Stay at home parent

[123mother]

Why do people think a stay at home parent doesn't work? That they have so much time on their hands? Am I wrong in thinking I have less of a break then my partner brining in the pay check

For me on maternity leave it’s easier than my job. But not all children or jobs are created equal.

My job is quite stressful and if I could afford it I would be a SAHM. I work part time and I have a lot more time to myself on my days not at work.

The pure definition of a job is that you get received payment, so being a SAHP isn’t a job while working in a nursery is.

What a thing to say. It isn’t about who does it best. Lots of people who work have to work and do all the other things after work (childcare, washing, cooking). Stop posting controversial posts to pit women against women

On it !! :)

Running the world would be easier than being a SAHP to small children. Definitely not my comfort zone.

But then jobs you enjoy always feel a bit easier so for some I am sure it is in their sweet spot but I was far less stressed working FT with childcare than on maternity leave with a newborn and a toddler.

@MightyDandelionEsq

A parent being at home takes away the stress of drop offs, pickup, sickness from the parent in employment. A rather undervalued addition to the home.

Yes and this is something which working men with "facilitating" stay at home wives/partners ruthlessly take advantage of in the workplace at the detriment of working women who almost never have this "undervalued addition to the home". It's easy to swan around going to the pub/playing golf all the time if you never have to worry about what happens on the home front because the wife will pick it up.

But most working women still manage to get all the drop-offs, pickups, cleaning, cooking, caring for sick children etc done alongside our day jobs without claiming that we need a "facilitating" spouse.

Seriously, people should work or not work as suits them and organise their domestic setups as they see fit but please spare me the rhetoric about "he wouldn't have made it in his career without me managing on the home front".

If a man can't manage to do his job and manage his children and domestic labour without a "facilitating spouse" he's half as good as a working woman.

Being a SAHP has become almost taboo in this country, it went from most people needing two working parents to survive to people being expected to work, as not to be lazy, even if they don’t need to. I see it on here all the time, usually SAHM’s being ridiculed for not working as soon as their children are in school.

I knew when I had children they would have a SAHP for as long as possible. My mother was a single parent and worked hard to support us, this meant I was shipped off to relatives and friends constantly. I would arrive at school hours before it started, long before breakfast clubs existed, and dropped off by teachers back home after the school had closed. This was all out of necessity but it was awful, I just wanted to go home at 3 like everyone else.

My best friend growing up had a SAHM and she was wonderful. I actually had a stronger bond with her than my own mother because she was the one dealing with friend group dramas, grazed knees, cooking us dinner and taking us to the park. She had the freedom to pick us up if we were poorly at school, come on school trips as a parent helper, or come in to read with us. My own often couldn’t even attend parents evenings or take me to the hospital when I broke my arm.

My DH didn’t have a SAHP, but his mother worked in his primary school, on part time hours, to ensure she was with her children as much as possible. She even took him to secondary school and picked him up! By that point I had to fend for myself. He has a very close relationship with her as an adult and remembers an imperfect but happy childhood.

I knew that I didn’t want my children to be in childcare or with other people out of necessity, I actually felt so strongly about it that I wouldn’t have children if it wasn’t possible for one of us to stay at home. This isn’t to say it isn’t a valid choice for other people, I know people who planned for their childcare before they even gave birth because they had to/wanted to be back so quickly- no judgement at all.

I couldn’t really stay at home, as the main ‘breadwinner’, and because I clearly inherited being career driven, so my husband has taken on that role. I would support him in this indefinitely as I see it as an equally valuable job to mine. He handles the running of the household, care of the LO (and animals!), drop offs and pick ups when she’s at nursery, playing endlessly with her, taking her to play dates, family visits and activities etc. and it is healing for me that I know she is having the childhood I couldn’t have.

Generally speaking, when people do say this (which I honestly don't think is all that often) they tend to mean not in a paid position outside the home. It's not hard to understand, surely? And I'd say that in 99% of cases, it's not meant to disparage stay at home mothers.

But this argument is decades long and truly never-ending. I remember the halcyon days of SAHMs calling nurseries day orphanages and WOHM calling SAHMs anti-feminist lazy bums.

Most normal-thinking people really don't care either way, IMO.

I’m pregnant with my second too (congrats to you). I’m also taking extended leave.

