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'm afraid I think you're shockingly naive and I hope my children will be a lot less naive when they grow up.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom

I don't even understand who she wants more respect from.

This is exactly the point I tried to make several pages ago and was accused of whataboutery.

Its never clear who is supposed to be providing this enhanced respect and how it is supposed to manifest.

And when you point out that working mothers are entitled to equal levels of respect someone invariably says society respects them more that SAHMs. There is never evidence for this.

But here we are (again).

I rather think it's you that's not getting it.

Both sides of the argument are equally guilty of putting down the other! Where's the respect there? Like the accusations that working mums don't rear their own children. Or what was the point of having children if you weren't going to be at home with them? Or other similar crapology.

I am sick of seeing posts here where posters are preening and self-congratulatory because they're so full of their own superiority and better quality parenting having stayed at home. I don't give a flying monkey's because I am happy with the choices I made and would do the same again. My children are adults and I know that I did a fucking amazing job! It's galling though to see that same bollocks posited, but I have come to the conclusion that some people are just limited in their level of understanding.

Look stay at home or don't stay at home. I don't give a hoot. There's no one way of parenting that is better than another. Plenty of kids grow into confident, productive adults no matter what their childcare arrangements were when they were little, and by the same token plenty fall by the wayside. You can't tell any difference. Same as you couldn't ever discern a difference between my breastfed children and my friend's bottle-fed children as adults. It's all about the quality of your parenting and not the methodology!

@MissScarletInTheBallroom How am I naive? I am now 53. I've known my DH since uni. Nobody gave us anything ever. We came from nothing. Together we have built a life together and supported each other as a team. We have put three children through independent schools in SW London. We own several central London properties and others overseas with no mortgages. We are putting kids though uni with no loans and will buy them properties when the time comes. If I was to leave this marriage tomorrow, I would leave with more money than I could have earned in about 20 lifetimes, given what I used to do - and I am educated to Masters level. I would still not need to work if I didn't want to. I am not stupid and would not have been a SAHM if I hadn't 100% wanted to do this or it was a financial risk. Do you think I would expose my children to that? I made my decisions in the context of the man I married and the opportunities presented to us along the way. In another marriage or financial context, I may well not have been a SAHM. It is what it is. How am I naive exactly?

You are spot on that one thing’s for sure- our children all have their own personalities, temperaments and preferences independently of us and our parenting. Whatever decisions we all make, and I believe we all try our absolute best to make decisions we believe are right (these passionate debates absolutely prove how much we all love and care), who knows where they will all end up in the future? Will our children remember/care/be as influenced by the millions of decisions we make for them from 0-18? I actually think we all have less control over that than we like to believe, and it’s scary! Siblings within families can also differ hugely.

You sound like someone who has led a pretty sheltered life and been very lucky.

I didn't have a sheltered childhood at all. Quite the opposite. DH's early life was horrendous. We have been lucky since uni I guess and I'm very grateful for every day. But it's not all down to luck.

To me in the end the real question is why are women constantly held to standards that men are not.
There is evidence that women have to perform better at work to be perceived as being as effective as men.
Mothers who work outside them home with are regularly criticised for not being good enough parents (I’ve never known this be the case for men).
Women who don’t work outside the home are regularly criticised for being lazy in some way (in that case I think to some degree you’ll see a similar criticism levelled at men from some people but equally many gush over how amazing they are).
Women collectively are sold an idea of having it all but as a society what we generally expect is that they do it all & they do it well & they are consistently polite, pleasant and ideally pretty while they do it.

I feel like I largely have managed to “have it all”. Good career/earnings, flexible work allowing time with kids & for some leisure activities, nice home & lots of choices. That said it requires a huge amount of effort, I have a husband who actually operates as a partner (which seems to be unusual), we have a great network of friends who help each other out and are close to family and we live in a cheaper part of the county so our money goes further. I feel like I’ve been lucky and even in fortunate circumstances it’s still a real juggle sometimes keeping everything going well.

I agree with @spaceisfree that more access to flexible working would be a massive bonus for people. Imagine if back when women started working instead of it becoming the norm to have 2 people working full time we’d seen men stepping back so that everyone worked 2-4 days and everyone had 3-5 days away from work giving them more family time. I can see how that could have been better all round. With or without kids imagine how nice it would be if it was pretty normal for everyone to work 15-30 hours a week and house prices hadn’t ballooned as household incomes rose. I know it’s not quite that simple but a model along those lines when things like automation and AI were supporting people working less hours for similar pay vs making billions for a tiny number of people could create a very different type of society and it could well be a better one.

