So what is it exactly I have been doing for the past 5 years?

[carocaro]

DS2 starts school in Sept 2011 and me and DH were just talking about it and he said " you can get on now and do some actual work then"

He went out to his work straight after, whilst I am left fuming. What have I been doing for the past 5 years then?

We always agreed and I wanted to be a SAHM till both children were at school, I've helped him with his business, kept my hand in with work here and there and sold stuff, lots off in on ebay when things were very tough due to redundancy. Done all the other stuff to do with the house, budget, food - you know all the stuff.

I am just AGHAST that he has just been such a total prick and does not have one ounce of acknowledgement for the past five years.

My child is in school now and the (week) days I have that I dont work are self indulgent now. At least until 3.30. Financially I dont need to be paid for 5 days work and my husband agrees that its time for me.

I never suggested the days I was at home when my child want at school were like holidays. just that in my personal experience it didnt feel like "work" to me. I understand that isnt so of everyone.

jamielee you havent met my biss...she talks to you through the toilet door lol

boss

Geez - eeew - do her little fingers appear under the edge of the door as well?

Bloody hell.
I will check next time.

I dont see being a SAHM as work, looking after the children, paying bills, housework are all things we do as adults and parents. Its not the same and shouldnt even be made out to be the same as an employed job.

I actually agree with this to an extent, I'm sick of hearing about how being a SAHP is the "hardest job". I've done both, just as my DH has for a while. And now that we're both working, food still gets bought, medical appointments are still attended, floors are still washed, homework is still supervised. I always think it a bit odd when someone makes a point of trying to make paid employment equivalent to staying at home. It's not.

Their value might be the same, equally important yes, but let's not pretend it is the same. I get an immense amount of enjoyment from my work, but I did enjoy not being tied to a clock every minute of the day when I wasn't working - or being able to meet friends during a week day - or being able to say actually naptime is at 11am if I choose to put them down for an hour then. The flexiblity and lack of a boss breathing down your neck was great.

But it's not the same as being in paid work, imho.

totally agree frgr

Well, no.. not the same. And right now for me, with a typically developing (I think) and happy little man who isn't even walking yet, it is definitely not "the hardest job in the world."

On the other hand, it can be resolutely, interminably samey and I imagine this multiplies if you have a few under 5 (as I reckon I will by the time this one hits school-age).

There are differences and pro's and cons etc... but from a feminist standpoint, I find it very difficult that time in the home is negated and discounted as lacking in value by other women. I think there will probably come a time in the not-too-distant future when I will be a ft working mum but I hope I wouldn't feel the need to suddenly trivialise women's work in the home because the obligations are so different in paid employment.

Saying that the tasks carried out by SAHM's are carried out by all parents and adults infantilises other women because they have made a choice right for their circumstances, most likely jointly with a male partner. Yet, time and time again, that joint decision results in scorn for the woman involved.

Being a SAHM is one of the hardest and most thankless jobs I've ever done BUT I love it.

working9while5, I do sympathise with your viewpoint

but i still feel that, although time in the home is discounted as lacking in value, that doesn't mean that we should try to make it appear "the same" as paid work, when it's clearly not (for some good reasons, like I mentioned re: flexibility, and for some bad). i think that to try and put it in the same category as paid work does SAHPs a disservice too - we should value it as equivalent and of equal value, but it's not the same as working for a wage. to pretend otherwise is not right, and that is why i think i have a problem with women who say it's the same thing.. we should be tackling the root of why society deems activity A of "worth" (be it caring for sick relatives, earning bonuses in a bank, or caring for kids) whilst activity B is scorned. let's not pretend they involve the same obligations or commitments or skill.

that's why i get particularly annoyed when these stories about "if you had to pay a housewife she'd be on £200k a year" - i think this actually harms us in the long run, because people can clearly see that she isn't cooking to professional chef standard 50hrs a week, she isn't deep cleaning the kitchen every day, she hasn't trained for years in childcare or have recognised first aid qualifications. so let's not pretend she does :)

"Saying that the tasks carried out by SAHM's are carried out by all parents and adults infantilises other women"

but it's still true. i've lost count of the number of relatives and friends who say "i'm a mum" when asked what they do. i'm a mum too. just becuase i work outside the home doesn't make me less of a mum - just like it doesn't make my DH less of a dad.

imho, cleaning a floor doesn't become cleaner if i'm doing it after work. i didn't dust more often or better because i was staying at home for a few years. so to pretend that SAHPs are doing loads more than working parents isn't right either. to elevate their cleaning of floors, washing of clothes, etc - into something above or more worthy of working parents effort - that is the silly thing, i think.

