Being a mother is not the most important job in the world

pwurple

The Corinthian wrote: »

Because even if they are sleeping the vast majority of their 24 hour day, it's not like you can go off for, say, six hours and be confident that they won't need you (or that if they do, they can't phone you up about it).

I'm not sure what age I'd leave children at home on their own for 6 or 7 hours... it would be probably approaching 16/17?

However, you're right in that I can't be certain, but when very young, I do think there is enough evidence to show that there is likely a lot more effort involved that could well require a full-time role.

Exactly what effort though, because it doesn't go away.

Yet does this require a consistent 40-hours per week is the point? How much more time does cooking fish fingers take than preparing a bottle of formula?

I've never cooked a fish finger, If you're breastfeeding, there's no prep at all. Formula takes ~17 minutes in the morning for 24 hours worth of it to sit in the fridge until it's needed. For a small child, we do porridge, toast and chopping fruit in the morning... that takes about 20 mins between buttering, mixing, chopping etc. Packing a lunch (making sandwiches), doing two sets of snacks like crackers and cheese, morning and afternoon, and a dinner in the evenings. It's far more than milk.

And do you need to spend dedicated hours, every day or week, to teach them how to avoid danger or wash?

Yes, of it's hours every week. Cleaning is toilet training, brushing teeth, washing hands, blowing noses, showing them how to do dishes, put things away, on and on and on. And it's over and over again, repeatedly drumming it in. Danger has to be reinforced all the damn time. Don't climb onto rickety shelving, don't run out in front of moving cars, don't wrap things around your neck, don't go off with people you don't know. Electricity, water, cold, fires, heights, knives, strings, enclosed spaces, choking, bees, dogs.... Here's a list of drugs and how they feck you up, smoking, booze, STD's, birth control. it's endless. It's not a scheduled meeting with a powerpoint presentation on safety, but you have to stop what you are doing and concentrate on reinforcing this.

And that's where the problem arises; when this myth that it is consistently a 40-hours per week job is used to justify what is effectively a lifestyle choice and others have to pay for it - there are literally husbands out there who have to hold down 80-hour a week jobs or take on second jobs because their wife refuses to take on even a part time job on this basis.

Everything thing in life is a 'lifestyle choice'. If people are having marital problems or working unevenly due to division of workload in their own household, then frankly I think they need to sort themselves out rather than cowing to one party or the other. Society can't get inside their marriage and fix their communication.

The Corinthian

pwurple wrote: »

I'm not sure what age I'd leave children at home on their own for 6 or 7 hours... it would be probably approaching 16/17?

Legally at 13, if I remember correctly. If you're still babysitting them at 15/16, I actually feel sorry for them.

Exactly what effort though, because it doesn't go away.

So you claim, however you've failed to show that the level of effort remains constant, while I've repeated pointed out that as the child grows older, that level of effort is more than likely going to decrease because they become more self-sufficient.

For a small child, we do porridge, toast and chopping fruit in the morning... that takes about 20 mins between buttering, mixing, chopping etc. Packing a lunch (making sandwiches), doing two sets of snacks like crackers and cheese, morning and afternoon, and a dinner in the evenings. It's far more than milk.

So you always prepare meals for your children separately? Oddly, I ate much the same as my parents by about 7 (smaller portions naturally), and I'm pretty sure that they didn't have to cook mine separately. And at what age will they make their own breakfast?

Even if one spends 20 minutes a day making breakfast only for their child(ren) - so no sneaky multi-tasking and making breakfast for yourself too - that's 2 hours, 20 minutes per week. Where's the other 37 hours, 40 minutes?

Yes, of it's hours every week.

Not 40. Nowhere near.

Everything thing in life is a 'lifestyle choice'. If people are having marital problems or working unevenly due to division of workload in their own household, then frankly I think they need to sort themselves out rather than cowing to one party or the other. Society can't get inside their marriage and fix their communication.

