busy,annoyed sahm

[lovelymumma]

I went to childrens party today.Feel upset that uncle asked @what i did with all my spare time.Uncle is nice,but never had children,and made me feel as if because I am at home and 3 children are in school,I should have all the time in the world.A school day after u drop kids off and before u leave to pick them up gives you 5 and half hours.I probably spend half hour eating having coffee,whilst catching up on e mails or post.an hour walking dogs.An hour doing washing and ironing.Another hour cleaning house and trying to order stuff children need off internet for various activities or catching up on doing garden or clearing stuff out,or putting clothes away.another hour can be spent on shopping or cooking,which usually leaves an hour for trying to decorate our new,old house.I don't see where I'm supposed to have all this spare time.At same party dad who only has children once or twice a week asked me if I worked,and thought I was so lucky not too.aaagh,just having a rant,because they think my life is so perfect,with all this spare time for me!

OP, hope you don't feel got at, please do try and factor in some free time into your day. A friend of mine washes everyones towels and nightclothes from the night before every morning. Not suggesting you do this, but what a massive waste of time and energy...

BlackBag great posts.
If you're busy, you're busy, full stop. It hurts when someone says something that makes it obvious that he thinks a troop of elves has produced the nice garden and comfortable house that you work at every day. (Presumably this uncle has been to visit the OP's house). When this happens at paid work and women's contribution is overlooked it rightly raises hackles.

Hands a fresh cup of to anyone who's spent the day without anyone making one for them and pats them gently on the back.

Right, where are my elves, the place is in a right state.

maths there are lots of women here who have to work outside the home and look after their homes in the time available...sniffily calling them martyres is pretty low imho.

Those of us who don't have to do both ought to recognise it's a pretty lucky situation.

I work at home flexibly, and recognise that this is much easier than those that have to commute.

Why would I pretend it's not?

I've also been a SAHP and once the kids are in school, it's pretty easy. Again, why would I pretend otherwise?

The OP wasn't saying she finds being a SAHM terribly hard, Wordfactory, and that's why I wondered why so many jumped in here and tried telling her it was a breeze compared to their busy lives (hence the medals).

The OP complained that someone thought everything she does happens by magic and not by her efforts, and also that everything she is busy with could be done in such a short time that she must have plenty of time to herself (a thought echoed on this thread). The remarks stung because she does work and she produces good results because she keeps at it constantly (that is the nature of a garden and old house) and the clod who made the remarks clearly has no clue how much effort that takes.

My guess is that she could very well hold down a job outside the home, but the effort made to get her home and garden looking good in her free time would still be unimaginable to this uncle of hers, because what women do and the effort it takes is often invisible to and unappreciated by some other people. There are employers like that too.

if op were more efficient she would have more spare time.as many of the suggestions made attest.
and she isnt as if she is really busy she is stretching her tasks and day to do housework and fluff and fold

which the majority of us fit in after work or on day off

Op, you would have lots of spare time if only you organised it properly.

I can understand wherer the OP is coming from but I don't understand why all the chores take her so long. She obviously wants all the chores to fill her time. I work part time and fit most of my chores into one day a week. I spend every Tuesday at home and do about 3 hours of housework, put 3 or 4 washes on, change all the bedding and make a couple of meals for the freezer. Then the rest of the week I probably spend about 1 hour a day on housework and admin tasks. This means that even with me working part time I still have time to meet friends for coffee, go for long walks etc etc. WHy does it take some people so much time to do the washing? I am very organised and make sure that every night all the washing is in the laudary basket. It takes me about 2 mins to sort washing to go into the machine!

The Op says felt so frustrated and undervalued
with which I empathise and think that many of the posters here have in school exam terms 'Not read the question properly' and therefore deserve low marks for their efforts.

Fustrated - yes, because as we all know looking after home is never ending, it is routine and there is no clocking off time, you are on call and responsible all the time. And there is a nagging feeling that it can always be better/cleaner/tastier etc. a constant internal apprasial.

Undervalued - yes, and with little in the way of compensation. In every job there are elements you do because you have to, thats part of the job, in the world of work you get given money every hour to compensate. In good jobs you also get feedback, your customers might smile and say thankyou or they might moan but collegues and managers hopefully praise or at least join in the culture of shared hardship.

Don't be so hard, I've been on shift for six years now.

she also gave a descriptive of how she faffs about.which numerous have responded - why is it so time consuming for her. so no actually dont try misrepresent respondents posts or make out we all got wrong end of stick.

On call and responsible all the time when your kids are at school? No.

What a rosy picture of smiling colleagues and praising managers. Har.

As a SAHP I had many such comments. Most of them meant well and were only making conversation.

BUT I never had anyone ask my husband what HE did with all his extra time, as his wife wasn't in paid employment. It was nice (as the kids got older) he'd come back home to dinner organized, kids organized, house organized. I was no 50's housewife but, on the whole, we BOTH had our evenings and weekends pretty much clear.

