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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:
aprilanne · 04/03/2015 17:08

ofa no i have 3 son,s . and my hubby is always saying you will have to work hard because you will have a wife and children to keep some day .i wiil bite my tongue .and just offer the childcare if any future dil wants to go back to work .

SarfEasticatedMumma · 04/03/2015 17:10

YANBU Your life, you live it how you like. If I was a SAHM I would be a gibbering hermit like creature who tried to talk to every passing stranger. It suits all of us for me to go to work. If it didn't and I was a domestic goddess, I would have loved to stay home.

morethanpotatoprints · 04/03/2015 17:11

ketchup

cooking and cleaning are what wohp do as well.
do you really need to have somebody to tell you what to do with your time?
Speaking for myself, once the jobs are done, well my share as the whole family lives here not just me. I have a life, doing what I want to, when I want to. The freedom is brilliant, I can't imagine being told what to do and having to be there at a certain time, doing the same thing in a routine everyday.
Its each to their own obviously and I guess its a fair comment if you are a wohp, but do you not decide what you want to do with your holidays, days off etc.

madwomanbackintheattic · 04/03/2015 17:11

Lol, April. When dh says that, you should be saying 'don't be silly dear - parenting is a joint responsibility - they could be staying at home and raising their children when their wife goes to work. It's up to them and their future partner'.

Ignoring the obvious homophobia in the discussion, obv.

holdyourown · 04/03/2015 17:11

YANBU and well done for saying it, it seems to be the new taboo thing to say/think tbh

TheRealAmandaClarke · 04/03/2015 17:12

Yabu
What is there to be proud of?
Your circumstances allow you a choice which suits your family
Hurrah! Good for you.

NancyRaygun · 04/03/2015 17:15

April - a parody surely!?

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 17:16

sorry mad the tongue in cheek bit about the career girl .i am certainly not homophobic .you could not be more wrong its laughable .but my two eldest have girlfriend,s ,my youngest son has autism so god knows about him .i say wives because that is probably what it will be .

FromSeaToShining · 04/03/2015 17:16

I will say "loud and proud" that my career is just as important as my DH's. Being a SAHP wouldn't be right for either one of us. And for us, the absolute worst choice would be to have one parent home all the time and the other working outside the home in some high-powered 70-hour-a-week job. We both work full time but in careers that allow a certain amount of flexibility and choice. That didn't happen by some sort of fluke. We actively decided that a work/home balance was something we wanted to achieve, and we are lucky that it has worked out that way.

Women have always worked. Both of my grandmothers worked all their lives. My great-grandmothers and beyond probably did as well (need to look more deeply into family history). My mother spent some years as a SAHM and they were probably the most miserable years of her life. When she returned to work she could not have been happier. Being a SAHP is not the "traditional" choice, nor is it the best option for many people. If you're happy as a SAHP, splendid. But it's definitely not right for me.

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes · 04/03/2015 17:16

Definitely better for mine that I do work. But what you do is up to you.

squoosh · 04/03/2015 17:18

Good point FromSeaToShining that being a stay at home parent/housewife is a pretty recent phenomenon.

Owllady · 04/03/2015 17:20

I don't even eat cake, let alone bake it.

Has this thing kicked off yet?

AnnieLobeseder · 04/03/2015 17:21

Wow, aprilanne, your sons are being raised with very narrow heternormative, sexist and gender-stereotypical views being imposed on them. I hope that they will be okay within themselves if they find that they don't fit any of those stereotypes.

And if they are heterosexual and do choose to marry, I hope for the sake of both your sons and any future wives that you are painting an unfair picture of the typical viewpoint of your family. Because there are precious few women these days who would put up with being expected to be a SAHM by their ILs and DH, or who wouldn't be deeply hurt by their career being tolerated under duress instead of supported and celebrated as equally as her husband's.

For most women, the expectation now is that parents take equal responsibility both to raise the children and keep the house. Yes, there may be periods of time where one or the other parent takes on more of that responsibility than the other. But in the long term, there should be no expectation that the man is the "breadwinner" and the woman is the "home-maker".

MonstrousRatbag · 04/03/2015 17:24

Don't get the 'pride' stuff. Odd to be proud of being eithre WOHM or SAHM, to me.

And I don't like the way anything traditionally seen as women's work, and unapid, is increasingly devalued. Running a home and looking after children are vitally important things, whoever does them. It isn't only paid work being an earner that have value.

