To be WILD at the news at 10 wording 'mothers who chose not to work'

[NotanOtter]

who are hardest hit by benefit cut

How bloody condescending...

Nip round here any day and 'choose not to WORK' looking after my kids

Jenai - I'm glad you added that second post. Because, if I am brutally honest, I don't think that families in which both parents work FT always manage to maintain great domestic standards unless they have massive amounts of free help from GPs etc!

That was what I meant, Bonsoir. None of it seems to matter much at all: it's an irrelevancy, an afterthought, not even worth thinking about as seriously as you might a weekend hobby.

Oh some do Bonsoir. They're ones who are up at midnight cleaning their ovens.

You can tell who they are by their sparkling windows and the bags under their eyes

I can see why people don't like this phrase but it is one of those topics that will be emotive no matter how it is phrased.
I agree with the posters who have raised the issue of "women who choose to work". I have come across this many, many times and it is nearly always used in a critical way.
I suppose there is an argument to say that in the vast majority of cases there is a choice of some sort to be made - it may not be a very appealing choice, ie between claiming income support and having no disposable income and taking a low-paid job, claiming tax credits, and having no disposable income and not seeing your child all day. There will be some people who, for specific reasons, simply don't have that choice, but most people will have some sort of decision to make on this issue, even if it is just the obvious decision not to be worse off by returning to work.

Bonsoir...generally we hire cleaners on our colossal combined incomes.

I chose not to work, I don't really see the reason to be offended. I chose to be a SAHM and I enjoy it (despite it being hard work for no pay!) :)

I'm still seething over Sky news who wrapped up their report on the CB cuts by saying we were all getting government subsidies to support our children. No mention of the fact that CB was a tax allowance, not a 'benefit' or the fact that it is paid for by the public. I really hate this idea of 'government money'. No, it isn't, it's ours!

yes annec, but what choice do men make?

Yes bad phrase maybe but then you also open yourself up the the BS my mother inlaw gives my DH thats she did nights for years when he was youung. No he does 12 hour night shifts with a 40 min commute either way so that is different!

Work is work and being a mother is work but it is different!

you are being a bit oversensitive

YABU

fact is that SAHM for whatever reason make a decision not to do paid employment, simple

the word "work" does not imply you sit at home all day eating biscuits

end of

My MIL told DS that she hadn't retired she 'works in the home' (late sixites/children left home over twenty years ago - just realised that she cannot call herself a SAHM anymore). I swear she thinks that working people have a magic fairy to do the housework.

Mind you what can they say...

If they say Women who look after their children, it implies working mothers don't ....

Err am I not understanding something here? When I have a baby I will have to go back to work after my maternity is up. As my husband works, and we own our own home, there will be noone willing to give me a handout to make sure the mortgage is paid. It makes my blood actually boil that some women get to 'weigh up' in their minds where they will be better off - work or home - and people like me have to pick up the tab. So yes, in my opinion, unless you are in some way disabled, you are being very unreasonable.

Every parent works, it's just that some get paid for it and some don't. What a ridiculous and inflammatory way of putting it by the News at Ten. If a SAHP would have the luxury of free, high quality childcare on tap from relatives and chooses not to use it, then you can say they are making the choice not to work (although I would word it as choosing to look after their own children). If not, then there is no such choice and it's usually (not always) the case that if they work in these circumstances they actually have no choice NOT to work.

Or perhaps all nursery staff and childminders should be working unpaid as they are no really working?

Not working, but if someone else was to do what you do as their daily thing, you'd have to pay them (was it 52 quid someone mentioned for nursery?)....

They should have said 'formerly wage-earning mothers who are now working for nothing in their own homes.'

And presumably SAHDs are also going to be affected?

Cupcake, I do not work as it wasn't financially worth me working (childcare would have been roughly £50 more than I earned in my job), we have a mortgage and you are most definitely not picking up the tab here, my dh is! I do think the wording is a little off, but yes in someways it is a choice as to what is financially better for your family, or what is better for your family in the long run.

But isn't it just a standard phrase "choose not to work". Surely everyone knows that it means chosenot to work out of the home.

Even without children most people do house related work. Every parent regardless of employment does home and child related work.

The news and those using the phrase just mean those who choose to not do "paid for" work in addition to home/child based work.

cupcake - Yup - I chose not to work as my part time very family unfriendly hours job was being made full time. In that two years in that job we had 3 days as a family (yes, 3 fucking days in two years - less than average family would have together in a month of weekends - but in two years) - and it wasn't worth hanging on for redundancy.

So I've been a sahm for the last year by 'choice'.

I don't get benefit so it's not cut but there you go.

I don't get offended by people saying I only work part time.

I do only go and do paid work part time. But I am working a fair bit of the other time - house stuff, child care stuff, etc. But I wouldn't describe myself as working FT.

Oh for lord's sake. Everyone knows SAHMs do not do nothing all day. When we say "work" we mean "paid work". Do you really want them to say "Mothers who choose not to do paid work"?

SAHMs have chosen not to do paid work (with the exception of those who are incapable of working or those who are looking for work and can't get it). They may have made that choice for very good reasons - eg that the childcare costs would outweigh their earnings - but they have still made the choice.

Coraltoes; semantics matter in the news, surely? Moreso in the news than in any other sort of communication I would suggest I bet they're careful about semantics when it comes to something they could be sued for libel for instance, or made a laughing stock of getting something completely wrong; ('Dewey defeats Truman'

There are multiple sources of news and each of them tweaks different facts and incidents according to their own basic philosophy (cf Pravda, Izvestia, Fox News in the US, Al Jazeera) -- in fact each has editors making value judgements as to what constitutes news in the first place.