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.

It’s a choice though isnt it. If they choose to stay home then presumably it’s what they want to do. They could get back into work, even part time work if they wanted to. Childcare and free funding exist.
I don’t disrespect them and I don’t think being home with dc all the time is easy at all. But I do think it is a privilege to be able to have that choice.

I think your post is really interesting but what about this thought - raising healthy, well-behaved, educated or skilled children who will be an asset to society when grown up IS one of the best things SAHP, usually mums, CAN do for society.

If we actually saw raising the next generation as a worthwhile job, instead of just letting them grow up next to us, then SAHPs would be considered very high status.

Your argument suggests that contributing to the economy now whilst being a working parent is better than doing your best to ensure your children will contribute in the future as well.

(I will add it's not that simple - everyone is different- that may not be the motivation for SAHPs and the high-achieving kids I see come from families with both SAHPS and working parents. )

But surely you realise that those of us who work still do most of the housework as well?

I had a much easier time on mat leave than I did when I went back to work.

No the research doesn't show that it's related to gaps in employment. It shows that childbearing has an impact full stop. If women carry on working or not the gap grows. This is because women tend to take more flexible jobs, work PT and prefer jobs with better leave arrangements. They are more likely to move to the relatively modestly paid public sector.

Having children is hugely constraining. Women typically take the brunt of this whether they work or not. You will notice in my anecdotal examples that a limiting factor on all the women was the children.

In comparison to many things like what?

I don't actually think mothers working in vape shops get more respect than SAHMs though, so I think your examples are facetious. Or maybe they show that yes, we do accord respect roughly in the basis of specific merits!

Anyway, no, I don't believe that all external work is good for society. On balance, however, it is reasonable to presume that people who work outside the home are productive in some way.

I think your post is really interesting but what about this thought - raising healthy, well-behaved, educated or skilled children who will be an asset to society when grown up IS one of the best things SAHP, usually mums, CAN do for society.
If we actually saw raising the next generation as a worthwhile job, instead of just letting them grow up next to us, then SAHPs would be considered very high status.

That thought is exactly why the SAHP narrative gets people’s backs up. Most working parents are raising healthy, well-behaved, educated and skilled children who will be an asset to society, they are certainly not just “letting them grow up next to us”. We are just working and contributing in other ways as well. And there are plenty of non-working parents out there doing a shite job and neglecting their children, with consequences for all of us.

I don't respect SAHMs any more or less than anyone else and I'm not sure why I should. It's a life decision like any other.

It's very confusing to see SAHMs claim that it's harder than going to work though - you see complaints here all the time about husbands getting out of the house, as if a stressful job is some sort of jolly. And it's utterly absurd to claim being a SAHM is harder than being a working mother.

Also, ultimately being a parent is something mothers and fathers choose to do. You did so because ultimately you derive pleasure and satisfaction from raising children. I don't deny that it can be hard work - that's why I chose not to do it! - but ultimately it's the thing you chose to devote your life to, rather like my horsey friends has devoted her life to horses. That also looks like very hard, time-consuming and expensive work, but she doesn't claim she should be respected any more than anyone else just because of what her hobby is.

No, I am saying that many working mums raise well-adjusted wonderful humans too. This is not unique to SAHMs at all.

The added value, to society, of the extra wonderfulness kids achieve as a result of their mum being SAH, is tiny.

I do not actually believe people should necessarily work. I am just saying most people intuit that motherhood is hard; but that staying home does tend to make it easier, not harder; and that the benefits are for the individual family unit, not society at large.

WHICH IS FINE.

But you don't need extra respect of external people for prioritizing your own family unit.

And if you think no SAHMs are facilitating the careers and living off the earnings of men working in jobs that actively harm society you are very naive also. Unless you are facilitating a man who is doing great things for society he couldnt do without you, and using your own spare time volunteering for worthy causes, there is no moral high ground to be claimed from opting out of all paid work just because some paid work isn't beneficial to society.

