Does anyone else get annoyed when people say being a stay at home mom is a full time job? (good, hours)
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Being a stay at home mother is a full time job....it is more than that. It never ends. This is coming from a guy who thought differently before he had a child.
Yes because it isn't a "job". You can walk off of a job. You can't walk off of being a parent (even though some people do it anyway) You can go leave for the day of being any job title that exist, but you cannot leave for the day of being a parent. I find the whole stay at home mom thing as a "job" on the resume thing a bit odd too.
I have worked at very stressful jobs in the past for about 15 years, I spent most of those years working in a regional office working for very demanding bosses. I am not working anymore. I'd say it is just as hard, ofcourse that depends on the person, If you prefer to make homemade meals, cooking, dishes, laundry, keep everything organized bills, personal documents, budgeting finances, care for your kids, if you have a backyard and plants to care for, grocery, among many other things. What do most people do for a living? Would you say a Barista's job is harder? I don't think so. Fastfood workers taking orders? And it seems like you have no idea how hard it is to raise kids.
I worked fast food when I was young. Fast food work was definitely harder than being a SAHM for me, at least at the joint where I did my time.
My current work is not "harder" (physically) than being a SAHM was. It's usually pretty cushy, actually. But difficulty level isn't what determines whether something is a job (as in employment), though. There are many difficult activities that aren't jobs.
It also seems like folks want to pile a bunch of other stuff on top of the SAHP job description. Volunteering here and there, tiger momming, making your own artisanal cheese from your own goat, whatever. That's all extra things a person may or may not do whether they are or aren't employed. They also want to pile on a bunch of things pretty much everyone has to do regardless of employment status, like keeping on top of finances and doing yardwork.
Most of the stress of parenthood is not physical, but emotional/mental. Watching someone else's kid is not the same thing.
Seriously? You didn't think I worried about those kids and what would happen if something happened to them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pumpkin5
The difference is you left at what 5:00 or 6:00? As another poster said you also didn't have the emotional attachment or worry that comes with that. You didn't truly experience what it is like to be a parent.
The kids go to bed at what? 8pm or earlier? So even though I spent the majority of my time there with the kids and did the majority of the work, the fact that I got off a couple hours earlier means I know nothing about it? I beg to differ.
And how do you know I didn't have the emotional attachment? Do teachers not get attached to the kids they teach? Are the only people that can feel attachment to kids their mothers? I don't think so. This is putting mommy up on a pedestal again and inferring that no one except her can to what she does, while the reality is any woman can do the job - most women have, in fact, been doing what mommies do since time began. It's nothing mysterious or secret about what they do. It's a learned skill, not one that is "gifted" to women only when they've had a baby.
Quote:
Originally Posted by metzger7047
First, I hate the title of stay at home mom, it is a freaking sentence. I prefer housewife, but I'm retro that way. I work more now at home with the kids than I ever did working full time in human resources. If taking care of children all day isn't work, then why is everybody complaining about how much daycare costs. They charge so much for a reason, it's hard work.
But according to Pumpkin, it can't possibly be hard work. Daycare workers get off at 5 or 6pm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mvn88
I have worked at very stressful jobs in the past for about 15 years, I spent most of those years working in a regional office working for very demanding bosses. I am not working anymore. I'd say it is just as hard, ofcourse that depends on the person, If you prefer to make homemade meals, cooking, dishes, laundry, keep everything organized bills, personal documents, budgeting finances, care for your kids, if you have a backyard and plants to care for, grocery, among many other things. What do most people do for a living? Would you say a Barista's job is harder? I don't think so. Fastfood workers taking orders? And it seems like you have no idea how hard it is to raise kids.
So you think the rest of us who don't have kids do no laundry, no cooking, no dishes, no shopping, no bills, no yard work, and just sit around all day while our maids do everything? In point of fact, I do ALL the things listed above with the exception of yard work right now, and I've done that too, all the while working a full time job.
I KNOW how hard it is raising kids. That was one of the reasons I elected not to have them. It is a hard job. Is it the hardest job in the world. No, not by a long shot. The thing is, I don't go around complaining about my single, childfree status and say things like, "Poor me. It's so hard because I have no husband or kids to help me. I had a flat tire last night coming home and had to deal with it all by myself!"
