To just want to be a housewife?

I think I’d have hated to be a 1950s housewife without much choice but to stay home and cook and clean.

But I’d love to have the kind of life now where the majority of my time was spent keeping house and gardening. Also have ADHD – nothing is more soothing for my brain than having the house in good order. A freshly vacuumed staircase lifts my mood so much! Home is so important to the enjoyment of day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel onerous (if I can actually do it), it feels like I’m honouring myself.

Might actually get off my arse and honour myself right now (so much dirty laundry, so many dirty plates 😔)

I have adhd and a career I love. But I am totally burnt out with 2 kids and 2 jobs. There isnt enough time in the day. I think for me it isn't necessarily the want to be a housewife, bu the want to lead a simpler life, have a clean and tidy environment and leave the rat race. I visited a country house with my children over the weekend and spent rhe whole day imagining being a lady of the manor, floating about in my dress and sometimes picking some herbs and baking a cake for fun, then sewing a tapestry and walking through the maze, chattering with my lady friends. I think today we take on so much and its normal to wantnto strip back to a simpler life.

It's not uncommon to feel like this when your children are small: plenty of women quite rationally feel that they would rather expend their energies looking after small, growing children with whom they have an inseparable bond than jumping to meet the need of their employer.

The problem is that you simply can't rely on one other person for your financial wellbeing for the rest of your life: it's too big a gamble. Even in the best case scenario that your marriage remains strong and your husband remains happily and solvently employed (and this isn't guaranteed), this completely removes your independence. It means you can't leave without impoverishing your children. It may be impossible to imagine this now but just under half of marriages fail and even if it doesn't fail, you need some financial leverage.

There are also wider social wellbeing outputs: being a professional housewife for years will cut you off from a large swathe of society, diminish your social wellbeing and make you socially dependent on your husband. I've seen it happen (including to my own mother).

By all means take some time out when your children are young. But don't forget that the way you feel now is very likely not the way you will feel with a teenager in school. Don't completely shut the door.

Enjoy if you have own income savings rich husband etc to support you ..
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But watch you don't become obsessed with cleaning. Put child first

Taking child out fresh air etc is far more important than ironed underwear and spotless skirting boards

In proportion

I think that everyone, men and women, would like to not work, and would like to stay at home.

The work system is too much and its too long.

I remember saying to my mother, "if we made a horse work 8 hours a day, five days a week, for 50 years, it would be called animal abuse".

Yet they expect humans to do this amount of work.

The work system is abusive.

YANBU to feel this way at all, provided you have savings and a pension you can continue paying into.

I don't like the idea of being entirely dependent on someone else at a time when marriages are failing at alarming rates, but if you can cushion yourself against the worst possible outcome, go for it!

I went on maternity leave with my first, fully intending to not go back. But I found being a SAHM stifling and boring. I’d love to have enjoyed it, and imagined myself happily cooking and pottering, but I soon realised I need the stimulation of work.

I was lucky that I went back 2 days pw and I had family provide childcare on those days. It made he enjoy my time at home much more than if I didn’t work.

What if your partner wants to do the same? I presume you won’t mind

Absolutely feel this at times. I worked part time for years the only reason I’m glad I did it was that it kept a foot in the door.

So much of parenting involves cooking dinners, keeping on top of the house, being present with the kids, getting to know their friends parents. Is’s incredibly difficult to do it well when you are full time. And you are completely replaceable at work, we all are, whether nobody else (other than the other parent) can do these things for their children.

I’m now back full time but I mainly work from home and I’m mid senior but it is not stressful and I just work my hours. I could earn more but I’m simply not interested in working a job that takes any more headspace

I guess the domestic chores are in many ways simpler -any chance you were getting burnt out from work and this is part of your recovery? Which might imply it's a phase and the feelings will change...

I hear you OP! YANBU

Don’t under estimate the power of hormones.

Women are biologically programmed to bond at birth. The mother-child bond often supersedes all other drives.

If you do have some ADHD, it may be that motherhood has taken up most of your mental/emotional capacity, leaving you with little yearning for other things.

This happened to me, but when I reached menopause the nurturing hormones switched off and I changed again (thank you hormones).

I realised I needed to end my abusive marriage, but as a STAHM I had no pension and no financial income or independence. That is what the other posters are referring to when they ask about the pension.

I’m 20 years down the line from you, give up a big career that was advancing when I got near the end of my maternity leave and have never regretted it. I have a secure marriage and a high earring DH (enabled by me not working) so thankfully finances have not been an issue and as I worked for a long time I have considerable savings and a good pension pot.
I have faced some scorn and many comments and I believe my DD will not make the same choices ( she has a different personality for starters and is totally undomesticated or practical). I have always made clear to my kids that education will give them choices and opportunities- what they do with them is up to them.

I agree. And I wonder who sold it. You do you OP, if you want to be a housewife, be a housewife. I don't like cleaning or doing any domestic things so it's not for me, but if that's what you enjoy why not. Also, your DC will love having you at home, means you can really be there for her, go on school trips maybe even volunteer at their school. All the best! Who cares what anyone else thinks.

It had the opposite effect on me, I wanted to do as well as I could in order to give my kids a better standard of living, and stay self sufficient, as you never know what's around the corner. In my case I would have been screwed if I hadn't. If you're married to a rich man and are confident of getting enough of the assets in the event of divorce/ tragedy to house yourself for life it's a different matter. I still would find it a bit boring, and quite lonely too, to not have a job.
If you enjoy housework etc that's great for you. I think it is calming to clean things too, but it's only a few hours a week. Once the kids are at school what will you do?
Is it another form of rebellion do you think, to turn your back on the rat race?

Again, you’ve had two children. Are you going to rely on someone else to support them and you, now that you’ve suddenly decided your work life is optional, and hope that person sticks around and doesn’t resent being stuck with the position of sole breadwinner?

And if your marriage breaks down? A huge % do.

Then you'll be left, with children, no up to date marketable skills. With a man that pays you the bare minimum. Trying to exist in poverty. Making your children suffer not just a working mum (against your vision of earth mother) but also poverty.

All because you lost ambition when you had a baby and couldn't see that you need to be financially productive.

It's called the feminisation of poverty for a reason. It's a trap.

That's wonderful that you've found your calling. Personally I'm a SAHM with a 12 month old that I planned to stay home with until free childcare kicks in at 3. This arrangement does make sense for our situation but I wish I were more ideally suited to housewife life!