To think a significant minority of MN users don't respect SAHMs?

[Bumpitybumper]

During my time on this forum I have seen the following views being expressed about SAHMs:

• SAHMs are bad feminists and therefore not entitled to any kind of opinion regarding feminist issues. Particular objections are raised about SAHMs having thoughts about feminism in the workplace irrespective of their previous experiences when they were employed.

- SAHMs are sponging financially off their DPs and just don't want to get a job. Many posters seem to think it is impossible for a SAHM's non financial contributions to equal or exceed the financial contribution provided by the breadwinning partner. SAHMs therefore deserve less than there working partners in any break up/divorce.

• SAHMs should be responsible for all housework regardless of capacity to fit this in during the day. If a SAHM struggles to get things done due to ages and temprament of children they are told they are just not trying hard enough.

-SAHMs should do the vast majority, if not all the night wakings with babies and young children. This usually extends to women on maternity leave and holds true even if SAHM is shattered and her working partner is relatively well rested.

There are loads more examples too that I can't think of right now, but I see it pretty much on a daily basis. Is this just me or is the quite a lot of disdain for SAHMs on MN?

Being a SAHP is fine.

Being an unmarried SAHP is unwise, IMO.

Kitten

It’s sad isn’t it as women we seem to turn on each other like this.

Fb is full of crap though. I think in RL most people are just doing the best they can.

I agree that being an unmarried SAHP is unwise. But that's not a moral judgement it's a practical one.

This thread proves your point doesn't it?

There are many ways to contribute. One SAHM of late-primary/secondary school age kids that I know is partly responsible for keeping our local school afloat, as the PTA under her leadership makes enough money to enable the school to do things that the government now seems to think constitutes excessively profligate use of public money, like buying pencils and glue.

Others run local sports clubs. Or save the state thousands by looking after elderly relatives. Or slob about at home or in coffee shops, but have many good friends whose lives would be immeasurably poorer without their positivity, support and encouragement.

What a miserable state of affairs to equate human value to how much tax you contribute to public coffers vs how much you 'leech' out of it. Makes my blood run cold.

People are defensive of their own choices or circumstances and WOH or SAH is one of those issues that women feel judged about and therefore sensitive about and so jump to defend their own decisions. I think it happens IRL but it’s more polar on here because it’s an anonymous forum. It’s like BF vs FF on speed! I wish we could just be more supportive of each other regardless of what we’re doing but women are pitted against each other in so many other situations that it’s almost instinct to defend yourself above all others. Not preaching - I’m guilty of it too but I wish it wasn’t this way.

I have witnessed a few nasty comments over the years on here about SAHPs. I just tend to think their jealous.

Lots of supportive comments over the years as well.

Fuck all to do with anyone else IMO.

‘Worth’ is viewed through many different lenses by many different people...be that economic worth, social, cultural, intellectual...whatever.

Those who view, and value the world and the ‘worth’ of a mother solely through an economic prism, seem to me, ignorant in the extreme - but that’s my view.

People have myriad of views on how to raise their own (and others) children....some have a Protestant work ethic, and believe its right to return to work asap, some need to return to work - either for economic reasons, or their own sanity , some chose to stay at home to nurture their children, as opposed to relinquishing care of their DC to others - and are prepared to take an economic ‘hit’

Whatever individual women choose to do - either return to work, work part time, work voluntarily, be a SAHM is their business - certainly not the business of some over opiniated stranger on MN

Boxsets - so only people who pay taxes or do so called worthy jobs are to be given respect? A kind of master race? Bonkers

Basically the arsehole brigade on here like having someone to stick the boot in. MNHQ tend to clamp down on some of the usual targets - racism, disablism etc... so there are certain targets that are still "ok" for a good e-boot-sticking-in session of vitriol, contempt and abuse. Hence we get so many SAHM threads allowed to stand and fatty-bashing season because MNHQ never have the balls to moderate against those kinds of hate speech.

I find MN very anti SAHM. I'm a working mum and often find myself 'defending' the SAH position in threads.

I'm not sure why people place such a moral value on paid work. I get that if you need to put a roof over your head and eat you have to work - but I don't see it as a moral position which is contributing to society, its a survival thing. My last job existed solely to make profit for a private equity company by selling stuff to people that didn't need it!

I also don't understand why people cant see that the cost/benefit of childcare v work is different for different families and different families split caring, earning and household tasks differently.

