“Full time mom”

[Anonymous]

And while we all fight about this, the oligarchy just laughs. I’m ready to endorse wages for stents who stay at home. It is work. I work outside the home too...I just have to fit in the household work outside of my working hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone here really know parents who don’t “work”?

Running your household, raising your children, etc - that's life. It's not work.

This statement devalues the unpaid work that is done mostly by women.

It does!

I wish I could remember what it was, but something about this came up when talking about micro loans and why they weren’t as successful as originally hypothesized. One reason was that they were relying on women in developing countries to become entrepreneurs, and these women were already extremely busy. Maybe they weren’t working or earning much money, but they were preparing meals, raising children, and running their households.
And while I understand that this doesn’t look the same as US households, it’s just an example of how the unpaid labor done by women is so often discounted or assumed unimportant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep,, there is not any perfect term for this (yet). "SAHM" is not accurate since we hardly "stay at home" most days. I think "full-time mom" is better, but if it's objectionable to other moms, I'd be happy to use some other term.

Suggestions? It would be so nice to have a term that doesn't diminish the real work we SAHMs do OR the real parenting of moms who do other work during the daytime.

Yes. I haven't ever found one word that conveys all this. I usually say something more wordy that I hope sounds neutral, like, "I don't work outside the home, I run the house and the family instead."

Let's all try on both sides not to look for offense when it's just semantics.

I see that you’re trying, but that doesn’t make sense. Because plenty of women both run the house and the family and work outside the home. There is no instead - it’s not either/or.

The above is cringeworthy.

You’re really invested in the idea that you do everything SAHMs do and you’re committed to getting offended at however they describe their days. “Full time mom” is offensive because you consider yourself a full time mom even though you’re at work during the day and outsourcing childcare. Acknowledging that reality upsets you. A longer explanation that someone doesn’t work outside the home and takes care of the family also offends you because you like to think you do all of that too. You are the special snowflake with infinite hours in the day who has time to take care of kids and family full time and work full time! It must be great to have more than 24 hours in a day!

But really just be honest and say you’re not going to be happy until SAHMs day they’re lazy and do nothing all day. Anything else, you’re going to find a way to get offended about.

+1
You can’t be watching your kids during the day AND working. You’re just not. And that’s OK.

I think the PP who objected was trying to say that moms who have jobs outside the home usually end up doing the exact same things that SAHMs do except for a period each day when they don't engage in childcare. We still run the household, pay bills, take kids to activities, cook meals, clean up, grocery shop, etc., etc.

So you're either mom with a job outside the home who sends your kids to another caregiver during those hours or a mom without a job outside a home who watches your kids during the hours you might otherwise be working. Otherwise, most of us take care of the same things.

The PP who said the response was "cringeworthy" protests too much. She gets extra penalty points for pulling out "special snowflake".

Words can be used as weapons and in these endless, numbing, stupid mommy-wars, people feel hurt, because we still, as a society, have the double-standard for moms. No dads think about this stuff. No one guilts dads for working.

+1

And we're all still waiting for what a full-time mom becomes once the kids are school-age.

The vast majority of those women return to the workforce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can say “I take care of my kids full time” as that is a counterpart for “I work full time”. Children need full-time care. That is a fact. That care can be provided by a parent, nanny, daycare, elementary school, karate class, etc.

Btw, “parenting” is not something that needs to happen 24/7.

How about working moms just stop getting so triggered about other women’s choices?

I’m not going to twist myself into pretzels trying to find a way to describe being home with my kids that doesn’t offend you. I’m also not going the self deprecating route and saying “I’m unemployed” just to placate you. Get over yourself.

Most working moms don't want to be working as much as they do. They want to spend more time with their children, and silently resent the fact that there are other moms out there who do.

Yeah most working moms don’t really have a choice to not work, without jeopardizing financial security of their families. My own dad got laid off at 50, never found another job, and my mom went back to work as a dental hygienist despite crippling migraines and arthritis to support us.

Disagree. I could easily quit. We could downsize from our $1.7m close-in home to a modest $1m one a little further out. We could do fewer and less luxe vacations. We could set aside a little less for their future nest eggs. Retirement and college tuition would still be perfectly fine.

I work because I enjoy using my analytical and problem-solving skills, because DH and I have enough seniority and flexibility to spend time with our kids, and because we have enough family and hired help to make everything flow smoothly. Also I don’t want my self-worth to be fully tied to the accomplishments of my children, and I could see that happening if I didn’t have anything outside them to occupy my time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone here really know parents who don’t “work”?

Running your household, raising your children, etc - that's life. It's not work.

This statement devalues the unpaid work that is done mostly by women.

It does!

I wish I could remember what it was, but something about this came up when talking about micro loans and why they weren’t as successful as originally hypothesized. One reason was that they were relying on women in developing countries to become entrepreneurs, and these women were already extremely busy. Maybe they weren’t working or earning much money, but they were preparing meals, raising children, and running their households.
And while I understand that this doesn’t look the same as US households, it’s just an example of how the unpaid labor done by women is so often discounted or assumed unimportant.