I agree, but I'm not suggesting we should get into anyone's marriage, just stop enabling negative behaviour, just as we used to enable marital rape by saying that a husband had an absolute right to conjugal relations with his wife.

There is a balance between respect for the role of a parent and everyone else. And while it's wrong to take a mother's contribution for granted, it's also wrong when that contribution is exaggerated to the point that it allows one to abuse that role.

pwurple

The Corinthian wrote: »

So you always prepare meals for your children separately?

And if I made a cup of tea with the same kettle while I made bottles ? The only point is that some effort still needs to be put in.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Not 40. Nowhere near.

Can I just ask why this strawman is being repeatedly thrown around? The opening article doesn't say anything about a 40 hour week, and many posters, including myself, have written that the number of hours involved in parenting can be as large or as small as you choose to make it.

I'm not in any way interested in justifying that claim, it's yours... not mine.

The Corinthian

pwurple wrote: »

And if I made a cup of tea with the same kettle while I made bottles ? The only point is that some effort still needs to be put in.

Sure, I've never denied that. The question is how much effort?

Can I just ask why this strawman is being repeatedly thrown around? The opening article doesn't say anything about a 40 hour week, and many posters, including myself, have written that the number of hours involved in parenting can be as large or as small as you choose to make it.

Because while the article is unfair - there is a counter argument, and one which may explain why people write such arguments in the first place.

I'm not in any way interested in justifying that claim, it's yours... not mine.

If you weren't trying to claim that mothers' job is always full-time, then I'm not sure what you were responding to me for, as that's all I was objecting to.

clairefontaine

I would like this writer to sit down and teach three five year olds how to tie their shoe laces.

Then is like to see her coach them into when its appropriate to to talk to a stranger.

Then I'd like to see her teach them when and how its appropriate to use self defense against other children and possibly an adult.

Then I'd like to see her potty train twins.

Then I'd like to see her spend all week with a small child and a teenager.

Then let's see her rewrite the article, that is if she has the time.

Edited to add:

I had a browse through some of the local ads from professional working parents looking for babysitters. LOL. Some of them want babysitters from 5 AM till 7:30 pm. That is 14 HOURS!!!

Another couple want a babysitter for their little girl who has a cold, for TWO days. So neither of them can take of TWO days to mind their sick child so go fishing on the internet for a stranger to come in.

And then here, people are trying to convince others t's not a full time job. Yeah right.

Femme_Fatale

The Corinthian wrote: »

As Henry pointed out, "Full-time job = 24 hours a day and no free time/holidays" is a ridiculous strawman - no one other than you has claimed that, or even that there's no work or that it can never be a full-time role, under extreme circumstances or when the child is very young.

So please stop with the strawmen or actually quote where anyone has suggested a full-time job should be 24-hours a day, because at this stage I'm calling people out on telling porkie pies.

Again, no one has said they're a breeze, only that they're not a full time job - and by full time one means a consistent 40-hours per week. At that stage, entering secondary, a child is largely independent. Are you still dressing them at that age? Tying their shoelaces? Catering to their every whim?

Indeed, think about it; a full-time parent caring for a, say, 14-year old? Either there's something wrong with that 14-year old or that parent, would be what comes to mind.

Realistically, by the time your average child is in secondary school you're not going to convince anyone that you're running after it 40-hours per week, every week, unless there's something very, very wrong in the relationship between mother and child.

So you say, yet whenever anyone has tried to justify this claim here, they've come up short. Increasingly lot's of mutual backslapping taking place here though.

Oh dear, butt-hurt over people agreeing with each other and not agreeing with you. Pointless backtracking, you said parenthood becomes a pretty cushy gig once the children start secondary school, despite that being the difficult teenage years.

Since then you've just been dismissive about the job of parenting, including some flippant comment about "fish fingers" because yeh, that's what all parents feed their kids.

wolfpawnat

Are people just calculating the hours of 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday as the time people parent or what. The reason I ask is we are hearing over and over about school hours. But....

