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?

Are you ok?
nowhere did I say modelling doesn’t have an effect, what I said is that it can have the opposite effect.

i believe I am showing my children a positive image of a mother just like DH is showing them a positive image of a father, and together we are showing them that we can work together as a team to provide the best family life we can for them.

you seem to have a real issue with that and cannot understand that it’s acceptable that our family life and choices are just as valid as yours.

I haven’t said a single disparaging or negative thing about working mothers because it differs to how I parent. I am able to understand that every family is different and their choices impact their family and not mine

When I was a SAHM from 2003 to about 2020, it really was nothing to be remarked in at all. Genuinely, nobody ever commented in all those years. It's so funny (to me) to come on MN and women are literally spitting chips about SAHPs.

When I used to drop off / pick up at the primary schools, I'd say it was 90% parents there. Mostly mums with a few dads and a few nannies. Nobody could care less what anyone else did in the hours between 8.30 and 3.30 - well, not unless someone made a point of telling you.

I genuinely didn't know anyone who put a baby in a nursery full-time before the age of 2.5. I think maybe one woman I knew via my first child might have tried it for a week when her child was a bit younger than that. But her DD hated it, so she took her out.

Every family makes decisions in different contexts. That's all there is to it really.

I'm fine thanks. It suits you yes. What suits your personal preference isn't the same as it being the optimal thing for children and their future relationships. I just wish women understood what they were modelling to their daughters and the impacts it has on them, and they don't because they think it makes no difference if they go to work or not. The outcome is scientifically measurable, it does make a difference.

I care about all young girls and the world they grow up in, not just my own. We should all care about the messages sent to young girls about their place in the world and the limits it can put on their ambitions. Just because your choices don't impact my family it doesn't mean I don't care about the impact they have on other girls. Do you not care about how anything affects anyone outside your family?

Funnily enough, my main concern is raising my own daughters. Which you clearly think I’m not doing a very good job of based on your comments about our family life!

it’s suits us as a family.

are you telling me I shouldn’t be a SAHM because it will negatively impact my daughters and every other female child I come into contact with?
that is possibly the most ridiculous thing I have heard! I am not responsible for how other children are brought up.

I could easily say I think not having a mother around much because she’s too busy trying to prove “women can have it all” could have a negative impact on their daughter. But I don’t, because I believe in a woman’s right to choose - choose how she wants to live her life, raise her children, etc.

not because some arrogant person on Mumsnet has decided I’m a shit mum because I choose not to work outside of the home

the view must be fabulous from your obscenely high horse!

Well, if you move in unambitious, anti-feminist circles, I suppose levels of female participation in the workforce might be at 1950s levels.

@SerenaCat93 - it's about opportunity cost for most families. Take for example, two parents, one earns say, 100k, the other £60k. They may well decide that it's worth them both working and having kids in childcare because the benefit of the things they can afford with the extra £60k outweighs the emotional and economic cost of the kids in childcare.

However, if the higher earning partner then sells a company or something and receives £30m (for example), then that £60k earned by the other parent is suddenly neither here nor there anymore. The opportunity cost of going to work has changed. You may well now feel you can make more valuable impact being around for them (as opposed to childcare), than earning your £60k which is now negligible in terms of the difference it makes to your children's lives and future opportunities.

This is the position that many SAHMs are in. The money they would otherwise be earning - even if it's a very good salary on a national scale - is negligible in the overall financial context for that family. Why would you leave your kids in childcare all day, when the £60k you could make in a year is less than a minor fluctuation in your family's investment portfolios, for instance? You would have to really love your job to justify doing that (or really dislike being around your kids all day).

If parents are generally doing their best by their children, the kids know this and nothing is a 'poor model' at all. They understand context.

I know quite a few men who essentially were able to retire in their 40s because they sold their companies etc. They invest and do a lot of sports etc. Are they a poor role model too?

Families come in all shapes and sizes and life moves in phases. Your rigid idea that all families have to have two parents working 9-5 is so narrow and restrictive to be ridiculous. As in most areas if life, money buys choice. More specifically, money buys time and flexibility. This is why some families are privileged enough to be able to have a SAHP. Money becomes less important than time essentially. Not only time per se, but the quality of that time.

what happened to you to make you SO bitter? Do you hate your job that much?

Don't be silly. This was private schools in London. More than your average demographic of ambitious, financially successful people. Nothing to do with the (yawn) 1950s. These women are the last women you should be 'concerned' for.

