to be totally fucked off with the antisahm comments on here?

[slackers]

Wtaf are you only a good role model to your DC if you are in paid employment?
Why does someone only be valid in society if they earn?
Why should I work only to pay someone else do a job to look after my DC? wtaf is the logic in that?
ffs

yabu
why let some people on a web site make you feel bad, ignore, there will always be some twat who talks about morals, but at the end of the day you do what suits your family

Also, there is a wild confusion about what a SAHM actually is, quite often. Women who work - yes, unpaid but work - as carers to disabled children and/or older parents point out, with considerable validity, that they have quite a lot to do. So do women who're studying. Arguably I could have called myself a SAHM when I freelanced, as I was physically based in the home.

So when there's a thread on 'what do SAHMs do' all the women who do actually work, from home, quite a lot, get under that heading.

Oh bless you, Xenia.

In a similar way, I get riled occasionally by the SAHM threads where people make statements like "How utterly sad that some people chose to ignore how good it is for children to have their mums around when they finish school".

While I realise this is Mums net, isn't it just as important for children to have their Dads around? But nobody bats an eyelid at the thought of Mummy home to look after the family while Daddy works 8-6. Presumably there are few families where both parents can afford to be at home (lone parents a separate topic about which I know very little, no offense intended to that group).

In the reversed situation (I work full time far too many hours but am there every morning before school and almost every evening before dinner/bath/bed, my husband is the sahp) I still feel annoyed by people passing judgement on my parenting choices - although aside from gender my situation is the same as theirs (one parent working, one parent at home). Just because it's the female parent working.

I do feel I miss out on things (like my son getting an award at sharing assembly last week) - but I don't feel that my children miss out just because the parent at home most of the time is their father.

I was brought up my nan. She was there when we got home from school. She gave us a pot noodle and put the TV on. We were only allowed the BBC though - none that ITV, Magpie, working class rubbish, so obviously we got A'levels and went to University. FFS.

I also think it's quite facile to say 'if criticising your work annoys you or makes you unhappy that just demonstrates how you are secretly aware of your unwomanly and unmotherly choices'. We live in a culture that tells us that proper women, real women, stay home with their children. If they do work, they do so only to pay the bills and are riven with guilt.

So if you do actually like your work and want to work and even - gasp - quite enjoy being able to pay for stuff that is not absolutely essential - you are breaching that code of Proper Womanliness and it if you are not always an entirely confident person about every possible action you could ever have done, you may find yourself occasionally feeling a bit rickety.

I honestly couldn't give a toss how other people live their lives, as long as it works for them and their families, I can't see why it matters. I work FT but don't use childcare. I have close friends whose kids go to breakfast club & after school club every day, and I have friends who are at home for their school aged kids. All of the children are happy and flourishing, and most of the mums are reasonably happy with the choices that they have made. I have loads in common with all of these women, and in RL, our SAHM/WOHM status doesn't matter a jot.

BUT I do get really irritated by the smug, superior comments I see on here from sahms like jellybean and graciefavour, who make stupid, ignorant assumptions about what motivates other women to work or how their kids are cared for. So I can quite see why sahms like the OP might get equally irritated by smug comments from WOHMs about people using their brains or contributing to society. FFS, people should just focus on what is best for their own families and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing!

It doesn't matter! My mother died when I was 4 years old. From before that point til I left home, it was a succession of different measures that worked at the time for those concerned. I STILL had a happy childhood. Sacrificing yourself on the altar of motherhood makes NO difference at the end of the day. It is not what you remember.

I think it is perfectly valid to think you have made the best decision for you and your family. What I cannot begin to understand - and never will understand - is when people then take it further and decide that therefore other people have made a lesser choice if they have chosen differently.

I can't decide if it is a lack of imagination or just ordinary stupidity. It is one or the other.

oh ease up on humphy face
counter side is precious moments,
never leave kids with strangers,
want to be there,
why have kids if you didnt want to watch em
the housewifes can flame too,arent a widdle got at group

mn sometimes articulates what people think but dont say in rl

Quite, Pagwatch.

I would like to be a SAHM full time.
I would like to be a WOHM full time.
For a variety of reasons, I can't be either so identify with everyone and hate you all .

I think it is perfectly valid to think you have made the best decision for you and your family. What I cannot begin to understand - and never will understand - is when people then take it further and decide that therefore other people have made a lesser choice if they have chosen differently

I suspect its Insecurity. Or Envy. Or both....

Don't get irritated. I guarantee you that the working mums who say 'I needed to use my brain' and ' I wanted to set a good example to my kids' AND the SAHMs who talk of 'palming kids off' and 'materialism' are feeling guilty and unsure of their own choice. That is why they feel the need to argue so hardly in favour of their own position - to convince themselves.

I'm happy being a sahm and can afford it. If I couldn't afford it or wasn't happy I (and my kids) would be better off with me working. Simple.

Why?

I wonder if this Code of Proper Womanliness is just confined on MN, as never in RL I've met people anguishing so much about the amount of hrs a day they spend with their offsprings.

I live in Italy now, the land of Bunga Bunga where women should know their place, but 98% of the women I know work full time, aren't ridden by guilt, and are actually bloody happy about what they do.

To whatmeworry that was...

what psychobabble rubbish you're sure someone else insecure and projects
wow! you learned that on diagnosis murder?

But thats the whole point...being happy about what you do

aibu to have read the title and nothing else and then waltz in here and say

I think its because as a sahm yo have too much time on your hands

no?

unhelpful?

Many of us will be or have been sahms and wohms. And can see how wildly inaccurate the shite spiteing from both sides is

Franca, I see the same thing in Belgium. They might take Wednesday's off to do the housework, and drive the dc to karate/dancing in the afternoon. I am thinking about doing the same thing! But no guilt. I have never heard ONE of my fellow female work colleagues say such a thing. The men get equal parental leave of course - at lots of them actually take it.

Not psychobabble just common sense to notice that people often put others down to make themselves feel better.

"However if you're riled it's probably b ecause you've realised you could do better by your children if you spent more time with them......

Works both ways,. Those of us truly happy with our choices neither feel that we'd serve our children better either way....

Nobody has the right to judge the lifestyles of others - whatever it's about. If people think they do then they're probably not worth getting angry about. They're everywhere - they have something to say when you're pregnant to and about your sexual preferences. Ignore.