I think people undervalue the actual process of being with a child which is reflected in the low pay of childcare workers and the low status of people who do the job themselves.

I think people are very short-termist about a woman as an economic unit. I built up a level of wealth before I had children and it is that that enables me to work part time, not my DH.

I stay at home and I personally find it much harder emotionally and mentally than going to work and I had a notoriously demanding and difficult job.

The only judgement I have is that being a SAHP with an unmarried partner is very, very, very unwise.

I couldn't care less to be honest, if they are a decent person who does the right thing then it's a non-issue whether they work or stay at home.
Being critical is just another way for bitchy women to put down other women.

Blaming mothers for either working or not working is a common theme on MN and in RL. As is telling women who were unable or chose not to become mothers they will regret it. Can't win.

what grass said, I work FT but i'm not sure how many of us would really choose if we could have a happy life without working or not working much. I agree that working PT or SAHP if you're not married is not the best choice from a long term practical, not moral, perspective.

i know lots of women IRL that had kids without getting married and then didn't work much/went pt - girls should be taught about this at school in my view.

@grasspigeons great post! I agree with so much of what you say.

I haven't read the thread. I'm a full time working parent and I'd LOVE to be a SAHP.

I don't think it looks easy though, and can see it's very undervalued by society, but still, I wish I had the option to do it. I've never seen anyone on MN being mean about SAHPs though.

This is a common theme and I think threads like this are to blame. The constant threads asking for validation, complaining not enough respect etc.

And you've misrepresented in your op in feminism, if it's the thread I'm thinking about. What was said there was that stay at home mums could be feminists, but simply liberal feminists as opposed to radical ones. The discussion was more on definition of feminism. But there was not a dispute they could be feminiists if they so chose.

Everyone should do what's right for their family and them. Not this constant seeking of validation from everyone else. Get it from you and yours. That's all that matters. Not strangers on line.

Sweeping judgements about SAHM and WOHM are one thing MN has in common with the daily mail. The DM also goes further by making sweeping judgments about all women (no children? Ruthless career woman; had children young? You should have known better and controlled yourself; had children older? Self-obsessed career woman who wants it all; etc etc)

"There is nothing new under the sun". This same 'debate' was raging 30+ years ago when my DC were young. SAHMs were devalued as they didn't contribute to society. Working mums were devalued as not putting their children first.

Personally, I don't think we will ever reach a detente with it as long as we live in the society we live in. And I find that very sad.

And for my 2 pence worth, BOTH have their pros and cons and BOTH are valid life choices. God, I wish we could stop judging each other and start to lift each other up instead!

I'm a SAHM and I have never felt that...until I read RubiaPTA's just then saying...."I've seen alot of SAHMs not accept or understand their privilege on here...." very random judgy statement without knowing how or why some people are SAHMs!

PersonAtHome you've not been on here enough! there are a few on this thread alone calling SAHPs lazy layabouts.

I was a SAHM for many years simply because I couldn’t see the logic of paying someone else to do a job that I could do perfectly well myself. For what it would have cost me in childcare meant I would have just about broken even - in terms of monthly child care costs v. earning capacity. It also meant the father of our children could work his way up the corporate ladder (which he did v successfully), take on international roles, huge amounts of travel and never worry about having to juggle childcare with his work commitments. He just sailed on in a stellar career untroubled by any concerns at home.

He said I provided a platform which made it possible for him to do that - he certainly didn’t see me as a prostitute. It was a joint decision that worked for us but one that is pretty outmoded now.

I really don’t know which is better - we ended up in the divorce courts where I was lucky in that the judge saw my contribution (in terms of domestic service to the home and childcare which, if I’d been working, would have been factored out to someone else) as equal to my husband’s monetary contribution.

This is a pretty outdated approach now - even women just a few years younger than me would never have considered not working - but to be a SAHM was still not that terribly unusual 25 years ago.

I have never seen such hostility or sideswiping remarks towards SAHMs as on MN- it’s just a decision that a couple make about how their family works but some people are just very unpleasant about it. There’s an assumption that it is only about lack of externally provided affordable childcare or that the it is for the very rich but not that it is a decision made by a whole swathe of families, short or long term, after they have weighed up their own particular circumstances and references. Within my lifetime, women have been vilified for choosing to work when they have children and now it has swung right over the other way.