From what I’ve seen, the sentiment seems to be that they are equally hard. The working parents need to work a full time job and then come home and still do everything (cooking, cleaning, laundry, chores etc) whereas the stay at home parent is ‘working’ 24/7 and doesn’t get a break. They don’t get to clock off, they don’t get to relax and it’s constant, tedious, mind numbing work which is absolutely dreadful.
Am I the one one who thinks these two roles are not comparable? Neither one of them is easy, I don’t think being a SAHP is easy at all and I don’t envy either. BUT, a working parent? That’s a literal superhuman. I work a full-time job with long hours (60 hours on average) and I’m dead when I get home. I still manage to cook for myself, train and get my chores done but I live alone and am doing that for myself. I couldn’t imagine having the energy to take care of another entire being on top of working a full time job.
That’s absolute madness. Saying that being a SAHP is as hard as being a working parent is just disrespectful, honestly.
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A lot of people think being a stay at home parent is easy, that’s where the idea that they’re equally as hard gets pushed. People will do anything to tell a stay at home parent that their life is easy and they have no struggles.
The people who claim being a stay at home parent is a harder job than being a working parent are just back patting themselves with delusion.
Being a parent is HARD. but I’m not qualified to speak about this, I don’t have children.
Have you done either for years? They are both hard in different ways, but working was easier for me because I still felt like a person.
Been both and prefer 1,000% to be the stay at home parent. Shit is a cake walk man IDC what anyone on here says lol. Get to stay home with your kid and hangout with them? Parks? Day trips? Grandma visits? Sign me up. Anyone saying differently is just revealing their skill issues.
This right here! We have to do all the things that stay at homes do, in less time. Plus, we miss out on so much of the young growing up phase. I know there are some that do it out of necessity but if there truly would rather work, then go back to work and see. I was lucky enough to have a few years to stay at home with my kids when they were younger but i wish i had longer. No, we didn’t have money to do much but we went to parks, feed ducks, went to the zoo, had picnics in the back yard, etc. After i went back to work, there wasn’t as much time for that. A short time to play with them, then cook summer, then baths, books, and bed.
so you don’t even know…. some weeks I have to fly commute every morning and back, work long days, have no energy and id say my wife has it way harder being a stay at home mom…. obviously it depends on the job you have but being stay at home parent isn’t just staying at home looking at your kid… teaching, feeding, going outside, get the child to socialize early, tech them to do things, practice language….. like shit I don’t want to do that shit…. I used to work 20hr shifts in the harbour and I still consider that easier
It depends how much you are doing as a stay at home parent. If you’re just chilling while your kids watch tv or do whatever that’s one thing, but if you’re having activities and outings and organized things for them each day that’s way different.
I’m a working mom and my kids are in daycare and honestly the days they’re home and I’m in charge of them are way harder than my days working my job with them at daycare. The reason is because it’s constant with kids. With work you get breaks.
A single working parent definitely has it harder than a couple of parents who split the duties so one works and one is SAH. But the “stay at home” labor in this two-person arrangement has been devalued for quite some time… especially in the nuclear family set up where Dad’s only familial obligations are “bring home the paycheck” and occasionally “work the grill” “mow the lawn” while Mom stays home, does all the cooking, cleaning and minding of the kids and often knows and manages the kids far better than the working parent.
There is obviously some simplification here and conflicting needs for parents but when people argue about stay at home parents working just as hard as working parents, nine times out of ten this is the specific set up they mean.
It depends on so many things, not least of which is the kind of support and teamwork you’re getting from your partner.
I’ve been basically every version of working/SAHP possible.
-working in office with my husband at home (hands down easiest version for me)
-2 working in office parents (hands down hardest version)
-SAHM with husband working in an office (hard but doable because my husband rocks)
-working from home part-time with husband in the office (second hardest, but mainly because my kids were still little when I was doing this)
-working full time from home, husband hybrid (second easiest now that they’re older)
As a SAHM I 100% agree, I could never do what you do. I worked a full time job for seven years with no kids and it was still harder than being a SAHM to one.
