To think SAHM with young DC deserve more respect

[CheekyFawn]

I work full time but currently on maternity leave looking after my 5 months old baby and a toddler DS who is 3 yo.
I just don't know where my time goes. Between breastfeeding baby, getting DS ready for preschool and tidying up the house, cooking meals etc, it just feels like there is no time at all even to have 5 mins of coffee break. I feel it was much better when I was at work couple of months ago when DS was in nursery that I used to get at least a lunch break for an hour or 30 mins at least or time between meetings to have a coffee and look at my phone in peace. I imagine this is I think how a day looks for SAHM with young DC and it's bloody hard. Many people just assume they are not doing much but I think they deserve more respect.

I never felt disrespected whilst on mat leave. My mum was a SAHM until youngest child 9, and was treated with a huge amount of respect by my Dad.

Why do you not feel respected, and who by? Are these people whose opinion matters to you?

It's not about me but I see this opinion in my friend and family circles that SAHM don't do as much as working mums and they have got it easy.

I don’t really see why they deserve more respect that anyone else. Yes, it can be hard work looking after a baby. But plenty of other things in life are hard too, or harder. And presumably you chose to have a baby. So while I have every respect for anyone who manages to keep a kid alive without dropping it on its head or leaving it on a bus, it also don’t think it’s anything exceptional in comparison to many other things.

I'm a SAHM with a 4yo and 17mo. My eldest wasn't at pre-school or any form of childcare until 3yo, and that first year felt hard at times. I think at the newborn stage it isn't so bad as baby just has to slot into the firstborn's schedule but eventually the second child becomes more active and the disparity in their interests and needs makes it much for difficult to manage alongside being productive. I can see that my eldest is beginning to engage with their sibling in proper games now. It feels like I'm starting to emerge from the trenches.

What worked for me was allowing myself to let go of schedules. I roll with the punches and remember that I chose this path for my own good reasons.

I don't think being at home looking after kids and household chores is easy at all.

I genuinely had no idea once that your own children could be work. They’re your own family, I’d think incredulously. No more work than spending time with a sibling or parent you feel comfortable with.

Then I had my children. Glory be.

Just wait until you are back in work.

You need better friends by the sound of it.

I made this post because I see many posts bashing SAHM when they mention about financial difficulties and they are told they need to get back to work etc etc. many people don't appreciate the amount of work it takes to be at home looking after kids with no financial gains and no appreciation.

I'm a SAHM and I don't feel like I 'deserve respect' - I certainly don't deserve disrespect and I totally get what you mean, it can be as hard as a job, but when you have a job you have to do a lot of the mum stuff too on top! I have time in the day to keep up with the house work and stick the laundry on etc. I think I'm very lucky to be able to make the choice that I want to make for my lifestyle.

I think I should have said they deserve more appreciation than they usually get.

Telling someone who isn’t working and is struggling financially that they need to find work isn’t disrespectful, it’s reality!

It's easier than working full time and doing all the household chores, that's for sure!

I didn't feel disrespected when on maternity.

I think you need to care less about what others think.

Listen, we have all been on maternity leave. We have had annual leave. We do weekends. We know.

I am here to tell you that it is way harder doing all that you have to do with your children when you also fit in a full-time job.

All mums are worthy of respect no matter how they parents.

SAHMs can suffer financially with one salary coming in. WOHMs and their partners spend a fortune on childcare, so perhaps not that much better off through working.

But, if your partner/DH dies, or pisses off with another woman, then I know which I would prefer to be.

Parenting is absolutely relentless. In the thick of those early days especially, there is often no relief. At all.

For the above poster who mentioned that other things are hard work also…yes, they are however not for as long a period with no break to even pee on your own(!)

Why does anyone deserve "appreciation" because they chose to procreate, other than the father of their children?

You don't get accolades for becoming a mother!

It is a choice to have children it is not a community service, but I dont think working or SAH parents deserve more than other it is not a competition but it is a choice to solely rely on another adult to fund your SAH lifestyle if that is required which is a very precarious position to leave yourself and your child in

Thats how you find it, it’s not everyone’s experience though. I work part time and have 3 DC. I find being at home with them (mat leave, school holidays) fairly easy. In fact, we’re trying for a baby and number 4 (hopefully) will just slot in

Of course sahm get disrespected- there’s the ‘not working’ jibes, the ‘some of us have bills to pay’ (said to dh with me there), the ‘aren’t you lucky, we couldn’t afford for one of us not to work’ punches, the ‘I have to do what you do but after a hard days work’, the ‘do you not get bored’ the ‘what do you do all day’ most of these have been said to me in real life.

hilariously when I went back to work it was ‘oh your poor dh is going to have to pick up the slack, isn’t he?’ and ‘oh the poor kids, they won’t be used to being stuck in a childminders’, told it was crazy … actually op as a mum people will get you any way they can!

I think as long as you have respect for yourself and your choices you can’t really demand it from everyone else. And there’s nothing harder than working full time, having to be accountable to your boss, and also having young children. SAHM just isn’t comparable.

I think you will find that working full-time, looking after kids and doing household chores is even more challenging.

I teach 34 11 year olds all day, on lunch duty today so I ate a sandwich standing up and I don't pee all day either so I think it depends on your job too! I love the summer with my own kids because it's a break.

But I think parenting is hard no matter what we do. It is all consuming and life changing no matter what. It's challenging for different reasons whatever path you choose but I would seriously ignore any comments or critics because it's nobodies bloody business.

Oh I am so fed up of this having children is a lifestyle trope. No, the kids of today are the future of this country who will be paying for your retirement and looking after our generation by taking on the jobs of being doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters etc to name a few.

There are too many variables. Age/number of kids, family support, sharing the load with your partner, health needs, the type of job etc.

For me, being a hospital consultant working full-time in the NHS and having to collect and come home with my two nursery-aged kids, was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done. Being a stay at home mum would have been a walk in the park in comparison for me.

I’m a SAHM and I appreciate your post a great deal, thank you. Thank you so much for recognising this often unseen care work which is undervalued by society.

When my second child was born, my eldest was 2 3/4 and at home full time (started his 15 hours at Nursery term after third birthday). I felt very torn between meeting both of their separate needs alone (e.g. every time my DD needed to feed my DS needed the potty without fail! One would cry whilst I helped the other. My DD’s first nap was then so disrupted by my DS’s toddler groups, etc). I had been used to looking after 1 child, and found the first 6 months with both emotionally tough as I felt I was failing one or the other.

One day I was called to collect my DS from Nursery which disrupted my DD’s lunch, he vomited over her pram en route home. I had to pop her in the travel cot, bath my son, the scrub the buggy in the garden. As you describe, I was constantly busy going from task to task constantly on my own. Things are much, much easier now they are 6 and 3 😂

Thank you again for showing your recognition and support. Please know that I also hugely admire my many working Mum friends, and all that they juggle too 😊