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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think children don't really care about 'work ethics' and would prefer to have a SAHP?

607 replies

Mingnion · 20/11/2013 23:13

Well aware I'm probably going to get mightily flamed for this but here goes...

I have a 6.5 year old and an 18 month old. My husband that supported us sadly died last year and I plan to stay at home and on benefits until my youngest is at school. I have a degree from Cambridge and will put in what I take out a hundred times over in the future no doubt. We do not have a lavish lifestyle but my children are adequately fed, dressed and are very happy which is more important IMO. Six months ago I found a part-time job and the impact on my children was massive. They were miserable at having to go to nursery and after school clubs and I was miserable as I missed them. Now they are inexplicably happy. I know it is a common opinion that single parents must work so as to teach their children about work ethics but realistically, do you really think children will care? I'd say most children would much rather have a SAHP and in retrospect I'd have preferred my mum to have been home so her work ethics obviously didn't rub off on me. AIBU to think this way and plan to stay at home with my children until my youngest is school age?

OP posts:
fancyanotherfez · 21/11/2013 18:44

Being a SAHP isn't a free choice though. It depends on working parents (who's children in your opinion, are miserable and damaged in childcare), either the working parent, or working parents in general paying taxes (or in some cases, both). Your choice is only made possible as a result of other peoples choices. If all families had SAHP's, the tax take would be much, much smaller, resulting in a cut in benefits for people who choose to stay at home. The only people who would be able to afford to do it would be those who had rich partners willing to support them. Which would not include you.

mumofbeautys · 21/11/2013 18:46

group hug anyone ???? ... no didn't think so :/

FetchezLaVache · 21/11/2013 18:47

Yes, TTM, and also her slating of WOHMs.

Funny really that someone with a Cambridge degree would extrapolate that what is right for one family in a very unusual set of circumstances must also be right for all other families across the board, though, innit?

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 18:48

Was it you who called her a scrounger? Thats pretty vile if you ask me, and if that isn't a personal attack i don't know what is. Its not about your opinion, its about being articulate it without stooping to low insults. The OPs children need her at home, just as my DD2 does, my DD1 didn't, so i worked full time.

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 18:49

THE OP DID NOT CHOOSE FOR HER FUCKING HUSBAND TO DIE! lifestyle choice? Fuck off!

mumandboys123 · 21/11/2013 18:49

no, mumofbeauty the OP's situation to children who's father walks out never to be seen again. You don't think children in those circumstances need to adjust? are clingy, upset and distressed? confused? you don't think they need their one remaining parent at home with them just the same as a child whose parent has died? Yet we say that single parents should work and if they don't, they're 'scoungers' or no good and their children are at risk of all sorts. The OP is a single parent - how she got there may be different and incredibly sad - if she needs to not work and support her children then those of us who have a partner walk out also have to come to terms with what has happened, need to adjust and support our equally confused and upset children, surely?

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 18:52

I think those children need just as much support, yes.

mumofbeautys · 21/11/2013 18:53

yh mumandboys I agree that's its the same thing.. I was just confused whether I was in the wrong there.

HappyMummyOfOne · 21/11/2013 18:55

Her child is at school for 6 hours a day and the youngest is a toddler. There are thirty hours a week she could work in and still be there after school.

However, she chooses not to and prefers other workers to fund that choice. The very workers she is slating yet without them she would not have food or shelter for her children. Everything they need any extras are paid for by others. Proud to have a posh degree but not to use it to feed the family.

The welfare state was not intended for able bodied people to opt out of working.

mumandboys123 · 21/11/2013 18:57

No, LEM, and thousands of women out there didn't choose to be single parents but circumstances forced it upon them. But they are hounded by anyone and everyone, called all sorts (and I could write a book on it, believe me, most of it would make any normal person's hair curl) and few people give a second thought to judge them as anything other than 'benefit scrounging scum'. Yet a widow, who is perfectly capable of working and who has given no other reason for making a choice to live on benefits for at least 3 1/2 years as being she thinks she should because she has a degree from Cambridge so she'll eventually pay it all back is OK to look down on and judge all those women out there (single or otherwise) who consider their circumstances to be such that they have no other choice but to work, is behaving reasonably and within accepted norms?

Nope. I don't buy it.

Takingthemickey · 21/11/2013 18:57

LEM no one is questioning OP's need to support her kids rather her views on other people i.e other claimants and working parents.

If she is allowed to have an opinion on other people's circumstances, well she is big enough to hear other people's views too.

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 19:00

The youngest is a toddler!! err, what do you suppose she does with it then? Take it to work with her? She also has to GET to work so take five hours off a week then. How many jobs are there that fit in with school hours? they are like hens teeth and then there's the holiday.

i cannot believe the lack of compassion on this thread, its really saddening :(

Retropear · 21/11/2013 19:01

No the welfare state wasn't setup as a savings plan for hard times but neither was it set up to prop up people's salaries or to pay for their childcare.

Love the way some people will happily take from the state for what they want but begrudge anybody else.

Hypocrisy.

