Why is SAHM-hood only "work" for the married?

[YPestis]

Both fundies and mainstream conservatives (including fundie-lites) tout SAHM as the woman's "highest calling" and lay accolades on it. However, once that women is divorced, conservatives shift focus to getting divorced SAHM back to work. How is it that a married SAHM is worthy of payment for the Most Important Job but a divorced SAHM is no longer worthy of such payment? In either case, there is children to care for. Children's needs do not change simply because the parents are divorced.

This isn't an issue so much with fundies, as most do not believe in divorce anyway, and they do encourage single mothers to work from home. This attitude is more common with mainstream conservatives and fundie-lite---people who still encourage traditional gender roles but accepts divorce as a reality.

This double standard highlights to me that all the rhetoric about SAHM is not about the kids, it's about the husbands. As long as as the mother has a husband, she's worthy of getting "paid" for her mothering services. Once that marriage dissolves, she's worthy of child support and alimony but only to get her back on to her feet.

I know that the Mormon and conservative evanglical churches support "pro-marriage" agenda because they say it's better for children, but divorced families also have to raise children....so why isn't there stress to have fathers be more generous to their ex-wives?

Conservatives talk up SAHM as all about making happy kids, but it's not really about happy children, is it? It's about happy husbands. Once divorce hits, then it's about splitting assets, alimony, child support...not about keeping mothers at home. Granted, there is an economic reality to splitting household costs. However, family minded conservatives seem silent on the plight of divorced SAHM, as if the Most Important Job is no longer worthy. Instead, Cashier at Walmart is her Job now.

I wonder if this attitude grew from the marginalization of single mothers and divorced women prior to the 20th century. Widows and spinsters were the only acceptable females to take pity on. Those that breached the marriage contract were not.

Today, we see the same division among conservatives. Married mothers are pushed to stay home because it's what they are designed to do, but divorced mothers failed the social contract and are cast out from their God given duties. And of course, any talk about welfare is taboo because divorced mothers who depend on government to pay for her "most sacred calling" and Most Important Job are just parasites. I find this double standard among conservatives jarring as they talk about "six figure SAHM-hood" and how their job is so much harder and more important than the dad's...until divorce, then it's not so important, is it?

Personally, I see SAHM as a personal and economic choice. It's no one's "sacred duty" or "highest calling". A woman should work if she needs to, and not work if she wants to (and can afford to),

Anyway, it's just proves to me that the SAHM argument that fundie-lites push for is not about caring for children, but for the husbands. Once there's no husband, then women should put their kids in those daycare centers they so disparage, and into governmental schools they show such contempt for and go to work shoulder to shoulder with men. Their calls that children needs a parent at home rings hollow for me because there's no attempt to keep women at home once those women acquire independence from a man. Nope, a SAHM is doing the most important job because she's cooking and cleaning for her husband. Her kids are just an excuse to make this model more palpable for modern women who have choices now.

I think women should make arrangements that works best for their families. There is no "ideal" way for families to work. All this hyperbole talk about sacred SAHM calling is just a way to guilt women into being dependent on a man. It was never about the kids.

[Bredonny]

Being a SAHM is only ok for the "right" type of family. Some women COULD afford to stay home with their kids if they received welfare, but those women aren't SAHMs- they are moochers and free-loaders and welfare queens. Only women that CHOOSE to stay at home get accolades.

[Full enough quiver]

Because divorced or single mothers are dirty whores who shouldn't be responsible for the moral development of children. Plus, nobody wants their tax dollars to pay for welfare for ( gasp!) fallen women!(clutches pearls)

[Patsy]

Conservatives talk up SAHM as all about making happy kids, but it's not really about happy children, is it? It's about happy husbands. Once divorce hits, then it's about splitting assets, alimony, child support...not about keeping mothers at home. Granted, there is an economic reality to splitting household costs. However, family minded conservatives seem silent on the plight of divorced SAHM, as if the Most Important Job is no longer worthy. Instead, Cashier at Walmart is her Job now.

[jenny_islander]

YPestis hit it right on the nose.

Compare this to that aspirational middle-class bastion, Good Housekeeping, which ran an article around the turn of the 20th century arguing that all single moms with young children needed to receive a living wage for the full-time job of housework and child care, regardless of why there was no "breadwinner" in the home, because they couldn't drop housework and child care for another job without endangering the children and doing two jobs in order to keep the family afloat would wreck their health. Can you imagine America today if the mother's wage had become law?

[desertvixen]

It would be one of my fondest dreams, jenny_islander.

This double standard highlights to me that all the rhetoric about SAHM is not about the kids, it's about the husbands. As long as as the mother has a husband, she's worthy of getting "paid" for her mothering services. Once that marriage dissolves, she's worthy of child support and alimony but only to get her back on to her feet.

I agree with that - also, where's the compassion for kids who are used to a certain lifestyle?

[yetanothermeg]

I would LOVE to see family caregiving allowances, not just for caring for children in the home, but for caring for elderly and disabled people as well. Its my understanding that many nations have this.

