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 ?

Some people are just so deluded that they seem unable to comprehend this.

We clearly need to rename these roles.

Working mum

Stay at home working mum.

That’s crystal clear then!

Let us get parameters straight. Before school starts, not when the children are in school, certainly not secondary school.

Appologies- I meant to say you can’t work full time with babies/toddlers in tow without childcare (or a partner who is SAH). I was explaining I work full time with no childcare but my kids are in school.

Obviously you can work full time if you’ve got childcare.

Yes I do realise.

Funnily enough I was a single parent of disabled children for many years myself. But when your family is dead and you live rurally with no childcare for their needs and you are up throughout the night due to their treatments then your career has to be sacrificed because there is no one else. I'm glad for others that they have the support available to them that they are able to continue working but it beggars belief that some wouldn't consider this work.

This is why it's utterly foolish to make generalisations about SAHPs.

So, for those who think women should remain financially independent so they have options, what if men straightened up and we're reliable and decent partners, would sahm be a viable option then?

i totally agree it's a contribution and i also agree it's a legitimate choice

but it is not 'work' and that's ok. People making this choice should stand by it and not try and make it something it's not. Someone's probably already posted that daft meme about sahp being an 80k a year job as you're a chauffeur, cook, entertainer, cleaner - yawn

@Runnerinthenight read that again........,

Well this post was dripping with judgement.

Which men? A lot of us have already found some.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because they are creating employment and contributing to the economy.

My husband is decent which is why we could both work FT.

But I think the pendulum needs to swing the other way first. We need more SAHDs and dads going part-time. Society needs to be more equal; otherwise the (widely accepted) sahm role just perpetuates the gender pay gap.

What happens if woman take 10 years out of work and her husband dies? If he was organised she will get life insurance and pension, but if he wasn’t, or he wasn’t that high flying she will be stuck.

Or he’s a decent bloke but life happens and they divorce? She will be very stuck.

The problem with teaching boys to aim for caring careers is that not everybody trusts men caring positions.

There is a lot of prejudice that men in caring professions (nursery worker, doctor, nurse etc) must be paedophiles or abusers looking for opportunities). It’s disgusting but you see threads on here all the time.

That needs to be addressed to create space for men to be accepted in these roles.

Ha, the post which said that I've seen first hand the results of being a helicopter/snowplough SAHP and they aren't positive, and that working parents still have to look after their home and bring up their kids is judgemental, but the one where a poster stated that the kids of working parents were unruly because we didn't bring them up, wasn't?

What an utterly ridiculous thing to say.

If you can be a SAHP, that's great, and if you have preschool children I have no doubt you are working hard. We do the exact same thing on the weekend so we know it's hard. But trying to pretend that working parents don't still have the same pressures as SAHPs but half the time to do it in is not doing you any favours whatsoever, and nor is pretending all our kids are feral and misbehaved. And once the are in school it's absolutely easier.

For me this sums it all up. People judge SAHM based on their own prejudices and beliefs when really people do what works for them based on a huge number of variables. We should just assume everyone is making the best decision for their family but instead there’s all this nasty judgement and assumptions.

Since I didn’t make the post to which you are referring, you can’t accuse me of being hypocritical. Two wrongs don’t make a right. You were incredibly judgmental.

Where? Please point out where I was judgemental.

I stated facts based on MY experience with children, which will not apply to every child of a SAHP and I clarified that in my post.

And I stated facts when I said that a working parent of a school aged child is doing the exact same as a SAHP of a school aged child, but we have much fewer hours to do it in.

If you can find where in that I made a judgement, please feel free to tell me.

That made me chuckle. Thanks.

I’m going to answer but I can tell you are not going to be swayed here. You said kids of working parents were often much better behaved than those of SAHP and those children were often more entitled. I can see you think that’s just factual, so I’ll concede on that point. However, you said that a working parent has to come home and do everything the SAHM parent has done all day so their own job plus what the SAHP has done all day. I think that’s very judgemental. If someone is home all day with kids that means they are taking care of their kid all day and there are multiple rounds of preparing food, cleaning up the house after kids, etc. You saying you do everything a SAHP does on top of your job in the hours you are home with your kids completely dismisses what a SAHP does all day.

I said OFTEN, in MY EXPERIENCE. I gave my experience to counteract the statement that children of working parents are unruly because no-one brings them up. My experience suggests the opposite. You're entitled to have had a different experience.

I was talking about school aged kids who are not there in the day. As I said further up, parenting preschool children all day is a different kettle of fish and I do not deny that that is as hard, or even harder, than being at work all day.

But you cannot claim that the SAHM who drops her kids off at school and has the whole day to prepare dinner and do the housework before collecting them at 3:30 is working as hard as the working Mum who picks her kids up from the childminder at 5pm and has t then get all the same things done before the next morning.

I was a teacher for fifteen years, I could not tell the difference between those who had a SAHM or those that had a working Mum. There are issues with social deprivation if both parents are unemployed of course, but for most families who have a SAHP where one parent is working and bringing in an adequate income there was zero difference in the behaviour or attitude of the children.

Exactly. It's not hard to understand that.

Unless and until you walk in another's shoes It's stupid to judge.