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.

@HoppingPavlova you still don't seem to understand that it literally isn't possible for most families to have two parents that work FT and not use any childcare. You seem to have got around this by working shifts around your partner but lots of people have jobs that don't work like that and operate around core working hours. So assuming that you can't tag team each other doing shifts (which most parent can't) then I simply don't agree that you can simultaneously spend time giving your all on on complex and difficult paid work FT and look after a child effectively FT.

I agree looking after kids is not a form of neurosurgery. But then, few things are. Why even compare?

Because I’d think most occupations are more mentally challenging. No one is disagreeing that interactions with babies/children are not meaningful or insignificant, 100% agree with you that this is not the case. However, you can have significant and meaningful interactions and impact with your children to the moon and back, but that doesn’t mean that it’s mentally challenging.

I had many colleagues in different specialties stop at one child claiming they had been ‘sold a lie’ in a sense in that ‘having children would be the most important thing you ever do’. Most figured out pretty quickly that correctly and lovingly raising one human to become an outstanding well balanced, well connected, secure adult and being available to them (holy grail stuff) was fine and absolutely doable but was in no way above having the life changing impacts to many many humans that you can in a day to day basis simply via work. I honestly believe if someone had made all of these people stop work to only look after their child/children and house the rate of suicide would be sky high, and those remaining would have been woeful parents as they would have turned to drink/drugs to dull the lack of mental challenge. I sure would have been first in line. DH, in a completely different line of work, would have joined the queue, hardly a queue confined to neurosurgeons as that was just a figure of speech.

Yep. I have training in child psychology. I understood exactly what was happening when my DC asked for the same nursery rhyme over and over or repetitively put things into a box and out again. But that did not make singing Wind the Bobbin Up for the fifteenth time that day fun. Did I do it? Yes. Would I rather have been doing something else? Yep.

Of course its true that not everyone can tag team their way around looking after their children... but you are taking as read here that everyone must avoid paid childcare. Some of us don't accept that.

Your use of adjectives and adverbs here is very interesting: you use words such as "effectively" and "nurturing" to describe having a child cared for FT by its parent as if hands on parental supervision was a given for these conditions to occur. Why are you assuming that a parent who uses childcare can't care effectively for their child?

Does the "effective", "enriching" and "nurturing" that has to come only from parents magically stop when they reach school age? Why can a teacher provide these magical qualities but not an effective nanny or childminder?

For many parents its not possible to avoid the use of paid childcare. Are you saying that they are not "enriching" or "nurturing" their children or managing them effectively? Because if you are, you're effectively saying that having and raising children should only be available to those people who can afford for one partner to be at home with them full time or nearly full time.

@GiddyRobin I am not 'far from reality' ffs. I trained as a Child Psychologist in my 20s. It took about 6 years postgrad. I was working and on placements throughout that. I spent years observing other people's children and infants. Years working directly with children and their caregivers, many of whom in were extreme traumatic circumstances or deprivation including babies removed from the mother at birth. Child psychology and development is my area of interest. Why wouldn't I find it equally, if not more, interesting in the case of my own children? It would be weird if I didn't.

If I had trained in marketing or business or IT or something, being a SAHM might have felt like a departure from my interests or professional background. But I didn't, so it wasn't.

I find it very sad when people need to constantly reduce being a SAHM to 'doing the laundry' or 'oh it's so mindless'. It's very obvious that any role in life is about how you approach it and what you bring to it. If you find SAH boring then fine, just don't do it then. Nobody cares really. I felt very differently and I've explained why.

I understand child development and it didn't stop me from finding maternity leave mind numbing and mentally frustrating from boredom.

People are different.

@DreadPirateRobots

Exactly. I remember one day singing Pop Goes the Weasel so many times my throat hurt. I did it because I knew why he was asking for it, I knew the importance and could see the cogs of a tiny brain churning. But my God. I felt so desperately in need to talk about something interesting that I sobbed when DH finished work.

