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.