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

Ey up, someone’s looking to start a bunfight.

Interesting, you must then be blissfully unaware that lots of parents do work a full time job and still pick up after school and parent from then. My husband & I and most of our couple friends alternate working 7-3 and 9:30-5:30 so that one parent does drop off and the other does pick up, so other than the hours kids are at school nobody other than a parent is doing any childcare or parenting.

I don’t think I know any families who have cleaners, and maybe it’s because we don’t all live in 10 bedroom mansions but we’re all more then capable of keeping our homes tidy without neglecting our children. In fact lots of our children quite enjoy joining in and pretending to hoover, sweep and mop😂 it certainly doesn’t take 8 hours a day 5 days a week to keep an average house clean and tidy!

I picked my children up from school every day.
When the children were younger, DH and I alternated so that one of us took them swimming on a Saturday morning and the other cleaned the house.
When they were older we all mucked in with the cleaning. Actually, the DC helped with housework from when they were old enough to drop toys in a box (ie a few months old).
DH and I also took it in turns to bath the DC (not a 2 person job) while the other cleaned the kitchen and finished any other tidying that needed doing after dinner.
Any left over things got done when they were in bed.

There was no focussing on chores whilst the DC were left to their own devices.
I also do not believe that any SAHP spends the entirety of every school day doing housework. Nor do I believe that they cook and clean up after an evening meal (for example) while their children are at school.

Parents were not allowed to volunteer in their own child's class at my DC's school. PTA meetings were in the evening (and actually there was no one in the PTA when I was there that didn't work).

my children are now adults and I have worked (at a paid job) throughout without paying for outside help.

I should also say I have no extended family help which of course many parents (SAH and WOH) do.

It entirely depends on what job the non-working person does. I found both my maternity leaves to be far easier than being at work (as a teacher) perhaps with the exception of the very early weeks of having a toddler and a newborn. However, many antenatal friends found going to work to be much easier than being off with their children. They work in a variety of different jobs.

Yes I am an Early Years teacher and my maternity leave when I had a newborn and a two year old were holiday-esque. Teaching kids all day, 5 days a week, then going back to your own is unbelievably exhausting.

As pp points out - they look after their DC during the day, which obviously if you're working you don't!

I explained up thread that we made the choice to have a particular life, which would not have been possible if I were a single parent, or if we needed 2 incomes . We have created a life which means I work in and around the house all day (I do have lunch break) I spend the majority of my time caring for the kids and or animals in one way or another. We have 4 children, live rurally and have an old house, big garden and two dogs and two cats. All the children do activities between 3 pm and 9pm most nights- instruments, dance, scouts, extra languages, sports clubs and at the weekend.Most clubs are between a 20min and 50min round trip. I spend a lot of time doing their homework, school admin, sourcing learning materials and testing them for revision and regularly take them to museums and performances to enhance their education. We cook.almost everything.from scratch and on a tight budget. So every day they all take a thermos of soup, home made bread /jam/cakes/curries etc. I volunteer as a school Governor at their primary school. Whatever people claim, I know for a fact it would be impossible to maintain our lifestyle if I were working even part time in a paid role. People seem determined to say they do the same as me and also a full time job, which is absolutely untrue! I don't really understand why they do this, it strikes me as a bit odd. I am not saying what I do is particularly difficult or valuable to anyone else. I am simply wishing to defend the indisputable fact that how I spend my life is a) very busy and b) absolutely not equal to and only the same tasks that more capable/hard working women do after work! People accept that jobs are on a spectrum of difficulty/demand but refuse to accept that home life with children can vary to the same extent. Just because mine is a choice, doesn't mean it's easy!

If the children are school age, then SAHP’s aren’t looking after their DC in the day either.

That's true.

Well because I can't think of many obligations one has other than running a home, working and maybe looking after elderly relatives. Everything else is a choice

So to be clear we can narrow that down to

• housework
• gardening
• looking after dogs/cats
• cooking meals
• taking kids to afterschool clubs
• helping kids with homework/revision
• volunteer at child school

I’m genuinely not sure which of those things you think no working parent does, but okay.

Exactly this. I do all of these things as a single parent working full time. DC has activities three times a week, most of which involve us being out of the house for up to 2 hours per activity. I do all the housework and cooking (from scratch). We have pets, one of which has been in the vets recently and so needed extra care. I spent the weekend gardening (half an acre), doing all the laundry and folding; grocery shopping, housework, batch cooking, DC’s homework, and bits of my own CPD. I’m a member of the PTA, and spent time emailing local councillors about a recent community issue which has impacted the local school. Oh, and I managed to dye my own hair.

Yes, you have managed without paying for domestic labour because you have done it. I think we should count as part of GDP and family income the money not spend on domestic labour. That labour sustains capitalist systems - without it the system falls apart because children have to be looked after and food, clothes, cleanish houses etc support the workforce, as does free at the point of access healthcare and public health - all gain from these although they may never use the NHS, because they do use it, it prevents epidemics, prevents the workforce being less than 100% etc - free at the point of access health care and the unpaid labour of mostly women underpin the capitalist system - if the capitalists had to pay for this lot they would go bankrupt.

