Fucking hate this term

[MolliciousIntent]

Conversation today with an acquaintance, who is a SAHP, has oddly kinda upset me. I've just gone back to work after 6m mat leave and mentioned that I'll be going into London for work now and then - she said "oh it's been ages since I went to London, but then again I am a full time mum."

I'm probably just tired and stressed, but it felt like a bit of a guy punch. I'm a full time mum too. I just work as well. I've seen SAHMs described as full time mums before, now I think about it, and it makes me feel weird.

Do people really think working mums are part time parents? Or was she just having a dig?

@pinklavenders not according to the Cambridge Dictionary...

@PeasOff

Something like 2 %

And something like 25% of women (not just mums) who don't work.

Its not at all the norm for either sex.

I agree OP, I hate the term too. I don’t cease to be a mum the hours I work, I am always a mum. I am a mum with employment. She is a mum without employment.

Yikes... those figures speak volumes!!

The context she said it in comes across a bit shit, but I think the term is right. Of course you are still a mum when your kid goes to school and when you are at work. You are still a mum when your adult kid goes to work to pay for their own children's nursery. But you are not actively parenting when you are at work, and she is actively parenting most of the day, most days.

The reverse of this happened to me. I'm a teacher, and once while chatting to one of the children's Mum's, I said something like 'oh you stay at home', just as I would have said 'oh you're an accountant'.
I can still picture her face and feel the awkwardness as she explained how actually it's a full time job, and listed all the chores she did while the children were at school.
She obviously thought I was implying that she sat on her hole doing nothing while the children are at school, as opposed to just stating the fact of what she did.

Sorry that didn't make much sense.

Moat parents work.

But of the amount who don't, only 2 % are male

Men are actually more likely to he unemployed if they aren't a parent

If she's not a full time mum then you're not a full time worker? In fact I'd say she's more of a full time mum than you are a full time worker.
I'd also add that she's probably not a stay at home mum either. I bet she goes out to play groups and shopping.

I always wonder who they think does all my housework as I work. I always wanted to say well done you. I do that and work.

A doctor or a plumber are doctors and plumbers for 24 hours of the day. But they are not working 24h! A full time parent is a person who are doing the JOB of parenting all the time!

Imagine someone complaining "they called me part time surgeon because I work 4 hours a day! But I AM a surgeon all the time!". You'd probably roll your eyes...

I was referring to the economic definition of being unemployed.

The unemployed are those people able, available and willing to work at the going wage but cannot find a job despite an active search for work.

But that’s no answer. Also what is PCG?

Why not have a conversation that both parents do 4 days a week and use childcare for 3? It’s an assumption that women will give up work and women don’t challenge it. They simply resign. Nothing will change and women will still be screwed over financially.

So you stop being a mum when you're at work? 🙄

I actually am a SAHP but your comment doesn't make sense.

I would see it as the other way round, bitter and resentment from SAHP!
OP… You are not less of a mum for going back to work, please do not let these kind of statements get to you.
Im a single mum, I work full time, study! Granted DS is a teenager now but when he was younger I worked full time and he’s such a great lad (for a teenager 🤣).

I can't believe that people are suggesting homemaker and housewife as preferable.

Good grief. In my SAHM/full time mum years I'd be appalled to be called either of those. It wasn't my home that I chose to spend the working day looking after. It's not the.1940s. I chose not to work because I wanted to look after my child.

It was the right choice for me, just as the right choice for my best friend was to go back to work two months after she had her first. Neither of us judged the other. It's depressing that 36 years on, women still are judging each other on how they spend the working day.

Being a mother or father isn’t a job.

It may be work but then so is washing clothes and no one walks around saying they’re a part time laundress.

I too have heard this sort of comment which is inaccurate and insensitive - as a mother who works I am a mother who just happens to work - just as I am a daughter, sister. All those are full time, there is no such thing as a part-time mother you are either a mother or not.

And that’s fine- totally entitled to disagree. Mine is not a widely held view!
I don’t think it should be put on a pedestal. Just valued as a job like any other job.
Comments such as you are unemployed and not working are insulting, demeaning and grossly undervalue the role of a SAHM.
Its hard work. Bloody hard work if you have multiple children and I had 3 under 3.
A childminder wouldn’t be considered as ‘not working’ yet she is is looking at three kids - just not her own!

and the majority of working mums are responsible for all household duties… me being one of them and I know plenty more!

Women can spend their day how they want, whether they have a family or not!

But if you washed clothes all day every day from 7am-7pm (maybe for all your friends and family) it would be a job. A voluntary job but still a job.

This.

@Pinkpeony2

But it's not a job.

If it is, wps have 2

You don't seem that bothered by the awful comments about wms either

Do we really need any more reasons for mothers to criticise other mothers? All the terms used to describe mothers who work inside or outside the home seem to offend somebody. We can simply never win, whatever our employment status or how we choose to describe it.