to think working parents don't 'do all the things SAHPs do plus work'?

[Sampanther]

I've heard this response an awful lot, particularly to that awful 'being a SAHM is the hardest job in the world' advert. I have worked outside the home and been a SAHM and I do not feel that working meant I did all the parenting plus work on top. For example, as a SAHM parent I'd deal with squabbling, tantrums, discipline, naps, take them to parks/soft play etc and help them to play nicely with other children, cook with them, do painting and play doh and so on.

As a working parent I had an hour of getting them ready in the morning, dropped them off at childcare, then an hour of winding them down and putting them to bed at night. I could eat and go to the toilet in peace during the day, the house was tidy and needed little cleaning as we were rarely in it and I had very little to do with discipline etc.

I'm not trying to say working parents don't parent, because obviously they do but AIBU to think parents who work fulltime don't 'work and do all the parenting as well'? I don't get why working mums respond that way and think they're right but if a working husband came home and said to his stay at home wife that he does just as much parenting as her then I'm sure mumsnet would not agree.

Thanks shew and potato; that is exactly what I meant

I have to agree that the 'some people do what is best for the children' comment is awful.

It would indeed be bluebell, had I said it.

I didn't.

15.02.36

"some people's starting point is what is best for the dc, and they fit everything else around that for 4 or 5 years"

Apologies if I'm not word perfect, haven't worked out how to c and p on my iPad.

Fid I would like to think you weren't being patronising and just worded things poorly but as its over quite a few posts and you're obviously a very educated woman, I'm not convinced.

Yes. Starting point.

Much easier if you can afford to start from that one point and work through the options.

If, on the other hand you are starting from "I earn £2k net PCM, DH earns £2k PCM but the mortgage payment is £1800 per calendar month and the building society won't let us go interest only. Our savings are small. I'm not sure FT childcare will work well for baby DS, for x, y, z reason. We have no family locally; how on earth do we square that circle?" it is far more challenging.

Or if there are other immovable considerations.

How many people truly get to start from DCs personal needs and work forward in a linear fashion now? I'm not sure I would have that 'luxury' this time if I had another. The sums just wouldn't woek.

If I didn't work we'd be homeless, I wouldn't be able to put food on the table or keep dds in clothes. I happen to think that situation would not be good for dds. I'm really sorry you think I don't try and put them first fid. I can assure you I don't work for fun I hate my current job so much it makes me miserable bordering on suicidal. If our financial situation allowed me to quit I would.

Having read Fids posts and understood her stance on the subject, I really don't mean she meant what she said in any other way than described above.

I even agreed that you can't always do what is best for the children because of your health, financial situation or other variable.

If I had thought it better/best for my dc for me to have worked, many years ago I still couldn't have chosen to because it wasn't practical or possible at times.

But by the same token, none of us can say of any SAHM that she's an idiot to 'be an economic dependent', that she'll wreck her career and get depressed. We can't possibly know the full financial, work, medical, familial and psychological variables of her situation.

Not what I said at all useless. Not remotely.

I even agreed that you can't always do what is best for the children because of your health...

Exactly potato been there too.

Useless If i am lucky enough to get my 'just one more' I will have to work too. I have no idea if that will be a problem or not, as I haven't met the child concerned yet. It does piss me off that I won't have the choice.

In an ideal world, everyone would have a free choice and all choices would be fully respected.

But when have we ever had an ideal world?

Fid I would like to think you weren't being patronising and just worded things poorly

MNing in the kitchen, PILs in the living room Rhonda . I'll try to slow down a bit.

Most if us do have our children's best interests at heart. This has to be balanced with our own personal needs. It is rarely either/or.

For some that will be wohp, for some it will be sahp. Some of us will actually have a choice in what we decide, some of us won't. Obviously it is better to have an actual choice in the matter.

As fid has often said, each to their own. Most children will be fine whichever route you go down.

(In my defensive, they are very repetitive, and this thread is interesting and I am heating things in cooker)

Having read her posts carefully, I don't think fid was being patronising or unpleasant, but I do think it was an unfortunate choice of wording.

Virtually every parent out there is trying their best. We have our children, we adore our children beyond measure, and we work really hard to raise them to become happy, well adjusted adults. After all, what is the purpose of life, if not for that? Our children aren't possessions, they don't belong to us, and they may grow up to have very different personalities, interests and aspirations to our own.

The more I see this debate, the more it makes me think how daft it is that women can tie themselves in knots like this, while men rarely do, yet many of us adore our dads, have close and loving relationships with them (at least as much as with our mums) and don't ever questions whether they had one day, one week, one year or ten years off work after we were born!!

I am not sure your explanation makes it better, though, because it implies that somewhere people lose sight of what is best for DC, whereas in reality what happens is many, many women work themselves into the ground trying to square that circle, still trying to do the best for DC in the circs they have got.

to take your example, as a single parent, I need to pay my mortgage, DC2 did not settle at nursery, I have no support, he was still bf through the night etc. That is the circle I had to square and at no time did I lose sight of what was in DC best interests. That is the point. Most of us work with DC best interest all the time, if it means less money, or no sleep, or literally no bed as you can't afford the space and give DC bedrooms, whatever. It is not competitive to point that out, simply to say that when people are really putting their all into trying to make things okay, with the hand they have been dealt, DC best interests is not their starting point, it is their middle, through,under,over and end point. It just looks different to your 'best for DC.

