AIBU to think staying at home with children is undervalued?

[Amby99]

I’m not ignorant of the fact that staying at home isn’t financially possible or desirable for everyone, and I don’t think children who go to nursery are disadvantaged whatsoever . There are brilliant nurseries, brilliant working mums, and plenty of happy, healthy children being raised that way (and fulfilled and happy mothers)
However, I do wonder whether society (or the government) has become so focused on measuring “productivity” through paid employment that we’ve started to undervalue the work involved in raising a child.
Badenoch saying that the government doesn’t want to “punish working parents” in relation to childcare costs … it made me wonder why being a SAHM is so rarely viewed as valuable or productive in its own right.
Preparing my baby’s first solids, BF him, reading, playing, taking him outside, talking to him, letting him explore and generally being available. It feels like important work, yet because it isn’t paid it often seems invisible.
There are of course many advantages to nursery, and that work can be important for a mother’s identity, finances, career and mental health.
But why does the conversation seem to focus so heavily on encouraging parents back into paid employment, while choosing to provide that childcare yourself is rarely encouraged or valued in the same way? I’m not talking about mothers that sit at home all day feeding their child McDonald’s and claiming every benefit under the sun. I get why they may be encouraged back into the workforce and their children would be better off at nursery. BUT I’m sick of having to feel guilty of my choice to stay home. Every parent I know who was a parent in the 90’s stayed at home and it wasn’t so frowned upon.

I just think it should be seen as a worthwhile and valuable choice rather than something that needs to be justified because you’re “not working”.

For starters, this is on a thread about whether being a SAHP is being undervalued, so obviously I'm talking about the positives and the things I found very beneficial. I didn't 'pop up' on a thread for working mothers and dump my opinion, I gave it on an appropriate thread.

If I worked long hours, we would be better off financially (and I imagine a lot of Mumsnetters would insist they wouldn't be able to live a comfortable life with what we get, although we do), but our home life wouldn't benefit. My DH and I don't personally think the extra money makes up for the time and engagement that would be lost. That's my opinion, and what I have noticed anecdotally aligns with that.

If you feel differently though, that's great for you.

The research does not clearly show favourable or unfavourable outcomes either way.

In other words, it makes no difference. That is the evidence that we have at present.

I mean loads of children in the past whose mothers didn't work were not actually brought up by them 24/7

Middle class and upper class women used nannies/nursemaids and then boarding school, working class women used a patch work of neighbours, older children, family and friends and of course until the 20th century those children would often be in the workplace themselves by later tweens/early teens if not earlier.

The idea that there used to be loads of stay at home mothers dedicating their waking days to bringing up their children is not borne out in history at all

If any new mums are worried about working, I just wanted to reassure you that you can have a brilliant and loving bond with your kids despite having to send your children to nursery etc. I promise.

My relationship with my early twenties kids is my biggest ‘acheivement’. We are very close indeed. They have said as adults that they are also proud of me and my job and how I managed to juggle everything. My son recently texted me that despite his work stress etc, he is lucky to have the best mum in the world. Imagine, and that’s with me working when they were babies ;-)

It can be a stressful time with young babies and work. And I don’t pretend it’s easy. It requires super human effort sometimes to be a good mum and worker. And you won’t always get it right, but you can love your kids unconditionally, and work and end up with a brilliant relationship with thriving kids, and a good job. Don’t let people guilt you into staying home if you don’t want to.

And as we approach retirement and speak to financial advisers, I am so so glad I kept working. I have a decent pension and have been lucky enough to help with uni fees and hopefully small house deposits one day. Money really can help kids when they are older. Though that’s a privilege of course I know.

