I wish my WOHM friends would stop judging my SAHM parenting

[Anonymous]

Women can be mean to each other, period. It’s sad actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It works both ways. SAHM’s constantly criticize WOHM’s for not raising their children. If you are so confident in your decision, just ignore the comments.

OP here. It doesn't work both ways though. I have never and would never criticize any WOHM for "not raising their children." Maybe you have met SAHMs who do that, but I never do, because it's not what I believe. And it's not a question of bing confident in my decision -- being a SAHM was something that was decided for me by circumstance. I am happy with my experience, but I don't view it as something I picked over working. Anymore than some of my friends "chose" being a WOHM, as staying home was not an option for their family situation.

I was both SAHM and WOHM and I can assure you that there are as many jerky SAHMs as there are jerky WOHMs. You just don't see the jerky SAHMs because you are a SAHM.

Fortunately the jerky ones of either type are rare and should just be locked in a cage match together and let the rest of us live peacefully.

This. I got asked by a SAMH if I was ok with other people raising my kids last year by a good SAHM friend who had too much to drink. Please note my twins are 11!

It never ends.

Yeah, as someone who has been both, I think OP is kind of deluded. My kids are all teens now and I was a SAHM, WOHM, WAHM, and worked part-time so I have seen it all.

FWIW the nastiest random comment I experienced about my parenting, the one that I remember years later although I hate that it occupies brain space, was from a SAHM. But that woman later became a WOHM and was just as nasty then. My friends (who are everything) would never do anything like that.

[Anonymous]

It's hard if you aren't doing what you want to be doing. I know that you said that you are happy being a SAHM, but that this also wasn't really the plan. These kinds of "innocent" remarks are most painful when they exploit some underlying feelings you were already having.

I was WOHM for a long time, and when my oldest was an infant, I had him in daycare, and I was working fairly long hours. I was home with them as much as I could be, but it wasn't enough, and I wasn't in a position to quit. When people made off-hand remarks about WOHM's, they were really painful.
Later, I was in a different place in life, and I was working 25 hours/wk from 6am-11am M-F with a 5 minute commute. My cousin was my nanny, and she was great. I felt no guilt about working at all. Most of my friends at the time were Mormon, and they would make explicit, harsh remarks about working moms, about leaving kids with a nanny, etc. It wasn't painful at all. I knew that my kids were doing just fine.

TL;DR: Whenever you are feeling this way, there may be a grain of truth in what your friends are saying. It might be worth looking into changing your circumstances a little if you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women can be mean to each other, period. It’s sad actually.

Men can be just as mean to women.

[Anonymous]

If you're triggered by passive aggressive comments by your friends then I would stay off of DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have friends who would speak to me like that. You have a friend problem not a SAHM problem.

This. OP, the mommy wars are for the Internet. If you're experiencing them in real life, you need new friends.

Agreed. Maybe you should set up some playdates with their awesome, professional nannies. They might be nicer people, and they might get into the weeds with you on this parenting thing

[Anonymous]

(I'm not saying this is you) My SAHM friends get really caught up in the little things and talk about it a lot. One talks about cosleeping and how it's ruining her life. She talks about it weekly when I see her. Another has major issues with potty training and trained for like a year- for both her kids! I think this is more of a personality difference, but I'm really a take charge type of person. With potty training I 100% believed they could get it before 2 and told them this is what's going to happen, and it did. I potty trained my nephews too in a weekend. With cosleeping I walked them back constantly until they didn't leave their beds. Oh and daycare did not help me with any of that.

I just think sahms get really caught up in the minutiae of babies/toddlers versus seeing things as very solvable problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have friends who would speak to me like that. You have a friend problem not a SAHM problem.

This. OP, the mommy wars are for the Internet. If you're experiencing them in real life, you need new friends.

Agreed. Maybe you should set up some playdates with their awesome, professional nannies. They might be nicer people, and they might get into the weeds with you on this parenting thing

See, OP? Gratuitous SAHM judgmental comments. They're out there too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I'm not saying this is you) My SAHM friends get really caught up in the little things and talk about it a lot. One talks about cosleeping and how it's ruining her life. She talks about it weekly when I see her. Another has major issues with potty training and trained for like a year- for both her kids! I think this is more of a personality difference, but I'm really a take charge type of person. With potty training I 100% believed they could get it before 2 and told them this is what's going to happen, and it did. I potty trained my nephews too in a weekend. With cosleeping I walked them back constantly until they didn't leave their beds. Oh and daycare did not help me with any of that.

I just think sahms get really caught up in the minutiae of babies/toddlers versus seeing things as very solvable problems.

Wow. Condescending much?

[Anonymous]

Dcum can’t have a rational conversation about these things. I’d look for a MOPS group or Moms group in your area and build up a friends network with more women in similar circumstances. People don’t know what they don’t know. It’s easy to spout off on parenting issues when you’re not the one doing the drudgery parts 24/7. Just smile and nod and change the subject as needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I'm not saying this is you) My SAHM friends get really caught up in the little things and talk about it a lot. One talks about cosleeping and how it's ruining her life. She talks about it weekly when I see her. Another has major issues with potty training and trained for like a year- for both her kids! I think this is more of a personality difference, but I'm really a take charge type of person. With potty training I 100% believed they could get it before 2 and told them this is what's going to happen, and it did. I potty trained my nephews too in a weekend. With cosleeping I walked them back constantly until they didn't leave their beds. Oh and daycare did not help me with any of that.

I just think sahms get really caught up in the minutiae of babies/toddlers versus seeing things as very solvable problems.

Man, I can’t wait until your kids are teenagers.

[Anonymous]

This is why I can’t be friends with SAHM as a WOHM.

It’s not that I have anything against SAHM-I actually have mad respect for them.

But I find that our thinking and frame of reference on literally almost everything is very different, so it just feels like they aren’t my “people”.

Also, SAHM and WOHM have totally different schedules and availability, which makes it harder.

When I look for friends I want someone that I can relate to, and unfortunately that means other professional working moms of young kids.

Look for other SAHM, OP! They are out there. Have you tried Facebook groups for your area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I'm not saying this is you) My SAHM friends get really caught up in the little things and talk about it a lot. One talks about cosleeping and how it's ruining her life. She talks about it weekly when I see her. Another has major issues with potty training and trained for like a year- for both her kids! I think this is more of a personality difference, but I'm really a take charge type of person. With potty training I 100% believed they could get it before 2 and told them this is what's going to happen, and it did. I potty trained my nephews too in a weekend. With cosleeping I walked them back constantly until they didn't leave their beds. Oh and daycare did not help me with any of that.

I just think sahms get really caught up in the minutiae of babies/toddlers versus seeing things as very solvable problems.

Again, more useless anecdotes. To counter with more useless info, I found my WOHM friends only talked about raising their kids and my SAHM friends talked about cultural and political stuff. People are different. Sounds like OP’s friends are insecure jerks.

[Anonymous]

Are you constantly bringing up how you're training your child successfully or through failure? Maybe the only way they can relate to show you what the daycare or nanny did.

Talk about something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have friends who would speak to me like that. You have a friend problem not a SAHM problem.

This. OP, the mommy wars are for the Internet. If you're experiencing them in real life, you need new friends.

Agreed. Maybe you should set up some playdates with their awesome, professional nannies. They might be nicer people, and they might get into the weeds with you on this parenting thing

See, OP? Gratuitous SAHM judgmental comments. They're out there too!

How is that judgmental?
OP said that she was upset that her friends wouldn't get into the weeds with her on the day to day parenting stuff. That's rough.
Her friends are also kind of crappy and judgmental. She might find better friends with their nannies.