SAHM’s -Any regrets?

[PerfectPeony2]

I went back to work a few weeks ago, I’m really struggling for various reasons but mostly because I’m missing DD. It’s only 3 days a week but she’s in nursery 8-5.

Just wondering what your reasons were for being a SAHM, do you think you made the right decision? Do you think your kids miss out by not going to nursery? Are you worried about future career prospects?

I’d love to stay home with her but it’s such a big decision. I don’t want to miss out on anything.

If not married then definitely NOT.

If married and both of you are happy with the decision and DH can support you all comfortably without working until he drops - then go for it.

Smallereveryday yes we are married I would never consider it otherwise.

I may be able to request a career break which would mean I have a job to go back to (although chance of having to reapply). I am thinking more short term than long term- probably 2 years until the nursery hours kick in.

DH would support me but we would have to make some sacrifices and wouldn’t be able to save much.

Just wondering what your reasons were for being a SAHM

I felt the best qualified person to care for my DC was me.
Do you think you made the right^^ decision?

Without a doubt. As tough as they were at times, I wouldn't give up those early days at home with them as babies and toddlers for anything, we had so much fun! Now they are at school, everyone's life is made easier by my being at home to manage things , including DH who is very happy I'm still at home. No worries about holiday cover, sickness, daytime school events - he knows it's all in hand.

Do you think your kids miss out by not going to nursery?

Both my kids did go to nursery. Half days only, starting with a couple of days a week, and building up to five half days a week. They loved their time there, and had no problems whatsoever transitioning to school.

Are you worried about future career prospects?
^
No. Pre-kids I worked in HR and hated it, but my degree was in drama and I always wanted to act or work in a theatre. So I've started acting again - am in a touring production atm - and volunteer in a local theatre with the aim of gaining relevant skills and contacts should the acting not go anywhere.
^
You will get a lot of people telling how important financial independence is, and what will you do if your DH leaves you or can't work anymore. All I can say to that is the world is full of "what is?" and worse-case scenarios, and I don't intend to live my life in fear of them. Right now we are all happy and that's what matters.

I've been a SAHM as well as being self-employed and currently working part-time now my youngest DC is 6 and in Year 1.

I wanted to be at home for the DC when they were little. Childcare would have taken a significant proportion of any work I did and wasn't worth.

It was definitely the right decision for our family and I would do the same again.

They didn't miss out by not going to nursery at all. We were very sociable and did lots of groups.

I'm not worried by my career prospects. I have done a Master's whilst being at home and also a lot of voluntary work. I'm currently working part-time in a sector which will never be hugely lucrative but I enjoy and feel is worthwhile. I didn't find it hard to find work at all.

Just wondering what your reasons were for being a SAHM, do you think you made the right decision?

I didn’t want to be pulled between childcare and my demanding career and feel like neither was getting my all. I was never very career-driven whereas DH is, so I took a very high earning job, used it to invest smartly and have an OK income from that now that DD is here. DH loves his job. I feel like I got what I planned for iyswim.

Do you think your kids miss out by not going to nursery?
I worry about this, but in practice DD sees one or more toddlers and older kids every day (playgroups, parks, rhyme time, mum and toddler groups) so I don’t think my worries are founded on much.

Are you worried about future career prospects?

Yes, though I try to do some work to keep my hand in.

BlueBlueZoo, Anyone can start a pension now up to age 75 .Even if you pay in a small amount, may make a difference for you in years to come. Google" pension providers" for details .Hope this helps you

I’ve had a similar path to smarmy but longer ft/nearly ft stretches. I reckon part time is the best overall balance, I don’t want to spend an extensive amount of time retraining in my 40s to get back to work and people always forget the pension hit.

3 days a week means you are still spending 4 days at home - nursery care is nowhere near a close substitute for a sahp but I’d try and cut to either 2 days or 3 shorter days before I gave up altogether if i broadly liked both my career and the nursery.

Is the nursery alright? Might be worth thinking about whether paying a bit more on a better childcare option wouldn’t help too.

I'm a sahm, I've been off for about 4 years now, with potentially another 15 months til Ds starts school.

I have enjoyed it (enjoy it far more now) but I do have regrets. Biggest one being, I am now pretty daunted by the prospect of returning to work, but also I'm really keen to get out in the world and be 'someone' again- so I'm in constant turmoil over what to do. I'm a professional, with a good career behind me, and yet I have no confidence and feel like a fraud applying for jobs. I keep seeing jobs which I would apply for, and yet I feel like I can't because of the huge upheaval to our lives. I think this is telling me that I'm ready to return to work, but I kind of need to wait it out until the reason I went off in the first place is resolved (ie. Ds is at school).

I regret not making more of it and enjoying it more when Ds was young. I found it very hard at first. Once I found my groove, all my friends had returned to work so now I have no one to groove with

Plus, it's hard having not much money. Dh has a good job, but we don't see the benefits of it so much because it's covering two incomes. I think when I return to work we will notice our financial situation improve significantly, particularly our 'leisure' money.

I went from a successful career to sahm after my second child. Because of my jobs inflexibility and the long distance commute. I've really enjoyed being here for them, taking them to school and going to their special assembilies. I volunteer for trips at their school. They love having me around. I'm going to do another degree, part time so that I can enter a new career when they're in secondary school.

Well turns out it will probably be too much of a squeeze financially. I’m a bit heartbroken to be honest.

We’re going to try to live off one salary for a few months just to test to see if we can do it. If we had more savings as a fall back it would probably but okay but we don’t right now so it would be too much of a risk.

