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.

I'm a SAHM. I didn't set out to be but it naturally evolved during mat leave when I realised how incompatible my career and commute was with dc. I am mostly happy though my ideal would be pt work. That isn't available in my field, so at some point I will need to re-train. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, and j am finding it quite stressful.

At a wedding this summer I was asked numerous times what 'I did' - ie my job - and people looked a mixture of horrified/embarrassed/confused when I said I was a SAHM. To be honest it has really dented my confidence. I felt worthless and like it was something to be ashamed of. They were all nice people but so clearly felt being at home with a child was a jolly. In their defence, none of these people have dc yet but I was still shocked at how shocked they all were.

In my previous career I worked really, really hard. I still work really hard, but in a different capacity, but it doesn't seem to count.

BrandNew

That sounds like saying that SAHP-ing is too easy for men to do. It's ok for women to do it, but men who do it are lazy? Is that not just the same perception that unpaid care work is women's work and isn't important enough for the men to do?

My issue is coming when you try and say that every woman experience of being a SAHM is the same.
I did feel brain dead when I was with the dcs at home. I really did. But then, babies and young children arent my thing. I had very few friends around and was very isolated. I hated toddler groups and the oy reason for me to go was to get out of the house and fur the dcs to run around like lunatics.
So I missed adult interactions. And I LOVE my job so was missing that too.
But because I found it hard, I would never ever say that SAHM have it easy etc etc.

I think be big issue is where you take one small group within a group and then say that whatever is true for that subgroup is how thevwhe group is.
So people who claim benefits are all people who just don't want to work.
And SAHM are all mums who have an idle life thanks to their DH money.
Reality is some do but most of them don't. And even more will gave an experience very different from whatever a SAHM is 'supposed' to be.

I admire SAHPs as they are sacrificing their pay to bring up young children.

Rhoda I dont think that choosing a family friendly job or a 'career orientated' job is a feminist issue as such.
But the reality is that a lot if women have no alternative other than finding a family orientated job once they have children. And that is a feminist issue Iyswim.

In the best world, both men and women would chose a job that gives them a home/work balance. But ATM the emphasis is certainly on 'work hard' otherwise you are a nobody so I'm not sure it's going to change soon b

I'm in a very similar situation to weegiemum.

IMO we need a different attitude to 'the working week'. Why do FT positions have to be five days a week? Why should anyone be expected to work very long hours?

More fathers need to be encouraged to work PT. Wouldn't it be great if it became the new norm for couples who are parents to usually work between them six(ish) days a week? It's a frustratingly all or nothing situation for too many parents IMO.

My experience of being a SAHM (I work very part time from home) is that I do more lifts and collecting other (FT working) people's children from school when they're sick etc. There needs to be some slack in the system. I can't imagine the stress of being in a FT couple when unexpected things crop up. I feel very lucky to be able to have more time. When I hear people talk about office politics I feel well out of it. But I miss having adult company during the day.

Many SAHMS I've known have done sterling work volunteering.

I think there is negativity BOTH ways - to SAHM and to working mums.

I think you see the comments that most touch a nerve with you, especially somewhere like MN. So a WOHP is more likely to spot the "outsourcing your children" comments, the "I couldn't bear to be apart from my children that much" comments; a SAHP is more likely to spot the "I have to use my brain" comments. If someone went through MN, I imagine there would be an equally number of comments on either side. Perception is everything, sometimes.

Re the finances behind being a SAHP, reading this has me wondering whether there is also a class element behind it? I live in a reasonably affluent town. Bar one, all the other women I know (as in, knew with babies and chatted to about things when we all approached the end of mat leave) who have not returned to work have done because their OH earns a very considerable sum, not because the woman would be spending her entire salary on childcare and the finances didn't add up.

However you see just as much on MN that other women can't return because their salary literally doesn't cover the childcare

I'm not sure what I mean about class issues though

Oh dear... I have been a SAHM, a FT working mum, and something in between, and these are my perceptions of the three status, which makes me think that your and othersperceptions are based on their own backgrounds, experiences and aspirations:

1. SAHM. I fell often unchallenged, sorry, there is not much intellectual challenge in learning how to bake properly, not to ruin the clothes in the washer and to keep the house is clean. I know that I could talk for hours with other SAHMs about the marvels of the new cleaning gadget (and really really feel amazed about the thing) or the antics of the guy from the laundry services, but I often fell that away of my SAHMs friends, I was lacking status.

