To think that being a SAHP is a full time job.

[SpottedTiger]

DC1 is due soon. I'm the main earner and DH works PT, he has been seriously unwell over the last few years and this has been a huge achievement. Our plan is that after my Mat leave DH will become a SAHD and I will go back to work FT. We are both happy with this plan, however DHs family and friends are putting pressure on him to continue working PT around my work hours. Obviously if DH wants to for himself that's fine with me, but my thoughts are that looking after DD all day is a full time job in itself and it's unfair to expect him to then go to work after a full day with her when it's not financially necessary. DH works in an entry level, minimum wage job which he doesn't especially enjoy, so taking a career break for a few years shouldn't impact negatively on him from a career perspective and he is looking forward to the role of SAHD.

There is no “norm”. There are lots of different lifestyles.

Most people can't afford extensive outsourcing like you describe. That is simply fact.

Most people can't afford extensive outsourcing like you describe. That is simply fact.

Domestic outsourcing services are a significant sector of the economy and have been undergoing rapid growth for a while. Quite a lot of people are able and willing to pay.

Maria, you clearly do live in a very affluent area and/or move in very affluent circles if it's unusual for people not to outsource these tasks. I know a few people who have cleaners for a couple of hours each week and one person who used to outsource the ironing, but it really isn't the norm, whether both partners work or not. Most people do their own housework because it's a normal part of everyday life.

I guess we could afford to outsource stuff if we wanted to, but it just doesn't really occur to us to spend money on a task that we can do for ourselves without any significant inconvenience.

Wait - maybe we could have an argument about SAHPs who outsource housework next, that would be awesome!

Ooh I had a cleaner when I was a sahm! Didn’t want to lose the one I had when I was at work. To be fair 3 hours a week barely made a dent in the mountain of cleaning and housework so didn’t feel bad.

In Asian countries women will be at home with the kids but often have a nanny and a housekeeper. A friend from HK was very perturbed to find out I was alone at home with a baby and toddler and no help.

Just shows! We treat it like a competition as to who is busiest, who has the hardest life, who is mopping the stairs at midnight. Well, what fools we are really. Is that the aim? To be knackered and have no free time.

In Asian countries women will be at home with the kids but often have a nanny and a housekeeper

Not all the countries. Unfortunately DH is from one where the women tend to do everything alone ie deffo not housekeeper/nanny etc lol.

Delatron you didn't...! Gosh, how indulgent of you, what must your DP have thought??

You're right, in many countries the mother is at home and wouldn't dream of cooking, cleaning or even doing childcare without help. When is the next flight?

Yes sorry, bit of a generalisation. I’m thinking Malaysia, HK. I do also understood it’s because the help isn’t paid very much so that again isn’t an ideal situation.

God Id love to have help

I know xsahm it sounds lovely to me (apart from having someone on your house the whole time.)

Yet we, as a country sneer at people having cleaners, gardeners etc. So it mainly falls to the women. SAHM and WOHM, sorry but we shouldn’t be against each other we should be questioning why very few of us have the balance right. Whereas the men....do they have these arguments amongst themselves?
No!

I made exactly the same point further up the thread, it's so sad isn't it.

It really is very sad.

Its a full time job. I personally could not believe how hard and challenging it was at the beginning because of all the mis information and disrespect carers/parents get for not making money. If you have limited support you are really on duty 24/7. Taking care of children and the home at the same time is difficult.

Taking care of children and the home at the same time is difficult.

Not only is it difficult - it changes all the time because children develop so quickly. What works one month is already obsolete the next and you have to reengineer.

@Delatron friends live in singapore and malaysia

• you have to be quite well off to have a “help”. think expat wifes.
• the “help” is usually a woman, often horrendously exploided (think 6 days a week 10 hour working days, minimal pay, if not worse)

All my friends were entirely shocked when they learned about them first. all of them now gave a help and treat them just like everybody else does, i.e. terribly for our standarts. not something to aspire to!

