Staying at home with kids IS a contribution and it is also WORK

[carshaker]

A lot of people don't respect a mum who's ' just at home '. Like she's not really contributing to the family.

The reality is though, that it's very much a big contribution, even if it's not financial.

If you took away the financial risk of staying home long term, what's the issue with it? Why is it considered by many ( especially women ), less than ?

If this is a woman's choice, what's the issue ?

I’m not purporting to be exceptional - I am explaining how many SAHM (ie not just me) also contribute to the increased value of joint assets even if they are not bringing in a wage. We are not financially ‘dependent’ - scrounging off our husbands - but are active agents in increasing our joint net worth. Great if you can work, too, but that was not what the OP was asking.

This thread is supposed to be asking about the value added by those who stay at home, not an invitation for those who combine working and home-caring to bash them.

This thread is everything why I hate MN - not mutually supporting women in the multiple, varied ways they contribute to society and family life, no celebration of the diversity of the female experience. Just an invitation to sneer and run women down.

I’m out.

There are lots of programmes (my workplace runs one) to assist women who want to return to work.
The issue is that if you have been out of the workplace for many years, you are competing with people with up to date skill set. Personally I wouldn’t employ someone with a big gap on their CV when I can easily get someone with current skillset which is really important in my line of work as so fast moving.

There are loads of free government funded bootcamps on .gov.uk it's not like there isn't a route back into work, there is.

This thread though seems to be about women choosing not to work preferring to stay home to be support humans for their men.

Isn’t there a lot of research to prove that children grow up to be more successful, well rounded individuals if they are with their primary caregiver (usually mum) for longer?

So society should support allowing one parent to stay home because it would benefit society in the long run.

Im glad schools are changing on this. I always thought that was ridiculous when most kids will be doing at least several full days at nursery at week and lots doing a full week of full days. I think mine only did a couple of half days in Reception but ive heard of schools doing several weeks of it. Surely it would be better for perhaps the 1 or 2 children who struggle with full days to be given this option rather than making all do half days 🤷🏼‍♀️

https://www.yourtango.com/family/working-moms-raise-more-successful-children-according-research

Can you link to that research please?

I know several couples the husband has a well paid job, the wife had a well paid job but gave it up to SAH. All children are now well into teens but for the past decade + that I've known them the SAHM seem to spend their days at the gym, pilates, PT sessions, beauty salon, pursuing expensive hobbies, going away for mini breaks etc.
Now at least one is panicking about the cost of uni...and I can't understand why, it has not occurred to either parent that 2 incomes at some point in a 15 year + period (even if one was pt) might have helped with that.

And the research is always massively flawed.

Because it usually fails to take into consideration things like finances. It’s can’t accurately measure emotional support and input.

and most of all they can’t measure how the outcome on those particular children would have been different if the parent had chose to work or vice versa.

The same with earlier study linked that said girls from families where women worked usually earn more.

InfoSecInTheCity - do you have a child with SEN? If you don’t you can’t possibly compare your efforts against those of someone who does? Whoppee do you did up your house and worked at the same time but the SAHM did that and managed a child with additional needs? Maybe you didn’t read that bit though?

@LookingForEnergy then you must have a pretty good set up and are quite "safe". I'm honestly happy for you.

ignore me. Wrong poster. Sorry

Fascinated by all the fact that somehow every family ‘chose’ to prioritise their DH’s career. I wonder why and how. Girls do just as well at school. Many of these women went to University. And suddenly in our 30s we are all saying our careers are less important than our DHs. Why is there not a single husband on this thread who went part time for a few years or god forbid became a SAHD?

Also the reason so many men outearn the women is because we enable them. If you didn’t have to take maternity leave, and you could go to work every day like most men do without worrying what’s for dinner or who is doing the pick up, stay for late nights and delegate it all to the spouse you too would progress very very quickly in your career.

