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 ?

Excellent post and provides a cautionary tale. I'm biased too as everything I have is a result of me working for it. I raised my son as a single parent and received no benefits/maintenance. Truly lovely feeling that everything I have is down to me( even though I have considerably less than alot of my friends/family who did it jointly).

You say some isn’t great but also some is amazing. DT’s nursery had almost zero staff turnover, two of the staff became our babysitters, majority had extended qualifications (early years degrees, nursing etc), the under two room was 1:2 (same as DT’s would have when they are at home).
We got weekly menus and timetables of sleep patterns, outdoor activities, visits to local places, classes by visiting staff (toddlers yoga was really cute). They did more than I would have done at home and years later we are still in touch with many of the staff.

That’s lovely, and your DC clearly had a great experience but it’s not always like that. My point really was that’s it’s not fair to say that nursery is always better than being a SAHM because the staff are ‘trained’. Often it’s not.

What jobs do you think working parents are outsourcing- other than a couple of hours of childcare here and there? Apart from occasionally needing qualified tradesmen to do something for us, I can't think of anything I've ever outsourced!

If you have young children/children of any age who are dependent on you IMO you are working at the weekend too! I’m currently on Mat leave so not WOH at the minute and we just had a family holiday and when we got home my husband that it just felt like a different kind of work…it certainly wasn’t a week off “work” for him despite the fact it was a week away from his day job? It’s just relentless with young kids -a 24/7 job and some parents may work outside the home for some of the week, some may work only inside the home but I either way I think we can agree the only real break for anyone is when (or if!) your kids go to sleep? I wish we could all agree that any work a woman does is a valuable contribution and assume the best of each other. I hope nobody assumes that I’m doing a lazy job the days I’m in the office OR the days I’m at home with my kids.

I didn’t say nursery is better. I said nursery workers are qualified in childcare and it’s their job. You are not working if you are at home with your child.

Well childcare is the obvious one. How can it only be a couple of hours? If someone has a 4 year old in reception, who is looking after them between the hours of say, 7 am when they get up and when they start at 9, and between 3pm and 6pm or later? And during the school holidays? Very few jobs are term time only and school hours or flexible enough to work around children without paying for childcare or using family help, and if either of those situations apply you to, you are incredibly privileged.

What you said was childcare ’professionals’ (and I use quotes because believe me some are not professionals, they are not trained properly and have huge and unfair responsibilities put upon them) are working purely because they are looking after children not in a parental capacity. Given that these children need to be looked after by someone, if you choose to do that yourself, as their parent, during typical working hours, you are taking that work on yourself. Okay, you’re not being paid, nor to do have an employer or a contract. So maybe work isn’t the technical term. But it’s sure as hell pretty close.

My husband and I juggle our WFH days to make sure someone is always available to pick my 4yo up and then we finish our work whilst she has a snack and a bit of TV time after preschool.

Then it's making dinner, playing together, bedtime stories, then all the housework which SAHMs were doing during the school day needs to be done.

We do need to use more childcare in the school holidays.

I have only twice judged working parents. One was where a toddler was in a nursery in a city from 7am-7pm five days a week while both her parents worked in another city 40 miles away. I fully understand that life is expensive and parents have to work but I could never understand why they couldn’t find a nursery closer to where they worked so the child would at least have had time in the car each way with her parents and perhaps a more normal 8am-6pm in a nursery.

The only other time I judged working parents was when one of my brownies (girls7-10) announced that she didn’t know what she was going to be to go guising (trick or treating) that year yet. It was alright though because mummy would just hand over her credit card and let her buy whatever she wanted. I judged those parents because that young girl is growing up thinking her parents have the money to sort anything but can’t give her any time.

Equally thought I have known single working parents who have worked full time and still given their children time every day which is far more important. Quality not quantity.

Your post makes little sense. You are looking after your own child. That is not work.
Even if you think many of them are not good at their job, it doesn’t take away that they have spent time getting qualifications and their job is to look after other people’s children. They have to perform specific tasks, they report to someone. The end as not a very interesting conversation topic for me.

