'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?

Exactly

You assume I am taking sides in this, @Thepeopleversuswork . The only person who can decide whether they are in the best position for them is the person in that position. Not you, not me - but I am not the one claiming to worry about women you have no proof you need to worry about. Life is by definition a gamble. Don’t pretend you can protect yourself from taking gambles. And there is no more logic in claiming it is better to earn more money than you need or want than there is in claiming it is better to have more time and less stress than to feel the satisfaction of working for money. There are trade offs to be made in all decisions anyone ever makes and money is one factor, not the only factor. How you feel about what you do and what motivates you are also important, particularly when you already have enough money.

@Brakken

It's nothing about denigrating working mothers

(Goes on to spend four long paragraphs denigrating working mothers).

Course you’re not, love.

Thing is you can be just as busy as someone who works full time. You fill the time.
It's what you fill the time with that's being judged. It's just jealousy.

Ha!! I am B. Work full time in a stressful city job, no cleaner, husband who also works all hours (self employed) 2 kids in nursery. Our house is always a mess (not dirty) and we live for weekends. I am very jealous of SAHP but we couldn’t afford to live on one salary. I try and just get on with it but recognise that life just isn’t really fair.

Isn't saying "it's jealousy" quite a lazy argument? I tried being a SAHM. I hated it. I'm not jealous at all of how a SAHP fills their day. As long as they are happy, as long as all women can forget a set of circumstances that gives them satisfaction - that's the ideal.

You are making a lot of assumptions about what workings parents do.

We are both full time as of Monday. We use no childcare whatsoever, our kids are either in education or with a parent.

We have just as much quality time as a SAHP because we prioritise earning enough money so someone else can do the grunt work (like cleaning and gardening) allowing us to have a lot of quality time with our kids.

My children quite like the luxuries that being a dual income home affords them. Plus, we will never rely on a single income, so we are better protected against unforeseen issues such as redundancies, illness, relationship breakdowns.

Forge not forget.

Being at home with the kids instead of working,

But friend A isn't. Her kids are at school.

The amount of extra time she spends with her kids compared to B is probably about 2 hours a day, maybe less depending on B's and Mr B's working hours.

Nb this is balanced against the much lower-quality involvement that Mr A has with his kids compared to Mr B.

This debate/question, as originally posited by op, is not about the very early years, it's about school years.

@Walkaround

And there is no more logic in claiming it is better to earn more money than you need or want than there is in claiming it is better to have more time and less stress than to feel the satisfaction of working for money

I don’t have more money than I need or want and I don’t work for fun or “pocket money” or to buy shoes or handbags (which is the usual canard which people come up with to level at working mums). I work to support my child. I happen to enjoy my job (usually), but that doesn’t change the fact that I have to do it.

Nor is it to do with any “satisfaction” in earning money. It’s pure financial necessity.

I’m not worried about this particular woman and I have said until I am blue in the face that it’s up to each woman to make choices that suit her circumstances.

But I stand by the fact that making a lifetime career out of financial dependence on one other person is very risky.

So, the people doing your grunt work do not earn enough to pay others to do their grunt work, meaning huge numbers of people are just spending their time grunting for others or grunting at home…. Doesn’t sound like much fun to me.

They also seem to miss out the role of the fathers. By the sounds of things, family A have a father who just dips into parenting together, whereas family B have a father who is truly an equal partner to his partner.

I bet the kids in family B get more parental contact hours than the kids in family A.

Nobody is talking about the benefits (for children) of having a very involved father. They should be.

There's no consensus. Because these threads are always divided between the SAHMs who want to recieve recognition for working as hard a WM just in a different way, and the SAHMs who want to deliberately evoke the jealousy they're convinced they're the objects of, by bragging about their husband's income and how it enables them to do hobbies and watch netflicks all day while other unfortunates have to work. The latter does nothing to help the case of the former, and leaves WMs none the wiser.

@Mummymummy89

My cleaner comes during the day, when her own children are at school. It’s her job - a proper job. She contributes to society and pays her taxes.

I don’t see why someone who is employed as a cleaner would employ a cleaner to do their cleaning. She’s very good at what she does.

Same for my window cleaner - he owns a business - a seemingly successful one.

I also pay for other services such as a hairdresser, waxing lady, a swim instructor for my eldest, and a dog walker for the dog. Yes, I could do all these things by myself, but I simply don’t want to, since someone else can do them better for me.

Technically, almost any job can be done by a non professional.

This is always a strange conversation and such competition. We all love differently and suited to our individual lifestyles surely. Just because one does something the other doesn't, doesn't mean one does more or less.

I really agree with this philosophy.

It works for everything I spend money on - it's quicker and generally more delicious to buy bread from the local bakery than to do it myself.

