Sometimes it can feel very patronising when someone says I am a full time mum,  I dont really like that expression we are all full time mums wether we work or not...

There are a lot of politics surrounding this subject. Apparently the Daily Mail had another go at Mums who work the other day.

I'm not keen on the expression but I don't work and stay at home looking after kid. What do I call myself? A waste of space?

To me it just means time spent..not effort given
As in full-time job!

yeah, but the other side of it is when you are at home full time and are classed as "not working", "don't have a job".... (made to feel like a worthless peice of dirt basically)...

looking after a couple of preschool kids IS a full time job.

its a nightmare.... the variety of names for a partner that has decided to stay at home and keep the home fires burning has a variety of names...

housewife
homemaker
stay at home mother
full time mum


out of them... I like full time mum best.   And I have been a working mum too.... when I worked my preschool kid went to creche & my school aged child was picked up from school and given her tea by my parents... so there was someone else doing the mum work for me.

I reckon skivvy just sums up my role

Despite having three children under 5 at the time (and no one to look after them even for and hour for me to have and evening job for my hubby to get home and take over) I took up full time 'registered child minding' and while I loved it and had the maximum children to look after including my own, no one ever thought that I was a working Mother, not even my hubby - he still doesn't even though this was years ago. I was home so not working ( despite the fact I was earning about £20 a week less than him - he went out to work)!

I hear you Arwen...

... live to serve me!  is how it feels at times!  

omg GMA!

I used to say I would rather be a hooker than a childminder!   So you have my respect!  

When I did go out to work full time (I had to pay my ex to look after the kids)... I used to leave the house with a massive smile on my face.... I never took sick leave.. it was easier to be ill at work than at home.

It wasn't too bad DPT, a lot of responsibility and book work but fine as I couldn't go out to work. (My in-laws live in Turkey and my late Mother refused to look after my three for an hour even though she lived 5 doors down from the school - she never went out and her plea was 'I don't want to be tied' (not forgetting my grandmother looked after my brother and I so she could go out to work evenings)! My late Dad was henpecked, he would have done it, I know bless him,he loved having the children around and they loved him too.

As a child minder, I had good children to look after, one is still my next door neighbour's son! He's 20 in April! there was a couple who had an 18yr old and then decided to have another so I had their daughter from 6 weeks old until she was three. Great people and child - except they failed to turn up on time to pick her up and never paid me overtime! I was too soft!

thats a good point Ditty, I'd never thought of it like that.... the term seemed a bit harsh to mums that work I thought, like it was looking down on them? If that makes sense?

hence the term I heard a lot on a visit to the US = homemaker...

Or 'Suzi Homemaker' full of negative connotations

In my house, I am known as the Squatter.

Ah, so that's what you look like Bliz:

Erm.... not quite!