YAB a little bit U.

So many of us do everything you've listed OP and a ft job.

If you worked as a child carer at a nursery it would be considered "real" work.
If you worked as a cleaner it would be considered "real" work.
If you worked as a manager of a Red Cross Shop it would be considered "real" work.
If you drove a taxi it would be considered "real" work.
If you delivered groceries for Tesco it would be considered "real" work.
If you ran an after school club it would be considered "real" work.
But if you do all of the above, and more, but don't get paid, somehow it is not considered, by some, "real" work.
I am sure your dh really knows this and it was probably just a badly/insensitively phrased comment.

What Tatty said.

He meant 'paid employment'. A 'job'.

Unless there are other issues it does not mean that he thinks you have been sat on your arse all this time.

You may be being oversensitive.

Here we go again.FFS.Am soooooooooo bored with this same old argument.So I will say this only once- I am a sahm.Its my choice.I dont want,expect or need your approval.If you dont like it then you can feck the feck off. Have I made myself clear?
op-your dh probably didnt mean it maliciously.Talk to him.

When he said 'actual' work, I suspect he meant paid work.

If you had an agreement that you would not undertake paid work until your Dcs were in school, then there you are.

OK - 17 years f/t work before dc. 8 years as SAHM. 7 Year back at work mostly full time. SAHM work is repetitive and the colleagues, ie, DC and DH can be awkward difficult and shitty. Employed work can be repetitive but can also be intellectually stimulating and there are different people to mix with who can be awkward, difficult and shitty.

Difference - I unconditionally love the dc and the dh; I detest some of the people at work but I get a salary cheque every month and I can't shout at them.

Employed work I can switch off from most of the time - thinking about the dc and the dh I only switch off from if doing a real biggie at work.

IT's not work because if it was you'd get paid for it. Same goes for looking after old people- well, you have to pay people who do that but you don't have to pay them much, so it's not real work. OH, except some people do get paid for looking after children ... but even so it's not real work because you can get away with paying them next to nothig as well ..

Real work is putting on a suit, driving in a nice car to a cozy office, where you can sit all day making Important Decisions about how to sell more tat to more people..

I dont see being a SAHM as work, looking after the children, paying bills, housework are all things we do as adults and parents. Its not the same and shouldnt even be made out to be the same as an employed job.

The only thing I disagree with in the above statement is the 'looking after children' bit, as clearly, if you go out to work, someone else looks after your children during the day. In fact, they are probably paid to do it, making it 'work'.

Isn't it possible that OP's DH just articulated himself badly?

She mentions redundancy and money worries, so perhaps he's been counting the days and a little too eager for her to return to paid work.

Possibly, LItchick. It's so ingrained into our culture that looking after children is not work (see Serendippity's post) that he probably didn't mean anything too deep

And LOL at comparing paying bills and housework to childcare.
The over-looked fact that the person doing the childcare cannot be anywhere else or do anything else while s/he is caring for children. Otherwise offices would be full of children, wouldn't they. Have you ever tried to get deskwork done with a child around?

Write him a list of the things you have done

make him read it

and then stuff it up his silly arse!

cheeky bleeder!

Oh can I urge the OP not to make a list of what she does.

She will bore her husband to death.

Is there anything worse than listening to someone whinge about what they've done in the day?
If Dh came home and said, 'let me tell you love, I got the train at seven am, and boy was it packed...then at nine thirty my secretary asked me to sign twenty one, no wait, twenty two letters...then at two, I caught a taxi to my next meeting...' I would assuredly kill him.

Sorry and bite me if you like but being a sahm is not the same as working. Staying at home which I done for one year with my first is easy. I was also a single parent for 14 years working full time.

Things like cleaning/cooking/budgetting you do as a matter of course you don't get brownie points for it.

SAHM get it easy.

It's not about being easy or hard, Fabby . Obviously your personality was suited to being a SAHM.
It's about it being a job, real work. IN fact, the most relevant and real work there can be.
The problem it has, you see, is that under our current system the people who carry out the work (usually women) are unpaid or low paid, which means the work is not valued, or even seen as work at all.