And yes, I felt guilty, I didn't study so much just to be bored at home (once you get the gist of it (and master Flylady) you are out of things to do within an hour of the children leaving for school. So in the idle hours when I was not doing household chores or having lunch my SAHP colleagues, I became an expert in nutrition when dealing with allergies, DIY, and... Mumsnet.

I don't think anybody ever tried to make me feel bad for being a SAHM mum, but just seeing them glazing over and the conversation dying as soon as I mentioned I was not working was more than enough to make me feel useless.

2. FT Working mum. I get the intellectual challenge and the time challenge at home. The house is always half tidy, half clean. My child schooling is pretty average, he does his best, and I try my best to get strength to remove him from the Xbox so he could spend more time studying. I do the same running around as a SAHM mum, taking him to classes, practices and tutorials, having other kids around, and going to the supermarket. Perhaps the only things that are different is that nowadays the house keeping is a bit behind, I'm exhausted all the time, and I don't have time to discuss the antics of the window cleaner (I do not see him) and have hardly any time to have a social life.

Interestingly, I often resent what I perceive as smugness from SAHMs especially when they call themselves "FT mums". Frankly, the way I perceive things, you are only a "FT mum" if your children are not attending school/nursery yet and you don't have a nanny, otherwise you are a mum like any other one, but an unemployed one. Sorry.

3. A combination of both... heaven if you ask me, as long as you work at least 3 days a week.

I'm a SAHM and a I have a cleaner. People really seem to lose their shit over that for some reason. I've left the guilt behind a long time ago, it's very freeing!

I admire SAHPs as they are sacrificing their pay to bring up young children.

This is a very lovely and rare point of view. I greatly admire my friends who work and earn to support their families. I admire their strength and I recognise that they work bloody hard and still have their children's best interests at heart. I respect that they juggle their lives and are doing a constant balancing act.

But I know they don't respect me, deep down I know they think I'm privileged and spoiled being at home. But the truth is I had a brilliant career that I was advancing in, that I really miss and that I'll return to. I gave up work, and my pay, and at times...my mental health!!! to care for my DS because I wanted to be with him til he was 2 for attachment reasons.

Interesting debate on here.

Speaking as an ex-SAHM of 15 years, I've been working p-t for 18 months and am now looking for f-t work, as after all, as DH said yesterday "it's about time I made a contribution to the family", as if I've been a lazy freeloader all that time.

bestfriend no I think the sahd choose the easy option and doesn't put in the effort that a sahm does. That's only from personal anecdotal evidence and it's not a firm held in stone belief, just my automatic judgement.

I also don't understand why a mother who is on income support and ctc gets less then a father who's on income support and ctc!

There is negativity towards sahp. Even on this thread a poster has felt the need to list all the things she does rather than just 'sponge off dh'!

I am a sahp to school age dc. I became a sahp by accident really. I had a very difficult second pg and was on bed rest. I was a supply teacher so had no job to go back to after my baby was born. I also wanted to be at home with my small children rather than have someone else look after them. I feel no shame in that. It is not weird for women to want to look after their own children. Making that choice doesn't mean my brain has rotted - arguably it is the sort of person who says that sort of thing who has the brain rot. How else could they justify making such a rude and inappropriate remark? As if woh automatically makes a person both interesting and intelligent! I have had some seriously dull conversations about other people's jobs. Being interesting and intelligent really does have very little to do with one's job.

However, as a consequence of sah my career has taken a massive hit. My dh had to focus on his career in order to cover the cost of me sah. I'm now in a position where I would find it hard to go back to work because my dh works long hours, is away a lot and I know that if I returned to work I would end up doing the majority of the childcare and hwk as well as working! I don't want to tbh. I quite like my life as it is - we have a reasonably fair division of labour. However I do recognise that there are downsides, particularly if I were to get divorced. This is the real feminist issue - the complete lack of recognition that a couple make a choice regarding who will woh or not and therefore the wages do not belong to just the individual who woh.

I resent the notion that I am 'sponging' off my dh. He has never had to turn down work travel because of childcare, never had to take time off to cover the kids being ill or the school holidays. We were able to move abroad for a while, which got him promotion and increased salary, which wouldn't have happened if I was working too. He is free to concentrate on his job because I do most of the family stuff. I honestly feel that I have and do contribute. Dh and I are both keeping our family afloat, in different ways and there should be proper legal recognition of that when sahp get divorced. Too many women live in poverty, having done all the unvalued caring work and supporting their husband's to build careers.

