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.

Again, I'd direct you to the search facility.

Stay off the Internet. In real life, everyone i know is very nice and respectful to the two SAHMs I know. And they are also nice to me as a working mum.

The only issue arises when your own DH and family don't respect you. But that's a marital issue really.

Thank you but I don't need anyone to direct me anywhere.

This is exactly what the OP was trying to say and honestly reading through all the responses has been so depressing and proves the OPs point perfectly.
Why are we so judgemental? I've recently returned to work part time whilst my DS was only just turning one and I still remember those first few days at work when I realised I could actually doom scroll a bit on my phone in peace without worrying that DS would knock into a piece of furniture because I wasn't watching.
I have at least one day a week where I'm at home with toddler and DH isn't around for most of the day and I'm madly cramming in as much housework as possible and meal prep to make my days at work smoother and I get comments from colleagues about how I'm hardly in or did I have a nice day off?, I nod and say it's was lovely thanks - but they have no idea that day was also pretty full on.
So please can we just stop putting mother's down? Regardless of whether they work or not. FFS before I joined this forum I never thought Mumsnet of all places would be a place filled with so much judgement and belittling of SAHMs.
And to all the comments about 'Do mothers deserve a medal just for deciding to start a family?' well now you mention it, yeah, why the fuck not? Can mine be presented in a box with a ribbon please?
P.s You're welcome for the future extra tax payer x

All that has happened here is a woman on maternity leave feels a bit 'in the trenches' with it all and has commented that women who are at home with kids all day longer term perhaps have it harder than most people might appreciate.

That's it. So what?

If you are really so insecure that you take that as some sort of 'attack' on mums who work, I'm afraid nobody can help you.

The handful of people who compulsively gravitate to dominate every thread about SAHMs for years on end have little self-awareness. No woman should feel that insecure and I find it depressing reading.

I think it depends on the household division of labour - many working Mums with useless men do everything you are talking about plus a full day at work. I strongly believe in both parents working, if only to protect the woman if the guy becomes a knob later on, but the only way it truly works fairly is if the man also does his fair share domestically.

Why aren’t we seeing more men working 4 days a week then?

Why would you (singular) have lost out more? Why not we?

(Why, in 2025, are women still the default child rearers?)

This in heaps.

No 1, this wasn't in 2025, not that it's relevant.
No 2, I paid the childcare he paid the mortgage. Clearly if I had given up work he would have had to cover all the expenses within the household. Obviously.
No 3, why in 2025, are wohms put down for their choice?
No 4, I don't care what any woman does. That part of my life is done anyway. It's galling to read some of the comments though, and if I wish to refute them, I will do so as often as I wish over as many threads as I want to (not that I am one of the posters you are complaining about) - but surely if you know these posters are all over such threads, this means you were on them too? Pot kettle?
No 5, "The handful of people who compulsively gravitate to dominate every thread about WOHMs for years on end have little self-awareness. No woman should feel that insecure and I find it depressing reading".

I think you’ve mixed up which posters you are quoting. :-/

but in response to the bits relevant to me:

Parenting should be a joint responsibility. We’ve spent decades demanding equality and should be pushing back against the assumption that women will do it all at home and for their children. It has a direct impact on other women/gender pay gap/their own independence if they become literal slaves to the home to protect (usually) male interests. (And then they come here and moan that their partner does fuck all to “help”.)

A big part of the above is the oft spoken line of “it wasn’t worth me going to work when all my wages would go on childcare”. All costs relating to children should be shared. Yes, you paid the childcare in practical terms, but this statement perpetuates the myth that childcare is women’s work and if they don’t do it, they are responsible for paying for it.

I’ve not said anything about WOHM. As I work 200 miles from my child for half the month in the interests of my career, it would be pretty hypocritical for me to have a negative view about working mothers!

It isn't worth a woman's while working if childcare swallows up most of, or her entire wage. Simple economics. There has to be a net gain to make it worthwhile for the couple. Though the woman could be the higher earner. That has fluctuated between DH and me throughout our marriage.

If she wants to work despite that, well then the couple needs to facilitate that.

I didn't mix up anything. It was a general response to the 'points' made.

You don’t get it. It’s clear, because it’s still all about the woman’s wage and childcare costs to you.

I was hoping for a different world for my DD. One with fewer dinosaurs.

"Simple" is the right word for your statement. It's entirely short-term and doesn't consider the rest of the woman's working life or her pension. Economics isn't simple.

I'm probably one of the posters that people see regularly popping up on these threads. I make no apology for that. I'm long since done with my own child raising, and if i may say so, I think I did a bloody good job of it, so this is not at all about me and my choices. It's about what I want for our society and for future generations.

Becoming a SAHP ruined my mum's life and destroyed her mental health. I want my dd to grow up in an environment where women aren't guilt tripped for wanting careers as well as families, where men pull their weight and where employers are flexible for all of their staff in recognition of the fact that we all have lives outside of work.

