Why are stay-at-home-moms looked down upon?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I started a thread in the Pit about my dad and how he makes fun of my housekeeping skills, then someone made a comment that SAHMs do a LOT of work. I responded by saying that a study was recently done, I think by Harvard or Standford or some such (can’t remember who) who indicated that most SAHMs do the equivalent of 120 hours of work per week, or as much as three full-time jobs. Then they’re on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

However, it seems to me that, especially in the U.S., women who are SAHMs are looked down upon - a lot - especially by other women. Many are thought of as just SAHMs, as though they’re laying about all day eating sweets or as though the job has no validity.

Is this the feminist movement gone awry? Why do people think SAHMs are lazy? Is it because they’re not making any money? Or perhaps people think they’ve got no ambition?

What do you guys think?

2

Maybe it’s because I answer the door at 9:30 in my jammies. But I’ve been up since 5 and have already accomplished more than people in the army!

Seriously, no $ = no respect, and I’m often hear people (even on this enlightened board) equate my status and power to that of my children since none of us are bringing any hard cash into the house. pfft.

Plus, we don’t place much value on this job, despite everyone insisting that we must think of the children. Check out the wages earned by the average daycare provider.

The sahm model family carries some negative baggage from the past, but that’s largely because of the way women in general were treated, not because of the way women who make a life of parenting were treated. We’re catching up I think, and I meet quite a few parents who are really taking back control of their families instead of marking time for a few years until school age so they can get back to their ‘real life’. This is my real life, and it’s rich, rewarding and more important than anything else I could be doing right now.

3

It depends on who you are hanging around with. I’ve heard just as much vitriol from SAHMs about women who “dump their children with STRANGERS.” (Although, usually, this becomes magically OK as soon as the “stranger” is standing in front of a chalkboard.)

I think part of the “laziness” perception comes from peoples’ general tendency to glom on the worst stereotypical example of anything. You’re either a SAHM watching Jerry Springer while the kid screams in the playpen, or you’re a cold-blooded Martha Stewart wannabe taking cell-phone calls from the office during the kindertgarten Christmas pageant.

Also–pet peeve–ALL parents are on call 24/7, and the laundry still needs to get done whether you’re at home all day or at the office.

(Excuse me, I have to go pick up my kids at what’s-her-names-house.)

4

And it’s even worse if it’s the guy who wants to be the SAH parent. It’s like a lot of people think everyone has to have a paying job. If you can afford to have one person in the family not hold and outside job, and everyone is happy with their choices, then I don’t know why other people have a problem with that.

I don’t really know anyone who thinks SAHPs are lazy. I only get frustrated with the ones who go on about how they never get time to themselves, it’s so hard watching their kids all the time, etc. Basically the ones who complain about their choice. I feel like saying to them, if you don’t like your job, get a new one! Just like I would say to someone who was constantly complaining about their paying job.

What I have seen much more than people looking down on SAHPs, are the SAHPs who think working parents are so awful for abondoning their kids to daycares. I have been both a WOHM and a SAHM. I have never once had to defend my decision to SAH. I was constantly having to fend off criticism for working when my son was little.

5

I think this can sometimes be overcompensation by a parent who has people inferring that it’s all easy work and fun-filled days lazing at the beach with your kids or playing pat-a-cake. Or, that the person’s staying home because it’s more fun than getting up every morning and going to work. It is nice to be able to spend so much time with your kids and there are many fun aspects of it, but it’s still hard work and many people - mostly people without kids - don’t really get that. They overlook the isolation that many SAHP’s feel and that the almost constant meeting of someone else’s needs is exhausting. People who work outside the home do get a break from this.

I can’t imagine how working mothers can juggle all their responsibilities and stay sane. It is, however, difficult in other ways to be a stay at home mother. I don’t understand why some people can’t accept that neither is the perfect choice for every family. It’s really a shame that some people feel the need to denigrate other people’s choices.

