To be a traditional sahm ??

What a depressing thread OP. The daughters will believe they should not aspire to being anything other than a mother and the sons will have enourmous pressure thinking that their sole purpose in life is to work to ensure their wife doesnt have too.

Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, being the only earner is an enourmous burden to put on a person and healthy adults should work. Being a SAHM isnt a job, in terms of employment status you are unemployed for all intents and purpose. If your husband should leave, then who would employ you? Its very likely you would end up on benefits for a long time. Every penny you have spent during your life has been earned by somebody else, do you never have the desire to earn your own money?

We have lots of pushy parents at our school, 90% of the ones that spring to mind work. Its the working parents that always volunteer or help on the pta too.

Well, I have read most of the post and thought I would add my experience. I worked until my youngest turned 2 and I resigned from work. Fast forward 2 years and my husband and I are separated due to his alcoholism and he is in a psychiatric hospital.

Luckily I was able to find a well paid job and now that I have moved, I am able to support my children without a financial contribution from my ex husband.

I tell you this because 2 years ago I did not see it coming and I stupidly placed my own financial future in the hands of someone else. I won't ever make that mistake again and I certainly would never advise anyone else to do so unless they had an independent income.

My story so easily could have been so different with severe financial hardship.

I am a sahm.
I am also a voluntary worker, am on the b of gov at my sons school and am starting a degree course next month.
I don't see why that suddenly makes it "ok" to be a sahm??
I volunteer because I have skills that are needed by the organisation I help.
I am on the b of gov because I think it's important.
I am re starting my degree because I need to retrain to get back into the workplace and for personal fulfilment.
I am not doing any of it for maybe else or because anyone thinks I should.
If the op is happy then that's great.
Horses for courses etc....l

Pagwatch - you'll be helping him with his love life too! My niece at Oxford this year said the girls are quickly finding our who the eligible guys are - not down to their looks and charms but their ability to cook, clean and iron!!! Not all girls have the same aspirations as our long gone OP.

I don't volunteer, Mayisout, I work full time. But when I did briefly SAH I helped run the local toddler group. And who said SAHPs should to leave their children with minders? I certainly didn't. I would imagine the reason people SAH is to avoid that very thing. But parents of school-aged children have 6 hours, 5 days a week to themselves. That's 30 hours. Surely people could spend a couple of those hours doing something useful to someone other than themselves of their families?

Perhaps I am naive, but it seems to me that lots of people are very selfish to just be 'living their lives' with no concern for anyone else, and that's the root of a lot of what is wrong with society.

The number of parents, both wohm and sahm, who send their children off to university with no life skills it completely shocking.

Rising your child with no independent skills is not a gift to them.

I love my children. I am a sahm. We have cleaners. I could give them all a huge allowance each.
They still learn to clean, cook, and tidy. Ds1 knows how to budget shop and cook and is having to teach his housemates at uni most of whom were struggling and living on take aways, convenience foods and couldn't even cook rice or mash.

It depends on lots of things Bonsoir

But it doesn't mean working parents can't be every bit as focused and committed to their childrens learning and development as non-working parents

Oh, I agree janey, totally. But I have seen this kind of parenting just as much (if not slightly more!) among parents who are employed outside the home as among those who stay at home.

Personally, I think there is a very fine balance between encouraging, supporting and inspiring your children to be the best that they can be, and pushing them so hard that they lose all intrinsic motivation. I imagine it's a balance that many of us get wrong from time to time.

Bickie- i agree with your observation about graduates and young people in early 20s in the workplace

catgirl - whether one or two parents work very much depends on an individual family's circumstances, eg on a single earner's income, on taxation (in the particular tax régime you live), on how much time away from home and flexibility one earner requires, on availability of quality outsourcing for children (childcare and education)...

No, I don't think I misunderstand you.
I just think you are a bit naive and others don't get the great satisfaction that you get from volunteering and some SAHMs don't like to leave their DCs with paid minders but you won't countenance that, all this MUST be wrong as it is not what you believe.
Also others do not feel they are scrounging from society they are living their life.

I am anything but a helicopter parent, bickie, though I do know plenty of those (they tend to find me very mystifying).

I agree with that as a general rule jinsei. I do think though that often that pushiness and being ambitious on the children's behalf is often a sign of something being misplaced. People should be ambition for themself not on anyone else's behalf. And after all, children learn best by example, not by being told to achieve or do something. Of course, it's absolutely right as a parent to want your children to have their own aspirations and achieve their potential and good parents support their children in this. But that's an entirely different thing from investing your entire energy in putting your own ambitions onto your children which is a really Unattractive trait and likely to backfire long term

Fair enough then :)

But I do honestly believe you can still work and work towards giving them the skills and advantages they need to suceed in life. I don't that working is mutually exclusive with being a focused parent with ambitions for your DCs in anyway.

