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.

sarahandquack but how can it be considered a job equal to a paying job if someone who works considers doing what sahps do a ‘holiday’

Yabu it is not a full time job....I've been both and being a sahp was far easier than a working parent

There seems to be a belief amongst many working parents (I say this as a working parent) that sahp can do all of housework / shopping / admin / lifework whilst simultaneously providing childcare babies and pre school age children.

IME this is not true, particularly when there is more than one child. Most of the housework/admin stuff gets done when not actively providing childcare (eg evenings and weekends when dp is home). So just as little downtime. *

*except on the days I’m at work I do get a bit of downtime as I get a lunch hour which is amazing and I consider “free time” ! And I Often pay bills etc in my lunch hour , which I find very very difficult to do on the days I have DD.

yy.I do my life admin on the hoof, so if i am on the train i'll do an ocado, pay some bills etc. order birthday presents. I'll ensure the chores i did when I had all day to do them are done in 30 mins, rather than 4 hour stroll round the shops encompassing a trip to the park, a coffee with a friend, a browse etc.

@shazafied
It was hard, but we did what we needed to do at the time. The money was good for the hours. DH did bedtime with the DC. It was the worst of both worlds I think. But we always knew it wouldn't be permanent (and that kept me going the nights when I was exhausted!)

shaza as a WOHM currently on maternity I find the exact opposite to be true of my situation.

I can get the vast majority of home stuff done during the day with the kids no problem.

I have virtually no downtime at work. A lunch break is a distant dream.

Everyone's experience of working / being at home is different.

The title of the OP is misleading. In the OPs situation it seems completely reasonable for her partner to become an SAHP.
I would NOT agree that SAHP is as hard as being a working parent having done both-eg when kids are sick, not a problem as SAHP can be major problem for a working parent. As a working single parent of 3 that requires serious problem solving beyond "my kid threw a wobbly at soft play oh no what shall I do"

SAHPs who apply themselves to bringing up their children properly work very hard, IME.

Sounds like it makes loads of sense for your family and personally I’d love this as I would feel confident that my child was loved whilst I was at work.

I get so annoyed with people saying that SAHPs do the same as WP. Clearly, someone else cares for your child whilst you are working?!
No one would claim a childminder is somehow not doing anything all day.
Obviously many parental tasks can’t be delegated but people can and do delegate looking after their children, which is a paid job. So looking after your own is clearly work, even if you are not doing it as a paid job.

It is clearly a responsibility and can be relentless and tiring. I think for sahp parents of disabled children it is more akin to a job but for others it is different. Staying at home
with babies/toddlers is also very different to school age kids. The latter seems like quite a luxury.

For me, I’m part-time so I see both sides. At work I am atonomous and independent but there is considerably more pressure and stress. My days at home are a pile of piss in comparison really and I generally do a few hours of actual work on my non-working days. However, I do acknowledge that childcare is hard in of itself- the tantrums can be wearing and tiring, lack of adult conversation can be tough etc.

There was a list above of individual task- I’m not trying to be mean to the poster but it is these sorts of lists that make it harder to take it seriously when SAHP say it is like a fully time job. If people just said they were doing 8-10 hours of childcare I think there would be less arguments. Outlining things like paying bills or doing washing is never going to be that convincing.

This isn’t to knock the role of a sahp. I think my familiy’s life would be far nicer with one of us at home. Neither of us are prepared to do it though.

Agree user

It's like SAHP think if you work bills get paid by magic, the fairies organise parties and the elves do the laundry

I agree that sahp don’t need to start listing additional jobs to justify themselves - saying “I do 10 hours childcare each day while DP commutes/works” is adequate. “I do all the night waking / parenting while DP sleeps as they have work the next day” might also be true of many SAHP (not all, sure).

That 8-10 hours of nonstop daytime childcare, plus possibly being up at night, is enough hard work without feeling like extra jobs need listing.

What I find so sad about threads like this is that a fair number of SAHP don't actually patronise or condemn working parents. They seem to try to focus on just talking about what they do not others and why they feel they can count themselves as working hard. Yet I have read several comments from working parents on here and in other discussions that are very much in that vein. Patronising and snarky. Sarcastic and mean girl. The fairies and the elves analogy is bang out of line. You are all mostly women who consider yourselves to big up the female sex, but here we go again the same twaddle and trap falling into.

I have previously said in this thread that I have enormous respect and sympathy for working mothers as I imagine a lot of them doing aspects of my umpteen hours a day when they get in from work and are knackered. My opining that I felt insulted and irked when it is implied or stated I don't have a job per basically has fuck all to do with other working parents that of course do this, it is about the insidious and depressing erosion of what myself and many millions of other people put their heart and soul into day in day out. A role that has probably made a massive difference to many young children and people. Just as having parents who both worked and had different things to bring to the table because of this. See if you can get the difference.

