Why are people on here so pressed about the existence of SAHMs?

[DaffodilsandCoffee]

It’s fair enough to point out the existence of certain downsides are risks, but there seems to be so much spite and resentment on here. Why are some posters do angry at the existence of women who prefer to do all the childcare themselves rather than outsource some of it? Also, are they equally as angry at SAHDs? (I know it’s not as common but I personally know 3)

@KittyWithoutAName

Indeed

Both men and women can and should be equal parents

Yes, and if one works FT and the other is a SAHP, they are both equal parents, just in different ways, right. You are not less of a parent for working, nor is someone more of a parent for being at home. Therefore, one parent doing all the work, and one doing all the stay at home house/childcare, are both equal parenting.

@KittyWithoutAName

Potentially

However lots of sahms will argue (and already have on this thread) that its not possible to work and parent. That wm (not dads) are doing less parenting/less of a parent.

I think wm are more likely to be parenting equally to a wd than a wd is to a sahm

You referred to me as ‘someone who things women have evolved to breed’
my response was - err yes. Women have evolved to breed haven't they? Why would you think any different.
Denying our biology is also very detrimental. We are who we are because of how we have evolved and biologically evolution has made women do the large part of child baring and rearing because of her biology.
Not to say a man wouldn’t be as ‘good’ a parent. But because women carry and feed the child this naturally forms the primary carer bond. Which then carries on way after birth and feeding due to child attachment to the primary cater and the man working.
This is how it usually goes and this is down largely to biology.
In 2022 however things get far more complicated with the layers of society we have built, but I was referring to last human history.

@Silverswirl

By breed I meant do nothing else except be baby making factories. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I'm interested in this idea of feeding making mothers natural pcg. I bf 2, I'm kt a natural pcg.

Do women who don't bf not have this bond or instinct?

Are they relegated to men status?

No bond with their kids? Or at the least, a lesser one?

I'm also not denying biology.

I just dont think its that relevant to parenting in the 21st century outside of childbirth and maternity rights.

As someone who grew up with one non-working parent, I think you are right.

When I was a teenager I resented the fact that we couldn’t afford things because I had one parent who just wouldn’t join the workforce. And, even more gallingly, pretended they weren’t joining the workforce for MY benefit.

This thread has gone a bit mental now and this new format for people quoting people and then responding and then someone else quoting the whole thing - It's hard to follow who said what and it just reads like antagonistic drivel mostly.

But to the poster repeatedly asking me if they have 'touched a nerve' with their Guardian article, sorry to disappoint, but no. As I said, my husband doesn't really work full time and hasn't for some years. He hasn't worked for a company or anyone else since he was about 28. He's now 50. He is an entrepreneur. Not everyone is tied into a job spec for life or some kind of corporate progression structure. My husband does what he wants and has the freedom to do so. Alongside his business interests, he's involved in motor racing, competitive cycling, triathlons, boxing and martial arts and he does all of the above most weeks. Hardly nose to the grindstone, I can assure you of that.

So no, he doesn't begrudge me being a SAHM or doing stuff for myself. Why would he? Why would he want a miserable wife? Sometimes he forces me to do things for myself because he knows I won't otherwise. He knows what I've been doing recently. I've supported our eldest getting into Oxford. I've had a lot of input with another one who is dyslexic and hopefully they'll now be able to apply for top unis too. Plus two more children and all that comes with that, so there always something, to be honest.

I really doubt there's many SAHM's in the UK who do nothing else (not even a few hours a week or running a small part time business or getting heavily involved in the volunteer sector or politics), unless there's disability involved, who only have teenage or older children. It's almost always people with primary aged kids or younger. If someone is begrudging their mother spending half the week volunteering at a dog shelter or whatever because it means they can't afford things they want I think that's pretty entitled (although teenagers often are so not really unexpected).

Not always

No, not saying not breast feeding equates to anything less in any way.
What I am saying is that biology underpins everything. What we have created in the past recent century’s is just a thin veneer. A coating. Generally speaking We are who we are at base level. Yes we can change that to a degree and have become more civilised but underneath what drives us is our evolution and biology. It’s totally relevant to 21st century and will always be relevant whichever century we are in.
I could go on and on becuse I find this topic completely fascinating. But we are standing at the top of a mountain of 100,000’s of ancestors who came before and you are who you are because of them. Every single one has been tweaked to facilitate the survival of our species in some tiny way. Looking at only the past century and passing off our biology and how we have evolved and survived is to deny the existence of who we really are, under the ‘top coating’.

Also to TopGub - no I wasn't giving a "he said, she said" or one of the "a man in my office / cousin's friend's window-cleaner's step mother once said..." type anecdote. I was talking first hand and being honest about my own lived life, plus the lives of most people around me who I have interacted with daily for almost 20 years. I think that makes me more qualified to comment on SAHMs than most people in here who, by their own admission, barely know any! If all you have to go on is the odd newspaper article and something some tosser said in an office years ago, well, that's not much is it?

