to be puzzled when mums suggest they know what it's like to be a SAHM because they were once on mat leave?

[BarkWorseThanBite]

Two really nice mums - I like them both and we usually sit together at toddler group. However, more than a few times both have seemed to imply they know what's it like to be a SAHM because they took mat leave a couplel of years ago (till their babies were 9 months old).

Isn't that a bit like saying you know what's it like to be a single mum (I'm not) because your husband was away playing golf for a week?

Nothing against working mums at all - but the implication that they know what my life is like is a bit irritating.

AIBU?

Oh yawn, here we go... Another passive aggressive thread claiming to be started in all innocence.

Look: any parent who has spent time at home with babies/ young children, taking full responsibility for their care plus all the domestic chores knows what it is like to be a SAHP, and actually this includes men too, a fact which doesn't even come on to the OPs radar.

There is no minimum qualifying period. Besides, many parents take an extended period of maternity leave anyway nowadays.

The OP's agenda is really transparent... She's one of that minority who want us all to believe that being a SAHP is the most difficult thing in the world, that it can be isolating and challenging but hey, it's all done for the child's sake because dont ya know its so cruel to 'send them off to daycare'. The reality OP is that YOU want to be a SAHP ( which is fine, no problem) but you also want to convince us that you've made some enormous sacrifice to carry out this role, and that that puts you on some pedestal above us mere mortals who - shock horror!- combine parenting and raising our children with working.

Poor effort. Very transparent attempt to criticise working parents

And working for years before doesnt mean anything. A lot of people who quit work after children do so as they cant cope doing working and childcare.

Thank God I went back to work properly when my daughter was two. This sort of shrunken world, pettiness and anguish over non-existent distinctions is exactly what I had feared for myself.

Working parents are also raising their children. When I am not there my toddler DD is with her Dad (SAHP) or grandparents. Soon she will be going to nursery. Am I not raising her when I am not in the room? Who raises your children when you go to the toilet? You seem to want to bring other people down to justify your own choices. Try being a bit more happy in yourself. But keep in mind that if you claim any tax credits, subsidised playgroups, child benefit etc other people are working to support your choices.

CaptainSkinner How very rude! You'll be pleased to know my family isn't eligible for tax credits or child benefit, despite my husband paying significant amounts of tax. Incidentally, I probably paid more tax in the years I did work than a lot of people do in their entire working lives. There's really no need to be so rude.

I think you've misunderstood me. My dc are the key things in my life just as yours are to you. The difference being I didn't see I had to prove this by giving up a career and financial independence and don't have a dh who earns a high enough wage. We made different choices, yes, for different reasons but doesn't change our priorities but I believe I gained more from my choices, you don't and that's fine, who cares?
It does nothing to add evidence to your argument though about people who work not raising their dc.

heRealAmandaClarke Sat 15-Feb-14 09:04:42
someone using 8-6 daycare.... It's for the parent
What a bitchy, unfeeling, smug and judgemental comment to make.
Perfect trolling and I fell for it.

It's not bitchy or unfeeling at all - it's just common sense, isn't it? 3 year olds benefit from group play. Older children need to go to school to learn. 8 to 6 daycare is set up for the convenience of parents. Babies don't need it at all.

oP. you are better than us working mothers.
Well done on bagging a high wage earner and thanks for all the tax btw.

Now * and clean your oven.

Yes they do need it if their parents have to work.
The alternative would be to leave them unattended.
Fucking stupid thing to say.

maybe you need to understand why this would bother you so much

staying at home for 6 months, 9 months 1 year to look after your children is doing just that being at home with your children chosing to do that rather than returning to work straight away

Op, you've turned this thread into a wohm bashing one which I guess was your intent all along. No one is going to say you are a better parent because you have a high earning dh and chose to stop working. It's simply not true.

This goes to show that you did a high earning job and its easy compared to only having to cope with a couple of kids? I dont know why you got paid so much then!

Will you feel so smug should your dh leave you in 10 years?

And being a working mother doesn't mean that your DCs a not the most important thing in your life.

How spankingly rude!

Sorry if you felt that rude... I did say "if"!

Not nice to be criticised unfairly, eh?

Anyway, your husband works. So he is not raising his children. Does he know you think this? Why do you send your children to pre-school? Don't you think you could do better home with them, instead of them spending all that time with someone who only has a "commercial relationship" with them? I hope you are going to home school.

Wrt the statement that someone putting a 10 month old in 8-6 childcare doing it solely for their own benefit, I think you may find that the baby benefits from having a roof over its head. Living in poverty creates far worse outcomes for children than going to nursery and if a family depends on the mother's wage to survive, what exactly is she supposed to do?

Also, I don't have a purely 'commercial relationship' with my childminder. I got to know her before entrusting her with my son and she genuinely loves and cares for him. The fact that he has another affectionate and loving adult in his life two days a week (I work pt) is a good thing.

