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.

dontdisturbmenow

My post was tongue in cheek

I work full time (single parent) and somehow manage to do the things that sahp do as do so many many other working parent/S

And cook for scratch, take ds out to places, supervise homework, have friends round etc 😇

Though at times use frozen veg and worse feed him Kiev and chips 😭 oh no letting myself down

I was lucky that I could stay off work for the first two years at 18 months I started studying

I personally wouldn’t want to be a sahm passed two years and certainly not from school age. Though I would have loads of time to myself I prefer to be engaged with a job I get great satisfaction from if I didn’t I might feel differently (would have tondo something with my time studying maybe)

lovepickledlimes I know. The point still stands, cooking from scratch is something lots of adults do. It's not something onerous or remarkable.

One of my relatives took early retirement. Their ability to make cooking one fairly typical meal for tea take all afternoon is impressive. Their cooking expands to fill the time they have available. I've made many of the same meals after work or on a weekend afternoon where they've needed to slow cook in the oven.
They're ways so unbelievably busy too and don't know how they ever had time to work . Those of us still working/who have young children laugh to ourselves. Often tasks fill the time you allocate to them.

If this is the case then why do stay at home wives get half when they divorce?? If it’s not considered work then why should they get half of the husbands hard earn money??

In divorce where there are children according to the Matrimonial Act the first concern is the welfare of children. Also taken into consideration is economic potential of each.. so a SAHM will be in a weaker economic position than a husband with a job so yes her contribution is fairly rewarded.

Understand that he has to provide for his children..

Actually both parents have to provide for their children.

It’s because I’m the court of law building a family & stable home is considered worthy of payment when getting divorced...

Because its not payment, it’s divvying up assets according to need and contribution made. Assets that were once joint owned and are now being separated.

As I said in previous statement. Just because you DON’T charge your partner. Doesn’t mean it’s not work.

But why would you charge your partner if he is out providing labour for someone else who is nothing to do with either of you other than being an employer? If SAHM then you are getting some of the money because it’s paying for your food and house.

So then WHY does the mum get lumped with the responsibility & not even get recognition for it.

Agree. If your partner isn’t making you feel valuable for what you’re doing then you’re with the wrong man! But yes women are often lumped with the responsibility even if we work as well. That’s something that needs sorting in each individual relationship.

Wow. Women really don’t support each other on this site. No wonder men are still in charge even though we’re just as intelligent & as capable as them.

Oh don’t be ridiculous of course we support each other. We’re just having a discussion. SAHM is one of the most important things a human can do. But you’re primarily doing it for yourself and your children. If you’re looking after your children and he’s out earning money then you’re both ‘working’ for each other. If anything it’s more like self employment. Even if you don’t have children you still have to cook, clean, wash clothes, bedding, sort the admin... who pays you for that?!

looking after children cleaning is unpaid work. Whether people believe that being a stay at home mum is easier than going out to do paid work is irrelevant. Lots of stuff in economics about limitations of gdp bring that it does not include unpaid work such as looking after children. It is work. And valuable work too ! Here s an article where the office for national stats discusses unpaid work! www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

Also what nobody has mentioned yet, is the attitude of your husband may well have a lot to do with whether you are a SAHM or not. There are some men (you see threads about them all the time) who have totally separate finances to their wives. There are actually married women expected to fund themselves through maternity and couples who see the cost of childcare as the woman’s responsibility. Every week there are shocking threads like this. Not much chance if these women bring SAH is there?

Then there are the seemingly privileged women who don’t work for years and have cleaners and nannies and tutors in and the whole shebang. But if you scratch below the surface, maybe they have husbands who don’t want them working - perhaps for cultural reasons; perhaps they have controlling tendencies? Maybe he doesn’t go so far as blatantly forbidding her or anything like that (he doesn’t have to), but still, she knows the deal and her expectations have become subtly conditioned over the years. This happens too, quite a lot.

Just because some women have husbands who work regular hours and are quite hands on at home, doesn’t mean everyone does. And, on the flip side, just because some women have husbands they know they can rely on financially, it didn’t mean everyone does. People can only comment on their own situations and it’s so pointless trying to compare your own set up with that of anyone else.

