Bored by full-time motherhood

It can be boring staying at home with small children.

I can't be arsed getting a job sorted out for myself at the moment so what I do is work out. The gym has a creche and for 2 hours a day I work out not, 'ooooh a little run' but 'You will keep moving, you will not stop, doesn't matter how much it hurts, suck it up' type of workout.

I find this sort of thing keeps my mind as balanced as much as my body. It also means that I am alone in my head and not thinking about how to entertain DS2 or about what to cook for dinner or about having to go and get DS1.

It isn't for everyone but I find it works for me, because for that time of the day, it really is all about me.

Threelittleducks, just get up and go (with prior warning to your DH, of course!). Your DS will be quickly and easily distracted and soon forget you're out (again, your DH must be on board to distract him sufficiently!) and soon you'll all get used to the routine. That still leaves three quarters of the weekend free for family-together things. Another thing my DH used to do when I was home alone with DD was that he'd take a weekday off as annual leave - usually a Friday so we had a long weekend together but on Fridays I was able to take off and go to a gallery or mooch round the shops and meet up with working friends for a long and leisurely lunch. It was wonderful.

Actually, DH and I still take odd weekdays off but we keep DD in childcare and the two of us mooch off together into town and then back home early for a bit of - very healthy for our relationship as a couple .

some of us have small children in our 40s - shock, horror. I'm doomed.

I am thinking about just getting up on Saturday mornings and heading out. Problem is, ds1 is always so excited to have us both at home, we always end up going swimming instead!

I do need to eke out more time just for me.

Sorry, I know this is quite far back on the thread but I've only just read. Xenia, what a bizarre and completely made-up statistic that was about
most women regretting being a SAHM in later life Where on Earth did you get that from?! You may know women who have regreted it but you can't extrapolate from there that 'most women' regret it.

Threelittleducks, can your DH look after your DC one weekend morning or afternoon while you go off and do your own thing. When I was on mat leave my DH regularly spent an entire day with DD whilst I went off to do my own thing and it was a Godsend - the headspace was very theraputic and if I was a SAHM he'd do the same, despite working long hours.

Fiddledee - that was the first time in many years I had done something like that!

When you have no money for childcare, that's when things get problematic. There are not enough support systems in place for otherwise seemingly happy and healthy sahms.
I would have childcare twice a week if I could, for my sanity if nothing else. BUt as it is, I have to hold out until my eldest is 3 for our free 15 hours and then another 2 and a half years until my youngest is 3!
[terrified]
I have no other support than my dh. And he is an excellent man, who does his damndest. But he is not superman. My mother refuses to sit with my 2 at all - she thinks I have a husband, so I must cope, whereas she did not after my sister was 18 months (which grates on me a little - my grandparents were like parents to me, she certainly never had to cope if she wasn't). I would never take the piss and expect anyone to look after my kids, but by god, just the offer of an afternoon a week would help. I'll never get that. And I do lament that fact.

Maybe things will change in the next 2 years and I'll land a spectacular job which is flexible and gets me some childcare. Until then, I am very much stuck! And that frustrates me and saddens me.

I love my children - I am very active with them, i homecook, we do arts, imaginative play, toddler groups, the works. I do believe I am the best I can be here. And I am struck by th feeling that it's not enough - at the same time feeling sad and upset and guilty that it's not enough. It should be. But it's not.

It's taken me a long time to be ok with that.
(am i yet? will I ever be wholly?)

Thank you so much ladies for this thread - it has validated my feelings and finally made me feel a little less lonely and angry at my life.

Scale back on the housework, your house won't fall apart. As a fulltime worker with no cleaner, cleaning gets done (on a large 3-bed house) on the weekend in a very quick 1 hour with DH helping out 50%. That's it. Evenings are kept free for chilling. The rest of the weekend is kept free for chilling, activities, going out. When I scale back my working hours later this year, do you think I'm going to fill those hours with housework and "drudgery"? Hell no! And DH won't expect me to either.

I sympathise and I'm pleased this hasn't turned into "Don't you realise how lucky you are? I'd give anything to be at home with my children" as it's just not like that for everyone

Like you I was made redundant last year after 20 years in the same industry. I'm hoping to change direction but it'll take a while

I adore my DC but there's more to life than doing laundry and washing dishes

If your children are at school, I'd look at volunteering during the day as I think it'll give you a sense of purpose and routine

Hi

You are definately NBU, I have been a SAHM for a few years now, so I have lots of SAHM friends and I don't know a single one who doesn't have similar sentiments at some time or another!

Aside from the mundanity and frutility of housework, I found it very difficult adjusting to the different way people perceived me - I used to have a very demanding job, and it defined me in some way, (both to myself and to others). Now when I tell people I'm a SAHM and their eyes glaze over it makes me so frustrated, as it's the most challenging role I've ever done by far!

