AIBU to think SAHMs are lazy?

This is a genuine question - how does this all make you feel?

I ask because it would make me feel angry and resentful to spend so much of my time cleaning up after my family so that they got to relax.

The way we approach these things is - outsourcing the cleaning and the gardening, then working compressed hours to fit in the life admin. We both volunteer as well - school governors, PTA, trustee work. I really thrive on feeling like we both share the domestic labour.

Do you actively enjoy the domestic labour or is it something you endure for the other benefits of not working or something else?

Please don't take this the wrong way, I am honestly just interested because I would hate it so much that I find it hard to understand

Certainly possible for WOH or SAH parents to raise kids with all kinds of attitudes and who take different decisions in their lives than their parents did. Research has shown though that daughters of working mothers have more successful careers, and sons of working mothers hold significantly more egalitarian gender attitudes.

Just because some men (and, less explicable, some women) think that domestic groundwork ‘naturally’ falls to women, because their vaginas mean they can ‘see dirt’ better, is absolutely no reason for you to dedicate your life to cooking and cleaning.

And how many posts do we see on here where both parents WOH and the domestic jobs are still left “to the women”?

is that not on both parents to teach their children to become more self sufficient?

my children see a division of labour within our family.

dad goes out to work at his multiple roles.
mum works inside the home undertaking the domestic jobs, the DIY stuff.

they also see their dad cook, take them to parties and be an active parent in their lives without the worry that domestic chores need to be carried out during the time that we could all be doing things together.

I’m not saying it would work for everyone, just that it works for us

I was a sahm for 7 years when my kids were small. It worked for us, and meant less stress all round compared to friends who both worked - eg I was always around for pickups, drop offs, if kids were ill or other family emergencies etc. I’m now late 50s and kids are in their early 20s. I’m now finding the one drawback of the sahm years is seeing friends retire while I’m going to have to keep going for a few years yet, to make up the pension contributions I missed. I view this as a small price to pay but worth bearing in mind when making a decision to sah.

What's lazy is your poorly worded click baity AIBU post.

What I dont understand is the judgement value that both SAHM and working parents are applying to busyness around the home/housework/gardening etc. Those things are just a life essential and don’t determine a person’s worth or value nor does their work outside the home. It provides perhaps personal self worth and money to live how you like, just as I personally derive pleasure from a clean home and being able to enjoy my day and live how I want. But my children take both for granted and don’t think one parent is more valuable or successful than the other. My children are now adults and have their own career choices both of which will serve them well moving forward to make money to live how they want and make the choices they will make for their life in the future. There’s a lot of, at best overthinking, at worst ignorant judgemental arseholes, on here that can’t comprehend how others can live differently to them and still be successful and raise good humans to have kindness, values and ethics.

You said the kids of SAHMs you know don’t know how or don’t do those things

I think her point was the sons don't do those things, as they believe it's women's job.

What I missed in the time I was a SAHM was being able to go to the loo WITHOUT being followed and having small people bang on the door and try to hold a conversation with me. I loved staying home with my kids. But it’s kind of a sticky life, and you are really not ever off the clock. I made a point of also having a social life, learning new things, and enjoying hobbies as time allowed. I was a better mother because of that. Lazy, my ass.

I appreciate this post, as I think people are genuinely curious, but don’t always like to ask. It’s good to ask and learn more, as unpaid caring and volunteering are so valuable to society, but so unseen and undervalued, unfortunately.

I do 2 half days weekly cleaning with deeper cleaning jobs rotated (e.g. clean the oven, clean out the fridge). Half a day gardening (front & back). Half a day on weekly shop, petrol, charity drop offs, similar errands. I go swimming once morning. Half a day sorting home admin/school admin & payments/present purchasing and wrapping/emailing children’s extra-curricular clubs & messaging parents to organise play dates/cleaning and maintaining our car/decluttering/organising wider family & friend events, etc.

Doing the above frees up valuable evening/weekend time. My DH is similarly very strict about not bringing his paid professional work home, so our evenings and weekends are our own to spend with our children/family/friends/regular date nights. Our marriage is our top priority above work/house stuff. We are all about maxing our discretionary time as a team.

