Looking after your own children IS work

[Bumpitybumper]

Oxford Dictionary definition of "work":
activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result

AIBU to suggest that the people that suggest that looking after one's own children isn't work are wrong and in some cases are actively trying to devalue and undermine the people (usually women) that do the majority of childcare?

Would be really interested to understand how anyone can read this definition and argue that looking after children isn't work.

Legal, financial and advertising are beneficial. So are the others.

Also. These people pay taxes. Pay into a pension and stimulate the economy.

Does your husband pay into your pension?

Bumpity, I guess the argument would be that people employed in those professions are valuable to society in regards to the tax they pay etc...

Stophuggingme

I think being at home with children who are not old enough to be at school is very different and could be considered being a "full time" SAHP.

However when all children are at school It's very different.

I'm not even suggesting that being a SAHP is a bad thing or that I think negatively about it. I would happily be one!

All I'm saying is I think it's a bit ridiculous to suggest wider society as a whole should 'value SAHPs'. In reality, the only value is to that person's immediate family.

Feeling obliged still involves a choice though OP. Own that choice! You choose to stay at home, whatever the circumstances. It’s still a choice and one relatively few of us can easily afford.

All this ‘work’ nonsense (laundry, cooking, reading, bloody name writing) is similarly done by parents who work. These things must be done whether someone is at home all day or not. I could do the laundry slowly and inefficiently because i didn’t work. Others did it in a fraction of the time after work or at weekends. It’s not work, it’s just managing life.

It feels like the working inside the home brigade feel insecure in some way, needing to have their endeavour categorised as work in order to somehow add value or status to the role. I didn’t need that. I had an inner peace with my choice and needed no labels or other people’s approval to show my decision was ‘right’ (for me) or worthy of respect. I didn’t need to equate what I did to my mates who worked.

Ask yourself why you need the label. Women: have the confidence to own your decisions.

I have previously mentioned that lots of jobs have no societal value. There are whole professions that actually take money from wider society with every pound they earn (legal, advertising, finance)

Gosh but people really have no understanding of the world they live in.

These jobs generate money. Which is taxed and pays for all the ‘societal value’ stuff. This is how your capitalist world works.

Where will the workforce in 20-70 years time be supplied from? Particularly important when we live in an aging population

And if all those children decide to be SAHPs themselves then we're all pretty fucked aren't we.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

I don’t know if I have seen that you’ve previously made that distinction.
If so please accept my apologies

it it really a positive thing in the long term for kids to be left to their own device when their parents are at work?

Exactly. Most people stop paying for childcare by secondary age.

When SAHPs were common you didn't have feral gangs of young people so often. Children are stupid and until the cerebral cortex is fully developed at around age 24 there is a lot of bad decision making.

A parent's job is to save a child from themselves. They can't do that when they are not there.

To that person's immediate family unit, yes. To society?? I'm not sure

Keeps the child out of care. Costing £££

Child less likely to commit crimes/end up on drugs

Child becomes a contributing member of society

If people abandoned their children then what would happen to society?

I have previously mentioned that lots of jobs have no societal value. There are whole professions that actually take money from wider society with every pound they earn (legal, advertising, finance) and some industries that have a massive detriment to our society (tobacco, junk food).

Are you really this detached from reality?

People like junk food, they like to smoke, drink, they need accountants, they need lawyers, they need banks. Apart from tobacco, I really need all these things, far more than I need your children, frankly.

Are you suggesting working parents are abandoning their children?

Or that children of working parents won't contribute to society?

Keeps the child out of care. Costing £££ - means the parent won't pay taxes costing £££

I'm confused as to why some posters seem to think that only children of SAHPs will contribute to society in the future.

Both my parents worked. As do I.

Bonus points to me as well, I managed to stay off drugs and didn't join a gang.

When SAHPs were common you didn't have feral gangs of young people so often. Children are stupid and until the cerebral cortex is fully developed at around age 24 there is a lot of bad decision making.

I agree, and I think having a SAHP is a good thing, and in fact I am a SAHM. But when you have a kid, you're supposed to take steps to make sure that they're not feral. Sensible parenting does not warrant stranger gratitude.

Sensible parenting does not warrant stranger gratitude

Absolutely this!

Are you suggesting working parents are abandoning their children?

I am a working parent.
I still think there is value to society to have parents who are around their kids and not all at work all day

No one is accusing you personally of abandoning your own kids.

and to the poster who doesn't believe they need "our kids" - see what happens to societies with ageing population, you do need our kids actually.

I'm confused as to why some posters seem to think that only children of SAHPs will contribute to society in the future.

Me too.

@Dooofle

Yes, and that contributes value too... it is not just the working parent who benefits from the time and effort they put into parenting, it contributes value to wider society too. Conversely, if a working parent left their kids with a box of cereals and the Tele on (rather than arranged proper childcare) this would also very likely have a wider impact on society when that child reached adulthood (and possibly before).

Likewise the child-rearing input from nursery workers, teachers, nannies, and parents all contributes value to society too (and not just the individual parent of that child).

Children need looking after and someone has to do it. Like all jobs, people vary in skill and effort. However, hours spent rearing the future population and workforce are of course providing something valuable to the child and contributing value to society.

Sensible parenting does not warrant stranger gratitude
doesn't warrant accusation of being lazy and useless either...

I don't expect thanks from you for my own pay check. I wouldn't expect being abused for being a working mother either. Same thing.

activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result

Like following a diet and exercise plan to lose weight?

I don't need to call childcare work to recognise its value; if calling it work helps other people recognise the importance of it and the demands it places on those undertaking it I am happy to do so. I'd rather we lived in a world that didn't fetishise 'work' and assume that 'work' is more important, valuable and worthy of recognition than anything else though.

Cambridge Dictionary definition of "work":
an activity, such as a job, that a person uses physical or mental effort to do, usually for money

The Oxford Dictionary's definition given by the OP is very broad-ranging. She is correct to say that, according to that definition, looking after your own children is work. But she is also being disingenuous since the word 'work' is more commonly used to describe being in (paid) employment.

you do need our kids actually

We needs kids. In general. Whether their parents were SAH or not makes very little difference.

And what happens if all these kids decide to then be SAHPs themselves?

You're suggesting we should value SAHPs because we need your kids to join the workforce...whilst you aren't in the workforce.

There's nothing wrong with being a SAHP. But I really don't agree that it's valuable to society.

doesn't warrant accusation of being lazy and useless either

I have not suggested as such (although appreciate some posters have which I do not agree with). But I'm still not going to be grateful to a stranger for staying home and looking after their own kids.

This thread is bizarre

So if someone says, I'm going to do some work in the garden, or I've been working on the car

90% of the posters on this thread will go off at them