Exactly maybe. Looking after your own child during the working week is your work. Otherwise you pay a nursery to look after your baby and choose to work outside the home. Either are fine but you can’t
say looking after a baby Monday- Friday isn’t work

That’s amazing and such a good set up, but many people can’t WFH and therefore don’t have that flexibility and therefore do have to outsource more childcare. We’re slightly off topic now, but the point being parents who have WFH and flexible elements of their job do have a certain amount of privilege vs those who can’t WFH or any flex with hours to, for example, pick up their kids from school.

You’re talking about employment, but that is only one type of work. There are many different types. The definition of work is “activity involving physical or mental effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result”. This can include employment, but also housework, childcare, gardening or anything else that involves effort to achieve a purpose. You’re proven my point by contradicting yourself in your last line. Saying it might be hard work but it’s not work makes absolutely no sense. If something is hard work then of course it’s work. If you choose to work outside of the home then that’s great, good for you. But I really don’t understand the point of trying to pull me and other SAHMs down by claiming that everything we do isn’t work and trying to make us feel worthless. Does it make you feel superior? I’m honestly curious because I can’t imagine ever wanting to be so horrible to people I don’t know who’ve done nothing to me.

Yes exactly this.

I'm not sure what your point is in all honesty, I'm asking what tasks, other than childcare, which may be a couple of hours and obviously in some circumstances might be a lot of hours depending on the job, @Sleepydoor believes are being routinely outsourced.

There's a theme on this thread that being an SAHP is harder than being a working parent, because and SAHP has to do things like:

1. Take children to clubs/activities
2. Cook
3. Do laundry
4. Clean the house
5. Bake cakes for the PTA cake sale
6. Help with homework
7. Bath kids and put them to bed

And the list goes on.

But working parents still have to do all those things, but they have several hours less to do them in because they can't do them whilst their children are at school. I'm wondering which of the above jobs it's assumed I will outsource.

Being a SAHP for children under school age is a completely different thing and you're not going to be able to do all the above easily with one or more toddlers needing your constant attention, so you are working past bedtime to get everything done and then waking up frequently in the night, which is rough af and certainly harder than the average officer job.

The pedantry around the definitions of 'work', 'job' and even 'occupation' is what leads to people arguing.

If something is hard work then of course it’s work.

Learning mandarin from scratch is hard work, but it isn't work.

Helping DD with her science homework is fucking hard work (I swear I never heard of some of this stuff) but it's not work.

Looking after and training a puppy is hard work(so much so some people compare it with having a baby)but it's not work.

Gardening properly is hard work, but it's not work.

And so on.

Yes and it’s such a weird thing to argue about its pure semantics. If you think work is a synonym for employment then SAHP don’t work. If you think it means effort then they do.

It’s not a reflection of value either way.

Personally I am generally in the former camp as in when people ask me what my DH does for a living I say “he doesn’t work”.

I don’t mind if others disagree though!

Which is why in my original post on this thread, I said it was probably easier being a SAHM of school age kids than going out to work and probably harder being a mum of several preschoolers than going out to work.

Just to play devil’s advocate, you could argue that SAHMs have more cleaning and cooking to do… Kids in the house, not at nursery or school, or at a childminders equals more mess and more cleaning. No meals outsourced (ie not having meals at childcare) equals more cooking. 🤷‍♀️

I agree with you though that SAHMs of school age kids are probably not often doing more than working outside the home parents, I’m also not sure what outsourcing is being done. Although I do know plenty of working mums who aren’t able to take their kids to extra curricular stuff, so they don’t go, and who don’t bake for the PTFA, (which is fine) and employ a cleaner.

All of that can be considered work. Work and employment don’t mean the same thing. That is a fact.

Then anything can be considered work then. From making your own lunch, to shopping, to going for a walk , rearranging the furniture ,hobbies , decorating your house for Christmas,remembering to take your meds whatever.

I assume mindlessly scrolling on Mumsnet still counts as not work?

Childcare of babies during the working week is work.

Only between 9-5? So when I come home from work to my children, it stops being work? 🤨

I have mobility issues and back issues and I have terrible hand eye coordination. Painting my toe nails is painful and takes ages. Is that work?