My mother is guilting me about being a working parent.

[Sevendayhigher]

Hi,

This upset me today and I suppose I'm asking whether I'm being unreasonable for thinking that it's OK to work even though you don't absolutely, 100% HAVE to.

It was a difficult drop off at nursery today because my son is unwell (he's 14 months) and I work from my parents' house.

I mentioned that it's hard being a parent today where most households need a dual income just to sustain themselves. My mother told me that the main reason most households are dual income now is because they 'expect so much out of life, whereas in the 50s people were happy with what they had' (or words to this effect). Apart from the plethora of issues that the 1950s carried, which she agreed was true, I argued that most households could survive on one income fairly comfortably because housing wasn't as expensive as it is today, compared to the salaries that people make. Nowadays it's very hard to get a mortgage with one income, especially if you haven't had money gifted to you. And if you rent, that a crazy cost too. She argued it was the same as in the 1950s, except people didn't 'expect to go on holiday every year or go out for fancy dinners, and were happy with their little house that wasn't that great.' I told her that as a family, we would bloody love 'a little house that wasn't that great' - please can she show us one that we can afford on my husband's salary alone, like people did in the 50s?

She then told me that if we really wanted to, we could move into something like that and I could be a stay at home mum, but that we want to live in a 'fancy area' so don't. She told me we'd be able to afford a house on just my husband's salary if we lived outside London. Not true, but the main thing that irked me was the implication that I'm working my (genuinely low paid) job because we want to live a luxury lifestyle/won't 'lower ourselves' to a cheaper area. She even said that she'd have been prepared to move to the other side of the country if it meant she could stay at home with her children instead of going to work.

What also irks me is that I can see where she's coming from - in theory if we moved to Derbyshire or somewhere very far away we could potentially buy a house and I wouldn't technically have to work. It feels as if my mother is saying that it's not OK to not want to do that - as a parent you have to make every sacrifice in order to stay at home with your child. Even if it means giving up all your family's support around you/living in a place you're unfamiliar with. On a personal note, my husband is visually impaired and unable to drive, so moving out of a city is also very difficult for us transport-wise, but I feel like we shouldn't have to justify ourselves with this??

I know she'd just tell me that she was giving her opinion and I shouldn't be so sensitive about it, but am I being unreasonable to think that it's OK to work in order to not have to give up almost everything in your life? Or is the most important thing staying at home with your child?

In some areas there are mental
health hubs (ours is a 24 hour service) where anyone can phone in and get support/ advice/ referral to the right service. You may find the number through googling your local mental health trust, if they don’t have a hub see (again through the trust webpage) if you can self refer into any of their services - locally to me you can also self refer into IAPT (talking therapy) and if they assess you and you are too ill for their care they refer you on.

If not a and e - as the mental health team will need to assess and identify next steps.

Well she's technically right, you could move to a very cheap area across the country and buy a 2 up 2 down for £40k

But that would still rely on your Dh getting a job that would cover all your outgoings - and that would be an above minimum wage job to pay the mortgage/bills. Obviously in an area with £40k houses there's much fewer jobs.

And you'd be living in a not great area, with very few amenities, surrounded by people who lived in poverty and where there were much fewer young people making their aspirations like college etc

Tell the judgemental fucker that !

Why on earth is your mother talking about the fifties when presumably she was parenting you in the 80s/90s?

Progression is why no one wants to live like they did in the 1950s

Because there's the long term to think about. You don't pay nursery fees forever, pension, loss of earnings, loss of earning potential etc.

I'm a SAHM myself, and I can tell you your mother is the problem here. Not for her opinions, that she should be able to share, but because she judged you and poked you with a difficult issue for you and it seems she did it just because she wanted to win an argument. She should have been supporting and caring because she could see you were having a difficult time. This has nothing to do with paid or unpaid labour: there are deeper issues here.

Yes but what do you pay for that privilege? If you walk down a London street no one speaks to you, as a child I had people barging past me on high streets in London. Here I know my neighbours by name, can knock on for anything needed, look out my windows at fields and a few houses, everyone knows each other, our kids play out until whatever time on the street together as they actually behave like children, no one has ever been stabbed here, the most exciting thing that happens is probably a drug raid once in a blue moon because someone tried to do a grow in their loft. I have a house you’d probably have to pay at least 3 times the price for down there, I currently don’t have to work as I’m raising my young kids, my partner works and we have horses, I’d have to pay at least a million for the same lifestyle in London……

Really? Not in my experience. Society tells me that now I'm a mother, my career doesn't matter and unless I'm working to put food on the table I'm selfish for daring to want to provide my children with more than the basics because 'you never get that time back'.

Do you know how many times my DH has been told that 'you never get that time back?' 0. Nada. None. Never.

I wonder why?

How does your mum have actual lived experience of being a SAHM in the 50s?

Presumably you were born in 1980 or later OP if you have a young baby. Late 70s absolute push.

Was your mum even alive in the 50s? She'd have to be in her 90s to have been a 50s housewife.

"Be honest": I'm being honest. I had no choice but to work. I happen to really enjoy working and I'm glad I did and do, even though I didn't have a choice. Millions of mothers work and enjoy it and make money from it. Some have to, some don't.

When you say "be honest": what you actually mean is: "Agree with me, please!".

I don't agree with you. I don't think women work because "society makes them feel they have to have the career". Any more than they stay at home because "society makes them". Women are different with different financial circumstances, belief systems, personalities and aspirations.