I have read the full thread and not going to get into the debate of whether being a SAHP is a job. However OP mentioned that her dh had been seriously unwell (but didn't specify if this was physically or mentally), and as many have said being at home with a small baby can be stressful and relentless at times. Is your dh's illness a life long condition? Is it likely to return? How does he deal with stress? I know you said he doesn't like his job but does he think being at home will be easier? Perhaps it will (it was for me) but may not be. Either way only you both know what will work best for your family and nothing is final, he can always return to the workplace if he decides to.

The key point in you post is 'me and DH are both happy with this plan'. Don't let other people's opinions of views shape your lives, it will make you miserable.

Be grateful you can have one of you at home as both working with two little ones is incredibly stressful!!!

If your DH would like to be a SAHP and you can afford it, I think you should give it a go. If he has been seriously unwell, it might be a good idea for his health too.

Eatmycheese

I was a SAHM for 4 years and I never felt insulted when people said I didn't have a job because I don't consider looking after my own child a job. It's a life choice that I made at that time. I was comfortable with my decision and never felt the need to justify it as a "job." No idea why people are so sensitive about it. If you're happy why does it bother you what other people think?

Auto maternity leave is simply not comparable with years of day in and day out slog with small dc at all.

Your comments sound really ignorant.

Having been a sahm and now back at work it's a bloody doddle, anything would be rather than wrestling with small dc every minuet of every day. It's a joy to be at work and having some child care is a joy to have one meal catered for! One meal taken off me.

I find it quiet cheeky that someone who has only stayed at home for maternity leave feels entitled to comment on what it's like to have full 24/7 care of small children.

"It's like SAHP think if you work bills get paid by magic, the fairies organise parties and the elves do the laundry"

SAHP really don't think this. What I do think (having done it) is that I had sole responsibility for feeding, changing and entertaining three small children between 6am and 7pm, while DH was out of the house, for 5 days a week, and that keeping everyone alive and more or less sane was fucking hard work. Parties, bills and laundry were really the least of my concerns - I didn't have any more time for them during the day then than I do now at work, and so they happened the same way as they do for WOHP, i.e. in the evenings or weekends when there was a second pair of hands available, or when the kids were sleeping. Maybe some people have exceptionally easy children, and never more than one of them, because surely to god if you have ever had charge of a baby and a toddler (let alone two toddlers and a baby) all day long for days on end, you must be aware of how very hard and relentless the minute-to-minute grind can be. It's genuinely beyond me how anyone can sneer at how easy someone has it having to do childcare 24/7 with barely any respite. I work now, and have a different set of balls to juggle, but I've never done anything as hard, before or since, as being a SAHP to 3 under-5s.

Yabu it's not a job.
Sahp do exactly the same as wahp. They Just have more time to do things.
Bollocks. During the day, a SAHP does the job that WAHP pay childminders or nurseries to do.
If you are both happy with this arrangement then sod what everyone else says.

Others might find if a bit cheeky that someone whose job is a ‘doddle’ assumes that is true for everyone else with a job.

My job involves keeping critically ill children alive. Other people’s jobs involve responding to emergencies, crimes or natural disasters.

Enjoy your doddle.

Being a sahp is not a job. Yabu

absolutely agree with if it works for you and your partner then anyone else's thoughts don't count.

Albeit I had family who looked after my son childcare wise (and appreciate I was very lucky) I still had to full time be a sole parent as in anything to do with my son was down to me - when I got home from work I got no 'down time' until he was asleep in bed - I had to do the housework, accounts - everything was down to me.

The luxury the SAHP with a partner has is that is shared - (and if it's not then that's an issue you need to raise with your partner}

@hernam, well, erm, you say but how can it be considered a job equal to a paying job if someone who works considers doing what sahps do a ‘holiday’. I hate to break it to you, but I think it's assumed you might actually not need to be paid to like time with your own child!

@BitchQueen90 I guess I am irritated and sad because it is yet another way in which the role that largely women contribute to society is often besmirched. If more men stayed at home and gave their jobs up then perhaps this wouldn't be the case??.

We could afford for me to give up work, and I always wanted to be here doing this. With three under five it will be this way for a while, since I especially do want to be there all day every day for my young children. I was a career woman for quite some time and came to having children fairly late so I'm assured in my choices. However, if I was a woman in my late twenties or early thirties reading some of this I might feel really downhearted and reticent to do what is just as important a job.

And as a general comment, and not aimed at you, I find this "it's not a job you're not paid" Line fairly indicative of the insular and non empathic, society we seem to be mutating into. I read a thread on here today about how volunteering was really important and really valuable. To me the role of a SAHP is and it does distress me that there seems to be some glib assumptions that half of us are sat in our pj's, drinking lattes and pissing about in between odds and sods of housework.

Such a shame.