My work days are far more relaxed than my home days with my first. The issue I have is the balancing act of childcare, sickness, stress if you’re up all night etc. So I don’t think being at home is easier (some days it’s relentless), What I think is it’s easier being able to allow the day to flow based on your child’s needs at that moment without the rush and expectation of being at work both physically and mentally. This is especially true during times of sickness, teething, separation anxiety etc.

My issue with a lot of posters is the complete disregard for the fact it is a worthwhile contribution to society as it is often downplayed as ‘just being a mum’. I think the SAHP (male or female as I know in my own circle both) should also be thanked for allowing the secondary parent the ability to focus on their career often unencumbered by the multiple spinning plates. Yes they can still be hands on, but it’s not to the same mental and physical strain in my opinion.

In fact, they are, by giving their unpaid labour. They are saving the cost of childcare and they are contributing domestic labour in the home, which is also something that otherwise would need to be paid for. So their contribution is equal to the wage-earner's.
Women's (and men's) contribution to the capitalist wheel should be reflected in GDP - some countries do this, the UK should start doing so. It wouldn't half show what an easy ride industry and commerce have had, not having to support the unpaid labour of (mostly) women.

Been both and I still think working is way easier than being a SAHP but I also have SEN children and the only break I get is when I leave the house alone. My home itself is not relaxing to me.

I think it depends not only on age but temperament of children and what kind of job you have.

I’ve found most of my paid work “easy” and I had breaks and times where no one was touching me, I could go to the loo alone and without being talked at, could have a meal without having someone in my face or taking food off my plate or attempting to and I wasn’t on constant alert or having to stop a child from doing xyz.

Also, work had a lot of quiet times where we were just looking for things to do to fill the time. I was happy balancing working and home. Plus, the children weren’t home so when I cleaned, I know things tended to stay clean vs having to clean up messes left and right being home with toddler, pulling them off of things, nap refusals, not sleeping through the night. Heck, even when my kids weren’t sleeping through the night and I was working, I at least had time to myself and could just relax and recharge without sleep.

Cost of childcare, I'll grant you. Although this can be fairly minimal once the children are in school if 2 parents can manage the pickups/drop offs between them.

But I've managed my whole life without paying for domestic labour in the home, as do the vast number of people not on MN (where apparently everyone has a cleaner).

@ghostofchristmaspasta

My best friend growing up had a SAHM and she was wonderful. I actually had a stronger bond with her than my own mother because she was the one dealing with friend group dramas, grazed knees, cooking us dinner and taking us to the park. She had the freedom to pick us up if we were poorly at school, come on school trips as a parent helper, or come in to read with us. My own often couldn’t even attend parents evenings or take me to the hospital when I broke my arm.

Your childhood was your childhood and you can do what you want, but I would respectfully suggest that this is a highly subjective take on your early life.

My mum was a SAHM for the vast majority of my childhood. She was a loving and lovely woman but she was visibly, viscerally unhappy, bored and trapped. She had a great career before having kids but, it being the 1970s/1980s, found it impossible to get back into the workforce after a long career break. She desperately wanted to go back to work and couldn't and boy did we know about it.

She was also as the woman you describe, always around, cooking dinner and dealing with grazed knees etc but there was also something very unfulfilled and dishonest about the way she interacted with us because she was so obviously so unhappy: she had no life outside looking after us and she bitterly resented it.

Obviously everyone is different. My point is that whether or not you do paid work outside the house doesn't define the quality of the parenting you provide your children. It's an intangible combination of things including your ability to give love, your sense of self-worth, your competence and, yes, your ability to provide for your children. I have an incredibly close bond with my daughter (who is now 15), despite having been (through no choice of my own) a working single parent who used childcare for eight hours a day for ten years. I can't give you any scientific data to validate this, but I can promise you it didn't impact the quality of my parenting.

I completely respect your decision to do whatever works best for you, but do those of us who haven't had the choices you've had the decency of not promoting this view that you can't parent properly and work.

No, so a person with a full time job has to do all the SAHP "work" in the mornings, the evenings and on the weekends.

I've done matt leave twice... over a year each time... and it's a piece of piss compared to working a full time job and being a full time parent.

Or are working parents only part time parents? Will the SAHP suddenly become part time parents when their kids start school?

