Why do ppl take issue with Stay at Home Mothers?

[Thefirstime]

one child, stay at home parent, child now school age.. choosing not to go back to work right now but look after my family/food/house/clean..look after myself too (which went right out the window)

I had PND and anxiety so am recovering.. still have wobbles..

why do people take issue with SAH parents? I do not earn right now but what has that to do with anyone..

really negative responses from family and old friends on my current living situation it sucks..

@GrannyRose15 why is 'full time mum' OK but housewife not? Do you think parents who work don't have to consider their children and are part time parents?

I am sorry but plenty of sahm uses phrases such as ‘ I couldn’t be away from my child’ or ‘I choose to raise myself child myself’.

It’s not ok for working parents to say similar types of comments. But pretending sahm never do it, to working mothers, is a bit disingenuous.

Tbh I don’t think it’s SAHMs as a whole. There’s plenty of reasons why people should be/need to be/can be a SAHM, if you can comfortably live off a partners income, have health needs or a child has additional needs etc then fair enough, why not! I think the issue is that a lot of the time the SAHMs are the ones claiming benefits when there’s absolutely no reason they couldn’t go out to work, kids are in school 30 hours per week, not many reasons why a lot of people cant get a part time job and that’s the problem. Then unfortunately on assumption all SAHMs get tarred with the same brush regardless of having your own reasons for being a SAHM.

I wish I could be a SAHM but I'm the main wage earner. I aspire to be one day but by the time I'm in the position to do it DS will be in uni or working so I will have to become a stay at home dog mam!

Oh for goodness sake. So defensive! obviously we are not looking after them when we are working, which is why we pay someone to do it!

I grew up with a SAHM. She raised us (daughters) with the expectation we'd have a career, which we've done. From her experience (and what I read on here), I think SAHMs can be short sighted. Unless you plan to stay at home forever ie never work even when the kids are grown up, when you eventually do try to find employment it is going to be very difficult and not well paid. You will have minimal retirement savings.

Contrary to what you read on MN very few people have a spouse on "good" money, which means their retirement savings are also limited. Depending on earnings you may not have been able to afford to buy a house on one income, which places even more pressure in retirement years.

Then there's so many threads on here where marriages end in 40s/50s and the woman now has to find work (which due to no current experience will not be well paid compared to someone who has worked full time to the same age) and will have a bleak retirement as the plan to live off husband's pension is now out the window.

I don't love my job, I know very few people who do. I do it out of necessity.

I really wouldn’t give it a second thought, I would just make the most out of the fact you have made a choice to do something you want to do. I wish I could stay at home but no chance 🤦🏼‍♀️

Your children sound a lot older. Thinking back to when they were younger, what did you do with them in the holidays? Presume they were in holiday clubs or otherwise looked after, unless you are a teacher or something. To disagree again, when you work 35 hrs plus a week you are not doing as much for your kids as a SAHP, it’s not possible unless you are not really working your day job but looking after your kids instead!

I was a SAHM for eleven years. The only comments I ever experience were from others who would have liked to but for whatever their reasons didn’t. I went back to work after my first DD was born and it was horrible. All the juggling and missing out on so much. When I had my second DD I knew it was time for a career break. I enjoyed it so much I stayed at home until there were both at high school. Do what suits you and your family. Ignore the naysayers.

There’s a great thing called annual leave - we took that. We also used some holiday clubs, we shared care with friends, I had parental leave and my mum helped occasionally. Once children are at school no parent is looking after them 35 hours per week during term time.

I'm at the place where I'm trying to decide if I just resign myself to be home forever. (I'm caring for a very sick 18 year old and this isn't likely to be short term).

I'm well qualified in a shortage area and am always being hit on to work for different places. I'd have no problem getting work and never have had a problem getting work, even after stints at home. I did a second masters degree at the start of all this, thinking of the time I could go back to working. Now I feel like that was just a big waste of time. I have done the odd bit of work from home but it's very minimal. I don't even have time for that at the moment. As far as pension, my DH pays into mine. Yes, it will take a lot longer to pay off the mortgage but we're just dealing with it out of necessity.

I am starting to consider whether I should retire young though. Then at least my future plans won't keep getting scuttled! So your doom and gloom doesn't apply to everyone who stays home and, yes, I am thinking that maybe I should plan to just stay home forever, because that's how it seems to be working out.

I didn’t disagree about the holidays. Though I don’t work in an office in the school holidays.

My kids are a teen and an adult at uni.

when they were younger and I was with their dad, we did it between us. When they were 5 and 12 and I became a single parent I did a mix of things. DS is into sport so would attend sports camps. Dd did a mix of things. He would do that’s ether I was at home or work. Even now. My parents occasionally helped out which both kids loved. A group of friends would do reciprocal care. Which meant the kids were with their friends at mine or theirs. I would take annual leave and always negotiated to be able to take leave if I needed. A few times I took 4 weeks unpaid at summer, more through choice than anything else.

