I watched something recently on the telly about SAHM's (stay at home mums for those of you who aren't familiar) and some people were trying to say that mums who stay at home with their children are lazy whereas others strongly disagreed, commenting it's a full time job staying at home and raising children.
Is it? Would you regard staying at home easy or hard?
I must say, I've been at both ends of the argument so I have quite mixed views on the whole topic of SAHM's. When my oldest daughter was 6 months old I went back to work, I had no intention of not working, plus being a single mum at the time, I didn't want to slip into the category of single mums who jump straight onto benefits because that seems to be the easiest thing to do, I was only 19 at the time and this is what was expected of me and I just love to prove everybody wrong. Oh no - benefits were not for me, I've always believed that everyone should work if they can and that it's not fair to take the easy option and live off the state - after all you wouldn't be able to do this in many countries around the world. But then again that's my opinion and each person has their own view.
But saying that, not all SAHM's claim benefits, some have a high earning partner which enables them to stay at home with their children. Some have their own businesses, others are students.....
There are so many different types of stay at home mums that it's not fair to say they are lazy as some would say... after all have we forgotten about the circle of life itself. Women have been raising children since the beginning of time, our own children. But now, life has evolved in such a way that it has brought us into a time where our children are brought up by others such as nannies, childminders and daycare staff.
I agree as a nation we should work, but I also think its a real shame when we have children and leave it to others to bring them up. Many of you will disagree and say this is the only way but it's simply crazy that the demands of human society have pushed expectations so high that we are unable to be simply mothers.
Imagine if the chimpanzee took her baby to the baboons because she had to go and pick bananas for a living or the elephant left her baby with the hippo's because she had to go and pull tree's down for a days work, being paid nothing but peanuts.
Now there are lazy mums who have no intention of ever working and will use their children as an excuse - I used to know of one who put her only child into full time daycare even though she didn't work because she couldn't be bothered looking after her, she would run up the nursery bill, not pay it and then move house so she couldn't be tracked, she was notorious for ripping off nurseries. There are also the type of mums to consider who don't work but are forever running around taking their offspring to school, clubs, events, making proper food (mum's should not shop at Iceland by the way, children deserve a healthy and fresh balanced diet) - there are all sorts of things that keep SAHM's busy and it used to be the way before women demanded power and equal rights so why do so many of us condemn it nowadays?
I now stay at home with my children who are aged 1, 3 and 10 - but on the other hand as well as doing the usual motherly duties, I also run an online business and study full time with the Open University. Does that make me lazy? Because I choose not to go into an office like I used to and slave my guts out for the fat cats at the top who couldn't care less whether or not I saw my children between the hours of school, who didn't like me taking time out for school plays and doctors appointments with my children. Should I go and work and pay extensive child care fees because society says I should?
I think everybody is different and we have all been brought up differently. I genuinely don't think it's fair to say that SAHM's are lazy, we all have our opinions and we all have our reasons for doing what we believe is the right thing to do. But being a mum isn't always easy and some can manage better than others and so we all choose a path that suits the way we deal with raising our children and life itself.
Like I said, I have been in both circumstances - I have worked in a high pressure career in which I never saw my daughter, she was always being taken care of by someone else and I missed out on important things such as first steps, first words - the kind of things I really wanted to be there for.
Now that I stay at home, I do not regard myself as doing any less than what I did at the office - I'm just as busy but in a different way. I still do paperwork, take and make phone calls, I still file, account and stock manage..... I do all the things I would if I jumped in a car and headed for the office every day - plus the added extra's of being a mum and it's a position I would rather be in to be honest.
We women cannot win - we can't have children if we work because those in the office who do not have kids disagree with the time we have off when our children are poorly or if they have a school play or some other event that we cannot miss - the comments come rolling out "why should they get the time off just because they've got children" and so on.... you've all heard it before. And if we choose to stay at home then we are lazy.......
Have people forgotten the very basics of human nature? We reproduce.... we use the parts of our body that god gave us and we give birth to new life.... why should the modern day world be allowed to completely dictate whether or not we are worthy or able to have children just because others may be displeased with our choices of how we bring our children up.
We are not robots, we are humans and to believe that we should all be the same and raise our children in the same way would be a crime to human nature itself - humans will never be the same as one another and the complainers of society should stop complaining about how others choose to live their lives and just get on with their own.
