Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13

Original poster

To think only women with rich partners are encouraged and celebrated as SAHM.

321 replies

malificent7 · 04/01/2017 21:24

If you are skint or single then you are seen as lazy for wanting to be a SAHM.

This is following from my 'terribly entitled' thread. I made it very clear that I had to give up my teaching career as it was destroying my mental health. I am now a skint TA but much happier at work and I alos have time for dd.

The amount of people suggesting that I go back into teaching to balance the books even though it nearly ruined me was strange.
I was being encouraged to take up a more family unfriendly job.

Whereas if a woman in better circumstances comes on and says that she is struggling to balance work and family life she is often encouraged to give up work if she can afford it an did celebrated as being a good mother.

AIBU to wonder if SAHM are less stigmatised if well off?

OP posts:

dingdongthewitchishere · 04/01/2017 23:20

Not much 'raising' to do for SAHP when kids are at school right?

come on, that's unfair. SAHP can be the ones volunteering to help at school with the kids, volunteering to go to school trips, to organise whatever raising event the school need. Everybody benefits from their "free time". Why always start a fight between working parents and SAH ones.
Some working parents have family close by, and inset days/ sickness/holidays/teachers strikes... are not an issue. Others don't have any support and can't cope. No one is better than the other.

Here you have the answer about being "lazy": for some people, a SAHP has only leisurely time when the kids are at school. If the family is really struggling financially, there's no reason why the other parent can't find a weekend job and help out that way.

Thinking anyone is a better/ worst parent because they work/don't work is completely stupid.

EthelEgbert · 04/01/2017 23:22

Well said dingdong

It is stupid.

DailyFail1 · 04/01/2017 23:24

1DAD2KIDS Some SAHP might well do a lot of housework while kids are at school, but my friends also like to take naps, meet up with friends for lunch, go to beauty appointments, go on walks/gyms etc. It's all great stuff I wish I had time to do, but unfortunately as a WP my time is very limited. I try to work from home to at least be present for her and think I do a great job as she's a straight A student and takes all of the extracurriculars she wants to do. I hate, absolutely hate, how people are judging WP parenting on this thread.

DailyFail1 · 04/01/2017 23:26

dingdong I was being sarcastic. Tone didn't come through right. I have SAHP friends - would never judge

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:27

dingdongthewitchishere that is purely dependent on the sahp and their willingness to fill all that free time with stuff like that. Not every sahp is that constructive.

Philoslothy · 04/01/2017 23:27

I do think the OP is onto something. I am a SAHP and people seem to think that I am some kind of saint for giving up a career to be at home. The reality was that I just couldn't be bothered working anymore.

I have family members who have less money who are SAHP that feel like society criticised them. In reality they work much harder as a SAHP than I ever will do. I do spend my time socialising, reading and doing lunch. They spend their time grafting without the phone / yet feel judged.

Brokenbiscuit · 04/01/2017 23:27

The proof of the pudding is in the eating = you cannot judge the success or otherwise of any family's parenting until the DC are adults. And while schadenfreude is a horrible emotion, I know far too many families with shipwrecks for DC. And they aren't the ones with SAHP!

Perhaps, but anecdotes are not data, and research does not back up your assertion. And nor does the experience of many families. I, for one, would have had a much better childhood had my sahm gone to work.

RebelRogue · 04/01/2017 23:29

Is a SAHM started a thread saying she can't make ends meet,struggles to pay bills,relies constantly on family for support,while criticising and begrudging that family the money they have, and they spent an inheritance and have nothing to show for it...guess what? They'd be flamed as well. The kinder answers would always be look for a job,at least a part time job due to childcare. Since you already work,makes sense that that suggestion would transform into work more hours/swap for a better paying job.

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:29

Who judging you DailyFail1?

RebelRogue · 04/01/2017 23:33

Oh and also you will find that at least on here,even women with wealthy partners aren't encouraged to be SAHM due to what would happen in the possibility of a divorce/breakup. Women on here are in general encouraged to have some kind of source of income,no matter how small.

SpartacusWoman · 04/01/2017 23:33

If someone is a single parent their two options are to work full time to support themselves and their child, thereby relying on someone else to raise their child or to be on benefits and raise their child themselves. To clarify the 'what benefits are there for' argument. Not everyone has family to childmind even part-time and not everyone has a nursery or childminder that they would want to raise their child for them. We're lucky that the gov. considers it important to give poorer, single people the choice to be with their child.

