to thank all the WOHM who made it possible for me to be a SAHM?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

I was a SAHM for a Verrrry long time but without WOHM it would not have been possible so here goes a big thank you to

midwives, health visitors, teachers, solicitors,SALT, nurses, doctors, shop workers/ retailers,social workers, writers, cleaners, child minders the list goes on,

please add

All people who work contribute to the economy and community. I do not see the relavance of their sex or whether they have children. Indeed I contributed in the many years I worked before having children.

Also as you say SAHM mums and dads do contribute to communtity in other ways.

I was just saying that for me personally it hard to get back to work because the cost of childcare ould be more than I could earn.

Wotdoido, surely the relevance of WOHM to this issue is that it would be fundamentally undemocratic and would hugely skew working life if a large group of people (women with children) were not represented in the workforce and were absent from all positions of authority and influence in society.

Women who have had children have had a shared experience of areas such as pregnancy, childbirth, feeding decisions, relationships and so on. Having people who know what it is like to be a mother in various professions changes the way that those professions view mothers and changes mothers' views and experiences of those professions.

If you don't think that being a mother is of huge relevance to what people bring with them when you encounter them, why one earth are you bothering with an internet forum where 99% of the posters are mothers?

I do agree some roles are perhaps better suited to parents. Certainly a midwife who has given birth is likely to be better.

I would of course hate a society when all women stayed at home to look after children.

However, I do not see how someone can say that she could only be a SAHM mum because of working mums.

Surely you can only be a SAHM mum if it suits your own personal circumstances.

I think it's because none of us could do anything much with our lives without working women, whatever our own working status be.
It would be a poorer existence for us all.

Which is why none of us should ever espose the idea that women should stay at home. Or put down women who work. Or make insinuations about how they parent.

Because all our lives are improved by them.

I'm going to add to the list...

MPs, actresses, poets,lecturers,soldiers,pilots,journos,film directors, researchers,care assistants,clothes designers, toilet cleaners.

smallorange - I'm sure they would help but I also think I know what they would think but never say- that's the bit I'm not keen on. Better all round in my view not to ask.

Thank you for this thread because each time I feel funny about being a SAHM (probably because I'm having a hormonal blip) I read stuff on MN about SAHMs v WOHMs and it reminds me what a stranger I met at a wedding once said to me - he said "Yes, being a SAHM is a very important job, to be respected as much as any other job, IF you do it properly". At the time I was feeling demoralised and demotivated and not very good about myself and I wasn't putting much effort into my parenting. When I asked myself the question "AM I doing it properly" the answer was No. When I put my mind to it properly and saw it as a job and tried to do it to the best of my ability I improved at it and started feeling much better about myself.

Sometimes when I'm tired/hormonal/stressed/having a slight dip in confidence, I stop putting effort into it, then know deep down I'm not doing a good job, and my paranoid thoughts start seeping in about 'everyone thinks I'm crap and nobody respects SAHMs'. When I start thinking about what I'm doing again and doing it more 'properly' I start feeling better again.

Another thought I had yesterday that seems to help is that my excuse for not working is that it gives me enough time to get things done in the house and other 'wifely' organisational type stuff, and enough time to relax a bit and do a bit of what I want, that when the children are home I have enough energy and calmness from being organised that I can be tolerant and talk to the children nicely. I thought, am I actually doing this or am I misusing the time I have without the children so that nothing is done when they get home and I'm stressed because I'm still doing household stuff at the same time as them being here? Sometimes I forget what I wanted to use my childfree time for and it all goes a bit wrong.

Sorry for my drivel, it just helps me get my thoughts straight!

What a lovely thread! I watched that programme on Monday night (made my DB watch it too) and thought those women were amazing!

Thisisjuststupid - do you think all fathers should stay at home and look after the kids too, if they can afford it? If not, why not?

i have resented my friends for assuming i can and will always drop everything and help them. some of them have seemed to forget i do work from home too, and have things to do with my own DD. sometimes i have felt a bit used, thats all

elephants - i think the parent with more earning power should go out to work and the other stay at home - doesnt matter which one. DH earns more than me so we did it that way round. also my PND has stopped me from leaving house sometimes so its been hard

Thanks for explaining, thisis. Sorry you've been having such a hard time.

In answer to your other comment above, obviously it is bad if parents "dislike" their children, but I think wanting some time (even a whole day, who knows) away from them is not a crime, and perfectly normal for many parents, men and women. I frequently look after small children and their parents' faces as they wave goodbye - I would say elated is usually the word .

OrdinarySAHM - Remember, you only have to be "good enough". That doesn't mean worrying that you're only being "good enough", it means stop fretting about what the "ideal" mother would be up to at any given time, and accept that your children are happy, and take a little joy in the moment.

The woman at the wedding was either a. talking about SAHM who aren't "good enough" - and that means abuse. It happens, but it's unlikely to be happening with you. So don't even go there. Because it it pointless and actually rather immoral to be comparing the odd low-activity day with abuse. or
b. Off-loading her own issues about her childhood onto the nearest mother-figure available. Which people do when you're a mother, and you have to learn to just sing "la la la" in your head as they talk.

