Misuse of SAHM terminology

[NotEnoughKnittingTime]

Am I being unreasonable for getting slightly irritated when mothers describe themselves as SAHM when they actually work outside the home? Often see this on tiktok!

See also Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. They ALL work! And not all of them lived in BH.

On fairness to the women who describe their sahm years as project management, I have used the 'how to talk so toddlers will listen' book guidance very useful for dealing with colleagues. "I can see you're frustrated seth, the problem is that you lost the company £6 million..let's think of some strategies to regain that"

That’s because you work full time. It is HARD to do around a full time job with work stuff also filling your brain, and time pressures and juggling.

It is not hard, or time consuming, to do home and child admin when that is all you do. It’s hard when you also have deadlines, management, a house to clean AND you also want to spend a bit of time with your children. Fitting in the home admin is then a challenge.

Ha ha unironically have done this.

Hahaha

I’m a hospital consultant and am the one to stay home when DS is sick (DH is self employed and isn’t paid if he doesn’t work). I also do the school pick up and drop offs (work in the evening/weekends to make up time.

Who knew I was a SAHM all these years when I thought I was a doctor? 🤣

I agree. Especially when many of the ' I have 10 kids and I'm such a brilliant SAHM' types are selling their lifestyles as an agenda. Particularly the US Christian fundamentalists selling their 'child, kitchen, church' far Right agendas while they spend probably an entire working week curating their content, their children's every move being engineered for profit while they pretend they are SAHM's. Anyone else It doesn't really matter whether they work and call themselves sahm's.

I was ( possibly still am) a SAHM for the whole of my DC's childhoods but have always done some sort of volunteering role outside of the home since they both started at pre school. I've never been a 100% SAHM but I've not done a day of paid work since they were born.

DC now 19 (in full time work) and 17 ( full time college and part time work)

I still have to be there for DD 17 as she has a chronic health condition that requires alot of managing by me and a mild learning difficulty and anxiety and depression.

I would struggle to hold down a paid job around her needs as I'm constantly there to run her to hospital and other medical appointments. At the moment I feel like I'm her PA juggling her medical appts around her ever changing work rota and college timetable.

I am able to do two volunteering roles and am also busy as an elected local councillor ( unpaid) My DH steps up and covers DD's appointments if ever there is an unavoidable clash.

There is clearly no accurate definition of what a SAHM is. I've been on this site for 20 years now and I've read so many posts criticising or debating the role of SAHMs but never ever have I received any judgment or negativity from anyone in my real life.

Nannies and childminders aren't SAHM, they are working parents with jobs they can take their children along to.

Very few SAHMs have a 'lifestyle agenda' though. Nobody needs to be 100% SAHM, or 100% anything for that matter. What a weird way of looking at life.

There may be a woman who does a couple of hours work (online or otherwise) or volunteers or does charity work or something a few days a week, when the kids are at school. I suppose the OP would be starting a thread in a froth that that OMG this woman is not a real SAHM. But would this woman actually care and why does it matter? And what does it have to do with anyone else anyway? The fact is, the woman may have left a full time corporate career for the flexibility to focus on her children without the distraction and demands imposed by her previous role. So, from HER perspective (and that of her family) she is a SAHM. The end.

As I said, SAHMs do many many things, as opportunities present and life evolves. They have nothing to prove to anyone else or anything to even answer for.

I think it matters, because it puts pressure on women and devalues both work and staying at home. people who work to a significant amount (i.e. more than 10%) are very different in their needs (pension, time, social) than people who work more. People looking after kids have different needs than people who do not.
Being a childminder is work, with obligations and paperwork etc to accompany it. But it gives the person some financial independence, as a self employed person (pension and security implications!).
A SAHP has more time but a lot less financial independence and likely no extra pension.
A person working 50% in an office has again different needs and benefits

I wouldn’t worry about what people call themselves on TikTok. Being a SAHM there is usually a political or religious statement about the role of women. It’s just convenient that it happens to be monetizable. Ties right in with the revolting adherents to the ‘prosperity gospel’.

IRL I don’t see a reason to care either. I assume someone calls themselves SAHM that’s how they see themselves. They still might make a financial contribution to the household via an investment property or doing the occasional paid work or whatever.