Now I'm working he has to to join in with the household chores, that now happen in the evening and at weekends. Shop at the weekend, give the bathroom a good scrub, cook, think about if there's clean school uniform on a Sunday night. When we agreed I'd go back to work we had a few discussions about how his role would change, not only with regards to physical house hold tasks, but the thinking and planning.

It's always amused me that, as a SAHM, people seemed to freely give their opinions on how I spent my time. Without any consideration as to how it affected my husbands time

The only unreasonable part is the OP getting so upset about what the dipstick said to her that she cried in the car and felt like jumping off a cliff. An extreme and strange reaction to a totally irrelevant opinion.

I'd also make the point that all mothers are on call 24/7, not just SAHMs.

OP has long since disappeared though.

wow an hour to walk the dogs is a luxury! I have never not worked and never had an hour's lunch break in all my working life.
Can see how it would get your back up though, as not these mens business..

ie, to even have an hour's lunch break in a long working away from home day would be a luxury. It has never happened, in nearly 25 yrs of employment. You are lucky in a lot of ways..catching up on emails too.

I understand that the OP feels frustrated and undervalued. I agree that running a home and managing your DC's lives is sadly undervalued by society and that making an contribution economically is valued more highly. I guess it is because a lot of women manage to combine the two now and because running a home is much easier than it used to be with hoovers, washing machines, tumble driers, two cars per family, etc.

If the OP was confident about her role as a SAHM (with school aged children), I don't think she would have been at all upset by these comments. If she feels undervalued by her DH and DC, she needs to speak to them about it/ alter the way she behaves. I don't think the opinion of a dad or an Uncle without DC should be important to her.

blackbag- the role of caring for DC/ running a home is a 24/7 job for all mums/dads, not just SAHP and it isn't a job. I agree that it is relentless and often very dull.

Yes, the responsibility as a parent is 24 hours a day for eternity.

I find as a SAHM the reponsibility for the home becomes 24 hours and it is easy to allow the task to swell to fit that and members of the family also expect more.

When I do work outside the home I am focused by that task and that task alone. For 8/12 hours my arse belongs to who ever is paying me and my reponsibility lies to them. I accomplish what I am paid for and then at clocking off time they pay me and thats an end to it.

Being full time at home requires a different mind set for me. I have expanded the 'job' and taken on dditional reponsibilities that I would n't if I had another employer and I find that the employees at Family inc. heap additional tasks on me that were not on the original job description but are commerserate with grade.

blackbag: "I have expanded the 'job' and taken on dditional reponsibilities that I would n't if I had another employer and I find that the employees at Family inc. heap additional tasks on me that were not on the original job description but are commerserate with grade."

Why do it then? Why get taken advantage of. Why make yourself available to be taken advantage of? I see this in OP's post too, doing menial tasks her children are old enough take over.

That is what makes long term SAHM-ing thankless and invisible.

I have to admit I used to hate being a SAHM as I was used to being out at work and I flet very trapped and isolated.

If people asked me what I did for a living I was actually embarrassed to say I was a SAHM. That was my issue though, they never said anything to insinuate that my 'job' was lesser than paid employment.

I was very glad indeed to go back to work when my children were in school full time.

These days I wish I was back being a SAHM to be honest!

Blueshoes - because I am there. I take stuff to the Post Office, sort out FIL's strange shopping requests, take back the library books, because it's mean not to, I'm not going to make DH sort it out on Saturday morning so that I can lie on the chaise longue all week. I'm certainly training the DDs up.

DH has less domestic shit to wade through so we can spend the whole weekend surfing/camping/cycling/watching the Princess Bride.

When we both take on paid work, yes I get a lot more satisfaction and thanks from people outside the home but DH, DCs and the dog have to step up and life is different and there is less need for approval from within the home.

I'm reinforcing constantly the need to show gratitude within the family for all the people who take on tasks that benefit us but it's an uphill struggle. Human Resources have lots of tricks to make their employees feel 'valued', the domestic front can be a little more Victorian Workhouse in its labour relations.

BlackBag Full time, at home, it never ends, the tasks & projects are never finished. The feed back is generally lousey. You are constantly on call, even in the middle of the night, your advice and problem solving skills are called on continuely and require an instant response. There is no other job like it and would be considered inhumane if you drew it up as a job discription.

This is true of parenting, irrespective of whether or not you WOH as well. THe children of working parents do not co-operatively sleep all night every night and never get ill, for example. I am "on call" in the night as much as I would be if I didn't work.

My, my, my aren't we judgey and condescending about this OP's ability to manage her day's work. It's taking her too long to walk the dogs (but we don't know if she owns a pair of greyhounds or two little Yorkies do we?), she faffs about and stretches her tasks (we don't know how much of a garden she has or how much she needs to get done before it rains or snows or whatever), she fluffs and folds -- did she mention this or is it some deeply held contempt for SAHMs that compels some posters here to make stuff up about the OP?

It's taking her too long to walk the dogs (but we don't know if she owns a pair of greyhounds or two little Yorkies do we?)

Pretty sure one of them is a Westie :) the other could be a great dane though ...

My last post was basically saying that the grass is always greener on the other side. When I was a SAHM I wanted to be out at work, now I'm working I want to go back to being a SAHM.