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.

Millions in tax and thousands of jobs, wow what does he do?

fuzzymoon
Spot on!

There's often a lot of selective swapping between the different way to use work, and swapping job/work when it suits.

It results in this sort of thing:
A: DP couldn't work if it wasn't for me running the house. In addition to childcare I'm a cook/cleaner/PA and do all the household admin.
B: Running your own home isn't really the same as people who do those tasks as a job. Surely everyone has to get their home tasks done?
A: See people only value paid employment! Of course it's hard work being at home. Nobody values what we do at home because there's no price tag attached to it but actually we save DPs thousands in childcare and cleaning bills etc.
B: Nobody said it isn't hard work, we just said adults doing their own house stuff and looking after their children isn't the same as someone doing these tasks as a job.
A: So I pay someone then it's suddenly work is it?
B: it's the difference between cooking your own meal and paying a chef to do it, driving your family somewhere Vs getting a taxi driver. There's a difference.
A: see people always say people who SAH don't work or do anything all day.

I would never claim to be a cook or a cleaner or this kind of thing because this is ridiculous. And, if asked, I always told people I don’t work (not that anyone ever particularly asked). But I also know I haven’t been doing nothing for the last 17 or so years either. It doesn’t matter to me what people want to call it because this kind of conversation only happens on MN, as far as I can tell anyway. I know many, many women in my position and you go into things with your eyes wide open because if you have a DH who has workaholic tendencies, there will be a fallout to this and you have to balance things out for the children’s sake and it’s not always easy. It’s even harder if you’re ex pat.

This argument is so bizarre as it implies that SAHPs are unique in their pursuit of seeking external recognition for what they do. We are social creatures and of course we put a lot of emphasis on social attitudes towards our occupation. For all those WOHPs out there, imagine if attitudes changed towards your industry and job role and there was suddenly stigma attached to what you did and complete lack of recognition that any of the activities that you have devoted you time and energy to as part of your paid employment even counted as "work" at all. Your renumeration may stay the same but I would wager that your motivation and self esteem would plummet. Just look at theories such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to understand how wider recognition is so important to people.

Sorry but I don't know anyone outside of SAHPs who actually gives this much thought.

It was me that mentioned that the legal profession haa been shown to have a negative effect on wealth generation for wider society.

Really? Can we see some evidence? Surely this requires further qualification. I heard on a new segment long ago that economists were actually having to correct spending estimates after the PPI period closed, so significant was the influx of cash to low earners. This may be an irregularity, but there are many such irregularities ongoing at any given time.

Lawyers and class action law suits are a pretty excellent check against corporate malfeasance. They and accountants are not exclusively the preserve of the ruling class.

I think the issue is those who stay home wish recognition for it from those around them. That they aren’t just sitting watching cartoons and making rice crispy cakes and shoving a load in the washing machine or dishwasher.

The flip side is every single working mother has had an experience of being a stay at home parent, as we all had maternity leave. We also look after our kids mornings, evenings, weekends, holidays. We clean our houses. Do the laundry, cook dinner, shop for groceries. So everyone knows what they are talking about.

When working mothers come home, seldom do they classify looking after their kids as work, more it’s simply parenting, and doing chores round the house something we all have to do. It’s simply life.

I would never claim to be a cook or a cleaner or this kind of thing because this is ridiculous. And, if asked, I always told people I don’t work (not that anyone ever particularly asked). But I also know I haven’t been doing nothing for the last 17 or so years either
What is this? Common sense?
I'm afraid this has no place in these discussions

80000hours.org/2015/01/the-social-impact-of-different-professions/
For those asking my source. Apologies that I haven't linked to original reach papers but I am short on time.

Lola, I’m responding to the posts saying, that SAHMs routinely talk about billing their DHs for services or some such nonsense. Or that they make statements as, “I’m a cleaner, childminder, tutor, taxi rolled into one.” This is nonsense. I have never in my life heard a single woman say anything like this and I must know hundreds if women who are long-term SAH. I don’t know what people on MN are taking about sometimes because it’s not real life, as far as I can tell.

IT'S. NOT. WORK.

Thanks for that Syrinx. I was wondering.

If domestic chores are not work could someone explain to me why so many men are completely unwilling to do any?

@Oooom
I think the billing argument is problematic but I can see why SAHPs use it when the only metric that so many people seem to value is money. How can you quantify the value of unpaid labour in any other way?

I was a SAHM for 14 years. It wasn't my job. I didn't work.

Parenting can be hard work. There is a big difference.

When I was a SAHM it was valuable for my family, not for anyone else and I didn't expect other people to make me feel validated for my choice to have children and not go out to work.

I work full time now and when I am not working at weekends or when I am on A/L and doing housework and things with the children I do not class that as working. I am caring for my children.

@Bumpitybumper I’ve read the article and skimmed the paper (much of the paper went over my head - I’m not an economist.)