DH was injured and off work for a while. He felt the same way when his days consisted of childcare, cleaning, cooking - it was the summer holidays and I could see him becoming deeply depressed. He said it was like he wasn't him anymore. DD was very young so as he was home, he'd decided to be with her rather than start her in nursery as we'd planned (the accident overlapped with the end of my maternity leave). He felt exactly like I had, and he's a brilliant dad and husband, absolutely 50/50 partnership in all things.

Some people just don't want to be nothing but a parent.

@outofmexico You've done it again, though. You've put your opinion across as fact - if you'd said "it wasn't mentally empty for me" then that would have been fine.

You claimed that "You are only left mentally empty if you have no understanding of child development" - therefore speaking broadly and applying that to everyone.

For someone with an apparent insight into psychology, you don't seem to have much self awareness of yourself as an adult.

I'm not saying they're not important at all?

I'm saying that I think children make those memories even if their parent (mother, let's be real) worked.

@Bumpitybumper you still don't seem to understand that it literally isn't possible for most families to have two parents that work FT and not use any childcare. You seem to have got around this by working shifts around your partner but lots of people have jobs that don't work like that and operate around core working hours. So assuming that you can't tag team each other doing shifts (which most parent can't) then I simply don't agree that you can simultaneously spend time giving your all on on complex and difficult paid work FT and look after a child effectively FT

There is always a way. I have had, and still have kids going through uni that work around that to exactly the same extent working parents can work around each other and take care of kids. No difference at all. It’s about being creative and very probably moving industries/roles for a period if you are already working. It’s about accepting that a career may stall for a period, but that doesn’t mean throwing in the towel. There are 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. Nothing to say people have to stick with what they have always done. At one point DH stepped out of his industry, got completely unrelated work (needed no quals) for a year as he became a ‘trailing spouse’ on top of it all while we relocated for my work, then later when settled he looked for something to suit the situation, be it in his industry with his quals or not. There are always options IF you are prepared to look for them and be flexible. Just throwing his arms up and saying ‘too hard’ was not an option he wanted to take (which is why I chose him to marry in the first place…..).

This is such a mad response to my posts.

My point was that your posts were designed to completely undermine the effort and energy that goes into caring for a child. It was so easy according to you that you and your partner could both work at least FT hours and also care for multiple children without using any real childcare. This just isn't possible for most families in the country and pretending that it is just undermines the very real struggles of most families that have to balance earning enough money to support themselves and ensuring their children are cared for properly. You are effectively advocating the impossible and denigrating SAHPs for not being able to work FT like you and do all the childcare when virtually nobody else can either. It also implies working parents are also somehow being a bit lazy and not doing enough as they could also be looking after their child FT and working FT like you seem to achieve so easily. It basically makes everyone feel like crap by setting unrealistic expectations.

I haven't suggested that using paid childcare is worse than being cared for at home.

I've worked hard to get to where I am. If I moved industries, my career would fall apart more than stall. I'd never get back to where I am now and I'd lose the flexibility that benefits my children.

But then I don't see any need for my children to avoid nursery.

The fact it is so mentally draining but can also feel mentally ‘empty’ is why it is so fucking difficult. So if that’s how you found it, maybe you should respect SAHM even more. Just a thought. I respect all of my friends and their (very varied) choices in life.

So basically the op if right. People don’t understand it and don’t respect it.

Why? It was mentally empty and boring, so I did something about it - I went back to work. I didn't sit complaining about it to everyone and starting goady threads trying to start a bun fight. I didn't find it difficult, or hard work. I just found it boring. If that's how SAHMs feel then why don't they say that rather than making a song and dance about the cleaning and cooking, life admin, etc.? Those things working mums do, too.

Why? I found it mentally empty so went back to work. That's almost always an option.

I'm not sure why someone needs more respect for forcing themselves to feel mentally empty when they can just go back to work. I don't respect martyrs.

Haha! Snap!

@Bumpitybumper

My point was that your posts were designed to completely undermine the effort and energy that goes into caring for a child. It was so easy according to you that you and your partner could both work at least FT hours and also care for multiple children without using any real childcare. This just isn't possible for most families in the country and pretending that it is just undermines the very real struggles of most families that have to balance earning enough money to support themselves and ensuring their children are cared for properly.

