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 am a SAHM pretty much by accident. It is funny but I was talking about that today with a friend (who has always worked). Pretty much all the SAHMs I know quit work because they could not make it work (childcare too expensive etc..) rather than choosing to stay at home. I think my kids have really benefited from me being at home as their dad works long hours. I do voluntary work with a professional qualification , go on all the school trips, help out my friends who do work. I will go back to work in a couple of years (have professional qualification or might re-train) but I have got a lot more contentment from being at home than i ever did from my well-paid corporate job. I think a lot of SAHMs are screwed over if their marriages fail and there seems to be a culture of blaming them rather than understanding the reality in most cases. I would never be a SAHM without being married or full access to finances however.

Of course there's a massive difference. I wouldn't say otherwise. What gets me is the whole we do everything you do on top of a ft job. No you really don't. You're not going to be cleaning anywhere near as much because you're all out of the house for what, 9 hours say. Unlike a sahm who if they have a toddler running around all day, is going to be clearing up constantly. Same as with meals and the clean up from that. Both sahm and working moms do a hard job. Why women feel they have to look down on eachother for doing whatever one works for them I don't know. Just look at some of the replies on here. Pure nastiness and spite

Any caring role, indeed any role predominately done by women, is undervalued.

It always facinates me that any conversation about sahm and working mums focuses on hardness.

Like being the hardest is some moral value in itself and society must only value things that are the hardest.

No. I wish my kids, millenials, could have had a SAHM as I, boomer, did.

I'm a SAHM and I disagree with some of what you say. I think being able to stay at home while the kids are young is a massively privileged position to be in. I know lots of people who would have loved to take more time off, but they just couldn't live off one wage for any longer. And yes these women also do laundry, cooking, cleaning, decorating, kids activities, organising birthdays and holidays and doctors and dentist appointments etc etc. All that around a job sounds really bloody hard. Quite possibly whilst really missing their little ones and feeling guilty about not being there.

I've done years at home now and I know its hard work and relentless too. You also make sacrifices in your career, education, finances, but we choose it because we feel it's what we want/need to do.

I can't remember any posts from other women suggesting it's easy being a SAHM, but there are plenty people warning of the financial insecurity it can bring, and they aren't wrong!

You are fortunate to be able to be there to take care of the children. Presumably if you went to work and left dc alone then it would be neglect, so in any case you would need someone else paid or unpaid to do the same thing. Lots of years to work, before and after small children.

I agree OP.

Society seems to hold higher value for economic contributions. It should be equal. I think sadly as women had to fight for equality in the working world the situation is now that we are expected to see that as the better option as it was / is hard to achieve.

But there are those of us who choose to be SAHM. We cost the country less than some working parents (eg those who claim up to 85% childcare back as that’s a huge cost but it’s justified as they are economically active and that then creates jobs in childcare and it’s all about the economy). Plus this engineered battle that seems to have happened where working parents and non working parents are critical of each other.

There should be the system in place where it’s a genuine and equal choice .

I’ve been both, back in the day. You’re of value to your family so that’s all you need to be. 🤷‍♀️

Bullshit. Of course working parents take time off when children are ill - what the hell do you think happens??

And we pay through the nose for extra care for INSET days etc. We take our annual leave separately to be able to cover holiday periods or again we pay for care.

I dropped mine at school - at one point three different locations. I didn't pick them up because obviously I was in work - so I paid for that too. I picked them up from childcare and then ferried them to all their activities, and it was 4/5 nights a week.

What a dopey post.

If you did not lack intelligence or ambition, and more importantly, had the requisite earning power, you would be working and your husband would have been a sahd. Surely you sat down and calculated who can bring what home when you both decided he goes to work and you stay at home?

The only special sahm I ever came across, was my ex SIL, who obviously cooked, cleaned, organised things like the rest of us, but she also taught my nieces and nephews piano to a competition level, they were bilingual (French and English), and ice-skating to a competition level.

And those sahm mums who have special needs children, are truly amazing and special and they deserve all the accolades. Like single mums, who I don't know how they cope.

I have a theory about this (completely unproven). Many sahp go straight from working full time to having a baby and then giving up their jobs to stay at home. So they're comparing child free life and working in an office, going out for nice lunches etc to being at home 24/7 with a baby/ toddler. So of course this is going to feel like harder work than a full time paid job, because for most people becoming a parent feels like being thrown into a different universe. So when they compare sahp with working parent, they're actually comparing being a sahp with those halcyon days when they were responsible only for themselves.

You do 9 hours of childcare when you get home from work ? Who looks after them, cleans after them & feeds them while you’re at work ? They must be so hungry when you get home ;)

Are you married?

People are saying that because OP seems to think that working parents clock off at 5pm or take annual leave and magically don’t have to also parent their children.

You don’t have a day off/clock off/annual leave from parenting.

We aren't all claiming benefits by any means!

By working I am contributing economically, far more substantially than if sitting on my backside at home!

A SAHM is not a job, it is parenting your children without having a job on top of that.

Whether you work or not, you are still a mother with parenting responsibilities. You are doing household tasks as your partner works full-time. Your partner should do 50/50 when he's at home, as he is also a parent. It is your partner who should appreciate what you are doing. Once your children are at school, then there's not really any reason not to have a part time job.

Working parents also have to do the same as you, whether they work part -time or full-time.

How you parent with/without work is entirely down to your opportunities, choices, finances and support network.

SAHP vs working parent- one is not better than the other.

Don't be ridiculous!

And we pay through the nose for extra care for INSET days etc. We take our annual leave separately to be able to cover holiday periods or again we pay for care.

@mainecooncatonahottinroof
😂😂 that's the point!! You're outsourcing care!! Therefore not doing 'all a sahp does and working full time.'

Harder work looking after your own child than ANY paid work? Can I ask what paid work you’ve done to come to that conclusion? Because I’m assuming it’s never been any quick thinking, high pressure, acute, life or death, peoples lives are quite literally in your hands type work?

Try keeping someone alive on multiple forms of life support who is desperately trying to die then tell me looking after your own child is harder work.

What do you genuinely remember from your mother being a SAHM before you went to school? That isn't a memory bolstered by a photo, or a story you've been told, or anything like that?

I would never want my DDs to be reliant on ANY man!

If you are not married you should not be a SAHM unless your are independently wealthy. Your partner could chuck you out tomorrow and you'd get nothing from him.

Me either. It’s not something I’d ever encourage.

Totally agree. I feel very lucky that I was able to choose whether I wanted to go back to work after maternity leave or not.