My understanding of this -0.5 financial figure you quote is that it’s one of the estimates referred to in the paper, which: (a) explicitly states that it takes an extreme sceptic approach to the value of law; and (b) explicitly states that the estimates are speculative in any event. The paper also describes an estimate of a 0.3 positive financial benefit for legal services, according to a different political view (that influenced by Occupy Wall Street, where justice is a key issue).

Point being: that paper does not state that the legal industry has no social benefit, nor a financial loss of 0.5 dollars to every $1.

It’s also, as I suspected, American - so not necessarily applicable to British society.

(For the avoidance of any doubt, I am on annual leave so entirely at my leisure to be on mumsnet. )

Put it this way OP-

Someone works full time. They get up at 6:45 to get their children ready and themselves for work. Drop off at childcare get to work for 8.30.

They pick up their children at 5.30 get home fur 6. They still have dinner to make, washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping, bathing kids etc.... showering themselves.

A SAHP can do all of the food prep during the day, shop during the day, they can shower during the day, clean during the day.

So when kids are in bed they can relax more as everything’s done.

They can have a rest or a sleep when their child naps. They can sit down and have a cuppa when they like, They don’t have pressures of deadlines, customers/boss moaning at them.

Try all you like, but it’s harder working full time with children than being a SAHM!!

Here we go again with the usual argument "It's OK for me to be a SAHM because my husband is incredibly rich". And no, tax is not calculated in family units.

@ScreamedAtTheMichelangelo
Four out of the five calibrations shared in the paper suggest that law (by their definition) has a negative social value. Yes it's inexact and yes it's American hence me quoting the dollar figures in my post to avoid misleading anybody.

I don't have an axe to grind with lawyers and of course I recognise that there are areas of law that are absolutely necessary and important. My point is specifically around whether the legal profession generates wealth for the wider society or does the opposite. The paper would suggest the latter is most likely.

This doesn't make legal profession "bad" or "wrong". The whole reason I referred to the study in the first place was to rebut the assumption that only those roles that generate wealth for wider society using these kinds of measures are worthwhile or valuable. Of course I concur that the metric is too narrow to really assess the value of a profession of role.

@Potkettlexx
Try all you like, but it’s harder working full time with children than being a SAHM!!
Yet whilst lots of people who have done
both agree with you, lots don't! Are they doing it wrong or could it be that there are too many variables that impact one's experience of being a WOHP and SAHP to definitively say one is easier than the other?

Oooom
I agree with you.

I think the billing argument is problematic but I can see why SAHPs use it when the only metric that so many people seem to value is money. How can you quantify the value of unpaid labour in any other way?
Does it need quantifying?
This is my issue.
Either you clean your own house or pay a cleaner. No WOHP thinks "I cleaned my bathroom today so I've been working". Does anyone seriously think "if we had a family chef I could outsource this task, ergo I am working"?

If we take the "anything done at home is work" then I've worked all morning because I've cleaned the kitchen, looked after DC, walked the dogs, done some laundry and hung it out. Now I'm having a cup of tea during nap time. I'd not feel the need to say "but it is work because..." because it's still things that need doing whether I'm at home or whether DH and I share it when we're both working. It's just running a household.

I find myself wondering if people in relationships with a fair allocation of house responsibility tend to be less bothered about proving how much they do and those who have an unfair balance or feel underappreciated are more likely to try to cling to "but it's work".

YABU.

It’s not work, it’s a choice.

@Bumpitybumper To be fair, what you said was that the legal profession has no societal value and takes money out of society. It turns out that this is based on estimates used in an American paper whose authors explicitly state they are speculative and based almost entirely on the views of people across the political spectrum.

I appreciate that you were trying to rebut the idea that lawyers etc. are more useful to society from a financial perspective than SAHPs, but saying that they take money out of the system (and therefore are of less use than SAHPs) based on that paper, is a massive leap.

OP the paper you've referenced doesn't even purport to be conclusive, it's an opinion piece dressed up as economic analysis.

If you want to think that lawyers are less useful than SAHMs, go right ahead, no one will stop you. You can't point to any empirical evidence that will confirm your view, quite the opposite.

bgmama- regardless of how tax is it isn’t calculated, people have and will continue to make choices that suit their particular family. Nobody sets out to make family life any harder than it needs to be. Nobody has anything to prove to anyone and do you think anyone gives a hoot what people think about their “Work” or lack of it. Who even cares? I know hundreds of women who appear to be SAH, but they could be doing anything while the DC are at school. What is obvious to me, is that nobody ever has the inside perspective on anyone else’s set up. There is so much judgement on MN and it’s nonsense. And yes, the fact is that money does enable different choices. Everyone’s circumstances are unique and until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, with their particular husband. or their particular children, you can’t possibly say what you would have done in those circumstances.

My point is specifically around whether the legal profession generates wealth for the wider society or does the opposite.

I think your point was that you're contributing more to society than the average lawyer by raising your children, which is pretty cloying.

More than 90% of British people are parents. The majority of them are probably doing a fairly OK job, at least as good as any random stranger on MN.