To wonder why MN is so unpleasant about SAHMs?

[crinklyfoil]

While I know there are cases when women aren’t married and don’t own property and are in a vulnerable position, I’m not talking about posters who are concerned about women.

I’m talking about posters who believe that SAHMs have no say in finances, should ‘get a job’ and are somehow lazy.

A FT childcare place costs around £800 a month. If you have more than one child, realistically for many women, ‘getting a job’ will mean working at a loss. Not to mention problems with shift work at the lower paid end of the spectrum (retail work and care work.)

Is it really so awful that having a SAHM might just work really well for some families? That some women might thoroughly enjoy it and that it’s part of a mutually beneficial relationship in the context of the whole family?

Or should everyone just get a job, regardless of how miserable and poor it makes the whole family?!

Men need to be held to account for doing their fair share of childcare while women the earning.

I think things are slowly changing. DHs firm increased paid paternity leave from 2 wks to 3 months & it's becoming more common. It was great for all of us to have that time together.

“And after the age of five children are at school six hours a day. Once you have a school-aged child being "there" is irrelevant as the child isn't "there".”

Well yes, kind of true. But if you have 4 DC like I did (at one point they were in 3 different schools), what you do find is that the school holidays are often slightly different across the schools. Also, if one gets sick, they tend to all get it one after the next - so can end up being at home more than you might expect. It was no good me asking DH to stay home - he was often abroad. Never once did he change his work plans for unexpected sick days or that sort of thing. I didn’t need him to anyway.

The time they are in primary school tends to fly by because that’s when you get on top of everything so you’re not doing it in the evening. The time after 3.30 pick up was hectic and non-stop - especially if they had various activities on or whatever. We’re in London so the traffic was often bad (though I guess it is everywhere). What I mean is, the schools were not five mins down the road. I could easily be 60 mins in the car in the mornings and then again in the afternoons.

There is no way a nanny could have done all the pick ups from various schools; made dinner for everyone; helped with the homework and made sure it was done to a high standard; ferried 4 kids to different clubs or friend’s houses; sensed when there was an emotional drama brewing (the school run is often the key time this sort of thing comes out and it was a vital time in my experience). It would be unreasonable to ask someone to do all that - I only did it because I’m their mum. There are some excellent nannies for sure, but ultimately its always going to be just a job for them at the end of the day. They’re not going to go the extra mile in the way mums do for their own kids. Plus, if I have to manage a nanny, it’s just another thing to deal with. I’d rather do it myself.

DH would’ve loved to share that time at home but it wasn’t possible back then. DD1 is now at university so things may have changed now.

@Benjispruce5 so you are ok with being away from them then? 😆

Not sure what you’re getting at @imamule. I wanted to be at home from birth until nursery age as I felt that was a really important stage.

They were only left occasionally with grandparents apart from us.

@cosima8 how did you manage to collect them all at the same time & get them there when they were at 3 separate schools?

I'm one of 4 & that's the reason my mum had a live in nanny because it was impossible for her to be in the same places at the same time. Most activities were on site after school but not always same day etc.

Like others said, everyone is free to make their own choices and not need to justify it. But calling it a job to raise children really is stretching it and somewhat defensive. A job is one where you are answerable to a boss, a business or your clients (if self employed). Not many people are answerable to their kids for maintaining a standard of parenting and fired if they don’t maintain it. Humans are biologically hard wired to raise children to continue the human race, it’s not some rare skill that only a select few have.

@Benjispruce5 because you said "If you’re at work you’re not there" I assumed you believed you should always be there because being there was important to you

I had ten years of having at least one child with me at all times (ie with 4 children it was ten years between the birth of the first and the youngest starting reception). They did go to a playgroup three mornings a week 9-12 from about age 3, just to play with their friends, but to be honest, if they didn’t want to go I never pushed it and tbh, sometimes it was more hassle getting them they’d and picking up a few hours later than it was to just do our own thing. I have had 2 nights away from home (by myself, without DH) in 18 years. I still feel guilty even doing that (I realise this is my own issue and I’m working on it). Nowadays, I’m worried about leaving the cats!

@sst1234

Like others said, everyone is free to make their own choices and not need to justify it. But calling it a job to raise children really is stretching it and somewhat defensive. A job is one where you are answerable to a boss, a business or your clients (if self employed). Not many people are answerable to their kids for maintaining a standard of parenting and fired if they don’t maintain it. Humans are biologically hard wired to raise children to continue the human race, it’s not some rare skill that only a select few have.

Yawn! Is this really what boils your piss? Jeez! 😂😂😂

@sst1234

Like others said, everyone is free to make their own choices and not need to justify it. But calling it a job to raise children really is stretching it and somewhat defensive. A job is one where you are answerable to a boss, a business or your clients (if self employed). Not many people are answerable to their kids for maintaining a standard of parenting and fired if they don’t maintain it. Humans are biologically hard wired to raise children to continue the human race, it’s not some rare skill that only a select few have.

Fairly arbitrary definition of a job, there. The point is that it’s work you need to be paying someone else to do for the hours you’re otherwise occupied.

Plenty of paid work does not involve “some rare skill that only a select few have” - that’s not the definition of labour. It certainly is possible to be more/less good at caring for children, though. It would be great if our natural instincts were enough to to ensure children were universally well cared for.