I spend time with my mum for 2 different half days, she also stays at spend after school with my children on one of those. I value greatly spending far more 1:1 time with her than when I worked full time.

If my FIL hadn’t died when he had, I would have been visiting him and continuing the care and maintenance of his home I contributed to when he was no longer physically able to.

As a mum, I am often popping in and out of my children’s school attending events, which with 2 children was often twice a week during Summer term, which is very busy. Children still get ill too, mine became very unwell during the red heat alert, so I preferred caring for them at home where I could keep them cooler.

As a school governor, I am often at my children’s school multiple times a week at meetings and monitoring visits. I help on trips, including those with classes without my own children, which could not go ahead if there weren’t enough adults. I am regularly telephoned to help out last minute. I listen to children read who don’t have parents who read with them at home.

I also volunteer for a national charity supporting bereaved people over the telephone/Zoom. This client work is supervised by a qualified counsellor, so I attend supervision and complete linked CPD work and reading when my children are at school.

I never find it difficult to find something to do when my children are at school.

Think it depends, I’m a SAHM and I am fundamentally a lazy human being, BUT I’m ontop of everything to do with DC, our weekends are free for family time (this is DH’s preference too, he’s very family oriented). No he doesn’t control the purse strings, we are co-conspirators, every decision is taken together, he travels a lot for work (not extended but in and out fo the country sometimes). We contribute to my pension, savings and investments always have my name on it or an equal amount for both. DH pulls his weight when he’s home so it’s bot like he’s not involved as a husband or father.

I totally acknowledge the risk, we kind of fell into it because when we had ours we lived in a country where it was a nanny or nothing and we thought it better if I took care of DC. I also struggled with some mental health problems (had them a long time) and had a total breakdown when I was retraining and I had to take a step back and start therapy. Would I suggest DD do the same? No. But it works for us.

I am teaching my daughter that she is the most important person in my life, my top priority. I have a double first class degree from Cambridge, had a professional career for 10 years- it meant nothing to me once I had my children. Showing up every day for them matters more. My daughter is delighted I walk her to school, attend every school event, trip, have her friends over…we are incredibly close.

I am teaching my daughter that relationships and human beings matter more than money I don’t want or need. I am teaching her how to avoid excessive materialism and value family highly. I am teaching her how to be a team player.

You sound incredibly rude and judgmental, I follow my own values and rules about what being a good role model for my daughter looks like. She’s incredibly happy!

I was a SAHM for a while. I gave up a well paid job in the civil service because DC1 had some additional needs and needed a parent at home. I wasn't lazy. I LOVED the 8 years I had at home with my DC. It was definitely the right decision for us. Did I feel judged? Yes. I used to cringe when people said 'I could NEVER give up work, I'd hate to sit around singing The Wheels on the Bus all day, I need to use my brain'!' They certainly weren't using their brain when they made comments like that!

I'm back at work now. I'm paid less and my job is less impressive. This does make me sad sometimes. But if I had to go back in time, I'd make the same decision again.

Except my kids are at school when I do those jobs so I have more time to be available to them, compared to the WOHP. I don’t have to cram those jobs in once we’re all back from work/school.

Why are the jobs around the home “less value” than a job I would be getting paid for? Domestic jobs still have value - there is always a need for shopping to done, food to be cooked, laundry and cleaning to be done. And by me taking on that role, it allows my husband to focus on his roles outside of the home and not have to worry about the domestic side.
DH and I are a team and work well as a team to our strengths.
the difference here is, I’m not trying to claim I am superior by being a SAHM but diminishing a WOHP position

You’re just going to twist my comment to fit your narrative? I didn’t say anything of the sort. You said the kids of SAHMs you know don’t know how or don’t do those things so I pointed out that mine do, even at a young age. So I have no concerns about my children going up to be feckless or spoilt

Well, my life mainly as a SAHM since having the girls was certainly not how I meant or wanted it to go, it just turned out that way, lol. So, I could get on and do it with as good a grace as I could, and as well as I could, or spiral even deeper into alcohol and sertraline.

Thankfully, the girls heeded my advice that I should serve as a useful warning, rather than a good example.

They are both doing five year degrees, one of them in medicine, and working hard at being able to pay their own way in life, by their own graft, and I'm tremendously proud of them. Neither of them can clean the skirting boards for shit though. . .

