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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To say loud and proud that it's better for my kids that I don't work

999 replies

yetanotherchangename · 04/03/2015 12:39

There have been lots of threads about WOHM/SAHM at the moment, which frankly are beyond boring. HOWEVER on all of them I've seen SAHMs attacked (either for being naive, vacuous, lazy, money grabbing, downtrodden) etc., and I've seen a lot of SAHM explain why being at home is the only option for their family.

I've rarely if ever seen a SAHM openly say that it is a good thing for kids if they have a parent who doesn't work. I think we are too afraid of offending mothers who do work. Am I unreasonable to claim back some pride in what I am doing?

OP posts:
Joyfulldeathsquad · 04/03/2015 16:11

april I take it you HE your three kids then? As complete strangers would have been looking after your kids for eight hours a day too.

AnnieLobeseder · 04/03/2015 16:11

My kids benefit from me working as I get depressed and borderline abusive when I don't work.

Work, don't work, do what works best for your family. And what is best for you. That bit is important because life is short, you only get the one shot at living it and no-one hands out medals to women who have sacrificed everything of who they are and what they want on the alter of family.

I also hope you have put very secure financial plans in place for yourself, because any woman who puts herself at the financial mercy of a man, no matter how secure she thinks her marriage is, is a naive fool. And it certainly won't be better for the kids when they've living on the breadline if you can't support them if your marriage breaks down.

There's always a bigger picture than the short-term (assumed) benefits of you being there for school pick-ups and assemblies.

Bonsoir · 04/03/2015 16:11

Education is not just for earning a living.

Education enables us, hopefully, to make informed personal choices and to negotiate rationally with others to make informed collective choices. That way we are in control of our own lives.

Purplepumpkins · 04/03/2015 16:12

Good for you! Some people can't afford that luxury and would love to stay home but can't and others may fee the need to work at least part time and some people work very hard to build a career and don't want to give it up.

I don't thing writing a smug post on a mums forum is very nice tbh!

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:12

yes sorry but it is .if you cant afford to be asahm .then fine but lets not kid on its best for a small child .maybe my judgement is clouded by the fact my mum worked full time when i was small and i hated being put to nursery/ after school clubs .it maybe old fashioned but why have children if you cant stay with them most of the time

Kewcumber · 04/03/2015 16:13

Aprilanne - as a parent to a child who was genuinely "farmed out to strangers" for the whole of the first year of his life I can promise you that using term to describe childcare is a ridiculously emotive way to put it.

You can agree with it without implying that small children are being treated like animals by total strangers (really? - they never get to know the child? Not ever? They probably have more contact with them than grandparents and aunts and uncles do - I've never heard them described as "strangers")

My sister was more of a stranger to DS than his child minder was.

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:13

yes joyful death squad .you have it correct .i bet you did,nt realise that one .with your sarcasim .

flimmyflam · 04/03/2015 16:15

I agree that SAHPing and working parenting are both equally valid choices.
The vast, vast majority of women who have kids takes some time off so it's artificial to see this as an 'us and them' type scenario (as most posters have pointed out).

However IMO we need to work towards a place where men and women are equally represented in the workplace at all levels of seniority. The flipside of large numbers of women (and small numbers of men) staying at home for long periods is domination of public and professional life by men - which does no one any good.

For me this means

  • getting across the idea that it is equally valid for either partner (in a heterosexual rship) to be the primary caregiver of children,
  • more affordable childcare, and
  • encouraging/forcing employers to allow people who've taken off time to look after children to re-enter the workforce and to not pass over those who've taken time off when if comes to advancement.
Kewcumber · 04/03/2015 16:15

aprilanne - it is possible to work without using after school clubs or only those your child liked. You don't have much imagination when it comes to managing children and the need to earn a living.

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:16

ANNIELOBSEDER . thats different if you were ill or going to be .thats a no brainer of course you could,nt be a sahm in those circumstances .

madwomanbackintheattic · 04/03/2015 16:18

That's nice, April.
I'm always slightly envious of people that can afford to do that. Are you homesteaders, and have done the full thing with raising your own food to reduce your impact on the economy, or does dh earn enough that you are able to stay home and homeschool?

It's interesting though. I know quite a lot of parents who he and live alternative (to the mainstream ) lifestyles, and generally they are very accepting of everyone's choices, not at all rude or ignorant about those who feel they have to work to pay bills and are stuck in a mortgage cycle etc. you seem different somehow, and it's odd. Most people who have made those choices have a huge amount of empathy.

CunningCat · 04/03/2015 16:18

I work nights, so get to pick kids up, do activities etc and don't use child care. DP and I use annual leave between us for all school holidays. There is a third way!

