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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

396 replies

PoppyAmex · 11/12/2011 16:39

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.'"

OP posts:
motherinferior · 11/12/2011 20:28

'At the end of the day most women who go out to work still have to come home in the evening do most of the domestics and put the children to bed. Men help and some men are superdads, but the reality is men and society still think domestic jobs and raising kids is a woman's job. '

Not in civilisation my house they don't. My partner does not 'help' - he lives here, in this house, with his children. Which involves doing the washing and pushing the hoover around and cooking meals, all of which he does. There's been this movement called feminism - maybe you've missed it? - which rather allocates domestic responsibility jointly.

And for the record I do an interesting, sparky job. (Mind you I am a journalist, which is considered lower than pond life in the strange alternative world of MN.)

callmemrs · 11/12/2011 20:30

Being a good parent is good for Children. Not whether you work or not Smile

MillyR · 11/12/2011 20:31

MI, yes, and most feminists are aware that most women are still doing most of the housework. Good for you if you have a partner who does his share of the housework, but not all women are married to such a person.

amicissima · 11/12/2011 20:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

callmemrs · 11/12/2011 20:32

Frankly a woman only has herself to blame if she chooses to partner someone who expects her to do all the domestic stuff. There is a choice here.

motherinferior · 11/12/2011 20:32

I am fully aware that most women are doing too much damn housework; what I take issue with is the idea that we somehow should accept and go with this, and that it should define women's choices about whether to work outside the house or not.

molly3478 · 11/12/2011 20:33

''At the end of the day most women who go out to work still have to come home in the evening do most of the domestics and put the children to bed. Men help and some men are superdads, but the reality is men and society still think domestic jobs and raising kids is a woman's job. '

no they dont and I think if you marry a man like this then you are an idiot.

MillyR · 11/12/2011 20:34

How would you suggest we resolve it, MI? We could do what Cuba has done and make it a criminal offence for men to not do housework.

Almostfifty · 11/12/2011 20:37

Do you know, I really don't care who thinks I'm a lazy cow for still being a SAHM after twenty years.

I have a spotless house. I have a nutritious meal on the table every night. I have a husband who (when here and not abroad or away on business) can come in the door every night to a cooked meal and not a frazzled wife.

Now my children are in their teens, I also have a 'working' life. I do a load of voluntary work. I help out at the local Children's Hospice, I help out in the local Primary and I'm a Scout Leader. All of which take time and effort, but are extremely enjoyable.

If there's a problem with my children, I'm easily available to go and pick them up. If, as happened a few years ago, one isn't able to get the school bus (cos of a broken leg) I'm able to do the running around.

Everything I do is to keep the home life and children on an even keel. I am there when they get home from school, their dinner is cooked, and they know I'm there if they need a lift anywhere. My husband works long hours and is not always around, so they have the stability of knowing that I'm always there.

If the price I have to pay is that I don't have my own money, or a 'career', then so what? I have the knowledge that what I do is valued by not only my children, but my husband, as he's extremely happy I gave up my extremely busy working life to bring our children up in a stable environment.

I wouldn't swap my life for anyone. I love my life.

helpmabob · 11/12/2011 20:37

The only way to reolve it is with time and education, the way er bring up our boys and girls and our expectations of them

AnnieLobeseder · 11/12/2011 20:38

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright - someone tried to post a little funny about SAHMs (even if it was an old one) and everyone leaps into a SAHM vs WOHM bunfight.

What fun! Hmm

MillyR · 11/12/2011 20:38

Another person then who is not a SAHM, but in fact has several volunteering positions.

callmemrs · 11/12/2011 20:43

I have a degree and professional training. So does my husband. When I met him we were both working and earning at a similar level. We shared housework, gardening, cooking, decorating. I wasn't magically better at doing the laundry simply because I'm a woman, and he wasn't automatically better at putting the bins out because he's a man. After a few years together we decided we wanted children. Yes WE decided WE wanted children. I didn't conceive independently of him! And after the Children were born, I didn't mysteriously become any less interested in my job or any less good at it. And neither did my dh mysteriously become any less good at cooking or housework.

Honestly, if mums end up doing all the domestic stuff it's their choice. No one is holding a gun to their head and forcing them.

