SIL describing herself as "retired" pissing me off

Quite. Who looked after your children? How much do you resent them and their lack of a job? Or were your children with you the whole time you were working?

I don’t know many sahp but the ones I do run themselves ragged for their families. Actually, every women I know runs herself ragged for her family weather she works full time or not. This whole thread is horrible and depressing. My mother in law hasn’t worked for many years and now she’s officially retired. Hasn’t once occurred to me to be annoyed about that.

It sounds to me like you're questioning whether being a SAHM can be called a job and therefore now your SIL's children are grown up can she really call herself retired? I'm assuming your job was high-powered (as opposed to an occasional hobby job). Did anyone help you to take care of your DCs while you were working? Or were you endowed with superwoman superpowers? To me this is the thorny old question of SAHM v career mum juggling everything playing out into retirement.

I get what you mean. People retire from employment. She’s a housewife/homemaker, not a retiree. My MIL said the same and she’s never worked, got married very young and was a housewife/SAHM. I did find it an odd term when she used it.

OP said exactly this in her post though, it doesn't take much in the way of powers of deduction.

Personally I think it's weird how SAHPs of school age (+) children in this thread can't and won't accept that it's harder work to have 2 working parents than 1 working parent and 1 SAHP. You still have all the same household tasks that a SAHP completes during the daytime, except you have to fit them around 40 hours of work too. Of course some people have help, but most of us don't. We're just flat out, all the time.

Being a SAHP is a valid choice for those lucky enough for it to be an economic possibility. It's a role that can create a fantastic lifestyle for the whole family, and that's really lovely. But to pretend it's as hard as being a working parent (excluding disabled children or similar) is just deluded.

Retiring from work as a working parent is an enormous shift in life and lifestyle, as well as the culmination of a career. Retiring from being a SAHP means doing exactly what you did the day before, the week before, the year before. It's not real. It doesn't bother me for people to use it (maybe because I'm much younger) but it's very obviously a bit false and silly.

The way that's worded makes it sound like the woh is doing an inferior job though!

@mayorofcasterbridge, you're taking offence where none was intended. I've done both sah and woh and I'm well aware that of course wohp raise their dc. But they aren't physically doing childcare when they are at work. It's not a criticism - they are doing the equally valuable task of earning money to support them. But it's impossible to be both at work and simultaneously looking after children.

Right here goes....... You don't like her saying she's retired because you've had to work out of the house , full time and raise your children, whereas she had it easier, staying home and raising her kids. Simple. No secrets here, but I think you know that.

I'm sorry it doesn't explain why it irritates me, I did try.

That's a very nice situation to be in your 50s these days.

Some people are self deluded

Lol yes, retired from being younger. Not retiring as in the normal sense from a career/job. Like being a grandma at age 36 (an in law) ... one automatically assumes certain things. X

You may be a grumpy old mare and resent someone unreasonably but at least you’ve still got a sense of humour!

Does it matter?

So OP doesn’t mind revealing how much she’s getting for her pension? A lot of people don’t really like revealing that much info to someone.

I get where you’re coming from. I speak to people daily who tell me they are retired and I quite clearly see they’ve spent their life on benefits declaring ill health for never working.
I also speak to some who go up the wall when pension is declared as a benefit when they’ve worked all their life.
swings and roundabouts , she’s not working and neither are you. If you’ve always had this split between you, it’s not going to change now.

Good point.

This. All of it.

A well earned break with a retirement party.😂😂 Children are only children for so long.

I stopped working because of ill health. If I’m asked, I say “I’m not working at the moment due to ill health”. DH tells people I’m ‘retired’ and it really, really winds me up. He likes the idea of me being retired because he’s retired. I know realistically I’ll probably never be well enough to work again, but I’m not prepared to make it definite just yet.

Oh dear

So you're saying that a woman who works outside the home hasn't "properly" raised her family?

Surely your mother has been able to take "a well earned break" when freed from her childcare responsibilities? And if she feels the need for a "retirement party", then throw her one!

(In my organisation, there are no retirement parties. If you're lucky you might get to go out for lunch with your colleagues!)

This sort of attitude to SAHMs is such a backward and anti-feminist rhetoric.

It is full time work raising a family. Especially if done properly. My mum never did paid work but she worked damn hard every day of her life whilst raising us and looking after the people around us. And unlike my dad she doesn’t get a retirement party or a formal transition from having to do her ‘job’ to be able to take a well earned break.

@ABirdsEyeView "Shes been spending her time doing the physical care of her children, which is something that wohp aren't doing because they are working elsewhere!"

You do realise that children require care 24/7, and working parents might work 7ish hours a day, so that's a lot of time they are not "working elsewhere". Then add in weekends, plus holidays. Does your statement also mean that SAHMs are no longer SAHMs when their child goes to school, because they are no longer responsible for the "physical care of [their] children" during the day?

In addition, the SAHM can fit responsibilities and activities into her 24/7 schedule. The WOHM does that too, in her 17 hours a day.

Anyone would think that the working mum abnegates all responsibility entirely for her offspring!

I was with you until your last sentence. Bringing up children isn't a "type of leisure". Done properly, it's sodding hard work as is being a SAHM and looking after the house. Presumably she didn't fob them off to child minders, constantly arrange play dates involving them being fed at other peoples' homes, taxi-d them around, and that she did her own housework, didn't employ cleaners/gardeners, went shopping rather than have home deliveries, dealt with the home organisation and admin to allow her OH to work (maybe longer/harder hours) to bring in a better wage than had they had to take part time or lower paid work because of "home" obligations. Maybe even had other "caring" obligations such as ageing parents or in laws who needed support?? Now, if she did none of that and genuinely did just life a "life of leisure" engaging paid help constantly, fobbing off her children constantly, then, and only then, would you have a point!

Why @Thepurplepig? Sil isn't doing anything detrimental to the OP by choosing how to refer to herself.