Actually, no one is devaluing that work. That is the entire reason that people are objecting to the term “full-time mom” to describe SAHMs. Because most working moms still do all that stuff - they prepare meals, run their households, take on the full mental load of raising their children + the physical load outside of the 40-50 hours per week they’re at work or commuting.

I personally think OP is being too sensitive, and I don’t really care what SAHMs call themselves. All that matters is how good a parent you are, whether or not you’re physically with your child for those extra 40-50 hours or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a dig.

“Working mom” is a dig. Let’s just be honest here.

How?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s a dig, but I would think that person is lame for letting motherhood essentially takeover their entire identity regardless of employment status.

I am an attorney, wife, mother, fitness lover, book nerd, etc. I don’t claim to be “full time” any of these because I’m not one dimensional. My friends who are SAHMs would never call themselves “full time moms” either and lord knows a man would never call himself a “full time dad.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s a dig, but I would think that person is lame for letting motherhood essentially takeover their entire identity regardless of employment status.

I am an attorney, wife, mother, fitness lover, book nerd, etc. I don’t claim to be “full time” any of these because I’m not one dimensional. My friends who are SAHMs would never call themselves “full time moms” either and lord knows a man would never call himself a “full time dad.”

So that's how you answer the question, "So, what do you do?"

I don't think so.

[Anonymous]

Paranoia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WOHM here. It means that this person does not have a job outside of the home. That is it. It has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing.

Right.

If someone wants to be offended, go for it. But being a "full time mom" has nothing to do with anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly think and hope it is not the case that "Any implication that SAHM/full time moms provide value to their families is personally offensive" to WOHMs.

But some of the posts here really do seem to come down to the message to SAHMs that they have no value.

Some WOHMs are not crazy. Personally, if someone told me they were a "full time mom," I would assume thats what they do, and I wouldn't take it to mean that they thought I was not a full time mom just because I also work outside the home. Because this person was talking about herself and she can call herself whatever she wants too. ugh...everyone take a deep breath, don't you have some "momming" to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I truly think and hope it is not the case that "Any implication that SAHM/full time moms provide value to their families is personally offensive" to WOHMs.

But some of the posts here really do seem to come down to the message to SAHMs that they have no value.

Some WOHMs are not crazy. Personally, if someone told me they were a "full time mom," I would assume thats what they do, and I wouldn't take it to mean that they thought I was not a full time mom just because I also work outside the home. Because this person was talking about herself and she can call herself whatever she wants too. ugh...everyone take a deep breath, don't you have some "momming" to do?

A woman's work is never done, lol.

[Anonymous]

I hate the SAHM/WOHM debate. It’s old and tired. Many of us have been both at different times for different reasons. Anyone who sees things in life in black and white into their 30s or 40s has a little flexibility in their thinking and likely few deep friendships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep,, there is not any perfect term for this (yet). "SAHM" is not accurate since we hardly "stay at home" most days. I think "full-time mom" is better, but if it's objectionable to other moms, I'd be happy to use some other term.

Suggestions? It would be so nice to have a term that doesn't diminish the real work we SAHMs do OR the real parenting of moms who do other work during the daytime.

Yes. I haven't ever found one word that conveys all this. I usually say something more wordy that I hope sounds neutral, like, "I don't work outside the home, I run the house and the family instead."

Let's all try on both sides not to look for offense when it's just semantics.

I see that you’re trying, but that doesn’t make sense. Because plenty of women both run the house and the family and work outside the home. There is no instead - it’s not either/or.

The above is cringeworthy.

You’re really invested in the idea that you do everything SAHMs do and you’re committed to getting offended at however they describe their days. “Full time mom” is offensive because you consider yourself a full time mom even though you’re at work during the day and outsourcing childcare. Acknowledging that reality upsets you. A longer explanation that someone doesn’t work outside the home and takes care of the family also offends you because you like to think you do all of that too. You are the special snowflake with infinite hours in the day who has time to take care of kids and family full time and work full time! It must be great to have more than 24 hours in a day!

But really just be honest and say you’re not going to be happy until SAHMs day they’re lazy and do nothing all day. Anything else, you’re going to find a way to get offended about.

+1
You can’t be watching your kids during the day AND working. You’re just not. And that’s OK.

I think the PP who objected was trying to say that moms who have jobs outside the home usually end up doing the exact same things that SAHMs do except for a period each day when they don't engage in childcare. We still run the household, pay bills, take kids to activities, cook meals, clean up, grocery shop, etc., etc.

So you're either mom with a job outside the home who sends your kids to another caregiver during those hours or a mom without a job outside a home who watches your kids during the hours you might otherwise be working. Otherwise, most of us take care of the same things.

The PP who said the response was "cringeworthy" protests too much. She gets extra penalty points for pulling out "special snowflake".

Words can be used as weapons and in these endless, numbing, stupid mommy-wars, people feel hurt, because we still, as a society, have the double-standard for moms. No dads think about this stuff. No one guilts dads for working.

+1

And we're all still waiting for what a full-time mom becomes once the kids are school-age.

The vast majority of those women return to the workforce.

Citation? Pretty sure “most” don’t go back full time.

Then they stop calling themselves full-time moms?

[Anonymous]

Who cares? Why be offended over something so slight?