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.

You're right.

Any activity is 'work'. You clean the house it's work - a task being completed, something that needs doing being done. So yes, whenever you are taking care of your children you are taking care of something that must be done.

Paid employment is work. You work in exchange for money. Aka job. You also work when you take care of the domestic tasks. Aka chores. You also work when you are in charge of your kids. Aka childcare.

I don't understand why it's a problem for anyone to accept that all these things are work in so far as you are doing something that needs to be done.

It doesn't have to be a competition.

There's huge differences even under the paid work umbrella. I'm self employed. I have a great deal of flexibility in how I manage my workload. I have also been an employee and I had very little flexibility in the 9-5, set tasks at set times . Both are work.

it's parenting. Not work.
If you paid someone else to look after your children wouldn't you call that work? It's doesn't stop being work just because they are your own children.

Value is not solely based on financial reward.
Absolutely!

If you paid someone else to look after your children wouldn't you call that work?

If I cook a meal at home I don't call that working. If a chef cooks a meal for me then I do.

If I paint my front room I don't call that working. If I get a painter and decorator in to do it then I do

But if it is work, and you are the primary caregiver and your partner is in employment, then presumably you are happy for their time with the children to be called "babysitting" (as opposed to my preferred term "parenting")

They're your burden. Nobody else's. You decided to have them.
It's not a job. It can be hard but it doesn't benefit anyone but you.

And for the love of God. Don't put it on a CV.
It's highly embarrassing and guarantees a laugh out of the whole of the staff.

Just because a task can be outsourced to an appropriately qualified and experienced person doesn't mean doing the task yourself is work.
I enjoy baking, but I'm not a baker and I won't claim I'm working when I'm baking.
I can tidy and clean my own house, but I'm not a cleaner.
I do family lifts and will be the designated driver for friends, but I'm not a chauffeur nor taxi driver.
I cook meals for family and have friends for dinner, but that's not working as a chef.

This ^.

I really don't get why people want to give OP a hard time, just because something is unpaid, doesn't mean it isn't work.

Equally there are people in paid employment who aren't working all the time, they're dossing about. Shocking yes, but I listened to a radio programme about reducing the working week and it seemed accepted that people in paid work 'waste' quite a bit of time and it's not that hard to squeeze 5 days work into 4 (I was shocked as that's never been true of any job I have done)

so, employment isn't always the same as work
and work isn't always the same as employment

It seems like people are determined to undervalue looking after children (and by the same token I suppose looking after elderly or disabled family members) simply because you aren't getting paid for it. Doesn't follow that people are going to 'bill' their OH. But in doing the calculation about who in a family should do paid work and how other necessary tasks are to be achieved (childcare, cleaning, etc etc) you have to recognise that people outside the family aren't going to do those tasks for no remuneration.

Even as the.parent of a severely disabled child I wouldn't say it is hard as having to go to work and alls the constraints of work ,I mean right now d's at school.,so I tidied up had a visit from his disability nurse and am currently watching the latest about the Corona virus whilst browsing mumsnet,when I was a nurse had to do sort the kids out and ten do an exhausting shift and come home and do everything that needed doing for the boys ,tea e,bedtime routine etc .

These threads are so teedious and pop up all the time. As has been said, anything is work using that logic. Who cares what someone refers to it as, the competitiveness of who has it tougher working parents or stay at home is also boring. Although I will say doing 'admin' and all of the housework as well as working full time is a lot more tiring than when I was at home with DS until he was 2. The terminology is also odd, work to me implies it's a burden ie you do it for financial means, if everyone started working as in staying at home i am not sure anything would keep running. Basically no one cares what other people do, stop trying to justify it.

I agree,Its hard work .SummerSunandOranges . Many people who work have comfortable desk jobs (not all) and can afford to pay their bills, and have extra money ,Again not everyone ! Many SAHMS not married to wealthy bankers , have to go without a new dress ,or some leather boots ,in order to clothe their DC and are largely looked down on by society .I think looking after children is undervalued and its a shame.