6

Good comments from all.
I too have been on both sides, and I have been a preschool teacher for many years.
I have seen resentful SAH’s who really would have been better off getting a job.
I have seen WOH’s who treated their children like little accessories to the American Dream-- and yeah they were on call 24-7, but I could not always reach anybody when little Jennifer was dropped off at school with strep throat.
I have seen successful, confident SAH’s, and harried but happy WOH’s.

It really hurt when I had to go back to work when my second kid was only a year old. But we really needed the little money I made.
I still feel bad about that, but I was able to watch him grow the next 3 years when he came to preschool with me.
I agree with Farmwoman that no $ = no respect, but I also agree that it is getting better.
Sometimes I think that the only reason it is getting better is because more men are taking time from the workplace to be with their children. But whatever works.

7

I have all the respect in the world for moms who choose to stay at home. If that’s what they choose to do, I think it’s quite a difficult course and should be respected whether it’s done well or even in a slightly mediocre way.

I have only one child, and I worked nights when she was little. It was incredibly difficult for me. Maybe it would have been easier if I was married to a man who would be the breadwinner. I had to do both because I was a single mom.

But women like my mom, who raise four kids, essentially on their own, are amazing. My mom never complained, not once that I can remember. If she was unhappy staying home with us, we never knew it. I loved having my mom at home and so did my brothers and later on, my sister.

She was always there for us, reading to us, playing with us, cooking for us, making sure the house was clean. And she dealt with my dad, who was no picnic at the time. I think she enjoyed her role as a mother, and really made the most of it. I feel like I pale in comparison to her mothering, which is one reason I’m glad my daughter has her as a grandma.

To this day, I don’t know how my mom did it. We fought like cats and dogs! And I know we never had any money back then. She did an amazing job, and in my opinion, accomplished more than most women who work outside of the home.

And, I’ll add, my mom did all of the book keeping and payroll for my dad’s business. That started out really small and then got big, and she still maintains all the records and office type stuff that goes along with the business.

She truly is the woman who does it all.

8

part of it is the cynic in me says the Harvard study shows Mom’s working 120 hours a week or 17+ hours per day. Sure. :rolleyes: These “studies” don’t help.

I stayed home for 2 years with my first daughter. My wife is a stay at home Mom. She does put in a long full day. It’s stressful, but a different kind of stress than a high powered corporate job. IMHO, if one has the luxury to stay home, its better for the kids and family. not everyone is so fortunate.

I work 12 hours a day and that cranks up to 16 hours when I’m on business trips. If my wife didn’t help out at home, I couldn’t keep my job. My wife has to take care of all the bills, banking, shopping, dry cleaning, etc. I just can’t put in the hours, help at home when I can, have a tiny bit of down time so I won’t go insane, etc unless my wife does it or I turn my family and home completely over to hired help.

Being at home certainly has rewards, but also the downside trade offs. I wish I could get paid a lot for working 1/2 day and spend the other 1/2 day at home. So far I haven’t been able to figure that one out.

9

I was a SAHF of one child off on on for the last two years. I was pretty difficult when she was very young but it got much easier after she could walk and talk. She is 2 1/2 now.

I think the difficulties of being a SAHP are generally exagerated unless there are two or more very young children at the same time or a child with special needs. I did housework and all of the other typical stuff but I would have had to do some of that anyway if I worked so it was actually easier.

I look at it this way. Women have been stay-at-home moms since homes were invented. They used to have numerous children, laundry had to be done by hand, there were no microwaves, ect. ect. They seemed to make due. Today, SAHP’s generally have only a few kids and all kinds of labor saving devices at their disposal. It has to be easier.

I also take issue with that 120 hour work week. That is simply taking almost every waking hour and recognizing that their might be some work involved then. That isn’t exclusive to be a SAHM. That is called being a parent and it applies whether you work outside the home or not.

10

Two reasons, I would argue. One, as others have mentioned before, a lot of what a SAHP does during the day gets done by full-time workers at nights and on weekends also (housecleaning etc.) Second, and more importantly (I think), is that so many women nowadays do have career goals and spend a lot of their time and ambition on work, and structure their life around it. For those of us who do so, it’s not always easy to judge people by their own standards of happiness rather than our own. If you see what I mean.

