To think SAHM with young DC deserve more respect

Why can’t parents go to the toilet alone? Did you carry your baby in every time?

I appreciate and respect SAHP to young children. I wasn't one, but my mother was.

I know she was frustrated being at home all day and sometimes bored. Yes, even if we work we are often non paid cleaners, cooks, taxi drivers and everything else, but I think it was the sheer loneliness for her.

When your children grow up they will recognise how hard you worked.

It's all hard and we're all judged no matter what we do. So long as you're doing what works for you and your family, crack on and don't give it any headspace.

From who?

it’s your choice to be a SAHM. You don’t deserve any more appreciation than someone who works from the general public.

or do you mean you want appreciation from your DH? This I could understand if you aren’t getting any. But from your friends or anyone else, no, you don’t really need to be appreciated for being a stay at home mum

I’m a SAHM and I appreciate your post a great deal, thank you. Thank you so much for recognising this often unseen care work which is undervalued by society.

When my second child was born, my eldest was 2 3/4 and at home full time (started his 15 hours at Nursery term after third birthday). I felt very torn between meeting both of their separate needs alone (e.g. every time my DD needed to feed my DS needed the potty without fail! One would cry whilst I helped the other. My DD’s first nap was then so disrupted by my DS’s toddler groups, etc). I had been used to looking after 1 child, and found the first 6 months with both emotionally tough as I felt I was failing one or the other.

One day I was called to collect my DS from Nursery which disrupted my DD’s lunch, he vomited over her pram en route home. I had to pop her in the travel cot, bath my son, the scrub the buggy in the garden. As you describe, I was constantly busy going from task to task constantly on my own. Things are much, much easier now they are 6 and 3 😂

Thank you again for showing your recognition and support. Please know that I also hugely admire my many working Mum friends, and all that they juggle too 😊

There are too many variables. Age/number of kids, family support, sharing the load with your partner, health needs, the type of job etc.

For me, being a hospital consultant working full-time in the NHS and having to collect and come home with my two nursery-aged kids, was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done. Being a stay at home mum would have been a walk in the park in comparison for me.

I teach 34 11 year olds all day, on lunch duty today so I ate a sandwich standing up and I don't pee all day either so I think it depends on your job too! I love the summer with my own kids because it's a break.

But I think parenting is hard no matter what we do. It is all consuming and life changing no matter what. It's challenging for different reasons whatever path you choose but I would seriously ignore any comments or critics because it's nobodies bloody business.

I think you will find that working full-time, looking after kids and doing household chores is even more challenging.

I think as long as you have respect for yourself and your choices you can’t really demand it from everyone else. And there’s nothing harder than working full time, having to be accountable to your boss, and also having young children. SAHM just isn’t comparable.

Of course sahm get disrespected- there’s the ‘not working’ jibes, the ‘some of us have bills to pay’ (said to dh with me there), the ‘aren’t you lucky, we couldn’t afford for one of us not to work’ punches, the ‘I have to do what you do but after a hard days work’, the ‘do you not get bored’ the ‘what do you do all day’ most of these have been said to me in real life.

hilariously when I went back to work it was ‘oh your poor dh is going to have to pick up the slack, isn’t he?’ and ‘oh the poor kids, they won’t be used to being stuck in a childminders’, told it was crazy … actually op as a mum people will get you any way they can!

Thats how you find it, it’s not everyone’s experience though. I work part time and have 3 DC. I find being at home with them (mat leave, school holidays) fairly easy. In fact, we’re trying for a baby and number 4 (hopefully) will just slot in

It is a choice to have children it is not a community service, but I dont think working or SAH parents deserve more than other it is not a competition but it is a choice to solely rely on another adult to fund your SAH lifestyle if that is required which is a very precarious position to leave yourself and your child in

Why does anyone deserve "appreciation" because they chose to procreate, other than the father of their children?

You don't get accolades for becoming a mother!

Parenting is absolutely relentless. In the thick of those early days especially, there is often no relief. At all.

For the above poster who mentioned that other things are hard work also…yes, they are however not for as long a period with no break to even pee on your own(!)

Listen, we have all been on maternity leave. We have had annual leave. We do weekends. We know.

I am here to tell you that it is way harder doing all that you have to do with your children when you also fit in a full-time job.

All mums are worthy of respect no matter how they parents.

SAHMs can suffer financially with one salary coming in. WOHMs and their partners spend a fortune on childcare, so perhaps not that much better off through working.

But, if your partner/DH dies, or pisses off with another woman, then I know which I would prefer to be.

It's easier than working full time and doing all the household chores, that's for sure!

I didn't feel disrespected when on maternity.

I think you need to care less about what others think.

Telling someone who isn’t working and is struggling financially that they need to find work isn’t disrespectful, it’s reality!

I'm a SAHM and I don't feel like I 'deserve respect' - I certainly don't deserve disrespect and I totally get what you mean, it can be as hard as a job, but when you have a job you have to do a lot of the mum stuff too on top! I have time in the day to keep up with the house work and stick the laundry on etc. I think I'm very lucky to be able to make the choice that I want to make for my lifestyle.

You need better friends by the sound of it.

Just wait until you are back in work.

I genuinely had no idea once that your own children could be work. They’re your own family, I’d think incredulously. No more work than spending time with a sibling or parent you feel comfortable with.

Then I had my children. Glory be.