If that’s aimed at my comment, my non-working parent certainly didn’t volunteer at a dog shelter. Or do any work outside the home, paid or voluntary, until the other parent left them and they had to (but that was after I left home).

@Silverswirl

I completely disagree

I think to reduce women to nothing more than there reproductive ability is to swallow the lie of sexism

Why should we accept what men will define us as? Because it suits them to do so?

And bf is either essential to the bond of pcg or its not. It either mattes or its irrelevant. Which is it?

@AccessibleVoid

I think you're niave to the vast majority of sahms then.

Most of them wouldn't know what volunteering was if it bit them on the arse.

How could they devote every single second to their kids if they're volunteering at the dog shelter?

@mijas

So your experience is valid but others is not.

Got it.

People who devote all their energies to narcissistically projecting themselves onto their kids are insufferable whether they work or not, I don't think that's what being a SAHM means, plenty of people with the opportunity opt out of paid employment for other reasons (to have more free time, to focus on their own projects, because they prefer a lower stress relaxed pace of life, because the jobs they're qualified for are all shitty and they get more autonomy managing a household than scanning barcodes all day etc).

MN land..

@AccessibleVoid

A quick Google tells me the majority of volunteers are pensioners and the least likely age group to volunteer is 25 to 34

So, no. I dont think most SAHM (regardless of why they are 1) are volunteering

The average age for having a first child is now over 30. Even at 34 the majority of women's children won't even have started school yet. That's obviously a busy pressured time for any parent whether they work or not and really says nothing about parents of teenagers who are much more likely to be in their 50s than their 30s.

TopGub - your experience is valid, but the difference is - I'm not passing comment on your lifestyle or experience am I?!

I don't even know what you do or if you're even married or have kids or what. I couldn't care less whether you work night shifts or 24/7 or whatever it is you do. What relevance or bearing does that possibly have on me? I have literally nothing to say about "WOHMs" - because what the hell is a WOHM anyway? There are as many types of WOHM as there are humans. They will all have their own valid reasons for doing what they do. It's none of my business.

You are the one (or one if the ones) making all kinds of unfounded statements about "SAHMs" - as if we're all one and the same or fit into your twisted preconceptions. Yet, you don't even know any SAHMs in real life, from what I can make out. Instead you come on here a pontificate about a lifestyle you have no experience of. Well, fair enough, you're not the only one to pontificate. But, I am a SAHM and so are most people I know, so I'm telling you what it is like directly and from first hand lived experience. Christ on a bike. It's like 'feminism for dummies' on here sometimes. Does my head in.

@AccessibleVoid

50 isn't 64

Most likely age was 64 to 74

@mijas

I do know some sahms. Not very many. But some

I haven't made any unfounded statements about sahms?

Feminsm for dummies seems about right.

You keep saying you're not passing comment on anyones lifestyle, fair enough but no one else has to agree that.

The op specifically asked why are people so 'pressed' about sahms. (I presumed pressed meant annoyed, I've not heard it before)

People are answering. If you cant cope with others disagreeing with or having a negative view of your lifestyle then maybe its not the discussion for you?

It's a really interesting debate.

I am the higher earner in our home, dh works ft and I work pt (have Fridays off). Dh is a great bloke, hands on dad, does fair share of drop offs, pick ups and household chores etc (sometimes needs reminding). My job is pretty high pressure, lots of stress, in comparison to his (which he freely admits). I do however wfh, but invariably on back to back calls. I do all our life admin, and thinking/ planning ahead (e.g. sandwiches for kids the following day, childcare arrangements etc).

Yet still he persists in asking me, every Thursday evening, "so, what are your plans tomorrow, what's on the to do list?" There is still an underlying expectation, even in quite an egalitarian relationship, that I will fill every minute of every day with productive activities for other people. Wife work. I've called him out on this recently. Actually dh, Friday is the one day of the week when I actually get to exercise, so I swim in the morning. I then catch up with anything else the family needs in terms of life admin and house chores so we can enjoy our weekend together, I eat lunch and then it's time to go to school to collect the dc.

The thing is, no relationship or family circumstances are the same as another. Ours works pretty well on the whole but isn't perfect, and I suspect many others - whether sah or woh, or mixed arrangements - are the same. The only time I feel compelled to offer an opinion on someone else's situation is when they invite the discussion by posting on here and things are so obviously out of kilter that some advice might help them readdress the lack of balance in their lives. In real life, I've never come across the sah/ woh snobbery. And I do agree that it tends to be women who are still having this argument with one another when in the 21st century, men are perfectly able to pull their weight if they are willing to.

Obviously retired people have more time so volunteer more, doesn't mean no-one under 65 volunteers.