To hate the phrase full time mum

[NotPennysBoat815]

I was reading the mail yesterday ( ) and they kept referring to a stay at home mum as a full time mum. I work full time but surely that doesn't make me a part time mum?

I see your point (and love the 'Hun connotations' ) but there's literally no phrase that doesn't annoy someone. People get so touchy about it because it relates both to their parenting choices and to their identity. SAHM obviously irritates people, as does FTM - but for different reasons. I find WFHM/WOHM irritating because it's so confusing in conversation, and also implies that WOHMs don't work in the home when clearly they do.

Men don't have to put up with these labels do they...

MissMoneyPlant, in real life I've never been criticised for not working, working pt, working full-time, being unemployed! It's only media bullshit, polarise women, pit them against each other. We shouldn't buy in to. Whatever works for us, understand that others' lives work differently. IN real life women do manage this. Debating online brings out everybody's frustrations with their own lives I think. Myself included, I'd love a pt job but those are so hard to find.

I agree. I am a SAHM. It just means my role is full time and constant without a break to do anything else. But it doesn't mean I'm a full time mum more than anyone who works. Even when you're away from your kids to go to work, you are still their mum.

MrsJoyOdell - even without a disability as an extra factor, the phrase, 'oh you don't work then' is very insulting. The suggestion that a mother (or anyone else) who is at home looking after children doesn't work is extremely annoying. 'Working mother'? Is there any other kind?

Well, we have had this bun fight a million and one times already on mn. Op could you not just have read an old thread about it instead of starting this boring rubbish off again.

I work full time and I think the idea that gets bandied about is that working parents aren't committed or dedicated to their small children. My opinion is different. I feel that in the long term, bigger picture it shows my deep commitment to my kids because they won't remember who looked after them when they were two but if the shit hits the fan, I would be able to comfortably support them by myself and keep a roof over their head. I know that lots of people think very differently and prioritise differently though. Neither is right or wrong. I'm just naturally cautious. I guess it would be different if you were very wealthy with a big safety net. The term full time mum does bother me because my care for my children is woven in to my working choices.

Callie when I was a fulltime working parent I worked shifts opposite my dh who was also a fulltime working parents we didn't pay anyone to look after our children it was exhausting though now I'm a carer for ds who has disabilities.

Although when I see posts on MN about childrearing being totally undervalued as a vocation in this country I always wonder what the posters actually want - do they think that the government should pay people who want to be SAHPs to be SAHPs? That would be nice obviously but I'm not sure how workable - or, ultimately, how beneficial to women - it would be.

Comparatively we have generous maternity provisions. Ok, not generous compared to Scandinavia or Germany but when compared to most countries we do pretty well.

Where we're really falling down compared to other countries is the cost of accessible and affordable childcare - we have the highest childcare costs in Europe by a huge margin. But any investment in childcare would be the precise opposite of valuing childrearing as a vocation.

Although when I see posts on MN about childrearing being totally undervalued as a vocation in this country I always wonder what the posters actually want - do they think that the government should pay people who want to be SAHPs to be SAHPs? That would be nice obviously but I'm not sure how workable - or, ultimately, how beneficial to women - it would be.

To me this seems to demonstrate the issue - the assumption that value means financial value. Not everything is about money.

If anyone says it to me (them being a full time mum) I always reply along the lines of "wow I must be superwoman as I'm a full time mum and I work as well"

Usually does the trick!!

I think there is a linguistic black spot here. Every option seems to throw some level of negativity at somebody's situation. The only time I felt upset was when a GP started to write down that I was 'unemployed' on a form. I had a toddler and was pregnant and wasn't working at the time. He seemed to view me as some sort of leech on society. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones but I felt quite teary at his attitude. From then on I wrote down/ answered 'mum' to those sort of official questions.

I don't like full time mum as a term. Much prefer stay-home mum - of course it doesn't mean you never leave your house, any more than being a WOHM means I will never come home again. It means your labour contributes to your family household, not an employer.

I've been a SAHM for years and have just taken a part time job. I'm never not going to be a mum. For that matter, 'full time' is generally understood as 37.5 hours a week... I'm still going to be doing a fuck of a lot more mothering than that. And that's the trouble with borrowing terms from the world of employment to describe the work of caring for a child. There are too many differences. I understand the desire to do it, because culturally we prize paid work over caring - I think there's an urge to claim some equality with employed people. Stay-home parents work bloody hard. But using the term 'full time' doesn't really achieve that IMO, and the connotations (which ARE there even if the individual doesn't consciously intend them) also fuel all this mummy wars crap.