[Lulu]

I've always thought that most people think its because a married woman is doing the right thing and unmarried, single, unpartnered, divorced etc women are doing the wrong thing. Big thing here in Australia of if you're a single mum then you are a money grabbing welfare cheat, teenagers only do it for the baby bonus and to get out of school and older women who get pregnant only do it to still get benefits to buy a big TV. Takes 2 to tango and why are the men not being held acountable for all these children? OH thats right the evil gold diggers tricked them to live high on the hog of welfare. Sorry for the rant but I stupidly read the comment section in the papers.

[Rosa]

Until not so long ago, poor women COULD get welfare to stay home with young children. It's where the whole "welfare mom has more kids to get more benefits" stereotype comes from - technically at one point that was actually possible.

I'm not sure exactly when it ended - in the '60s there were some influential social investigations into the "culture of poverty" that made a really big deal about "matriarchal families", and then in the late '70s you get the whole Republican "Welfare queens with Cadillacs", and then Clinton signed the last nail in the coffin in 1996, with his so-called Welfare Reform that put a time limit on benefits, took away the option of getting support through college or training programs, and basically making almost all benefits dependent on working at the same time. But even before 1996 most states had changed the rules to make it harder for single parents to get benefits (and of course they weren't that high even before that, it's just that they *existed*)

There was a Wages for Housework campaign in the UK in the '70s and early '80s, I've read essays about it. I'm not sure how big it was, though.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Because the bible talks about wives and mothers being the keepers at home, serving their family. Married, Christian wives. Obeying God. If you are not in that category you have a legitimate reason to work. You have no husband to serve who has to take care of you. Also, widows should remarry and if they're old, their children should support them

This is straight from my fundie friends mouth 2 days ago (the one who posted the women would rather be divorced than Sahm article on fb that I posted here)

[YPestis]

Because the bible talks about wives and mothers being the keepers at home, serving their family. Married, Christian wives. Obeying God. If you are not in that category you have a legitimate reason to work. You have no husband to serve who has to take care of you. Also, widows should remarry and if they're old, their children should support them

This is straight from my fundie friends mouth 2 days ago (the one who posted the women would rather be divorced than Sahm article on fb that I posted here)

Oh, I'm aware of the biblical reasons people tout for women to stay home. It's the hyperbole they shower onto married SAHM that I detest. You know, that SAHM is the Most Important Job, that motherhood is a "sacred calling". It's All About the Kids.

Well, if a women is divorced, she's still a mother but somehow, these same conservatives proclaim that divorced mother's Most Important Job is to go out to work. Right there, it says it's never about the kids. They push women to stay home because it's to serve husbands and make husbands happy. Once there's no husbands to work, then it's ok to have kids in daycare and it's not important to provide a "loving home" anymore.

I feel if you want to tell women they should stay home, at least be honest and tell them it's for the husbands' benefits. I am ok with the logic that a man provides and the women cares for his home....as retro as that sounds, at least it makes logical sense that there's a quid pro quo.

Instead we get this guilt trip put on mothers that they are horrible for working, but then turn around and say they are horrible for not working once divorced. However, divorced or not, it doesn't take away your children's needs. So, are women who work bad mothers or not? The logic baffles. :think:

(FWIW, I don't think any mother should feel horrible for the financial choices they make)

[Free2BeMe]

rant/ Shit, that sounds like my life these past few months. My daddy dearest has remarried and now is making my mom, brother and I move out of our home.

He lives in Raleigh and I in Apex, in the home my parents shared from 1998 until about 2004-ish, I can't remember.

He sending some craplawyers after us, when he has had tons of time to arrange the repairs to our home. But, instead he's done fuck all of nothing to help us better our home.

I don't understand why the spouse who was left*, should be forced out of their home. Especially if the one who left was abusive, selfish and indifferent.

*If the marriage partner who left was abused then they deserve access to any community property or personal belongings that he or she wants.

He/she also deserves some kind of assistance in order for them to maintain a similar or better standard of living.

/end rant.

[Mrs Ms]

That kind of falls into the same category as my personal pet peeve "only married parents are good parents"

Anytime I'm stupid enough to read a gossip article about some couple who get praised for doing something really special for their child/children but aren't married, idiots in the comments (that I'm sometimes stupid enough to also read) start pearl-clutching that the couple are AWFUL parents or they would be married.

How the fuck does a marriage certificate change peoples character, worth and behavior?* My partner and I have been together for over a decade - not married- and NOTHING I do as a SAHM and partner would be different if we were married!

*Semi rhetorical question as I know that I'm a worthless whore for not being married to my child's father :icon-rolleyes: :doh:

[Rosa]

Mrs Ms my favorite was when people would try to tell me all the horrible statistics for "fatherless children" to tell me why we should be married. Um, my child's father has always lived with us and done half the parenting. My child was never "fatherless" (Or "nameless". He has a perfectly nice name and has since the day he was born.)

The thing is that social support should be for CHILDREN and not for "parents we feel are deserving of approval".

[turquoise]

It's because all single mothers are bad and deserve to be punished. Women who have sex when they're not married are sluts. A woman has no right to file for divorce, no matter how her husband treats her. And if her husband divorces her, well of course it's because she did something wrong--he wouldn't have left if she was a good wife! Got to keep those women in their place.

/sarcasm off