AIBU to think SAHMs are lazy?

[Fluffyscrubberdo]

As a stay at home mum how often do you get this judgement online vs real life?
It seems no one really says it in real life but there seems to be so much vitriol on here that there must be a fair amount of people who think it.
Has anyone made a rude comment to you in person?
Or are you a person who think sahm’s are lazy?

AIBU to think sometimes a sahm is in a family’s best interest?

But everyone has to do all of this stuff. DH and I do all of this

True, we do all of this (and outsource some) but I'm sure if I was SAHM or retired, I could spend more time doing those tasks. Like a SAHM friend of mine, she spends her entire Wednesday every week grocery shopping. Does a weekly review of their pantry and freezer, detailled meal plans and shopping lists, checks for all the current discounts and offers, collects all coupons and goes to 3-5 different shops to get the best deals. Takes her the entire day.

I usually think that hmm I would like to eat something with salmon, google a few recipes, drop by supermarket on my way home, 10-15 min. Could happen I buy something we already have in the fridge and I probably would have gotten a better deal somewhere else, if I had time to shop around.
So one can certainly argue her grocery shopping was done to a higher standard. But in the end, both families were fed.

I think it turns into one when you don’t work.

i have two friends who retired early, 5o and 52. Things like this are now a job to her, she will say tomorrow I need to order x’s birthday gifts, like it’s a thing and not something you can do in a few mins, other little pearls are tomorrow I am going to the dentist, then wed I need to go to the supermarket and then on Thursday change the beds, Friday I will hoover. She starts cooking mid afternoon and spends hours at it cooking everything from scratch, so making dinner is a big part of her day now. Breakfast also needs to be planned.

all this normal home stuff she did of an evening or weekend when she was working,and didn’t give it a second thought, now they are all full on jobs. Dinner she still made from scratch but wouldn’t spend two or three hours at it.

its all expanded to be a big work load.and now she’s so busy she doesn’t know how she ever worked, as by the time she’s up, showered, dressed, made breakfast, gone to the dentist, and then made dinner her day is done.

In the time I was a SAHM to school age children, aand they were in school, I was..

• gym time (DH did his during work hours as his job had mandantory fitness training
• grocery shopping

-at least one full day worth of volunteer work, including admin for DHs volunteer work

• housework and DIY
• eating lunch
• parents medical appointments
• school appointments

Between school runs, it waa 25hrs a week with no children. So yes... some if that was downtime. But ut wasnt drinking coffee all day.

I don't think stay at home mums are lazy as looking after young kids is tiring and all consuming and it's lovely to be able to be with them while they are small. However, once your child/children have started school, you aren't a SAHM anymore, you're unemployed. It makes me laugh when the kids are at school and they still call themselves a SAHM.

Children aren’t at school for over 13 weeks of the year, so SAHPs are then with their children 24/7. I know working parents who send their children for a week with one set of GPs, a week with another, a week at one paid holiday club then another, etc. The level of direct care provided by parents during school holidays can vary hugely!

You are also incorrect about them being ‘unemployed’. The correct term is ‘economically inactive’, as they are not actively seeking work. Those who are ‘unemployed’ are those who are out of work, but actively applying for jobs. Homemaker/housewife/househusband remain categories to select on official forms, etc.

It makes you laugh? Weird given it’s perfectly normal.

You sound very judgy.

But all of these things have to be done by parents who WOTH as well. I never managed to outsource clothes shopping, for instance. And as I say, I had no partner to share the load. It genuinely puzzles me why that needs a full time adult. I'm not dissing your set up - as you say, it works well for you, that's great. But I really am bewildered by it - unless you have a mansion with grounds, 47 kids or a child(ren) with additional needs.

Yeah I do see this attitude on here. The "why aren't you working?" If kids are school aged.

FWIW I have one toddler and work part time, I think do whatever is in the family's best interests.

Yes this. It becomes their identity and when their children grow up they have nothing. This was my mother. And sadly for her never changed.

as I also described above, you will stretch the tasks out if you have more time to fill. And vice versa. Another former SAHM friend of mine was always marvelling how I do it all, she is so busy, days all full, no way could she manage it all and also work.
Well, she went back to work and manages just fine. Busy people need to be more efficient.

Not sure the goal of this thread, SAHM not lazy, lucky.

Normal? I don't know anyone that does this! But then I don't know any rich people.