Thinking people don't respect SAHM mothers isn't paranoid. People don't respect mothers as mothers full stop. Not WOHM, not SAHM. They bring all sorts of ambivalent, often conflicting emotions, beliefs, judgments, and demands to mothers. Which is why it is so important that we start thinking about what our own agenda is.

So, write "I am fab" on a piece of paper, stick on the wall somewhere, and make sure you look at it at least twice a day, and believe it.

OrdinarySAHM - sorry I misread the first part.
Instead I'll say that I'm impressed you used that comment so positively. I have to admit that that post was written from personal experience.
When I first became a mother, and people said things like that to me, I used to fret. Which is, I guess, why I misread your post.
It took ages for me to deal with that sort of comment positively, which is why I get a bit evangelical about passing on the positivity. (Even when it's not necessary!) I don't like to think of other women taking as long to get to that stage, and if I can provide a short-cut ... well, there you go!

Thanks Animula

I found your first post useful even if you were having a knee jerk reaction (which I understand why you did).

It's interesting that you thought it was a woman because it was actually an old man! Maybe I took it better than if it had been a woman! I didn't feel like he was in the back of his mind comparing himself to me or competing with me while he was saying it.

I wonder WHY mothers are looked down upon by society? And are they in all cultures?

I actually blame feminism! I actually feel pressured by feminism to get a job outside the home as well as being a mother when I don't really want to! I feel that by doing the old fashioned thing I am being 'un-modern' and letting feminism down or something. I feel like feminists would think I was being a weak and subservient 'little wife' and feel like saying I am capable of having a career if I wanted one. I sometimes feel I should prove it. I agree with women's right to choose to have a career if they want one but I don't want to feel bad if I want to choose not to.

True feminism is respecting all of us for our choices and recognising that each has its difficulties. It's only by supporting one another and listening (and god knows that doesn't happen alot on the SAHM/WOHM debates on here much) that we can be strong enough to push back on society that thinks that we 'ought' to stay home or 'ought' to go to work.

IMHO

Scardypants, you said what I was thinking, but more eloquently and saved me the time of going through the rest of the thread before adding my own twopennworth.

I think it was Riven who said, women are all great. And so they are.

Whether you work or whether you don't is up to you and your individual circumstances. The important thing is that many of us now have choices that some of our mothers (depending on your age) weren't lucky enough to have. My own mum HAD to stay at home and look after her brood. And I don't think she enjoyed it at all.

I know some women have to work, for economic reasons rather than fulfillment ones, and I always helped out working mums when I was completely SAHM as I knew how hard it could be. That's what it should all be about...helping each other.

I'm now off to do the shopping as I'm lucky enough to be a WOHM and SAHM all in one as I work part time.

You don't need to blame feminism. If you are happy with your situation then you don't need validation from bunch of strangers on the Internet, feminists or not. I think feminism is about the notion of choice - choice to work or not, freedom to fulfil your potential in whatever way you wish.

Truth is many women do not have a choice over whether to work or not. Some have to go yo pay the bills, others are home through redundancy, cating responsibilities etc.

But at least feminism has brought us rights - no rape within marriage, for example, which benefit all women, working or not.

And I am a SAHM too. And it's working for us as a family right now, which is what matters.

I don't know what Germaine Greer would think - but I don't really care.

Oh, OrdinarySAHM - (glad you didn't go with 'JustaSAHM') You have a job! Being a SAHM is a job! It is WORK! The hardest you'll ever do and a huge (unwaged) contribution - the most important there is if we want society at all. I look forward to the day when it is also VALUED. Fancy having to justify why you want to rear your own kids! The sad thing is, all that you learn, all those skills and all that experience counts for nothing on your CV. Isn't that the shocking thing?
But if it makes you feel better, (and as an illustration of how we're all subject to manipulation or social engineering at different times throughout history, depending on who's running the show and whom it benefits), after the war (that's WW2 - in case you're wondering) you'd have had pressure from the other direction, i.e. 'You've done your bit in the munitions factory, my dear, now back to your rightful place - the kitchen'.

Originally posted by Scardypants: "It's a little saddening to think that it's women/mothers who drive the SAHM v WOHM arguement mostly. Reinforcing the feelings of guilt that seem to be born the same moment our children are"

..... except I rather think it's politics, economics and commerce that really run the show here...the bigger picture....

Might be slighty off topic but Im a stay at home mum of two who works for husband from home also - what does that make me? acronyms? apart from having no life

I started this original post having re-considered my position regarding the SAHM v WOHM debate.

As I had admitted earlier in I had in my time been very judgy about WOHM's and then it dawned on me that my family had always been reliant on WOHM's and it was about time I acknowledged their contribution and without sounding too pompous, sacrifice.

By doing this I was not diminishing SAHMs either, having worn those unwaged shoes for almost 18 years.

I may be an idealist but I believe we live in a recipricol society and when a SAHM I offered up my unwaged time too through 'good works' and the like.( an opportunity to enrich my life too if truth be told)

Now back in the salaried workplace I had no trouble incorporating those skills into a CV and am happy to say enjoy being waged once more.

My sincere hope is that when my 4 DC have families of their own this debate will look as anachronistic as the debate over a woman's right to choose her own fertilty or financial affairs.

"i know someone who dislikes her own kiddie enough sometimes to be glad to be rid of said DC for the day, then goes out for the day doing something other than work. that cant be right can it?"