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 don’t clock out at 5pm. I don’t get annual leave.

I don't understand the logic here. Surely a working parent equally doesn't 'clock out' or get annual leave if they are going home to children? Rather they simply finish one shift at a particular type of work and head home to a different one?

I don't have kids but I'm sometimes in awe of working mothers. If I have a bad day at the office, I go home to lie in the dark and bury my head under the pillow for a couple of hours and then try to have a nice chill evening. Meanwhile colleague who may have had the same shitty day, heads home to perhaps tantrums, homework, problem-solving, wrestling young kids to bed, a mountain of housework, etc, etc.

I don't think most people care and if they do, it's more for economic reasons than anything else.

Had I carried on working, I'd likely be in the top 10 percent of tax payers (like my dh) given my career trajectory thus far. As I have two tax payer funded University degrees there are those of my acquaintance who strongly believe I should get back to work ASAP. They're the only ones who have voiced any disapproval in my choices whatsoever. However I'm not married to them so their opinions don't factor into my decisions.

@erereeee
Oooh you do like to stir the pot don't you?!

I really couldn't care less what you do. Though you do seem to find being at home hard work.

Personally, I think working when the children are little is harder than not, but I was always a WOHP for the benefits of keeping up with my profession, pension, and the wider benefits of being in the workplace. I never found being home with my three children difficult or boring, just busy. Working too adds an extra layer of busyness!

But you do you.

Disclaimer: WOHM (DC now adults), who went back to work 6 weeks post birth and has never. SAH. Was also a single parent for 6 years when DC were young.

Given that children have to be supervised and reared for several years before they can be left alone, this debate always bemuses me. Someone HAS to look after them or they die. And that's bad for society as well as the individual family.

Society has a need for children. They grow up to be the next generation of workers, ensuring essential services are provided and taxes generated. Other people's' children benefit all of us.

So given children need looking after AND there is a wider societal benefit from doing so, society should support it. It can do this by supporting families to facilitate this themselves or through subsiding professional childcare. Currently, we only really see the latter (e.g. free childcare hours) although that's quite poor in comparison to some other countries. There's very little financial support for parents doing it themselves. As we live in a capitalist society where everything is valued in terms of financial equivalence, this explains why the role is so undervalued.

I chose not to SAH. It was the right decision for me. But surely a mother is also a natural choice - it's been the natural order in most species and throughout human civilisation until relatively recently. In terms of what's best for the child it really doesn't matter as long as the child is well cared for. However, it leaves the SAHP quite vulnerable because of the lack of financial and legal protection for the role.

The reason this debate gets so heated is because people have a tendency to see the alternative to their own choice as a judgment on their choice.

Well working mums do everything you do, plus work. Do you think we take annual leave, leave the children at home with nannies and holiday in Barbados?

For centuries women have been gaslit to believe that by staying at home, they're doing a valuable job.

But this is giving men the power

And domestic life is boring

Our brains are wasted

Get real. The rest of us woke up snd smelt the coffee

Bitter, much?

It's a matter of choice, nobody has the right to criticise someone for making that choice. I presume, erereeee, you will return to work at some stage, if only part time. For now you are doing what suits you and that is fine.

I went back to work fairly quickly but only part time for a few years. I didn't find housework fulfilling and was not conscientious about it. I enjoyed work, received a reasonable salary and paid someone to clean once a fortnight; when at home I enjoyed that too. Life was pretty good from that point of view.

One thing I have often noticed is that full time housewifes do a lot of housework nearly every day but if and when they employ a cleaner, the same outcome is achieved in a couple or three of hours a week (sometimes better), depending on size of house. i wonder if jobs are stretched out to fill a day.

I always have mixed feelings about SAHM, well because I WFH and I end up doing the same as any SAHM plus holding a FT job, and I happen to be the main breadwinner.

And no, I would never think my SAHM duties would make up for a FT job

I've been a kept woman (lets be honest, thats what it is!) for 5 years thereabouts. My daughter was 9 when I gave up the daily grind (and she still takes advantage! I still pack her lunch and tidy her school bag - amongst many other things).
I had a career I can go back to tomorrow, should I choose.
Being stay at home isn't remotely comparable to working a job @erereeee. So expecting a pat on the back on a forum full of working parents is just taking the piss.
I decided when I went back to work after mat leave that I was going to work towards giving it up completely, and there's never a day goes past where I don't thank my lucky stars to be in this position.

