'I do all these things AND work FT'

[Bumpitybumper]

I see this on Mumsnet a lot but have just experienced it in real life. I have two friends (A&B). Friend A is a SAHM to school age kids and Friend B works FT in quite a stressful job. Friend B was just lamenting that they don't understand how Friend A fills her time as she manages to work FT AND do everything Friend A does.

The thing is, Friend B has a much smaller (yet lovely) house that is pretty chaotic in fun energetic way. It is never the tidiest or cleanest but it's not disgusting either. Friend A on the other hand has a much bigger house that is pretty immaculate most of the time. Friend A does all the school runs and volunteers at school. Friend B needs wraparound care in order to get to work so drops her kids of at 8 and collects around 17:30. Friend A cooks amazing meals for her family, has her children's friends round for fun playdates and activities and is generally incredibly on top of everything. Friend B is understandably more stretched and isn't in the position to cook lavish meals every day of the week or have friends round when she's at work. Friend B's husband does a lot (of course absolutely fair and right) so she doesn't have to attend every parents evening, sew all the badges for extracurricular clubs or assist with all the homework etc. Friend A does pretty much all of that as husband works such long hours.

I actually think both are amazing and very productive people that channel their energy, time and talent in different channels. I just struggle to understand though how Friend B can't appreciate that she isn't doing the same as Friend A or at least doing it to the same standard. Before people suggest I'm Friend A, I have my own business so don't really fit in either camp but used to be a SAHM so I guess can see Friend A's efforts more.

AIBU to think that Friend B is a bit deluded?

Well I’m a bit more honest or perhaps just less defensive - I don’t like cleaning and I have a cleaner once a week. I most certainly do not clean to the standard of a house proud SAHM who does all the cleaning herself and anyone who said I did would be lying!

It's not about what the daughters want, that wasn't my question. It was more about what the mothers who choose to SAH want for their own daughters and grandchildren?

i accept its rare and I'm not talking about people who take a career break - I'm talk of about people who have children and never return to work and specifically those that bang the drum loudly about what that means for them, the career they could have had and would have had but they chose instead to raise children - these conversations are occurring in front of daughters and I wonder what pressure that might add when that same daughter is making her choices as a mother in a few years?

You can’t possibly be implying that those bashing working mums are inherently sexist?

Only kidding, of course you can, because they are!

@VanityDiesHard a high earning partner doesn’t negate a woman’s ability to earn a living and contribute financially to society herself.
There are of course other ways to contribute to society. The SAHMs who do PTA duties, volunteering or have additional carer duties (such as elderly relatives). Full respect.

OP you are very over invested in both A and B's life

You said A hasn't said anything negative about A despite your first post and are very insistent B should "acknowledge" A does more. Both fees there children. Why does A need extra acknowledgement because her meals are so lavish

You seem to worship A in your posts. Both fa.iles function differently why do you need B to acknowledge it if she has never said anything negative

I think to start with, we need to stop framing it as a decision that only mothers get to make.

If we want society to be more equal, we need to be asking men the same question when they become fathers. Some may want to be SAHP's, some may want to reduce their hours/go part time and some may want shared parental leave.

Cleaning things to Mrs Hinch levels of perfection is a (luxury) lifestyle choice of those with the time available to do it because they do not have to financially support their families. It is not a standard by which I or any other working mother should accept being judged by. There is no defensiveness here just a rejection of the misogynistic view that one is operating at a "lower standard" as a mother because you are working.

None of those things are exclusive to being a SAHP though?

Sometimes the woman is the high earner too.

Gasp. Imagine that.

More parents working and more freedom to leave your partner have not improved the mental or physical health of our children as a society. So what lessons are our children learning? That it’s better not to have children at all?

Mrs Hinch has a horrid house in Essex & I couldn’t give a toot how she cleans it. To me cleaning is the opposite of luxury, it’s what you do if you can’t afford a cleaner.

Standards of cleaning exist nonetheless - regardless of the pompous sophistry you employ to avoid it.

Well, childless couples are happier than couples with children, and have happier marriages, soooo … maybe we should be.

And let’s not twist things. Do you really believe that parents (specifically mothers, since nobody has a problem with “working dads”) working is responsible for poor mental or physical health in children? No, it isn’t. Social media, sedentary lifestyles, pollution rates, and a million other factors are at play here. Correlation does not equal causation (and actually, with specific reference to mental health, I’m not sure it even is worse - I think that it’s just discussed more)

@SisterHyster I agree. I guess my view is there are different types of SAHP - the ones who chose/need to not work but do lots of community orientated duties which many (not all) working mums don’t have time to do. Then there are the ones who complain that they have been so busy whilst doing all the same things as someone working 40 hours/week. I guess I view it as a privilege for parents to be able to get their parenting/house ‘jobs’ done in the day and actually sit down or be able to get to bed before 10pm. Or to go to the gym or food shop in the day, or maintain an ultra tidy home etc.

ive seen on badges before, it’s very quick? I’ve just looked at youtube and the lady does a badge in 3mins, going slowly to demonstrate.

