How do you describe being a stay-at-home mum to others?

[Stillhoping1990]

What do you say when people ask when are you going back to work or what do you do for work? Do you just say I’m a stay at home mum? Or is there another way of saying it? I’m always finding I need to then go on to justify my choice etc. A friend of mine calls herself a ‘home maker’.

You need to get comfortable with your choices op. Clearly there is something going on, does your husband respect your choice. You don’t need to tell us, only you need to know. And I’m not sure how honest you’d be anyway. Are you treated with respect in your home. Are you really giving your children a rich environment like they get when socialising with other kids at nursery etc with professionals, none of this is for us to know

but the fact you started out asking how to explain it, saying you feel the need to justify, and are now moved to an embarrassing level of attacking other mothers, says something isn’t right,

id focus on fixing that, rather than spending your time on line making stupid comments.

😂😂😂😂

I hope you aren’t teaching your kids to be this spiteful when they talk about other people making different choices to them.

Exactly! If you’re giving out this sort of weirdly aggressive superior attitude, making out only SAHMs are good parents basically, it really is no wonder people aren’t responding well to that. I feel lucky to be a SAHM, and I say that within the context of it having always been what I wanted and the fact I personally find it fulfilling, but the attitude that SAHP are automatically better parents is gross and alien to me.

It feels like defensiveness as it’s so ott. And the op can’t seriously beleive the stuff she’s writing. It also feels like envy over women with careers, which could be what’s behind this whole thread. It’s not even offensive it’s so ott and daft.

one things for sure, when you’re happy with your choices, you don’t need to start threads asking how to explain yourself and saying you feel like you need to justify it, then moving to attacking working mothers as selfish women having their babies ripped from their arms by strangers.

if I was the op I’d be glad this was anonymous and very embarrassed by myself right now.

and op, no one judges stay at home mothers. But we do judge you for the stuff you’re writing.

See this is still missing the point that many many families have 2 working parents but don’t require child care. I said up thread, when my children were young (pre school and throughout primary) me and dh both worked and we didn’t use childcare. We worked opposite hours. I know loads of people with one parent working shifts who managed like this. And lots of families in other jobs too (one parent started work early the other finished late.)

Children benefit massively from having both parents equally involved. One of the downsides I see with friends who are sahp is that the sahp becomes the default parent. Often the other parent never does school pick up/ drop off, doesn’t know the teachers or the children’s friends, doesn’t know what activities the children do, never helps with homework etc. We always did 50:50 of everything and both knew everything about the children’s lives. That is a brilliant thing and we were lucky. I have friends who have to leave their husbands instructions if they are ever away, even for an evening. I couldn’t live like that!

You’re right that as a working mum I didn’t do 100% of the parenting, but my children have 2 parents! It absolutely should not be one parent doing 100% of the parenting. My and dh did 100% of the parenting between us. So did most working parents I know.

You are right that having a choice makes you lucky. But do you not feel your children would be even better off if they were parented equally by both parents? The added bonus is that both parents get to maintain their careers. Seems like best of both worlds to me.

Also, what’s “best” changes over time. If I’m honest I was a tiny bit jealous of sahp friends when my children were very young, but now they’re teens I’m thankful every day that me and dh made the choices we did.

I’m also grateful I continued in my career ir has made a huge difference to our finances and thus our life, afforded our daughter a lot of opportunities and privilege and provided a strong role model and work ethic.

i recall a surprising and dismaying conversation my daughter and her friends had, when they were chosing unis. One of them commented she didn’t understand why her mum didn’t get a job, why she just stays at home and does the domestic chores,but felt she was in a position to give her daughter career advice. Her daughter couldn’t understand how her mother felt qualified to give that advice.

i could see both sides of that, why the mother felt her opinion was valid and why the daughter looked at her and thought you’ve not done it, so you can’t advise me, I don’t want your life.

my father couldn’t hold down a job, I recall him deciding to advise me on mine, before I went no,contact i have a successful career, and I recall looking at him and thinking in my head you couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, so you are in no position to advise me and I don’t want to hear it.

parentnood is a long road. It’s not just the preschool years. There is a much bigger picture, and that’s what I meant earlier. Children grow up, they decide, they decide if you were a good parent. They decide if they respect your life choices. They decide if they want your advice. They decide. Not us.