It's not a full time job. I work full time and parent my child as well it's bloody hard. I've been a stay at home mum and it was the easiest thing I've done. Not fun but easy

I think just because something is harder, doesn't mean you should do it. Life isnt a competition.

The argument that working parents juggle both I dont get, yes they do a great job and its a great acheivement and they should be proud, and I would agree on the face of it must be harder than being a sahm. But having children is a joint choice, and if feesible for one to stay home and it works better for them as a couple, just do it ! No need to justify it. Just because something is potentially an easier route doesnt mean its the wrong route.

Two FT working parents can be hard on the two adults involved but it can also be very hard on the children. It’s important to try to make everyone’s life as manageable as possible.

Having a SAHP can be very hard on the children too Bonsoir, if the SAHP is bored or frustrated. I speak from experience!

However, I do agree with the poster above who said that people shouldn't feel obliged to take the more difficult option, whatever we feel that may be. It isn't a race to thw bottom, and as long as your choices work for you and your family, you shouldn't have to justify them to anybody.

Some SAHPs find it hard not to shrink the perimeter of their lives, and therefore get frustrated.

This is one of them questions where no one will agree.
My opinion is that no it's not a job which it isn't, it's a lifestyle choice. That said, going to my job 2-4 days a week (it differs) is like fucking heaven! It's like a break where I can have an adult conversation and a hot cup of tea but I have a very easy job in customer service and not everyone has a stress free job so they'll say the opposite.
You and DH do what is best for your family and bollocks to what his family or anyone else thinks.

@whassupmissus is that really the best you can do!?

Given that according to the ONS the average woman on a year of mat leave works 60 hours of work in a week, then after three times I'd have thought you'd been brimful of empathy!

I have three children under five. Well at one point three under four. I don't spend an extra eight hours a day at home with the kids, one is at school five days a week, one at Nursery four mornings, only the baby with me the entire time. What makes you qualified to draw such a generalisation?

I did chose to give up work but we don't outsource a thing and again according to the ONS I am part of the UK's unpaid household service work that amounts to an estimated £1.24 trillion.thats a lot of work that according to you and others isn't really a job.

I don't understand why women who were once at home all day with their children find it so hard to imagine that for those of us that stay that way that we fill it with work. Real work. Either you really did fuck all, did something half arsed or have chosen to lie to yourself. I'm not in my pyjamas much of the time, I'm not master of my destiny to quote you. That line made me laugh, especially as you have children. I'm not master of my destiny anymore than anyone who has to go out and turn up at an office for 9am. By then I've been out of the house for as long as they have. And possibly awake and active for a while longer, who knows.

There is a damaging and corrosive undertone to this thread and it makes me very sad to think my daughter is growing up in a world where woman hate each other this much already, lifestyle choice or not.

You are working. So are others. Good for you, I have no issue with that.
So, whether you like it or not, am I and many others who don't clock in.

I hope this sort of fizzing resentment and bizarre perception of matters doesn't infiltrate your parenting.

@RDR2 you know nothing of the circumstances in which I was able to or indeed in which I gave up work. More frothing at the mouth

Furthermore, you have just thrown way more mothers and families in general under the bus with your dreadful welfare comment than you perhaps intended to. There are millions of working families relying on benefits to get by thanks to the government. Wake up. Are they all under a truck? Or a bus? Or the vehicle of your choice?

And lastly, so what if I could afford to drop out? It doesn't mean I don't roll my sleeves up and toil at a coal face albeit a different one.

Does life make you so bitter and resentful that you cannot conceive of a world where women have a life like I do without you being so condescending and withering with no basis to do so?

Some SAHPs find it hard not to shrink the perimeter of their lives, and therefore get frustrated

Are you serious?? I have met a far more diverse, and interesting set of people since I have been a SAHP than I ever did in my office environment, and that was in a huge multinational company interacting with people from all over the world. This issue being they were all a certain type of person, and you only ever talked about work .