Hours in a week 24 x 7 = 168

Average school day for 16 year old, taking in 1pm finish on wednesdays, an hour to get too and from and a 9am start, 3:30 finish.

4 days of 6.5hrs = 26 hours.
Wednesday = 4 hours.
Travel = 5 hours.
total = 35 hours.

That leaves 168 - 35 = 133 hours a week of them not in school.

Take a good 8 hours a night each night rest (yeah right, but lets go with it)
8 x 7 =56

133 hours not in school - 56 hours sleep = 77 hours.

77 hours is still well over the average 40 hour work week.

clairefontaine

wolfpawnat wrote: »

Are people just calculating the hours of 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday as the time people parent or what. The reason I ask is we are hearing over and over about school hours. But....

Hours in a week 24 x 7 = 168

Average school day for 16 year old, taking in 1pm finish on wednesdays, an hour to get too and from and a 9am start, 3:30 finish.

4 days of 6.5hrs = 26 hours.
Wednesday = 4 hours.
Travel = 5 hours.
total = 35 hours.

That leaves 168 - 35 = 133 hours a week of them not in school.

Take a good 8 hours a night each night rest (yeah right, but lets go with it)
8 x 7 =56

133 hours not in school - 56 hours sleep = 77 hours.

77 hours is still well over the average 40 hour work week.

That's September -June. minus the holidays and sick days.

It looks like it might be two or three full time jobs.

The Corinthian

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Oh dear, butt-hurt over people agreeing with each other and not agreeing with you.

No just amused to see the mutual validatory posts and backslapping by the mammy brigade.

Pointless backtracking, you said parenthood becomes a pretty cushy gig once the children start secondary school, despite that being the difficult teenage years.

While we're on the topic of backtracking, I see you've backtracked from your earlier accusation of posters here claiming that a full-time job should be 24/7.

Since then you've just been dismissive about the job of parenting, including some flippant comment about "fish fingers" because yeh, that's what all parents feed their kids.

It's not, at least not in my home, but I doubt if there are many homes where fish fingers isn't remembered as a childhood food. So you should not take to the defence and perceive offences so quickly, especially when they're not.

wolfpawnat wrote: »

77 hours is still well over the average 40 hour work week.

So if they're not sleeping or in school, a mother is with them working for them? Does that include when they're with their friends, reading a book, shower or taking a dump in the toilet, you follow them in? At, say, 12-years of age? After all, this is all time you're saying is part of the mother's working week.

It's frankly ridiculous to suggest that this level of 'involvement' is standard as it would be unhealthy for the child, indeed it would be abusive.

wolfpawnat

The Corinthian wrote: »

So if they're not sleeping or in school, a mother is with them working for them? Does that include when they're with their friends, reading a book, shower or taking a dump in the toilet, you follow them in? At, say, 12-years of age? After all, this is all time you're saying is part of the mother's working week.

LOL. This nonsense is getting ridiculous.

I am just stating the hours, nothing more. I think it is an essential job, like that of a father, it raises the next generation to be good law abiding citizens but there are other jobs essential too, doctors, teachers, etc.

I have nothing but respect for working parents. I am lucky that though I have less money, I have only the job of looking after the kids and keep the house clean.

The Corinthian

wolfpawnat wrote: »

I am just stating the hours, nothing more.

The problem is that a mother is not actually working over all those hours. When a child is older, neither is she realistically 'on call' during them, any more than the father.

Ultimately, while the work may be spread out over 77 hours, it's not actually 77 hours work and as the child grows older the work decreases.

I think it is an essential job, like that of a father, it raises the next generation to be good law abiding citizens but there are other jobs essential too, doctors, teachers, etc.

Nice you mention the father, who apparently didn't factor into any of those calculations of yours.

I have nothing but respect for working parents. I am lucky that though I have less money, I have only the job of looking after the kids and keep the house clean.

Yes, you are fortunate - no disagreement there.

D'Agger

I'm going to go ahead and lock this. There have been on thread warnings about keeping it civil and cutting out sniping and I'm not seeing any progression on that front