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.

Its not 'extra' respect, just 'equal.'

@Thepeopleversuswork - you say you are a single mum? You will know then, better than me, the way that some elements of society can stereotype single mums in a way that they could easily feel misunderstood or de-valued, historically and even now.

If there were perpetually threads started on MN about single mums, which always took off and ran to 1000 posts before yet another variation was started - you might well feel stigmatised by this. If it went anything like the SAHM threads, you would wonder why threads about single mums are mainly populated by people who are not themselves single mums; feel baffled by the misunderstandings and projections; how triggered people get and even the fact people need to endlessly pontificate / over-analyse your lifestyle at all.

If you came on as a single mum and said you feel society ascribed less value to single parent families, or that your friends often misunderstood your experiences or how it can feel as a single parent family - clearly that would not be you asking for any special validation, above and beyond any other family. A normal, reasonable response to you would be that you shouldn't feel that way and that 'society' (your friends or your perception of society) should value all families, whatever shapes and sizes they may come in. Plus an acknowledgement that yes, people do stereotype and misunderstand single parent families and most stereotypes are wrong.

If the OP came on here and said she thought her admin role was 'misunderstood' by everyone who wasn't a full time administrator and that administators worked harder than people in other jobs, then I would expect people who were not full time administrators to disagree. I would also expect her to be told to ignore rude put downs (as this OP has been) and that if she felt undervalued in her work she would be better talking to her employer than entering into a who works hardest competition on MN with people for whom admin is part bit not the entirety of their work.
If the OP is real, the only person who needs to value her role is the person making it possible. Unfortunately for her, it doesn't appear he does. This is the battle the OP needs to fight. The whole of MN could be giving her platitudes and positive strokes but if the man who holds the purse strings isn't on board then he, not working mothers, is the person she needs to persuade.

@outofmexico this is now getting even more bizarre. You're talking about hypothetical threads populated by hypothetical posters!

This is a real thread, started by someone saying they feel undervalued by society as a SAHM (though not providing any evidence for that, not suggesting what this 'value' from wider society might look like.) People have responded to say that it's the OP and her partner (who presumably supports her decision) who should value her role. It's no one else's business. I still don't understand why a SAHM wants or needs pats on the back, congratulations, whatever this approbation is supposed to look like, specifically because they stay at home. It's not something I'd ever expect or need as a WOHM

I certainly don't know any SAHM thick enough to think that working parents don't do anything after 5. It's obviously a shit stirring post.

@outofmexico

@Thepeopleversuswork - you say you are a single mum? You will know then, better than me, the way that some elements of society can stereotype single mums in a way that they could easily feel misunderstood or de-valued, historically and even now.

I can see where you're going with this but SAHMs and single mothers are not a like-for-like comparison. That's faintly ridiculous.

SAHM was the default role in society for some 60 or 70 years, held up as the ideal by conservative society roughly from the end of WW2 until now and financially incentivised and cheerled by many governments. SAHMs are probably no longer the default but that's very recent. In some countries until recently SAHM was the only legal role for a mother: I believe in Ireland until the 1970s it was illegal or very difficult for a business to employ a married woman. Until equal ops legislation being a woman with children was a huge barrier to employment.

Single parents within my lifetime have been social pariahs. Margaret Thatcher used them as an example of everything that had gone wrong with our society: it was a real taboo in the 1980s and you were actively looked down on. They are still massively financially disadvantaged and bringing up kids on your own while working is really really hard. Much harder than either being a working mum in a marriage or being a SAHM. Many women choose to be SAHMs, almost none choose to be single mothers.

Oh and critically, SAHMs are fully financially supported. Single mothers are not.

Life is a hell of a lot easier for single parents now than it was in the 1980s but its still much harder than for SAHMs and its a bit daft to position SAHMs as some persecuted minority who need our advocacy.

I can't believe this thread is still going on with no response from the OP; she really threw a grenade and then ran.

I've been both a SAHM and a working mother. I fully respect anyone's choice as far as that is concerned. But I don't particularly value the role of a stay-at-home mother because it isn't of any value to me in my life. That's something for your family to value because that's something you're doing for them, the same as I expect my family to value me working and earning money to support them. I don't expect anyone outside my immediate family to value that contribution. If people are being rude or dismissive about your life choices then don't associate with those people anymore.

There is no value in debating who has it harder.