11

I think these people have never had to raise a 5 year old, a 2 year old, and a newborn in a townhouse, that’s what I think.

12

Like a lot of mothers, I’ve been in both camps and both SAH and WOH have their challenges.

When I was at home, and I acknowledge that the choice was mine, money was extremely tight. Yes, I had a lot more time to do things than mothers who were employed but I had to count every penny. What used to really get on my wick was WOH Mums who would call on me constantly for favours, driving, collecting children, school-based things, on the basis that I had ‘loads’ of free time and they were really too, too busy to do so themselves.

While I admit freely that it was my decision to stay home and be with my boys, it was their choice to go out to work. Horses for courses, I reckon. I just got sick of the arrogant assumption that I was sitting around the house all day, just waiting for an opportunity to do them a favour because they were time-poor.

13

I went to an Ivy League law school and worked at a top law firm for a couple of years. I found that it was the most educated and supposedly “liberal” women who positively sneered at the idea of being a SAHM.

Statements I heard from these “enlightened” gals:

It’s mostly defensiveness, though. You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their tone of voice–they feel they have to justify the fact that they are spending not just 40 hours a week away from home, but typically 50-60 in an average week. They know that a big part of the reason they do that, instead of getting a job with more regular hours, is that being a practicing lawyer with really sophisticated and demanding cases is fun for them. They’re letting their wants have some weight, too, and that doesn’t go over well in our “sacrifice everything for your children” culture.

I have also noticed that people have a tendency to prefer the way they were raised. I had a SAHM and I hope to, at most, work part-time or work from home, if I ever have kids. Can’t hardly picture it any other way. On the other hand, my friend Amy’s mom worked all through her childhood and she has no intention of spending much more than maternity leave home with them. Maybe part of it is a reluctance to slam our own moms? Probably, at least in my case.

14

I think a lot of it is that parents who work outside the home have most of the same responsibilities as SAHP, plus the paying job. It seems only natural that wage-earning parents would perceive SAHP as doing less work. It’s hard to get all choked up about someone who has to do the cooking and cleaning and laundry and errands and kid-minding when you put in an 8-hour day and then have to do the cooking and cleaning and laundry and errands and kid-minding.

I’m frankly very skeptical that the average SAHP works continuously for nearly 18 hours every single day. That none of their waking hours are spent taking a bath, or having a chat with a friend, or playing a game with their kids, or watching tv, or any of the other stuff that parents with paying jobs don’t consider work. I guess, though, it depends on how you define working. If someone’s job description is “mother” and you define all the time she spends being a mother as hours worked, then SAHMs work 168 hours every week.

15

I realize that in an increasing number of families, the breadwinner does help out when he comes home. But there are lots of studies out there that show that in a majority of households, women do most of or all of the housework. This is true regardless of whether it’s a two-earner household or a SAHM household.

It’s a pretty well-documented phenomenon.

Cite.

Cite.

Cite.

Also, personally, I know only one guy who agrees that even though his wife is a SAHM, he should do as much housework as she does when he’s not at work. All the rest of them feel that while they’ll help some, she ought to be doing the lion’s share regardless of time of day, because that’s “her job” in their bargain. And I know one guy (my dad) who feels he is lord and master and that no man should have to do any housework, maintenance or otherwise, ever. I realize this is anecdotal evidence and not worth much, but on the whole, folks I talk to agree that this is the breakdown they see too: a few very enlightened, most semi-piggish, and a few total assholes.

Mind you, none of this applies to how it breaks down when there’s a SAHD–I could find nothing about that. All the stuff I’ve heard in the pop media is awful. (Cool! I get to eat Cheetos all day and watch football while the kids run wild, and she can come home and do the laundry and make supper!) It’s so extreme that it’s clearly all motivated by prejudice, so I think we have to throw it out entirely.

16

No, definitely not. But they’re on call 24 hours a day, and that can be really nerve-wracking. And, as the articles I posted explain, even when hubby comes home, he’s only fielding an average of 1/3 of those “calls” from the kids–not much relief.