Thankfully, it's perfectly possible to raise children with critical thinking, and modelling what you think is the ideal life for others (which is debatable anyway)
thankfully is a bit more complex that just having a job for the sake of having one.

There are enough dedicated SAHM with terribly ambitious and successful children, and working mums in average to low employment with very averagely employed kids.

The message to all our kids is to work hard enough to put yourself in a position where you have the CHOICE. Choice of employment, choice of life, choice of everything.

How can that not the ideal? It's so bizarre that women (and men) wanting to stay home with their children is a concept so shocking for you.

The irony is that I can think or more than a few SAHM who got an idea and started a little business who became a very successful business, around children or their hobby or their dream job. At least these would never have reached that level if they had stayed in their old job. Everyone can always make use of a good degree eventually 😂

What are you on about? The majority of single earning parent families are poorer families making financial sacrifices so the mum can stay at home or the mum is trapped at home because they can't afford childcare. Or just as commonly she had a crap job she's glad to see the back of. A third of families with only one parent earning are below the poverty line. It's not solely the preserve of rich women who apparently have multiple companies and a portfolio to sell like you seem to think. Yes there are some but they are the minority.

The rest of the UK isn't London. All of the professionals I associate with through my work are scientists, doctors, working in research or medicine. None of them own companies or run businesses despite being wealthy because that's not what we do. Most professions aren't about finance, businesses and owning stuff. Also none of us want to give up our careers because we're passionate about what we do. Science/medicine/pharmaceuticals are fascinating, the developments being made every day are exciting. Our brains are wired for this stuff we're not here for money. If my salary became irrelevant I would still want to discover the next cure. Not a single professional I've worked with has given their career up when they've had kids because they don't want to. Discovery isn't something people get bored of. Some go part time, I condensed my hours and so did my husband but like hell am I just quitting to be a housewife. I love my daughter more than life itself but I am more than just a mother.

This is of course nonsense, even in London, surely you must have some inkling how rare it is, to sell a business for 30m and even in London, 160k between 2 can mean losing one salary is very difficult to meet ends meet.

the majority of stay at home parents are working class women, where let’s face it their wages will not be high enough to have much left after child care.

The point being, it's ridiculous to generalise about 'SAHMs' - eg, they are all this, that or the other - because their circumstances vary widely.

You are just taking about the 2 SAHMs you know @SerenaCat93 . And you say a third of SAHM families are below the poverty line. Well what about the other two thirds?

Yes there are many women who can't afford to work because the cost of childcare is prohibitive. But there are also women who can't work because they have children with additional needs. And there are also millions of women who don't work because they are in high net worth families and frankly, the money they would make, even on a very good salary, is not worth the opportunity cost of putting your children in childcare.

You see a certain side of life with these 2 SAHMs you say you know. But if you were exposed to a different SAHM demographic you would have a different perspective. I don't know a single SAHM who isn't highly educated. These women know what they're doing.

As I said, I think I only knew one woman through all of my 3 kids / neighbours / friends etc that used a nursery.

Never mind a SAHP, it's very common to have a SAHM plus an au pair or nanny or other part-time help when there are multiple children. I did not do this, but I saw it all around me. I was the exception in that respect in that zi was a SAHM with no 'help.'

These women do not become SAHMs to do housework ffs. As if! They leave work because they know they have more to offer their child than a nursery setting. Put it this way, if money is no object. why would you put your child in a nursery with low paid staff, when you could be showing them the world yourself. You do realise, nurseries are not compulsory!

There is also a lot of what might be called 'tiger parenting' going on because entry to certain day schools in London is highly competitive. You will say that this is just London and a small demographic of people on a nationwide level etc etc and you wouldn't be wrong. I agree this type of family is not typical on a population level. But where you are looking specifically at the demographic of families who can afford to have a SAHM / SAHP, these families will make to a large proportion of them. It's no coincidence that families with SAHMs are concentrated in certain areas of high net worth families. These areas are densely populated.

If I talked on here about 'working women' as if they were all on minimum wage or low / medium earners, yes that would cover many women. But clearly not all working women are in this category. It's the same with SAHMs. Women are SAHMs at all extremes of the economic spectrum - for different lengths of time, different numbers of children, all sorts of factors. So when you refer to SAHMs as 'they' - who are you actually talking about? Which ones and where?

No. A large proportion of SAHMs are not these rich women tiger parenting their kids into day schools. Outside of the London bubble this just isn't normal even among wealthy professionals.

