for feeling smug when mothers of school-agers describe themselves as "Full-time mums" or "Housewives"?

What are the brilliant jobs you can 'choose' to get when your youngest goes to school, jobs that let you off work so you can pick them up from school and not be in a state of perpetual scramble arranging care for them in the afternoons, jobs where you can take off for the school holidays and return refreshed months later.... or make enough to pay the cost of care for several children?

What's all this smugness about being a 'working mum' when you are (strangely smugly) "staying at home until they are school age?"

You are a SAHM. You don't go out to work. I mean what are you doing all day with a pre schooler ?

Any decent 'working' mum knows you go back to work within the first 6 months minimum

upslazy - good post. And I agree that work can be beneficial to mental health - personally (and ironically, given the OPs post) I think the time I would have benefited from working was when mine were pre-schoolers!!!

OP, I describe myself as a kept woman. Dh works to keep me in peanut M&Ms and reading material, and shoes.

I agreed with you Pixie up until the bit where you posed the (emotionally charged) question about a sick daughter. I would imagine that she'll do what the majority of the rest of us do - speak to her dh/dp or other supporting person, and arrange the childcare between you. It really is perfectly possible to combine work and having a family - the majority of families in the UK have both parents working.

Excellent post Upsylazy.

Thankyou jonsey, I am not sure why I made you shudder though.

PS because if you do, please let me know how.

OP - I'm intrigued that you keep using the word 'career' rather than 'job'.

Do you really think you can just pick up a glittering career as and when you feel like it?

I started off by thinking that OP was being smug and boring by bringing up the whole SAHM/WOHM debate for the billionth time but I am getting a tad pissed of by the implication that working is for mugs and is all about slaving away to make a profit for your employer. Millions of people work in jobs that are about providing a service to the public rather than making a profit eg teachers, doctors , nurses, social workers etc and people choose to go into those jobs in an attempt to make a difference to people's lives. In my job, I know that I've prevented at least 2 people from killing themselves, I've played a part in steering several young people away from a life of gangs and crime and I've helped support terrified pregnant teenagers to a place where they feel they can cope with motherhood. I'm proud of that and I enjoy my work.It's not the most important thing in my life but it is important to me. If I had the choice, I wouldn't work full time (as I currently have to for financial reasons)but I wouldn't give it up completely. There's a huge body of research about work being beneficial to mental health - a sense of belonging, earning your own money, feling useful etc. Personally, I would also find it extremely hard to be financially dependent on someone due to having spent 5 years on the dole and hating it but that's apersonal thing to me.

pixieonaleaf, i agree, to me it's like breast or bottle. God, who cares. Do what works out for you.

I think tingletangle's post deserves another read or two.

I actually want to give you a hug tingle

On the surface I may have a lot to be smug about. I am a successful in my career, earn about double the average wage lovely home which is always immaculate. I am no wage slave or a cog in a profit machine. I love my job and practically skip in every day.We only eat home cooked meals, even the jam is homemade, veggies from the garden and eggs from the chicken. I volunteer and care for relatives. As a teacher I have few childcare issues and was able to take five years out. Just to top it all I have a blissful marriage packed with sex.

In reality I only have time for about four to five hours sleep a night, I will never see a sports day or any school event during the day. As much as I love my job I often end a school holiday in tears as a chance to devote time to myself and my family without worrying xbout deadlines is too perfect for words. If my life in the school holidays was my real life I may then feel a tad smug .

I am happy with my choice to be a SAHM, even though my children are teenagers. I was an operating theatre nurse, but had to stop working when I had ds3 - at that point my childcare costs would have risen to £148 per week (approx) and my take-home pay was £150 (approx). Frankly I didn't see the point of spending 25 hours on my feet, at the beck and call of surgeons who often thought they were God, just to earn £2.

Plus, as a part timer, I wasn't in any sort of line for promotion - I wasn't even getting sent on any of the courses that might have put me on the promotion ladder. I was the lowest of the low, and saw little or no prospect of that changing.

After I had been away from nursing for a while, my registration lapsed, and I would have to do a back to nursing course before I could get a job.

Plus I am battling depression, and using the time alone at home to work on that.

I am glad for you, CareeringAlong, that you are happy with your choices - but is it so hard to understand that other people are different, have different circumstances, and make different choices? Do you need to denigrate the choices of others, in order to make you feel good about your choices>

This was a thoroughly nasty opening post, made with absolutely no regard for the feelings of other people - in fact, I think the OP knew that she would upset people, and offend and hurt them, and just didn't care. That does not make you superior, in my book.

has anyone said sahm 'ardest job in world yet? because that would be clichéd shite.and patently not true

anyhoo

as you were

actually please don't bother coming back to update us in a few years.
Jonesybells has said it perfectly.

Ooh, I love Jonesybells post, and couldn't agree more!

only got half way through the thread but just wanted to say that it is easy to say "what you would do" but why don't you come back in a few years and say "what you are doing"

life has a habit of disrupting our plans

Jamie - I found (am on ml) that all I did was rush to drop dd off for someone else to look after and on the days that I wasn't at work wished she was at nursery so I could have a break from being mummy and worker , only happened in the 1 week I had off before ds made his entrance early! Bummer. Right now being a sahm seems like the most logical choice as in my career would have to put in late nights and weekends and frankly who the fuck wants to do that? I am not bonkers!

(And I believe I am too old to start a new career in something different, nor do I want to )

Mmmm think you get the point about me collecting dd

I worked full-time from the day I stepped off the school bus (o'levels done and not yet 16) until I was in my late 30s.

I left my job and had children, I didn't know i wasn't going back to my job, but stay at home to care for my children was what i realised I wanted to do.

It's one thing to choose a different path, but to announce your smugness at your choices and demean others makes you an empty shallow twunt.

If coming across as such was today's aim, you have indeed succeeded, well done, you can tick that off your list of stuff to do today...

You do have a list don't you?

If so please add, "now fuck right off" to it and

TICK

I sit at home every day and watch Homes Under The Hammer. Love it purely to see what attire Martin has on. The school phoned me to collect dd one day at 10 to collect dd as she was feeling sick, I was mightly hacked off I tell you.

Seriously, I am a sahm through choice, my dh is often away, we live miles away from my family and I have a mental block thing about leaving my dc with anyone apart from very very close friends or family. I do work at the local school as a lunchtime supervisor but that is only for 1 hour a day, so I don't really count it.

Perhaps OP you will be the exception to the rule - ?No one on their deathbed ever says they wish they had spent more time at the office?

I love being a SAHM and I know my dh appreciates his easier home life. Hot bath and hot dinner as soon as he comes in the door. Ds is already bathed, jammies on, homework done. All is calm.

We have a friend of ds after school a fair bit. His parents have split and his mum works full time. The little boy is utterly miserable. He clearly is unsettled with the split but the mother doesn't appear to notice, or perhaps she is too busy. She may need the money, in which case it is hard but understandable.

My mother was a SAHM with four kids. I guess it is what is familiar. I do some freelance work to suit my self and my hours. I would have no problem whatsoever filling in my days though. Only boring people get bored

RockinRobin - you know I was joking, right?

I totally understand that if your job is crap then it's really really hard.