Lots of moms have felt a stigma of being a stay-at-home mom. After all, staying home and taking care of kids is not what the majority of moms do in 2025. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024, 74% of moms with children under 18 worked. Being a stay-at-home mom is in the minority, and with it comes a number of interesting views and opinions. Some I agree with, and some I don’t. There are a lot of things that people assume about stay-at-home moms that quite frankly aren’t true. One assumption I am writing about today is whether stay-at-home moms are lazy and unambitious.
Lazy People are Everywhere
First of all, it’s not always fair to make a generalization like stay-at-home moms are lazy. There are lazy stay-at-home moms just like there are lazy dads, lazy working moms, and lazy students. Lazy people who avoid hard work is not uncommon. However, there are hard-working SAHMs, hardworking dads, hard-working moms who work outside the home, and hard-working students. I have met lazy SAHMs, and I have met industrious SAHMs. It just depends on the person’s individual character traits.
What Does Lazy Mean?
Lazy means not doing the work you need to be doing. However, in the case of SAHMs, it often means they are lazy in the sense that they are not earning money. Yes, SAHMs work a lot at home caring for kids, making meals, and cleaning the house all without pay, encouragement, and recognition, but it’s not a real job in many people’s eyes. I think this goes along with how more and more people view children as burdensome and annoying.
So no, stay-at-home moms are generally not lazy. However, the way people define what being productive means, making money, can make people assume that SAHMs are wasting their time caring for their children, especially when a professional can care for them and give mom a break. It’s fine to work in a daycare or a preschool and be paid, but it’s look-down upon to stay home unpaid and care for your own children. It’s a messed up understanding of work.
SAHM’s Work is Valuable
Many people do not value the work that SAHM do. A few years ago, when I had just my two oldest children, I had a small part-time writing job. I shared this information about my new job to someone. His response surprised me. He said, “The job gives you something to do now.” As if I have nothing to do with a four-year old and a two-year old….absolutely nothing! My house was always clean, my kids fed themselves and brushed their own teeth, and there were no temper tantrums. None. What he said shows that he thinks caring for kids is not real work, but a writing job is real work. Now that’s something to do!
Honestly, any writing I do happens after my kids go to bed. I gave up free time to work after a full day of caring for two boys and pregnant with a third. Would you say that to someone who took on a night job after working a full-time job all day? Finally, you have something to do! That person is now really working! No, you wouldn’t. Unfortunately, this sentiment of SAHM not contributing is present everywhere.
A stay-at-home mom’s work is valuable even if it’s not paid. Could anyone pay me to open my arms and have my one-year old toddle into my arms with his drooly face twenty times a day? No. The bonding that goes on between the mother and child or children impacts the whole family. Also, the work that goes into making the home a home makes your family want be at home together. None of that is a waste, but it does reflect a different set of values than most people.
SAHMs are Ambitious in Other Ways
The world is an interesting place because women are now told that in order have value, we need to be pursuing careers (Yes, I am aware many moms have careers because it’s a financial need. I am not ignoring that at all). I may not seem ambitious to some, but I will point out that managing a home, homeschooling, making healthy meals, and everything else moms do (and doing it all well) does require a smart mom. The amount of organization and multitasking that goes on during the course of a day is no small joke.
A stay-at-home mom grows in patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control on a daily basis because honestly, being around children all day is hard (but it’s also super fun). Even though I am not climbing through a career ladder, I am becoming better at being a mom to the kids God has given me.
I did have a career as an elementary teacher before I had kids, and while it was meaningful and I enjoyed it, it was also very demanding and stressful. I could have kept working and spent most of my paycheck for daycare, but I didn’t want to do that. Just because I chose not to work in that capacity, doesn’t mean my IQ dropped way down and I suddenly became stupid and unambitious.
My opinion is that being a stay-at-home mom requires skills just like any other job does, but since poop and bottom wiping is often involved, it gets a bad rap and is considered a lower-level “job.” If people thought children were a blessing to families, and not a burden, then I don’t think people would consider SAHM as wasting their time raising a family. I think SAHMs are ambitious in one sense because they are bold enough to go against the grain of society.
The Impact of a SAHM
Because my mom stayed home with me, I have a lot of memories of spending time with her. When I was older, I felt comfortable asking serious questions and sharing thoughts. I still call her many times during the week to share the mundane and silly moments of life. I know not many young moms have that relationship with their moms, and I know there are probably a lot of different reasons for every person, but I can say that having a mom who was present, available, and not stressed out was great for me. That’s what I want that for my kids.
If a SAHM seems unambitious, it’s because they have different values. Being a caring and self-sacrificial mom isn’t the most desired list of traits to have. What I have noticed is that if someone’s mom stayed home with them as a child, then when that daughter becomes a mother, she is more likely to stay-home as well. I think this happens because they see how beneficial it was to have a mom caring for her children. On the other hand, when a mom works, then her daughter will probably also work too. In one sense, people do what they have seen modeled.
Last Thoughts
Any time someone is in the minority position, they have to really think hard about what they are doing and why. Being able to stay home with your kids requires a mom to be humble and lay aside her ego in order to care for her children herself. I think that is ambitious. It’s not normal these days for a mom to do that, and because it’s looked down upon, women are less likely to do it.
I have mom friends that work full-time and I think they do a great job balancing everything. More and more families have to have two incomes in order to buy a house, so I get why it’s more the norm for moms to be working. I just wish being a SAHM wasn’t looked down upon and that it’s work were valued, but because I can stay home, and since my values lie in being present with my kids, I ignore the comments and enjoy my time with my kids. Comment below if you have thoughts about all this.
Carly from DesertHomeschoolDays