That said, I wouldn't change my situation. I think my DH misses out on a lot of stuff and that makes me quite sad, still someone needs to pay my wine bills....

BsshBossh

You keep telling it as it is, the voice of reason

Xenia, I suppose I spend my days wishing for dh to be home so we can have family time - and I mean doing something fun, like meeting with family and going to the park for the day etc (we have a large family) which is something I can only do if he's here. Otherwise it's just me running around after two very small children in another setting (both are still babies really).

A big part of my unhappines is the lonliness. I have tried being alone, but a lot of it is to do with company too. That day I had was only so relaxing and freeing because I was meeting my friend, who I could whinge at and laugh with. If I had been heading out on my own it would have been a very different kind of day. I don't think I would have survived that day and would possibly have come out a lot worse.

smallpotato, why would you allow yourself to feel like "a 40-something bored housewife with nothing to show for my life apart from bored stroppy teenagers who will never appreciate the sacrifices I made"? Surely life is what you make of it, you reap what you sow and all that? You make a plan now, in your 30s, while you're still looking after your little ones, to work out how to return to work, or you work on a business idea, or you start thinking about your passions and dreams and take little steps towards them so you have something to focus on later when you no longer are sole charge of your kids.

I love your attitude Xenia. You are the woman I wish we could all be; confident, happy in your choices and powerful.
You are right, money does help, a lot.

Unfortunately, I don't think I will ever be in the position to buy an island - location etc. means that those kind of jobs with that kind of wage just aren't obtainable, and I'm not willing to move to get one!

I suppose all anyone here wants is to be happy with what they are doing. I am willing to bet that all the unhappy women here are ambitious, lack support and have had the confidence whacked out of them for one reason or another. Whether it's just being thrust into motherhood, pnd, being made redundant or snide comments made on the bus as you wheel your pram on. Little things build up.

Threelittleducks & Xenia - I do think time out is essential as a SAHM but many of us with no family support find it difficult to get without paying for it. DH loves his family time at the weekends and being at home with all of us, when I just want a break. After many years he still doesn't completely get it.

I'm now planning a long weekend off every 2/3 months doing something I love. With lots of journey time each day to think on that train. I've told DH he can't ship the DC to the grandparents which he normally does do when I am away or busy for a weekend (at 3 times in 5 years) he has be at home and look after them.

Petisa, I really liked your post, reminded me of all the things I do love about being a SAHM. I too love playing with the kids, arts and crafts, taking them on nature walks and watching them discover the world (we spend many happy hours looking for snails!) but I hate the domestic drudgery side of things, the constant cleaning and cooking. I often think if only I had a cleaner and cook I'd be a great SAHM!

I worry about losing my language skills too- also French and Spanish! But I am too lazy to bother finding ways to practice, apart from saying 'Hola' to the Spanish mums at preschool!

Much as I hate to agree with Xenia about anything (after a very heated debate about the value of being a SAHM under another name a while ago that still makes me ) I do worry a lot about my future career. It's lovely being a 30-something SAHM to 2 littlies, but I really don't want to be a 40-something bored housewife with nothing to show for my life apart from bored stroppy teenagers who will never appreciate the sacrifices I made. I know I never appreciated what my mum did for me until I became a mum myself!

Three why can't you have every Sunday off and you look after the children on your own on Saturdays? Every sunday at 8am you leave the house - walk if you have to so it costs not a penny, sit in the park with a library book, sit in a cafe or with a picnic for your lunch? I just don't see why you can't get that freedom you described once a week in that way.

I've really enjoyed this thread and the very different positions of Threelittleducks, petisa and beesimo's wonderful "You blossom where you're planted". As women we're all so different so it stands to reason that we're so different as mothers and in our experiences of being mothers - whether SAHM, WOHM, part-time/full-time, WInHM etc.

I love working fulltime and DD has been in FT childcare since 10 months, but I'm also looking forward to this coming September when DD (now nealry 3) starts nursery 3.5 days a week and I scale my working-at-home hours down to spend more time with her and to also spend more time on my own pursuits and passions. I consider my life an adventure and a journey that's always changing.

YANBU OP.

I went back to work part-time when dd was 11 mo (and i was thinking of going earlier, but felt to guilty). I found it really hard being at home because most of my close friends work full time so I didn't often see people during the day.

Being SAHM is the hardest job going - in fact, I find working less exhausting than being at home with dd. There are times that I struggle to think up things to do with dd on the 2 weekdays I'm at home with her.

Feeling bored does certainly not make you a horrible mother! But maybe you need to come up with some way of meeting other adults in your position so that you have adult company a couple of times in the week?

That's an arguement I often have with my DH Fiddledee.

He argues that he has work and kids - a difficult combination, I agree. But it's that half hour on the bus home to just let go - that hour he has on his own in the office to do what he needs to do without distraction. The chatting to people about nothing really in the line of his work. His lunch hour.

