AIBU to think being a SAHP to a six-month-old baby and under five is harder than most jobs?

[TheOddity]

I don't know many people in jobs with a schedule or level of stress like that of a woman on mat leave in school holidays.
My morning, just from 7am to 10am:
Get up by being jumped on, immediately change sodden nappy.
Nappy in nappy bucket
Get four breakfasts ready while entertaining baby and answering questions/4yo stream of consciousness.
Try to find safe place for crawling baby while I wash up. Make den for 4yo.
Wash up, clean high chair, dustpan floor (weaning), wipe floor (crawling).
Hear a cry, sort out teddy stand off.
Put washing on. Spill powder, clean floor
Clean toilet and floor (baby crawls everywhere in a flat).
Baby grumpy and crying and falling all over fighting sleep. Put to sleep while trying to mentally plan lunch.
Finish washing up, have five second shower. Baby wakes distraught (teething). Feed baby while still wet and naked. Won't go back asleep after tiny nap.
Take nappy off again as soaked through and messy from breakfast. Give her some nappy free time.
Encourage toddler to take clothes off to get dressed.
Toddler needs a poo. Juggle wiping bum while baby tries to crawl closer from other room (can't put in cot as she just breaks down. separation anxiety?!)
Baby crying as after two days the nappy free trick has worked and they have done a massive poo on the floor and are now squirming in it. Leave toddler playing in sink while I sort out 'poonami'
'Poonami' sorted, baby back with nappy. Find toddler has flooded floor with water. Wipe up water while listening to baby crying in other room.
Baby dying to finish nap, put in sling while I encourage 4yo to dress. Go downstairs to throw poo and rubbish out. Baby finally asleep in sling.
Share woes with mumsnet while 4yo watches god knows what on TV.
That is three hours. It is totally relentless. And that is just me keeping things how they were before we woke up, no extra cleaning, no shopping, no trips. We go out lots but those bits you have to do at home and getting ready are soooo much harder than my paid job before. Dh then comes home to tell me he is so tired. I breastfeed and do all night feeds.

It depends on the job.

I had 3 under 4 and being at home with them was definitely harder than the office job I do now. But I've also worked in a school and that was probably harder than being at home with my own three. The hardest bit was working PT in the school when my own DC were 6 months, 2y and 4y. I then started an Open University course just to really up the stress levels!

It depends on what the job is, what your DC are like and how much support you have (at work or at home). So YABU to make a blanket statement.

I didn't start a goady thread. People found it goady as they took it personally. My actual comparison was a job with a job, not being a sahp with wohp. So a standard office job or shop job say, with being a parent at home with a baby and another preschooler. Maybe saying an average job with no kids is easier than being home all day with kids?
Then all the brain surgeons with six kids piled on.
I personally also find the stress higher though than my job when not on mat leave as there is just something very psycholgically hard about staring at a baby all day to make sure they don't fall, shove something in their mouth etc. And the reason there are all these perils is because I am outside in parks and at rivers, to keep the older one entertained and don't have a baby who sits meekly in a pram or sling now with for all the 'advice' and telling me to stop being a helicopter parent and let them choke on river pebbles and drown. That'll learn em.

I'd love to go back a good few years and be a SAHM again .. I had 2, 2 years apart. I think doing my full time job is way harder and struggle to manage that and the house/responsibility.

But why would a job and nothing else even be comparable to being a SAHP? Working in a shop is less stressful than caring for elderly parents. Big deal. I could list all the crap you doing caring for elderly parents which is dull as shit and say it's harder than being a salesperson. It's meaningless.

2yo DSD I just love being treated as free childcare by her mother
And 2 month old DS

I fully understand everything and YADNBU!

YABU. It's not easy all the time but it's not that hard. Going to work and then dealing with children, babies and family is much harder.

Hmm a bit of back pedalling methinks there OP

I completely agree that for many people before they become parents, there are likely to be some jobs they do which are easier than looking after children. But again, it entirely depends on the job. I am a teacher and I can assure you that the period of time I was at home with 3 pre schoolers was not as hard as teaching a full day pre- children.