I did laugh at the poster who thinks women at home who are the ‘poor wee things’ who then work at night are SAHMs, this is literally how hospitals are staffed. Typically by women who are working full-time, close to full-time or way more than full-time!

When I was a carer for an older kid, I didn't necessarily want to discuss his special needs with everyone.

I got into a professional job after a long break - I'm glad the interviewers weren't so judgey!!

Roles in HR and recruitment are going to be virtually disappearing very soon due to AI. As a many other roles. The way people work will look very different. Consider whether AI can do what you or your department can do, more effectively and in a second. We all need to think more flexibly and future-proof ourselves. .

This is what it was like when I was at home.

When my eldest daughter was a toddler, I watched a distant cousin's similar aged son a few mornings a week. The extra cash was welcome and it helped her out with some flexible care while she was at her 9 to 5 job and her dh did shiftwork in a factory.

When my kids were a bit older, I had a friend's two kids ft, and essentially they were just thrown in with my own kids. Their parents both worked 9 to 5. But I wouldn't have done it had I needed to be like a proper day care with a program, or staying home all day. They came on errands, did swim lessons, everything that we all did.

For a short period of a few months, as a favour to a friend in a tricky employment shift, I had her older kids, and taught them school. Would never have done that for too long.

I did a few research contracts when my kids were older. We home educated then, so I worked in the evenings mainly. It was a little extra cash in hand to buy a new fridge or something like that, I couldn't have sustained it long term.

When my oldest was old enough to babysit a bit, I took a job 2 hours at lunch time tutoring. That was closest to a "real" job, but had been incompatible, I'd have left the job.

After that I had no job for a bit, and then another with a few hours a week while kids were at school, and then I went back to work in a regular job, and had to make childcare arrangements. Then my dh retired and he is the SAHP who takes care of all things at home so he can do pick ups and drive kids around as needed. Though he does a little consulting on the side from time to time.

It's not cut and dried but it's pretty clear to me where the line was in both cases between sahp and wp.

Some are and some are not. I've done many years of taking care of other people's children, and it was not me "bringing my kids to work" It was people, generally ones I knew through some other part of my life, leaving their kids at my home, with me, on my terms. Which is their kids do the things my kids are doing.

I worked as a nanny before I had children and it was not at all the same.

Yeah I guess providing black market childcare isn't really a job 😂

I have a friend whose insurance was invalidated because she said she was claiming unemployment benefits at the time so they said she was classed as unemployed. She now has to declare that she has this so her insurance is sky high.

you have to be careful what you put or it can cause havoc in the future.

I've noticed that Mumsnet seems to have a significant bias against SAHMs, and there appears to be a strong undercurrent of dislike towards them here. Topics related to SAHMs and similar subjects often spark heated discussions, with insults sometimes cleverly disguised as something else.

It goes both ways on here.

Working mums are selfish and materialistic
Working mums shouldn’t have bothered having children for nursery to raise them
Working mums don’t watch their children grow up

etc etc

I also hear a lot of mums on tik tok who have partners / husbands say things like “I’m a single parent for the day” or “watch me do a night of solo parenting”

I know that also ruffles feathers!

This is a really interesting thread and yes definitely grey areas. I will say people shouldn’t ask questions as to why people are still sahms when their kids are in school, great those people asking can find childcare or have access to eg school transition get kids home, some people don’t and can’t find jobs that work around getting kids home, it was actually why I left one of my jobs, the constant arguments myself and dh were having with managers over getting time off or getting home (fair enough although in fairness we both always made up for it)

Also there's days my kids don’t get the full and proper help with homework or dinner is snacks or a rushed job at night because we’ve both been out at work and they’re being minded by their older brother, a neighbour or in a friend’s house (childcare is really hard to come by around here)

There’s advantages to both but there are definitely dropped standards all round here since I’ve increased hours at work (and I only work 30 hours, not even full time!)

learn something new from mumsnet everyday😂❤

Ps I think if you earn a wage either by your business/‘hobby’ (a business!) or job, you aren’t a sahm. That’s your job!

That makes no sense though because lots of people receive passive income from investment portfolios or property, which take very little time (if any) day to day. They wouodnt call it a job.