You are effectively advocating the impossible and denigrating SAHPs for not being able to work FT like you and do all the childcare when virtually nobody else can either. It also implies working parents are also somehow being a bit lazy and not doing enough as they could also be looking after their child FT and working FT like you seem to achieve so easily. It basically makes everyone feel like crap by setting unrealistic expectations.

I think you're confusing me with another poster: I am a single parent so I would never have said anything about me and my partner working FT and caring for children as it doesn't apply. Working FT when you're a single parent isn't easy at all. It's even harder than when you're in a couple.

Nor have I "denigrated" SAHPs for not going out to work, so this is completely off base.

I'm just picking up on the fact that you seem to be arguing that it isn't possible to provide "effective" or "nurturing" care for children unless one parent is at home FT. I'm pointing out that that is a physical impossibility for many parents, and its mildly offensive that you consider millions of us not to be doing our jobs effectively.

😂

Double snap. I didn't find it difficult, I was just bored out of my mind.

So I went back to work.

Ah sorry, I assumed you were the poster that I had responded to where both parents worked FT and they cared for their children FT too. The post of mine that you have quoted was a response to her claim that it was more than possible for most parents to work FT and simultaneously look after children. For most of us this would mean that we weren't being effective or nurturing because we are trying to do two very different things at once and probably doing both things badly. She works shifts so obviously it is slightly different but obviously this isn't possible for most of us.

I think paid childcare can absolutely be nurturing and effective. I haven't suggested otherwise so I don't know where that's come from.

Exactly this! I and many friends that are working parents cannot afford to outsource any of our household chores so we're working and doing all the house and life admin jobs. I've been a SAHM and work part time now and I absolutely napped with the baby/toddler and still do now. Not a luxury people working can afford. I suspect your issues may stem from your own challenges, having two small children at home whereas for me I only ever had one at home at a time. Not saying either of us are right or wrong in how we had our families btw, just highlighting why life might feel so full on for you as a SAHM. And you absolutely should be able to "clock off" at some point when your partner comes home, if you can't then again it's not a sahm problem but a partner problem you have.

Even my partner, who works full-time, makes the occasional offhand comment like, “Must be nice to chill at home,”

As always, you have a DP problem. I think you should have married before becoming a SAHM, you are facilitating his work and pension to your own detriment.

You are raising children for your family, not society so it’s your DP that needs to appreciate you, not society. On a societal level, parents are already benefitting from society so not sure what else is needed.

Haha! 🤣

This is the bit I don't understand when there are threads like this. Like you say, there's almost always the option of going back to work. I don't understand why people complain so bitterly about their lot but then do absolutely nothing to change it!

It's almost like they enjoy just complaining. Baffles me!

@Bromptotoo

Interesting that you pick up on exactly the type of stuff that creates core memories at a young age but not those that don't, like the daily drudgery of going to get a pint of milk or whatever.

See what I said above. I think children make those memories even if their parent (mother, let's be real) worked. Which is interesting as it seems you're a dad and therefore your wife worked which in hindsight you wish she hadn't? But not in hindsight that you wish you hadn't, presumably?

Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth there.

People do understand it and they do respect it. They just don’t think SAHM’s are martyrs, all deserve a pride of Britain award or are somehow superior beings than the rest of us.

I would find many roles 'mentally empty @GiddyRobin, but I don't feel the need to announce this, or repeatedly try to define a role as 'empty' or pointless, just because it's something that I, personally, couldn't take to or find motivation in.

I find anything corporate absolutely mind-numbing to be perfectly honest, but I am fully aware that that's just me. I still 100% respect people who thrive and are successful in that type of environment. I wouldn't try to reduce their roles to 'pointless admin' or some reductive statement like that', just because it's something I couldn't do.

Being a SAHM, like any other role, takes a certain type of resilience, understanding and motivation. It's is sad when people wilfully try to reduce it to 'nothing' and it's very clear that this says more about them than anything else.