Decide what will work best for you. But don’t think that by working, your relationship with your kids will suffer. There is no correlation. And look after yourselves financially too. It’s important in an ever more uncertain world. Lecture over ;-)

@OtterlyAstounding

If I worked long hours, we would be better off financially (and I imagine a lot of Mumsnetters would insist they wouldn't be able to live a comfortable life with what we get, although we do), but our home life wouldn't benefit. My DH and I don't personally think the extra money makes up for the time and engagement that would be lost. That's my opinion, and what I have noticed anecdotally aligns with that.

OK that's nice for you but if I didn't work long hours my child would grow up on benefits (at best). There isn't another parent who can fund me to remain at home with my children. It's not a case of "extra money" vs "time and engagement" its a case of "being able to eat and have a home" vs "not being able to eat and have a home".

This isn't your problem or your fault, obviously. I don't expect to have pity or sympathy for this but I do expect people who are in this extremely privileged position to read the room a bit and to not bang on about the enormous sacrifices they are making and demand more "value" from society for the work they do, being supported to "engage" with their children, when many of us manage to work hard to put food on the table and also find time to "engage" with our children.

Crack on with looking after your children and enjoying your children by all means but don't expect the rest of us to "value" you for this privilege which we are not afforded.

And you see, this is precisely the sort of thinly veiled resentment which is really tiresome.

there is no problem with your post until you write “ I imagine a lot of mumsnetters would insist they wouldn’t be able to live a comfortable life with what we get ….”
why the snidey comment? Why the assumption that you are somehow virtuously making sacrifices which others could make but want luxuries instead?

I completely respect any SAHM who is honest enough to just say ‘yes, I want to be at home, my partner is happy to be sole earner, it’s the right choice for us.’ End of. But the snidey comments and attempts to ‘evidence’ the outcomes of children of working parents just show a lack of security in the decision to give up work.

I’m confused what you are actually getting at here? You mention making bottles, weaning etc. whether you stay at home or work all parents have to do that. I don’t think any parent deserves a pat on the back for feeding their child and playing with them. That’s just basic care. Same as cleaning the house, working parents have to do it whilst being out of the house all day. Regardless of your situation everyone has those responsibilities.

Then you’ve mentioned working parents and kemi badenoch mentioning childcare costs - this doesn’t effect you as you are lucky enough to stay at home. But for those it does impact, it makes a huge difference to their finances every month.

Are to trying to get at that all children should get free childcare even if they have a stay at home parent? Or a stay at home parent should be paid in some way?

Genuinely confused what you are asking about. I don’t know anyone that looks down on stay at home parents. People are in envy of stay at home parents where I’m from as we all wish we could afford to live off one income.

Just a little 😂

I certainly will not be funding your ivory tower. Don’t work if you don’t want to, but don’t assume you are doing more, or better than those who work or of course those dreadful Macdonalds mothers who should be put to work.

Surprised it hadn't been said yet TBF!

I completely agree OP and as borne out in this thread, a lot of judgement and lack of “worth” is coming from other women sadly.
of course some families have absolutely no choice and of course some families do cut back to be able to stay at home and of course some families do not struggle at all on one income, that’s life.
Your post is about how society in general views a stay at home parent and I feel the judgement comes most harshly from working mums. Of course not every working mum has that attitude, not by a long way, but you can see from some of the comments on here that is often the case and was also sadly my experience as well. I am now a full time carer for my son who is unable to attend school and there’s even less value seen in that!

I've seen so many of these discussions about "value" in staying home to raise children but whenever you try to pin people down on what they mean by "valuing" the role of SAHMs they can never give a coherent answer.

The discussion usually veers off into unsupported speculation about what being in wraparound childcare must do to children but never with any serious longitudinal evidence to back it up.

I think essentially what it boils down to is that SAHMs want to be congratulated for being SAHMs. Well, sorry but no.

I'm very happy for SAHMs to be SAHMs. I do understand that there is a long history of people having a pop at them on here for being lazy or boring and using unpleasant stereotypes against them and I totally understand the urge to defend yourself from this.