Some jobs are way harder than keeping small children alive and some jobs are way easier. Also emotional regulation labour is easy for some people and long hard physical labour feels more natural to others…that said I wish I only had to sleep when the baby sleeps and produce food from my chest instead of go to fucking work
This is so offensive
Not an unpopular opinion. But please reconsider the sentiment. All things have value. Yes without food and shelter people cannot live. However, having children or a spouse who makes living worth it, not having your children hate me well into their adult lives or a messy abusive relationship, it is criminally underated how make or break these things are.
By comparing one’s duties to the next in totally different roles breathes competition. Competition in a relationship? Competition has no place there. Two people in relationship are working towards the same goal, Love
I think it depends.
If you’re the working parent in the relationship and your partner is the stay at home/default? No. Absolutely is not harder. Your job has finite hours. Their’s does not. Unless you’re also spending your evenings and weekends doing the bulk of the house work and cooking/cleaning working 9-5 is absolutely easier than being the stay at home parent.
If you’re in a dual income house hold AND the default parent, then abso-fucking-lutely. The concept of “married single mothers” is a trope for a reason.
You comparing your work life of 60 hours a week (which, bro… get a different job – unless you’re a doctor or a lawyer, and even then only a beginning of your career thing, those hours are bullshit). You’re also assuming that you’re not going to change your lifestyle based on being a parent, which really makes me think you’re a dude. You’re still going to train, and do the “you” stuff, because your partner, statistically, picks up all the slack.
There are lots of studies showing that married women do the majority of house work and childcare. 91% of working women spend an hour or more a day with their children, regardless of marital status, where as only 30% of employed men who live with their partner spend that amount of time daily with their kids. Employed and married women spend about 2.3 hours a day on housework, while employed men spend 1.6.
Eh, I think this REALLY depends on what type of stay at home parent you are. Are you making high quality meals? Are you pregnant while also chasing a toddler? Also breastfeeding? Also watching 1, 2, 3+ other kids ? Parking them in front of screens? Working on reading? Writing? ABCs and 123s? Going outside, to the park and library every day? Doing sports? Music lessons? Raising livestock?
Formal Employment vs Staying Home both have there challenges and it certainly isn’t a competition so I hope all of us are making the best decisions for our families, if it’s one thing I know, ALL parents are usually working their asses off.
With one working parent and one stay-at-home parent, wouldn’t the stay-at-home one usually take care of the cooking, cleaning, etc?
Shout out to all the mothers and fathers that have to do both either due to be single or have a neglected partner.
Eh I used to work 60 hour weeks before kids too, I was a chef and it was hot, hard work.
It was still easier than being a stay at home mum.
I also worked part time for a while when my kids were little and working was a break for me. A couple hours not worrying about shit all other than the job I had to do was blissful. Getting to actually talk to adults was great for my mental health. Having a quiet period and cleaning at my leisure? Lit. Noone crying to me, no shit or piss or boogers or whatever for me to deal with. I loved it. And I had to get up before the ass crack of dawn, walk in the dark to my job, open a Cafe and prep for the day while in the middle of the morning rush and serving, running food, helping make coffees ect. Then I’d finish at 8 in the morning, partner would drop the kids off at my job, I’d feed them breakfast I’d cooked while working and then walk home with them and be their sole carer for the next 9 hours and then do all the chores when my partner got home at night to help entertain the kids for a Lil bit
I’m a single mother who works and being a stay at home mom was way harder because I had a man child to take care of who made my life hell. I would rather work then ever go back to that life.
“I couldn’t imagine having the energy to take care of another entire being on top of working a full time job.”
Oh, you’re not a parent and you’ve come up with this?
What you need to understand is that being at home with young children or babies is just as if not more tiring than basically any desk job. It’s physically active work, and with toddlers and babies there’s no breaks. They always need something. And you could always be doing more.
So, yeah, I stayed home with my baby for around 1 year and now work part time. The 1 year was far harder, even though I only have 1 kid. I now consider my work days a ‘break’ because I sit down all day with no one yelling at me, and actually get to eat lunch and scroll my phone.
