Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

I'm a SAHM. Previous to that I was a senior executive in Software having worked in Silicon Valley and London for 18 years. Met Bill Gates and a few big guns over there. I am now a SAHM and have been for two years. I currently pass my time by swotting for my grade 7 piano exam, doing PIYO classes x3 a week and I make some decent pocket money doing online sports trading and arbitraging (I'm pretty good with the Maths). I'm also tuturing my two dc's to get into a super selective grammar school. Ive now delegated my property investments as it was just getting too much. I get a bit of housework done too.

I don't advertise any of that. Anyone looking at me from outside probably think I sponge off my dh watching morning TV .

I love being a SAHM as I can focus on the things that matter to me and enjoy it.

Who says

That's really bizarre slug!

I think "high -performing" would be to do with nurture and care and development of the child.... I can't remember the book but there was a good book dealing with how perfectionists/ high-performers cope when faced in a role that no longer has targets/ external proof of achievement etc. It was a big leap for me. Possibly why love matters but I can't remember!

I'm mostly sahm. I'm pretty rubbish at housework. I didn't sah to do housework!!!!! I sah to spend time with my kids/ doing the care with them a nursery would otherwise do.

I'm mostly sahm. I'm pretty rubbish at housework. I didn't sah to do housework!!!!! I sah to spend time with my kids/ doing the care with them a nursery would otherwise do.

I'm a SAHM and am shit at housework. That was fine until
the children started school because I was busy doing child stuff during the day so rarely did any then.

I've been a sahm for 5 years now. I must say I love it. I ignore negative comments and I absolutely consider myself a feminist. I get tired of judgements and criticism which are usually born from insecurity and doubt (towards working or non-working mums). Probably in part stemming from sexist and patriarchal attitudes that women have internalised.

But there are millions of sahms who are shit at housework! For heaven's sake. How can you bear to be so cliched?

I work part-time, so I'm both looked down upon by my f-t colleagues and my SAHP friends.

It's intellectually very fulfilling at work, but bloody hell, it's coping with DC that really drains me! But I've had a couple of and will come back to this when I'm coherent...

I was a SAHM for 5 years and I worked bloody hard. I also used my brain. Perhaps to a different purpose than I do now I work full time but I was far from 'brain dead'.

In my experience often people criticise others choices in order to feel validated in their own decisions.

The question is why did you want to be a SAHP. We couldn't afford the nursery fees, because I would be in negative salary payment - this was over 20 years ago, and it seems that nothing much has changed.

Also, I wasn't happy with the childcare that was available to me at that time. I have to say, I dunked the eldest in the nursery and left. Again, 20 years ago. Although, I wasn't happy at that time that it was up to me to determine all of the childcare. But I had no choice. Thankfully, that little (great sex!) shit is out of my life.

You can read to your children, do crosswords, put names on furniture - table, chair, etc, meet up and socialise. A nanny might do this but it would cost you her salary starting from 25 grand per annum plus extra room/bedsit/kitchen/ensuite.

You have every economic and intellectual right to stay at home and look after your children. It's just that society doesn't recognise the input. I would say, keep your foot in the job market. Always update the CV. Never think, that being in the home means you have retired from society. Far from it!

I think the idea that any sahp positively enjoys being at home with small children all day all the time and that they are somehow "different" is a pernicious myth that needs to be excorsised. Most people who stay at home with young children have careers before they have them and will return to work at some point in their childhood.

People stay at home with their babies and toddlers for all sorts of reasons. It very often isn't a choice. When I was at hme I refused to be seen as somehow different to a woman who worked and commuted 60 hours per week just because I didn't do that at that time. The things we have in common with people are our values, beliefs, interests, politics, sense of humour, shared history, faith, outlook, etc. Having a career or temporarily not having a career surely comes very low down on that list. Therefore, you could be friends with a sahp and not suffer brain death in the process!

I think you're right on both suggestions - that it both has a negative perception because mainly women do it, and the flip side of that is that less men are prepared to be the SAHP.

To talk honestly as a mother who works f/t, I can admit that sometimes when I think (not say now, MN has opened my eyes dramatically over the past few years) negative things about SAHPs, especially SAHPs of school aged children, part of it is nothing more than jealousy - in the sense that I don't have any time that is not either work, commuting or being with a preschooler. I am jealous of people who have time alone without one of those three things, even if they still have a house to run (we never have enough time for housework!)

So jealousy, I imagine, can contribute heavily to negative comments.

Also I have been guilty in the past of the "I have to use my brain" comments are regards returning to work. But that mainly stems from knowing that I am not a natural parent, I wouldn't be happy being at home all day with a preschooler. And that in turn leads to the "I need to work" comments as a sort of defence against the feeling that admitting to not being at one with being with DC 24/7 is somehow unmotherly, or even unwomanly.

To me, reading a lot of threads on SAHP v WOHP, it feels like a defensive thing from many people, somehow criticising what other people are doing as a way of making them feel better for the choices they have made.

What causes it though? I don't know. I feel like there is an ideal held up for mothers, that they should both be wonderful mothers at home who bake and cook and love doing crafts, but also should maintain a career. The whole Supermum/Having It All idea. Which I can't see is ever achievable, realistically. But something about that press/online theory of Having It All makes women defensive about their choices, maybe?