And it’s about way way more than are they happy. That’s part of it,but It’s also about the life you give them, it’s about the role model you set. It’s about the life you have outside being a parent, no one wants a parent whose whole life is just being a parent. It’s about how happy you were, how happy the home was, the support, boundaries and freedoms, the work ethic, the success, the failures. Children see it all. And they form opinions, opinions we may not like.

I’m the same! I feel very lucky, so when I tell other working parents it makes me feel so awkward. 1) I don’t want to sound smug, like yeah my husband fortunately earns enough that I don’t need to work (not like we’re minted or anything). 2) I worry about sounding like I’m lazy or a ‘kept woman’, even though we all know how hard being a SAHM is. And 3) when I say it’s tough, I don’t want to sound ungrateful that I get this time, when lots of people would love to be able to stay home with the kids.

For these reasons, when I go to playgroups and hear people talk about their jobs, I don’t contribute unless people ask me directly ‘what do you do?’ otherwise I feel it sounds really random or like I’m showing off. It’s very weird and don’t know why it hasn’t become more natural already

@Dollymix1234
@Stillhoping1990 Equally, I'm far prouder of choosing to be a working parent than I would be choosing to be a stay-at-home one.
I am proud that by working hard and earning in my profession, my husband is also afforded the opportunity to be an equally involved parent (which our daughter greatly benefits from).
It all really depends upon your viewpoint.

If you don’t work and you don’t claim work related benefits you are classed as self unemployed , so just tell people that

@tinyspiny But you're not "self-unemployed?" If you're not embarrassed of your choice (and why should you be), then just say "I'm a SAHM." In the same way as I say I'm a working parent

Hones , you don't need to worry about sounding smug - many of us get a huge amount of satisfaction from our jobs, from working outside the home, and from earning our own money, and would hate to be a sahp. Just concentrate on yourself and don't compare yourself to others, there's really no need.

*Honestly

This, smugness would only be there if people felt there was something to be jealous of would it not?

I am not embarrassed about anything , I’m actually retired however if you go on the government website / HMRC to pay voluntary NI contributions that is how it describes you - Self Unemployed .

Ive never had crying babies being torn from my arms and taken into the arms of strangers so i can continue my fabulous career.

Meh, I used childcare even when I didn’t work

@tinyspiny If anyone described themselves in conversation as "self-unemeployed", there would definitely be an eyeroll!!

Exactly. I was a sahp for 2 years while on a career break - definitely not for me! If I thought a sahp was looking at me and worrying about coming across as smug I would have been

I don’t disagree with you , however that is ( or at least was) the terminology being used when my daughter was sorting out her NI a few years ago .

You sound horribly smug.

My lovely mum was a SAHP and for various reasons, I wish that she had gone back to work. It would have been better for all of us.

Children are lucky if they have loving parents who ensure that they are well cared for. It doesn't matter if those parents woh or sah, it is the quality of the parent-child relationship which matters.

Yeah, you really don't need to worry about sounding smug. Not everyone thinks that being a SAHP is something to envy.

I can assure you I've never felt envious of a stay at home parent. I think it would be awful. I love the balance of work and parenting, it means I don't get too stressed about either. Staying home with young children would have made me miserable. We're all different though!

The “I’m lucky” bit is odd and presumptuous, and a little bit arrogant 🤔

These threads seem to pop up every now and again and run to exactly the same script. They start off all faux-innocent, saying I don't know what to call myself, I don't want to offend anyone. And then they descend into smug ramblings about how envious WOHMs must be and how the children of SAHPs are actually the lucky ones etc.

Do people really have to convince themselves that being a SAHM is somehow better than being a WOHM simply in order to justify their own choices about their own families?

Nobody else really cares what you do, so you don't have to justify yourselves. Just enjoy your own choices and let other people enjoy theirs!