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 have been both. My dh worked and I did all the childcare, cooking , cleaning, school work, meetings, drs appointments. To-ing and frowing to all the children’s activities, parties etc. my dh works and dries the dishes after the evening meal and very little else. The youngest is now 7 and I am so sick of never having a moments peace and juggling so many balls and always being judged as lazy as a sahm while having to struggle to balance the finances every week that I spat my dummy out! My husband is now working from home but without discussion has reduced his hours and after watching him swan off fishing on several occasions I decided enough was enough. After 15 years of being made to feel lazy and no matter what I did and parenting cooking and cleaning 7 days a week usually with interrupted nights I have gone back to work. Luck was on my side as I am earning 35k to work part time around my kids school hours and sleeping away 3 nights a week. I love my job. Standards in our home have dropped and My husband is having to pull his weight and finally realising how much I fucking did. Going to work now is so much easier than being a sahm.

You don’t need to be a SAHP to have a close bond with your DC’s. Same as the argument that breast feeding gives a greater bond than bottle feeding formula (it doesn’t).

It’s a lot easier to keep your house clean if your kids are in wrap around care.

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.

Exactly. Yes by all means each to their own. I'm sure being a SAHM has its challenges just like anything else. But being a SAHM isn't a job or "work" in employment terms. I don't know why some people are adamant to insist otherwise.

I actually feel sorry for women who supposedly choose to be a SAHM and see it as work or a job, it's literally the opposite of being employed, be that in employment or self employed.

Personally I would find this a luxury but a massive risk to be financially dependent on a spouse.

Had babies 2 .5 years apart so didn't get a job until youngest at school. But I did everything while we were all at home, playgroups, parks, play dates, cooking, cleaning, gardening. Didn't have a car, so it was miles of walking with a pram, occasionally a bus ride.

Husband worked long hours so they were ready for bed by the time he came home.

I didn't think it easier, just different.

I then got a job 9-3 five days a week, occasionally evenings, that was considered part time despite the fact that I ran the house and garden alone. I did get a car though which I thought the height of luxury 😂

Sorry, but if you can't add chauffeuring and dog walking to the list, you weren't SAHMing properly.

That's patently ridiculous! A woman who works out of the home is still on 24 hours a day. What a foolish statement to make. And it is way more challenging working FT because you have to pack everything into a shorter number of hours.

Stay at home if you want to but don't dress it up as something it's not! Because we are FT employees, FT housekeeper/cook/cleaner and mum too! My god how deluded!

You had a husband problem.

Chauffeuring and two dogs, labs so easy to handle 😂

Women all experience motherhood differently. It’s so easy to judge other mothers when our experience is completely different to theirs.

”Don’t have children with a man who isn’t going to share all the household tasks (competently!) 50/50 including the mental load.”
-Says the woman who lucked out with a partner who can multi-task and does his share effectively. We can’t all see that our partners are going to be shit at this until after we’re knee deep in nappies.

“Children thrive in daycare and wrap around care and there’s no reason for women to be STAP”

-Says the woman with neurotypical children without chronic disabilities or illness or the woman who doesn’t have an overwhelming instinctual urge to be the only person caring for their children.

I can see that it’s so simple for some working mothers to judge STAP but our experiences might be different and we can’t keep viewing things in black and white if we ever want to understand and move forward. I feel sorry for any young woman trying to decide whether to have kids in the future, especially if they are getting tunnel visioned advice.

Women all experience motherhood differently. It’s so easy to judge other mothers when our experience is completely different to theirs.

”Don’t have children with a man who isn’t going to share all the household tasks (competently!) 50/50 including the mental load.”
-Says the woman who lucked out with a partner who can multi-task and does his share effectively. We can’t all see that our partners are going to be shit at this until after we’re knee deep in nappies.

“Children thrive in daycare and wrap around care and there’s no reason for women to be STAP”

-Says the woman with neurotypical children without chronic disabilities or illness or the woman who doesn’t have an overwhelming instinctual urge to be the only person caring for their children.

I can see that it’s so simple for some working mothers to judge STAP but our experiences might be different and we can’t keep viewing things in black and white if we ever want to understand and move forward. I feel sorry for any young woman trying to decide whether to have kids in the future, especially if they are getting tunnel visioned advice.