You're absolutely entitled to not want to work if you don't have to, crack on with it. What you're not entitled to do is suggest that women who do work have been brainwashed into thinking that they need a "4 bed with cinema room" (what even is that?) or a Gucci handbag or a tablet or whatever nonsense aspiration you've dreamed up. With due respect, you don't know what you're talking about, and your views are small minded and offensive.

Is your Mum still working herself? If not why doesn't she offer to look after baby fulltime if she disagrees with him going to nursery?

She'd have to be in her 90s to have been a 50s housewife.

Exactly! My mum is in her 80s and was too young to be a 50s housewife 😂

Honestly? Of course your mother is right. I have always worked, plus I work away from home a lot, but it was not a choice, as dh who worked when we married and before we had dc, had an operation and was unable to work afterwards. I worked and outsourced education to an inexpensive day school. Dh was dropping off/picking up and ferrying dc to extra curriculars. I have always been stressed with work, distant, absent, travelling. Missed out a lot on my dc growing up, never had my hand 'on the pulse', etc. Compared to me, my ex SIL was a sahm. Financially obviously worse off, but my goodness, how her dc have benefited! She is French, so the children are bilingual (mine had to be ferried to Alliance Francaise and are nowhere near their linguistic ability). She, because sahm, supervised and helped them with maths, physics, chemistry (loads of free time and YouTube videos), they studied together in a measured way - and I spent a fortune on private tutors on top of private school, where education was sub-standard, to put it mildly. She never rushed them, it took as much time as it took to learn things. She taught them to play the piano, herself, I play the piano as well and could have taught, but I was never home properly, just come hope and drop off to sleep after commuting. I also had to be available on the phone at all times, so quiet, proper 'chill' time was not an option. Bottom line, her dc did a lot better than mine because she was a sahm. Her bond with her dc is much better too, it pains me to say this, but it is true.

Hmm, I don't think pitching it as a dichotomy helps.

I've done really interesting work (in child development, oddly enough). I've got technical skills and new qualifications. I've delivered big projects that have made a provable difference to the lives of thousands. I've earned an income that allows a nice lifestyle and the ability to save for the future.

I still wish I could be a SAHM. I only don't because I know I need to provide long term financial security for my son - we could easily afford me to be off for a few years, but not the long term knock of career damage.

And I don't think it's nice or true that women can't earn well, be intelligent and capable AND still want to spend their time with their children when young.

Some of what she says makes sense, but the rest is just terrible. It was completely unnecessary to just drop a big dollop of mom guilt on the day you're struggling.
I also can't believe she'd want you to give up so much to stay home.

That's unkind. People should be allowed to moan about their family without strangers calling them names.

@Sevendayhigher why were you dropping your child off if unwell.

This sounds like the inverse of the what the OP's mom is doing. How narrow-minded.

My husband has a job that pays above the average industrial wage and there is absolutely no way we could afford a 3 bed semi in any decent area where we’d want to educate our children on it.

OP you & your mother had conversation I’ve had many times with my mother. She goes on about high interest rates in the 1980s while completely overlooking that the capital was much lower relative to salary,

But she’s also right in that there are a lot more frills now - takeaway coffees, brunches etc

I don’t personally think that a child needs a SAHM to be happy. So if I were you I’d keep working and accept that you will have bad days.

Being a SAHM especially to school aged children seems v lonely to me, I would struggle.

This could be me - had exactly the same conversations / 'advice' when my kids were small. I have also had a lot of therapy to try to care less what my parents think / say. My kids are now teens - i am so glad I have had work throughout their childhood and particularly now as they are about to leave home, and so are they. Everyone makes their own choice and it is always a balance but experience has taught me that your mum may well be almost jealous (without realising it). And of course you are right about the financial picture - it's a different world even from the 80s.

I lived in London for a decade very happily before moving for work when DS was a small baby to a lively, prosperous, chocolate-box pretty village in the midlands. I can honestly say that the space, quiet, cheaper property and better air in no way compensated for the insularity and xenophobia. My rabbit-hutch zone 2 flat and rush hour on the tube were the tax I happily paid for living somewhere endlessly interesting.

(Ironically, I think I encountered more crime in eight years in the village than in ten in London — there was a longterm scam where cards used at the local petrol station were used for fraudulent payments overseas, a big drug dealer’s house was raided in the village, and there was a spate of car thefts after a halfway house for young offenders was opened nearby. In London, the worst I experienced was the theft of a plant pot from outside my front door.)

Him being 5 days a week I the office does t sound like you could up and move to the cheapest place in the UK! He’d surely have to leave the London job and London wage!

never mind.

It sounds as if she thinks you’re still a child to be lectured rather than a fully functioning adult with your own choices. It’s hard, I get it to butt out when your child moves from being a teenager to an independent adult. I stop myself giving unwanted advice because my children live in a different time and things which are important to them may seem unimportant to me. But even I, as a sixty something can see that you need 2 incomes to be able to afford a house in most areas. Nothing to do with wanting everything. And culturally, things have changed-who wants to be clinging to your husband’s wages, pension and status in 2025? Maybe push back a little bit and state that you want to earn your own money, build your own pension and be a good role model to your dc and show them the values important to you. It might not be her choice-fine-you’re not asking her to do that but it’s the choice you’re making for yourself and for your family. If she doesn’t like that it’s her problem-don’t make it your problem.

My mum is in her 70s and always worked full time when I was a child, less common in the 90s than it is now. She wasn't low paid, but was in the public sector so never earnt Megabucks. They absolutely could have survived on my dad's salary. I'm very proud of her. She also has an excellent pension. Your mum should really keep her opinions to herself, especially in the context of how you were feeling.