To be a traditional sahm ??

All I can say about the stupid amount of bashing on here is this. All you are doing is making yourself seem very unhappy/guilty of your choices. They are not serving any other purpose than that.

why you presume green eyed monster,is it so inconceivable one may not want be housewife
just as you don't envy working mums,they don't necessarily envy housewife
the presumption that working mums ache to be housewife isn't founded

That may be for some people Brandy, but isn't it rather crass to allow the green eyed monster to fuel thoroughly unpleasant comments about sahm's farting about, having a nice easy life and having 'not a lot to offer'
FFS.
What if I made flippant remarks about career Mothers who dump their kids in day orphanages and never see them?

Well personally I encourage my dd (and ds) to aim for careers they will find fulfilling and stimulating precisely so they dont end up unemployable or stuck in a dull minimum wage job. And i guess the fact that they see both their parents in rewarding jobs helps them to see that.

I do not really have a routine as every single day is different as I am a full time SW so I am on call/rota. :( Although I am quite lucky my DP is a teacher and he is about to either drop of at breakfast club or pick up after school club. Some days I am home for them some days I am not.
There can be great , happy really fulfilled SAHM.
There can be horrible, lazy and rubbish SAHM.
And same to working mums some are great some are not.
Personal choice is what matters here if you are happy and your children are being looked after then that is all that matters.
Not surprising you wanted to stay at home with 5 children though especially when they were all younger could you imagine the nursery fees

I don't think it is idiotic to say being SAHM is farting about with coffee mornings and school runs, lets add going to the gym and out for lunch to.

And a very nice life it must be to but it's not hard so lets not pretend it is. We have already came to the conclusion that there is no difference between a working or SAH mum once dc are at school and working mums do all a SAHM does plus earn a wage.

I'm lolling at the implication from wohm's that they're all working on strategic management for some multinational or other in the City.
What's the likelihood they're actually getting £7.50 an hour working for an accident helpline, or working at their local cash and carry? Not quite as compelling as human rights lawyer or CEO of Disney.
It's just as intriguing as the suggestion that every professionally qualified sahm is a liar! (Upthread in comments about Oxford bags)

Farting about with coffee mornings and school runs?
Gay, I'd really love to know what you have to offer.
Apart from being crashingly judgmental, blinkered and offensive.
I very much hope that you haven't transferred those 'qualities' to your children.
Fuck me at the idiocy on this thread.

I've said this before on other threads, but my company bins CVs from SAHMs (along with anyone else who has been out of work for more than 3 months) without even reading them.

I am not saying I agree with it but I know a lot of companies do the same. And I think more will do so as the economy gets worse.

They can afford to be so picky as there are so many applicants for each job

The "bin" pile is always huge. They don't get read, a knock-out factor like SAHM, or recent graduate with less the 2yrs experience etc is spotted on a skim through and into the bin they go.

My mother started working at 35 after divorce and indeed became a ceo. It meant I was unsupervised from the age of 10 but truth is she hadn't been much of a sahm either!

I'm sure the exception to the rule will wander along soon. There's always someone who didn't do a stroke of work until they were 45 and then got a job as a CEO.
Etc.

So you could spend half a million plus privately educating, tutoring and after school clubbing a dc to masters level alongside all the money to feed, clothe, holiday and keep this dc alive and healthy. At the same time mum doesn't work to enable this child to do all the various activities they need to do to succeed in the modern world and to also look after the home. And at the end of it they could also decide to be a sahm in order to do all the above for their dc because if they don't they might not be able to reach the levels of wealth and class that this dc currently enjoys. And on and on and on.

What's the point? I suppose people such as these pay a bit of tax and lots of vat on their luxury goods and keep various arts in a bit of cash but I don't know that they make a world a better or nicer place than for anyone outside their immediate circle.

We can stop pretending that raising children and running a house prepares you for the world of work with transferable skills. No it doesn't. It really doesn't. Even people with a good work history before they had their SAHM time find it very difficult to get back into work, and generally lower down the career ladder. This is going to be more so over the next few years because the jobs market is in such a precarious state.
People who have spent several years (and more) farting about with school runs, housework and coffee mornings without doing anything else generally don't have a lot to offfer.
I can't believe women leave themselves so vulnerable in this day and age.

Most sahms I know weren't very happy in their work and prefer coffee mornings. I'm sure plenty of men would also choose to be sahps to take a break from work they don't enjoy. Shame that men usually make more money and this is a debate women are stuck with instead, as both a luxury and curse.

Janey - agree. I just thought Bonsoir had been spending most of this thread saying that as a SAHM - the beneficiaries of her degree were her children and that was a great way to use her degree - and then she went on to say - she didn't think mothers or stepmothers had any influence when it came to advising their children about work. It seemed a bit contradictory. And I disagree about older women being able to advise the younger generation. I work in the creative industry - so I have many, many grads coming to me for advice on how to get in to it (20 and soon depressingly 30 years my junior!)

Kobayashimaru speaks sense!

A good mother is a good mother (and a good father is a good father). End of .

I would never claim that being a WOHM makes my children in any way 'better'. I am also absolutely sure it does my children no harm either. It does, however, make my life considerably better!

Bickie- just to throw into the mix: many WOHP also believe they are best equipped as the primary carers to guide their children, and indeed they are providing the parenting and are the primary influence. It's perfectly compatible with working. You are simply outsourcing some aspects of the practical tasks involved in childcare and some aspects of learning to other people. That's a perfectly natural process anyway, as most parents whether working or not use playgroups/ nursery/school along with all sorts of other informal influences on the child anyway.

God I must be really worse at this sah lark than I thought, there is no way one earth I mix with a broader mix than when I was working. At least not a very interesting mix anyway. I feel like my world has shrunk quite considerably and if it weren't for the things I have taken on outside of that role I would have gone quite mad.
Thats just me though. The salient point is that a good mother is a good mother whether or not she works, or how much. And nobody (nobody who matters) really cares which you choose to do. It's your own insecurities that make you think others are judging you, and leading you to judge others.

I doubt any SAHM is sitting at home all day with her head in a romance novel. She possibly reads more papers/ listens to more informative radio/tv/ sees more of the world when out and about/ and mixes with a broader mix of the population than someone who commutes a dull commute journey to a full time less than interesting job. So are in a just as good a position as anyone else to advise or guide DCs.

Stop scraping the barrel to find reasons that a SAHM is bad for her DCs.

Is the world of work really that different from say 30 years ago?
Chances are, our offspring dont end up in the same field anyway.
And I would have thought that most SAHM, had worked for a few years first,before becoming SAHMs.

And there are always books and internet to help fill in gaps.

Bonsoir - I'm confused. I thought the general point most SAHM make for their decision is they believe they are the best equipped to guide their children - so they are prepared to sacrifice their career for that reason. But at some point that stops and if you are a mother or stepmother - you aren't any use?

My point is that mothers (or stepmothers) don't do much guiding - not the reverse.

Bonsoir from your numerous posts it is clear that you believe no one is better placed to guide your DSSs than you. But unfortunately not everyone has a resident Bonsoir to guide them. Most people rely on observations throughout child/teenage/young adult years. And if a daughter only has a serial SAHM to go on, then IMO that narrows her observations/horizons

OK. My mother was a SAHM for parts of my childhood. She and I are totally unable to talk about our respective experiences of being a SAHM - our lives are wildly different.

I'm not sure that parents are that useful when it comes to work, tbh. Each generation is so very different. In fact, we distinctly discourage DP's DF from ever talking about work to the DSSs. DFIL worked in an era when white men had an easy time of it - we don't want him giving the DSSs wrong impressions of the lifestyle that awaits them.