I don't ever put SAHPs down, and I have no issue at all with people choosing this option if that's what they want and what works best for their own families. Where I do take issue is when SAHPs start demanding societal respect for being a SAHP, as if it is somehow a better way of being a parent. OR where people seek to put down WOH mothers or imply that their kids will somehow suffer as a result of the fact that they work. There isn't the evidence to back this up and it seems to be more about validating their own lifestyle choices than anything to do with the children. So I will continue to challenge this kind of nonsense because I've seen too many women plagued by guilt even when their kids are positively thriving. I was lucky in that I never felt any guilt about my choices...I want my dd and her peers to have that freedom.

What do you mean by that?

What don't you understand?

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves wins the thread. Brilliant post which I completely agree with.

Indeed. My aunt married and had children late in life, having taught her way into and up the civil engineering world. Two kids in short succession and she “had to” give it up. (Her husband was also a civil engineer but couldn’t possibly step off the ladder and part time wasn’t a thing in the industry at the time.)

She eventually went to work as a TA at a local high school.

She is the most bitter, resentful person you could ever meet. Her children give her a wide berth. Goodness knows how she impacted the kids she worked with.

"Where I do take issue is when SAHPs start demanding societal respect for being a SAHP, as if it is somehow a better way of being a parent."

Did the OP use the word 'societal?' NO.

Did she use the word 'better?' NO.

These are all your words @MrsBennetsPoorNerves. Well not only you - mainly other people who seem hell bent on finding criticism where none is intended. Then they use the thread as a vehicle to project insecurity. Because, whatever you say and no matter how many times you try to convince yourselves if the contrary, insecurity is all it is.

This thread is NOTHING to do with working mums in any shape or form. Read the OP again - any mention of them at all?

Again, the thread is just a mum, on maternity, feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all and so she's reflecting that being at home with babies all day is harder than some people may appreciate.

Nothing about 'society.'
Nothing about comparisons with any other lifestyle - working or not.

The fact that some mums who happen to work, can't seem to read a perfectly innocuous post by a woman struggling on maternity without projecting words that simply aren't there and making it all about them (ie. a criticism about the fact they work) is very sad in 2025. Aren't we past this now?

Appreciating SAHMs needn't take anything away from anyone - working mum, childless woman, man, pensioner or alien. It's not a 'respect' competition, it's not an 'who has it hardest' competition either and, most definitely, if you are one of the ubiquitous 'WOHM' posters, it's not all about you! It's about maternity leave or SAHM-ing being hard in its own way.

And when the posters-who-know-who-they-are repeat their statement "I don't have a problem with SAHMs... " - oh that's kind of you. Do you think SAHMs should be grateful for your gracious statement that you don't have a problem with their existence? Ffs!

If you can't understand how odiously patronising this is - try switching any other demographic into that statement - "I don't have a problem with..." Black mums? LGBT mums?

The point is, it shouldn't need to be stated.

It isn't insecurity though. No matter how much you might want it to be. So perhaps that's you projecting, not me.

I have literally nothing to be insecure about. I couldn't be any prouder of the person that my dd has become, and there isn't any aspect of of our relationship that I would change. Indeed, I am hypercritical of almost every aspect of my life but parenting is the one area where I genuinely feel that I wouldn't have done anything differently. There are no insecurities here.

As for the OP, she stated that SAHPs "deserve more respect". Deserve it from whom? I think that they deserve respect from their own immediate families, of course, but I'm not sure that they "deserve" respect from wider society, which I think is the clear implication of the OP's post. Why do they deserve this, simply by virtue of being a SAHP? Do WOHMs also "deserve more respect"? If so, why not focus on all mothers and not just SAHPs? If it was simply a post about mat leave or new motherhood being hard, why not just say that?

Many of us have seen these threads before. We know how they go. You can kid yourselves that they aren't seeking to put SAHPs on a pedestal, but there is no point to them otherwise. We all care for our kids.

And BTW, your comparison of discussions around lifestyle choice with issues such as racism or homophobia is ridiculous.

Oh come on trying to position SAHMs as some persecuted minority is just ridiculous. You can't possibly compare being a SAHM, which was the default setting for most mothers until about 20 years ago, with being a member of an ethnic minority which is a protected characteristic. Yes some people are snobbish about SAHMs and make sarcastic comments but this is a million miles away from being some downtrodden and victimised group.

On the point about respect, yes of course everyone deserves respect. I feel like this has been said many times (not least by me) but respect for anyone raising children should be a given.

But its not the working mums who pop up again and again on Mumsnet saying they want additional and respect for raising their children. And certainly it isn't the working mums positioning themselves as minorities.

If you started a thread saying "I'm working a 50 hour week and I have 2 kids and I'm finding it a lot and I think women who do this aren't appreciated enough...."

Then someone, who wasn't working a 50 hour week with 2 kids came on with -

"Why do you need 'special adulation' - why do you need more respect, over and above me than me? Why do you think you're better than me? Why does SOCIETY need to give you respect than other people?"

Would that sound unhinged or not?

And then if the non-working poster followed it up with - "I have no problem with working mums but...,"