to ask... what do SAHMs do all day?

[PoppyAmex]

I'm pregnant with my first child and was recently speaking to a friend about SAHMs and I mentioned I've been reading so many threads here about how some feel their work at home isn't valued by husbands / partners / people in general.

Following up on this conversation, my friend (a mum of 3) sent me the text below and I thought I'd share as I found it amusing. Maybe a good strategy for women complaining about the same problem?

"A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?' She again smiled and answered, 'You know how every day when you come home from work you ask me what in the world I do all day?' 'Yes,' was his incredulous reply. She answered, 'Well, today I didn't do it.'"

When i had 1 dc as a sahm i spent maybe an hour on housework a day ( would have been less if we had a washing machine almost all of that was hand washing clothes!) at that time i wasnt into anything like cooking or craft i am now most of the time i played with my daughter or just relaxed and enjoyed the time until dh got home from work tbh.
Now with 4 dc it is busier obviosly as i have alot more housework (although i now have a washing machine etc!) i spend maybe 2 hours a day on jobs sometimes a little more sometimes a little less. I play with my children and now i have various hohbies crafts and growing food and the like.

It would be ridiculous to suggest i spend my whole time run ragged with dc demanding 100% of my attention. I have to admit that now i am pregnant and on medicaion for blood pressure again i feel more tired and allt of tmes dh finishes work and packs me off to bed! It depends if you include temporary things like that in your day.

The whole reason i am home not working is to make life easier, if it were awful or really hard then i wouldnt have done it. I do plan to try and train to be a nurse when my chidren are older (im thinking junior school age i will only be early 30s then so will still have time for a career i hope!).

As for what sahms do well they do what working mums do at the weekends surely just times 7 days not 2

Good for you "fuckingwonderwoman" Give yourself a medal, everyone is very impressed.

Your friends sound like a bunch of wasters and they'd be a bunch of wasters if they worked.

My life is nothing like that, thank God!

LMAO At FWW's 'friends'. Dear, theya re alcoholics- at least borderline: most SAHMs are not this.

I've had 3 days in the apst 3 weeks without a sick child at home. What sane employer would want that?

Wonder Woman. You don't have that name for no reason. By 7.30 a.m whether I'm working or not working all I will have achieved is shower, dry hair, get dressed and wake up boys.

I don't really understand the point of comparisons like "SAHM is the hardest job in the world" or "SAHM is a piece of piss"

Everyone has completely different skills and different mentalities. You don't expect everyone to be equally good at sports or journalism or accountancy, so why is there an assumption that everyone is equally good, or natural, at SAHMing?

For me, the hardest job in the world would probably be something requiring me to draw - because I am rubbish at it. I would never be good at it and I would be miserable trying to be good at it. In terms of my actual job, I find a working day considerably easier than an average day looking after a 2 year-old - I find the normal day-to-day parts of my job fairly straightforward and I like being out and about all over the place on my own. When I am at home with a toddler, I find some parts of the day easyish - sometimes he will entertain himself for a reasonable block of time and let me get chores done, and he still occasionally takes a long nap when I can do whatever needs to be done, or sometimes what I want to do. I find other parts of the day (like the morning row over toothbrushing or the yes-no-yes-no arguments) very hard going.

DP would probably make a better SAHP than me - he is more focussed on whatever is going on right in front of him than I am, so if he was looking after DS he would be doing that 100% without getting distracted by the feeling that there was something else he should be doing, which is something I tend to do.

Maternity leave is looming and I have no idea how easy or hard I am going to find it - I think we have managed to get a reasonable set-up in place. I worked extra days in the run-up to save a bit so that DS can continue to have 2 days at nursery which he enjoys and which will give me some time with just the new baby. If the new baby is anything like DS as a baby then I would imagine those 2 days will be relatively easy - I found the early baby days much easier going than the current toddler years. Of course he may be a very high-needs baby and I mightt find the whole thing very difficult.

But all of that is just me - someone else might find exactly the opposite - that work is very taxing and being at home with a toddler is much easier, or that the baby months are harder than the later years. Someone else might find that they can focus better on child-related things. Someone else might be more efficient at household tasks. Some people might find it much harder than I do - they might have even less focus than I do, or miss work much more. It is impossible to generalise.