I know that from my mom’s perspective, it wasn’t the housework she felt was brutal–it was the constant “mommy mommy mommy I need attention!” kind of stuff that made her wanna go Andrea Yates on our asses. And that can go on well into the night.

As this article notes, Daddy is more likely to share child care tasks than housework tasks, but Daddy usually takes the “play with me!” stuff and Mommy gets the “feed 'em, bathe 'em, bandage the boo-boos, and stick 'em in bed” stuff.

17

Yes, I understand about the “on-call” nature of being a parent, but that applies equally to parents with jobs outside the home. Lord knows when my mother came home from work there was plenty of Mommy, I need… and Mommy, I want…, and Mommy, watch me… and Mommy, he’s looking at me. And when one of us barfed in the middle of the night, I’ll give you three guesses who got stuck with puke patrol. (Well, you didn’t expect Dad to do it, did you? He worked all day. :rolleyes: There were a few times I really thought she was going to hit him upside the head with a baseball over that crack.)

18

That’s true for emergencies, but a SAHP is on-call all day & night long for the mommy mommy mommy type stuff. Yeah, WOH’s have to do all that stuff when they get home, but they had a 8-10 hour break from it all day. Yes, they were working very hard, but the variety must be a little nice sometimes. I know that my husband gets to joke around with adults at work, have “water cooler” chats, etc. Hell, he calls me at least once a week to look something up on the internet so that they can settle some random bet. That can be a little annoying when I’m in the middle of dealing with a screaming toddler and haven’t been able to even take a shower and I can’t even foresee the next time I’ll have a conversation with someone over the age of 20.

By the way, Q.N., my husband and I would be a good example of the total load of household stuff going to me. I wouldn’t even in the slightest call him an “asshole.” In fact, our agreement before we had a baby was that I would do all the household stuff and he would provide the income. He has not made a dinner, washed a dish, or cleaned a toilet (actually, he’s never done that :slight_smile: ) since we had a child. The one thing he does at home is mow the lawn and I actually volunteered for that, but he thought that was a little too “lax” of him (although, I would have not problem with it in the slightest). He gets up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, plays with our son, and goes to bed. We’re all happy with the arrangement.

19

I know you don’t mean anything negative by this statement, but IMO the ubiquitous use of words like “fortunate” and “luxury” when describing the SAHP model is indicative of the real problem. I think it was Gary Player who said, “the harder I work, the luckier I get” and I can tell you that our family status has little to do with fortune or luxury and everything to do with nearly 2 decades of toil, self-sacrifice, and life spent living way below our financial means.

That’s why my teeth set on edge when parents smile knowingly at me and say something like ‘oh, you’re so lucky! I only wish we could afford to do that!’ My response has changed over the years. I used to awkwardly agree that my life is a friggin’ wonderland of happy accidents with golden opportunities falling into my lap. Now I look straight back and say, ‘why don’t you, then? It’s not too late.’ The inevitable ‘we can’t afford it’ is met with the very truthful, ‘we can’t either.’

20

China Guy , I really don’t want to pile on you, since Farmwoman just quoted you, but I think your choice of languauge shows the extent to which SAHPing really isn’t respected. You say your wife is a SAHM, but then you describe her as helping out at home . Helping out really makes it sound as though she’s just contributing a mere fraction of what needs to go into running a household, when by your own admission, she takes care of a lot of the day-to-day household functions.
I know it sounds picky, but it really does illustrate how language makes a difference.

Before my sister’s first child (now 9) was born, she worked as a lawyer. She left work and became a SAHM, now with 4 kids. She got all the typical comments about ‘wasting her law degree’, etc. I have to admit, that I didn’t really get it, either, before I had kids of my own. One day I was describing her family to someone and I said, “She doesn’t work.” The woman I was speaking to said, “oh, she most certainly does.”
Yes, I will admit that I sometimes feel as though I have it “harder” than she does, because I work outside the home (and, also, my sister had a live-in nanny until a few days ago), but I think that’s just a “grass is greener elsewhere” perception.