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 19:02

I don't understand your problem mummyto - you are right, single parents should definately not be villified for their choices. I doubt they have that many!

Takingthemickey · 21/11/2013 19:06

LEM is that directed to me? I have no problem with OP claiming, maybe you should ask her whether others not as educated as her deserve to claim too.

As an aside I did work as a single mother while my child was a baby. However that does not mean I question others whose personal circs do not allow them to do so.

HappyMummyOfOne · 21/11/2013 19:07

LEM, use childcare like most of the working mothers that are funding her choice are? If she works in three years time she would need it anyway.

The OP says she missed them so gave up work, yet doesnt home school so quite happy to be without one of them for most of the daytime.

School hour jobs are rare but that doesnt give people the right to quit work until the job of their dreams gets handed to them on a plate.

mumofbeautys · 21/11/2013 19:12

to be fair it isn't impossible for a single mum to work ,, not saying she doesn't have a choice of not working but it isn't a case of there being no alternative if they wanted it.

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 19:16

Her children have lost their father, if you cannot see that they need their mum at home, then i really don't know what to think!

I honestly thought that i would have returned to work by now, dd is 8, but she is quite young for her age is starting to look like she may have some additional needs and the times i have worked haven't worked out. I hope to return to work one day, but right now, my DD needs me to be at the school gate to pick her up, she needs me home in the holidays and that is how it is. My DD1 didn't need me so much, i worked full-time and then some, i was very lucky that my parents did the childcare so she was able to stay with folks who loved her and there was no stress re childcare but she would have happily fitted into a childcare setting im sure. DD2, not so much. They are so very different. I would love to go back to work now, but its not right for my DD at the moment.

If you thnk the OP thinks she is more entitled because of her degree then you have misread her OP. She said that to avoid just the flaming that she is getting for being a "scrounging single mum". C'mon guys, have some empathy/

LEMisafucker · 21/11/2013 19:18

mumofbeautys, no its not impossible, i worked full time++ when i was a single mum. But its not right for the OPs children just now. Her point was that women should not feel compelled to return to work for some sort of "work ethic" , it is a very different argument than one of "needs must" I'm surprised people didn't pick that up. There is plenty of time to "work ethic" as the children grow.

janey68 · 21/11/2013 19:21

LEM - are you also defending the OPs nasty judgement that the children of WOHP would prefer to have a SAHP? Because I think that's a bloody awful thing to say. It's a total generalisation and shows a complete inability to get her head around the fact that other people may be doing things differently but that their children are equally happy and well adjusted

LCHammer · 21/11/2013 19:23

LEM so are you saying that the OP knows that working would be the moral thing to do but her circs are such that morality can be forgotten for the time being. I don't know what other point you're trying to make with the appeal to empathy - of which there's been plenty. Quite one-way so far.

mumofbeautys · 21/11/2013 19:24

I was going to say my daughters are well adjusted without a stahm until this happned

" mum I done a shit "
" noo you did a poo "
" but it means the same thing so why is shit bad but poo isn't it wasn't like I was calling you a shit "
" but shits a bad word "
but why " so if I called you a poo that's ok "

obviously not as well adjusted as a thought loool

caroldecker · 21/11/2013 19:24

OP - YANBU for stealing from other single mothers

TantrumsAndBalloons · 21/11/2013 19:26

I think everyone needs to calm down and breathe.

The OP has made the best decision for her family in her opinion.
I have a lot of respect for anyone with a degree tbh as I am currently 4 months into the degree I started when I was 19 and stopped because I was pregnant with dd.
A degree from Cambridge is, I think, something to be proud of.
Being a single parent, coping with the death of a partner and doing your best to help your DCs through that is, I would imagine, heartbreakingly difficult.

The benefits system exists for this very reason. It's to help families. If the OP thinks it's in her best interest to utilize this whilst she is able to, then that is her choice. None of us can tell her it's the wrong thing to do, and tbh I don't think it's anyone's business, if the state allows her x amount of money to support her family while she is dealing with this situation, it is actually nothing to do with anyone else.

I hate the way this turns into horrible things being said, like "scrounging". It's childish and unnecessary.

I do not appreciate the ops suggestions about SAHP vs WOHP, only because I believe that it's a personal choice based on individual circumstances.
I don't like the insinuation that all DCs want a SAHP and all DCs are miserable in childcare, maybe because my experience has been completley different to the ops.

But you can disagree with an opinion without trashing someone's life. Without saying they are stupid and entitled and scrounging and all the other nasty things that was said.

Why can't the OP get a good job with her degree?

Even if she doesn't, it isn't nice to take the piss out of something that is actually a major achievement to be proud of. Id be proud if I had an Oxbridge degree, and yes, I would expect that I would be successful in gaining a job with it.

LCHammer · 21/11/2013 19:27

What other dispensations from 'ethics' shall we give for the time being? The ethics if being kind and generous to other people, strangers on the 'net, some of whom may be teaching your children, paying for healthcare etc. I think there'd have been more empathy if the AIBU posting wasn't setting out to get a reaction.