Just enjoy them

I am sahm and carer and I. spend lots of time with the dc which is wonderful. However the youngest has just started nursery and it's wonderful for both of us. I get a break and she gets to socialise.

I am willing to bet a lot of money that if the OP had stayed in London and been a teacher and the husband had remained a lawyer, as long as they more or less enjoyed their careers (which it does sound like they didn’t) then their kids would have been fine.

This whole WOHM versus SAHM and the whole ‘enjoy them and uproot your life and career so you can be at home’ is total nonsense. Either you are a good parent or not. You can be a really shitty SAHM and a really good WOHM. I would say if you are a shitty SAHM then it’s worse for the kids because they have to endure that all day with no escape. Just because someone wants to be a SAHM doesn’t mean they will make a good parent.

Hmmm OP you're strangely silent in response to my post?

Oh also living in the countryside is my idea of pure unadulterated hell. Give me the smog of an urban area any day. And we love our holidays. We have travelled all over Europe with the kids. And done two expat stints in North America and Singapore (one when the kids were too young to remember). The idea of staying with a relative for a ‘holiday’ is also my idea of hell. Our lifestyle and our qualifications enable us to have a good salary, a good life, decent holidays, and a reasonable enough time with our kids.
Both DH and I had working mothers with successful professional careers and neither had any intention of staying at home full time with kids. (Could think of nothing more mind numbing if I am honest). I am more than happy to be judged.

I would much much rather work actually. There I said it. I have no wish to be a SAHM. My mother wasn’t. She was a very successful professional and an excellent mother. I have no wish to be a rural librarian. I want to live in London, have a nice life, and have a career. I enjoy my job. I find it challenging and fulfilling.
BOTH DH and I made work arrangements when we had kids. I come home a bit early and work from home one day a week. He works from home one day a week. But some of us have absolutely no wish to be SAHPs.

I’d rather be a snob and live in a nicer, safer area to raise my child in than be a judgy madam about people’s choices about working and childcare. Actually, it’s not even that your judgy about people’s choices, it seems to just be women’s choices.

And I’m not snobby about flats, I was just pointing out that they aren't houses.

I might be a snob, or I might have grown up in Yeovil and have lived there longer than you have to know where I wouldn’t want to live!!

It's only on here that is repeatedly discussed, in my group of friends, which is mixed from SAHP to working, we never judge each other or look down our noses, we support each other where we can, the same as we would with joe blogs in the street. IRL I have never come across such weirdness.

@tigger001 this is so true, no one in real life asks you why you work, or why you don’t, or if you’ve got a pension. My group of ‘mum friends’ includes sahm, full timers, part timers, evening shift worker and one who just works school hours. We’ve recently had a WhatsApp conversation about one who’s just returned after mat leave and she was debating what days/hours to work, but apart from that I don’t think it’s ever been discussed!

These sorts of threads never end well as people are obviously very passionate about the choices they have made as it relates to their most precious thing..,, their child.

I truly don't care what choice people make or how they prioritise their time. Their lives, their chioce.

I chose to stay at home with my DS as I believe that's what's best for him, We had planned for this so we were exactly on the same page once DS came along. I love my life which I wouldn't if I had to go out and leave him all day. I feel luckily in that I can live the life I want. I will go back to work once he's at school and decide what that looks like, probably part time to fit around him. I paid heavily into a pension since I was 21, continued to pay in for my first 2 years off and will do when I return.

I do however have friends/family who must go to work and it's not what they want, it's just horrible for them. They feel like they are missing out, but it's no one place to judge, they are doing what they have to do, they are not doing it for foreign holidays, flash cars or even just the best TV package, they are doing it to survive.

Then I have friends /family who choose to go to work one went back "quite soon" (her words not mine) as she just needed work, her job was her, she loves it. She would simply hate being at home with her baby all day, it works for her to work.

The main thing is that the choice is made by the individual, as long as it's an educated decision, it really is no one else's business to push their views on others.

It's only on here that is repeatedly discussed, in my group of friends, which is mixed from SAHP to working, we never judge each other or look down our noses, we support each other where we can, the same as we would with joe blogs in the street. IRL I have never come across such weirdness.

I think everyone's lives are so different, I only work part time because I only want to work part time and I do a low paid job that I love but my wage pays for the food and the bills.

We inherited our house from my parents so no mortgage but dh works full time and his wages are our spending money which works for us, I will work ft when children are older but right now this works best for us as no childcare costs.
Other people may choose to work more and other people may not have a choice but I think it's so different for people that you're never going to find a balance that works for everybody, everyone does their best and that's all you can do.

After I had my two dds i stayed at home for 3 years then used to work evenings/weekends round dhs work when they started nursery so we didn't have childcare to pay. I had just got back into full time employment after my two dds started school when I found out I was pregnant, was ok, we could afford wrap around and childminder for baby. Nope, pregnant with twins.

A minimum of £25k a year for childcare for 4. It wasn't worth it for me to go back frankly. I've had a great 5 years at home with them, and watched several friends kids over the years that also couldn't afford to either be a sahp/pay childcare.

I'm in the final year of my degree, with all my dc now at school I now have a few friends kids at least 16 hours a week for nothing but fucking admiration for them trying to make it work. Whatever their circumstances, the single mum friend, the couple with shit hours, the couple that spend too much on and can't afford childcare...

Am I smug or appalled that people do whats right for them? Not in the slightest, I genuinely couldn't give a shit.

This is the weirdest post. It’s literally just a ‘this is what I did a few years ago’, it’s completely irrelevant to anyone else.

Parents who work do so for a variety of reasons. I don’t want to relocate, I want to go on foreign holidays, I don’t want to retrain, I don’t enjoy my children’s company enough to spend all week with them, I enjoy the company of my co-workers, my kids like playing rugby and having swimming lessons and playing guitar and I can’t pay for that without going to work, I’d quite like my own pension.

None of that applied to you, so you relocated, retrained etc.

🤷‍♀️

I just looked at the 23 houses on rightmove you suggest. All the ones in sherborne are only shared ownership.
Some are flats.
The rest either need work doing to them and/or are in areas of Yeovil that I wouldn’t want to raise my children in. Maybe I’m a snob, maybe I’m just realistic.

People who earn above the benefits cut off do consider the cost of childcare when they have kids. Often that means one parent needs to stay at home but equally often it means both parents return to work full time and just pay the bill. Neither option is better. Kids lose out either way

So what happens if both parents say they want to be at home with the kids?? Who pays the bills then?

@iklboo I was just thinking that, I'll grab more than a years salary from my money tree and jog right on. Although where I'm finding a (small) 3 bed house for less than I paid for this one I would love to know.

Sounds idyllic op

Oh ok. Let me just pull £30k out of my arse so we can move to the arse end of nowhere with no family support and no jobs to walk into.

It’s just a “people with a lot of options make choices that make them happy” shocker