Indeed. Parkinson's Law ("work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion") is very real.

It's very disingenuous to pretend you do the same if you work full time or if you are a SAH parent. Or YOU do very little, because most of us can't be in 2 places at once.

When you catch up and deal with everything around work, you are just not with your kids. You can be as organised as you want, but you simply have less time with your kids than SAH parents.

It's fine, but let's not pretend it's physically possible to do "exactly what they do", unless you can't imagine that not everyone would spend their life watching day-time tv. Maybe you would, others don't

some are as some people who work full time/part time are lazy too many of us have lazy workers in our teams

Is it OK for me to laugh at your kids dragged out of bed early during their holidays so they can spend all day in a camp they don't want to go to?

Not normal where I live. Everyone here who doesn't have a job is just called unemployed whether they have kids or not.

I am in London, my sisters are in other part of this country and 2b on the continent.
No one does that.

Where do you live exactly?

Let me get this straight — you don’t have a job, any of the time, because if you did your children might have to get up earlier than they’d like during school holidays?

I really have heard it all now.

Ah I see. You misunderstood my post.

The adult sons don't do those things because they see them as womens work because their mum did everything at home and dad only worked. They treat their wives like skivvies as a result and one of them is divorced because she wouldn't tolerate it anymore.

You've taught your GIRLS how to do the housework. That's completely different because you are modelling to them that housework is womens work and women skivvy away after men while they get to go out and have a big life full of achievement.

You have no aha gotcha point here. You've proven my point. I do believe that children only learn equality if it is demonstrated to them by their parents and you teaching your daughters to do housework doesn't change that view in any way.

Personally id ensure my kids are out of bed at a respectable hour, regardless of where they are going. And enforce bed time better if you find this hard (realistically its the kids on screens all night who need to sleep all morning).

But then im not lazy, so well done proving that some SAHMs are?

I can't say I really buy into this narrative that housework and running a home is some sort of noble profession, something that proves team work and something to model to our children.

I also don't buy the point that in 2026, that men are completely unable to advance in their career because they might need to do some hoovering or laundry at home or take some days off to look after a sick child. A child they presumably chose to have and have responsibility for.

Housework, admin and groceries are things that everyone needs to do whether you work or not. And most working mums fit these in perfectly well with their jobs fine without their house being a shit hole. And I can guarantee were any of these high flying career men with a stay at home behind them suddenly find themselves on their own, they too would also manage to run their own house without a catastrophic impact on their career.

To me TRUE teamwork is both parents sharing the load. Both doing housework, both sharing child care duties. Actually showing your children that they have TWO involved parents who put them first and show up for them. Not that this is just left to the mum. That if you live in a house, your also responsible for running it no matter what your job or sex status. That's what I want to model for my children.

yes, that's EXACTLY what the Poster said. 😂

You are embarrassing yourself now, you really are.

I don’t think I agree with you, it’s just not that simple.

I worked but some of my daughters close friends mothers didn’t, I recall a conversation I over hear them having when they were about 15 about working or not working, where they were saying they didn’t know why their mothers didn’t get jobs, why they would want to stay home and do the chores, and worse felt they could give career advice. The girls didn’t want to repilicate it at all. So yes they modelled inequality, but it certainly wasn’t seen as enviable. I have the stereo typical big career. They clearly thought that was something to emulate from what fhey were saying.

i myself was raised by a stay at home mum, or a house wife, i didn’t question it, but there was no chance I’d have wanted to emulate it, doing the cooking, cleaning shopping and quite frankly trying to get into everyone’s business, as she’d none of her own. Always acting like we could only live our lives as she was there doing the chores, and bossing everyone around, it was so far from the truth it was baffling. Her mother was the same.

for me past pre school or at worst primary, this is a house wife or house husband, and unless there is a reason they don’t work Ie medical, I really don’t think the majority of young women today want to emulate it, they want uni, careers, money if their own, independence. Sure of course some do, but it’s not what I’ve experienced in the main. Because they don’t remember the pre school years. And a lot of these women are living vicariously through their families. And the older the girls get the less they find it admirable.

boys However are a different kettle of fish, more of them quite fancy someone doing all the crap at home so they can focus on their careers. Although many want an equal.

But no, simply as we see our parents model it, doesn’t mean we think it’s good and we taught it to them . We are able to see how our parents live and decide if we think it’s what we wish or shun it.