From the IFS "43% of children living with one working parent and one non-working parent were in relative income poverty in 2015–16, after accounting for housing costs – up from 33% in 1994–95". So there you have it. Almost half of children with a SAHM are living in poverty because their mother doesn't want to work. They would prefer to play dollies then provide for their children or they are trapped in poverty and can't afford to work. The ONS stated that when surveyed 50% of women who stay at home with children wanting to work but can't afford the child care to do so. They are not rich or liberated, they are poor and trapped. These statistics don't even include the ones that are just garden variety poor or working class it's just looking at poverty. Include the working class families and it's way over half of single earner families being families who are poor. The very rich are an extremely small percentage of the population and also an extremely small percentage of SAHMs. By the way, if they're not actually looking after their kids and have au pairs they're not actually SAHMs, they're ladies of leisure. Lots of women are quitting work just to do housework, look at all the SAHMs on this thread wanging on about how they love being domestic goddesses with spotless houses and spending all day cooking.

Being a carer for a disabled child is irrelevant to a discussion on choice because they have no choice. Poor women trapped in childcare roles by the patriarchy who don't have the economic power to free themselves is highly relevant and why women should be modeling ambition and independent to their daughters, so they don't get caught in this trap.

I literally do not care about your out of touch opinions and won't be wasting any more time trying to educate you on the fact that not everyone is rich or tiger parenting while wafting around doing nothing useful all day because it's simply a fact, demonstrated by data gathered by governing body and up here in the rest of UK we see this type of family all the time and certainly don't see the types you're claiming are "a huge percentage of SAHMs" floating about. You're living in a bubble. I'm not wasting my day popping it.

You are determined to only see a certain type of SAHM as 'real' or valid. I'm not sure why. Does this make you feel better about yourself or something? Very strange.

All I know is, I wouldn't be on a thread about so-called 'WOHMs' (to use MN lingo) - pontificating about them as if they're all on MW or low pay while refusing to acknowledge the full spectrum and myriad of women working in all sorts of areas and economic situations.

It's too lazy to just retort with 'you live in a bubble.' I am talking about something I know about first hand. Lived experience of almost 20 years and what I see all around me every day. These SAHMs are no less real than the narrow stereotypes you need to believe.

And you actually talk about non-working women as "preferring to play dollies.' You actually typed that out? Ugh. If that is your view of parenting, there is no point engaging with you.

Look. It's been found in numerous research pieces that daughters with working mother's have more successful careers than those with SAHMs because they have had equality and a good work ethic modelled to them. It has been found in numerous research pieces that this modelling also means sons of working mothers have more equal relationships and do more child reading and domestic labour than those of SAHMs. This has been raised numerous times in this thread. The tiger cub kids you keep wittering on about who have been aggressively parented by their uber rich mums are so tiny in number that they have not skewed this statistic into the SAHMs favour. Therefore it is completely obvious to all of us, except you apparently, that what you're describing is vanishingly rare.

Present some actual proof, that what you are claiming happens a lot with multimillionaire tiger mums producing the next generation of prodigies by aggressively parenting them actually does happen all the time and is culturally relevant to anyone outside that tiny London wealth bubble and I might bother engaging with you. You have offered nothing of the sort so far. You're being a typical ultra wealthy person and showcasing how out of touch you are with the rest of the country. It's not a lazy stereotype talking about poverty which affects almost half of the group we are discussing. It's not a stereotype anymore if it's HALF OF THEM.

And yes, I did call staying at home with children playing dollies. Good parenting is about a lot more than meticulous home admin, an in-depth cleaning routine and long slow days with the children that many SAHMs have described on this very thread. I know, I know, you're not just doing that you're tiger mumming. But out here in the real world where there isn't top 5% wealth and day schools to fight over that isn't happening.

Use that exceptional education of yours to find some peer reviewed research that proves you are right or even find me some statistics that what you are claiming is normal is actually as common as you think. Because your opinions have no backing and I'm not the only poster who has pointed out you're talking rubbish.

Why don't you go and get some more 'statistics' on how many working people are essentially living in poverty. How many women are on benefits - whether working, married or single? There is a huge difference between a woman who has no qualifications and has children as a teen mum and is on benefits, compared to a woman in her 30s with degrees and / or professional qualifications in a marriage with shared transparent finances who makes an informed decision to SAH for a few years. Your 'statistics' make no sense because the reasons mums are not working, at any given time, are too complex and disparate to categorise.