I didn't say at any point that working parents don't do any of these things. I said if I worked full time i would need to pay someone to do these jobs, as well as put my children in wrap around care because I wouldn't have the time necessary to perform the tasks/opportunities that we currently do in our particular set up. We have 4 children and live at some distance from the town where they go to school and do their activities. Just on the animal care alone how would I walk and feed a puppy 3 times a day and an older dog times whilst also being out at work? Why are you so determined to claim I could do all I do whilst working full time ? Obviously people who work also cook, clean, and see their kids, but that is not the point.

No you’re right, nobody is able to work and also have a dog and a puppy, that would be madness.

I didn't necessarily do all of that myself, but between me and DH we did. I did the morning run while he worked 7-3 so he could do pick up. Chores are shared between both parents and children, even when little. Volunteered for after school and weekend stuff, especially when I was teaching in the same school as the DC. I'm a SAHP now, but am not doing a single thing I wasn't previously doing. There are no extra SAHP jobs. They are just parenting/household jobs that still need to be done.

Like I've said, I get the benefits of being a SAHP. There's a reason I'm taking a break from work. But to think it's harder than working and doing housework and childrearing is complete nonsense. It is isolating and repetitive and sometimes mind-numbing, but it's always going to be easier than doing everything alongside a full-time job.

I am sure you work extremely hard. I am also sure it is very difficult to manage full time work and children, especially as a lone pare. I just don't understand why so many people insist on saying that full time employees manage everything sahm do on top of their job. This is logically inconsistent. I have already said it would be categorically impossible for me to do what I do now and also have a full time job. I am not really sure what you are determined to disagree. What is your point ? I am some how less capable? Lazy ? Is it possible for you to imagine I offer my 4 children a different version of life which is equally valid and not be so combative?

This so depends on circumstance and how old the children are - if they are both at school of course SAHP have it easier, however if the children have healthcare needs or Mum is suffering from PND for example, then it can be really tough.

I had my 2 at home during mat leave for a year DD was a baby and DS was 2 it was pretty easy compared to working full time then coming home and doing the housework, cooking. homework, clubs etc.

You seem very sarcastic in your tone, and a bit unpleasant to be frank. It makes me wonder why you might be upset by this thread. I accept there might be in existence, a full time job which allows someone to have a puppy and give it adequate care. I think you may not be understanding my wider point though. I also suspect you will not change your opinion and that you are not prepared to even consider my perspective in any meaningful way, so I will leave it here.

You say yourself you were working on it, so yeah. Call
it what you want.

I wouldn't have bought a puppy. That solves that problem.

Everything else you listed, I do in addition to my full time job. Like a lot of other parents do.

Why would you have to pay someone? For most households where two people work (or one in the case of single parents) the only area where they pay someone else to do it is childcare.

I don’t think this line of thinking really holds up. You haven’t pointed to anything a stay at home parent can give school age children that a full-time working parent can’t also provide outside school hours.

Plenty of full-time parents pick their kids up from school every day and parent them right through to bedtime. Flexible and hybrid working make this much more doable than it used to be. It’s not possible in every job, but employers are generally far more supportive of family life now than in the past.

After school, parenting usually means helping with homework, making dinner, driving to clubs or activities, etc. That’s exactly the same kind of parenting a stay at home parent would be doing during those hours. Evening chores like cooking, tidying up, getting organised for the next day etc exist either way.

I completely get that pre-school children need more constant daytime care. But once kids are at school, it’s simply not true to say full-time working parents can’t provide the same parenting after 3pm. Lots of families do this every single day.

That said, paid work and staying at home are clearly different kinds of responsibility, each with their own pressures. Being the main earner, dealing with deadlines, and answering to an employer isn’t the same as running a household full-time. And equally, caring all day for several children, especially with additional needs, isn’t comparable to going into an 9-5 office job. They’re just different roles with different stresses.

In the end, only each family can decide what works for them. The financial trade-offs are different too: a lower-paid worker staying home gives up something very different from a high-earning professional doing the same. That’s why broad comparisons don’t really make sense.

I think you are confused between a list of things that get done to some standard -house work, drop offs etc and a qualitative experience delivered to a household by a sahp choosing to craft a life in a deliberate way to provide an environment of choice for their children. All I am trying to communicate is that it is reasonable to defend a position where a sahp is in fact doing a demanding job, which happens not to be paid.. Everyone arguing against me seems to believe that the job of a SAHP is doable after full time hours. I suspect that those who hold that position may be doing a poor job of it.

I agree. And as a single mum working part time and doing two days of ‘sahm’ I have all the pressures of keeping the household running alone, and trying to fit a weeks worth of work into three days, and being the only one bringing in money, so I never sympathize with anyone moaning if they had a partner that takes any of this load or pressure off!