To only want to look after my own children on strike day?

[emkana]

I'm a sahm. I know one of my wohm friends was hoping I would offer to have her two on strike day - they are already coming round for"after school" that day but I just can't face having them for the whole day. I know with just my three it will be a fun relaxing day but with five, four of them girls who don't want to include ds who is the youngest it would be no fun at all. Is that horrible of me?

"It's very admirable, but I'd go bonkers if I had to live to such high standards of always doing "the right thing" and never facotring in my own feelings or the shades of grey."

Of course you factor in the shades of grey. If for whatever reason, I really really didn't want to help someone I wouldn't. But if it was only a bit inconvenient then I would. And I wouldn't do the "what's in it for me" thing.

"seeker, I'll bite . When someone becomes a sahp it is at personal cost to their career and finances. The up side is not having to deal with child care issues. That benefit is lost if they then take on other people's child care issues. I don't consider that I owe wohp anything, because they are not paying me a salary or sharing the benefits that they personally accrue from working."

But we're not talking "childcare" here. We're talking one day.

For me it's a feminist issue.

yanbu
you should do what you want, unless of cause you will be paid for providing childcare.

Too right, karma. I have childcare sorted for wed, at quite high personal cost-as things stand thirty or forty grand a year for the last six years, minus work expenses like childcare, probably therapy for stress but plus cost to pension and future earnings. I'm not being sniffy about any of it, it was the right choice for us and we were lucky to afford it. But as to my obligations to others? I think it's not quite as simple as seeker makes out. Help out, yes, absolutely, when I can. As I said before, people have helped us when we made the choice to have a baby. But obliged? No.

Oh and dd is in school anyway forgot that while I was atop my high horse!

Of course you factor in the shades of grey I really really didn't want to help someone I wouldn't

Well like the OP then. Cos it is more than a little inconvience in her case and she is already helping out that day for the after school hours.

If I had a situation where children invited around here left my son feeling left out and me having to go the extra mile to compensate AND take care of a bevvy of others kids I'd help out in unforseeable crisis. Like somebody is as sick as a dog etc.

But not for a foreseeable event where I was already taking the disadvantages on the chin in the name of friendship for part of the day and other options were available.

Not that I blame the other mum for asking in a roundabout way.

I don't feel like either of the women in the equation are "in the wrong" or "out of order".

For me it's a feminist issue.

I don't get blue papered by the word feminist, I am one.

But by tying it up in such exclusively female terms aren't we rather aiding the concpet that it is a thing women, rather than parents, are obliged to sort out ?

And anyway I have regularly helped out a single father so to me it is more a people thing than feminist thing, cos my motivations and reactions where the same for him as they have been for anybody else.

Which is mainly the self interest of "gimme your kids, makes my life easier"

I have a horrible feeling I am "the morally repugnant one" on mumsnets given that I can't whiz up the same degree of selflessness behind my actions.

She's not being unreasonable to ask, you're not being unreasonable to say no.

Argh, posted too soon. It is only a feminist issue if you assume it is the woman's responsibility to sort it. In the case of the only couple that I know who are affected by the strike, the husband is sorting it.

I don't assume that it't the woman's responsibility to sort it. But in the real world it usually is. And I help out other women whenever I can. But I'm a hangover from the 70s and can still talk about The Sisterhood without irony.

As a SAHM, I would willingly help friends in need; if they needed childcare due to illness or a midnight run to Casualty with one child, I would not hesitate to take their other children. Likewise, I have been on call for a friend to look after her two in the event she went into labour with her third before her parents had time to arrive.

But there are emergencies and emergencies.

A teachers' strike with weeks of notice does not constitute an emergency of the same magnitude as a midnight dash to casualty with a febrile baby.

Parents who work need to realise that there are costs to each choice; as a SAHM my costs are to my career, long term prospects, salary etc. As a WOHM, their costs are the very occasional day of lost salary due to strike.

