SAHMS ON MN

[UBIA]

This is supposedly a site for mums - all types of mums.

On such a website, why is there so much hate and vitriol against mums who choose to SAH for a while?

The usual excuse for the storm of reactions is about financial vulnerability. Ok, I get that. But what if they're not financially vulnerable? How would you know? Bring a SAHM might have made you financially vulnerable - but you can't extrapolate that onto everyone else.

Why do people give anecdotes about some friend or their mother who was bored / insane / husband had an affair etc? Why? This is like saying "My friend had a job but she got depressed." So what? Also, if men are going to cheat, that's what they'll do anyway. Anyone can cheat in any type of marriage.

Why do people assume SAHMs are there for housework purposes? That depends on where / how they live and if they have cleaners, just like anyone else.

Why di people tell SAHMs their marriages are not 'equal?' Equality is about mutual respect. It has nothing to do with what job you do or money.

Frequently, people will say things like," Well, after my divorce the fact I was working meant I wasn't screwed." Ok, this is good obviously, but also, that's just you. How do you know the financial circumstances of anyone else - working or not? And why do you assume people haven't factored this sort of thing in?

Dime SAHMs will be screwed after divorce, sure. But others will not be. It depends on so many factors. Just like it does for anyone who works - it's all relative and completely circumstantial.

It is very odd that in a site for mums, the only mums that seem acceptable are the ones who don't SAH! MN is not like real life at all in this respect, it's very extreme (as I read it) because I don't know anyone in real life who makes assumptions about SAHMs or who would even care about this for 3 seconds. AIBU to think MN should be more open-minded and just live and let live without all the crazy assumptions.

I really couldn't care less if people choose to be SAHPs. If they can afford it and their partner/spouse is happy with the arrangement, good luck to them. I

I do care when SAHPs try to justify their existence by putting down WOHPs and when they imply that they are somehow superior as parents. They really aren't.

It's a lifestyle choice. Not one that I would have ever chosen for myself, and not one that I would ever aspire to for my daughter, though I will obviously respect whatever choices she ends up making for herself. But if it works for others, that's great.

Women don’t hate women.When someone makes a comment there’s no way of knowing what gender they are because this forum is anonymous

I don't agree with you, at least not after the baby stage. It depends on the temperament of the child and the mother. The whole argument rests on the idea of a happy, maternal lady drifting around in a linen smock helping the children to knead sourdough before playing imaginative games together for hours on end.

There's a lot of kids sat on an ipad right now whilst their exhausted SAHM cleans, and there's a lot of kids engaged in age-appropriate educational activities with a group of friends at nursery right now too. Which is better?

There's a huge number of children starting Reception not potty trained with limited speech and trying to swipe books to turn the page, that doesn't happen to kids who started nursery at 12 months.

Some kids thrive in peaceful quiet environments with 1-2-1 attention and some SAHMs are able to provide that. Some kids are sociable and do better with lots of people around and lots of things to explore. Some (most?) SAHMs do not have the patience of the bandwidth the spend all day setting up activities for their child to focus on for 30 seconds and then discard, leaving them with the clean up.

Tbf, nature intended that babies should be carted about with their mothers whilst their mothers worked at all the necessary jobs to survive. And that as soon as those children were a few years old they would be expected to work, either alongside their parents or off with others. So in that respect, SAHMs are as far from what nature intended as WOHMs.

That’s if babies and mothers survived childbirth.

Nature can be cruel.

Indeed!

And surely there are those in between? You could argue it’s the same with working parents. Some working parents get up, give kids to nursery then come home and have it easy. They get to work from home, have breakfast whilst they’re on calls and do house chores on their lunch break so they’re all done by the evening. Other days they get to go into the office, grab food at lunch, talk to people, exercise during their commute. Then at night time they’re happy to see their kid and feel refreshed from not seeing them all day and do a bath and bed with story. And they sleep through the night. They have a life. They feel accomplished. Everyone thinks they’re fab. Kids fed at nursery. You could argue that those parents have literally the easiest job of all!

yes I am looking forward to the day I can return to work if I ever can with my SEN child

But even then @TheCompactPussycat there were variations in nature how we did it.

Absolutely, but and its a big But, if a SAHM wanted to work as it is as adventagious and luxurious as you describe, 90% of the time they could. Even if there was not huge financial gain. The fact is work is rarely like that and a working parent has additional strain to deal with that doesnt get done. Anyone can get a job doing a few days to cover the cost of the nursery fees for the social interaction as you describe.

I do think a SAHM with young children is hard I never doubted that but once those kids grow up and the parent doesnt go back to work then that is different. Really are you not just retired as those kids have grown? I dont know many people who can retire at 40-50yrs of age who were working parents.

The fact is majority of working parents work and have no choice and the work.life balance with young children is not as you describe.

Saw this on LinkedIn - so true!

My husband has never been called a 'working Dad'.

Yet, I've been called a 'working Mum' more times than I can count.

The truth?

We're 50/50 working parents.

Some days I work late.
Other days he works late.

Some days I read bedtime stories.
Other days he reads bedtime stories.

Some days I collect our daughter from school.
Other days he collects our daughter from school.

We BOTH work (very) hard to juggle it all – together.

My point?

When we label women as 'working Mums'

But men as simply... working.

We reinforce the outdated notion that parenting is primarily a woman’s responsibility.

But that men should focus more on their career.