From one SAHM to another:

1. Why should society value what we do? It doesn't benefit society; it benefits our families. I don't value what estate agents or footballers do either, because they are no use to me. I expect my wife to value me, but no one else (not even my daughter- she's only two, and by the time she's old enough to understand, I won't be a SAHM any more!)

2. Your problem is that your partner doesn't value what you do- he absolutely SHOULD, because it benefits him and his children. Although, to be fair, being a SAHM does sometimes involve some chilling at home, which is a perk of the 'job'. Most people get breaks as part of their job, so it's fair enough.

3. Working parents also don't clock out at 5pm or get annual leave from being a parent; they just go from one job to another.

4. If you are an unmarried SAHM, you are in a very precarious financial position. I hope you have a LOT of savings and are planning to go back to a job with a decent wage when your children are school-age. If not, ask your partner if he'd rather marry you or drop down to part time so you can both be SAHP AND earn money.

Can you explain why you think this poster is "bitter"?

Glutton for punishment are you🤣

I don’t know any SAHMs now. Most people do mat leave then go back to work. Even people with high earning other halves. I think it’s possibly a generational thing; my mum was a SAHM for probably a couple of decades (x4 kids with a 10 year age gap between first and last) and that was normal then. People had bigger families then though; now if you have more than 2 kids that’s a “big” family.

I don’t agree with the notion that SAHM work harder than anyone else. Working mums do all those things and work full time. Now THAT is hard work, and my hat goes off to those women.

I am going on mat leave in a couple of months with my first. I obviously can’t wait for my daughter to arrive, but equally I love my job (even though it’s stressful) and am keen to progress in my career, so will equally look forward to going back to work. I’m a single mother by choice though, so the traditional set up would really bore me!

Also, there is a big difference between being a SAHM whose kids are at home with you and a SAHM whose kids are at school; let's not pretend there isn't.

I think it depends on what age your children are. If they are at school then it's easier as you have time to get thinks done that working parents have to do when they get home and at the weekends. If they are babies, toddlers then work is easier 😂 and that's coming from a primary school teacher. I found the baby/toddler years very challenging.

Talking sense rather!!!

I think what some of you sanctimonious SAHMs forget is that WOHMs are SAHMs for 2 days a week.

The weekends were always infinitely easier than the weeks!

@Devilsmommy

I'm a sahm and I definitely think that looking after a baby/toddler all day is alot more work than any paid employment.

Than any paid employment?

It's this kind of black and white thinking stated as fact that makes this discussion so toxic.

Of course there are some children who are more difficult to look after than it is to go to some jobs.

And there are some jobs that are more difficult than looking after some other children.

One isn't always harder than the other, surely you didn't actually mean that seriously?

I’m currently a stay at home mum, won’t be forever but for the next few years. I know it’s a massive privilege to be able to do this, and I think compared to full time working mums I have it easy to be honest!

Why does that make pp bitter? She has some very valid points.

I don’t think anyone cares as much as you think until you start saying how hard it is. TBH it’s pretty boring when anyone complains about their life choices.

Abso-fucking-lutely. I wouldn't dream of complaining about being a SAHM, because it was my choice and, if I didn't want to do it, I could just go back to work. Which I am very much looking forward to doing when my daughter starts school.

Likewise, when I was teaching, I never complained about it (aside from a rant about shitty kids and parents to colleagues, obviously!), because it was my choice to be a teacher, and I was free to get another job if I wanted to.

To summarise, stop bloody whinging.

Who do you want to be valued by. You sound like you view yourself as a bit if a martyr. That isn't good.

Yanbu.

And half the posts on this thread 'I do all you do and work full time' have perfectly illustrated your point.

Do you? Do you really? So, you can take 15 weeks off a year, for the full time care required in school holidays and inset days, take let's say an extra 2 weeks for dc illness. So you can drop to school at 9am and pick up at 3.20, then ferry around to extra curricular etc. You must have a great employer then because you're not going to be putting in the 8 hours a day x 48 weeks a year required for a full time job. Or, if you are managing to do a full time job around not outsourcing any childcare whatsoever, then that's too much work for good quality of life and I feel for you.

This is always overlooked.

Fair play to you for acknowledging it. I don't care which choice any mother makes but it really sticks in my craw when SAHMs come on moaning about how hard they have it and whinging about how it's easier to go to work.

If it's that much easier - get your arse back to work then and see!!