Do you think working parents children don't know how to do those things? Really?

Of course they do. It’s very cute. Also cute that they see that while Daddy gets paid for doing surgery/building houses/ selling artisan bread/making documentaries/ solving crimes, Mummy mops the floors and does ‘jobs around the house’ that people who work are able to accomplish in a few hours a week. Of course the ‘probes around the house’ are of less value! They weren’t when growing, cooking, and preserving food for a household was a FT job involving skill and experience in an era before refrigeration and labour-saving devices. Now anyone without a disability can fit them into a few hours a week around their jobs.

People stuck forever in a job they hate and not having the time to see their kids, and resentful of others who do have the freedom.

as opposed to women who have study and work for years to be in a position to stay with their kids if they wanted to. Because their own priority is a few years with their kids and putting their career on hold, or simply changing career full stop when and if they decide to get a job back.

I know which of the 2 will be the better example for my own kids 😂

That’s cute, but I’m not setting a bad example to my kids by being a SAHM. My girls who are 4 and 6 already know how to tidy up after themselves, help with jobs around the house.

they know Daddy goes out to work but Mummy works at home. They don’t see 1 as lesser value to the other, they see them as equal to help our household run well

@SerenaCat93 - you only know two SAHMs in a particular demographic. You are clearly sneering about them, but don't extrapolate this to SAHMs in general because it makes you sound a bit silly to be honest. There are millions of SAHMs in circumstances you have no experience of and no idea about.

I have a substantial volunteer role providing a children's activity as well as having a full-time job. My choice obviously. SAHPs are, however, conspicuous by their complete and utter absence amongst the volunteers in my area. Out of 25+ volunteers, not a single one is a SAHM. Not one.

Obviously that's a choice that individuals are entitled to make. SAHMs are no more obligated to volunteer than anyone else. But do please stop with the "many do volunteer work" rubbish. Community-minded people volunteer, some of whom may be SAHPs but many of whom also have paid jobs. It's not a virtue specific to SAHPs.

I know lots of SAHMs. The most common pattern in my friendship group has been-

-husband and wife both very high earners working long hours (eg law, finance)
-once children are born, wife becomes a SAHM until school starts
-wife then either stays SAHM but doing substantial voluntary work, or starts a small business, or goes back to work in a role with more defined hours (eg public sector)

Very few wives went back to a 70+ hour week once they had children.

IME it works well for everyone but only because there is plenty of money- wife gets to spend more time with the children and to run the home etc to a very high standard (often with a lot of paid help as well), husband gets to completely opt out of housework so that the very limited time he has available can be spent with the children not scrubbing the loo and gets to have a nice life outside work (social events, holidays) organised by his wife, which might not happen or not so easily if they were both doing those long hours. It's obviously a fairly old fashioned set up and could work just as well with the wife working mega hours and the husband at home, but I only know one couple doing it like that.

Is anyone lazy in this scenario? I'm not sure- clearly the women are working fewer paid hours but is that the benchmark? Maybe a better question is whether everyone is contributing fairly in a way which maximises the well-being of the family, in which case I'm confident that they are. Certainly don't think the husband's well-being would increase if his wife went back to her previous role.
I generally find the MN approach to this stuff is always premised on the idea that the thing everyone needs most is money, so the best way to value a contribution is in terms of how much money it brings in, but that's not true for everyone.

Helps when some use the last years of their SAH time to re-qualify and go ahead someone who is stagnant in their job 😂

Lol. I've never seen a freshly qualified person with no relevant recent experience just go in ahead of everyone else who have been maintaining CPD in their field and abreast of the new research but you keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.

Actually no, the majority of families with a SAHM are poor with a third of them living below the poverty line in the UK. That is why there is such a push to get women back to work by giving child care incentives because it's the easiest and fastest way to tackle child poverty in the UK. Very few families can live well on one income in the UK. Rich families have nannies and cleaners so they're not really SAHMs anyway they're ladies of leisure. Many SAHMs can't afford to work and it's often lamented among women here. Extremely few women are swanning off on a 16 year career break with enough money to last them that long without their husband earning very highly or struggling for money.