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?

Totally boring issue - again!
If somebody says they're a "full time accountant" or "work full time", everybody knows that they are talking about what they do with themselves for anything over and above say, 35 hours of the week. Apart from that, being an accountant is hardly a state of being, "full time" or not.
If someone says they are a full-time mum, they just mean that they parent full-time to the exclusion of other types of work. That's it. No more. If you don't do anything else and you are the default at home parent on a daily basis, then parenting is indeed what you do during those "full time" hours worked by other people. It's a statement about what you actually do day-to-day, that's all and it certainly feels very full/-time, that's for sure.

*Right so using this, you too wouldn't use the term full time Mum, you would use full time childcare?

One is offensive, the others is not*

I was replying to another poster who did object to me saying I was a full time child carer for my own child. But thank you for agreeing with me.

To parent is not a verb.

So we can't describe taking care of the constant needs of a small child as 'parenting' (because parent is not a verb), we can't use 'caring' (because being a carer implies they have additional needs to some people) , can't use 'childcare' (because that implies being paid to some people) ... And I've been on mumsnet long enough to know that 'baby sitting' is right out...

Are there any words that can be used? Or do I just have to point at the child and grunt and hope people understand?

I think parenting is a verb and involves a lot of stuff, but that includes providing for DC and doing things for them remotely.

Parent absolutely is a verb (as well as a noun). As are mother and father.

I think the different connotations of

"I spend my day mothering children" and

"I spend my day fathering children"

are interesting from a societal point of view!

Of course "to parent" is a verb - otherwise "parenting books" and "parenting classes" would be redundant, as would the government Parenting Across Scotland initiative....

There used to be no such verb as parenting afaik. It's a dreadful silly word. I hate it. Grrr.

There used to be no such word as selfie either yet here we are

It's been used as a verb since the 1600s apparently.

How else should one describe a woman who doesn't go to work and looks after her kids instead. It's a very clear concise phrase, and as someone who has been both, I do not find it the least bit offensive.

I abhor the term SAHM. First and foremost because it has a lazy negative connotation attached to it, and secondly because I'm also self employed from home and do a lot more than just "Mum" all day. I use the term Homemaker, because that's exactly what I do. I raise the children, clean the house, cook the food, handle the finances, contribute financially myself, and generally make my home & family happier by being home full time.

I don't really understand your post Pumpkin. Are you just saying you object to the term SAHM as applied to yourself because you aren't a SAHM (because you work from home)?

Somebody come up with another term for SAHM. I always think it sounds like some sort of reclusive person who rarely leaves the house. And that's not very apt.

Most accurately, I'm a "GOTHM" because I'm a mum who spends most of the time when possible Getting Out of The Home . I do use SAHM. It's a bit wordy though.

I've also been at work FT, PT so have covered most options. Full time mum didn't offend me as a working parent. Yes I remained a parent whilst otherwise occupied at work, but the grunt work of the parenting in that time was delegated out. Nursery was wiping bums, filling tums and entertaining the DCs.

I still refer to myself as my most recent occupation when relevant. I'm not actively practicing it at the moment, but I remain qualified to work in that field. It may be relevant background information about my status in life.

I do draw the lines at the mummy memes that make out that she is simultaneously a cook, cleaner, teacher, doctor etc etc

In that case I am a stay at home mother - who wuold have thought it? Work full time but as in the house I get to be a SAHM....

lucy me too .

I'm a SAHM/full time mum even though I have a pretty demanding career.

Go us!!!

It is unemployment - but if we're going along with what can be inferred from words even though it wasn't blatantly said, unemployment implies that you are actively looking for work, should be looking for work or are dealing with the job centre on a regular basis. None of which apply to most mothers who have eschewed a career in favour of their child based commitments (that's too wordy and still risks offending. Probably.)

There we are - this is the way these threads always go. Those who think "full time mother" shouldn't be used because it might be taken as an implied slight by some mothers in paid work have the knives out and are piling in having a series of full on, right out in the open digs at anyone choosing to look after their own children full time. Followed by the obligatory fist bumping and mutual ego massaging about how "we do all that and work too".

You dont you know. But that's right. Go you you keep on telling yourself that you're superior and doing everything, whilst telling those who look after their kids full time that they're unemployed, but mustn't use the term full time mum because some superior, work outside parent might be self obsessed enough to see that as disparaging to themselves.

Slow hand clap. For me too for reopening the stupid, predictable thread. Wander off and those who shout loudest for longest always end them this way and never, ever admit to seeing the utter hypocrisy.

It just means they're unemployed.

They are not "unemployed". They are not in paid employment, which is different.

I was a sahm for nearly five years and now work part time. I have found them both hard in different ways. why does one type of mother have to be working harder or be better than any other type and actually who cares how people choose to term themselves. Can we not just all be doing-our-best-in-our own-situation-mother? Or DOBIOOSM, if you must.

Drinkingtea the fact that you said you find the phrase 'I'm looking after my DC and not working at the moment' disparaging shows that it is you that doesn't value what you are doing and on some level (wrongly) thinks it's inferior to working, hence your defensiveness and insistence on trying to conflate the two things.

Parents should value caring for their children for its own sake. It isn't employment, it's value is of a completely different nature. There's no need to try to pretend it's something it's not and criticise other people's parenting in the process. As I said twice earlier in the thread, mothers are subjected to enough judgement from the rest of society without heaping it on each other, with not-so-subtle insults and faux horror at how people react to them, or 'slow hand clap' nastiness at anybody expressing a view that you don't like.

Which is the definition...

drinking if you actually read the posts as opposed to making assumptions you'd see that lucy and I were joking because we work from home.

We don't work outside the home and use child care or whatever.

This discussion has been interesting for me. I suspect as an older poster my take on it is slightly different, as apart from a short time when my DC were young and I stayed at home to look after them full time, I was a working mother. I did know a couple of mums who were in the fortunate financial position of having the choice not to do paid work, one was previously a teacher who chose to homeschool her DC.

Now my DC have school age children, both sets of parents do paid work, as do all their friends and our nieces and nephews who are parents. Perhaps it's regional, but the only mothers in this area not in paid work/on maternity leave are basically unemployed.