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’.

Probably because you believe that you’re doing something wrong or that they’ll be jealous of or look down on.

You just need to realise that most people don’t really care

Jesus, that sounds like two full-time jobs together! She sounds like such a lovely Mum, you were very lucky.

That’s very rare, most women or men for that matter find it very difficult to get back into the workplace with any significant employment gap, and most don’t have their own savings, or enough to keep them afloat till they can get employed and to a level they can sustain themselves and 50 percent of the child costs.

so well done I’d say.

This, no one really gives a shit, and no one looks down on you or judges you or is jealous of you. I probably wouldn’t think I have much in common with you if asked , but I’d interact like with anyone else and find out more about you as a person.

i think I’d judge someone who said they were lucky enough, or at least I’d cringe a bit for you. Then I’d probably just politely move on, thinking not my circus not my monkeys.

Nice, but fairly normal? I/my dh do all that sort of stuff alongside working.

How lovely, you seem to live life exactly as you want and that's how it should be.

I hope you're not a doctor as it would be shame to have trained so hard and not work as a medic but otherwise you sound like you are living your best life.

If you still feel awkward when telling people how lucky you are and what you do for a living, just talk about yourself in a more confident manner.

I don't mean you should show off, exactly, but own your happiness and success so you don't feel intimidated by other parents who do combine both home making and career or job.

If you feel hurt or attacked by others appearing judgmental of you, there is a great book, which helped my sister who has always lacked confidence and who has alway been easily rattled by the things others say. It's called, Let Them.

'Homemaker' sounds unbearably twee.

I'd probably just say 'I'm not working now while the kids are small..' Then maybe mention what career I was in or what I might go back to. Or say what I used to do.

Or not if I'm not planning on returning to work.

Or quite candid and say I've had it with work, I much prefer being a Mum full time.

Do you have a good prenup so that if your husband leaves you you’ll be financially ok? And good life insurance for him?

Do they not?
If someone is in their dream career then I would absolutely consider them lucky. That doesn't detract from the hard work it took to get there but plenty of people work hard but face difficult circumstances that mean they don't quite make it to where they want to be.

People definitely say "I was lucky enough to get a promotion" and "I was lucky enough to get the chance to travel with work" etc and noone thinks that's considered a "value judgement" not "weird".

I have literally never heard anyone say the sentence 'I'm lucky enough to be a lawyer'. Unless they were being sarcastic.

I must remember to say "I'm lucky enough to work outside the house which allows me to be completely independent financially" next time someone asks.

I won't - because that's such an odd and patronising thing to say. Just tell anyone who asks that you're staying at home with your children for now. Genuinely no-one worth knowing who asks will care what you do.

I say I'm scrounging off my husband.

My kids are grown up, but after staying home with them, I have never managed to get back to really working (I do a little work every now and then).

Fair play to your husband if he’s lighting fires at the crack of dawn, baking three dozen cakes every Friday, and hand-scrubbing the doorstep while working full-time! I think the point was that back then, without modern appliances, it was a very specific, round the clock kind of manual labour that’s pretty much impossible to replicate alongside a modern job. Doing all of that while the house was active with kids making a mess!

It was also a manual labour that meant women usually had no financial independence whatsoever and very limited opportunities outside of the home sadly.

Please don't pretend that being a SAHM is actually a job, as that really is cringe and try not to judge parents who work. Women and men who work for a salary do all the same things as SAHMs as well as have a paid job, they just do it outside of working hours or in between if the are WFH.

I agree in that nobody should be judging anybody. There are definitely many ways being a SAHM can be easier; you aren't juggling a boss's deadlines or a stressful commute, for example. There is more time, albeit with demanding babies/toddlers.

However, the housework side is undeniably different depending on the setup. I have one friend whose children are in wrap around care; the house stays tidy while she’s out and she isn't doing three meals a day, so the domestic load is naturally lower. It is drop off at the childminder, work, pick up, home, bath, and bed. The childminder provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
My other friend, however, is WFH with kids. A grandparent babysits, but in the home, so she’s dealing with the constant mess and clearing up, and occasionally having to intervene on top of her job! She has it really tough because the house is active all day.
All situations are certainly different and the volume of housework changes depending on who is actually in the house.

Women and men who work for a salary do all the same things as SAHMs as well as have a paid job, they just do it outside of working hours or in between if the are WFH.