I am not arguing that sahp don’t make the holidays or easier. Or spend more time with the kids in the holidays. I am saying A man doesn’t need all the jobs done during the week so he can spend quality time with the kids. That’s not to say, that he and his wife can’t want that set up. Or be happy with that set up. It’s just not a mandatory. And that’s what makes a lot of men sound useless. They can have quality family time without a sahp. A sahp isn’t enabling a man to spend quality time with his kids because he could do it either way.

The more specialist I became, the easier it is to negotiate the things I need to prioritise my kids. Because that’s my priority when going into a new role.

I was a stay at home mum because we couldn’t afford the childcare. If I had paid for someone to look after my daughter I would have been in debt so all these posts about it being a privilege to be SAHP are not always correct!

Yes yes yes.
Family - friends - strangers.
I usually get nasty comments. You wasted your education. Why did you go to university. Don't you get bored. Are you chained to the kitchen sink. You have no goals. Your backwards. What a boring life now goals no motivation. Etc etc etc etc etc.

I can only go on what was said to me or that I heard, so no, not disingenuous at all. SOME working mothers would start a conversation by attacking MY decision.

My theory is that those who do that aren't perfectly comfortable with their own choices, or don't have choices, so need to bring you down. Then they can feel superior.

As I said. It’s not ok for working mothers to do that to you.

You didn’t say you don’t know a sahm that has done the same to a working mum. You said but you never hear a s.a.h.m. start the phrase "ooh, ooh no, I couldn't go OUT to work"

but people do hear (and see on here) sahms say exactly that

and Look, we don't judge you, you judge yourselves, and you judge stay at home mothers, and you just need to stop!.

You didn’t speak of your experience. Some Sahms, absolutely do judge working mothers, yet you spoke for the group and said they don’t.

Unfortunately true. Standards for men are a lot different and easier to meet. Working full time he's a great Dad providing for his family. SAHD its so great he's there for his kids and enabling his wife to work. Stay at home Mum, you should be working. Mum working long hours, who's looking after your kids? Dont you miss them? and so on.

I'm a single SAHM due to disability, my own and the kids ones. I wouldn't describe myself as a full time Mum as a PP asked if OP was saying this. Working doesn't make someone less of a full time parent. So I'd say my job is being a SAHM and being sick 😅. Some parents are part time parents but that's not because they work its because they check out of parenting like my XH has. Disney Dad who
leaves all the tough bits of parenting and all the extra work because of DCs disabilities to me. If someone asks what I do I tend to say something quick and redirect the conversation back to them and what they do.

But what if her husband’s earnings were such that her own earnings were meaningless? Eg he earned £700k and she earned £60k and the family had sufficient assets that even if they divorced she’d be fine? Should she work just for the sake of it? Why?

Or 200k and 25k lol

As a divorce lawyer one obviously only see those marriages that fail; but, I’d say pretty much all of the dynamics where husband has big exec job and wife is at home doing Pilates whilst kids are at school, he’s the one who has ended up cheating. I wonder if it’s about respect. Often you meet at Uni or work and you’re marrying this interesting dynamic independent person, then suddenly all they are doing is going to the gym and lunch whilst you’re flying over the world for meetings and stressing about work. You can see how resentment kicks in at the inequality. I would feel very cross if my wife was pretending like faffing around whilst the kids were at school was a job or equivalent to what I was doing. I just would. Often these women also have cleaners and gardeners too so they’re not even doing those domestic elements. It’s like they’ve just opted out. They’ll have their daughters at private school educating themselves to get into good unis, and I assume aspire for more than them than just sitting at home.

I can't imagine most SAHMs sit at home and just clean all day, with only the gym for diversion. How boring.

I know a couple of sahms who have their own fitness/pt business that work around school hours. I don't think it brings in negative bucks but it's a bit extra. There's not many that just flit around at the gym and have cleaners.

See that wasn’t my experience! 25 days or whatever doesn’t even begin to cut it! What about all the things you want to be present for in term time - sports days, assemblies, helping out on school trips etc, and unless you work only school hours meeting them at 3pm from the school gate with a big smile, eager to hear about their day and with time to spend with them before tea/bath/bed. My eldest loved it when I did all that and I fully intend to do for my little one now she’s at school too. It’s not that I don’t want to work, I did have a good job before kids, and I tried it for a couple of years again when my first DD was in primary school, but I found that the sacrifice was just too great. The holidays are the time when we make the most memories and I get to reconnect with my kids outside of the daily grind of the school routine. My DH too, as all his A/L and downtime outside of work is spent with us as a family, not juggling childcare between us and trying to cram in all the housework/endless chores etc.

Totally agree that a man is capable of doing the house jobs and spending quality time with family, and indeed all working parents are, it’s just leaves even less time free for each thing. So often in these discussions it comes down to gender stereotypes, whereas I personally don’t see it like that. I am grateful that my husband works hard in a paid job to provide for us financially and allow me to be around all the time for the kids, he’s grateful that I do that cooking, cleaning and other housework (which as I’ve said is definitely the boring part of my role) so that he doesn’t have to squeeze that in as well around his job. We are both capable of doing it the other way round, but the thing we agree on being number 1 priority is that having one of us be a SAHP is the right thing for our family unit.