But most of all, I feel a bit sad that this kind of goading always works, and we line up to tear each other to pieces. Again.

ohmychrist · 04/03/2015 17:24

You don't work. How can someone be proud of not doing something?

DeBeers · 04/03/2015 17:25

I work FT. The thing that drives me mad is when other mothers who SAH say to me "I'm lucky, I don't need to work". It irritates me because it suggests I must be forced out of the home due to my financial circumstances and not that it is a genuine freely made choice for me and many others to work FT. Obviously for many there is no choice because of the economic climate, and high cost of living. How you judge "don't need to" work I don't know. I think it is linked to the lifestyle you want to provide for your children. For me, life is for living, I want a spacious, beautiful home for the kids to enjoy, I want to travel with them, take them to the theatre, fine dining, experience many different things etc. I also want to live it up in retirement! I want my children to see women can work outside the home and that you can be a mother and have a successful career. For all these reasons I choose to work. Those women who choose to SAH good for you, but please don't assume I have to work. I, like many others, want to so that I can enjoy everything the world has to offer with my children.

Joyfulldeathsquad · 04/03/2015 17:26

nancy I'm sure your post was aimed at me BUT you had bothered to read the whole thread rather than jumping in looking for a fight you would have noticed my post was in response to op saying she would be happy for her child to aspire to be a SAHM.

Which I think is terribly sad.

I had a dd1 at 16. I didn't go travelling then nor at 18 when my friends left. I stayed behind and worked so we could have money.

There is more to life than wanting to aspire to be a SAHM.

anothernumberone · 04/03/2015 17:27

April I can just imagine what would be said to daughters if you had themSmile.

I agree with fromsea SAHP is an even more novel and recent invention than childhood but I still think it has value. I also think it is a privilege for those who want and get to do it and presumably a curse for those who do it when they don't want to.

I think a more rounded society where both parents are hands on involved in the stay at home parenting roles from very early on in childhood is probably the best one for my ideal society to aspire to. The current set up can see father's sidelined in divorce while women are exposed financially, can see housework and caring roles being thought to be valueless since they have been done mostly by women in the past and many other negatives.

dreamingbohemian · 04/03/2015 17:28

Daisy thanks for that, I completely agree but have always had trouble articulating that

I feel like it shouldn't be about me and what I want but whether DS is happy, having fun and learning. If he can do that with other people as well, if he can go to nursery and kindergarten and have friends and good times, then what on earth is wrong with that? I don't feel like my son needs me around 24 hours a day to be happy or well balanced.

FromSeaToShining · 04/03/2015 17:29

But in the long term, there should be no expectation that the man is the "breadwinner" and the woman is the "home-maker".

Amen to that.

base9 · 04/03/2015 17:30

There is no SAHM WOHM divide. It is made up, it is offensive and demeaning to all who 'debate' it, it is a woman-hating line of crap to make females feel bad about themselves no matter what they choose. And it is perpetuated by OPs like this that seek to discuss a divide that is not there. No WOHM seriously cares if someone else SAH and vice versa. Why the hell would I care if you work or not??

duplodon · 04/03/2015 17:30

Annie, in fairness there's a bigger picture than being chained to an office that doesn't fulfil you and drains you of all joy and vitality out of anxiety you'll be left penniless, too. An awful lot of educated professional women step out for a while and go back to work at a very decent wage. My eldest is six this year and quite a number of women whose youngest have started school and sahmed until school have returned to professionally paid work with no real issues, having just maintained registrations and CPD while off. MN scaremongers on this a bit. Of course it changes things, but I wonder how many women are genuinely left destitute by the decision.

As for this thing that women always worked? Well, yes, but for virtually nothing.

AnnieLobeseder · 04/03/2015 17:30

I will add, though, that I only hated being a SAHM when my DDs were small and I spent all day toddler-wrangling and cleaning up the never-ending trail of destruction. Right now my DDs are at school, and I'm currently between jobs. So today I spent all day lying on the sofa watching endless episodes of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. With a short nap after lunch. Though I realise this is probably giving both SAHPs and the unemployed a bad name. Grin

aprilanne · 04/03/2015 17:33

i freely admit that my attitude is a little old fashioned .i liked being at home with the boy,s
.BUT would i expect any future dil to do the same .

.well i would expect her to do what SHE and my son thought best .would i be critical of her choice no would i support her yes .would i be there to help with the child care yes .we did what we thought best .they can do what they think best .