You belittle time spent with children as 'playing dollies.' Yet you preach about 'educational outcomes.' Do you have any idea?

Good parenting is absolutely about ‘long, slow days with the children’. Constant rush and switching from one hurried activity to the next is stressful for children. They open up and share what’s on their mind when in the company of someone present, attentive and responsive, not someone who is barely there.

Imaginative role play, or as you so disparagingly put it, merely ‘playing with dollies’, is vital to developing empathy and speech. Babies and toddlers are hardwired to learn language best from an educated, articulate, responsive mother who can give them proper 1:1 attention.

Good parenting is absolutely about keeping on top of admin. I’ve lost count of the amount of children I’ve seen sobbing in the playground because their parents sent them in a costume on the wrong day or forgot to send in their home learning project.

I led an Early Years team for a decade, and even 4 year olds are embarrassed and ashamed if their clothes are dirty/the wrong size. Older children express embarrassment if their homes are dirty, I’ve spoken to many who won’t invite friends over for that reason.

Oh, and plenty of research links higher academic achievements with having a SAHP to support, encourage and ensure homework is done as they get older.

Young children value you actually spending time with them above anything else.

And by the way, I did not always live in London and am very well acquainted with life in 'the north,' thanks. I'm 53 and I'm so grateful I had a mum who saw the time she spent with me as important and valued - yes, even 'playing dollies' How do you think children learn if not through play? How do they internalise self-worth or get the confidence to explore the world in their own unique ways? This understanding and approach to parenting is far more important than anything else, whether my mum was working or not and regardless of how much she earned or didn't earn.

My daughter is 23, just finishing an MSc and has secured a job with a starting salary of over £120k, aged 23. But, if she decides, in the future, she wants to take time out to spend some crucial years with her kids 'playing dollies' - and if she is in a secure enough financial position to make this choice, then I certainly won't be trying to belittle her for this. I'll be thinking, good for her. When the time comes, she will make the decision that makes most sense to her and that's all we can do.

what strikes me is
Good parenting is about a lot more than meticulous home admin, an in-depth cleaning routine and long slow days with the children

If you can't imagine yourself doing anything but the above at home, it's clear what your problem is. YOU need a boss to direct you and tell you what to do.

Most of us don't need a job to have an identity and most SAHM are not home because they prioritise dusting and laundry. They have more time to do interesting things with their kids than the mums who are in the office full time.

Oh dear who's being judgemental about other mums now? Teen mums on benefits with no qualifications are nowhere near the only SAHM group living in poverty. You clearly think yourself better than these women while having someone else pay your bills for you.

I don't think all time spent with children is playing dollies, I spend a lot of time educating my daughter. I didn't need to give up my career to do so because their father does his fair share too. Young children spend a lot of time playing. Giving up your career and staying with young children all day every day is most definitely deciding to stay at home playing rather than providing for your children. Thinking you need to intensively parent a child every minute of the day to the point where you need to give up work to do it is insane.

I see you still have no actual data to refute the findings that working mothers raise more successful children and are clearly angry you are unable to do so.

Lol, I don't need a boss. I need achievement. I have my name in scientific research papers. I've created medicine. I enjoyed my maternity leave but by 9 months I felt my brain withering. I need to learn, research, discover. I love my daughter, my world revolves around her, but she is not the only thing in it. It's good for her to see her mother going out and leaving her mark on the world just like her father. It's good that she gets equal time with both of us and it's not just me doing everything. She has three days a week with me, three with my husband and one at nursery which she loves and gets to play with other children which benefits her socially. Sue has a parent all day every day for six days of the week. It just doesn't need to be me all the time, because we're showing her what equality looks like.

ThankYouNigel has repeatedly said she does in fact do those things all day. She's said it again above. Making disparaging comments about needing a boss don't bother me, though I hope they make you feel better. I know my worth and it's more than being a kept woman who does all the child rearing so much husband doesn't have to while letting my own achievements drift off into the distance.

I provide for my children by being present, can you really not understand that?

I’m not sure that’s really providing to be honest, we are all present as parents. Even if we work. Or when they are at school, providing is so much more than simply being there,

You misunderstand. I am not saying working parents are not present.

the poster I am quoting has consistently rubbished SAHPs on this thread - saying they’re “playing Dollie’s” rather than providing for their children.

that is why I commented as I did.

I have nothing but respect for parents who work out of the home and undertake all of the domestic labour too