SIL describing herself as "retired" pissing me off

[SacreBleugh]

I have recently retired. I've worked full time my entire career, as well as bringing up 4 kids. I know. Heroic.
My SIL is a SAHM to 3 grown up kids. She's had the odd temporary very part time hobby job in the 30 years I have known her. She is now also describing herself as "retired". I'm not sure why I find this irritating.

I don't think it is necessarily jealousy. Comparison is not always jealousy. Sometimes it's about justifying your own decisions and/or actions through negating someone else's lived experience. That's not the same as jealousy. Defining the structured care, education, and nutrition of babies and toddlers as merely "parenting" when it's done inside the home, but work when it's done outside the home places value on "earning" above all else. Op has decided that her "work" was more deserving than her sister in law's because it was financially transactional. That's comparison. And it's not helpful - to her own well-being.

Also to make it clear I've been both a stay at home parent and a work out of the home parent. So I clearly don't have views about which is superior - both have wonderful aspects and both have terrible aspects.

Well no because you love your own kids more… but you do also treat it like a job and do absolutely everything for them like a childminder would!

The working parents are being particularly nasty and thinking their superiors for having a paid job and pretending they do more then SAHM. You are not looking after your kids when you’re working. Why is everyone so scared to admit it? Jesus, work was a break for me. Both are hard in their own way.

You can be more relaxed with your own children if you wish, it isn’t the same when looking after other peoples children is a career that you worked for to gain qualifications and not just part of your responsibility as an adult with children.

This - I’ve been both and when working, I’m not caring for my children - the nursery was. Both can have amazing benefits and both can be really hard but putting down women who make different choices (or who are in position to make different choices to you) isn’t helpful. I’m not sure that it’s jealousy more so people like to feel superior.

@SouthLondonMum22 - I would argue it's far more stressful looking after your own children than someone else's in a childcare setting because -

a) you care so much more about everything and worry in a way a childminder never would
b) you don't get hand them over at the end of the day

I have been both a sole-charge au-pair (in my younger travelling days) and a SAHM and there is no comparison. When it's someone else's kids, it's just a job and you're counting down the hours really. You don't feel the same mum guilt or anxiety or joy, day to day, hour to hour. You're just thinking about getting home and seeing your boyfriend or whatever. Nobody is going to go the extra mile for minimum wage, sorry but it's true.

What you describe though is parenting, it isn’t unique to just SAHM’s.

Plenty of people go the extra mile. You might not have but not everyone is the same. My DC’s nursery is amazing and can never do enough for them. They absolutely should be paid more.

So what’s your point in all of this? Looking after your own kids isn’t as valuable as being paid to look after someone else’s? You do realise how crazy this sounds? And you can be more relaxed but obviously a good mum who’s focussing on her kids will be doing more than that.

It is unique to sahm when they are doing it 24/7. Do you really not respect sahm at all? So much sexism for a woman’s forum.

My point is what I originally said. It’s different.

You need to be qualified, you are judged by ofsted and you are responsible for other peoples children.

As a working parent, they are more valuable to me because they provide a service that ensures I can work. A SAHM looks after her own children.

Everyone has my basic respect. I don’t respect SAHM’s just because they are SAHM’s.

Do I respect those who work in childcare more? Yes because like I said, they provide a service and they are essential so I can work.

This is a daft conversation.

"It's interesting that the SAHMs commenting are determined that the only reason people could think it's silly is just because we're all so jealous of them, though."

This isn't true - I'm a sahp and don't think every wohp is jealous. I think some might be and others not. And this probably depends on satisfaction levels with their own jobs/lives. And largely I don't worry about what most people's opinions are of me. Can me arrogant,but there are only a few people in life I care enough about, to be bothered what they think. I don't believe many people choose sah if they're overly concerned with public opinion, since sah is viewed as largely worthless, since it doesn't directly generate taxable income.
I have done both and think each choice have ups and downs.

I can't remember which Hollywood actor said at an awards evening that she couldn't do her job and be a mother without an unsung group of people who worked looking after her kids round the clock to give her flexibility and and amazing career.

Well as a working parent, I would have thought you would appreciate that working mums shoulder a lot of the responsibility of childrearing while having fewer hours to devote to it? Childcare only covers so much. It doesn't deal with homeworks, out of school activities, doctor's appts/dentist appts, buying their shoes, buying the school uniform etc etc etc.