When you are at home with your kids, you have a lot more time with them for one thing.
You can spend more time on nurturing them and bonding with them and they get consistent, fully focused care from the same person, their parent.
You do all the school drop offs and pick ups. You get to see what form they are in when they get out of school. You are in a better position to spot if something is amiss like they don’t get on with their teacher or are being bullied. You have more time to oversee their school work.
You are there to encourage their friendships and help build their social network.
I don’t judge anyone for whether they work or stay at home but it’s just bullshit to pretend that kids don’t benefit from having a parent at home (as long as the parent puts in the effort and at least somewhat enjoys it).
You might fit household chores or life admin or whatever around your working hours but you are not doing the same thing as a dedicated sahp. It’s not possible. That’s the whole point of doing it.
Lots of families with two working parents (or single parent families where the parent works) are no better or worse at parenting. There are advantages to that too, and disadvantages to being at home. It all balances out for the most part. But to say there’s no benefit to kids to have a sahp is taking it too far. It’s just not true.

"I'm a stay at home mum".

I leave the "lucky" out of that.
I'm a stay at home wife. Have been for 25 years.

😂😂😂

I think op you are in an enviable postion. Independently wealthy a stellar career you can go back to at any time,if it goes tits up. But it is rare.

most women I think who are stay at home mums, it’s often as they can’t afford childcare, and are completely financially reliant on their husbands, a situation no one would wish, and not just doing child care, but also turned into the household skivvy doing all the Cleaning, cooking, ironing etc . It’s something some might like but not many, most want equality. And then the finances, where they don’t get to make major decisions, access to money is given lip service.

so I do think you’re in an enviable position, not because you stay home, I don’t find that enviable,but because you are independently wealthy with a stellar career you can pick up at any time you chose.

I disagree.
My children never went to any wrap-around care. We both worked flexibly. They always had either DH or I caring for them when not at school. We just fitted in the extra hours of work in the evenings etc./took it in turns to work long days.

Many working parents now juggle so that the children have the benefit of being a two salary household whilst also having the benefits of a parent at home when they aren't at school

So many jobs are very flexible now

See this just isn’t true. Plenty of working parents still do all drop off and pick up, attend all school events, don’t use child care and provide consistent care from both parents. Usually these things will be split between both parents but it will still be parents doing it. I worked shifts when my children were young (nights and weekends), we never used any paid child care at all. My husband had some flexibility in his hours but was largely ‘traditional’ hours, so was at home with the children when I worked and vice versa. Most people I worked with at the time were doing the same thing. I know plenty of other parents in different professions who juggled childcare between them with no or minimal paid childcare. It’s very normal. Obviously lots of parents do also use paid childcare and that is fine too. Those parents are still present and providing consistent care for their children, obviously.

I promise you we absolutely did everything a stay at home parent did as well as both work. There was no less house work/meal prep etc because the children were at home or school exactly as the children of sahp were. You sound quite judgmental and also somewhat lacking in imagination if you really can’t work out how it’s possible to both work and be present for your children. Being a sahp is a great choice for some families, absolutely no judgement here, but it isn’t a superior choice, different things work for different people. These thread seems to be giving far more examples of sahp judging working parents that the other way round. It’s sad that some people are so insecure in their choices.

Sorry, but I disagree. I think the fact that you resorted to calling me “judgemental and lacking in imagination” when it was a perfectly reasonable post shows that you are defensive because you know you are wrong.

The flexible juggling argument feels a bit like a bubble. Most people in jobs like healthcare, retail, or education for example don't have the luxury of shifting their hours to the evening; for the majority of the population, work and home remain two very separate, rigid shifts.
Even for those who can work flexibly, doing a second shift in the evenings to make up the time isn't the same as being a SAHP, and juggling is absolutely exhausting. If you're working until late at night, the inevitable sleep deprivation means you aren't doing the same things, you simply haven't the energy or the headspace for the level of domestic extras mentioned. It’s also a completely different story with toddlers. You can't fit in a professional job while a toddler is active without the care or the work suffering. Juggling a salary and a house is a masterclass in multitasking, but it’s not the same as a dedicated manual operation where the children and the home are the sole focus of the day.

Apologies, the judgemental wasn’t aimed at you, I should have made that clear. There were several posts earlier in the thread that were judgemental, yours was not. My point is that, for me and many other that I know, we worked and cared for our children full time.

I think Sahm is a ridiculous expression as it suggests somebody who stays in the house and doesnt go out which isnt true in most cases. They probably go out more than somebody who works from home and children are at nursery.