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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate the phrase full time mum

203 replies

NotPennysBoat815 · 15/08/2017 08:02

I was reading the mail yesterday (Shock Blush) 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?

OP posts:
Lesley1980 · 15/08/2017 14:50

It's a description of where you spend your time. It's nothing to get hung up on.

You don't hear fathers complaining about this sort of thing.

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 15:10

Drinkingtea I would never call out or be horrible or sneery to someone with the luxury and financial stability to be able to choose to be a SAHP.

As I have previously said, if you need to work to provide for your children then that is a part of parenting and I still struggle to understand why that is being a part time parent.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 15:17

StickThat some people can't afford to work outside the home when they have several preschool children. A parent giving up their career to do their own childcare isn't always a luxury.

Keeping both parents careers going full time with all the massive future advantage that can bring as opposed to a career break, when total household income is lower after childcare than it would be if one parent gave up paid work to cover all childcare, can also be a huge luxury and privileged position for the family unit to be in.

MistressPage · 15/08/2017 15:20

LazaUbi and yet you don't feel that it's insulting for you to label my chosen description of myself as stupid? Do you see why I can't take you seriously?

SerfTerf · 15/08/2017 15:22

This must be AT LEAST the 500th thread on this precise question.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 15:22

People describe themselves as full text parents in response to "what do you do"?

If you do your own childcare full time there is no way to answer that question which won't either get you sneered at or patronised, or offend someone with a thin skin.

If someone who looked after her elderly mother all day every day called herself a full time daughter then power to her - she'd be daughtering full time, unlike me. As it is the title carer is more widely understood and used but there is no equivalent for a full time parent.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 15:23

Full time not full text

EatTheChocolateTeapot · 15/08/2017 15:28

It means full time carer. A SAHP doesn't really stay at home all day so it's not accurate and it sounds lazy as if you are just literally staying at your home while your indeed a carer plus doing housework.

EatTheChocolateTeapot · 15/08/2017 15:31

SAYOE, Stay At Your Office Employee

EatTheChocolateTeapot · 15/08/2017 15:31

You are not your

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 15:37

Drinkingtea well when I have children I will have to work and my dp will be the SAHP. If he suggested for one second that i was therefore only a part time parent I would go fucking ballistic. I would love to be the one at home with the children but unfortunately I earn significantly more than my partner. Providing for my children by putting a roof over heir heads and food on the table does not equate to being a part time parent.

Also please note I said luxury to choose to stay at home and did not suggest that staying at home was the only luxury option.

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 15:42

StickThat some people can't afford to work outside the home when they have several preschool children. A parent giving up their career to do their own childcare isn't always a luxury

Surely the choice was to have the children knowing they would have to give up their careers to look after them?

CorbynsBumFlannel · 15/08/2017 15:48

Well full time child carer to my own child is a bit of a mouthful isn't it? If you work full time then of course you are still your child's parent but you are outsourcing the care of your child for the hours you are at work.
These threads always end the same way - with mums that work saying that they do everything a full time mum does plus hold down a job. Clearly your nanny, childminder, parent, partner or whoever looks after your child when you work is doing sweet fa then!
Or that they'd love to stay at home but can't afford to....when what they mean is they can't afford the lifestyle they'd like.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 15:50

StickThat your DP will be doing more actual parenting than you though. Not liking that is understandable but your intention to "go ballistic* if anyone mentions it doesn't alter reality.

I've read "I do all that and work too" from parents with paid jobs about parents who do their own childcare instead of paid work numerous times, and heard it said too. It snacks of the same insecurity that "going ballistic" if someone mentions a truth you are uncomfortable with does.

Giving up a career to care for your own children can be a luxury and can be a choice. Sometimes it is in fact not a genuine choice not a luxury at all - exactly as keeping your career going and climbing the ladder for future career prospects and current income needs can be a luxury choice or a necessity. Neither option is always a real free choice, nor always a luxury, and for different families either might have been simply a pragmatic necessity.

LazaUbi · 15/08/2017 15:53

As Stick alludes to, providing for your children financially is as much a part of parenting as physically caring for them. Nobody implies that fathers who go to work are 'part time fathers'. I really can't believe people are making such ignorant comments.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 15:57

Yes StickThat their choice was to have the children just as it is every parent's choice (in Europe at least, hopefully, ideally...).

You chose to have a child knowing you can't do your own full-time childcare. Another chose to have a child knowing they will have to take a career hit because of the cost of childcare (not considering how unexpected multiples or child with health problems can mean the parent's hand is forced) Neither had the free choice of a luxury lifestyle.

Others could comfortably take a career break but choose to work and outsource childcare, or earn enough to pay for childcare and continue their career but choose to do their own childcare nonetheless. They have the luxury choice, but plenty of parents (both in paid work and taking the career hit) don't have a real choice or feel they don't, especially while children are small and totally dependent.

Genghi · 15/08/2017 15:58

Parenting is always full time. Some mothers need to work to support the kids they parent full time, others need to stay at home to do it. It doesn't make either choice invalid. Kids can be screwed up either way - I was screwed up by my stahm, and in fact I did more parenting as a big sister than that witch ever did.

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 15:59

35 hours a week additional parenting, so if the working parent does the night feeds becuase of breast feeding and looks after the child for a chunk of time each day without the dp to give them a break, are they allowed to be full time parents too??

Genghi · 15/08/2017 16:00

@LazaUbi - I agree. Some of these comments are properly ignorant. From I presume people who don't do much parenting at all if they have time to shit stir this early in the day.

Genghi · 15/08/2017 16:01

By a lot of the judgy ignorant 'logic' here do most sahp with school aged kids do any parenting?

FrLukeDuke · 15/08/2017 16:02

I used to say "I look after my kids full time."

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 16:03

Genghi no obviously not, you are only a full parent if you look after the children 9-5 Monday - Friday.

Get the memo!

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 16:05

Laza it is the answer to "what do you do"?

If a father does all the childcare instead of a paid job of course he's a full time father - it's what he does - if he's a postman/ shop assistant/ builder/ prime minister that's what he does. If his wife looks after the kids all day while he sits behind a desk she's doing more parenting, as a dedicated activity.

If the question were What are you then it's irrelevant how much childcare you do. But nobody asks what are you, they ask what do you do? It's delusional to suggest that while I'm compiling budget spreadsheets at work I am parenting, any more than I'm walking my dog while I'm in a meeting or helping my elderly mother shower while I'm processing invoices - no matter if the money I'm earning pays my nanny, dog walker and mother's carer.

peaceloveandbiscuits · 15/08/2017 16:08

I hate it too. When registering DS2's birth recently the registrar asked my occupation. I said I stay at home with the children. She said "full time mother". I didn't know what else to suggest, but I really dislike the implication that a working mother is less than a full time mother.

drinkingtea · 15/08/2017 16:13

School age children don't need a full time parent unless they are home schooled. I agree you can only meaningfully be a full time parent if you are doing your own childcare for the equivalent of a working week on top of what everyone does outside working hours.

Childminder would convey the role, were it not for the fact it would be understood as a paid role for other people's children. Sahm bringst the patronising twat in people who think they are better because they are paid to sit in an office.