Your points about women experiencing abuse are of course valid and I respect those. Any woman who’s been escaped an abusive relationship would of course want to hold onto her future job, independence etc. very tightly with both hands, I fully appreciate and respect that.

Many such relationships are not tainted by abuse of potential abuse though, and operate successfully for years as harmonious partnerships. It’s give and take- should my husband suffer from long term illness/want a career change himself, I would of course return to work. Similarly, as I used to be the breadwinner, he actually offered to be a SAHD/swap at any time if I had preferred to continue progressing my career. It really was my first choice to be a SAHM. Roles are fluid, I’m sure I’ll be a working Mum in the future, or a single Mum should be husband die, so I view all options with interest and respect (I don’t take anything in life for granted!).

I guess the take away is that trying to generalise for either SAH or WOH parents is so difficult as there are too many individual differences to account for. I still stand by that we all have more in common than not anyway.

I think that's only your perception tbh. I've never felt particularly "respected" because I always worked full-time. I don't recall ever particularly thinking about it at all! It's not something that ever has mattered to me.

I really can't comprehend how it's harder to be at home. I've heard it said that you're supposed to be a mum like you don't work, and work like you don't have children. I found weekends, days off, leave, so much less stressful and more relaxed. Much less pressure. There are so many competing demands that are more easily managed if you have the space to do so.

People will say, "oh the house doesn't get so dirty when you're not there all day". Well I don't know about you, but my dust has never got that memo! The bathrooms are used sufficiently that they need to be cleaned just as often. My windows never got less dirty because we were out of the house part of the day. Clothes needed washed and dried. Beds needing changed. Coming back in the evening to face the breakfast dishes that you could get washed during the day. The commute is a lot easier at home too!

As for going to the toilet in peace, I think I preferred my children coming with me to perching praying not to fart because Sheila from Accounts went into the stall beside yours.

Or waiting until everyone has left because you've done a smelly poo and you don't want anyone to know that it was you. Yeah, relaxing. Not.

And then there's family admin/responsibilities. Nobody ever considers that you might work outside the home! You ring the GP, and they're calling you back. By the time they call, you're sitting in a room with 30 other people, and no, your piles are personal to you. Or you're in a meeting when they call. The wohm are in your house in private to take the call, or can step out to take it.

You get home from work at 6pm to a note saying can little Jane please bring in a pair of brown tights tomorrow because she's a robin in the Christmas play. Jane does not have brown tights. Whereas the sahm would have known about this by 2pm and could have rustled up a pair from a friend, or nipped into a shop.

You've done your second school drop off and you're about to drive to work when you get a call to say Johnny has forgot his guitar again so can you bring it? You do, and then you're driving in traffic in a cold sweat in case you're very late to work. (I did learn to tell Johnny to fuck off in the end, it was too stressful!!)

Why is it so hard to be at home when that is where you want to be?!

Then why bother letting them go to uni at all?

I was the first in my immediate family to go to uni. We grew up nevertheless in the expectation that we would go. My parents fervently believed in education. My dad used to say things like, "you'll probably just give it all up when you have children" (now give the man a break before you say anything; he would be 100 now if he was still with us). It made me utterly determined that I would never do that. I hope he's proud of me wherever he is.

My mother worked two jobs, in a family business from home and a PT job outside the home. Our motivation in life did not come from our mum's work status. It was because we were intrinsically motivated and supported.

My elder two are graduates with postgrads working in careers where it would be difficult to envisage AI replacing them. My youngest is thinking of a career as an accountant or economist, but is resourceful and will no doubt adapt to whatever comes along.

It's not always easy to get back into the workforce. My SAHM was a director in a training provider but there were no openings for her after 20 years away. She had to start small and retrain, and while she's done really well in moving from job to job, she will never be anywhere near where she could have been and now is almost 60.

I will freely admit, I will be disappointed if my daughters took anything longer than a short break out of their careers, because there is no doubt it holds you back, in comparison to men who plough on regardless of being a father.

I would hate to limit myself in terms of choice of career in case I ever wanted to take some time out! I didn't even know if I wanted children at the point in time where I was beginning my career, and was fairly negative about the whole concept until I was older!