But I don't understand the periodical wailing about "value". It's of no consequence to me whether you go to work or not, providing you raise your children well and compassionately within your own means. I couldn't really care less how you finance the raising of your children and whether you go to work or not.

But as someone who has had to raise a child single-handedly with no financial or practical support whatsoever, I don't see why I should be congratulating others for having had better luck then I have. Grace and appreciation, yes. Congratulation? No.

I think it's amusing you think I'm in an extremely privileged position, financially. I don't think anyone who knows me in real life would think that, although personally I do feel very lucky. And no one is making you read the thread about whether or not SAHPs are undervalued. If you don't like people with differing opinions 'banging on' then click away.

More generally, to the thread, there are a lot of people out there (working full time or otherwise) just getting by, who can't save up for a house deposit themselves never mind helping their children with them. I think a lot of posters on Mumsnet are quite well off, and don't realise not everyone has the same options or choices as them.

We know the environment a child is raised in, particularly for the first 3 years of life, makes a huge difference to their rest of their lives.

If the government are going to incentivise us to allow our very young children to spend unprecedented portions of their early development in group care settings, then the burden of proof should be to show this is safe for them first.

We expect that before the government fund a national vaccine programme they will ensure the vaccines have been studied extensively for safety. We don’t vaccinate all of our children with minimal evidence and then change course if we realise later that it’s been harmful to them.

I don’t think it’s undervalued but I do think they should not just focus on childcare as some families want one parent to be the childcare.

Don't worry, I'm not virtuously making sacrifices. We'd be poor whether I worked full time or not, as my job isn't well paid. I thought I'd made that fairly clear, but maybe not.

The evidence over time has shown that it doesn't make any real difference to outcomes. You seem to want evidence that it produces favourable outcomes, which isn't the same thing.

What the evidence does show is that family income has a direct impact on child development and life chances.

I agree with you, OP. My FIL (a retired teacher) always used to say that it's the 'most important job in the world.' And I agree.

I never cared about anyone else's opinion. I loved being at home when the children were young, and wouldn't change it for anything.

What has got to me about OPs post is that she believes she should get some sort of payment, or a badge or whatever for being. Stay at home mum, completely disregarding that the payment would be funded by nurses, teachers, drs, women working becuase their husband has left, or they left due to DV, widows having to work, women’s whose husbands are too sick to work, women who are the bigger earners in their household, families on two minimum wage incomes having to scrape by.
and her reasoning is it’s because she is providing superior quality childcare to her own children, while completely disregarding that others HAVE to work, and at the same time denying this privilege to anyone who is feeding their children worse quality food than she does hers.
lets hope OP does not go back to work and become a manager of people and especially does not decide on a career in politics.

@OtterlyAstounding

I think it's amusing you think I'm in an extremely privileged position, financially. I don't think anyone who knows me in real life would think that, although personally I do feel very lucky. And no one is making you read the thread about whether or not SAHPs are undervalued. If you don't like people with differing opinions 'banging on' then click away.

By definition you're in a more privileged position than me because I have to work and you don't; I don't know your finances obviously but you aren't on the hook every month for all of your child's upkeep. I don't begrudge this and I'm happy for you to do this but I don't see why I should have to ascribe some nonspecific "value" to your role.

The title of the thread is quite literally about raising children being undervalued.

Why didn’t he do it then?

Wimmin's work, innit?

Apologies for spelling ‘achievement’ incorrectly. Somewhat ironic ;-)

I do work – part time, admittedly. And my DH and I are on the hook. Yes, being a single parent does mean that staying at home isn't a good option, sadly for those who want to. But would you have wanted to? I can't recall if you said.

Yes, so it's weird to say people sharing their opinion on this thread are 'banging on'.

Anyway, I think that all childcare should be more highly valued, and that parents should ideally be more easily able to choose either more well trained childcare, or staying at home, without major financial detriment.

Yep. A patronising pat on the back from a man who would not have dreamed of being a sahd himself.