I went on a day trip a few weeks ago to meet my best friend after my dh realised how much of a toll my day-to-day life was taking on my mental health.

Before I left I was properly on edge - everytime the children cried or made any kind of noise, my shoulders were up to my ears with tension.
I left the house to catch my bus and it was raining and it was cold and my feet got wet, but oh my! The difference it made in ten minutes, just to walk out, knowing that dh had them, knowing that I wasn't going to be home until they were tucked up in bed...

I caught the bus to the big city and it took two hours. It was bliss, apart from a screaming child. It took me about half an hour to get it into my head that it didn't matter that this child was screaming - it was nothing to do with me. I wish I'd brought headphones - but to be honest with you, it was good just to sit and think and stare out of the window. It was the first time in a very very long time that I had felt that kind of release.
DH gets it every day!
When I got home (a leetle tipsy ), having talked at length with my friend and spent altogether 4 hours travelling alone with just me and my head I felt about 2 stone lighter. And it gave me a springboard from which to jump from. That day breathed new life into me.
For a bit.

Five weeks down the line I'm starting to feel the strain again - although admittedly dealing with it a little bit better. I don't know how I'm going to cope this time, as that trip was a one off - certainly we couldn't manage another one so soon for financial reasons. If only!

It made me think though - the key to survival is consistant release. And it's not a half hour stroll around the block to 'blow some air through'. It's the knowledge that you are not wholly responsible for a good couple of hours.

god who isnt i have been a stay at home mum for 10 years on and off a lot of the time i wanted to shoot myself because of the boredom, 3 very happy, lovely kids though so worth the trade off in my eyes, also 2 diplomas and as of next year a ba hons. so once ds in in school ft i shall be ready to hopefully get a decent job, fingers crossed.

Well I think it depends on people's personality. Plenty of women regret later giving up their career and then they have 20 years when the chidlren are gone and perhaps their daughters don't give them grandchildren until the daghter is nearly 39 and they are a bit old to enjoy them and they are frustrated they gave up their career. I work for myself. I will thoroughly enjoy my 50s because not only do I have work I love and made no career sacrifices (always worked full time, never paid second fiddle to a man's career in order to sing wheels on the bus 30 times a day) and have lots of hobbies.

Also if you work full time particularly once the children are 5+ you can by the way enjoy nature. I camped for 3 nights on my tropical island in November. Could I have done that had I given up work 20 years ago? Certainly not as I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy it. I suppose I'm saying that money and a career gives women choice and indeed time - they can afford household help, they can spend time with chidlren not cleaning and they are not materially dependent on a man.

head space - thats what I lack, how can you have it as a SAHM... I have at least one child awake and trying to get my attention 6-7.30pm. I want to be able to think, I can't with the constant demands for attention and trying to fulfill their needs.

I'm feeling faint at the prospect that being a SAHM gives you head space - sitting on the tube/plane/train gives you headspace on the way to work.

sorry I have mummy, mummy being called and a cardigan to find

petisa, it's interesting that you mention yoga, buddhism and nature as some of the things you do to keep you sane. i have a daily yoga practice (often done at 9 pm when kids are in bed) - and consequently a very messy house! also, before having children we moved to the edge of a wood. so i really agree that those things can be useful. although they won't be for everyone, to me they underline the neccessity of having something that's yours when you're a sahm. otherwise it's easy to drown!

Oh, I'm really enjoying this thread, thank you for your righteous rage threelittleducks and your uplifting ideas petisa and your honesty, everyone.

I've taken a step down, career-wise, from a lawyer working long hours and weekends to a legal advisory role that's three days a week and strictly 9-5. It's still fulfilling, but it doesn't have the status nor the money. Now that DD is 2.5 I find I can do a lot more with her, so I've got very into arty crafty things, and cooking with her, and activities, and I also put a lot of energy into having a well-run home, menu planning and decluttering and redecorating, and teaching myself to sew. So the excess energy that used to go to paid work goes entirely to being a better mother and homemaker. You blossom where you're planted, as beesimo says.

But then I get my own mother telling me that I shouldn't put that energy into home but into career, because the children won't be young forever and I'll need the career to fall back on. And I know what she means, I know she's just worried that I'll waste all this education and intelligence and find myself out of the workforce or taking low level jobs because they offer 'mother's hours', and she's almost certainly right that when the kids are older, I'll want the career back.

But dammit, right now I have small children. There is a limit to the types of activities I can do when I have a 2 year old and a pregnant belly in tow; much as I'd love to take up learning to fly light aircraft, or go back to university fulltime, it's not going to happen right now. So do I subsume my energy and intelligence into the things I can do and risk being pigeonholed as Suzy fucking Homemaker, or do I spend my time struggling to maintain a professional identity, despite all of society being set up to make that as difficult as possible, and be accused of Having Children Just To Let Strangers Raise Them?