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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate, loathe and detest when mothers

227 replies

Norklessnora · 21/08/2014 21:36

Call themselves a 'full time mum'. You are either a stay at home mum, or a working mum. All are full time parents and all work bloody hard. Hate it.

OP posts:
comediewithme · 21/08/2014 22:17

I hate it as much as when I see in those bolloxy magazines (Take a Break et al) people being described as an unemployed something. Like an unemployed model. Or an unemployed shop assistant. If no one is currently paying you to do it then you are not it and are just unemployed!!! (Granted, trained vocations a bit different)

Personally, I'm an unemployed astronaut, boxer and surgeon. For some reason, I just cant find the work. Plus it interferes with my current job as a full time human.

PhaedraIsMyName · 21/08/2014 22:18

When you are at work you aren't mothering at the same time, are you? Someone else is fulfilling that role. Of course you are still "a mother", but you aren't physically carrying out the work.

I think that sums up what I found so irritating about the phrase-. It always struck me as a bit smug and patronising and at the same time trying to convince themselves that really no one else could possibly look after their children.

Happy36 · 21/08/2014 22:20

Hollie84

In the politest possible way, I´m a bit confused by this:
"When you are at work you aren't mothering at the same time, are you? Someone else is fulfilling that role. Of course you are still "a mother", but you aren't physically carrying out the work."

When my kids are at school and a stay at home parent´s children are at school they´re both being looked after by the school staff but I wouldn´t consider the teachers to be parenting. Ditto when they´re at swimming lessons or birthday parties, etc. Surely the physical work of parenting isn´t 24/7?

WoodliceCollection · 21/08/2014 22:22

YABU and a little ridiculous really. Biscuit

comediewithme · 21/08/2014 22:22

Comediewithme's CV

Full Time Human at Earth
1976 - 2006
Duties included breathing, eating and pooing.

Full time Mummy at Earth
2006 - Current
I was 'promoted' to the position of Mummy. I still have to breathe, eat and poo but now I can't do it in peace.

HavanaSlife · 21/08/2014 22:25

I would never refer to myself as a sahm in rl, think it's sounds a bit cuntish. Don't ask me why!

Dont think I've ever said full time mum though.

I'm not keen on people who constantly refer to themselves as mummy, especially on fb. Pics of

Original poster
Norklessnora · 21/08/2014 22:25

Sometimes it feels like a promotion. Sometimes - not so much!

OP posts:
comediewithme · 21/08/2014 22:28

Complete demotion. The position was missold to me! Signed my contract in blood though.

LovingSummer · 21/08/2014 22:28

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

Boysclothes · 21/08/2014 22:29

I don't think there is anything wrong with defining yourself by your motherhood, as those people who have mummy in their names on Facebook do. For some people it's the most interesting and enjoyable thing they will do in their lives and I'm not sure why it's so worthy of sneering at? Good luck to them.

tobysmum77 · 21/08/2014 22:30

who honestly thinks being a ft/ sahm is easy Shock ? Unless the kids are at school that is. ..... But even that is just payback for the time b4! Wink

dolicapax · 21/08/2014 22:35

Speaking as a SAHM or whatever the current acceptable term is, my take on these stupid terms is that often those of us who are not earning are made to feel like we have to justify our existence in some way. When you meet people they usually ask 'what do you do?'. When I was working I just rattled off my job title. Now, what am I supposed to say? That I do nothing because I'm not working? Well I don't do nothing. I'm probably busier now than when I was a single woman working FT. So that leaves one of the dumb phrases like SAHM, or even full time mum, which is just someone trying to say they don't do any form of work outside the home, rather than someone trying to be smart, or down grade the parenting of those who are working.

What I can't stand is the professionally offended getting their knickers in a knot about innocuous things people say. If someone says something deliberately designed to offend, get annoyed about it. If they are just talking, but using terminology you find stupid, live with it.

HavanaSlife · 21/08/2014 22:35

They still have a bloody name, what's wrong with using it?