Yeah I have done all of that too while working FT with 3 children. If DH and I split, we still wouldn't have enough money each to buy two decent-sized properties outright and that's having bought our home 26 years ago!!

@carshaker yes you are on 24/7- but then it’s not a job, it’s work. Because in a job, you get breaks, holidays and sick leave. I don’t get these from parenting. And I work full time.
So being a SAHM is all encompassing work but if you want to see it as an actual job then you need to demand that the other parent when done with their job chips in to do the rest of the ‘work.’ Because he (and it is always a he) gets his downtime and sick leave.

And this is what I mean, women are either working FT and doing all the housework or they are told ‘being a SAHM and wife is what is best of us and our children’ but the husbands don’t treat it as a job in the same way as THEIR job. So their jobs might be 8-6 but their wives’ jobs are 24/7. This is the inherent inequality that patriarchy breeds.
And then tells women ‘but aren’t you so blessed to have choices.’

Well, no, he wasn't doing any of that before we got together and had children. He was living with Mum (who did all the domestic stuff) and we were at university together with the ultimate flexibility in time. We got married, had a baby, he got a job - and that was a big change in structure. No problem, it was just life progressing, but little did we know his executive functioning disabilities. When it was my turn to start my career, do you think he could cope with having to juggle his job around pick ups and sharing anything that made him have to juggle anything? I know he couldn't have coped as a single father of preschoolers but both grandmothers would have happily taken over (though didn't help me at all. I was on my own.) It's not his fault but it's not mine either that these issues exist and impact.

Luckily he's a great person and his struggles are offset with loyalty, love, shared interests and appreciation. He pays into my pension privately, makes sure we have everything we need. He contributes to the household in other ways too. Sometimes we can't have everything in life but I am lucky with him.

How can any woman bear to think she is ‘providing’ those roles as a service to her husband 🤢

I hear you, but I don't work, as disabled, solo parent and, My God, the judgement...

Well in spite of my failure to stay at home with my children, I have been able to teach them spelling, punctuation and grammar. Don't preach at anyone!!

Both parents work and both parents bring up the children! Are you saying that teachers rear them too once they start school? How bloody ridiculous.

I agree that it's contributing to the family but it's not the same as having a job, it's much easier. I know, I've done both.

Keep telling yourself that.

I do hope your very important husband is making decent provision for your pension.

Of course it is! Other than the demands of looking after the children, you'd have choices how to spend your time. Go to the shops, go and visit granny, go and feed the ducks yada yada. It's downright lying to say that SAHP are working constantly!!

The reason why it's not work is because there's no standard , no oversight, no specification, no quantifying, no quality control.

Unless you are actually abusive or severely neglectful no one will "fire" you from the job or interfere.

You could feed your kid takeaway all day every day, sit at home all day on screens, do no housework, do the bare minimum if that and still be a SAHM as the ones that are doing cooking from scratch, all admin, gardening, dog walking, cleaning, chauffeuring, gardening etc.

My kids have finally left home for university. We have a fabulous group of mums, a combination of working and stay at home mums. Some used nursery, some used childminders and some stayed at home. I am biased but all our kids are pretty delightful young adults. You cannot of course tell who went to nursery and who had a stay at home mum. But they all had invested and loving parents.

The big shock for me has been two couples already splitting up. One with a wealthy husband; she will get half of the assets but she is now terrified at losing a monthly income as her standard of living will drop as her job that she got in recent years does not pay much. It has been a huge eye-opener for me. Another mum has said she would never advise her kids to go part time as she did as she now resents her husband‘s career as she can now see where they each are on the career ladder. I would never have predicted this from either of them. A cautionary tale perhaps.

Loved kids seem to do ok whether their mum works or not. But the detriment in later years may be to the woman, not the child…

OMG, listen to yourself!! What a crock of shite.

It is NOT work. It’s being a parent. So crack on and lose the 😡face. Stop being a martyr, you’re bigging up tasks that every parent does trying to equate it to employment. Nah

Most of the SAHPs I’ve known have done it until their children are at school - not as a luxury or any sort of idealistic choice, just because they’d be working for very little or no money by the time childcare was paid for and they had the type of job that a few years out of would make no difference.

I can only think of maybe 2 I’ve known who stayed at home where they could have had an actual career, most people I’ve known in that position continued working.

So it makes sense to me that most mothers also work.