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.

Well you must mix in very rarefied circles. I don't know a soul who had or has a nanny!!

I have 3 children. They go to nursery.

It's also pretty relentless doing it in the mornings, dropping the children off to wherever, putting in a day's work, then commuting home and resuming where you left off in the morning!!

I don't know why you think you are the only one who can imagine it?!

Are you genuinely that out of touch? You have to adapt your work so you can get affordable childcare for appropriate hours. I moved jobs after maternity leave as I had a commute that would have made work tricky and my husband changed roles within his organisation to one he could earn flexi to take time off to do childcare.

Most families do not earn enough for a nanny. Not sure if you're taking the mick or are genuinely out of touch.

There are two of us. If I need to be away early, DH does the school runs and vice versa. Our jobs aren't the kind of jobs that require us at a desk 24/7 so we're flexible. I'm in senior management and run my team remotely most of the time - if I need to travel I arrange that, and if DH needs to travel so does he. I have two children and they go to school.

Don't know how others do it, I can only speak for my family, but we certainly don't need a live in nanny for it.

A typical set up for families with a nanny might be where one child is at school, there's a toddler who might go to a playgroup a few mornings and then there's a baby. You would need a nanny to do the school runs, then get the middle child to their playgroup, play dates or other activities, and also be taking care of the baby inc. all the baby groups, nap times etc as well. Just like a SAHP would be doing.

Somehow we managed that just fine without a live in nanny. 😂

You conduct your working life so you don't both have to?

Newsflash - nannies probably earn more than a lot of folks posting here!

Are you really that out of touch?!

We understand what Nannies do. In families who can't afford a nanny would have the younger children at nursery and the parents would either juggle the school run or use wraparound care.

Nannies exist but people who use them are in the minority.

No. A typical set up for families might be that one child would be at school, usually dropped off by a parent, and the toddler and baby would be in nursery or with a childminder.

That's how it works in the real world, for most people.

Except that’s not a “typical” set up, it’s one created really to need a nanny.

Toddler goes to nursery, child goes to school, baby is either off with mum on maternity leave or at nursery/grandparent. That is “the norm” and working parents do the drop offs and pick ups.

I'm just telling you what I see. Not everyone works 9-5.

It's not as if nurseries are cheap either - not for several kids.

Well most jobs aren't like that. We work mostly from home. When DD was at nursery, we dropped her off at 8am and picked her up at 6pm and worked 9-5. Now she's at school, so DH drops her off at 8:45 and races back to log on at 9am, skips his lunch break so he can pop out to fetch her at 3:15pm, usually has to take her straight to a club and logs back in from the car to work from 4-5pm, then comes home and does a bit more. Meanwhile, I log off at 5pm, make dinner and do DD's homework with her, then put her to bed whilst DH tidies up. I have only met one family who had a nanny, both lawyers.

Again again, you either don’t see many people or you only see very wealthy people.

You’re so out of touch it’s frightening.

I've never met a Nanny or a parent who uses one. Childminders or nurseries in my circle.

They're not, I had three in nursery but I still couldn't have afforded a nanny - I have never actually seen a nanny round here. They just aren't a thing. Not even for people who don't work 9-5!!

Anyone who lives next door to a family with the financial resources to have a nanny 12 hours a day is not in the tax bracket to understand the lives of normal working mums so I’m not taking lectures from them.

I'm not that poster - but this is a pretty strange question? Every parent I've worked with has had times we've they've had to work after the kids have gone to bed or on the weekends to make up for leaving 'early/on-time' to pick up the kids or to meet a tight deadline.

I don't work from 9 - 5 either. A lot of the people I know and work with don't - nannies aren't the norm!

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

Nope. Because it's not a 'full time job'.

No parent clocks out at 5 or gets annual leave from parenting whether they have an actual job or not so I'm not sure how that's relevant.

This is the bit I take issue with too.

Working mums don’t get annual leave from their kids either, and their kids don’t suddenly disappear at the end of their work day, it’s a bizarre comment

A lot of people have jobs that you can't just leave off at 5. These people are as 'real' as anyone else. A lot of people travel overseas regularly. They are also real. Some families have nannies - full time or after school ones. Some families find it all too much and have a SAHP instead.

As this is yet another thread about this I'll say the same thing I've said before. I've been a SAHM and a mum with a job. Being a SAHM was an absolute doddle compared to having to do all the things I had lots of time to do whilst being at home, on top of working. You can justify it all you want OP but unless you've done both, you'll never know how easy you've got it.

Nobody is saying they aren’t real, but they are a tiny minority and do not reflect the wider population of working families- that’s the point.

The majority of working parents do all the same things the SAHM does, the cleaning, cooking, appointments, organising, laundry, home work, play dates etc, and they have to fit that full time job in AFTER their employed job.

You’re trying to make the broad claim that working parents don’t have to do any of those things because “the nanny does it” based on your small circle of the world where apparently that’s the norm. As you can see from the replies here- it’s not the norm.

We know. I'm one of those people who doesn't just log out at 5, and I also travel overseas a few times a year. I try to do that during the holidays so that we can all go, obviously not everyone can manage that but that's how it works here. You seem to think we're not aware of these jobs and what nannies do. We are. But they're not the norm.

Most FT working parents don't have nannies. They use childcare or juggle it with their spouse, make use of flexible or remote working, so on and so forth.