to hate the term 'full time mother'?

[MammaTJ]

Seriously, this really gets my goat. I work. I have worked most of my childrens lives. I like the work I do and choose to work nights so I don't miss out on things like sports days etc, just miss out on sleep.
This does not make me a part time mother!! I never stop being a mum and putting my kids first for a second!
Also, their dad 'babysitting' while I work. Does that mean I babysit while he is at work?

I take issue with the suggestion that I'm not "mothering" when I'm at work. Parenting is about more than changing nappies, and providing for the children is an important part of that. I don't go to work for fun, I do it so that we all have a roof over our heads and food on the table. I don't think this makes me a part time parent.

OP, yanbu.

To clarify though, I don't mind anyone using any of these terms to apply to themselves, just didn't feel right for me. SAHM to me implies someone who has chosen to stay at home long term since their children were born which didn't really fit me, I was just having a year off work. I didn't say unemployed as I was not claiming benefits or actively seeking work (I did go back to work after 15 months though).

I honeslty didnt mean to caus offence, i just googled the meaning of unemployed and see it wasnt the right word to use.
Although i do resent the immediate assumption that im 'sahm' bashing.... my mum was a sahm, if i could afford it i would seriously consider it for myself too.

We cant really afford for me to be a sahm either but neither can we afford childcare for 3 dcs-cast la vie.

I was brought up by a single mother who had a horror of being seen as seen as a scrounger/benefits claimer-so she always worked. To the detriment of her relationship with her children imo. Not what I wanted for my kids.

Apologies if I misread the tone of your posts? but there were certainly some comments aimed to goad people but luckily they were from a poster whom I dont tske seriously.

Ishoes, where are the posts that bash SAHMs? Even scottishmummy has been reasonably measured, although she does of course have form...

I was a SAHM for 5 years. No bashing here.

The poster you are referring to is currently on another thread doing the exact same routine so I shall stick to my guns.

I dislike the term because it does imply that those of us who work (I work part time) do not parent.

Further it is inaccurate once the child starts going to nursery / preschool / school at 3 or 5. Once your child is at school - then surely you are a 'part time' mother too...?

Incidentally, I work school hours, term time only and I have school aged mother. I am with my children as much as any mother who stays at home - so am I a full time mother too (despite working 22 hours a week)? Or are mothers of school aged children only part time mothers...?

This illustrates why it is a nonsense term.

Where my husband work, they record SAHMs as 'Homemakers' which he doesn't like as he says that he contributes to making the home too, despite working full time.

OK, but saying this is a SAHM bashing thread is inaccurate.

So far.

It's still early...

I just think fulltime mother is silly as it just seems to play into the one upmanship that occurs on both sides of the sahm/wohm debate.

Funnily enough I don't hear men get het up about being or not being described as a fulltime father.

I dislike the term "full time mother" for a different reason. I do stop putting my children first for considerably more than a second. That is to say, I sometimes tell myself that on this particular occasion, for this particular reason, my needs, or dh's needs, or MIL's needs or somebody else's baby's needs take precedence because their need is actually greater and my children do not trump everything.

I am a mother but I am also a wife and a scholar and a woman in my own right, and its not a given that my role as a mother always comes first.

Even when I'm with them I do allow myself to think of other things.

Quite Cory - I think that's a very good point.

Well yes. It is half term, so I have the opportunity to mother my children. Yet I am instead being a part time mumsnetter.

Incidentally, I work school hours, term time only and I have school aged mother

I think it has its place. I tend to see it as a way for women to highlight the fact that looking after children is, actually, working. We've had centuries of pretence that only working-outside-the-home "counts" and is "real". That has hampered the development of a discourse of revaluation of predominantly female labor.

It is an inevitable irony that is it is only with the rise of women working outside the home that we have the development of a stronger discourse about women's work in the home.

There are significant differences between women's work in the home and women's work outside the home = abstract valuation of the labour (ie. wages/money); the ability to organise with others; the bestowal of a socially valued identity and more.

As for "babysitting" ... just don't get me started. That I cannot be bothered to even try for rational discussion of. The red mist descends and I wonder if I'll turn into Mad MAxine and start on non-liberal acts of extreme aggression and violence one day.