I don't say things like that because that's one of the accepted things that a person living alone has to deal with. It comes with the territory. Parents, especially mothers, on the other hand, are constantly complaining about "how hard it is to raise kids". Of course it's hard, but that's the price you pay when you decided to have them. It comes with the territory.
Hearing women complain about how hard it is to raise kids puts me in mind of one of my friends who always used to complain about her husband throwing his clothes on the floor. She didn't like picking them up. Finally, someone got tired of listening to her. They gave her choices: 1) Give him an ultimatum or 2) Leave them lay there or 3) Accept nothing is going to change and shut up.
Parents who have such a hard time raising their kids can 1) Hire someone else to deal with them or 2) Give them up or 3) Accept that nothing is going to change and shut up because raising kids being a hard thing to do is the nature of the job and the rest of us don't want to hear about it ad nauseum.
By the way, kids as young as 5 can learn to do chores around the house. You don't have to do it ALL by yourself, you know.
It's not a job. It might be WORK, but it doesn't meet the typical definition of a job. I'm a mother, so I know how demanding an infant/toddler can be -- but once the children are school age and gone from home all day, it completely baffles me how stay at home moms can still complain about how hard they have it. They will tell you how much they volunteer at the school until they are blue in the face, but come. on.
And please don't tell me how I should respect other women's choices. I *completely* respect the choice to stay at home. If I could do it, I would too. I don't look down on anyone for staying home. But please - just please - do not tell me how it is so much harder than having a full-time demanding job while also trying to be a great mother, too. It's just not.
I have worked at very stressful jobs in the past for about 15 years, I spent most of those years working in a regional office working for very demanding bosses. I am not working anymore. I'd say it is just as hard, ofcourse that depends on the person, If you prefer to make homemade meals, cooking, dishes, laundry, keep everything organized bills, personal documents, budgeting finances, care for your kids, if you have a backyard and plants to care for, grocery, among many other things.
Who did all that stuff while you were working in an office? Because I do all that and work full time too.
Thank for finally pointing out everyone (single, married, kids, no kids, retire) take care of basic needs like cooking, cleaning, finance, doc appointment....etc
The main question is who are the stay home mom comparing her self to? To working mom? To working people w/o kids? To someone with high profile job or a minimal wage job?.....each of these scenario changes the prespective.
Tell a working parents that is involved in her kids life, how much you have to do & they won't be impressed? Tell a single girl without kid about your life with kids n she won't understan it.
My wife would say they are equally hard. She went back to work after our son then quit again to take car of our daughter then we accidentally made another one.
She really had no choice but to stay home with a newborn a 1 year old and rambunctious 3/4 year old boy. We would have paid close to 20k in child care and additional expenses. So my wife's 30k net teacher job wasn't worth it.
We sacrificed a lot of income and for about 4 years we lived pretty lean. This was all while I was working 10 hour days in the Air Force on swing shift and going to school to become an officer during the day. Those were hard years but they have all paid off in the end.
I can remember one Saturday I realized how hard being a stay at home mom really is. My wife got some R and R that day, so I had the kids. My son was whining about something really dumb, my daughter was just all over the place, and the baby was crying. So I'm holding the baby, my son is just being incoherent and saying his truck is broken, and I hear this giant crash. My daughter had knocked over the standing mirror in her room (thanks grandma, dumb gift) so now I have a crying baby a 2 and 4 year old trying to pick up broken glass and just jabbering away. So now I have to find a place for the baby while I clean up the glass. I must have said stay back and pleaded with them to stay out of the glass 20 times before I finally picked them up and locked them in the bathroom, because they just could not listen to reason. The baby is still crying. I clean up the glass. Let them out. Go to make a bottle. All of a sudden I hear crying, and its my daughter her foot managed to find the one shard the vacuum did not pick up. My son is finally quiet, as he investigates my daughters wound, the baby is still crying. I finally pick her up give her her bottle, set her back in the bassinet. Tend to my daughters glass splinter. Neosporin, band-aid, kiss. Now she limping around and getting pouty "It hurts!" my son starts back up again. My nerves were frayed way worse than the stress of urgently generating and orchestrating 14 lines of 80 million dollar war machines and munitions even during actual war.
I'd rather have gone to 300 level college classes for 6 hours and then go to work from 3 to midnight than put up with those 4 hours one Saturday.
Good stay at home moms work really hard.
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