Fitness Trackers Confirm Who Really Works Harder: SAHM Or Career Woman

We’ve been stay-at-home mums for a long time now, cumulatively and as a community, and in that time we’ve seen those mums get a lot of flak.

One of the most common criticisms of the stay-at-home mum is that they don’t really do that much, and that their days are mostly spent lazing around.

Yeah right.

Well now we have the data to prove that stay-at-home mums are working just as hard as career women, maybe even harder. How? Well two U.K. sisters living on both sides of the coin went head-to-head recently, comparing their daily stress levels and physical activity to see who was really doing more.

Mum-of-two Mieka Smiles, aged 34, and her sister Marielle Wain, aged 29, used two kinds of tracking devices, one that measures stress and one that measures physical activity. Let’s see how they did.

A Day In The Life Of A SAHM

Mieka’s children were on half-term break when the experiment was undertaken, so although she didn’t have the morning rush to contend with her day was far from stress free. The morning begins bright and early at 7am with Meika taking a few moments in the bathroom as her children (aged 4 and 2) scream for her and fight.

Then it’s off to soft play, where her children are remarkably well behaved leaving Meika alert, but not frantic. Her stress levels are recording at ‘steady’ but not quite relaxed.

Stress peaks again at dinner time as Meika wrangles her kids through tea and into the bedtime routine. By the time they’re all tucked in and she’s enjoying a glass of wine in her PJs it’s all relaxation all the way.

A Day In The Life Of A Career Woman

Marielle enjoys spending time with her nieces and nephews, and occasionally steps into the role of a step-mother for her husband’s two children, so she knows that parenting can be stressful. However, most of the time she spends working as a manager in a sofa store, along with all the pressures that brings.

Her day starts at 8am where she gets ready and is out the door into traffic. She’s only just taken on a managerial role, so it’s not second-nature by far. Her stress levels indicate either a ‘steady’ stress or an equal among of stress and relaxation. Between dealing with customers, running around the shop floor, and actioning very specific requests it seems Marielle is getting a lot of exercise as well as a stress workout.

By 8pm, her day is finally over, and she drives home to relax and have dinner. It’s here that she records her most relaxed stress level of the day, not long after which she’s out like a light.

The Results 

When the results were compared, it surprised both sisters to learn that of the two it was Meika, the mum, who recorded higher stress levels on an average day. Throughout the waking period she was ‘stressed’ 36% of the time, compared to 29% stress with her sister Marielle. However, it was Marielle who recorded more ‘steady’ stress, with 41% to Meika’s 27%. Interestingly, and many mums may struggle to believe this, Marielle had much less relaxation time, being relaxed for just 30% of the day compared to Meika’s 37%. In terms of physical activity chasing after two children and managing a sofa store are about on even par, with both sisters taking a similar number of steps throughout the day.

So there you go, a mum experiences more episodes of high stress, while a career woman experiences more episodes of ‘steady’ emotions instead of stress or relaxation. Obviously this is only one experiment, but it’s one we’d like to see more data on!

What Do You Think?

It’s pretty likely that you’ve experienced both of these lifestyles, so what do you think? How does being a parent compare to your full-time working days? Many parents feel that raising children is the more stressful job because there are no working hours, but for some people in demanding jobs it can feel the same way. If you measured your stress levels and activity levels on an average day, what do you think you would find?

Source: Daily Mail

So who do you think has more stressful days?