A huge number of working parents also rely on grandparents for childcare and I don't think you could call that a commercial relationship either!

A professional woman makes many important decisions in her life, one of the most significant being the decision to have children in the first place. Long term I don't know what my career will be - I definitely won't stay in teaching. Not many people have a 'career for life' nowadays so to some extent, that uncertainty about the future is present in all our lives, not just that of a SAHM.

There is an unpleasant edge of moral superiority in your posts, OP. I certainly dislike the term 'quality time' when used to imply that a working parent's time with their children is not of good quality. My dh works ft so makes sure his time with our toddler at evenings and weekends is of very high quality and spent interacting, playing, developing and enjoying.

A lot of people have no choice about working, it's very unfair to judge their parenting negatively on this. A comparison to upper class families of the past employing wet nurses us totally irrelevant and not at all equivalent to the experience of modern day parents who work - that comment was perhaps the most bizarre of the thread.

Agree Hercules. The OP and I have a similar set-up (except I work and DP is a SAHD). So I am not bashing her choices. Just the judgemental attitude!

Hercules is spot on.

It's not working or being at home which defines how 'good' a parent is. You can be a brilliant working parent or a brilliant SAHP, or a rubbish working parent or a rubbish SAHP. God knows, there are plenty of neglected ( and I'm talking emotionally and physically) kids in homes where there is a parent or even both parents around all day..

The point is: the vast majority of parents, ie the ones who aren't neglectful or abusive or inadequate, put their children first. They prioritise their children over everything else, but don't need to 'prove ' this by giving up work.

If it were the case that children of working parents grew up to be emotionally scarred, unable to form positive relationship, less likely to do well educationally or in the workplace, then there would be evidence that having a working parent is harmful. But there isn't.

And before anyone starts citing biddulph, or such crap: for every view which claims to show that childcare is 'bad' , there is another view which shows the opposite!

Working mums have been around a while now as the norm. My colleagues in their fifties who worked while their kids were tiny- those kids are now adults with their own successful careers and lives

Which is perhaps the nub of the issue for the OP. If she feels that she's making some huge sacrifice by being a SAHM she's perhaps looking for some payback by wanting her own children to do better at school, get better jobs or have closer relationships with her when they are older , than the children of working mums. She stands to be very disappointed if this is her agenda. Stay at home if you want to, because its your preferred choice, and that should be 'pay back' enough. Your children will be fine either way, if they have loving supportive parents

oh it seems I have inadvertently made a proactive choice not to raise my own children by mistake. And there I was thinking I was going to work out of financial necessity

I'm among those wondering at what point you get to call yourself a "proper" SAHM. Some women take a year off work, some two or three years, some until their DC start school, some when they go to secondary, some when their DC leave home. The thing is, very few women plan to give up work forever. So come on, bark, how many years do you have to intend to be financially dependent before you get a "real SAHM" badge and can claim you truly understand?

I think as long as you are happy with your choices Hercules that is the important thing - I was really meaning it must be good to look back on your choices from the vantage point of your children being through early childhood - still another decade away for me! - and think you made the right choices. That must be very satisfying.

Anyway, interesting discussion. I think reading through all the replies I suspect I am a bit of guilty of seeing giving up work as a momentous choice - I hadn't really been thinking of parents who are able to combine work and home more innovatively. The sort of work I did before was long office type hours - if I'd gone back, I would have been doing 8 to 6 and then some, most working days, and it would have drifted into the weekends too. I sort of knew I didn't want to do that. I also knew that by leaving that sort of work even for 2 or 3 years, I was severely limiting my chance of getting back in at my level.

Most of the mummy-friends I know who do work has similar type work and are mostly working 4 or 5 full days, with DCs in daycare 8am to 6pm or even 730 to 6pm. I do apologise for not fully taking on board that not everyone does that.

On that note, I am going to bow out and go and make waffles for the masses. Have a good day everyone.

I'm having a lie-in at the moment whilst dh raises my kids downstairs

I really agree with CrispyFB about the psychological difference between taking a break from working and deciding to be at home long term. You have very different challenges on a personal level, different worries, and different strengths.

I also think there is an absolutely massive difference between having one child or baby, and having three or more of assorted ages.

Also an astonishingly enormous difference between having preteens and teens (my friend is a teen/has a teen doesn't count).

It can be annoying when people think they understand something based on their (not completely parallel) experience, and therefore don't REALLY hear what you are saying. This kind of empathy can be comforting if the person is highly sensitive and perceptive, or it can make you feel very alone and misunderstood.

The worst example of this kind of selfish non-empathic empathy was my friend who thought she understood how I felt when my beloved brother died, based on the fact that her boyfriend had recently dumped her.

I work part time so am clearly better than all of you.

Oh you poor disillusioned woman!

Everybody should know I am the only one worth emulating! Ahem...right.