That's nonsense about Gen Z "showing a huge shift", certainly in my experience. All three of my children are Gen Z so I know a hell of a lot of young people of that age, and I am not seeing any shift, let alone a huge one!

My mum would have loved us all to be teachers so that it would have given us some flexibility when we had children. One of the three of us did. This only added to the very many reasons I was not cut out for teaching...!

My eldest Gen Z turns 28 this year! Degree, postgrad, professional career, own house and car.

Yep, so different to my generation and the generations before hers!

So what's your definition of "success" then?

Personally I think your ideas on 28 year olds are way, way stranger!

I've been thinking my way round my children's friends and peers, and no, there's definitely no shift in attitude amongst them.

I don't think it's fair to describe them as not "knowing their arse from their elbow" although I do detect a certain entitlement in some of them. Not mine - because they've had got their arses handed to them - and not any of their peers that I know.

My dad was a uni lecturer. Neither of his daughters went to uni. (I’m finishing an OU degree now that I’ve done for the hell of it.)

Given the absolute state of universities now, I won’t be encouraging my daughter to go unless she has a very definite career path in mind.

28 year olds are the oldest in Gen Z. The youngest are 13. There has absolutely been a shift for this group and it is evident in lots of research and also statistics. I'm not saying it's all been positive as it certainly hasn't been, but their attitudes as a generation are notably different than the generations that proceed them.

I find it stranger than someone would say that a 28 year old was just out of nappies, was unlikely to have children and wouldn't have a management role. The average age of women having their first child is 29 so it really isn't that far off the national average. As with all things there will be a distribution either side of the mean so a significant number of these 28 year olds will have children older than the poster who was accussing them of lacking experience.

Loads of 28 year olds are in relatively senior positions. Of course, most won't have reached their career peak but I was in management position at 28 and this wasn't at all unusual.

Have you read my post? Going to university allowed me to get a great graduate job, build a career and pivot to a different industry when I took a few years out to be a SAHM. I think my degree was a fantastic investment for me as an individual and the country.

Of course it isn't always easy to get back into work after time out. That's my whole point! Future proof yourself and make your skills as transferable and desirable as possible. This isn't just for those who want to be SAHPs, carers, travel etc but for everyone in such a changing world. The career security previous generations have enjoyed won't be an option for many of today's young people.

I did car (17), house (19), professional career (21), post-grad (30), degree (47). 🤭

Yes same as one of my DDs. In management at 27. Also had a 5 year old at the time. And wasn't a single parent, her child ( and one she had since,) were both with her husband

I expect the OP is just being goady, but if it’s so damn difficult being at home with a 5 month old and 3 year old she could always go back to work sooner. In fact there are benefits to returning after 6 months as she’ll have full rights to return to her previous post, whereas after a whole year, the company is quite within their rights to restructure and offer a different role as long as its equivalent level and remuneration. After all, 6 months used to be maximum mat leave, prior to that it was 3 months.

But I suspect she knows which side her bread is buttered and knows that breastfeeding a baby and then getting both children out to childcare before doing a day’s work, then returning to cook dinner and do the laundry will be much more demanding!

The thing is, difficult means different things.

OK so her morning will be manic. But she may well have 8 hours of sitting in a warm office, plenty of hot drinks, interesting adult conversation. She might have lots of driving around which she enjoys as she listens to a good podcast. She might get a quiet lunch break to relax or spend with her friends.
Then home to a house that's been empty all day so is clean, wish tea for the kids who have already been fed numerous times.

VS two kids who can't sleep, play out poo without assistance, a two year old who cries outside the toilet every time she goes to pee, a constant mess, different meals, washing piling up, noone to meet up with during the day etc.

Of course she might have an incredibly arduous job, quiet well behaved kids, a great network of SAHMs. There isn't one #Team that definitively has or harder than the others. Some one else's hardship doesn't detract from how hard you find a different role

like I said, the OP is free to return to work if it’s so much easier…..

OP works FT but is on maternity leave. I don't think people necessarily opt to curtail their maternity leave just because they find being at home with the children harder than work. She may well feel that having this time with her very young children is important for bonding and doesn't want to put a 5 month old in FT nursery.

I find it strange that you assume that everyone should just do what's easiest or they lose the right to moan. By your logic WOHMs that find balancing work and children hard should just be SAHPS if they can afford to do this or quit moaning. There are obvious reasons why someone might choose the harder option.