Working mums have it tough if they work with people who aren't understanding about time off for child related things. IME working ladies with children work hard at not letting it interfere with their work performance, and succeed.

I've only worked with one lady who took the piss, but she was a knob anyway! (Got pregnant and declared that the md "couldn't touch her because she was pregnant" )

Sweet FA today.

OP, all I can say is "just wait and see". You may thrive looking after your baby 24/7... or you may find some bits hard and other bits easy... or you may find it all a nightmare and want to start looking for a job. You just don't know.

But remember one thing, everyone's experiences of being a FT working parent, PT working parent or SAHP will be different.

For me personally I've been both FT worker (with child) and a SAHM and have enjoyed both experiences. Key to enjoying both experiences is that I have a DH who, despite working long City hours, considers household chores and parenting important enough jobs that he also partakes in. It means I've never been resentful.

As it happens I am a SAHM now to a DD who goes part time to nursery and will be FT in school next year. I love it because I can focus on DD when she's home (and organise her activities and social calendar!) but I can also work on a personal creative project when she's not at home.

As for housework, well a little and often (plus DH doing his share of it) means I don't spend all my "home time" cleaning. Life is too short.

I suggest wait and see, for you and also consider how YOU would like to spend your time.

These threads are always the same. Why do we bother having them?

You do what you have to do, and if you are fortunate enough to have a choice you do whichever suits you and your family best at the time. That's all there is to it.

Well everyone seems happy with their choice so who gives a shit?

And I'm proud of pushing my pram, its a Bugaboo plus my baby is unbelievably the most beautiful baby ever so nerrrrrr.

Now if you don't mind, I'm off to brew up and open a packet of foxes crunch... perk of the job.

'Perhaps people just need to be more honest -'if you stay at home it's probably because you enjoy it, not because it will make your children any 'better'!'

I think usually having a parent around at home (when I worked it was often DH at home with first DD but there was always one of us until she went to f/t nursery and she hated it-I felt guilty as she never settled) IS better for a very young child where possible and a parent wants/is able to do it. Many SAHP (mums or dads) do it because they believe it is better for the child and not them! Many make great sacrifices to do so. Some see it as a vocation not just a hobby they 'enjoy'. In my case, if we both worked we would both have to work Xmas day, the kids birthdays etc aswell as leave them overnight. I believe it is better to have a parent at home rather than no parent at home most the time. This is why many parents work around each other or cut their hours.

I think it depends on the individual family though. Some kids do love after school clubs and others hate it for example. Some kids don't mind being woken at 6-7am but others hate it. Some kids do great in full time childcare, some hate it. All kids grow up mostly OK.

I agree with Daveywarbeck.

Having been both a Sahm and a Wohm, I should be agreeing with all the pov on here but instead I just end up feeling pissed off.

Why do people care about what other people do? Just get on with your own lives and stop judging other peoples circumstances. It's dull and boring and makes me resent being a woman. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I have no idea what other SAHMs do all day, but I go back to work for a rest! I've just had a week off with the kids due to nanny sickness and I'm exhausted :o

I'm planting my fat bottom right in the middle of the fence, being a wohm has it's challenges, being a sahm has it'd differentchallenges. Both are bloody hard work!

Bloody well said!

Going back a couple of pages to comment on 'all parents put their children first'.

No, this is genuinely not the case. There are SAHPs who do not put their children first and there are also WOHPs who don't put their children first. It is an attitude of mind / world view thing, not something that splits along the 'at home / not at home' line.

My SIL and BIL do not put their children first. Both are WOHPs. The nanny looks after the children from 6-8 or 9 every weekday, and also comes with the family on holiday. SIL and BIL take exactly the same kind of holidays as they did when they had no children (they then complain about how their 3 children disturbed their enjoyment of the art of Venice or were inconsiderate enough not to enjoy a 36 hour continuous drive across Europe). They work exactly the same hours, and work always comes first. They live in a house and in an area that is whoolly unsuitable for children, and do not countenance moving. They expect their children to be in bed when they get home, and complain about the nanny if a child wakes in the night. Weekends they spend out with adult friends, and expect their children to come along too and 'be good', though they never provide any kind of plaything or entertainment for the children. It simply never occurs to them that their children might have any needs beyond the 'functional' ones of food and drink, or that their wishes or preferences should have any value.

