AIBU to think being a SAHM is undervalued and misunderstood?

[erereeee]

I’ve been lurking for a while and finally decided to post. I’m a SAHM to two young children, and I can’t help but feel like society (and even some people on here) massively undervalue what we do. It’s as if staying home to raise my children makes me lazy or unambitious, when in reality, I’m working harder than I ever did in an office.

From morning to night, I’m doing everything: cleaning, cooking, laundry, childcare, emotional labour, organising appointments, school runs, etc. The mental load is constant. Yet, because I’m “just” at home, people assume I sit around all day. Even my partner, who works full-time, makes the occasional offhand comment like, “Must be nice to chill at home,” which drives me up the wall.

I see posts on here about working mums and how they “do it all,” which is amazing, but can we acknowledge that being a SAHM is also a full-time job? I don’t clock out at 5pm. I don’t get annual leave. And honestly, if you added up the cost of hiring a nanny, cleaner, cook, and personal assistant, it would be way more than I’d ever earn in a 9-5.

Yet, when I meet new people, I always get that look when I say I’m a SAHM, like I’m somehow less intelligent or lacking ambition. Why is it so hard to just respect different choices?

Let’s keep it civil, but I’m genuinely curious to hear what others think.

Your experience is so out of touch with the majority of women!

Not even going to begin to go there!

I don't have a problem with it but it irritates the living shit out of me when SAHMs insist they have it harder!! Which is the premise of this thread.

Otherwise I couldn't care less.

Totally agree with this. Referring to women working to keep a roof over their kids heads and food on the table as “outsourcing childcare” has got to be one of the most out of touch stuck up your own arse statements I’ve read on here.

But it isn't what I have said.

@LazyArsedMagician you asked: Why is it a strange question?

We must have different perceptions.

I was born in the last weeks of 1959. I can remember:

A GP visit with a stethoscope device against my pregnant Mother's tummy
Picking up my baby sister in 1962
Events around what I now know was the Cuba missile crisis
Events around what I now know was Kennedy's assassination
Holidays long before I started school
Being frightened of vacuum cleaners
The stuff I mentioned before

My daughter can remember stuff from around the same age; being with me and her Granny walking past Disney characters on a corridor at the local Maternity hospital to see her brother in the baby care unit. She was a few weeks short of two. Also the fact I had only a moustache and not the goatee beard I grew when she was 3 and have had ever since.

Son's memory doesn't go anything like that far back.

But this isn't what I have said

I was a SAHM as I had 2 children, one of whom is disabled. I’m relieved at an old age to be back at work and earning a wage.

My perception was that sometime it boils down to the workload of the joint partnership or both parents. DH was inclined to work ridiculous hours when my DC were small eg to 9 or 10pm at night. There was no respite from parenting for me and I would have struggled even if DS was not disabled. I might have returned to work when my kids reached 11 if both had been NT.

Some people are luckily and share child rearing whereas for others one partner is a high earner and just not available to be that hands on parent.

Not all people have it the same and it is a case by case thing. Some people for instance have parents to help whereas others are caring for small children and elderly parents at the same time.

My mum died when my kids were 6 and 8 and needed years of care beforehand.

No but the conversation moved on and I just wondered how you thought being a sahm added value to your children's lives in the long-term.

I'd very few friends who were sahms but one was for 20 years and then went back to work. She's now concerned as she has very few pension contributions. Anyway, I don't see any difference in my kids and hers, and they all grew up together.

"Does the childcare give your children a bath? Do homework with them? Buy them their school uniform? Take them to activities? Take them to the doctor, the dentist, the optician?"

Well it depends on the childcare, but many do all this stuff and much more.

The nanny nextdoor to me is with the kids from 7am until 7pm at the earliest. She has always taken them to all their appointments and activities. Nobody else was there.

Once the mum commented to me that she thought it was strange that none of her kids' hair or nails ever seemed to need cutting. Yes that's because your nanny does it!

She always did all the food shopping and blended all the baby food. She did all the play dates (the mum and dad had no idea who was in their house, day to day). The nanny spoke to the teachers at pick-up, knew all the other kids; took them to music lessons, gymnastics, everything.