Boysclothes · 21/08/2014 22:38

Cos they are feeling defined not just by their name but by their motherhood. It feels consuming. I think that adult women feeling defined by such a huge event is ok. I don't understand the haterz. It wears off though, not many mums of twenty somethings doing it.

TattyDevine · 21/08/2014 22:41

I tend to use "SAHM" but then some people get a bee in their bonnet about that as if we stay at home all day when in fact we don't, or something.

It doesn't really matter, nobody is insinuating that you only parent part time (where in actual fact if you consider "parenting" a very hands on thing most of us only parent part time - they sleep, after all).

Pagwatch · 21/08/2014 22:42

Dolicapax
I agree.
I tend to say 'whatever I want' if someone asks what I do. But mostly people are looking for shorthand for 'I'm not in paid employment' which is not simply a description of what you don't do.

It's a female thing. Women are there to be sneered at, depressingly by other women as much as by men. DH isn't working just now - contemplating not working again and he mostly gets envy, handshakes and admiration.

Original poster
Norklessnora · 21/08/2014 23:00

My children don't sleep wail

OP posts:
LoafersOrLouboutins · 21/08/2014 23:07

YANBU! I work full time (I have two DDs and went back to work both times just three months after giving birth, more because I enjoy my job than because I needed the money) and I'm a single parent (ExDH abandoned us to move back to Iran). I work stupidly long hours (8am until 9pm isn't unusual) and raise my daughters alone. I am a full time parent. I'm also a full time PA to a hedge fund manager. It does not make me less of a mother, nor less of a PA. I check the emails from my DD's prep schools whilst at work and constantly think of them. They are my responsibility even when I'm not with them.

To imply I'm not a 'full time' parent just because I don't spend every waking moment with my DDs is mind bogling! I agree with the poster who said its as bad as 'we're pregnant'. I look forward to the day a man experiences lactating tits, constant exhaustion and being unable to see their genitals for the final 2 months.

susyot · 21/08/2014 23:14

About 30 - 40 years ago the term for a mother who stayed at home would have been "house-wife". I can remember my mum complaining that she wasn't married to the house and referring to herself as a full-time mum.

Full-time mum is just a slightly old fashioned term for SAHM. I don't think I ever heard anyone describe themselves as a "SAHM or in full - "stay at home mum" in conversation only ever online or in text. Hence if I see someone write full-time mum online I assume it is just because that is the terminology used in daily life. It's not intended as a slight at WOOTHMs or what is known round here as "working mothers"

BackforGood · 21/08/2014 23:21

Yabu. Totally irrational to feel so strongly about a benign turn of phrase

This ^

winkywinkola · 21/08/2014 23:23

But Loafers, who is it that has suggested you are less of a full time parent?

In fact, who has suggested that sahms are better parents by being there all the time?

It's not necessarily better. It's just economically better sometimes.

DoJo · 21/08/2014 23:26

You are either a stay at home mum, or a working mum.

I'm not - do you have a job title for me? I spend all day with my son then work from home in the evenings - can I have a special name which won't inspire bile or pity in others?

Mrsjayy · 21/08/2014 23:27

Isnt full time mum just a way of saying I look after the children all day I hate sahm personally I think thats worse, it dont think women call themselves housewives any more and quite rightly I guess mums who dont go and earn money dont know what to say.

LoafersOrLouboutins · 21/08/2014 23:28

The turn of phrase is very irritating to mothers who work fulltime and are still full time parents! When I work from 8am to 9pm and my feet are in AGONY from wearing heels all day, I've had to answer ridiculous emails from my DDs' prep schools whilst at work and worry about whether DD1 has an inhaler in her sports kit and then I get home to find I have to tidy up the girls' things AND answer a call from my boss about work tomorrow I'm very aware that I never stop being a parent! I'm constantly responsible for my children. I don't go to work and magically switch off from them, they are my responsibility and I have to arrange things for them and give my consent to teachers and give them the love they need when I get home as well as at work. It doesn't stop just because they're in somebody else's care.

arethereanyleftatall · 21/08/2014 23:28

I think the term ftm is coined by a sahm, who loathes, hates and detests it when a wohp implies that their life is so much harder than a sahm.