Introduction
You are learning the art of photography, even pottery once in a while. There is no dearth of designer wear in your wardrobe, and a spa treatment once every other week is part of your schedule. There is just one catch: Every time you spend a dirham on your lifestyle choices, your spouse’s account gets billed, because you are a stay-at-home parent. How fair is this equation? Do stay-at-home parents tend to take their spouses’ money for granted?
And therefore, should they actually be earning money they spend exclusively on themselves? This was the big question posed to the group of Gulf News readers who participated in a live debate held this week in the newspaper’s head office. Here are some excerpts:
Is it fair for a stay-at-home mum or dad to expect the breadwinner to pay for his/her personal expenses?
Subhasis Mukherjee:
First of all I object to the word ‘stay-at-home’ mum, I think it should be ‘work-at-home’, because a mother contributes a lot to her family through various tasks like taking care of the family, doing the laundry, cooking food, not to mention going through the whole process of childbirth. So, the couple has to discover who is contributing what and they have to settle on a financial equation.
Swati Basu:
When you are in a marriage, there is no question of my money or yours — it is ours. The decision not to work is mutual, for the purpose of having a home. So, the husband and wife have gotten into the relationship knowing each other. In fact, my husband’s money is more mine than his.
Anamika Chaudhry:
I’ve been a stay-at-home mum for more than three years and I am not of the opinion that the wife should spend her husband’s money. I don’t think I would be comfortable spending my husband’s money on something that is only for me and has got nothing to do with us as a couple, whether it be cookery classes or dancing classes. A marriage according to me is a contract. If we go way back in history, why were marriages formed? Because a man and a woman decided to care for and look after each other, so the man would go out and get the bread and the woman in the meantime would take care of the house. The man would in return give you safety, security and a shelter. That’s it. It didn’t say that he would also give you a spa treatment. If you are doing something with the intent of gaining some knowledge and using it, then you have cheaper options which are also great.
Aida Al Busaidy:
I am a working, single person, and I think if I have worked 15 hours a day, I’ll spend my money and go for a spa treatment. And I can understand how certain stay-at-home mums would not want to spend money on extravagant things.
Swati Basu:
But it is not just taking it for granted. Once you get married both of you are working and one of you decides not to work — it is a mutual decision. If at every step of the way you are thinking of ‘my money’ and ‘your money’ then the sanctity of your marriage is gone. Why should we think of it as a ‘partnership’? It is a relationship.
Anamika Chaudhry:
I have a lot of friends where the husbands are very, very unhappy with the fact that they don’t have [property] because their wives wanted to buy jewellery. You see what I mean? You can have a stable future or you can have things for now.
Swati Basu:
If you have the attitude where you take your husband’s money for granted, that is a problem. But if it is a mutual decision then I don’t think it is a problem at all. Before I got married I couldn’t imagine life without a job. Even after marriage I couldn’t. But after I had a baby I couldn’t go back to work, even for a day. It was a mutual decision to not work and I don’t regret it even a single day.
Anamika Chaudhry:
But it is not a mutual decision whether you go to a spa or not.
Swati Basu:
But if I go to a spa, my husband would never object.
Anamika Chaudhry:
He wouldn’t object because he is a nice man. [but] constantly over a period of time he is funding your pleasures alone.
Aida Al Busaidy:
Look, everyone has their own way of relieving stress. Probably her [Swati’s] way of relieving stress is by going to a spa. Now the frequency or where she does it, whether you do it at a spa for Dh300 or Dh3,000, it’s completely up to her. A lot of people do it on their husband’s expense. Me, I wouldn’t do it, because I understand the value of what it is to earn the dirham. I’ll probably do other things. So I think it really comes down to your upbringing, your values.
So, should a stay-at-home parent be paid?
Swati Basu:
I don’t think you should be paid to be a stay-at-home mother. It is a very cheap word.
Anamika Chaudhry:
It is a barter, as you are paid already because you’re getting shelter, and a home, and clothes. So that is a payment, anyway.
Aida Al Busaidy:
Once in a while, you just want to disappear, for example if you’ve got five boys who are driving you insane. So you cannot judge based on one incident. In my opinion, yes, I believe we are very materialistic and you’ve got the ‘Jumeriah Janes’ and the ‘Jumeirah Joes’ or what not, and I’ve seen stay-at-home mums who sit [at cafes] and have breakfast every day when I’m driving to work, and I think, “okay, I probably wouldn’t be one of those women in the future”.
Subhasis Mukherjee:
Every family has their own criteria and financial equation and they may go for a prenuptial agreement or they may come to a solution after the marriage. But the relationship should be kept above money.
But then what about the economic independence for a woman?
Swati Basu:
Your independence is never curbed at any point because you’ve taken the decision of staying at home and your spouse is giving you that respect. So that itself is independence. I know of families where the husbands are extremely dominating and the women are forced to work even when they don’t want to.
Anamika Chaudhry:
You know research has already told us that couples, when they split up, they fight over money and they fight over family. These are the two things.
Swati Basu:
And if you keep thinking about the money and keep calculating, it is just going to make things worse.
Anamika Chaudhry:
But that’s where economic independence comes in. My husband never stops me from anything, but I don’t want to do it, because I just don’t want anybody to question me and my expenses. I have a friend who was making international calls all the time, and she told her husband: “You earn so much, [so why can’t I] just pick up the phone and talk?” And the husband was paying more than Dh3,000 just as telephone bills.
Aida Al Busaidy:
She clearly didn’t have much house work.
Swati Basu:
These are just weird things!
Subhasis Mukherjee:
If both the spouses look for economic independence, then you have to look at who contributes more. So if the wife contributes more, the husband has to shell out some money for her personal expense and the other way around. So it’s give and take.
Swati Basu:
I do believe that eating at five-star hotels every day, going to spas, that’s really abnormal, and if you do that, I think you need counselling. Really, psychologically I think there’s a serious problem if you are doing that. Even if it is your own money.
Aida Al Busaidy:
I have to agree. In most Emirati households, if there is money left at the end of the month, we say okay, this is for household use and it could be used for grocery or for personal use. We don’t have an issue about asking for money to go to the salon. I know of people who open their husband’s wallets and take the money, and there’s no question asked, [because] there’s an openness [in the relationship].
Subhasis Mukherjee:
What a lot of families do is that they apportion a part of the month’s budget for personal use for the husband, the wife, as well as for the kids, which they can use for whatever purpose they want. And then they have a common fund.
Does the breadwinner always end up contributing more?
Anamika Chaudhry:
In my house, I do all the work, I take care of everything from ironing to moving furniture. My husband mainly does the outside chores like renewing car registrations or paying the bills.
Swati Basu:
In my case, where I come from, women don’t do much house work before they get married. So even if the wife is working and the husband takes a couple of years off to study, there is no problem, because it is ‘our’ home.
Subhasis Mukherjee:
Not necessarily. The reverse is also true very often. It depends on the spouses’ agreement on how the chores and the various family commitments are to be shared, and on the amount of care and love one has for his/her family.
Aida Al Busaidy:
The question is how do you measure ‘hard work’? I mean the woman may be working really hard at home and the man may just be lazing around at the desk. So, you should then come up with a list of things, that count as ‘hard work’. I don’t think it works that way.
Conclusion
- All the participants agreed that in marriage, money is for common use, irrespective of which spouse earns it. So, the spouse who stays at home has a right to use the money for their personal improvement.
- None of the participants believed in a stipend for a stay-at-home parent.
- None of the participants felt that a breadwinner ends up contributing more in a relationship.
