Over half of mums feel judged for being stay­-at­-home mums

Life as a mum comes with its fair share of struggles, from dealing with isolation to worrying about your future career prospects and trying to remember who ‘you’ are.

 

The extent of pressure facing mums today was glaringly obvious in our recent MummyPages study into the lives of stay-­at-­home mums and really gave us some cause for concern.

 

Lack of empathy and respect

Whether you work outside of the home or not, raising children and running a household is one of the toughest jobs a person can undertake. Unfortunately, this is something that many people fail to understand and worryingly, over half of the women who took our survey admitted that they felt judged for being stay­at-home mums.

 

A lack of compassion and empathy towards mums in the home was clear throughout our survey, and our results found that stay­at­home mums are not getting the support they so badly need.

 

Out of the mums who took part in our study:

• 57% feel judged for choosing to stay at home
• 58% feel like they have lost respect since becoming a stay­at­home mum
• 46% are unhappy with the level of support they receive at home, from their partner and family

 

 

A problem across the board

When it comes to judgement and disrespect towards stay­at­home mums, the problem is far­reaching, spanning from the home right through to our mums’ friends and peer groups.

 

The majority (77%) of our respondents said that the biggest problem facing stay­at­home mums is the presumption that it is an easy job. The importance of empathy was clear when we asked our mums to tell us who they felt had lost respect for them since becoming a stay­at­home mum.

 

It seems that feelings of disrespect are mainly caused by the words and actions of friends who are working mums, friends without children, and former work colleagues. While this is upsetting, what really worried us was that almost a quarter of mums felt their partners had lost respect for them since they chose to stay at home to raise their kids.

 

 

One mum summed up the general feeling of our disillusioned respondents who shared her own experience.

 

“I feel like friends without kids think I dumped by brain and all I do is sit around the house and watch TV.

 

They make me feel like I’m a hermit. Other working mums sometimes make me feel lazy and worthless,” this mum wrote.

 

Many other mums had similar stories to tell, highlighting a lack of respect and empathy as one of the greatest challenges facing stay­at­home mums today.