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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Looking after your own children IS work

999 replies

Bumpitybumper · 12/03/2020 09:20

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.

OP posts:
Confuddledtown · 13/03/2020 18:14

Since having children I have worked:
-full time with my partner being a SAHP
-full time with my partner also working full time
-part time with my partner working full time
-been the SAHP

I found the first the easiest and the last the hardest. Each of them was only workable with a supportive partner and communication on both sides. All of them were work.

Papoy · 13/03/2020 18:18

Arrgghhh...
Why are you all so hang up about things like this???

If you think it is work then it is work !!!
If you don't then it isnt ... why do we need to agree on this stupid detail...

If people can stop being so sensitive/offended about what others think about them - then we will all have a happy life !!!

Pathetic discussion !!!

Localocal · 13/03/2020 18:27

Sure it's work, like housework or yard work (which is what we Americans call gardening) but it's not work in the sense of paid employment. We do it for love and by choice. Asking whether it's work is just arguing about the definition of a work with numerous meanings.

VodselForDinner · 13/03/2020 18:28

Your poor kids. Would hate it if my parents considered raising me as “work” rather than just parenting.

Also, if you’re a SAHM and “working” at raising a family, with the source of household income coming f from your husband, does that make him your boss because you’re “working” and he’s paying you? Hmm

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 13/03/2020 18:36

If you couldn't put it on your CV under "previous emplyment" then no it's not work

Id put employment under previous employment

I wouldn’t put work, housework...homework etc

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 13/03/2020 18:36

Oops

And yardwork...

TabbyMumz · 13/03/2020 18:39

I wonder if the reason stay at home parents call looking after their children, "Work", is because they feel devalued and have work envy?

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 13/03/2020 18:41

Work", is because they feel devalued and have work envy?

Yeah that’d be it

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Grin

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 13/03/2020 18:41

Not

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 13/03/2020 18:41

I dont call it work

But i call housework work...cos its in the name

genius1308 · 13/03/2020 18:50

I think it all depends on your own personal situation tbh. I've always worked full time since leaving college until I had my 1st child (16 years later). For the people saying being a SAHP is your own choice, it's not always the case. I couldn't afford to go back to work, after paying for a full time nursery place I would have worked a 40 hour week for -£50. I think I can honestly say I don't think any of the jobs I have done have been as emotionally and physically exhausting (and lonely) as being a SAHP. I think mainly because there doesn't seem to be an end, there's no point really where you think , I can have a break now. Even though work was tiring, and often stressful, mentally you always knew you had a break coming up in a few hours, or lunch time, or home time, you could mentally deal with it because you knew at some point it would come to an end. That doesn't happen as a SAHP, there never sèemed to be any certainty. Some days my children would nap, some days they wouldn't, some days we'd have a lovely time, some days they'd spend they day (it felt like) tantruming/arguing/crying/screaming. Some times I wouldn't see/speak to another adult for days and it was incredibly lonely. I worked with children all my adult life, I thought looking after one child at home would be a doddle seeing as though i cared for 30+ everyday but that defintely wasn't the reality. And most parents (not all) that go back to work full time put their children in full time day care. Most children that we cared for were dropped off at 7.30am and collected at 6 30pm. We gave the children their breakfast, lunch and dinner, parents picked them up, took them home, put them in the bath and straight to bed. I'm not trying to argue that everyone's situation isn't different but I found being a SAHP a lot more difficult than working full time.

BeetrootRocks · 13/03/2020 18:51

'Asking whether it's work is just arguing about the definition of a work with numerous meanings.'

Yeah this argument seems mainly about semantics with some interesting underlying ideas about 'women's work' and it's value thrown in.

I will still happily say to kids, did you work hard for the test, I've been working on the car etc and not tell my retired parents off of they tell me they've been working in the garden!

Toffeecakes · 13/03/2020 18:57

Potkettlexx absolutely spot on! SAHPs don't have targets and deadlines, they don't have to justify when they want to sit down and have a drink (they might think they have to justify themselves to a demanding child of course but that's not the same as justifying yourself if a professional capacity) it's definitely not 'work' although it might feel like hard work sometimes.

Staying at home to raise children is not a job. How horrible that people refer to staying at home with their own children as a job. Once a SAHP's children are in school then they are unemployed, surely? There's nothing wrong with that, it's not a criticism, but calling it anything else sounds like an excuse and like it's something to be ashamed of which it isn't. People shouldn't need an excuse if they don't want to work.

ClaireB29 · 13/03/2020 19:01

Erm, no, it isn’t.

