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?

Ah, us working mums are just cruel yknow

Nice stealth boasting OP planting, baking bread.

These threads are pathetic there is no one size fits all solution to parenting every family is different.

I think maternity leave does give an insight to what it is like being at home with kids some women who were planning to stay home end up going back to work and vice versa.

Why the fuck does it matter what anyone else does we all love our kids and want the best for them whether we work or stay home.

OP I think you have been deliberately inflammatory from the start.
It's really not in the spirit of the boards.

Whoneedssleep- note that she also dropped in a Waitrose reference too! And her children went on a breastfeeding journey! Oh dearie me...

I sicked too.
I started feeling sick with the baking bread, planting and waitrose. 'Bf journey' though, bleeuurrghhh.

I didn't put my 3 and 4 month old into the workplace...

Why shouldn't they earn their keep?

Hope dc slip a few treats for mummy in the trolley....great wine selection in Waitrose....

I should have a few.

Bloody hell - when did breastfeeding become a journey. What a load of bollocks (I say this as a working parent with three children who never had any formula).

You really are clutching at straws OP.

It doesn't matter, it really doesn't. In 15 years time when your children have grown up, they will not remember the toddler years or care. Will you? And will you be happy with the choices you have made?

Not sure how baking becomes a stealth boast

Will let Mary Berry know post haste

Bloody hell walter formula? Working? Next there'll be people admitting to having epidurals and dressing their daughters in pink occasionally. Shh...

Lol at waitrose....... I'm a single 22 yr old mum who lives in a council estate and claims benefits and I shop in waitrose :) actually the shop I shop in most !

P.s of course they have a insight and completely diff from lone parent example

Next there'll be people admitting to having epidurals and dressing their daughters in pink occasionally. Shh...

Er...oops!

The OP is very timely with her hit and runs. There is also the uncanny knack of not answering questions which have been asked repeatedly throughout the thread.

BarkWorseThanBite Sat 15-Feb-14 20:17:48
therealamandaclarke SAHMs involve their children in their "work" all the time, I think. If I am baking bread, LOs will definitely join in... if I am out in the garden planting they will want to help.. if I am in Waitrose they will want to put things in the trolley...

I do all of that and more most days/weeks and manage to hold down a full time career. Yes it would be easier without the job and I might shop online less but my children are not being raised in a vacuum just because I work .

I'm not even sure why that post was addressed to me.
It certainly didn't answer any of the points I had previously raised.

My DD1 and I bake bread together most weekends, the poor kid gets dragged round Waitrose by DH at least once a week, and whilst we aren't gardeners she's around where we do the bare minimum upkeep and 'helps' my MIL in the garden all the time.

Really strange examples as weekend activities for many families I would imagine and all things done by all parents regardless of whether they work or not!

But yes. Doesn't everyone try to involve their DCs in day to day life?
I am allowed out of work occasionally.

I must win now because we have a small holding and on a daily basis my children muck out horses, feed lambs and pigs, collect eggs as well as tend to fruit and veg.

No one has actually yet said what it is that sahms do that wohms don't! I am desperate to know what I've forgotten to do these last 15 years and wondering if I can still do them now. I was a sahm with ds for 3 years and sat in many a church hall at dull baby groups- is that it?

If I am baking in the kitchen, I am usually alone. That's because the DCs have started all enthusiastic and then they buggered off when they struggled with the mixing because the butter was too hard as they didn't understand I wasn't just trying to fob them off.

If I am planting in the garden, the DCs may not be nearby. That's because they've picked up a few carrots and are snickering at who'se got the weirdest shape.

If I'm in Waitrose, I'm alone. That's because it's late but the oldest DC had just remembered he needs something for food technology tomorrow.

Do you know what the difference between us is at this stage, OP? Not whom vs SAHM bollocks. The fact that mine are older. They move on.

No one has actually yet said what it is that sahms do that wohms don't!

Is it worry about their future?

Except they only go to waitrose if it's with DH.
I always shop in Lidl.
Sometimes I treat myself to a child free supermarket spree on my way home from work.
I mean, a girl's gotta have some luxuries.

Procrastinating Sat 15-Feb-14 20:53:15
No one has actually yet said what it is that sahms do that wohms don't!

Is it worry about their future?

I think that is unfair, if I was a SAHM I would not spend my time worrying about the future.

Procrastinating unfair and uncalled for.

Mmm. Yes.
But funny.