It's a description of how I spend my time, not a value judgment.

I agree with this. I have not spent more than an hour away from my breastfed baby since she was born. My husband is away from her 9 hours a day every weekday.

We are both equally her parents, but he's definitely not doing it 'full time' in the way I am!

Maybe I should use their term 'full time child carer for a child I'm also the mother of' ?

Goldfishshoals-

My experience too.

My OH has always worked long hours, lots of work travel, often for weeks at a time. I have no family support- my OH was not a full time parent.
Someone mentioned working shifts- that wasn't even an option for us.

I think people use the term 'full time mum' because the 'full time' bit has connotations of work e.g. Full time nurse/teacher. And as I have noted on this thread people like to come out with 'oh if you're a SAHM you are actually just unemployed'. Being unemployed has negative connotations and doesn't acknowledge the massive amount of work being a SAHM amounts to, it is a 'job' overwhelmingly done by women and is looked down on and much of the time goes unappreciated because of this. Whatever women do they are criticised, by both men and other women. Working mothers pay for others to look after their children but many don't seem to regard a SAHM as doing exactly the same job for no pay. I had used the phrase 'full time mum' because it describes exactly what I do, every waking hour (and some when I would rather be asleep) is dedicated to caring for my daughter, I wouldn't use it now that I know it causes such offence and it was never intended that way, but I do think policing others use of language gets us nowhere.

Attributing the phrase to 'huns' also shows the level of nastiness directed at SAHMs by the people who work on here, suggesting they are of lower social class and intelligence and should be mocked and pitied for trying to give what they do as mothers some value in line with the value working mothers get from their jobs. Our society dictates that having a job and earning money is the most important thing and the only thing that has a value.

Our neighbour once said she was a full time mum. I thought no you're not - you drop your child off at their gran's all day every Sunday. That's not full time. I was on maternity leave then and got no break from the child - that was full time in my book. Now... I don't care what people call themselves.

Goldfishshoals and Cailleach666 so you honestly feel that your oh's are not full time parents because they work long hours to financially support their family? I would say ensuring the people in the family have a roof over their heads and food on the table to be a particularly large part of being a parent? Obviously you disagree on this.

Sorry but I do think full time mum is offensive and yes, you are parenting when your in meetings etc becuase you are doing that for the wages you earn to support the family. You are not a part time parent ffs. If others can afford the luxury to live off of one parents wage then that's brilliant and they are able to choose but it doesn't make them any more of a full time parent than working parents.

It's a ridiculous and totally meaningless thing to say because all mothers are mothers all of the time. You don't suddenly become childless again when you go to work for the day. You also don't hear people referring to fathers as full or part time, so I also find it incredibly sexist. I've only ever heard it used by quite stupid and uneducated people.

LazaUbi I use it, and I am very highly educated. Very highly. Just to update your records

If the dad was the one doing all the child care he'd be a full time dad/parent.
As someone else said upthread it distinguishes between those who wohm full or part time and those who don't but does at least give them a little more status than the (usually demeaning in our work-obsessed society) sahp (particularly if it's mum).;

Robina but they are a SAHP and there's nothing wrong with that.

Just like there is nothing wrong with being a working parent so why make out like they are somehow part time? Also caring is not the 100% of parenthood, providing also plays a large role!

This old chestnut.

Well I don't know you Mistress so I still haven't actually heard it used by anybody who is intelligent. And if you are well educated you should know better than to use a term that you are well aware makes implications that are insulting to other mothers.

Honestly, don't mothers get enough judgement from the rest of society without them using labels to try to make each other feel bad? I find it all so childish and counterproductive.

What Sunshine says.

People who get personally offended by how someone else describes their occupation have clearly got self esteem issues.

It does strike me that parents who do all their own childcare are generally expected to tiptoe around trying not to hurt the feelings of parents who do paid work outside the home whilst paying (or not paying, sometimes in the case of the other parent or grandparents doing childcare) someone else to do childcare for them. Those with paid jobs are rarely criticised for sneering that they do "everything a sahp does plus I work" even though with preschoolers it's logistically impossible that they are in fact doing all their own child care whilst working in a paid job (unless they work in childcare).

I work, I have parented full time, now I split my attention between the family and work. So I do both part time.