Could we have a talk about perceptions of SAHP?

[ISaySteadyOn]

I am a SAHM and I am growing a little tired of what I perceive to be a large amount of negativity towards SAHP in general. Now, I learned from this board that SAHMing and feminism are not mutually exclusive which is why I am posting here. Ironically, given this board's reputation, I feel less likely to be flamed if I post here.

It seems, and please tell me I am wrong, that SAHP especially SAHM are often perceived to be braindead dependent freeloaders. The oft repeated quote' Oh, I could never be a SAHP, I have to use my brain' really hurts my feelings. This is because it suggests that the things a SAHM does don't require brain power and maybe for some it doesn't.

I am someone who is struggling with learning basic housekeeping as my parents thought that sort of thing was beneath them and juggling 3 small children as well. Maybe this sort of learning uses my brain differently than my failed attempts at academia did (and that really hurt as that is what counted in my family growing up), but does that mean it has inherently less value?

I suppose I'm wondering whether SAHPing has a negative reputation because women do it or is it primarily women who do it because it has a negative reputation?

Anyway, those are my thoughts, would love to hear some others.

LetGoOrBeDragged - I didn't say we were all fitter and healthier did I?

But on the whole how many workers of 40+ hours a week volunteer at say Brownies? Yes you do it for your child but it benefits everyone's child in the end doesn't it.

No a SAHP doesn't have to justify themselves to anyone, but often we are doing things for others that you may not even realise. Popping to the shops for an elderly neighbour, running a relative to hospital for nothing, taking a parcel for someone who is at work, watching someone's child for an hour or two because they are busy...

My Brownie leader is a full time worker. I will take in a parcel for a neighbour but tbh I don't look after other people's dc for them because they are 'busy'. I too am busy and am a sahp for my family, not to benefit others by providing them with back up childcare, although obviously I would help out my friends and I would expect them tp help me. But that's to do with friendship, not working status. I don't consider my time as available to those who woh because my time isn't less valuable to me, just because I don't spend it in paid employment. So you see, not all sahp are more 'available' to society as a whole and not all wohp are less available. I don't think you can generalise except to say that of sahp who do volunteer, they are more likely to be around during office hours.

We should really talk about SAHMs: only a tiny proportion of SAHPs are men.

The point I am trying to get to in my round about way is that sah is so devalued that sahm feel they have to be 'productive' in some way to society, in order to justify it. So ingrained is the idea that only the direct grneration of money is valuable in a human being.
I am tryong to get away from the idea of feeling obliged to be 'useful'. Taking care of my own family really is a 'good enough' use of time.

LetGoOrBeDragged - I don't think it's about being useful. It's the way I have been brought up, when I was a child my father used to go and do odd jobs for neighbours and others on our street because he wanted to help them (putting up a fence or a plumbing emergency). They were elderly, they never paid him. They may have let us play in their garden for a treat to return the favour. This would have been when dad was out of work and had the time. I find it quite an insular life and quite lonely to just focus on my own immediate families wants and needs. But that is how I have been raised and I know no different.

You have said yourself that you would watch your friends children, presumably if they had no relatives and all your peers worked they would have to pay someone to do this for them. You see on many threads on mumsnet, can you ask a friend to watch your children for you? You do it because you care for your friend and you have time. This is what I mean about a SAHP being not just a benefit to the WOHP and the children. We benefit society as a whole.

If everyone worked Full-time i.e. 40 hours pw who would do these things? Retired people?

Also I think religion or at least Christianity ( I can't comment on the others but I am sure they too are the same), we are taught to look out for our neighbours, taught the story of the good Samaritan etc. These teachings have been given for centuries in this country.

I believe its only been since the 80s that the truly money=status, me-me-me culture has really developed. Before then I am not so sure, communities were very close knit, and cared for one another. And yes a lot of mothers didn't work in employment, but in raising the family and looking out for their relatives and friends. Society has become more fragmented, dual incomes required to sustain a decent standard of living. Materialism etc. These things as much as politics are at odds with SAHPing. We have come to a point in our society that if you don't earn money or enough of it you are to be looked down upon. Stealth wealth boasts on FB etc.

