To think most men wouldn’t survive a year living the life of an average woman?

Again, you’re assuming everyone lives the same life as you.
I spent my childhood being beaten up by my brother. That only stopped when I got a boyfriend at 18.
He’s now in prison and will NEVER be allowed near my child.

Mu half sister couldn’t be bothered to turn up to my 40th and I’ve not seen her since. She didn’t even turn up to our grandad’s funeral.

Not all families are sunshine and rainbows.

So I guess this is your new thing to try and make me feel guilty about?
I have two siblings, we’re not close. Not all sibling relationships are positive.
My DS has 8 cousins, so he’s got that extended family.
He also has a sibling like relationship with my best friend’s children. He’s not missing out.

Not everyone wants a big family.

We’ll definitely have to agree to disagree on that one.

I wouldn’t swap being 1 of 3 for anything in the world, or my children having each other. They have learnt so much from each other, and have each other for life. My eldest has friends who are only children and they are so lonely. They openly ask for a younger sibling in front of us actually, they know my eldest is so lucky.

The support my DH and his siblings provided to each other throughout both their parents’ deaths was off the chart. My DH always says he is so grateful to his brothers and couldn’t imagine his life without them at any stage. He was so glad not to go through that alone.

Such a shame nowadays money is prioritised over building family. No aunties, no uncles, no cousins. I had absolute blast growing up with my cousins, the best fun and memories. What a loss.

I was waiting for that bullshit opinion to come from you!

Children are not owed and do need siblings.

A human being deserves a full life, that can be well provided for and knows they were truly wanted for themselves and themselves alone and not created as "company" for their sibling.

Many parents can't afford or are physically unable to have a second child. Many don't want a second child at all. That does not make them less of a perfect mother than you and it actually makes them better parents than your 7 child family friends whom can't provide properly for their children.

I and many other posters do not want more children.

We would rather give an excellent life to one child than a mediocre life to four children or a life struggle to seven children, like your unemployed friends who's children have holes in their shoes. You may consider that brilliant parenting bust most normal people, including the charities fighting child poverty, disagree with you.

But arguably those who choose to only have one child to prioritise their career have denied their child all of the positives of having a sibling? Future opportunities to be an aunty/uncle, have aunties/uncles/cousins for their children? Building an extended family is a huge priority for many.

You also seem incapable of acknowledging that any SAHPs out there are doing a fantastic job.

We should encourage people to be positive and inspire them do better, instead of criticising and putting them down. There used to be far more local Sure Start Centres to support those at home.

Nope, really listening to your child is being attentive. Truly listening takes time. Children and teenagers do have their own opinions but of course don’t have the ultimate say- that’s up to the parents.

I do know many parents in real life who are actually taking long sabbaticals or changing their job to better meet the needs of much older children (late primary/secondary). That has surprised me actually.

Also, do you only have 1 child? Most of you who keep arguing with me on here seem to only have 1 child. Lots of Mums have a major readjustment after the birth of their second child. Those with 3 plus children again often find things much harder to juggle. So you may feel different if you were to go on and have more children actually.

That’s why we only have one! It was a choice.

I understand that if you’ve had a bad experience and that will of course influence your overall perceptions. I get that.

Do you mind me asking how you were emotionally neglected? As this is an area which conscientious SAHPs are generally very keen to avoid causing?

Our child does need us more than I’d imagine many others do, due to his significant level of need.

And absolutely not. No.

I would never leave my job to be a full time parent, and would struggle on with the challenges we face by working for the rest of my life if necessary.

Parenting a SENd child is a lot, and can quickly become your whole identity if you let it. I wouldn’t let it. I need purpose and productivity outside of my role at home, and would buckle without it.

I love my role as a parent, and take it very seriously. But it’s not all I am, and I would never allow it to become all I am.

So out of interest, you only have 1 child?

I genuinely think you may have both needed to make more adjustments if you had had even one other additional child.

I went to a seminar recently where an eminent professor talked about how she manages work life balance. She was a single mum to a boy who is now a teenager. She spoke about mum guilt but she said that her son had told her that he is so proud of her and her career and he thinks that all children should have a mum who works and shows them what is possible. I think it’s so important to have female role models and I wish my parents had provided that rather than a mum who pretended she was the perfect housewife while actually being emotionally neglectful. Instead I looked to teachers and friends’ mums for inspiration and I never ever thought “I want to be like my mum when I’m older”. The exact opposite in fact.

Women doing harm to other women is a socially/culturally learned phenomenon though.