I've definitely seen SAHM's on here before say things like I work 24/7, I don't get a day off etc OP isn't the first which is a reason why pp reacted to the comments. They aren't new.

I'm just saying that SAHMs, single mums, working mums, pensioners, whatever - all kinds of people can sometimes - rightly or wrongly - feel undervalued or misunderstood. Feeling vulnerable, for whatever reason, is not the same as demanding a special status or 'pat in the back.'

It costs working mums nothing to support women who work part-time, 24/7 or not at all. And vice versa. The fact that this is apparently so difficult screams insecurity to me and it's a symptom of the sad fact that whatever women do, they feel they can't do right for doing wrong, especially where children are concerned.

@outofmexico but literally loads of us have said that it's absolutely fine for parents to SAH if that's what they want and the other parent is happy with it. What more 'support' are you looking for? It's fine. It clearly suits some mothers to SAH. No problem.
It's all the other stuff about wanting some approbation from wider society which we don't understand and which is never actually explained. Other than 'don't be rude about others, don't be offensive about their job, or whether they work or not' which is just basic common courtesy and we all agree with.

And the only insecurity I can see is that need for the wider approbation. If you're a SAHM why isn't it enough that you've chosen to do it and that your partner (presumably) is happy with it? That screams insecurity to me, that it's not enough, somehow society has got to recognise something extra.

I will never agree that it's a good idea for a woman to be a SAHM in the vast majority of cases. I'm not going to go up to the few SAHM's I know IRL and say that because it would be rude but on the other hand, I also don't feel like it's necessary to pat them on the back for their choice either.

If that makes me unsupportive then so be it.

"Life is a hell of a lot easier for single parents now than it was in the 1980s but its still much harder than for SAHMs and its a bit daft to position SAHMs as some persecuted minority who need our advocacy."

Well when I was a SAHM, I certainly wasn't a persecuted minority.

But surely you can see that SAHMs are as varied as any other kind woman. There will be SAHMs who have no choice in the matter. Imagine some woman who has lost her career because she is at home with a very disabled child. Or perhaps she has a lot of kids with all kinds of issues? Imagine how she must feel reading some of the weird, over-invested analyses of 'SAHMs ' on here. People who are desperate to convince themselves that there is absolutely no value in anything they do - beyond housework that can all be squeezed into an evening or whatever.

Ffs - there was one poster who had even gone ti the desperate lengths of calculating how much SAHMs supposedly cost the taxpayer in pension contributions. I mean, imagine if that was your personality!

It's obvious to me that all these generalisations and contortions and projections about SAHMs are a total waste of energy. Some SAHMs are super-privileged. Some are really struggling. Most are somewhere in the middle, just getting in with their lives as best they can. Nobody anywhere, needs this level of over-invested analysis and speculation.

She wouldn't be allowed to as UC would make her look for work.

@SouthLondonMum22 - why are you so obsessed about SAHMs though?

Why am I obsessed?

Ffs - there was one poster who had even gone ti the desperate lengths of calculating how much SAHMs supposedly cost the taxpayer in pension contributions. I mean, imagine if that was your personality!
If that was me, I didn't 'calculate' anything. I pointed out that for every year someone gets NI contributions made whilst they stay at home they get a qualifying year when they 'retire', which at today's rates is about £11500. I mean, if you're going to try to be insulting, at least learn to read English!'

@outofmexico

It's obvious to me that all these generalisations and contortions and projections about SAHMs are a total waste of energy. Some SAHMs are super-privileged. Some are really struggling. Most are somewhere in the middle, just getting in with their lives as best they can. Nobody anywhere, needs this level of over-invested analysis and speculation.

I feel like I've said this several times already but its not the working mums who are generating this "analysis and speculation". I don't really give a shit if people "value" the way I go about parenting my child.

If people come out with daft or mildly insulting comments about how working parents "farm their children out" or, my particular favourite, they shouldn't work because "you never get the time back", then I will bite their heads off because I won't have my parenting put down by people who are in more luxurious positions. But otherwise I couldn't care less how people parent their children.

Most people don't have time for this navel-gazing and fussing about being "valued". They just get on with it.

@outofmexico

"But surely you can see that SAHMs are as varied as any other kind woman. There will be SAHMs who have no choice in the matter. Imagine some woman who has lost her career because she is at home with a very disabled child. Or perhaps she has a lot of kids with all kinds of issues? Imagine how she must feel reading some of the weird, over-invested analyses of 'SAHMs ' on here. People who are desperate to convince themselves thet there is absolutely no value in anything they do - beyond housework that can all be squeezed into an evening or whatever. "

Aargh, how many times?!

