There are a lot of misconceptions about the “stay-at-home mom,” or SAHM for short.
You may think that stay-at-home moms spend all day cleaning. You may assume that staying at home is a luxury rather than a necessity. You may even wish that you had all day to sit around and watch TV just like stay-at-home moms are probably doing.
The truth is that a stay-at-home mom is not a maid. She’s not lazy. And she’s certainly not doing things for herself all day long. In fact, she’s more likely to be doing things for other people all day long.
A stay-at-home mom is simply someone who works inside her home without a salary.
Earlier in the 20th century it was generally expected that in heterosexual couples, the woman would stay home and take care of the house and the kids while the husband went off to make money at his day job. But that dynamic has been changing as family structure and work demands have evolved over the years.
Let’s take a look at the past, present and future of the stay-at-home mom.
Where did the phrase “stay-at-home mom” come from?
Anatoly Liberman, an etymology expert and University of Minnesota professor, tells TODAY.com that the term “stay-at-homes” first appeared in print at the beginning of the 19th century. Unsurprisingly, it simply referred to people who didn’t venture outside.
Even from the beginning, it had some “negative coloring,” he says, because “the idea of staying at home presupposed provinciality, parochiality, being limited, not seeing enough of the world and having a restricted view.”
A century later, women entered the workforce during World War II — and some continued to work after the war ended. Women who worked outside the home stood in stark contrast to women who only worked inside the home, leading to increased use of the term “stay-at-home mom.”
Still, the phrase contained “slightly disapproving connotations,” Liberman shares. “Everybody does something important, and you stay at home and go about your business.”
“Print ads featured vacuum cleaners and dishwashers with women teetering around in heels and aprons, and that became the portrait of the stay-at-home mom,” Neha Rush told TODAY.com in Feb. 2024. Rush is a mother of two and founder of Mother Untitled, a community for ambitious women on career breaks. She uses her platform to explore the grey area between motherhood and paid work.
These days, the stay-at-home mom uniform contains more athleisure than aprons. Let’s take a look at what stay-at-home moms do all day.
What does a stay-at-home mom do?
Morgan Kelly Burke, a mom of three from Charlestown, Massachusetts, decided to become a stay-at-home mom in 2014 when her first child was born. However, she has worked part-time for five of those years. Now that her youngest started school, she has become the marketing director for the Parent Wellness Group at the School of MOM (Mothering Ourselves Mindfully).
“I keep my family and home running,” Burke says of her role in the household, adding that she does this in partnership with her husband.
“I am the chef, the laundress, the scheduler, the information holder, the planner, the reminder, the adventurer, the pack mule, the comforter, the teacher, the coach, the therapist, and ‘the bossiest person in the family’ according to my children,” she says.
The division of labor is really determined by each individual family, but without a doubt, a mom working inside the home wears a lot of hats.
Burke adds an important distinction, however.
She says that being a stay-at-home mom is a caregiving job that “shouldn’t be confused with motherhood. Motherhood is a relationship, and all mothers have and build that relationship regardless of where they work.”
Tips for being a stay-at-home mom
Burke has some tips for moms who don’t work outside the home.
- Remember every day that you are doing important and hard work!
- Get outside every day: One outing, no matter how small, will change your life.
- Find a community: Surround yourself with people who get it. Whether it’s a drop-in mom group, group therapy, or a mom and baby workout class. (And if you don’t like the first one you go to, don’t give up! Keep trying.)
- Ask for help: You are worth supporting. Get a therapist, ask for family help, ask a friend to hold the baby or push the stroller so you can do something for yourself, pump or make a bottle and ask your partner to do overnight feeds so you can sleep.
- Do something just for fun: Whether it’s by yourself, with your friends or with your partner, do something at least once a week just for fun.
Should we still be using the phrase “stay-at-home mom”?
There’s a growing community of women who would like to stop using the term “stay-at-home mom” altogether, especially because many moms in this phase of life take on freelance or flexible work and act as essential volunteers for school or community groups. And even if these women don’t take on additional responsibilities, stay-at-home moms rarelystay at home. They’re out at the libraries and the parks, at playdates or at music classes.
Ruch suspects that the phrase “stay-at-home mom” may do “a disservice” to everything that these women are. “The challenge is: do we want to find a substitute for the phrase ‘stay-at-home mom,’ or do we want to ignite more respect for that role?”