What I hate about these threads is it insinuates that people who work full dont look after their kids when in fact that is the very reason they go to work! A lot of parents feel guilty about working full time (I certainly do anyway) and then to suggest I'm somehow a worse mum because I'm not with my child 24/7 just makes me feel like shit.

@Loppy10 surely cooking for yourself is housework?

Its parenting. No one denies that it isn't hard at times. It is. But it's not work.

It's just a question of semantics and the contexts where we use the words work or job.. We talk about housework but doesn't mean it is paid. Not all work is paid. You might considering bringing up your children as a job. Typical usage and most common mutual understanding of work in the question "Do you work?" refers to paid employment. If you prefer a different semantic OP just answer "yes I'm a SAHP". Person you are conversing with will soon catch on

It isn’t work, it’s looking after your kids. Nothing wrong with that.

I think it’s more the “my job is a full time mummy” that people dispute.

Oxford dictionary definition of job: work for which you receive regular payment.

Access to a joint account is arguably not a regular payment. There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent or acknowledging looking after children is hard work but it’s a lifestyle choice not a job unless you are being given a salary and therefore are submitting a self assessment to HMRC which I doubt any SAHP is

Agree it’s parenting

Those who work either full time or part time still parent their child/children we worry as much I certainly do as much (no cleaner/nanny)

It’s often tiring and draining but it’s parenting and like no other work (I work in mh where people do drain you but it’s vey different)

I've been a SAHM and I've been employed outside the home.

When I was employed outside the home, I was entirely beholden to my boss, to structure, to time, and to targets. I couldn't invite my friends round to work for a coffee. I couldn't watch the TV if I didn't have anyone needing my attention. I couldn't make my own decisions about when I did what.

Looking after one's own house and children might not be easy, but being one's own boss and being free to make one's own decisions throughout the day, every day, is priceless.

Dont be ridiculous OP. Working is work. Looking after our children is looking after our children. Is cleaning work too? Walking the dog? Cooking your own meal? Should we all be endlessly rewarded for simply doing the basics to ensure the survival of ourselves and our families?! I work and look after my children - am I employed twice? Or three times because I also clean? 4 times as I also cook? What’s my reward for doing all this ‘work’?

Without you doing the laundry your children would have no clean clothes to wear. This would be unacceptable and viewed as neglect

But I’d be doing laundry for myself even if I didn’t have kids. All adults do. Same with cooking food or cleaning the house.

If I didn’t have kids yet I told the benefits office, I can’t gain employment because I have too much work to do at home they would laugh me out of the office

I don’t work ( I did until fairly recently) but I do stay at home look after the house and take care of my children because i have the free time to do so.

I hate the references to ‘full time mummy’ - we’re all full time ‘mummies’ but some have to go work - as well!

It's a tough job (I'm on maternity leave)

I think childcare costs are astronomical, I can see why people are SAHMs but once child is at least at nursery/school age then I think, why not to back to work?

There's more of a routine in place at this point so the "work" load at home is lessened and can be shared between both parents

Staying home to look after young children is a choice, a lovely choice, that some people have because their partner earns enough to support them financially.
It is a privilege not available to all parents.
I think many people dismissive of SAHPs are opposed to the ones who forget to go back to work when their children are at full time school and to those who forget to go back to full time work when their children are teenagers or at university and yet bellyache about pensions, boredom and poverty and lack of opportunity in the workplace.
I have huge admiration for those mothers who return to work and cope with a job and young children and, in the great majority of cases, cope brilliantly with everything.

SAHPs are objectively often not unemployed because they are not available to work as they're busy looking after children.

But in most case they could work but as a family it’s been decided that it works best for them not to at that point. That doesn’t mean they can’t - if circumstances changed then many would have no choice.

In the vast majority of cases being a stay at home parent is a choice.

DM calls everything from feeding the cat to shitting 'work'. To me, daily physical functions - feeding, cleaning, dressing humans inc self - isn't work.

Work is something you do after you've maintained bodily survival - default stuff like drinking water doesn't count.