Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

to think that SAHPs are allowed to have bad days?

52 replies

QueenofKelsingra · 17/03/2014 11:05

Was chatting to a friend who told me she had had a bad day at work, was stressed out, deal wasn't going through as planned etc. i said, tell me about it, yesterday was a disaster, all 3DC seemed on a mission to drive me mad! Took and hour just to get everyone dressed and i didn't even dare go to the supermarket.

her response was 'well you chose to be at home with them'

well, yes i did (although childcare for 3 would make me working impossible anyway) but you chose to be an accountant. whats the difference? just because i chose to be a SAHP does that mean i cant have bad days and need to offload? do you think I'm actually that interested in the inner workings of your job? I'm a friend, so i listen, why cant you do the same for me?

this is not the first time someone has said this too me either.

AIBU to think SAHPs are allowed to moan about their 'day job' as much as anyone else??

OP posts:

BeverleyMoss · 17/03/2014 11:47

MrsRuffdiamond · 17/03/2014 11:48

I think you can have a bad day at home. But it's not a job. And I agree your day is under your control. Leave everything and go off to the park or get in the car. I don't think it can be compared with real work.

I'm assuming this is just to get a reaction! My skills are so well honed, I can spot attention seeking a mile off. Must be a result of spending so much time at home with my children!

Viviennemary · 17/03/2014 11:49

I am now having a bad day. Runs for cover.

TheGreatHunt · 17/03/2014 11:55

Well your op is a bit silly. Of course you're allowed to have bad days. This "friend" was being a tit.

BewitchedBotheredandBewildered · 17/03/2014 12:21

If I was a Housekeeper, Nanny or Domestic Cleaner for someone else, that would count as a "job" at which I "work".
Why does it not count as work if I do all three of those "jobs" for myself?

BlackeyedSusan · 17/03/2014 12:56

But your day is much more under your control if you are a SAHM -you control what you do and where you go and how you manage things.

ha has ha. so deluded!

I did not choose for the new fridge freezer to stop working wwithin a year. nor do I choose to have a christmas show at school thus winding ds up into terrible meltdowns, nor chose to catch various bugs and illnesses.

Clarabumps · 17/03/2014 13:07

ah I'd like a job! Your friend sounds like an arsehole. My sister says things like this.

"You're so lucky, you don't have to work" Errrrr....Not quite sitting on my arse watching Jeremy Kyle dear sister. I have 3 DC all under 6, one of which has ASD.

"At least if you have a shit day you can't be pulled up for it" No, I also can't go home, or talk to a colleague.

Next time just say "Did you mean that to be so fucking rude?"

IneedAwittierNickname · 17/03/2014 13:08

Part of the difference.for me between a bad day ay workand a bad day at home is psychological.
For example, my friend had a bad day at work recently, she called me that evening saying she had left the stress behind in the office and was chilling out with a wine.
When I have a bad day at home, psychologically I can't leave the stress 'at work' because it happened in the house.

I hope that makes sense

Gen35 · 17/03/2014 13:12

Also, work is only work, I have experience, procedures, with dc I'm always wondering whether I did the right thing and the buck always stops with me.

morethanpotatoprints · 17/03/2014 13:12

MrsRuff

I take it you are never done sahm if you think its not a job, its a bloody hard one when dc are little, I can remember it well.

MrsRuffdiamond · 17/03/2014 13:28

I think we have some crossed wires here, morethan. I was quoting from another post upthread - thats why I put it in italics . I was then passing comment on it.

Surely if you had got as far as the second paragraph of my post, all would have become clear? I think I am making the same point as you.

georgesdino · 17/03/2014 13:29

You are allowed to have bad days of course but some comments such as you can never have hot mral or hot drink or relax I would say if its like that then your doing it wrong.

morethanpotatoprints · 17/03/2014 13:46

MrsRuff

Apologies, I just noticed you were.
Trying to do too many thinks at once and wasn't concentrating

morethanpotatoprints · 17/03/2014 13:47

Things, I think I will give up

plantsitter · 17/03/2014 13:50

Sahping differs from a job in many ways such as having no formal grievance procedure to follow if those you work with have a tantrum at you. And you can't go and cry in the bog if the day is going really horribly, or at least not without clamouring company.

Georgina1975 · 17/03/2014 14:01

Yeah - of course you are allowed to have rubbish days and complain about it. It is a bloody hard (and largely thankless) task.

I have worked FT since my DC was 5 months old by the way.

Maybe she was having a bad time. People can say all sorts of crass and insensitive things without thinking. Just speak with her about it...

Babieseverywhere · 17/03/2014 14:05

oh, my goodness. I thought I had a bad week at home with four young children all ill with D&V.

Now I see the light, I should of 'Leave everything and go off to the park'

Mind you the dripping trail of poo and projectile vomiting might of been off putting to other park users, lol. :)

Luckily I have lovely friends, from supportive texts/calls to a bag of goodies including flowers and chocolates to cheer me up and she is a WOHM.

K8Middleton · 17/03/2014 14:06

Yanbu. It is work, of course it is. It is work for which you are not paid, get no time off and very little appreciation or recognition.

Everyone is entitled to have a bit of a moan from time to time about whatever is important to them. Relatively it will probably be trivial when compared with the suffering of those in Syria or who are waiting for news of the Malaysian Airlines flight that had disappeared but that doesn't matter. It's not a competition!

I've only ever had the "but you chose to have children" line trotted out to me by ultra privileged young women who don't have children. I always think "yes, I choose to have children, but I didn't choose never to have a minute's peace/a quarter of the study time you enjoy/no recovery time if I am ill/the endless washing/poo dramas/projectile vomit/uneaten meals/sibling rivalries/lack of sex life/never ending obligations/crushing sense of duty and responsibility/lack of money etc". What I say is "oh yes, you are so right. Honestly I don't know why I'm making such a fuss. It's not like if I fuck it up there are any serious consequences are there?! "

LumpySpacePrincessOhMyGlob · 17/03/2014 14:07

Viv - sooooo a childminder isn't doing real work then?

Bonsoir · 17/03/2014 14:08

Absolutely. Anyone can have a bad day and we all have one from time to time!

007licencetospill · 17/03/2014 14:09

I struggle with being a SAHM and being ill. I'm still on duty even at deaths door and chucking up unable to move.

K8Middleton · 17/03/2014 14:09

X-poster with babies and her dripping poo and projectile vomiting.
How unfortunate we should both have experienced this in what is really such a doddle?

I much prefer work to being a sahm. So does my dh.

MrsRuffdiamond · 17/03/2014 14:10

No problem morethan! Having been a SAHM, I know the full horror of a day spent multi-tasking!

dietcokeandwine · 17/03/2014 14:19

I will never to my dying day understand why people dismiss SAHP as 'not real work'. If looking after children is 'not a real job' then WTAF are nannies/childminders/nursery workers being paid for?

YANBU OP. Anyone can have a bad day. I have been a WOHP and currently a SAHP and you get lovely days and bloody flipping awful days whatever role you're doing.

Badvoc · 17/03/2014 14:25

Very very simple dietcoke!
Because it is down for no financial gain.
Simple.
Wasn't it Iain Duncan smith who said that sahps "contribute nothing to society"!?

Flip

1 2 3