to be annoyed at this new term of 'full time mum'

[blondie80]

i know i'm not being unreasonable.

a woman on that lottery 1-100 show on sat night referred to herself as a 'full time mum'

i take it she meant sahm instead.

i have no bones with anyone's choice as to what the do, sahm of wohm.

but... i was so annoyed i felt she was referring to wohm as - part timers??

does she forget that we do the same stuff as well as a full week at work!!

i was with my mother when we watched the show, and she has 4 dc who have left home, and says she is still a full time mum regardless.

ok rant over.

Ooh I forgot my mumsnet favourite epithet:

Iota the LazyArse Mum with Kids in School

Sadly no longer true

Oh poo I got that wrong it should be

Iota the LazyArse SAHM with Kids in Scho

Lockets... i don't find being a sahm a breeze, just a breeze compared to being a full time staff nurse on a busy trauma unit. My role as a nurse was a job... being a sahm in my mind is not a job in any way shape or form.

Also to the poster who said you get time away from your children even if they are not school age ... I have absolutely no help with my youngest who is too young for pre school, i have no family to help and my dh works away for 3 months at a time. So yes, i have at least one of my children with me 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week for 3 months until dh comes home for 3 weeks..

I'm not complaining, it's just not everyone has grandma playdates etc, and some of us are literally full time mums.

Wrong again

Damn this iPhone

until my kids were old enough for pre-school, I had them pretty much constantly, no grandmas near, etc...and far away from family in general, dh often away (was in forces until last year).....maybe that is why I found it sometimes all a bit of a chore....

however, barnsley, of course it is different from nursing, etc...hard work as you said, and whilst hard work isn't always paid, like a job, it is work nontheless....

like I said, people feeling devalued as a mother because some non-wohm like to call themselves Full time mum, is kinda said and says more about themselves than others....

Fair lady... i agree it's hard work, however the debate a few of us were having yesterday afternoon was that some saw their role as a parent as a job.. I disagree in that i think parenting is just a part of life and not a "job". hard work and stressful at times but most certainly not a job in my eyes.

Kittywise "There are many degress of parents." Quite, and defining yourself by the AMOUNT of time you spend with your children is pants. IMO. Anyway, it's such a forums-only subject, I never hear it discussed IRL.

cthea people only discuss this type of thing when they are anonymous. That's why forums like this work. Things that people don't feel they can talk about to somebody's face.

Yes, because they'd be too damn rude and perhaps expose themselves as being quite narrow minded. So yes, anonymously that's OK, especially is they have an army backing them up in their narrowmindedness, numbers tend to give some kind of credibility to everything. Meanwhile the WOHMs are out there making a living and not having the time to bother with such small matters.

Wow, cthea. People are too rude and narrow minded on MN. Rude enough to say that WOHMs are out there making a living and not having the time to bother with such small matters?

Your judgeypants have certainly come out for an airing, haven't they?

And it was a WOHM who raised this issue, started this thread and feels aggrieved by a woman who called herself a full time mum. So she clearly had the time to bother about such a small matter. As indeed did you by answering it.

As a SAHM (a phrase I only use on this board by the way) I don't really give a monkeys what ANYONE calls themselves.

I also don't feel the need to judge people who WOH and make condescending statements about them.

You are reading too much into it. I didn't mean it to be inflammatory but it IS narrow minded to count the minutes you spend with your child and it IS narrow minded to judge yourself and others by the amount of time spent. I've never discussed it IRL, it never came up.

Indeed lockets, indeed

Lockets, that's a great post.

I think that most parents are supportive of one another in RL. Only a few make judgements on others and they tend to be the people we avoid, if we've got any sense.

And I think the key to motherhood is that we do retain a sisterhood and look out for each other.

I think most parents have experienced a range of working/caring arrangements and have chosen the best one for them.

Some parents love woh, some hate it, some have no choice, some do. In RL we'd respect those choices and most of us respect them on MN too.

Arguing over the titles people choose for their SAHM roles or their WOHM roles is a bit pointless really. As long as the parents are happy with their choice or at least resigned to it, what else matters.

Squilly put that wisely. I agree 100%.

I often tell people i am a full time mum. Simply because i don't stay at home. I work on average about 6 days a month at a show centre, where DD comes with me. I also have horses that DD and i spend a lot of time with.

As this arguement started over the fact that the op didn't like the term 'full time mum' because she felt it was misleading, i feel the same about 'stay at home mum' because in real life when you use that term people seem to think that you spend your time hoovering, washing etc. Which does get done, but generally once DH is home in the evening because DD is full time work in herself.

I am not sure that i have got my point across as well as i meant to but i hope that the general gist of it comes across ok.

I think there's at least two strands to this topic and perhaps we are talking at cross purposes.