I work FT, sew on badges, volunteered at school. I bulk cook at the weekend do we eat good food. DP cooks good meals when it’s his turn too. Can i say what B said?

I'm a single parent & manage to do everything that B does, alone.

Their lives are different- I wouldn't say one had a "better" life than the other's.

But I'd definitely say A has an easier life, for sure.

And Friend B potentially has to take the time of work to look after poorly child, if Dad can't. Not a strong example there.
Being a SAMH to school age children is no where near the same as looking after under 5s.

It's not about providing children with an A* service, it's about the outcome and how the children feel. Can you raise happy, healthy well rounded children with a FT working mother? Of course you can. That's what's important, not how immaculate the house in or how many hours you spend in your children's company.

Yeah, as the higher earner (40% tax payer) it’s always made sense for me to work. I cook a proper meal for my kids every day, they are with a parent or in education almost 24/7 (grandparents take them out for a few hours at the weekend, but not as childcare) my house is clean (I’d argue cleaner than most - but it’s not me who cleans it!) and in terms of my kids experience, I can’t see any negatives to them having a dual income household. I do see a lot of positives though - such as having money to do what we like at the weekend with little thought of budget, and also the expectation that both of them will also contribute financially as adults. I’d be really concerned if either of them became a SAHP.

Won't someone think of the manky shower screens!

No, I don’t believe mothers working is responsible. I do think threads like this demonstrate a lot of the problems, though - there are far too many patently stressed and unhappy people in the world wasting time publicly passing judgement on the lives of others as a means of trying to feel better about themselves and their own lives. There are far too many people who interpret pretty much any comment anyone makes as a personal criticism of their own choices and instantly go on the attack about it. These are not the behaviours of people who are actually happy with their lot, they are the behaviours of people who feel under permanent attack and chronic stress. As for sedentary lifestyles, pollution, etc - that is the upbringing we are giving our children, it didn’t happen to us, we all contributed to it, yet we are still focusing on who does or does not do paid work, as though this is the most important question and everything else would be solved if everyone did paid work.

Friend B must see it as she does the 80% 'that matter', as well as a FT job. So she does '180%'.
There is an additional 20% that friend A does which is very time consuming but not critical (eg the fetes etc).
I am friend B and I think I match friend A on certain things which I think are priorities (eg the children's clubs and sports), but totally don't compete on things I think are less important (volunteering and tidy house at all times). That is probably what B means.

So many of op's examples aren't parenting. Bake sales, being on the PTA - these are school community busywork, not parenting.

If you're on the PTA, that's not for your specific child's benefit. If we did a straw poll of kids with parents on the PTA vs kids whose parents are not on the PTA, you wouldn't see better happiness levels, academic results, whatever.

Similarly, having an "immaculate" home vs an acceptably clean and tidy-ish home: again, you will not find a demonstrable improvement in children's well-being, academic results or other attributes from living in an immaculate home. Some might even argue it's more likely the other way.

So doing those things does not mean "parenting to a higher standard". It just means doing stuff, useful stuff sure, but it's not parenting.

So yes, B does all the parenting A does plus works full time. Friend A fills the rest of her time with other activities that she chooses to do: useful and meaningful ones, maybe, but not directly parenting (not least because her kids are at school most of the day...!)

OP are you actually friend A and upset that friend B said what they did?

The OP never said parent A spent more time parenting, though, that’s just lots of people with weird chips on their shoulders interpreting it all as examples of parenting, rather than just descriptions of what parent A is doing with their time and why it is taking them longer than it takes B. To pretend that different people do not have different standards for housework or cooking or voluntary work is just ridiculous - of course we all have different standards for these things and spend different amounts of time on them, and if, for example, we were paying someone to clean our houses, we would definitely notice if their standards did not live up to our expectations, so it is deliberately demeaning not to notice standards when something is done for free.

When it comes to parenting, you simply cannot grade parenting by a set of standards, as parenting is something experienced as a whole, not a sum of parts. It is not the OP who made the mistake of trying to turn parenting into a list of chores, it was just some of the people responding to her who did that.

She also has a husband that could leave at any moment, and her situation might be rather precarious.