And if you're claiming you were just making a comparison with the job, not with WOHP, why mention your DP in the post, and complain that he comes home tired? I've no doubt he's tired; he's a WOHP of 2 young children.

I think we're all sympathetic to the feelings you describe of constantly being vigilant etc, but you can vent about how you're feeling without trying to turn it into a competition. And there are loads of jobs where pretty much constant vigilance/having to interact and respond etc is required anyway... Medical profession, caring professions..... And try teaching 150 teenagers over the course of a day without taking your eye off the ball. I can guarantee the consequence won't be pretty

Now, of course, someone will be along in a minute and say 'but at least you can get breaks at work'- well, yes (occasionally I grab a loo break or a coffee) but the same can be true at home. People have made all sorts of suggestions on here... Barricade an area of safe floor space so the baby can crawl without you having to follow her, stick a dvd on to entertain the older one for 15 minutes, put baby in cot for 10 minutes if you need to .... Yes it feels relentless at times but honestly, I still reckon I managed more 'down time' during a day with my 3 little ones than I did at work.

Enjoy the rest of your ML, and appreciate the fact you can spend the afternoon in the park rather than at work!

" Being a SAHM is a massive luxury and you should appreciate it far more than you are doing."

Erm, I'd love to be working. I can't afford it. Major overgeneralisation.

Your title said most jobs, that's what people were responding to.

Yes, being a SAHP is harder than being a receptionist that books in a few visitors a day and little else, or a librarian or something but those aren't most jobs and in the current economic climate, many many people are facing having to do their job and others too, because where there used to be 10 people in a department, it is now 6 for example, due to cutbacks.

Most jobs aren't cosy office jobs with little real work to do, many office jobs have a high workload, long hours, conflicting demands, travel, meetings, presentations, too little time for the work required, deadlines etc etc.

And thats before we get to other jobs like emergency service workers, carers, medical staff, etc etc.

You can't say being a SAHM is a luxury when some people are forced into it even when they don't want to. The luxury is having a choice, whether that's working or staying at home.

This

I think it depends on the job and its demands. I was a SAHP to three DC under the age of 4yrs. That was tough. I've had MUCH easier jobs. My DC are now adults. Last year I took early retirement from a job that was getting so stressful (cuts - bloody Tory govt) I knew it would make me ill, and I'm too old to risk serious stress related illness at this point in my life.

If I could have have swapped my stressful job of last year with being that parent of three DC under the age of four then I would have. The irony was that it had been my dream job, I loved it, had known for years that it was what I wanted - but three years in all the goalposts changed, the job was very different

My SIL told me today how nice it was having her BF cooking because cooking for 1 every day is stressful. I took her at her word and did not ask her how she thinks it compares with cooking for a family of 5 daily without the fancy date nights thrown in She finds it stressful, therefore it is, you find your situation stressful therefore it is. There really is no point comparing because you are never comparing like with like.

YANBU. 5 yo, 2 yo and 9 week old here. Work is a doddle compared to this. I don't know if I'm looking forward to school starting again or not! How the hell am I supposed to get out of the house with all 3 by 8.45?!

I knew what you meant OP.

There are a few paid jobs that are long hours, sleep disrupting and in which someone dies if you fuck up, but not most jobs.

My insight is probably coloured by the fact I did it completely solo (divorced unexpectedly early in ML and then had to SAHM for 3 years due to finances).

Other views are probably coloured by the assumption that SAHMing involves lots of other support, handing DC over to partner at 6pm etc.

Of course both can be the case and you can't generalise.

I agree with you op.

Barbaraofseville - excellent points.
I always think that when people talk about these cushy little jobs where you sit at a desk, paint your nails and have unlimited coffee breaks, they're just showing how out of touch with the real world of 2016 they are.

Many jobs have huge pressures which are often unseen and indefineable. Even if to the outsider it might seem as though you're sitting at a computer, you could be juggling difficult budgets, preparing a hugely important presentation, responding to demanding clients.... And probably the biggest pressures of all are the unseen ones - the fact you need to be on the ball, accountable, answerable to often conflicting demands.