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:19

kewcumber you could be right .we always think what would i change from my childhood .thats why i would never have went back to work .i just loved being with my sons

Fauxlivia · 04/03/2015 16:22

The answer to sahm being vulnerable financially if their relationship ends is not to discourage sah but to make men pay what it actually costs to support their children rather than the measly amount calculated by the csa ( or whatever they are called now) and force them to honour the commitments made when they were in the relationship. So if the mum screws up her career options by sah as agreed by both parents when they were together, the dad shouldn't be able to bugger off and keep all the money. He should have to honour his promise to support his wife post divorce because they jointly agreed that she would sah.

This failure to provide properly for dc and to dump it all on the rp and yhe state is what is holding women back, not the decision to sah!

LikeABadSethRogenMovie · 04/03/2015 16:23

Working mums bake cakes too. In fact, at our school it's the working mums who are most likely to donate the cakes. I know that as I'm the one who organises the cake sale.

Bonsoir · 04/03/2015 16:25

I don't bake cakes for bake sales on principle. Maybe WOHMs are less principled than SAHMs, leading to cake baking?

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:26

mad .hubby had a decent job .until he took seriously ill .we just made a lot of sacrifices .and sorry if i come across with empathy as i said probably because i was the child of a parent who worked full time and i felt i never saw her .parents divorced when i was a toddler

anothernumberone · 04/03/2015 16:26

OP I get where you are coming from and I totally believe that society should support SAHP especially in the early years.

My own personal belief is that women should get 9 months maternity leave paid from work followed by the exact same entitlement for the father of the child. Then after they have both taken their paid leave, should they wish, both parents should be entitled to the exact same unpaid leave meaning that a parent is at home with the child for the first 3 years and men and women are offered very equal terms and conditions in their working life and the exact same advantages and disadvantages in terms of career opportunities. I believe that the notion that parents could get by on a single salary for a year and a half could help making the option of SAHP much more viable for parents too if they can afford to make that sacrifice.

What I don't really agree with is that society should set up a default option where being a SAHP is the preserve of women. That does not work for me at all.

Daisy17 · 04/03/2015 16:26

Just a small point. The whole "missing out on your child's childhood" thing, why did you have children in the first place. I wasn't aware that my child's childhood was anything other than HIS. It's lovely to share bits of it with him, and obviously I spend a fair amount of time (I work term time only, 8-4) loving him and enjoying his company and helping him to become a rounded grown up etc etc, but I don't need to be with him 24 hours a day to do this. I gave him life as a gift to HIM not ME. HE's experiencing it 24 hours a day which is the main thing. It's not mine to wring all the juice out of. It's his!!!!

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:27

with no empathy .

Joyfulldeathsquad · 04/03/2015 16:27

april if your saying you HE I hope you got outside help for teaching your kids English as your grammar isn't great.

AnnieLobeseder · 04/03/2015 16:27

Thanks for that "Get Out of SAHMing Free" card, aprilanne. Hmm But the reason I found my mental health suffering when being a SAHP was because I didn't enjoy it one bit. And I am certainly not alone in that. Many, many women and men simply don't enjoy staying home looking after children and cleaning the house. Should they all claim depression in order to make it okay with you for them to go out and earn a living?

There are three possible scenarios.

  1. People who enjoy being home with their children. This category is further divided into those who have the financial capacity for one parent to stay home, and those who don't. Great if you can afford it, sucks if you can't. But I'm sure these people are all okie dokie with you because at least they want to be home nurturing their precious bundles.

  2. People who don't want to stay home with their children and who therefore go out to work. These people are happy, if a little stressed with the logistics, but are obviously evil in your books.

  3. People who don't want to stay home with their children but do, either out of some misplaced sense of what is best for the children, or because they can't afford childcare. These people are very deeply unhappy. Is that okay with you, as long as the kiddies have a parent there to wipe their nose instead of a stranger?

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 16:30

yes joy i am not that great on the computer you are correct prefer pencil and paper .

morethanpotatoprints · 04/03/2015 16:30

Sahm being vulnerable.
Well, not all of us are.

Why wouldn't we work? because we value being a sahp.

What would we do if our partners dropped dead, lost their job, ran off with someone else?
The same as a wohp would, make sacrifices, maybe have to move, the same type of thing really.

How do we give our dc a good work ethic?
By teaching them how do do things, the importance of working to live and not living to work and the consequences of both.
Leading by example, you don't have to woh to be able to do this.
Working as a team, as an individual, pretty much the same as a whop would when they get home from work.

AnnieLobeseder · 04/03/2015 16:31

I feel I should point out that my sarcasm with "nurturing their precious bundles" in point one was directed at aprilanne, not at SAHMs in general.