I also find the ‘my husband would never be able to cope with children and a job’ argument absurd when single mothers do this Every Single Day. It makes all the men on this thread frankly sound truly pathetic that barring disabilities they can’t seem to juggle work and family life. (And plenty of disabled women do the same).

And if you are choosing to prioritise your husband’s career and you see your work as a ‘job’ then hopefully you get weekends off, evenings off for your down time, some ‘paid’ leave including sick leave and you are accruing pensions. Because most jobs come with these things. The reality is that the vast majority of SAHMs are not.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/young-children-who-are-close-to-their-parents-are-more-likely-to-grow-up-kind-helpful-and-prosocial - the more time a child spends with their parents, the less likely they’ll have mental health problems down the line. However, parents have to work, so there’s less time with the child.

Just to mention, as I know saying anything against the grain of MN will get you burned to the ground, I work full time and our nearly 2 year old is in nursery full time as we can’t afford to take a pay cut and live off one salary.

I also appreciate the research added up above that proves there’s lots of benefits of using a full time childcare place.

I hate the "man with a big job / SAHM" model. It's terrible for equality

In the past, it was a full time job raising a family and keeping the house. Now, it really isn't, when we have eg washing machines, fridges, hoovers ...

I am always suspicious of research from the US too as their society is quite different from U.K.
I think of you have highly educated parents in good jobs, you are more likely to also achieve similar. Perhaps highly educated women in good careers are less likely to give up work to be a SAHM. For many reasons ie. Finances allowing them to work, more to lose giving up a career they have worked hard for, a more satisfying job etc etc

The vast majority of us try to make the best possible decisions for our families. That’s it really, there’s no need for so much spite.

But growing close to one’s parents has literally nothing to do with having a stay at home mum. I am and was super close to my mum. She had a high flying career in the 1980s and 1990s in India. So much so that it was my dad who did the school picks up and handled most of the holiday care.

Maybe because… the woman wants to?! I had a big job but wanted to be with my babies. I wouldn’t have seen them otherwise (long hours international travel). I wanted to do it! Sorry feminism!

I agree with this. What I really don’t like is being pushed into one option, which for us is both of us having to work because life is so goddamn expensive nowadays.

I genuinely wish we had the option to both work part time so we could both have days at home with our son and also be able to work, because we enjoy working.

so, I think instead of people being divided over their opinions of SAHM/working parents, I wish there was more push to give parents the option to either be at home with their children (full time, part time, SAHM or SAHD) or work full time if they want.

I don’t get the anger at the ‘facilitating his career’ stuff. It’s facilitating the kids having a nice life for us. DH works hard and has a large salary, I work school hours and otherwise am with the kids. The main benefactors of us doing it this way are 100% the kids as if I didnt do it, the only way we’d have that kind of income would be lots of wraparound care which neither kids are a fan of or cope well with (we tried it, I used to work FT).

if it were the other way round and I had the same earning potential he’d be more than up for doing what I do- he spends as much time with the kids as possible. I’m not looking after my kids before and after school to facilitate his career- I’m doing it for them and because it means we have a nice life.

do I wish society was fairer and women had greater opportunities to earn more? Totally. But being pragmatic the most I can earn a year is around 50k, the most DH has earned in a year is around £250k.

This has nothing to do with childcare though, does it? It’s talking about having a close relationship with your parents. There are emotionally distant and abusive parents whether they work or not. Being a SAHM doesn’t actually make you a good parent you know…

Nothing to be sorry about. You made a choice. You didn't make it out to be you're a better mum and how much better off and loved your kids are.

It's all good.

It’s more about having more time to stay to be with your child. Most people have to put children in childcare because they have to work to afford to live, so you naturally have less time with your child.

I work full time and would say I’m a good parent, so you are putting words into my mouth. Of course there will be outliers in both scenarios who are shit parents and aren’t there emotionally for their children too.

I wish I had more time to be with our child instead of him being in nursery full time but we don’t have that option because of the cost of living.

Just because I was curious about numbers I took a look to some data and about the 70% of women with children in the UK also work outside the house.