WOMEN in Great Britain are perhaps growing wise to the relentless propaganda of recent years. The annual Social Attitudes Survey shows a significant increase in the number of women who want to remain home with their children and be married to men who are the breadwinners. According to The Daily Mail, in 1998, only 21 percent of British women thought family life would suffer if mothers worked full time. By 2006, the number had risen to 37 percent.

Still the statistics are grim. According to the survey, only 17 percent of women with children under four said men and women should have different family roles. In contrast, 40 percent of women thought so in 1986.

Here’s the bottom line about these surveys. If asked whether they want a man to support them, women will say yes. If asked whether women should be mainly responsible for child-rearing and home, they will say no. They want to have everything at once.

                                                        — Comments —

Karen I. writes:

It seems to me that women want to be housewives, but only if they can be wealthy housewives with no real responsibilities. 

This reminds me of a story my father told me. When he worked in a wealthy area, he would go to a certain sandwich shop with the guys from work at lunch. Day after day, a pretty, sophisticated looking woman would pull up in her BMW and stop in to get simple sandwiches made with peanut butter and jelly, tuna, or egg salad on plain white bread. 

The men were puzzled as to why the classy looking lady was getting sandwiches like this every day. Finally, they realized she was a housewife picking up lunch for her children. The next time she came in, my father joked with her. “It’s a great life, isn’t it?”, he asked. “It sure is,” she replied, smiling as she waltzed out the door with her kids’ lunch. 

I am sure many more women would like to be housewives if the woman my father met at the sandwich shop was a typical housewife! The realities of single income living on an average income and the social disapproval that goes with not having a paying job is something many of us real housewives face day in and day out. The pressure seems to be more than most women can bear for long, if they dare to try it at all.

Laura writes:

That’s a funny story.

Yes, the pressures are there, but the rewards, even with austere living, are incomparable. 

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