Equally, I know children of SAHPs where the children spend days strapped in their pushchairs in front of the TV all day while the adults pay them no attention whatever. It's about values, not about employment status.

Jellybeans - and therein lies the problem! Some SAHMS just can't resist slipping in that little phrase that's it's 'better ' for children to have a parent at home. There is absolutely no clear cut non contradictory 'evidence' either way. So why not just accept that? If a family are happy to have one parent at home, and can support themselves then fine- no problem. But stop trying to claim it's 'better'. I don't claim that having a career makes me a 'better' mother with happier children. The positives are that it makes me' feel fulfilled and I enjoy it. So it would be nice if women who don't work didn't claim to be doing something 'better' either!

There are a whole generation of older teens and adult children now whose parents both worked - my kids included. My kids don't feel in any way disadvantaged by having working parents- on the contrary they actually feel quite proud.

'There is absolutely no clear cut non contradictory 'evidence' either way.'

If this is the case then it is is also why you have to make your own mind up coming to your own conclusion what is best for your family. I said 'I think' it is better from weighing up my own research and thoughts and experience (I have been a f/t WOHM). But this IS partly why I SAH-not simply for enjoyment alone-I find it harder than working in some ways. You don't believe it to be true so you are happy working, and that is absolutely fine and right for you. You have to look at the available evidence, or even your gut feeling, and then make your own choice, assuming you have a choice as many do not. But there is nothing wrong with saying or feeling you are SAH because you feel it is better for your child to be with a parent or conversley working as you think it is better for your kids. I know a few people who WOH as they believe it is better for their kids as they were bored at home. Doesn't offend me at all as I am happy deep down. I am glad they are doing what they want.

Jellybeans - you were commenting in your earlier post about what is 'generally best' for young children. None of us can extrapolate from our own experience and views what is 'generally' right. I don't claim it's 'best' for kids to have working parents. I don't see why anyone else would try to claim the opposite is 'best'' either .

Why can't we celebrate each other's choices instead of argue which is better? Everyone's different and what works for one family doesn't mean it works for the other.

Here's my day:

get up when DD gets up (average 6.30am)
get her dressed, get myself dressed.
get her breakfast
make sure there's lunch and dinner for her in the fridge.
DH gets up, takes over. Nanny arrives later.
no later than 7.50am, start my commute. I have 45 mins to get to my desk or the timing is out all day. No mean feat when I have to walk tube, tube, walk. I am 27 weeks pg and have wicked-bad SPD, not far off needing crutches now . Now doubt due in part to the commute.
Get to work
Work all day with sandwich at desk (this is my fault, I like MNing in my lunch hour )
Commute in reverse.
relieve nanny. Have to be home by 6pm at latest.
If I run late it costs me £10 an hour.
Play with DD for an hour or so.
Bath,
snuggly bedtime with books.
make supper for me and DH.
DH gets home, tidies up.
We watch 2 hours of shit TV while feeling guilty about everything.
collapse at about 10.30pm
DH is in charge of nighttime wakings thank god.

next morning: Do it all over again.

We used to do nursery instead of nanny and it was hellish. And if DH didn't pull his weight the flat would look like Armaggedon.

When no. 2 is born next year I will have to leave my job as my boss does not do flexible working hours and I can't see how the routine works with two.

And despite the fact I am exhausted and in constant pain I'm shitting myself because being a SAHM with 2 under 3 looks HARDER than what I'm doing now.

Can I have Jux's day please

I study, play with the DCs and occasionally clean. Although more often than not I can be found hiding from DCs in the kitchen drinking buckets of coffee

Fucks sake ladies, why are you buying into this shit by giving it brain space? Why all the posts justifying choices, and others whining about how hard it is from one point or another?

In the real world, no-one actually gives a shit whether you work or not. Make your choices and shut the fuck up, because it doesn't matter to anyone but you. No-one is better than the other, no-one has it intrinsically harder, and frankly, no-one gives a bollocks about how difficult your life is.

Suck it up and stop buying into whatever is the current "one lot of women against another arbitrary group of women"

I have 6 hours between school pick up and drop off.

I walk the dog - one and a half hours
I clean and tidy and get dinner ready - two hours, three if I cook a realty decent meal
I take an hour for lunch during which I make work calls
That leaves an hour or two.
There is always an errand to complete or DIY to be done. That takes care of the rest of my school hours.

Really - its no big deal.