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.

I think this sums it up. I've a toddler and a one year old and a dog. From 6am til nursery drop off it's trying to spend quality time, get them ready, get them breakfasted and out. Walk the dog through the park on the way to nursery, run back, log into work. Work 8 hours on my home days, commute to London on my office days. Work through lunch so I can race to nursery to try to pick up at 5pm, dog in tow. Two hours of playing, painting, drawing, dinner etc. Basically trying to pack in as much quality time as possible as we don't get to see them while working. Bedtime, then cooking dinner and making kids food for the next day. Laundry, cleaning, house and life admin. Clocking back into work after dinner on the sofa while watching Netflix to try to catch up and get up to speed for the next day. My partner also is often working til 11pm as we try to be present for the kids and pick them up early. It's exhausting! And I'm lucky to be only four days a week at the moment,

Conversely I've only my maternity leaves to compare, but I had so much time to do nice things, meet friends, see my mum, long dog walks, baby/toddler classes, time in the day to do housework and laundry and cooking and crafts. Boot camps where you can take the children along. I literally never have time to go to the gym currently. Watch some tv during nap times, or do a YouTube workout or read a book.

No one is saying this isn't the case, no one at all. What you were saying upthread is that it is the norm for people to have a nanny and people have said that only wealthy can afford this.

If someone is in a job that doesn't hold normal hours they can use a nanny, but only if they are rich. That is what people are saying. If both parents are in non regular hour jobs and they can't afford a nanny then one or both parents will have to change jobs.

What part is it of the vast majority of working parents do not have this are you having difficulty comprehending??!

Ok but that's just your personal experiences and your perspectives. Other people have different perspectives. That's the internet for you.

I think it is because Mum's that go to employed work also have to do all the same stuff housework/cooking/chores at home as well.

We know this but the Highgate mums or whatever minted part of the country you’re living in is not a representative sample of working mums.

Your hairdresser, the lady serving you in Waitrose, the post lady, the woman bringing your Amazon parcels, the woman serving you and your delightful friends coffee on a Tuesday afternoon, the teacher of your kids, the nurse giving your smear test, are all working women who cannot afford a nanny and they don’t travel abroad for work.

Hope that helps.

So only people who use nurseries are allowed to comment on what's 'real' and what we should all be doing and thinking. Ok.

Why are you refusing to understand that the vast majority of working families do not employ nannies? Crazy.

most people do not have cleaners either or any other help at home

MN doesn’t represent the average person in the uk

In a high income area this may be the case. On a national level, in the UK at least (where the majority of MN users are based) the vast, vast majority of working parents do not use nannies. Only around 20% do.

Change 7 to 7.30 and you've described a very common set up for working families, I'm unsure as to why you think it's more usual to use a nanny when only 20% of people do so. You must mix in very high net worth / income circles.

Not everything has to be about 'vast majorities.'

The vast majority of women are not SAHMs. Nevertheless, they are still a sizeable minority. They are therefore as free to comment as you. As are people with nannies.

It's why most people don't have several kids.

I have 3. I still use a nursery.

No, but it's so bizarre that you can't acknowledge that only the wealthy use Nannies and most people don't.

You said how working mums have Nannies to do the play dates, hair cuts etc and people have just pointed out that it's only a minority who have this.

What don't you understand? Or is it some kind of a stealth boast that you're so rich that you can't imagine how others live?

I couldn't care less if someone is a SAHM or the CEO of a blue chip company. No one one needs to be appreciated by society.

You do you.

I've done both. I recently became a SAHM again to school age children. While working we both felt we were trying to do it all and we were doing it all badly. We couldn't do it all - we both had full on jobs, husband travelled with work, then the children. It aged me, he couldn't push his business forward as much as he wanted to, we didn't feel we were there for the kids as much as we wanted to be and we were unable to not let balls drop!

Now I'm not working, my house is tidier and I'm slowly getting back on top of life admin that we had let slip. We both feel more able to focus on particular things (him work, me kids) and it is a luxury we feel lucky to have.

Working and being a parent was beyond full time for me and I didn't feel I did either work or parenting well while trying to do both. Being a SAHM is also more than a full time job but one I can cope with it and which offers greater flexibility.

I don't feel undervalued but live in an area where several parents have done the same. We all feel we have a greater work life balance being at home and are far, far calmer.

Of course they are. You were talking about a neighbour with a nanny though and acting like every working parent has a nanny from 7am-7pm and don't go to doctors appointments, dentist appointments etc.

On a post making sweeping statements about SAHP & working parents, of course the responses are about the majority and the impact of both on the majority.

But they aren’t complaining about the actual childcare usually are they, it’s the ‘mental load’, life admin, laundry, cooking.

So I am happy to accept that actual childcare is the full time job of the SAHM (but shouldn’t be a 100% of the time ‘job’ as in they should have a partner who helps and gives them time to themselves) but there is the weird insinuation that working Mums have help with all the domestic stuff and that’s just not true but so many SAHM’s trot this out like we don’t have our children at weekends, like we use annual leave for anything other than childcare, that we all have jobs with leisurely commutes in offices where we can sit around drinking coffee and chatting with colleagues. That is what is delusional.

If it's 20% of families who use nannies, that translates to millions of families. And this is the internet, so funnily enough, some of those millions may be on here. Doesn't matter if people are in the 'majority' or they have 10 nannies.

Well no, real world statistics show that 20% of people use nannies and the other 80% use alternative childcare (family, nursery, childminders).

You've explained what a nanny does and explained that some people don't work 9-5. Shockingly, many of us didn't need those things explaining to us, they are very obvious!

It simply isn't the norm, in the UK, on a national level, to use a nanny. You said most people do and that it's very common.

All people have done is point out that it's not common, it's unusual and you thinking otherwise suggests that you mix in a financially privileged circle. Nothing wrong with that at all, but your comments have shown you to be absolutely out of touch with the situation for the majority of working families.

Yes, but you're making comments about working parents using nannies as though this is the accepted norm country wide. It isn't. It's a very select few, and so far removed even from high earning families that it's almost unheard of. That kind of wealth is a tiny fraction of the country, so you mentioning how FT working mums means the children basically getting brought up by a nanny is just...not true.

In many professions you often end up working beyond your contracted hours, often when you are junior and not infrequently when you are senior, too but the nature of the work may be different - it’s not unusual.

Edited to add: common examples on MN include teachers, nurses, doctors.

Of course I know people use nurseries. I'm just saying that, in my area, I've never met anyone who does. I think one woman tried it once, but it didn't work out. Then they moved away anyway so I don't know what happened.

No it's not bollocks. I fit all that in as well as work. As a single parent I do that, all the housework and haul in around £6k after tax too. Really I should be called a double parent.

Presumably your DC are in school between 8.45-3.30pm? So what do you do whilst they are in are in school then?