"a full time mum"

[DuelingFanjo]

said whatsername on Relocationthingy.

Surely you're still a full time mum if you work. You're stull a mum anyway. no?

I think 'homemaker' is particularly cringeworthy.

As a wohm I don't like people smugly describing themselves as 'full time parents' because it does imply I'm not. The question is always 'what do you do' - so all that needs to be said is that you don't work outside the home at present. We are all parents - that's who we are, it's not what I do. Iyswim?

Or this definition from the Cambridge ED

Definition
unemployed adjective
/ˌʌn.ɪmˈplɔɪd/ adj
not having a job that provides money

Guess it depends which definition you use, I know which one most people refer to.

Sproggle, stop being obtuse.

S'ok Sproggle - you can refer to sahms as unemployed, of course. Aint a crime.

Haha!

I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread discussing terminology.

So sorry to bring it down to this level

"Kept Woman" is quite acceptable to me as well. Lets face it, it is what I am. And the manner to which I have become accustomed is excellent.

I sold out, what can I say?

Everyone is going to rip each other to pieces over a throwaway comment. Round and around and around we go.

You've lost me now Sproggle.

I don't do all that and work, I have no interest in being the world's hardest working or woman which is why I have no objection to someone else calling themselves a full time parent. I actively parent in the evening, weekends and holidays. My dp is a full time parent and he works.

yabu. We all know what it means. SOunds very petty to get huffy about it.

Yes, terminology, but a little more than that surely.

Afaik, this can be a rather emotive subject...

Btw, if I was unemployed I'd be getting my NI stamp paid and having to show up at the Job Centre.

i'm not doing any mothering whilst i'm at work though - I still am a mummy but that's kind of irreversible at this point..

although i always describe myself as a housewife, because i do that 4 days a week, and the other thing only 3...

i don't mind that particular tag.

When people ask 'what do you do?' they are asking what do you do as a job, ie between working hours.
I am a full time mum - I spend all my working hours looking after my children.
I have been a part time shop worker - I spend the working week half working in a shop and half looking after my children.
If I worked full time as a dentist for example then I would amswer 'I am a dentist'

Surely you can only be offended at somebody saying 'I am a full time mum' if the question they are answering is 'how much of a mum are you?'!! rather than 'what do you do for a living?'

Surely if you are going out to paid employment your are (for want of a better phrase) outsourcing your parenting - so perhaphs you are a full time Mum/Dad in the emotional sense, but you aren't really a full time parent in the sense of actually being the person doing the parenting, so saying 'I am a full time Mum/Dad/Parent' is just indicating that you do all of the childcare and don't outsource that to go to paid employment.

Really nothing to get huffy about is it?

What do you call a stay at home mother then?
Housewife - yuk
homemaker - double yuk
stay at home mum - mouthful
full time mum - kind of the best of a bad bunch, no?
I am not a full time mum, as in, I do not spend all of my time looking after DS. I work some days and either DH does it or we pay someone else to do it. So if someone asks me what do you do, I answer my job, because I see it as a different question to 'do you have children', however if what you do is look after children, then 'I'm a full time parent' is an accurate answer.

So if the DCs are at school, are they 'part time sons/daughters?'

Tbh though, if people ask me what I do I usually say 'I'm at home sith The Boy'. People either say 'oh lucky you' or 'oh God, I couldn't bear that' depending on their feelings.

I don't really know why this topic is so emotive - in different circumstances (ie if I had had a decent job) I'd now be a wohm and I really think it would make sod all difference to the wee one. In some ways it'd be better for him - I am pretty dull at times for him.

JV that last was to nicky not you, sorry.

Why?

I spend more on average about 13 hours a day on my job, it seems the most likely thing I would define myself by.

I just tell people I am a housewife, it´s an especially great one at a dinner paty with loads of "successful" thirty somethings.

Then they say: "No, really?" (the WHY???!!! is implied)

Then either the conversation stops, or people ask desperately: "Well, what did you do BEFORE you became a housewife?"

As I am comfortable with being a housewife-stay-at-home-mum-home-maker-full-time-mum, I don´t mind whatever label people want to give me, I am me.

I love not having to justify my decisions.

And I have plenty of non-work, non-children related conversation!

Wow, outsourcing parenting has already been mentioned and we're only 3 pages in.

10 points to me, or should that be 5 as I wrote outsourcing childcare?

Outsourcing parenting?
Parenting is, then, activity defined by undertaking tasks related to the care of your children while located in the same room as them? Unrelated to providing a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, food on the table or keeping the bailiffs from the door?

If your parenting worth is defined by proximity alone, then surely SAHMs are not only full-time mothers but also part-time fathers? Or does all that provider stuff "count" as active, valuable parenting when it's a man doing it?

Whilst I like both 'kept woman' and 'person of independent means' I think they might be of limited use if the official forms in question were in search of money in any form

Right now (shitty day at work and ill child vs. important meeting dilemma tomorrow) I could really fancy being any of the above. Ask me again after a week at home with the DC and you would get a different answer. But FWIW 'full time mother' does slightly annoy me for all the reasons already stated, and would annoy me more if I could think of a better term to replace it.

Does that also make nannies part time parents?

My head is starting to hurt.