the gentleman stuff he's supposed to do. well, he tries to anyway. so it's a 50-50 thing, a partnership, that's what i believe mariage should be!

 

[Tasha20]

i am the anti-feminist! lol

i do all the housework i dont expect boyf 2 lift a finger (apart from the cat poo he deals with that hehe) and i get up in the nite for our daughter (and do 90% of nappy changes etc)

but he takes me out and pays for my drinks, meals, cinema tickets etc when we go out, he holds doors open for me, buys me gifts, carries my bags or whatever for me, and contributes 50% more than me towards bills etc, and when i do go back to work itll be part-time so he'll be supporting me a bit more

i like old-fashioned gender roles!

Hear hear

Me and OH are just the same.



I look after him and he looks after me, only difference is we run a business at home so its all cool, and just how we want it

 

[fifi211]

I have been fortunate that I didn't have to go back to work after having DS. It has been lovely being able to devote my time to him. He starts school in Sept, and over the last 4 1/2 years there has been times when I would have loved to have gone back to work for adult company but also realise how lucky I am and not everyone can do that. Looks like I will not be working for a bit longer..... but when I do go back I would only want to do part-time, because OH does such long hours, it wouldn't be fair both of us out of the house so long.

 

[mrs_tommo22]

Bloody hell why am i still doing everything then?

He werent like this with stephen but he is now, he dont cook donrt wash up and dont know where the washing machine is grrr and im fed up of nagging cos it causes an argument.

When do i get to chill out?

You girls are lucky whos fellas help out, my oh has turned into a lazy git

 

[x-kirsty-x]

Me and OH share the housework although I do more than him, rightly so though cos he works full time.

What really gets to me though is he doesnt seem to realise how hard it is looking after 2 kids AND trying to keep the place tidy. Dont get me wrong, I had kids to bring them up myself and I love being a SAHM but my job doesnt stop at 5pm.

I'll go back to work when Ryan is at school, until then I want to be there for him and Josh, and luckily we're financially stable enough to be able to do that

I do think more employers should have child-friendly working hours though

 

[mummykay]

i wear the trousers and Mike has control of the purse strings lol
he has no clue how much we pay for bills, shopping etc, i just tell him how much he has to pay and he does lol

iv singlehandedly sorted out the flat, benefits, shopping and bills, he just funds the habit lol

 

[glitzyglamgirl]

Some very interesting and varied replies there

I do enjoy working and having my own financial independence, and as we both work full-time we pretty mich have equal roles within the house - I cook and tidy, he washes up and does the laundry etc, so its all cool

However, I sometimes get very annoyed that I HAVE to work. Im not lazy, I just wish I could devote more time to the home, to writing and other creative pursuits I just have no time for, and when we have a baby I want to stay at home as long as possible - but im not sure we can justify that financially and still pay the mortgage without my salary.

Guess I should write that blockbuster before I get pregnant then

 

[Misslarue]

I have always worked and have always earnt a good wage. Its weird not earning money now (especialy since my MA ran out!) but we are fortunate that OH can finacally support us both.
My OH has always been a nightmare with housework and I often have to remind him that he can't 'just go to work'!
He does do a little bit but I do pretty much everything, shopping, washing, money, cleaning etc
It does work for us though as I am so much better with money than him and he does work hard. I don't mind doing most of the housework as I feel lucky that I am able to stay at home with Dan for as long as I want.

 

[libs]

There was never a rule made that women had to work y'know I think the whole aim was to just have an equal partnership so if your part of that was to run the house and raise the children then that should be judged equal to a man going out to work.
The reason women have to work is that we want more - we want our own house, we want cars and holidays and clothes and computers etc etc.
Looking at my father's income in the years my mum didn't work (from birth of child 2 to youngest child being at school) his income was minimal for a family of 7 We had a UK holiday every other year, we rented our house, our vehicle was also my dad's workvan and a lot of our clothes were hand me downs. Once mum went back to work that's when the house was bought, we had holidays every year and we had a car

 

[Baileysmummy]

Well..

mark does all the cleaning in our house, from the ironing, to washing the floors..

we both work, but my job in the house is to make sure the kids are clean and tidy, fed and happy!

We are happy like that, i do clean sometimes

 

[leckershell]

I'm not going back to work til this LO is at school and then only if the hours fit conveniently around schooling hours, I definately want to be able to take them and pick them up from school.

You could get a job in a school? (depending on what you do for a living normally, but there are quite a few different jobs in a school other than teaching).

 

[Vickyleigh]

The amount of people that have come up to me and said "so when are you going back to work"
I'm like hold on a minute I'm just over 7 months pregnant and I am already being asked when I'm going back to work!!!!
Me and my OH like our roles, he goes to work and earns the money and I stay at home and do the whole housewifey thing.

 

[glitzyglamgirl]

There was never a rule made that women had to work y'know

I understand, but the problem is that while there may not be any rules that I have to work, I could stay at home and be a housewife and then a stay at home mum, both myself and OH have been brought up in a society where womens rights and equal rights have been shoved in our face throughout our whole working lives. If I quit work now, and was a housewife trying to get pregnant, the guilt I would feel - and the eventual unfairness claims from OH, would make it impossible.

When I moved in with him I moved about 50 miles and had to quit my job and look for a new one, then we decided to TTC so we decided it would be a waste of time me getting a new job - haha, we really thought it would happen straight away and I wouldnt have time to build up maternity leave/pay etc so I was a housewife for the first few months. Then we had a row about something silly, and he said "when are you going to get a job!" and I instantly felt like I had let him down, he said he thought I was more independant than that, and he had a point, so I started temping thinking there was no point in permanent. Well that part-time temp job turned into a full-time permanent job and now here I am stuck in the daily grind, stressed, finding the extra income has now become necassary as we live within our means but spend every penny, I dont have a choice anymore.

Its society, not law, that dictates these things, and my weak fear of what others think

 

[jenna]

i wish i could stay at home and hubby could work. Id love to bake and do house work and all that, i used to love it when my mum was like that i got to spend time with her. I know its not going to be like that when i have kids because its not possible to live on one wage these days Hubby will never earn enough to suport a wife and children so i have to help out.

So gutted

 

[libs]

GGG - would you have to return to full time work after having a baby too? I was able to gice up my ft job which made me sooo miserable about 18 months ago. I've enjoyed my time working pt most of the time and a bit of ft - with v little responsibility and I'm ready to go back for a while now. The extra money will be nice and when I work - housework is equally shared. But if I get my bfp - I'll be looking to only return part time for a while no matter how short the money.

As for the get a job thing - I've had this a couple of times when Dh is stressed, (not about money - I sort all that out he doesn't even know who our mortgage is with) so I stopped doing so much housework for a few days....he soon learnt what my job was when he had no clean clothes