Many people are confident enough in what they do to get on with it and take no notice of badly phrased comments. But I know when I was first back at work with a baby and no choice, these threads upset me because I did not have the confidence to say, well, that is your view, your life, I felt I had to defend my choices. Ten years later, I would defend them to the hilt but I am doing so not for me, but because there will be readers who are scrabbling to square the circle, and I would believe that,however they do it, DC remain their first priority.

fid

You are trying for another, ah. I hope you get your one more.
our last one was a huge shock, totally unexpected and at the time the worst possible thing to happen.
I love her to bits, our only dd and the best thing to happen for us all. Her brothers worship her and spoil her rotten.

You could always live "the Good Life" if you wanted to be a sahp.

Sorry, that post was to fid, I am sorry for going on. Maybe I spent too long trying to square the circle, so I can't discuss this dispassionately.

First priority, yes, but people do balance their own agenda too, and sometimes use arguments to justify their own decisions, be that wohp or sahp.
Of course if there is no choice involved, then the above can be disregarded. If there is no choice then guilt is a pointless emotion. Nobody should ever feel guilty if they are genuinely doing their best.

I think you can rationally know you should not feel guilty, but still feel guilty. Plus, who decides what is someone's genuine best or what is best for DC? Or if they have another agenda? That comes back to explaining it or defending their situation, and as soon as you have to defend yourself, you feel guilty. That is what is insidious about this, when people start talking about what is 'best' for DC.

Excellent post bluebell. You're dead right. I feel the same as you, and I'm long in the tooth enough now that I couldn't really give a shiny what anyone else thinks, and besides, I only have to look at my happy, well adjusted children to know that we're doing ok. But it makes my bloody boil to know there are women out there who are younger, whose babies are newer, who are really struggling to square that circle. They totally have their child's interests at heart- beginning, middle and end- but they are working within the parameters of their own particular circumstances, and often have spent years investing in their own educations and skills, and it's so disheartening for people in that situation to hear this awful wrangling over 'who is doing the best for their children.'

We all- or 99% of us anyway- do our best. And the happy, resilient, achieving children we raise are a testament to that- whether we work or stay at home. And like I said earlier, for the small minority who dont act in their children's interests -well, having a job or not is the least of their issues

I think whatever decisions any of us make, we are going to feel guilty. Because there is no clear cut right or wrong, how can any of us know that we are doing the right thing in any parenting decision. I think we need to aim to be "good enough" parents rather than perfect parents and we should all take the pressure of ourselves. It is impossible to be right all the time. We all get it wrong sometimes. That's called parenting

Off

Bluebell

I am not sure your explanation makes it better, though, because it implies that somewhere people lose sight of what is best for DC

Not lose sight of, HAVE to compromise. I meant no criticism. It happens to most of us most of the time in other respects. The gap between my children, for example, was not anything like what I had planned and at the time I was horrified and convinced it would be awful for them (and double childcare cost was actually another reason for my SAHM decision) but as with so many things it was swings and roundabouts.

That is the circle I had to square and at no time did I lose sight of what was in DC best interests

I completely get that. You don't have the luxury of one 'starting point' in your planning. You HAVE to make at least two things work.

I originally started down this rabbit-hole about my SAHMing (which I normally try to avoid) because someone pointed out upthread that some parents go against their own preference to work and SAHM instead as a sacrifice for their DC. I leapt in to agree with that as I thought it was a point worth making (SAHMs are too often portrayed as economic fools, burdens on their partners, cath kidston maniacs, unambitious, bad role models). But you can of course make points the other way.

And while people can go against their own preference for their DCs' sake, it is much harder or impossible to buck the demands of their career structure or decide not to pay the mortgage or whatever. Absolutely. Didn't mean to sound like I was suggesting otherwise. I am sorry if I was offensive by being unclear.

Well, I am a working lone parent and I do feel like I do two jobs actually. I don't spend as much time with my dd as a stay at home mother obviously. BUT I work nearly full time in quite a demanding professional job. I don't get home until about 6 pm but then all my time is devoted to my dd and when she goes to bed I do all the things that I would do if I was at home while she is at school - tidying up, cooking, etc. I usually don't get to bed until at least midnight or later. It's like a second shift.

Many people are confident enough in what they do to get on with it and take no notice of badly phrased comments. But I know when I was first back at work with a baby and no choice, these threads upset me because I did not have the confidence to say, well, that is your view, your life, I felt I had to defend my choices.

Which is also how the 'economic dependent of your DH' 'wreck your career' 'do less than WOHms' remarks make other mothers feel too.

I agree with all of you saying (paraphrasing) in last few posts that everyone has their challenges, some have more choice than others and all sorts of arrangements turn out well for the DC.

I just EVERYONE would stop criticisng and having sly digs at each other (some hope).

I'm hopeless at veg growing potato but once older ones at uni a complete relocation could work as a downshift. I'm a sort of freelance now anyway (researcher and bits of lecturing) so have some hard-won flexibility finally.

I just wish ^ everyone would stop......

(and I do mean everyone )