Agree 100% - although I had an easy job and difficult children 😁

One of the bizarrest things about this site is how chauvinistic some women are about other women. If some of the crap people post about SAHM were being spouted by men there'd be outrage.

It is hard being at home to young children, there's more mess, it's all on you and your ability to perform basic tasks and think are massively constrained. TBH I don't consider it a massive social win that paid work is still hugely valued over any form of care work, whether that be caring voluntarily (SAHM, caregiving to disabled/sick relatives) or being a care worker professionally, which are often roles with low pay, afford little respect and people bitch and moan about paying the fees. Fucked up.

I don’t get the whole can’t go for a pee without the kids. My mum just used to put me in a play pen and then she would go. It never occurred to her to sacrifice her privacy and why should it?

@SomethingInnocuousForNow
@Caravaggiouch

what are jobs out of interest? You don’t have to be dead specific, I’m just curious! Never had an easy job!

I've been a working mum and now I'm a SAHM. I found returning to work full time after having my first baby difficult because I really struggled with missing out on so much time with him (I was out of the house 8am-6pm). I've been a SAHM for 3 years since having our second baby, it's not always easier but I have absolutely loved it and feel lucky I had the choice. My youngest will start preschool soon and I'm going back to work part time.

I don't think parents in general deserve more respect than anyone else, but they deserve not to be disrespected or face negative comments for their choices. I definitely felt more negativity when I went back to work (when my son was 8 months old and DH took SPL) than I have as a SAHM.

Completely agree with you OP, its without a doubt the hardest 'job' I've ever done and I've done all sorts. Going to work is so easy you get a break, you can pee when you want. People think you just wake up play with the kids and sit about all day but it's non stop.

It's difficult to say without causing a lot of upset (no one likes public servants having an easy job) but similar to civil servant - good pay, very enjoyable, very flexible and often manageable workload.

I agree with you I think respect where respect due . Instead it’s the opposite looked down on and a lack of respect for sure .

I think the problem is people forget how hard it was and look back with rose tinted glasses! I loved both my maternity leaves and it was a lovely time of my life - but also at the time it was very hard work too!

Again, being a SAHM means being your own boss. When I went back to work I actually couldn't go and pee whenever I wanted.

And given the choice between being up all night with the baby, but then being able to doze when they finally fell asleep when the sun rose, or had a nap, or having to get them up and dressed at 7 anyway, to get them to nursery and myself to work on no sleep, then getting through the day in a pressurised job with no option of napping, I'd 100% go with the former.

Like I say, I've done both, and while beginning a SAHM to little ones can be exhausting, at least I had control of my life back then.

No, women working in vape shops will be looked down on. Because they are the visible low hanging fruit in a despised industry. They are also a tiny part of an industry that indirectly dirties the hands of many of the high earning DHs, the bankers, the accountants, the lawyers, who can afford to keep a SAHM. Unless hubby makes no money from any harmful industry then the woman who lives off his earnings should be as much a target for judgment as the woman behind the counter selling vapes. Which is why its a really bad idea to try to bring ethics into the debate, when so few if us live off only 'clean' income, whether we earn it ourselves or someone else does.

I don't really understand this if I'm honest. Everyone deserves respect.

The only people who are likely to ‘respect’ you for looking after your own kids are you own family!
why should anyone else care???

Just saying that it's parents' work is insufficient though. You can say it all you please but women are the ones doing it. So yes we do need to call it mothers' work, to categorise it correctly. Likewise women working outside the home doesn't change what they end up doing in it. Women have always worked outside the home, apart from a small portion in a few countries. We've worked outside the home for hundreds of years but it hasn't stirred men to action within the home, not in any significant number.

Because if wider society doesn't value, doesn't understand, doesn't recognise unpaid work done at home, then wider society will never be a place where mothers (NOT fathers - fathers are doing just fine) are able to fulfil their true potential.