That's so sad

Most of us do not use nannies; we use nurseries and childminders and I am here to tell you that I have never come across any that did that stuff with their charges!!

Oh my word, the reaches some people make on here!

I’m going to safely assume that very very few families are actually in this position though. The norm is nursery or school for kids old enough, both of which do absolutely none of those things, so working parents do their day at work and on top of that do all the same things a SAHM does- cleaning, cooking, appointments, organising, pick ups and drop offs etc.

I agree there's a lot of value in what SAHM do. It's not what I have chosen, but I respect it.

I do take issue with the notion though that there is more to do as a SAHM than as a WOHM. Like a previous poster, I wonder if those claiming that SAHM "don't get to clock off at 5pm" are comparing the experience of WOHMs with their partners / husbands? My husband and I both work full time, so after we finish work we split the chores of collecting our child from nursery, cooking dinner, doing bed and bath, putting on washing, tidying up etc - neither of us truly "clock off" at 5pm, it's much later before we get any downtime (and that's without the nights one or both of us need to log back on to work, to enable the flexibility from employers that enables us to work full time and juggle the demands of having small children).

But in a household dynamic where one parent does everything, and the other parent goes to work and then does nothing to help in the evening because "they've been at work all day" I can see why it might feel like it's easier to be the working parent.

This. It’s so weird to need a pat on the back and validation from people outside your own home. Just live you life. Nobody cares really.

Its not a reach @mainecooncatonahottinroof.I don't think I know anyone who uses nurseries. Everyone family I know where both parents work have a nanny, either live-in or one who comes all day.

Op I've not read the thread but I agree with you and it's very sad. It's become such a sensitive and emotive issue I don't feel comfortable saying I had 5 years out.

And I feel cross when it's assumed I had a rich husband to support me.
It's not something anyone can imagine how relentless it is tending to every single need for every moment of the day and night.

The vast majority of working parents don't have nannies from 7am-7pm. 🙄

You have the same responsibilities as a SAHP, not the same job description. That's where these arguments get stuck. You have to keep your kid alive but you don't have to change the actual nappy (for a few hours a day) or pick up baby porridge from the kitchen floor or entertain the teething creature for those specific 8 hours. All parents should be doing all the other stuff. And obviously as they get older, the other stuff is the majority of it so it's then a larger comparative load on working parents than none

We don't and never had; both FT in work and in good, high earning careers. We don't know a single person who has nannies who do all of this. We're there of a morning before school (or nursery back then), after school, there for sickness, weekends, holidays, the whole shebang. The kids are out of the house during school hours and that's it. All meals are made by us, all baths, all playdates, homework.

This doesn't reflect a single working parent I've ever met.

@outofmexico you can't be that out of touch to realise that you must live and socialise in very wealthy circles if everyone you know who needs childcare who has a nanny.

On the flip side I'm a nurse who lives in the south west and I don't know anyone who uses a nanny.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to compare. Being a WOHM is hard and being a SAHM is hard but they are different.

Interestingly, these threads are often started by SAHMs. You don’t need to justify yourselves, you do what is right for your life and your family.

My only comment is that it’s not ideal when (usually) women give up employment, are unmarried and don’t have their own financial security. However, I wouldn’t say that to a random person who told me they were a SAHM. If we are debating it, then I’d recommend any SAHM is independently financial stable but it’s a genuine suggestion, not a judgement.

You either don’t know many people, or you know very wealthy people.

That’s definitely not the norm.

For reference the average salary for a live in nanny is around £600-900 per week. Even if we go right for the lower end and say it’s £600 a week, that’s over £31k a year.

Totally agree with this. Especially if children are at school.

It's a mix in my area. Even then I know it's because of where I live, not that it's the norm as a whole to use nannies.

I have 3 DC in nursery, it would actually be cheaper to use a nanny but we prefer nursery.

Well if you need to leave the house early and you both come in late or if you often travel overnight and you have multiple children what else do you do? You can't drop babies off at 7am at a nursery and expect them to be there for 12 hours for years on end.