*'God these threads just go on and on and on and on....

“My work is a breeze compared to a day with my kids”....,, “Noooo! Children are not real work”..... “Blah blah blah bollocks.,,,”

Some people even feel the need to list all their daily tasks, hour by hour, while others seem to think they can freeze time and “do it all” in the eveningsJust stop please!

We all have different jobs, different kids, different motivations, different husbands and different circumstances.

What even is a WOHM anyway? Someone who sits in an empty shop or office, bored stiff? Or someone in a war zone?

What even is a SAHM? A mum at home with no support and disabled or SEN or 6 children or something? Or a mum with one or two “easy” children and lots of family and friend support?

People don’t seem capable of thinking beyond the box of their own circumstances?

So much bitterness and defensiveness.,,

This thread is making a mockery of women.'*

This ^ I think this thread needs to end

Also what nobody has mentioned yet, is the attitude of your husband may well have a lot to do with whether you are a SAHM or not

Sure. For me personally it was important to marry someone who’d share the responsibility of providing AND running the home.

I wouldn’t have married someone who thought differently.

I agree with oooooom last post

Thats the silly thing about these threads (and I appreciate that this has been said a lot all ready)

It depends on your personal circumstances...thats it really, thats the end

I Am absolutely in the ‘would have found work harder’ camp...but i have friends who went back to work precisely because they found being a sahm hard

I have friends whose husbands help with home stuff and those that Dont

I have friends with children with SN that could not go to work and those that could

I think part of is it is wondering whether we've done the right thing no matter what we do

Its a shame we get hung up on it

@lazylinguist fuck dealing with other ppl's children I salute you

My comments are based purely on my own situation. I've done both and the fact is I find work much easier. I feel much more pressure trying to be supermum 24/7 and don't appreciate the time with my children as much because I have no patience/am knackered by the end of the day. It feels more about discipline and routine than quality time but then I have a toddler and older child with SEN. Routine is important for them but feels restrictive for me.

I want my freedom!!

Yanbu. It's labour. Unpaid Labour typically carried out by women is considered just as valuable and important as paid Labour by many women's and workers' movements internationally.

Agree this thread is awful.

I've been really taken aback by some of the attitudes on this thread.

The unpaid work of women globally keeps everything going and is totally undervalued. Thev knock on of this is the low pay and respect those roles get when they are paid. This is a major issue for women. And here we have women saying, yes, quite right too.

I don't go back over some of the things that have been said stating that raising the next generation has no value to society (whoever is doing it) and the bizarre redefinition of the common words used to mean putting work in to achieve something, with paid employment being the only activity that is valued.

This thread is way worse than ones that have gone before that I've seen, and presume reflects a general shift in social attitudes, given the size of this site.

Their ability to make cooking one fairly typical meal for tea take all afternoon is impressive. Their cooking expands to fill the time they have available

I'm ashamed to admit that I too can do this - it's a wonderful excuse for shutting myself in the kitchen with the radio and snarling at anyone who disturbs me

@Leighhalfpennysthigh - me too! My personal guilty pleasure is making pasta from scratch. Totally unnecessary but lovely as time away from everyone else.

Sorry I think I have posted it before. But widely agreed amongst economists that tasks like cleaning, cooking and looking after children is unpaid work. And ones that have societal benefits esp looking after children. One of the limitations ofGDP is that it does not capture this unpaid work. People talking about whether stay at home mums work harder than those who do paid work. Some of them work harder and some of them don’t. That’s just irrelevant to the question asked in AIBU. See here article from office for national statistics which compares unpaid ‘work’ between men and women www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

Just because you enjoy cooking pasta for your family does not mean it’s not work! Sure doctors enjoy treating patients. Some teachers enjoy teaching kids. V

Also loads of people who do paid work stretch out simple tasks and make them lot more complicated than they have to be. So something which should take 5 mins takes hours. Thread really highlights how much work done by women is still undervalued by society. Sad really.