A parent who places their child in a nursery or with a childminder while they go to work isn't having someone else "raise the child for them".
The government don't give single parent benefits because they think it's important for poorer parents to have a choice to be with their child.

There's no shame in being a single parent on benefits, it's usually because they have no other choice, not because the government think having a parent at home is important and wanted to give them the option to stay at home while have the working population fund that choice. It's people thinking this that drives a lot of the judginess towards single parents.

Our benefit system needs overhauling and I think it's shit that many families, single or otherwise still need benefits such as tax credits and paid for childcare even when working full time because the wages are so low.

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:35

By the way DailyFail1 you did realise I was disputing the claim that being a sahp was hard full time job? I can't see how she spent 4 hrs a day on house work, unless she lives in a huge stately home with no staff.

dingdongthewitchishere · 04/01/2017 23:35

that is purely dependent on the sahp and their willingness to fill all that free time with stuff like that. Not every sahp is that constructive

of course completely true.
It's the endless opposition between working/non working parents that I find boring (talking in general). It's never stops, you can also argue that some working parents have cleaners/ nannies/ so home time = free time, other working ones have to deal with everything. If only there was a simple recipe to be a great parent...

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:37

RebelRogue I would say a long as they get a ring on their finger they don't have much to worry about financially for splitting from a wealthy partner. But no ring is a problem.

WinnieTheWilt · 04/01/2017 23:39

I gave up teaching, too. I was in a school that was slowly disintegrating. I have never had a job like it, it nearly destroyed me and my family was falling apart at the seams. I'm doing something entirely unrelated now, much less well paid, but I am budgeting and managing. I am so much happier. No one who knows me can doubt how positive the change was to us despite the financial hit. I hope I can go back to the profession in a year or so - I trained late in life and worked hard at it. I was a good teacher. Just crumbling as an individual. My view is we should make our own choices and not judge other people's.

DailyFail1 · 04/01/2017 23:40

1DAD2KIDS I know at least 1 SAHM in my dh's family who does spend 4 hours a day on housework while kids are at school. She has 5 kids and a lazy dh who won't do anything so there's a lot of mess. She is the exception though. Most of the SAHP use the time away from their kids for themselves but I don't think there's anything wrong with that per se even as a working mum. Do you?

DailyFail1 · 04/01/2017 23:41

**most of the SAHP I know

Potnoodlewilld0 · 04/01/2017 23:41

I hate that 'raise the child for them' bull

Pluto30 · 04/01/2017 23:43

If you can't afford to be a SAHM, you work. That's life. It's not about you, it's about being able to provide for your children.

RebelRogue · 04/01/2017 23:44

P.s. I don't think there's anything wrong with single mums,married mums,mums on benefits,working mums,part time mums, stay at home mums etc.

However if whatever situation are in makes you unhappy and you ask for advice rather than just a rant,it makes sense for people to suggest you change the situation.

user1480946351 · 04/01/2017 23:48

Why the fuck do you need to be "celebrated and encouraged"? If you're comfortable in your own life and choices, why are you looking for external validation?
Did the Daily Fail not run an article on how awesome you are? Stop looking for other people to applaud your life! Own it, live it, don't wait for someone to throw you a ticker tape parade.

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:50

dingdongthewitchishere it's all about life choices really. The more you earn the more choice you get. Your right there has been a sharp rise in resent years in the use of regular home cleaners. Now I am a single working parent on a good wage I sometimes throw money at things to buy me more time with the kids. I am lucky enough to be able to do this. For example I don't have a cleaner (just don't like the idea) but now if my car needs work done to it I will send it to the garage as in the past I would have done the work myself. I bought a flat pack shed the other day as before in the past I would have fabricated one from scratch my self. Luckily money not much an issuse but free time is at a massive premium for me. Where I can spend a bit to buy back time I do sometimes.

1DAD2KIDS · 04/01/2017 23:56

DailyFail1 well like I said to you before I fully support the idea of being a sahp if you can afford it. No one every died wishing they worked harder? And of course has potential benifits. But there are sahp who try hard to claim it's a full time hard job. Often I don't think it is not as hard as some would make out.

WinnieTheWilt · 04/01/2017 23:59

Absolutely, 1Dad. When I earned more I spent money on things that saved time, like going to a car wash instead of getting a bucket (and, in my case on things to try compensate for my continual state of stress and misery, too).

MrsMcMoo · 05/01/2017 00:11

My incredibly stressful job is hugely damaging to my mental health, fwiw. But here I am. Doing it. Because that's what grown ups do. Provide for themselves and their children unless they are completely unable to.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13