It baffles me that people believe that society was better in the 50s/60s/70s captain. In that time, being gay was illegal, a man could legally rape his wife, domestic violence was tolerated, lack of work prospects meant women were trapped in violent relationships, single mothers were forced to give up their children, or were treated like shit, racism was pretty much par for the course, child abuse wasn't really treated as a crime, genuine, grinding poverty was rife. Life was great if you were a straight white man in a decent job - you had women slaving after you, and you didn't have to lift a finger to care for your own children. Other than that, the potential for life to be very very bad was high.

But Captain, cultural and religious expectations like that have a disproportionate impact on women.

The cost of care for the elderly is a hige challenge that is being avoided by successive governments. I am probably typical of the 80s people you talk about. I would not be willing to do anything more than the odd basic favour for relatives (beyond parents), friends or local residents in need. I would, however, be willing and able to pay higher tax to pay for better public services - but many people (including older people) are not.

In societies where care of the elderly is usually done by family, women are the ones providing the care (unpaid). Saw an interesting article about young women in China rejecting this and moving for jobs. My DM (British) did the same in her late teens.

And of course it is usually women who care for DC and adult DC with disabilities or health conditions requiring care. Men often leave!

In my area a lot of volunteers, eg residents associations, neighbourhood watch, running the library (the council fired the paid staff due to cuts ), are retired people of both sexes in good health.

I wouldn't ask SAHM friends to care for my DC except in a short term, true emergency, because DH and I cannot reciprocate in ways they would find helpful. I also don't think they should have to justify not doing paid work by doing additional stuff for the community.

I think it's when the separate groups SAHM's and WOHM's start making somewhat lazy assumptions about the other that you get problems.

Stop with the disparaging comments such as 'Oh I would never farm my kids out to somebody else to look after or 'I would get brain-rot if I was a FT SAHM'. If we showed more compassion to the downside of each others choices then we could be more sympathetic to each other. I'm a FT working mum and I sometimes long to spend a bit more time with the kids but it isn't possible at the moment

i truly believe either sex can be a SAHP my DH took 6 months paternity leave with our first. So I personally don't buy it's always women line. It's not, and actually I wouldn't have wanted to marry a man not willing to be a SAHP, DH nearly was the one to be the SAHP I was the one who got sick.

Some men and some women would prefer not to be a SAHP and pursue a career and some if able prefer to raise their families.

even on these threads posters will comment how it's women who are really SAHP and not men. We have to stop that attitude because it's not really helping women and men ( because some men love being a SAHP) achieve equality.

I believe that men could do it too, but most don't or won't. "It's [almost] always women" is not a line, it's a fact borne out by the Office of National Statistics! Will dig around. A few men do it, but it is just a few.

I think bakingaddict has it when she says we need to stop with the disparaging comments. We are all different people and different families will have different needs. No one is wrong, just different.

We can see from this thread though that it is possible to have an actual discussion without it descending into a bunfight and I think we need to do more of that.

Perhaps if we shaped our conversations around it being both men and women as SAHP then it might make it seem more common than it is. More men will feel it's normal (and women too), and perhaps it's more likely to happen.

I haven't read the whole thread, so I will start off by just answering the initial question.

I do think that housekeeping, childraising, etc. is very important work, but I also feel that many cannot be happy only doing that, as it is a invisible kind of work (that you clean the floors shows only in that they are NOT dirty) and rather repetitive. And of course, it is not appreciated by other people, which poses an additional problem with regards to self-esteem.

Originally, I suppose childraising was done by women because men often already had run off when a child was born. Men do not value that kind of work because it is done for them, without them even having to ask.

However, I think that in modern society, housework is also not done by men because it is not paid. If cleaning floors was a well-paid job, I think men would not care whether the floor looks dirty to them or not.
People work in completely useless jobs all the time; the perceived neccessity of doing something does not figure into it much if the pay is good. (Let's be honest, most people don't like advertisements. That industry is only as large as it is because it's profitable to sell people things they don't actually need.)

Science is advanced enough so that women could prove who fathered a child, and demand not only compensation for the money they cannot earn, but also payment for the work of childraising. Patriarchy is the reason why the latter is not done.

From a rather practical point of view, I wouldn't choose to be a housewife in today's political climate. I would not choose to be a housewife voluntarily, except with a marriage contract that gives me enough money to compensate for the lack of job experience (that might mean eternal unemployment), health insurance, and so on and so forth in case of divorce, regardless of who initiates the divorce.

Maybe one day we will live in a feminist utopia where work is valued according to how useful it is (which will place childcare way over, say, investment banking), but today is not that day.

Excellent post Vestal