Why would the “work” be valued by society? Most adults have to cook, clean, pay bills etc whether with or without children. Regardless of sex, how does that benefit society?

I'm ashamed to admit that I too can do this - it's a wonderful excuse for shutting myself in the kitchen with the radio and snarling at anyone who disturbs me
Me too, but swap the radio for podcasts.

However, I'd imagine the difference between you/me and my relative is that we accept that's a choice we make because we enjoy cooking. My relative and others on this thread would take the hours spent in the kitchen as a sign they're so busy and work so hard.

Thread really highlights how much work done by women is still undervalued by society. Sad really.
Some of it is still undervalued. It is really sad.

On the flip side, I'd rather see more men step up and do their fair share than end up hearing ridiculous arguments that running a house is work comparable to a job, so much hard work, a 7 day a week job and harder than going to work because people who go to work get a weekend (so we can only assume that when a working adult does their chores it's somehow easier because that's their break from working, whilst at the same time doing household chores Monday to Friday is harder than a job so chores are easy/hard depending on the day of the week they're completed 🤷)

There's pros/cons/highs/lows of every role, so they all need to be valued for what they are in the context of people's lives rather than if they're harder/worse than other roles.
In some respects I'm finding being home harder than full time teaching, in other respects it's easier. I'm not about to start bleating on about how doing some cleaning is somehow more difficult now I'm at home than it was when I was working though.

So looking after children well should be valued by society as you are raising future taxpayers who will pay for your pensions and may even be future scientists who discover cure for cancer. Of course you could be raising criminals too but by and large crime is caused by not looking after children properly with a few exceptions. Cooking healthy meals for yourself ok may not have a huge impact on society. But it means you are not neglected and the state does not pick up the tab of you eating terrible meals. But cooking a nice meal for your family or extended family or friends is prob the most effective thing you can do to increase their well being. As eating together universally makes people happy. So they go out into the world content and well fed! And also can do paid work far more effectively!!!! If you are a woman who has spent her life cooking amazing meals for a lot of people friends and family and not been paid, you are prob more of a benefit to society than an investment banker being paid millions.

There's nothing I can add that others haven't already said.

Working in a job and being a SAHM both involve effort but are not comparable.

Being a mother is obviously valuable, no one in their right mind would argue against it but is it "work" in the same capacity? No.

If anything your thread is trying to play up SAHM and devalue working mums by saying "I work just as hard as you and what you're doing really isn't that hard" and that's utter tosh.

Working AND being a mother is the hardest job. Period. It's not a contest you can win. Ever. The fact you even view it as a contest is where the problem lies.

Instead of comparing yourself, improve your self esteem and be happy with your life choices. Your time will be better spent.

I work full time and still think it's reasonable to say eg I was working in the garden, I did the housework, I was working on the car etc.

I don't think the definition of work has changed has it, despite so many posters saying it only means paid employment.

I say so DC did you work hard on your book report or whatever. It's perfectly normal speech.

As for the other, it's personal circs. What your children are like, how old they are, what your job is etc. Certainly many men in my old work would hang around chatting and reading BBC sports at end of day to avoid bedtime/ bathtime. They were quite open about it. But they were working hard and their OH was not doing anything that involved effort (work). Well ok but this elevation of all jobs and minimisation of the fact that looking after children, elderly relatives, cleaning etc does women around the world no good. It is invisible, unpaid labour that props up capitalist economies.

Really depressing thread.

lazylinguist fuck dealing with other ppl's children grin I salute you

Many of them are lovely really. It's just that when you're used to wrangling 30 of them at a time, two of your own (unless of course they have major additional needs) seem a piece of cake by comparison!

Many of them are lovely really. It's just that when you're used to wrangling 30 of them at a time, two of your own (unless of course they have major additional needs) seem a piece of cake by comparison!
True, though I did have a day this week where I'd have given anything to trade a cluster feeding baby and messy house for my wonderful GCSE class though.

Aww! Lovely when you have a class like that! I teach MFL to some delightful, super-keen primary kids atm who stand 3cm away from me and cough and wipe their noses on their hands.