Mine got the 15 hours after turning 3 (I think) & sometimes I paid for extra hours. I don't really see the difference between someone working those hours or not working as either way the child isn't there.

It’s been a long thread of misunderstanding. I was responding to another poster who took exception to my reason for being a sahm being that I wanted to be there for them. Hence a back and forth trying to make myself as clear as mud. Saying ‘being there’ has upset some as it seems some parents are shape shifters. Anyway, whatever.

@sst1234

Like others said, everyone is free to make their own choices and not need to justify it. But calling it a job to raise children really is stretching it and somewhat defensive. A job is one where you are answerable to a boss, a business or your clients (if self employed). Not many people are answerable to their kids for maintaining a standard of parenting and fired if they don’t maintain it. Humans are biologically hard wired to raise children to continue the human race, it’s not some rare skill that only a select few have.

That’s absolutely not the definition of a job.

Does it pain you to pay someone to provide childcare for you when you view it as such an easy and lazy choice?

imamule - to be honest, I can’t remember how U managed the school runs precisely because it was always changing. There was a time when the younger ones were in the lower school so that was 8.15 to 3.15, so I had 20 mins to get to the other school for the other one/s. Then, thank god, as they went through to secondary schools, the elder ones were making their own way, for the most part, but not always due to various factors. Sometimes, I shared school rums with other mums. The worst was when I had to take babies out at 3pm on the school runs as they’d always fall asleep in the car and then so couldn’t get them down in the evenings until super late. The first time I really felt as if I had proper “time to myself” was when the fourth one finally started secondary. That was a revelation! There really is a big difference between needing to mobilise at 2.30 ish for primary-age school runs, as opposed to them all arriving home from 4.30 onwards - on their own steam! But then recently, a major London bridge which one of them needs to cross from the tube to get to his school has been closed to pedestrians and traffic - so that put an end to my school-run-free life of leisure and it was back to 2 hours stuck in traffic per day. Yay!

I'm collecting mine from the gps tmw so I need to make the most of this evening & stop dicking about on MNs 😆

Who cares if SAH is a “job” or “work” or even a “job of work.” If you’re doing it, you’re doing it. End if. Every mum will do it differently dependent on her particular set-up and her particular kids. What is even the point of this discussion? Why does this matter to people?

You must be a sahm if you have enough time on your hands to write this

and it was back to 2 hours stuck in traffic per day.

😱

I don't think the London traffic was as bad when I was at school.

I'm very grateful that the dcs school is around the corner so at least I can leave it the last 5 mins!

At the end of the day... every family has to do what suits them and it’s absolutely no business whatsoever of anyone outside that family. Bangs gavel

I haven’t RTFT but I personally have noticed far more bile spouted at working mothers on Mumsnet than at SAHMs. ‘When do you actually see your children’, ‘you never get this time back’, ‘I wouldn’t want to pay someone else to raise my child’, and the particularly vicious ‘why did you bother having children’ (which is apparently a perfectly acceptable - as well as witty and insightful - thing to say to a working mother).

That said, I personally see nothing wrong with choosing to be a SAHM provided you can afford it and you’re aware of the risks (and I don’t think many women are unaware of the risks). In my area a full time nursery places costs about £1500 and a cleaner once a week costs about £40-50, so if you do all the childcare and cleaning you’re doing a job worth about £1700 net which is probably the equivalent of a £25k salary (very rough mental calculations, could be wrong).

What I DO see a problem with is women who don’t want to be SAHMs being forced to quit work because of the exorbitant cost of childcare.

I know its anecdote, but many of the SAHP of school age children I know fit in a lot of time at the gym, meeting friends, dog walking etc. Leisure, essentially. That's fine, except DH is mates with 3 of the husbands and all are grumpy about being the sole earner and are very stressed by that. It's that side of SAHP that I think isn't always discussed, whether many partners of SAHP of school age children would actually prefer their non working partner to be bringing in a wage.
All these resentful blokes Mumsnetters on SAHP threads come across need to stop bitching behind their wives backs and speak to them if they want them to go back to work. Although they're probably the type who would be grumpy about having to leave work early to pick children up or having to to do housework on their days off too.

@MissChanandlerBong22

I haven’t RTFT but I personally have noticed far more bile spouted at working mothers on Mumsnet than at SAHMs. ‘When do you actually see your children’, ‘you never get this time back’, ‘I wouldn’t want to pay someone else to raise my child’, and the particularly vicious ‘why did you bother having children’ (which is apparently a perfectly acceptable - as well as witty and insightful - thing to say to a working mother).

That said, I personally see nothing wrong with choosing to be a SAHM provided you can afford it and you’re aware of the risks (and I don’t think many women are unaware of the risks). In my area a full time nursery places costs about £1500 and a cleaner once a week costs about £40-50, so if you do all the childcare and cleaning you’re doing a job worth about £1700 net which is probably the equivalent of a £25k salary (very rough mental calculations, could be wrong).

What I DO see a problem with is women who don’t want to be SAHMs being forced to quit work because of the exorbitant cost of childcare.

What kind of threads do people post these comments on? I’ve mainly only seen SAHMs be judgemental about working mums on threads where SAHMs have been attacked first and some have gotten defensive of their choices, but I can believe I’ve just missed unprovoked attacks on mothers in paid employment.

@SparrowNest

I’ll see if I can find one. They’re usually threads started by working mothers about their plans for putting their children into nursery, and they result in a pile-on.