I think you’re right when you say they aren’t really comparable. I’m a stay at home parent and my husband works. Both of our roles come with their own challenges and we often end up feeling burnt out in different ways. (He wants to relax and stay home and I’m going stir crazy and want to get out.) But for our situation both of our roles are vital, equally important, and completely different. We both acknowledge that he couldn’t do my job and I also couldn’t do his.
I think working single parents are in a whole league of their own though. Extremely difficult. My friend does that and it is hard for me to fathom.
It’s not ‘working’ it’s working. You may not think picking flowers in the garden or cloud watching or baking cookies or reading stories or playing games is work. But those things are shaping a child’s personality, world view, sense of value, understanding of love and kindness. I think that’s some of the most important work anyone can do.
I don’t think it’s worth comparing. Shit is hard for everyone. It doesn’t matter who has it “worse”
Agreed.
I find that the stay at home moms are kinda.. pathetic? Like they are usually just kinda sad, anti-women anti-feminist type people.
They say home and wipe bottoms and clean and don’t have anything interesting to talk about. Fairly easy job if that’s what they are into.
Working a real job in a career (not a crap service job) is at least interesting and they have to balance priorities. Which is so much more difficult than being the 12th billion person to have unprotected sex and be forced to stay with a stupid kid.
Also, staying at home sets all women back.
I’ve done both and for me there’s no comparison.
SAHP requires you to be mentally sharp; you have to manage yourself without external pressure. It’s easy to get off track and feel like you’re not using your time well. But once I figured that out, it was a dream.
As a working parent I’m endlessly frazzled and behind, and there’s no amount of mental energy or focus or hard work that can make up for the fact that I’m doing all the same work as a stay at home parent, but fitting it in to my 25 hours of “free” time each week
One of the things I find hardest about being a working parent is that you have to be very careful how you talk about it. To be clear, I fully support stay at home parents. The work of the home is real, vital work. I’m never going to look down on sahps.
But it kind of sucks that I can’t just say what is true to me— that being a SAHP is a cakewalk compared to working and parenting– without having to bend over backwards so everybody knows I’m not shitting on them or their choices
It might depend on if you’re a working mom vs working dad (w SAHM.)
I’m a working mom who had weird scenarios where I got a whole 4-5 weeks off 3 years in a row to play SAHM. Like an undercover agent secret shopper.
I don’t know if working dads (married to SAHM) vs SAHMs have it harder, but working moms conclusively had it the hardest of all scenarios. It was kinda funny because one of my work leaves was called a sabbatical – an honorary milestone for hitting 12 years of work service — when I showed up to the park each day the SAHMs would be like “omg how nice, so relaxing, what a break!” Then they would spend 2 hours complaining about how hard being a SAHM was— their whine fest was literally my sabbatical. I couldn’t always stay at our social events (park, etc) for 3-4 hours like the true SAHMs could but we would do 1-2 then kiddo and I would go have fun doing our to-do list together. I felt like I had so much time to maintain our home, grocery shop, meal prep, watch kiddo, workout, rest, etc. when I got to play SAHM. That’s HARD to fit in a work day.
Flip side – my male peers at work also have it so easy. They have wives they do all the things (mental load, meals, etc.) and like life would be so easy if I had a wife and especially a SAHM.
Long story long…In an apocalypse, my money is on Team Working Moms. We will get shit done and everyone else is soft.
The part that OP and non-parents fail to consider is the mental fatigue that comes with actively thinking about someone other than yourself, all day everyday.
That’s something that can only be understood through experience.
Factors! Depends on how many kids and you know, working nights or days and all – I kinda agree with you from my personal experience?
It’s a different type of hard. I worked while having young kids/infants and I was more physically tired. Now as a SAHM, I’m mentally exhausted. We joke around with my husband that I need to go back to work so I can take a break from being a SAHM. Don’t get me wrong, I feel blessed that I have that opportunity but I’m constantly stressed and someone always needs me. Between cooking, cleaning,school drop offs and pickups, appointments, after school activities etc. it can be overwhelming. I got so somewhat relax after work because kids were out of the house while I was at work so I don’t need to do I lot at home except make dinner (husband and I shared that task) and I caught up with other things on my days off. But yeah, both can be hard. It also depends on your kids ages. It gets easier when they’re older and more independent and I think there should be a balance. You can’t be a full time working parent and doing everything at home, you’ll get burnt out very quickly. (This doesn’t apply to single parents, that’s a different level of difficult).