These are your words, you are determined to think that WOHM are desperate to convince themselves that there's no value in what SAHM do.

Look: I can't say it enough. If someone chooses to be a SAHM, I assume they value their choice. I assume their partner does, or presumably they wouldn't support it. And that's fine. That's enough. No one else needs to 'value it,' society doesn't need to give some sort of special recognition to a parent just because they stay at home. You seem determined to interpret that as some kind of judgement, or devaluation. It's not. It's just stating facts. I don't expect SAHM to award me some kind of special approbation because I'm a mum who works. Why on earth would it be expected the other way round?

There are a lot of disapproving threads on mn about single mums. I'm a single mum and have been told that I should have had an abortion (I'm a hard working professional- don't receive any benefits).

Single mums are the opposite of sahm really. Try saying on any of these sahm threads that single mums who don't work are sahm. Nooo - you then get an outpouring of disgust as to how sahm aren't valuable if the taxpayer is paying.

People can structure their lives any way they like. Personally I think people who never work their whole working lives are opting out of contributing to society. Of course that's not the same as not working for a few years while children are small.

That's not unreasonable at all. Tbf you only get a maximum of 12 years ni contributions these days

Really? I haven't lots of threads started by people specifically to bash single mums.

This thread is from an OP claiming they want some kind of special recognition at societal level for being a SAHM. We're still waiting, though, to hear why they need that, and what it would look like!

@user243245346

There are a lot of disapproving threads on mn about single mums. I'm a single mum and have been told that I should have had an abortion (I'm a hard working professional- don't receive any benefits).

Indeed and as a single mum you also get the "why didn't you choose more carefully?" narrative, as if every man comes with a bar code on his forehead saying: "I will turn into an alcoholic/cheat/feckless layabout".

A lot of people still assume if you're a single parent that it's your fault somehow.

As for @ShyMaryEllen who pointed out about the NI contributions, that was actually to show that SAHM of small children aren't disadvantaged as far as state pension is concerned.

Such was the determination to feel SAHM are hard done by, another poster actually tried to interpret @ShyMaryEllen as a complaint on behalf of the taxpayer!!

Thank you @lolly792. You couldn't make it up, really.

I can't keep going on with this but, for the last time, nobody needs 'special approbation'. SAHM, working or part-time working, or on benefits or on the moon. Nobody is asking for this!

The (unreal) SAHM OP scenario is trying to invite the usual responses to the question - do SAHMs have any value?

People post this kind of shite because they know full-well it will instantly bring certain posters with unusually extreme views out and it is a way make women look insecure - pitched against each other.

The SAHM / WOHM 'categories' and all the judgements don't even make sense because any mum will be a SAHM or WOHM, to some extent, over the course of a lifetime. It's just a difference in how long.

Can people really not grasp how all the endless wrangling about SAHMs come across like judgement? I don't care what anyone says - it just blatantly is. I can't decide if it's hilarious or insane. It's only on MN though. It's the same every time - "What do they actually do all day / What do they think they're doing with their kids that I'm not / Explain yourself here how it is that you are not financially vulnerable / Doesn't matter, you are vulnerable because I say so / Your husband must have a 'big job' / Bet he treats you like staff / Funded by a man! / The patriarchy! / Yadda yadda 50/50 hoovering yadda yadda / He is the patriarchy the bastard / You must be brain dead / What will you do when he leaves / You are not contributing to society, by the way / You are a poor role model / Think of your daughters! / blah blah blah blah blah - endless anecdotes about a random SAHM they once knew where it did not end well - blah blah blah blah blah. A thread every week. Same old same old. Same 'famous' MN posters on them every time (you know they'll be there just from the thread title) going on for days on end. Do they never ask themselves why? So you work and you don't want to SAH? Great. So what? Why the need to tell everyone on MN this, endlessly, weekly, for literally years on end?

Seriously, if I posted on here that I sometimes feel a bit undervalued or misunderstood at work and I got "What do you actually do all day" and even 10% of the craziness above, asking me to justify everything from my marriage to my contribution to 'wider society' to god knows what else, I would be demented.

So yes, I can see how SAHMs feel devalued because no other threads go like the SAHM threads. No other demographic triggers people this way.