Why must we always be at war? Why can’t it just be a couple who are working as a team to facilitate the family?

If one half of a couple does not have to worry about childcare, sickness, home duties etc then yes I would stand by the ‘rhetoric’ that the other partner has facilitated the employed partner to focus on their career and the rewards that reaps for the family unit.

I remember a "part time parent" friend of mine saying how much she loved her lunch hours on her days in the office because she could wander round shops or have a sandwich without a child grabbing it or spilling her coffee. Personally, I thought as an accidental SAHM I had it pretty easy, but I did feel a brief stab of jealousy when she said that!

It’s not something I ever have really heard or seen anywhere other than on here to be honest, and nobody ever particular likes the outcome or responses!

A stay at home parent doesn’t “work” in the traditional sense of doing a job for money. That doesn’t mean that a stay at home parent is not busy, or is sitting doing nothing all day, and it shouldn’t be an insult, it’s not work but it’s not nothing. They have more “time” in the sense that their time is their own, to choose what they want to do with vs an employer with set shift times and tasks allocated. And with regards to breaks I suppose it depends on your job vs your children who has more of a break.

I’m not permanently a SAHP but currently on my second maternity leave, we have 2 under 2 so a 22 month old and a 3 month old, I’m certainly not relaxing but I’m also not working and would take no offence whatsoever to someone saying I’m not working- they’d be right, I’m not. I’m looking after and raising 2 babies but I’m not working, it’s not an insult it’s a fact. I do have plenty of time on my hands, I can & do spend my days walking at the park, the beach, going to museums, National Trust sites, soft plays, cafes etc, my husband is working and doesn’t have that time every day. Not an insult, just a fact.

And breaks? I suppose it depends what you class as a break.

Not everything has to be an insult or a competition. It’s not easy working full time, it’s not easy parenting full time, but they aren’t really comparable in a meaningful way.

Thanks for your valuable contribution 🙄

Firstly I never said anything about ‘mums’.

But come on if your kids are at school you are not seriously working hard.

Even if you are falling for that "facilitating" nonsense, (do you really believe a man wouldn't have got such and such promotion if he had a working wife?), that's not really anything to do with the OP.

Being a SAHP does have value. But it is ridiculous to say it's harder than being a parent that also works full time.

I don’t know, I found the colicky baby and tantrumming toddler far easier to deal with when I’d had a break from them for 8 hours! The hardest part of being a sahm for me was the sheer relentlessness of it, doing the same thankless tasks over and over 24 hours a day 7 days a week. When they’d been crying on and off all day and throwing their food on the floor and I couldn’t go for a wee or hang up washing or prepare a meal without them screaming and then they wouldn’t settle or woke up crying again within 40 minutes of going to bed it was like “ffs what now?” but when I’d been at work all day I was happy to deal with them. When I went back to work yes it was (is) sometimes hard to perform on little sleep, yes sometimes balls got dropped eg forgetting their wellies or my laptop or not putting enough nappies in the bag for childcare but I still found I had more energy than when I was a sahm just because I wasn’t doing the same thing 24/7. And the house stays a lot cleaner if you’re not providing multiple snacks and meals a day or doing craft/messy play every day!

I think if you’re able to attend all manner of corporate events to network, work in the evenings to further your career, go on training events, be able to work unsuitable work patterns that paid childcare doesn’t provide and study knowing that someone’s sorting your kids - then yeah I would say you’re facilitating (male or female as again - I know both).

Why are you calling it women’s labour ? Men are just as well able to participate in such labour you know

He loves me enough and I was 8 years at home. So who cares who thought what

Not this again…

Because the vast majority of SAHPs are women. I include being SAHMs during maternity leave as we don’t have to take a full year. We could put our children in nursery from 6 weeks or take shared parental leave but this is rare.

Like it or loathe it, studies show that the vast majority of parenting and domestic duties are undertaken by women. So this isn’t about our ideal state, it’s about what is.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/02/the-guardian-view-on-womens-unpaid-labour-attitudes-have-shifted-but-the-burden-hasnt

Absolutely, I think the drudgery of being a SAHP is worse than working. I find being at home isolating. But working and houseworkand child rearing is always going to be harder.

Who loves you enough and what’s that got to do with anything.