You feel this way because your logic in the first paragraph is fundamentally flawed.
The working parent wouldn’t come home and do ALL of those things unless they were also a single parent.
The working parent would come home and split the responsibility with their partner.
A lot of the time, and why it’s viewed as harder, is because the working parent comes home and expects to relax and have time to themselves, but doesn’t extend that courtesy to their partner.
nah. stay at home parents dont get paid.
I think a lot depends on how many kids and the ages. I was a working mom (teacher) now I’m a SAHM. In all honestly being a SAHM is so much harder, none of my kids are in school yet, I have a 4.5 year old, a 3 year old, and an infant. They are all young enough that I still have to do most everything for them. There are days I don’t even get to sit down and eat until 5pm when my husband gets off work. Neither my 4.5 year old or 3 year old nap so I am constantly having to find ways to keep them entertained throughout the entire day without using the television while also helping my infant progress in his milestones.
I am so mentally exhausted by the end of the day. Oh and then I still have to do most of the housework after they go to bed because there is no way much is getting done during the day with three young children.
ETA: and I know I have it easier than some SAHM because I have a very supportive husband who does split parenting duties once he is off of work.
I think you didn’t understand the comparison people are making, it’s not that being a stay at home parent is harder than being a working parent that actually does chores and takes care of the kids when they get home, it’s that being a stay at home parent is harder than being a working parent who gets home and doesn’t do shit because they left all the house and child work to the stay at home parent.
I used to think the same till I had a baby. Now i think stay at home mums have it the worst. Looking after a young child is a very different kind of work. You are constantly on. There is no monotonous bit you can mindlessly do. Its hard. Very hard. I found it easier looking after the baby after going back to work
Whichever side is making the argument frequently slants the division of labor to make their side look harder. Is being a SAHP who does 100% of the childcare, housework, yardwork cooking, etc harder than working 40 hours at an chill AF office job, then coming home and watching football until bedtime? Absolutely
Is working manual labor then coming home and doing 100% of the housework, yardwork, cooking, etc harder than being the SAHP who is “too busy” taking care of a 6th grader that’s in school all day. Obviously.
Other tasks aside, is working for 8 hours harder than taking care of a kid for 8 hours? Depends on the job and on the kid. I’ve known people that literally play videogames at work until they need to answer a call whereas I’m full sprint for 12 hours shifts keeping people alive. I’ve seen babies that don’t stop crying/screaming for hours at a time and babies that take hours long naps and I’ve never seen cry.
These comparisons are never apples to apples
For me, being a stay at home parent (for 16 moths) was extremely hard and mentally draining but being a working parent is hard logistically and a different level of stress. They’re both hard but I would have wanted to be home with my child any longer
It really depends on so many factors.
How many hours does the person work? How stressful is the job? How many children are there? What’s the financial situation?
As a mom who has tried both staying home and working full-time, I 100% agree with you, but I get downvoted to hell if I ever say it on mom subs. Childcare + housework is two jobs. Childcare + housework + a full-time job is three jobs. Three jobs is harder than two jobs. It’s just math.
Depends if you are rich enough to have no job and have maids and servants to do stuff then sure it’s easier but if you have to work around the house then it’s different, there is a reason that people who can afford it hire others to do household stuff and childcare. That in itself is pretty taxing work so someone who does it all by themselves doesn’t have it any easier than someone with a full time job and you are free to feel as disrespected as you want.
Staying home with my baby is harder than any job I have ever had. At one point I was a full time grad student with 2 jobs and an internship, and staying home with my child is harder. If you think it’s easy, it’s probably because you are only doing the bare minimum.
depends on the job. My husband goes to work and sits at a desk all day playing games on his laptop because his job is basically people watching where there are no people.