And then at the other end of the spectrum are mind numbing NMW jobs such as stacking shelves .... Hmm, I'd far rather be scheduling my own day looking after my own children than stuck doing that.

It's ironic really, because on so many other threads on MN people regularly describe the difficulties of getting work, or retaining a job these days- the endless cutbacks, skyhigh commute costs, skyhigh childcare costs, the endless juggling... Yet suddenly when someone wants to make a comparison with being a SAHP, work becomes some rose tinted experience where you have endless coffee breaks and 'me time'

Don't get me wrong, I get a lot of satisfaction out of my working life, it certainly provides experiences and intellectual stimulation, and now that my children are grown up I can truly recognise that keeping my hand in when they were young was the best decision ever. I would never have got my career properly back on track if I'd stepped out. Also dh and I wouldn't have had the relationship we want whereby we've always both been very hands on with children, work and home. But it's one of those decisions where the benefit is most keenly felt in the longer term. If I'd looked at it purely 'in the moment', then being a SAHM when my kids were little would have been way easier.

YABU to be so generalist. You're not going to lose your job if you don't get the rusks out on time are you?

YANBU to find it stressful but you're not exactly answering to anyone are you?

Shit thread which is divisive. Well done OP.

I was a full time teacher. I then had two children 14 months apart. I had intended to go back after child one. Was about to when I discovered I was 6 months pregnant with child two. In my defence, I was knackered, still losing weight, breastfeeding and had never had a period. I'd have been one of those women who give birth in complete shock not knowing they were pregnant if it hadn't have been for tests I had in hospital that tested me routinely for pregnancy before drinking something radioactive for my knackered thyroid.

So, there I was with two under two and a seriously knackered thyroid. I often wept at the top of the stairs, clutching two babies, thinking I had it so bad. I never slept. I breastfed continuously for 3.5 years. And so on.

But now, they are 8 and 9. I am again working full time as a teacher. I wish, really really wish I'd taken more delight in that time. It was so much easier than working as well. I would take all the hideousness of the boring days compounded by sleeplessness all over again and try to enjoy them more, because doing a full weeks teaching and having toddlers is truly shit. I actually can't remember much of ages 3 to 5 because I was so bone tired.

In the end I went part time as soon as it was financially viable. I'd have truly gone mad if I hadn't been able to.

I have absolute respect for women who do either choice. I just know that if I could go back and be at home again, I'd say to younger self to enjoy it, let things slip, savour it.

Being a SAHP may be harder than some jobs but certainly not most jobs, and I have been a SAHM in the past with 2 kids under 2 so feel I've some perspective of both.
My job is physically and emotionally demanding with high pressure at times and reasonably high profile (albeit only locally) - so in my experience it is considerably harder being at work than being at home.

This is getting very negative.

There are far more upsides to both SAHMing and WOHMing than there are downsides.

You're right Just5
I actually do love my job, despite it being hard, and actually loved being at home too when my eldest kids were small

Just5- tbf it was a divisive OP, and I think if she'd expressed herself better then she'd have just received support. Trying to say being at home with a 4 year old and a baby is harder than most jobs is just daft.

I enjoy my work too, for all sorts of reasons (as well as the salary and pension!) and as I said, the best thing I ever did was avoid any lengthy breaks out of the workplace because it's a tough climate out there and I regularly come across other women my age who are highly qualified but are finding it really hard to get a decent job having spent years out of the workplace. I am truly glad that I toughed out those early years of nursery fees and early morning drop offs after a broken night. But it wasn't the easier option, no way.

Catrabbit31 - if you will keep droning on about the op being goady/divisive/just plain wrong, would you at least own it and say "I find the op goady/divisive/just plain wrong" and not write it off in a sweeping statement.

There are many yanbus on this thread.

It's subjective and dependent on a million factors cat. A personal opinion one way or the other is just that. Neither are 'daft'.

YANBU its the reason why I go out to work !!