I certainly don't look at my son and assume that his role in life will be to work every hour god made and never lift a finger in his home, neither do' I look at my daughter and assume that she'll have a lesser work life.

tralalala · 11/12/2011 20:43

I've done all combos going (ft, P t, student, SAHM) and being a SAHM with more than one child under school age is by far the hardest in terms of full on ness.

It is relentless, if you go back to work (as I did with no. 1) before they are a year you dont='t really get how full on a toddler is, esp if you have then a baby.

But with one baby it is basically great and easy, just go and make loads of mates with babies too.

helpmabob · 11/12/2011 20:48

It is not always easy with just one baby, it all depends on numerous factors. For some it is and for some it is not.

MillyR · 11/12/2011 20:50

Callmemrs, of course nobody is holding a gun to women's heads and making them do all the house work in a relationship. They can of course get divorced.

But anybody who has children after marriage cannot know for sure how much of the housework and childcare their partner is going to be prepared to do. The housework that has to be done after children is not the same as the amount there was before.

molly3478 · 11/12/2011 20:50

Depends tralala on what your use to me and my colleagues all agree thatbeing at home with 1 or 2 kids of your own is really easy as we are all used to working/childminding with loads of children at one time so it is seen as easy. It all depends what you have done before.

baskingseals · 11/12/2011 20:53

i don't think anybody is an idiot for marrying a man who doesn't want to do housework. Who can tell who will cope and who will buckle under the combined pressures of bringing up children and running a house?

One of the problems is how under valued housework itself is. It is vital to most people's well-being, but yet has a lowly status, when it is probably more important than a lot of careers. Finnancial reward does not always indicate value.

molepomandmistletoe · 11/12/2011 20:54

Answer?

They do all the things everyone else tried to cram in on a weekend/evening.

We all try our best, but there is no need to ask what they do everyday. It's none of your business. As long as they are happy and the kids are happy, then leave them alone.

It's hard enough.

Annpan88 · 11/12/2011 20:55

Um, I imagine SAHM's spend the day interacting with their children? I've returned to a part time job in a pub, so 4 evenings a week. I spend the day playing with my 9 month old son and fitting in other stuff (like cleaning)

I have never found being at home boring and if I could give up work to be with him I would. My dad always said 'only boring people get bored'

I write in the evenings I'm home when DS is asleep because I enjoy it.

callmemrs · 11/12/2011 20:57

MillyR- I find it odd if people don't discuss these things before having children! Blimey, having children is a JOINT thing, the biggest thing you can do as a couple. And usually, people don't take on a personality change when they have kids. If you partner a guy who sees his job as more important and expects you to do all the housework then its unlikely to change after having kids. Likewise if you partner a guy who takes your job as seriously as his, and doesn't feel emasculated by doing his share of housework then you'll probably find he's going to continue in the same vein post kids.

I for one am not raising my son and daughter to assume they ought to take on certain roles.

helpmabob · 11/12/2011 21:01

Actually I still cram everything else into weekend such as laundry etc as looking after small kids is astonishingly quite time-comsuming but piss easy of course Hmm.

Funnily enough Molly all the women I talk to think being back at work is easier. One I know has just been made redundant and she is finding being a sahm really hard work, her job was incredibly pressurised but she said easier than what she does now.

So as I said before everyone's experience is different and so one really cannot generalize about which is harder not that it should matter anyway. Why are we trying to win martyr of the year award?

GrownUpBelievesInSanta · 11/12/2011 21:04

I play facebook games and have naps.

SirSugar · 11/12/2011 21:05

An ad I once saw for Cosmo Mag springs to mind here; something like this....

She Has It All! A Career, Children, Style blah blah blah

Some wag had written on the bottom; Shes fucking knackered Grin

Circa 1980s

Almostfifty · 11/12/2011 21:07

MillyR when my children were small, I looked after them and the house and that was it.

Only when they went to school did I do anything else.

The beauty of doing voluntary work is that if you can't do it, it isn't a huge problem (or it isn't in the jobs I do).

My children come first. Always have, always will

I thoroughly enjoy the voluntary work I do, and I'm lucky in the extreme that we don't need me to work. The upshot is, if I ever did have to go back to work, I have kept up to date with office systems and would have excellent references if needed.