not a job? what??

The one that makes me laugh is that it's a job if you get paid to do it as a childcare worker but otherwise...it is nothing. So generations of women who had to leave work when married to raise kids were doing... nothing.
The idea a feminist would subscribe to that sort of view is beyond me.

The issue is that people are denigrating your everyday activity as a mother at home with young children as 'nothing'. It's not nothing because it's unpaid. It is rude and dismissive and says a lot about the value placed on childcare in our society.

I had pnd with dc2. I wanted to go back to work in May but was signed off... because I needed more rest. Where I was going to get rest with a 3 and 1 year old at home was anyone's guess. Then the Occ Health Physician said I didn't need a graded return because I was 'only working three days' and had the other two days a week to 'recover'. Again, this notion I would be reclining in silence on the daybed recuperating instead of being clambered all over by two boisterous toddlers and catering to their needs. My favourite example of this is a friend whose husband was very stressed after the birth of their child and ended up in A and E with a panic attack. The doctor took him in for two nights for a 'rest' (not NHS!) leaving his wife at home with a two day old newborn and a toddler having just had a c-section.

Work, job, occupation etc. Whatever it is it isn't sitting around being bone idle and the question implies it is of no value, let's face it. The reality is for many families it just doesn't work to have two adults in paid employment for a myriad of reasons and people make their own choices. Why others have to make laden comments is beyond me.

Personally I don't work full-time and will have a period of being an SAHM I think after the birth of dc3. My reasons are personal. My mother was and is a career woman and she SUCKED at juggling. Her head was and is always in work and she is really barely emotionally present at home at all. My father was better at managing both roles when I was young but the marriage broke up and my mother really didn't cope with being a mother at all. She was hardly ever home, there was rarely food in the house, we were alone constantly and when home all she talked about was work, work, work. She became very high-flying in her job but at great personal cost in her relationships. We have started to talk this through and she has so many regrets.

This is not how many career women live their life but it was my template for mothering and I recognise a certain tendency to workaholism in myself... so for me personally I really need additional time at home with the children as young children to live my whole life as I want to and to have balance.

It's so easy to generalise and get caught in theoretical categorisation of what women choose but I suspect many people have reasons beyond the obvious for their choices and the sneering talk of real jobs is just unnecessary. I would just shrug and smile and enter into no debate on it, ever. Your life, your decision.

Is this not just semantics? People seem to attach different meanings to the word 'job'. I personally don't see a 'job' as being paid employment (e.g. Jobs round the house, voluntary positions). Caring for young children is a job (time, effort) or else why would we have to pay someone to do it? As long as you're happy with your decision fuck 'em!

I like Boffin's take on it.

It is a role, not a job.

People who tell you it is not a job are trying to wind you up or put you down. We think of our jobs as our role/the way we earn our money/ our responsibilities/ what we do all day. In that sense being a stay at home parent is definitely a job (although you are not thechnically "paid" by someone, you are allowing the other parent, even if you are not still together, to earn money without having to pay for childcare so you should be sharing that money as your "income.")

I also work in paid employment outside the home and, therefore, like many people, have two jobs.

OP, you seem to be hung up on the word job being the only way to describe a worthwhile and meaningful occupation.

What is the context op? No, being a mum is not a 'job', but it is hard work.
Why would someone say being a mum isnt a real job? It's not paid employment but so what?

It's obviously a bit snippy to tell someone that 'being a mum isn't a real job' although I don't believe that simply being a mum is a job at all. Most adult women I know are mothers after all, but only those with very small children are fully occupied just parenting. So I'd wonder how the comment came up, was it unsolicited or in response to something that the other person thought was also snippy. In that generally parents that choose to (or have to) work get a bit narked at the suggestion that they aren't real parents somehow because they spend time away from their children. Not that anyone would ever suggest a father should either be at home 24/7 or that they were somehow inadequate for working.

So I'd probably respond in kind to that one, not that anyone has ever said it to me. I've worked full time most of the time since I've been a parent, whilst dh spent a few years as a SAHD. I don't imagine that he watched a lot of TV, but certainly once the children were at school he had a lot more spare time than I did. Worked for us though as I would have hated to be at home all day and our children really benefited from havign him there.

If someone asks when you are going back to work don't you just tell them what your current plans are? That just seems like ordinary small talk to me.

but being a mum isn't a real job.

Being a professional child carer of other people's children for a salary is a job. Being a mother plainly is not a job.

But in relation to the second part, when people ask when you plan to return to work - presumably you will be going back to work at some point? Unless you were born rich? So the simple & accurate answer is 'not for a few years?' I am not sure I understand your problem with that question.

All sorts of things that are jobs aren't paid. I would consider painting my house a job, though no one would pay me. I've also worked for a year as a fulltime office manager in an unpaid volunteer position, I considered that a job.

Looking after my children is also a job. But not simply being a mother, which I will be for many decades, it's the actual work involved in childcare that's a job (and that will hopefully be shorter).

I think it is, absolutely right to take it as seriously (if not more) than you would a paid job, but by the general definition that a job means paid employment, then it isn't one (leaving aside the other meaning of jobs around the house etc). It is harder than a lot of paid jobs too

So, I'd just hit back with, as others have said, no if it was a real job I'd be getting paid. When are you going back to work would generally mean when are you going back to your paid job? It might be more tactful if people asked "are you going back" instead of "when are you going back" but then that could be said to be sexist, no one asks a man on paternity leave if he is going back, only when. It's a social minefield.

Not a job per se, as you are not technically employed, but still work, and still valuable.

Deffo not a job!

It's not a job but hard work none the less.

tethers too true

blueshoes yes...I'm one of them. I'm in employment and have the job of raising a child.

It's not either/or.

I know.

How old is your child/ren

Bear in mind that as a mother whatever you do is WRONG and if you were working full time you would get occasional arsey questions too.

My suggestion is stick your chin up and say I'm so HAPPY and change the subject

It's not a job.

It's slavery.

As for the second point...say you have 'some things in the pipeline' then wink. Makes you sound mysterious and stops them asking questions.

Say it with confidence, though, or you end up making it sound like a pleasant way of saying constipation!

YouMake, but working parents in real jobs also raise worthwhile members of the next generation ...

1. It's not paid work but it is hard work
2. The truth?

PS Odd answers on this thread so far My dad talks about doing "jobs" around the house, lots of people talk about jobs they have to do. There is not one single meaning and certainly looking after children is work, no question about that.

It's not employment but raising a decent member of society and potential tax payer is a worthwhile undertaking, if not a "job".

Say "someone has to raise the generation who are going to be running the country/prescribing medicines/wiping arses when we are old...don't you think I'm up to it?".