And that NEEDS to change.

Parenting isn't a gender-specific task.

I think a SAHM must be the hardest job ever! That's why I don't do it. 🤣 Full of admiration for those who do!

I actually think the judgment can be aimed at men sometimes. We are friends with a couple who had a baby a year ago and she’s going back to work full time soon because she earns more and he only works part time. She’s really upset about having to go back full time and everything she’ll miss out on and we were saying it’s a shame he can’t increase his hours so she doesn’t have to go back full time. But then we realised that a lot of women do what her husband is doing and nobody bats an eyelid.

Sorry but I disagree! It's far harder to split your time in two, and to do all the things at evenings and weekends that the SAHM can do at her leisure during the week! If the SAHM gets up on a wet Wednesday, and she can't be assed to do anything, then she's at liberty to do that. The working mum doesn't have that luxury.

Have you ever spent 24/7 looking after young children, largely on your own? It’s very difficult to get anything done. You still end up waiting for your partner or someone to take the children off your hands so you can get on with housework, cooking etc in the evenings and weekends I assure you. You literally don’t stop from dawn to dusk and depending on how they are at sleeping through the night, often beyond dusk. I’m not saying being a mum that goes out to work instead of staying at home looking after her children has it easy by any stretch but being a stay at home parent is not an easy option either.

Don’t you think the vast majority of parents have at some point? Especially mothers.

It’s going to depend too. Some will find it harder than others, I didn’t find it particularly hard. I was bored most of the time which is a reason I went back to work early.

Some will find it harder because their child has additional needs, they have a difficult baby, they have 4+ DC etc.

@SouthLondonMum22 yes it totally depends. I’ve done both and I personally found being a SAHM much harder than I find life since I have gone back to work.

I couldn’t give a shiny shit whether people work or stay at home.

I do object to some of the rhetoric which is directed at working mothers that goes like this:

”Why bother having kids to farm them out to childcare?”
”I raise my own kids.”
”You’ll never get the time back.”
”People who enjoy their jobs just can’t think of anything more interesting to do with their lives.”
”Staying at home allows my DH to advance his career.”

I vehemently object to being told that working to put a roof over my child’s head and food in her stomach is somehow failing her. And I will call out people who make moronic and offensive statements like this when I hear them. Again and again and again.

Thats all really. Do whatever you need to do but don’t tell me I am failing my child because I don’t have the luxury of being supported by someone else.

But you still had to add the bit on at the end where you would never aspire to it for your daughter. Why? Imagine if someone said that about a working mother. Yeah you’d be offended.

Again, you are not doing everything the same that a SAHM is doing because she doesn’t get to go to work to get a break piss in peace and someone else is doing childcare at that point. There is nothing wrong with that! I just hate the rhetoric that working mums are true heroes who do everything and more than SAHM. Not actually physically being with the children 24/7 is a big difference. Trust me. You’re not a better or more attentive or clever, busier mum because you work.

I have actually. Don't you think working mums also "don't stop from dawn to dusk"? We get up when the kids do, we get them ready and out the door, drop them off (my husband always seemed to work further away than I did!). Go to work, then come home and the whole cycle kicks off again - evening activities, going over homework, getting them to bed... You get them at their worst too, when they're tired and grumpy. And you're tired and grumpy too.

My youngest breastfed several times a night up until 22 months. I did all the night wakenings because DH obviously wasn't equipped to! I was back at work FT from when the child was 10 months old. It was much easier when I was on mat leave though tbf I didn't miss the school runs after school when I went back to work!

Nobody will ever convince me that being a working mum is easier than staying at home! You have to fit the same things into much fewer hours.

@ShillyShallySherbet if you're not happy with it, get a job and then come back and tell us how "easier" it is!!

@adriftinadenofvipers I guess I was thinking more of SAHMs with kids at home all the time, but didn't make that clear! I work part time, but I do have 3 year old DD with me on my days off work, so don't get much done then either! When I'm in work, I'm there 9/10 hours a day (teacher), so also dojng chores at weekends. I do agree, SAHMs with kids at school definitely have it easier in terms of household chores etc. I couldn't be home with small kids all week though. It's those SAHMs I admire!

In your opinion.

I do have a job thanks and I personally find it easier now than I did as a SAHM but that’s just me. Not everyone will feel the same obviously, we’re all different. I wasn’t trying to convince you that being a working mum is easier than staying at home, just that they can both be difficult in their own ways depending on your circumstances.

I could have, and in some ways I think I'd have enjoyed the freedom of being able to come and go as we pleased, but it came at too high a personal cost - and too high a cost for them too, as it was the fact that I was bringing in money as well as DH that paid for them to have experience, music lessons, school trips abroad etc etc, whereas on one salary it might have been impossible.

SAHMs whose kids are in school have the life of Riley imho!! All those hours the kids are at school to themselves! One of my dearest friends took 20 years out of the workforce (I could never understand it but we never discussed it, ever - it was her choice!) but now she's bemoaning (and rightly so) her lack of pension contributions.

I also think most mums are responsible for the mental load too - doctor's/dentist appointments, school Christmas fair, nativities, parent/teacher meetings/when payment is due for swimming lessons - my DH would not have had the first clue! He turned up if I told him to. And then on top of that, there's the asking for time off work, the eating into your annual leave - stresses the SAHM doesn't have!!

You see, I just don't understand that. How many children do you have?