As a SAHM, there are very few benefits we are actually alowed to articulate. God forbid the naive SAHM who dares to mention on MN the benefit of seeing their children grow up, or the resulting closeness they feel to their children having spent every day with them. Just watch the bunfight and the mocking accusations of being "precious moments mamas". The one thing SAHMs can legitimately lay claim to is having holiday, strikes, Inset days, illness covered. But not anymore. According to this thread, they should also, in the name of community and feminism, offer to look after WOHMs children too.

Yeah, right.

I would be wary of offering to look after children that you believe will be difficult to manage on the 1st strike day. There are likely to be many more and you may be setting a prescedent.

Ripe berry as I'm definitely having them in the afternoon - it would be 10 hours altogether. Oldest girls too old for soft play really. If it was just her girls and my girls it would be great - they could amuse themselves doing craft/makeovers/ plays etc. But throw my ds into the mix and it's awful. He wants to join in with them but is clumsy and domineering and so ruins it for them. And he wont want me to distract him - girls and sisters far more interesting. And du to his sn he doesn't really have a proper friend either.

Very well put greythorne.

Yes greythorne, you said what I was thinking but put it in a much better way than I could!

What's the difference between being asked for help and being taken advantage of?

Receiving a phone call from the school, informing me that my neighbour's child was vomiting and that I'd need to collect him....because she'd put me down as an emergency contact number without asking me

I think sahms should do all they can to support wohms.

Why, though? I think people should try to help out friends where they can, but I would image that to someone who has given up a salary/pension in order to be there for their own child-the last thing they want is to feel they have to help out with the children of people who are still earning £x. I say this as a WOTH mum.

The person who said that you could offer to have them if she'd have yours for a Saturday in exchange was a brill idea, though it may not be appropriate for your DS.

OP-how are the children getting to you at 3pm?

Good post Greythorne (and I am a WOHM)

I don't think the OP is being unreasonable, I'm a WOHM (sort of, - have a DSS), all four of us, Mum, Dad, Me and Step dad are all working, I can't take the day off as already short in office due, Mum at a meeting she can't move, Dad same issue as me, and Step Dad self employed so can't afford to take the day at this time of the year. I have a fab neighbour who gives lifts to my DSS nearly every day to and from school (he's 13 so then lets himself in), however he's just not quite mature enough to spend the whole day alone, between us all we cover hols, by taking different times off, and on odd days neighbour (who has 3 DC - one my DSS age and friend) will keep an eye on him (he doesn't need to be watched all day, but just an adult around if needed), our neighbour has on occasion taken him out for fab days out (which we pay his share for ) but when I asked if she could do Weds, she apologised and said that she had plans with the younger two and wanted to spend the day doing family Xmas stuff, no worries from us, we massively appreciate everything she does for us anyway, and although more of a pain, he will be spending Tues Night with DGPs 40 miles away and then Weds Eve we will go and fetch him.
I hope my neighbour doesn't think I'm putting on her, and we do take her DS (friend of my DSS) on holiday for a week and when we have holidays in summer out for the day as well (and sometimes the younger ones as well) but I acknowledge that they help us far more than the other way around (we do lifts to football comps/training). I'm not offended that she won't have him at all, and will still get her an amazing bouquet of flowers for Xmas and some lovely wine, as a small thank-you for what she does!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, in the OP's case, she is expected to look after children who don't get along with her DS, to the point that they exclude him. Why on God's green earth would she put her son in that situation?

Erm, how many times have I seen it claimed on here that you cannot be a SAHM and a feminist? I cannot count the number of derogatory terms I have seen bandied about on here...and yet when wohms have it tough it is down to SAHMs to rescue them in the name of feminism?

Seeker: difference between helping someone and getting taken advantage of is as follows:

1. Helping = looking after someone's child whilst they do something necessary/urgent. eg work, take another child to hospital.

2. Taking advantage = having gone to work and now free to pick up child, person being helped chooses to go to the gym and leave their child with you for 1 or 2 hours longer than necessary/arranged, without even bothering to ask you.

The main feminist issue is why are women talking about this and not men. Just say - you sort it out. Let it be a men's issue.