Stay at home mums have the hardest job and here's why.

I have never worked, that much is true then again we are on a student forum where the majority have never earned a living off their own back. So what's your point? Do you also believe that the we as students can't hold political opinions or indeed vote because we don't work? And does working making you mystically have an epiphany that changes your outlooks on everything?

Stay at home mums have it the hardest, it doesn't pay and it's 24 hours and the consequences of failing to do it properly are final.

I do actually agree quite strongly with this. If one partner earns enough to comfortably support a family, there is no NEED for the other partner to work. If they do decide to work they are trading time with the kids for more money, which while not necessarily a bad thing I can sympathise with parents who are loathe to do that.

But to be honest, this is only really applicable when the kids are young anyway. Once the kids are in school they are out of the house for half the day anyway, and it does not take eight hours a day to keep a house tidy. And once they reach secondary school they can sort themselves out most of the time and contribute to chores.

Many of you ridiculed me for a recent thread I made where I mentioned that being a housewife and full time mum was hard.

Here's a video to prove it.

[video="youtube;HB3xM93rXbY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY[/video]

You can have opinions if you want, but don't expect people to take them seriously. I've never eaten an avocado, therefore I don't think people are going to care much about my thoughts on what an avocado tastes like. Reading about it is one thing, doing it is another. Go work in a warehouse as a picker for a day; I think you'll change your mind about how hard being a stay-at-home mum is pretty quickly. Also, I think you'll find that a lot of students here have worked; a lot of them have to.

It doesn't pay? I think you should look into what a stay-at-home mum can get from the government; it can pay quite a bit. It can actually pay more than lots of low paid jobs. But yeah, it's 24 hours a day; 24 hours in the comfort of your own home, with no deadlines to meet, no strenuous labour, no poor conditions to work in, etc. You'll find that staying at home with a kid is quite preferable to a lot of jobs.

OK, but you presented it as though it were a diametric choice, that one either chose to have both parents working part time for an amount similar to what a single parent could earn full time, or one working full time and the other staying at home, when it is perfectly plausible to have both parents work full time. If you want you can even have both parents work very high powered jobs, I know a couple where he is a tax partner in the Big 4 and she is head of corporate for a major law firm, though their kids board.

I do actually agree quite strongly with this. If one partner earns enough to comfortably support a family, there is no NEED for the other partner to work. If they do decide to work they are trading time with the kids for more money, which while not necessarily a bad thing I can sympathise with parents who are loathe to do that.

But to be honest, this is only really applicable when the kids are young anyway. Once the kids are in school they are out of the house for half the day anyway, and it does not take eight hours a day to keep a house tidy. And once they reach secondary school they can sort themselves out most of the time and contribute to chores.

No I didn't. I explained it. But you stating that doesn't make it true. You're just really bitchy with anyone who disagrees with you

See that's what I'm saying, you're being rude.

]Yet you delude yourself with this amusing notion that you're going out to work FOR them when it's actually for you.

Stay at home mums have it the hardest, it doesn't pay and it's 24 hours and the consequences of failing to do it properly are final.

Disagree with the last bit. There's still things you can do staying at home, and I'm glad I had my mum around as a teenager (she worked part time)

Well **** me that's probably the harshest thing I've read on this site in a looong time, working mothers don't love their children folks.

Since you'll attack your opposition for being rude Tyrion, which is valid, albeit I think you're both exaggerating each others points as you can't compromise on your opposing viewpoints, I assume you'll do the same with this one for a pretty disgusting statement.

Anyway, it's not an easy job, BUT that said, it is a fairly simplistic and unchallengeable statement that a single parent working full time to bring in money to provide for their children and having to look after them is in a much tougher situation than a couple where the mother (as this is more the focus of debate) stays at home to look after the kids.

Also...there is the age and number of kids to consider. Looking after a single child is nowhere near as challenging as managing three. Along with this a newborn baby, a 1.5yr old and a 2.5 year old are much more of a handful than say you having a 6 yr old and an 8 yr old, both of which will be in full-time schooling and thus you have 6 hours without them, doing housework/shopping, which...anyone in the world does, regardless of employment, children etc.

But as another member said, logic dictates that if looking after your own children is the most challenging job in the world, working in a nursery must be...the most MOST challenging job and god forbid that nursery worker has their OWN KIDS as well, damn......Universe has found hardest job.

I mean I am male so I may be a tad bias but yeah, I'd accept looking after kids is a hell of a lot more draining than me working full-time in retail. But....I'd rather look after a couple of kids than have Taliban fighters raining automatic fire on me while I'm pinned down without air support.

I'm not sure why you quoted me, because I didn't say working women don't love their kids

I can't think of anything you could do that is as time consuming or difficult as a job. Whilst I still admit it is not necessary to work if the other partner is earning enough, once it reaches a point where the kids are in school most of the day, with mates on their days off, contributing to chores and capable of surviving alone unattended for a few hours it is ridiculous to compare being a stay at home parent to a full time job. The only time I can see that being justified is when the kids actually need constant attention and supervision, and that simply is not the case once they hit the teens.

I mean, my mum works part time too. But if she decided to work full time the only difference would be that a bit more housework would need to be done at the weekends.

Erm...you read my post right?

You seemed to be continuously attacking one member for being rude in getting her point across, which she may have been, though it avoids a sense of bias if you will be prepared to reprimand someone on your own side of a debate if they post something akin to what you're complaining about, something much more offensive IMO.

Well **** me that's probably the harshest thing I've read on this site in a looong time, working mothers don't love their children folks.

Since you'll attack your opposition for being rude Tyrion, which is valid, albeit I think you're both exaggerating each others points as you can't compromise on your opposing viewpoints, I assume you'll do the same with this one for a pretty disgusting statement.

Disagree with the last bit. There's still things you can do staying at home, and I'm glad I had my mum around as a teenager (she worked part time)

I think you have an issue, much like other posters in this thread, distinguishing hard work and manual, physical labour. There's no denying that working a conveyor belt in a warehouse lifting and moving heavy objects is physically strenous however you would never say it's the hardest job because it requires very low intelligence, it doesn't require much in the way of thought. In the same way, working a coal mine is maybe dangerous because of the ominous chance of a landslide or cave-in but again that doesn't translate, for me at least, as the hardest job.

I'm not sure why we are talking about benefit scroungers because that's not what this thread is about, it's about families who are not entitled to state hand-outs because the breadwinner is actually making a decent wage.

But anyway the most you can get these days with a household full of kids is what 1k a month, before you pay the bills, do shopping etc for me that's not worth having 5+ kids and I imagine it's a pinch to live on 12k pounds a year always worrying how you'll pay for bill X or have enough to buy a pint of milk. The psychological stress again only adds to my argument as is especially the case with single mothers who claim benefits which make up a majority of families that claim benefits, no? Or at least families where the dad is also not working.