I haven't seen working parents "being particularly nasty and thinking their superiors for having a paid job and pretending they do more then SAHM" [sic]. I haven't seen one single working mum saying that, but anyone with half a braincell can surely see that working mums have to fit a lot of responsibilities into their out of work hours that SAHMs can deal with during the working day!

Working parents probably have better grammar too...

"Working parents probably have better grammar too..."

You reveal a lot about yourself with that statement.

Not sure how you get to that conclusion either, unless you believe all women in work are well educated and all those who choose to sah are not.

But was the nursery doing any more than supervising your children when you couldn't? Was the nursery taking them to afterschool activities - swimming lessons, music lessons, Scouts/Guides etc, helping them with their homework, buying them all the shit that schools demand for plays, this that and the other, making sure they were suitably togged up for non-uniform day, World Book Day?

Well it kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it? I don't care what it "reveals" about me. It actually reveals fuck all.

How many women would use such poor grammar in the workplace??

This entire thread is actually bullshit. Using appropriately qualified and experienced childcare for your children during working hours is not a big deal. It does not abnegate you from so many of the responsibilities of being a parent, not should it.

There is no question over whether or not it is more difficult for the WOHM. Even when it comes to parent/teacher meetings, they are at the mercy of their managers to get the time off to attend. They have to use annual leave to do so. The SAHM is doing nothing else, so it's no problem!

All the shit about WOHMs being "jealous" of SAHMs is just so much crap. I never wanted to stay at home. I adore my children, but I never wanted to be a Blue Peter mother, and all the painting/baking/crawling around the floor parenting would have bored me shitless. One of my dearest friends was a SAHM for 20 years. She was well educated and qualified, and I always thought she was mad.

She finally re-entered the workforce and now she is concerned that she has shit all pension and she is working at a level far below the level she was when she shipped out.

I am so glad I stayed in the workplace, and paid into my pension, and I will be able to live well in retirement and support my adult children when they need it.

@mayorofcasterbridge is back .... making up imaginary SAHM mums criticizing her parenting.

Looking after her children and the various part time jobs she’s had over the years. Just because you and OP want to look down your snouts at it doesn’t mean its not work.

Yeah that's fair. And also pretty much as soon as I posted that a bunch of working mums joined the thread seemingly just to disparage the stay at home mums.
I still think that SAHMs aren't retired, and it's a silly descriptor for being an older woman who never worked. But given the ways some are talking about SAHMs here I can see why SAHMs would be suspicious it comes from a place of judgment.

I can't speak for OP, but I certainly don't place value on earning above all else.

I think retiring from work is a specific achievement; that a working life for a mother requires significant sacrifice which makes the term retired meaningful in that context. I and many other working mums feel very keenly the pointless hours on the commute while the kids are in wraparound care, laundry packed into early mornings and late night, channeling the energy for meaningful and quality time with the kids when you're just exhausted from work.

The sacrifice a SAHM mum makes is significant too- sacrifice of the ability to amass a financial safety net or own pension, sacrifice of 'self' to some degree in that personal achievement is often associated with her role in the family, sacrifice of respect by those who only respect employed workers (and for that, are morons). But 'retired' is not a meaningful term in describing the end of being a full-time parent, because of course, you never do "retire" from it, and the role adjusts in stages anyway, so there is no significant difference between the day of "retirement" and the day before it.

I guess there is something in the fact that you give up a lot to be a working parent (especially in an economy where many might make a different choice if they were able to), so to hear people who didn't have to give up the same things use a term meaningful to your situation, not theirs, feels a bit like them having their cake and eating it too.

The above paragraph is speculation; I personally love my job (despite the family sacrifices) and feel very lucky to have both the family of my dreams and a job I derive meaning and satisfaction from, and I'm hopefully quite far from retirement so it's fairly abstract.

Then it's the people who've taken lots out who should. The parents who've never did much towards raising their children, those who have done the drunk A&E visits, anyone in the justice system, long term benefit claimants who could have worked and at the same time didn't use their time to bring up their children well. If you've not claimed much out, kept yourself fairly healthy, aren't a criminal and brought up your children to be tax payers and decent people, you've no guilt to feel.
She's retired from the world of work, as in she isn't seeking employment.