Cory - I really like your post. You've summed up precisely what I don't like about the term (despite it's potential strategic ability to highlight the reality of parenting/mothering as work).

So if I said I was a full time dentist, would you take offence at that because I don't do it 24 hours a day?

It's just a phrase, like so many other phrases. They might not bear literal scrutiny, but they work because they are understood. I work in paid employment full time outside the home and have no problem with 'full time mother'.

I can't think of any non-ridiculous alternative to describing it.

Meh, if you are out working to provide for your children, then you are doing your part as their parent anyway, so working is being a full time mum anyway. I know I never really manage to switch off from being a parent, even when I am sleeping.

At home parent or working parent makes sense to me, and I see no difference in their ability or involvement as a parent, just because we do it differently doesn't make us any better or worse, and it makes me wonder why so many people get caught up in some sort of one one-upmanship when it comes to the various aspects of parenting.

I don't work because I can't right now, but I wouldn't think I was a worse parent if I did. My children already spend their day at school, where I don't see them, but that doesn't make me any less parent, as I am doing things for them even while they are away, as I am sure I would be at work.

When I worked full time and was a mum, I disliked the term "full time mum" for the reasons you described. Now I'm a SAHM, I don't mind it so much .

But honestly, as a general rule, SAHMdom isn't viewed as a particularly high status role, so anything that bigs up our role is OK with me.

I don't know anybody who describes a dad looking after his own children as "babysitting". But when I did work full time, it irritated the life out of me when people asked if my DH "helps out" with the housework . Sorry, separate thread, really...

YABU

Until you come up with a better definition that is short, to the point and regognises that the mother is unemployed but is so because she has children at home.

I have worked, it never offended me. I took it to mean that for the time I was at work, someone else had taken over in loco parentis like happens at school.

Some people will work 39 hours per week and call that full time. You don't often hear people who work 60+ hours per week saying 'I work full time and then some' do you? It is just an expression which covers the fact you work out of the house for AT LEAST a certain number of hours, but does not take into consideration people who work much harder than you.

If your elderly mother had a carer who was paid to come in and care for her when you were at work/home with the DC, but you cared for her at weekends, would you describe yourself as a full time carer? No, because you are not doing it all the time. Just because you are not actually there does not mean you do not care, and you might be earning in order to pay for the carer, but that doesn't make you a 'full time carer'.

In RL I never hear these expressions - it's only on Mumsnet that people seem to get needlessly worked up over our 'titles' - and why do we all care so much?

Other people probably describe me as a lazy cow mare as I don't have paid employment and my DS is 11 - but do you know what, I really don't care . I don't feel the need to 'justify' how I spend my time.

S'funny, chippingin, I'm using a different nickname here so you won't know me but we've always agreed with each other

ragwort, Cabrinha and others who wonder why we bother to debate this shit:

1. It's mumsnet! It's this kind of intelligentish debate which differentiates this place from other parenting forums.

2. Words are important - they can affect thoughts and actions. Even if you never have cause to describe your role in day to day life, you'll certainly have to find a way of summing it up on a form at some point. The very fact that it's PITA to find the words which convey this sahm/full-time mother/whatever role reasonably accurately whilst not trampling the hell out of feminism suggests this is worth spending time thinking about, imo.

cory i do know what you mean re the term f/t mother inaccurately suggesting you never do anything else but I suppose that's true of any pursuit where you spend the majority of your time. When I'm at work I do stop at times to call the nursery to see how my DCs are, call DH, text friends, book appointments, mumsnet and facebook (Hell, it's amazing I actually get any work done ) but it's still accurate to say I'm a full-time zoo-keeper (or it would be if I was).

I guess the difference is the fact that society/we place so little value on mothering that to suggest we're a full-time mother is actually kinda reductive

I'm a SAHM, therefore a 'full time mum'. When I worked out of the home I was a full time time mum too. DH works out of the home, he is a full time Dad. The next person who sees me out without the DC's and asks me if DH is babysitting will get poked up the nose.

I do think some people need to make their minds up though.

On threads were there is a SAHM and her husband is considered as not doing enough to help with the housework, the majority of replies will be along the lines of "well you are at home with the children and THAT is your job so dont do any housework..."

oh dear, apostrophe alert: it's not a given

typo, honestly folks, I do know the rules of the apostrophe