When one looks at the abuse of girls through cultural ritualstic practices, it is very often women/mothers doing it to girls/daughters - so called “honour killings” different in that the male usually carries out the “punishment”. So FGM, Chinese foot binding, Indian suttee - women do these things to their girls so that they/the family confirm to cultural norms. Chinese mothers bound their daughters’ feet as they feared they would not attract a husband. Same with FGM. Mothers threw their child-bride daughters on the funeral pyres of their older dead husbands so that the family would not be cast out from the community.

Women putting down women in modern society is a form of this. Women are quick to step up to put down other women/apologise for male behaviour because they have been socially conditioned to do this. We see it on this thread multiple times sadly.

There is no way in hell I would consult my child on whether she thinks it's a good idea for me to give up work and stay at home because she would like that when she has no comprehension of adults responsibilities or how things must be financed through work, no.

Are you aware that putting adult decisions on children is a form of child abuse and causes psychological damage to them because it undermines the safety they feel from an adult making all of the decisions? If is called parentification.

A lot of the way you speak about The One True Calling of motherhood screams enmeshment.

If my child needed a parent at home then we’d share that as a couple. Neither of us would give up
work completely if at all possible.

If my DS asked me, the answer would be no. We’d address the reasons why he was asking but I wouldn’t be giving up a career and dramatically changing our financial situation on the whims of a child.
My DS loves my job, he’s travelled the world with me on work trips! He’d hate me to give that up.

Fair points but men don’t face the same misogyny, fear and general additional burden that women face just by virtue of being female. My DS did not face to change his jogging route because a mini building site for house renovations popped up. My DH doesn’t have to listen to patronising mansplaining when the car has a problem. DS doesn’t have to consider his clothing and carry sanitary wear/painkillers in case his period comes on. DH doesn’t have stress incontinence brought on by a traumatic birthing. DH or DS will not lose out on jobs because they are in their prime child bearing years. DS and DH will likely never be a victim of revenge porn or DV (yes, females can be abusers but it is much much rarer).

There’s so much more hassle for women because women’s problems are not taken seriously and because a woman’s role as mother (should she have children) is not valued as much as it should be. Women are held to a significantly higher standard than men in society in almost every way.

But I’ll await the onslaught of male apologists to tell me women are just as bad as men etc etc.

Haha nope.
She’s just lazy. She got pregnant at 17 to avoid having to work and because it’s what her friends were doing.
She resents that she lives in poverty but isn’t willing to work. Her child needs to go to nursery but she can’t even be bothered to do that.

You’re viewing being a SAHM through the lens of your experience but that’s not universal.

Could you be more out of touch with reality? There are hundreds of thousands of people who are workshy and simply do not want to contribute to society. There are many many people who abuse and neglect their children. Anyone who lives in the real world knows that. To act all surprised that someone like the pp’s stepsister isn’t cleaning her radiators and reading books to her children is laughable and ridiculous. Theres a reason why SAHPs on benefits get extra funded hours for childcare - the research shows that their children benefit from it because their parents are generally NOT providing a healthy and stimulating environment for them at all. Theres loads of research on it. Growing up with a non-working parent on benefits does not statistically provide a good start in life for a child.

You seem totally clueless and trapped in a middle class tradwife bubble where you convince yourself that the mum of seven on benefits whose kids aren’t even clothes properly is the good mum while the mum who dares to work to provide a good life for her DC is the shit one.

Also, are there ever any circumstances under which you would consider being a SAHP if your child really needed you or expressed they would like that?

I would consider re-incorporating work through ongoing consultation and discussion about the realities of that with my children as they get older if they felt more money would be beneficial.

Well that is a shame, has she said why she’s not interested? Sorry I’m fascinated by this, why someone wouldn’t want to do lovely things to support their child? Does she lead on housework/gardening/care of elderly family members/volunteering? She has time to put to good use, such a shame!

In the words of Mrs Alena Kate Pettitt: ‘Ladies this is a job, not a holiday camp!’

You could say the exact same thing about women?

Of course, men don't experience the same pressures as women, because, well, they are men.

It would be like me coming here, saying, '

Is it fair to say most women would go bankrupt in 12 months if it weren't for men?'

It's a sweeping generalisation based upon traditional or somewhat outdated social norms.

A lot of the pressures that some people are hinting at are applied by other women. I've never known another group of people to put their own down as hard as women do to each other.

Of course I’m aware of that, it was part luck and part planning.
We are all different and have different circumstances. That’s the point we’ve been making all along!!!

We’ve suggested all of those things. She’s not interested.
She had a child to avoid working but isn’t interested in being a SAHP. She just wants to stay at home.

Surely you must be aware though that it depends on the job? You are very lucky if you have a job and also a partner with a job that does enable you to still do all these things- I’m not sure that is the norm. Threads on here certainly suggest not.