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 13/03/2020 19:02

Those of you who claim to have children and work full time are only able to do so because someone else is doing the work of caring for your child

Before he went to school he was at nursery and my child has been at school from the age of four - like the vast of majority of children you know the place where they receive an education learn to socialise. I certainly wouldn’t homeschool myself so I guess all children are looked after by others at some point

Seems I have three jobs the amount of hours I put into looking after my child and I work 24/7 (as obviously when I’m asleep I’m still there should he need me)

Yesterdayforgotten · 13/03/2020 19:08

Olliephaunt4eyes if you go to work you do not have 2 fulltime jobs that's ridiculous. You are at work and have one fulltime job and then care for your dc.

Yesterdayforgotten · 13/03/2020 19:10

*'Staying at home to raise children is not a job. How horrible that people refer to staying at home with their own children as a job. Once a SAHP's children are in school then they are unemployed, surely? There's nothing wrong with that, it's not a criticism, but calling it anything else sounds like an excuse and like it's something to be ashamed of which it isn't. People shouldn't need an excuse if they don't want to work.'

This ^
I find it strange that people say they're full time Mum when their dc are in school as THAT is not a full time parent. A full time Mum to me is a Mum that has her dc with her full time eg: babies and toddlers

Blah1881 · 13/03/2020 19:10

Looking after children properly is hard work. Because it is not work that reaps financial reward makes no difference. In terms of level of difficulty, I know people who make a ton of cash in banking and recruitment who spend a lot of time messing around/ booking holidays/ in the pub/ generally not working during working hours. I know when I went back to work after maternity I was astonished by how unbusy I was by comparison.

Yesterdayforgotten · 13/03/2020 19:14

'For the people saying being a SAHP is your own choice, it's not always the case. I couldn't afford to go back to work, after paying for a full time nursery place I would have worked a 40 hour week for -£50.'

This ^

itsallthedramaMickiloveit · 13/03/2020 19:15

'For the people saying being a SAHP is your own choice, it's not always the case. I couldn't afford to go back to work, after paying for a full time nursery place I would have worked a 40 hour week for -£50.
That's still a choice.

bemusedmoose · 13/03/2020 19:16

It's damn hard work!! 24/7 zero wage house keeper, chef, gardener, laundrette, taxi, PA, whip cracker, personal hygiene consultant, accountant, homework checker, alarm clock, first aider.... If we were paid an hourly rate for all that we do we would be seriously minted!!

Being a stay at home mum is a full time job and a bloody important one

LolaSmiles · 13/03/2020 19:20

I will still happily say to kids, did you work hard for the test, I've been working on the car etc and not tell my retired parents off of they tell me they've been working in the garden!
Same.
Context is everything though.

I'm at home at the moment with DC but would say I've been working as childcare today. I'd say I've been looking after DC.

Equally, when DH is working on the garden, he wouldn't be making a fuss in and isn't going to get into competitive "but I could pay a landscaper so therefore I work 7 days a week" (which is the logic some SAHP use with the whole household things are essentially a job).
It's illogical really to argue, as some do, that SAHP is a 7 day a week job but people who have jobs get weekends. All the chores and childcare done during the week for a SAHP are work and tantamount to having a job and that job is 7 days, but when the WOHP does those jobs and has their children on a weekend then they must not count anymore because they get a weekend (obviously the same chores done at the weekend are a wonderful break from paid employment, but done Monday-Friday are mammoth tasks and totally more difficult than anything anyone does at work).

It's why it's pointless and silly trying to be competitive or trying to compare being at home to being at work. Most people are just doing what suits them; it's not a pissing context.

Rachel1874 · 13/03/2020 19:21

It's not work in the society terms. It is bloody hard especially as when you do work you usually get lunch breaks, tea breaks, toilet breaks. But people do actually get paid to do it (so yes it is work).

Yesterdayforgotten · 13/03/2020 19:25

I have done both and found working fulltime easier than being a SAHM but then again it depends on your job. For instance i'm sure being run off your feet in an A&E ward or a sinilar high pressured job would be so much harder and no contest!

LolaSmiles · 13/03/2020 19:31

But people do actually get paid to do it (so yes it is work).
People get paid to have sex but I'd not call sleeping with my husband work.
People get paid to test video games, but we wouldn't say a husband playing games all afternoon work.
People are paid to be nail technicians, but painting my own nails isn't work.
People get paid to housesit, but living in my own house isn't work.
People get paid to do doggy daycare, but walking my dogs isn't work.
People get paid to watch gigs and review them, but going to a gig and writing something on Instagram isn't work.