I do occasionally make my own bread, as an activity that dd "helps" with (I'll be honest, being a teacher at least at my school is a seriously cushy job and I have a lot of free time in the summer) - but I never get it remotely as good as a bakery loaf.

It's just not a benefit to school-age kids for mums to do all those homemaker activities, not in this day and age when you can buy cheese in a supermarket instead of churning it at home.

It's sad but true, there's plenty of evidence that household income is correlated with good outcomes for kids. And if both parents work, that's likely to bring in more money than just one parent working.

Yes, I'm aware friend A's kids are in school, that's why I also talked about school years in my last paragraph. Two extra hours a day with your kids is very significant, plus you're able to pick them.up from school, and as I said you're making efficient use of their time in school to clear tasks making you more mentally and physically available when they are home from school.

The wider discussion has evolved into SAHM in general so that's why I made my wider point about SAHMs too.

I am a working mum, @Thepeopleversuswork . I am not coming up with canards, just pointing out why I quoted your earlier post and objected to it - because you made a general point that just doesn’t make sense. Every person’s situation is specific to themselves and it is unhealthy to feel you have to justify yourself, as you have just done. You don’t need to explain your situation, or pretend other situations don’t exist, or to claim you are the norm. You are you. Other women are not better or worse if they are not you, they are simply not you and are making different decisions and taking different risks.

I was banging on about it a few pages back lol but yes I see your point!

This quote from Fleishman is in Troubke summarises it for me:”Of course I work,” she said. “I’m a mom.” But I was a mom, too, so what was what I did called?) But also: No one had to tell me it was harder to have a job and be a mother. It was obvious. It was two full-time occupations. It’s just math. Because having a job made you no less of a mother; you still had to do all that shit, too. Keeping track of your kids from afar isn’t easier. Entrusting them to a stranger who was available for babysitting by virtue of the fact that she was incapable of doing anything else is not something that fills a person with faith and relaxation. Now that I have worked and stayed at home, I can confirm all of this. Now that I stay at home, I can say it out loud. But now that I don’t work, no one is listening. No one listens to stay-at-home mothers, which, I guess, is why we were so careful about their feelings in the first place.”

It all depends if friend A moans that she is “soooo busy”. I have a friend who is a SAHM both kids in school full time and I swear she is she busiest person I know. I genuinely don’t understand what she does all day. Her days have become so slow that doing the shop / dropping of dry cleaning are a full day event.

I work part time - have 2 year old 2 days a week and work for myself 3 days. I do all home stuff, kids activities, homework, cooking, cleaning in the week as husband works long hours. I have the odd few hours in the week in between clients (I’m a PT) and manage to do all life admin then and feel lucky to have this time so guess don’t understand how it can possibly take all day

'Every person’s situation is specific to themselves and it is unhealthy to feel you have to justify yourself, as you have just done. You don’t need to explain your situation, or pretend other situations don’t exist, or to claim you are the norm. You are you. Other women are not better or worse if they are not you, they are simply not you and are making different decisions and taking different risks.'

Exactly. Why are people so anxious and insecure? Why would anyone spend ages detailing their situations - there is nothing to justify and it's meaningless to anyone else.

Thanks. No, if anything they are surprised that he's going to be taking 6 weeks off (he took 4 weeks with our son and didn't feel like it was long enough).

I couldn't agree more about paternity leave, 2 weeks is woeful and encourages the mother to be the default parent which isn't good for equality and also enables it to continue if the mother does go back to work because it's what they become used to and can be hard to break.

Not to mention the fact that fathers want to bond with their babies too.

I agree with B to some extent although I would never say it in front of SAHM friends. I do everything that SAHMs do plus work (although not FT anymore as financially I’ve reached a point where I can safely reduce my hours slightly). I may not do it to the same
standards as your rather perfect-sounding friend A and perhaps that’s what B means when she says she does everything that A does. It’s just not to the same high standard, which is fine because she has far fewer hours in her day to complete the same tasks. As an example it’s CiN day tomorrow and we have been asked to bake cakes for school, so I have made 12 big standard chocolate cupcakes for each child’s school. My SAHM friend has likely made at least two different types of cake plus beautifully decorated biscuits for each of her children’s schools (3 schools in total). We’ve done the same thing but she has spent far more time on the task and produced more from it than I have. That’s fine and reasonable I think and the world needs both types of mum (plus a myriad of other types too). I never struggled to fill my time whilst on maternity leave each time but we did a lot of fun things like walks and visits to NT properties etc (as well as the chores), not the sort of thing that is even slightly equivalent to the stress and business of a senior role at work. I also wouldn’t struggle to fill my time if I didn’t have to work but I have two time-consuming hobbies, I wouldn’t be spending it making sure my 6 bedroom rambling farmhouse was immaculate (it never is)! I do cook from scratch the whole time but don’t make ‘lavish’ meals as that sounds like an unhealthy way to live!