There are SAHDs out there doing the graft but I get what you mean, housework is still seen as women's work.

I didn't know that about income support, that's just bonkers.

friends there is also loads of threads on here from women who go to work and their dh/p stays at home and they still cook dinner and do all the housework and homework.

It seems women who sah have to prove themselves and men don't. I was a crap sahm but I'm sure my dc would of loved someone always there. My dd cried yesterday because I didn't go to her assembly, I actually could of worked it that I did but I forgot and ended up doing overtime. If I was at home I wouldn't of forgot. Sahms are great for dc but we can't all be that due to various reasons. It would be great if we could all just be neutral about whatever women want to do.

The income support/ ctc thing should be illegal.

People - almost identical situation here!

The way society has been structured, you'd be forgiven for thinking only women have children and men just accommodate them. In actual fact, both men and women have children and so the working world should take that into account. To my mind it makes very little sense for one person to take on all of the paid work and the other person to take on all the childcare. That only means that both of them are missing out. The working world needs to be structured to take into account the fact that people have lives outside work and that they need time to deal with other responsibilities, be that children, parents, pets, or just their own development. The situation where women had children and were then basically prisoners in the home is a ridiculous one, and I don't think in the long run men benefited from it any more than women did.

I agree. The ideal is that we both work and both share childcare. I don't think my dh has had it easy either - there is a lot of pressure in being the sole earner!

The thing is, why do people's eyes glaze over when you say you are a SAHM? I know people who say they are a "writer". Writer indeed. They have self-published something or been on a creative writing course and are as much as a SAHM as anyone else yet the writer title suddenly makes them a more interesting and worthy person. Actually the most interesting conversationalists I know are a) a pianist b) a professionally unemployed bloke (hmmph) and c) a SAHM.

justgoandgetalife: If dh told me to get a job to contribute after I've been out of the job market for years, I'd LTB.

Seriously, though, it's a phrase to look out for because every single woman I know whose dh suggested they get a job found their dh was having an affair...

I think my biggest concern, and one of the reasons I've always had something going on the side when home with the kids (and I've been really lucky with that) is that whilst I doubt we will ever split (or something happen to DP), if we did, I need to be able to support myself and half the kids (you know what I mean)

The courts may have moved onto a presumption of shared custody, but so many people themselves haven't and it just seemed such a risk to let DP's career reach heady heights and leave mine to stagnate. I see it as insurance - just like the life insurance we have so that if something happens to either of us, there will be income to cover a nanny.

Fascinating thread.

My sister and I have some mutual (good-natured) envy. From a similar starting point (Oxford degrees) she is now a glittering high-flier, whilst I started off on a highflying trajectory but am now in a boring part time clerical role as a result of various circumstances/house moves/divorce. I am envious of her career success (but lack motivation now I'm 50 to do anything about it), but she is envious of the time I have with my family. We both have teenagers, mine are boys, hers are girls. Interestingly, her girls despite being very bright appear to have no desire to emulate her success and are resentful that they don't see much of her and she has had to miss lots of significant events in their lives because she's been in Tokyo or wherever. They say 'why can't you make us a roast dinner like RoastedNuts does!'. In turn my boys say to me, whilst enjoying their roast dinners 'why don't you do something better with your life'.

Can't win really.

It's still the case that in many partnerships, if the woman doesn't stay at home then no one stays at home. The two options seem to be Working dad, working mum or working dad, stay at home mum. I think if more men would take on the SAH role then a lot more women would feel happier about pursuing a career - it is definitely easier to throw yourself into work when childcare is solidly covered by a parent (rather than paid childcare which is costly, limited and can let you down). It doesn't necessarily need to be the woman at home.

I think the perception is that an awful lot of SAHPs fall into one of two categories - previously working in low-paid jobs so it isn't financially viable for them to work as their pay wouldn't cover childcare; and partner of someone very wealthy who has a cushy life not doing very much.

Taking parenting out of the equation, both of those groups are regarded fairly negatively anyway. The SAHP aspect is just a lightening rod for it.

I would agree with the last poster.
I never had a " career"
I had a succession of jobs.
Some were good, some were awful.
There was never any point to me going back to work once the DC came along as my pittance would not have covered child care (and ds1 was a very poorly baby/toddler so wouldn't have been able to go back anyway)
I am now at a crossroads tbh.
I'm 43, both DC now at school, but I cannot get into my old role (NHS admin)
So...do I accept it, or re train. But, as what?
I wish I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up :)