That's an interesting way of looking at it Bonsoir, my experience as an employer of many 20 something's - who are probably the first lot to come through the 'helicopter parenting' phase. Is the ones who had more hands off - but still caring motivated parents, learnt to self motivate. tTey are the ones who do better in the workplace.

Don't know if you are still around op but i had a mum like you.

She loved feeling useful as she had a condition which meant she couldn't work out of the home. So she would do everything for everyone. My dad and brothers never had to do a thing although my dad could iron occasionally. My three brothers and dad were never allowed to help in the kitchen (i was taught very few basic things like how to peel a potato). Even if the door bell went everyone would look at my mum!

I told her i didn't think it was in their best interests to do everything for them but she didn't listen.

Then she died. My dad can still only do the ironing and literally doesn't know how to clean the house or cook a simple meal. As a result of that he has become ill through a terrible diet. My three brothers are lazy and entitled and think they shouldn't have to do anything for themselves. They don't clean at all, cook or anything. They even smell as their home smells and they don't seem to realise that their clothes get musty. As a result of all this they can't get girlfriends. Who wants a smelly man who can't even heat pasta and lives in a dirty home.

Generally all four of us children were left unequiped to deal with life.

Im not saying this to get at you op. Im a sahm too. The difference is that i see my job as to teach my children how to function as adults, whereas you seem to see it as to make your kids lives as easy as possible. That's lovely in the short term but damaging in the long term.

I would imagine it is as you say a nice feeling to look after everyone, but actually when you are doing any job you need to look at the long term goals not just the short term feelings it gives you. I don't know of any job where you could just go in and choose what to do based on how that thing makes you feel rather than what is best for the company or whatever. You'd probably get sacked!

So this isn't about sahms at all for me. Just about how misguided i think your intentions are.

Of course, catgirl.

Bonsoir, genuine question

If, when they grow up, your DCs decide the most valuable thing they can do with their future is to stay at home working to equip their own children with the skills required to maximise their futures, will you feel that you staying at home trying to maximise thier futures will have been a worthwhile sucess?

6 hours go in a flash mumsnetting and you are tied to the school day.

bonsoir, I don't think the working status of a child's parents has any impact on how involved and "ambitious" those parents are on behalf of their kids. Pushy parents can be found equally among SAHMs and WOHMs in my experience!

'it is perfectly possible to take your children's future seriously and put time and effort into raising them as well as working outside the home'

• hear hear sugarandspiced. That encapsulates it all really.

OP, if you are still around, I think it's great that you're happy with your choice to stay at home and look after your children. It wouldn't be my choice but if it works for you and your family, that's fantastic.

The only thing I would advise is that you plan ahead very carefully to ensure that you have a full and fulfilling life of your own when your children eventually leave home. My own mother suffered with serious depression when I moved out of the family home - a classic case of "empty nest" syndrome. She genuinely didn't see this coming, and the sudden feeling that she no longer had a purpose in life came as a real shock to her. I don't think this is inevitable for mums who stay at home by any means, but it is a significant risk and you need to plan ahead to minimise that risk.

Personally I see about me two sorts of parents in our economically and socially advantaged environment: complacent ones where both parents work, did fine and think that if they provide their children with similar opportunities they had themselves, they will be fine. And realistic ones, who know the world has moved on, that the competition is really frightening and that their children will need 3x or 4x the skills they had at the same age to go to the same universities and have a similar lifestyle.

You still misunderstand me, Mayisout. I'm not anti-SAHP, though it's not a choice I'd make. I'm anti people who think that society owes them rather than that they owe society. If you have free time, there is always some way you could be using it to contribute positively, from spending time with the elderly, to joining a conservation group looking after local woodland, to picking up litter, to volunteering at your library. To say people don't have the confidence or don't think they're good enough or that nothing might be available locally are all just excuses, IMO.

Of course we live in a free society and people have choices. But I really genuinely wonder why some people choose to do nothing but indulge themselves. Human nature? I hope not, and that most of us are made of more than that.

I'm sure you are right that volunteering/ contribution can take many forms and perhaps some people have mixed motives.

It is perfectly possible to take your children's future seriously and put time and effort into raising them as well as working outside the home.
Chatting about a PE teacher's moustache in a coffee shop after doing the school run is not 'taking your children's future seriously'. It is enjoying some leisure time.

There are both SAHM and WOHM who do and don't raise their children in a responsible and caring way. I can't see any correlation between the two things.