I wish I’d have known that I would want to be a SAHM, then we could have planned ahead a bit more!

Not a SAHM but work opposite shifts to my husband so our son doesn't go nursery and he does miss out a bit. We go baby groups but he doesn't really play with other children. We went to a group where all the children played and my son just held onto me making me read him books. I honestly don't know how to fix it but part of me wishes I earnt more so he could go nursery!

My children are much older now op, I became a SAHM simply because I could not leave them! I found it so painful and heartbreaking even just visiting the nursery. I wanted to wake up with her and enjoy their childhood. Really to coin an old phrase, they were genuinely the best years of my life. I look back and know I made the right decision, because we are all very close and we had a wonderful time. They had a secure and loving childhood, and I didn't miss any of their milestones or special days. I was there every step of the way.

I know not every has this opportunity, so I was and am grateful to have been able to be there.

My babies socialised with other babies and toddlers, we had lots of outings, and picnics and lunches with friends. So in terms of socialising they are both now very confident. I don't think nursery is always the best place to learn good manners etc.

The children onto nursery for a few hours around two/three years of age, and loved it as they were ready to expand their horizons by then. I did some volunteering, and then some training in a line of work I always wanted to do. It was the perfect time to reassess by the time they went to school.

I know not everyone has the chance to stay at home with their babies, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity.

Children grow up so fast, your dd will soon be in school, the baby and toddler years are very special, they really are.

You can work, as I do now, later in life. You can retrain or go back into your old line of work. As long as you are financially secure, then why not. It is a total privilege and a blessing.

I was made redundant early on in my maternity leave. I didn't want to work in the same field, and had found my job extremely stressful during pregnancy. I decided to stay at home for an extended period. However, as time moved on I realised I couldn't ever really imagine putting my child into nursery. Things were very tight financially, but over the years it's got easier and we now have more kids.

I don't think any of my children have missed out on socialising with other children (I believe that's not something they do until preschool age anyway), and I genuinely think the best place for them is with at home with me for the early years.

My career isn't massively important to me, I imagine I will do something down the line and I'll have the space and financial freedom to work out what that will be.

I have never, ever regretted it .

Until now.

I’ve loved it, but now my children are older, I just can’t get back into (satisfactory, well paid) work. I was part time for years, which worked perfectly for my work life balance. I lost my job and now I feel invisible and old (as far as the workplace is concerned - I’m over 40, but I’m not old).

No I don't regret it. I didn't go back after mat leave with DC2 as childcare would have been more than my wages - I would not have been working for nothing, I would have made a loss. So it was not an option. DH was also studying at that point on top of working full time so realistically I had the kids 6 days a week most of the year.

I've done quite a bit of volunteering to keep busy, after 6 or so years I am now looking for part time work to fit around the kids. In terms of career progression; I was a qualified teacher, there isn't really any career progression and unlike say nursing etc your registration doesn't lapse. I could go back at some point when my kids are older, its just very un-family friendly (I'm secondary so hours don't work for primary age children and part time jobs are pretty much impossible to come by so it would be full time or nothing at least for a few years, I'd never see a single school play or assembly as you can't take holiday in term time) Ideally for me personally I would have liked a part time job, but with so many people going for p/t roles employers know they can pay very little and still get someone massively overqualified.

My kids went to nursery part time from 2 however the youngest one had a very bad experience at nursery - he went to a commercial nursery rather than a preschool and honestly, I don't think I would send my child to one again if I had a third. The nature of the sector, especially since the intro of the 30 funded hours, is high staff turn over, young, cheap and inexperienced staff and just generally poor care. Not anyones fault as there is a massive funding shortfall. Just not a situation I would want to put my child into. And there are great nurseries who do great work despite the poor circumstances - but from the outside they are very hard to tell from the poorer ones, and you are tied in to such expensive contracts, and in my area such long waiting lists, that its very difficult to move.

DH has always paid into a private pension for me, and by living fairly frugally we will hopefully pay off our mortgage before 60 so pensions won't be a problem.

In the time we have been off there were a whole string of family emergencies that would have needed a lot of time off work and probably would have had to be taken unpaid and massively pissed off any employer. Its all worked out for the best.

I haven’t taught since having dc3, 10 years ago, because it wasn’t financially viable to teach with wraparound childcare for 3 - no family support - plus I hated teaching so was glad to leave. We have 4 kids, aged 15 down to 7, who I home-educate, so I won’t work again for at least another 2 years when both my teens will hopefully be happily settled into college. The younger girls may then go to school, but purely because we’re struggling on one salary.

I don’t regret giving up my career in the slightest, and due to the nature of teaching, will be able to pretty much walk back into it whenever I choose to. There’s no way I could have done a successful job of juggling 4 kids with working 60+ hours a week. Plus, I didn’t want other people getting the privilege of being there for all the ‘firsts’ and achievements: that’s something I’ve always been quite possessive over. I’ve kept myself very busy as well: apart from home-educating (and running a home, as every parent does), I volunteer for several charities, organise several regular home-ed activities/groups locally, and only recently gave up doing private tuition in the evenings because it was clashing with different activities my kids do.

Their social skills are amazing: the older two went to nursery when I was teaching part-time, but hated it, but the younger two have never been. We’ve always spent a lot of time out and about with other people, both fellow home-elders and schooling friends, and I can honestly say that they mix well, confidently handle themselves with all ages, including adults, and have beautiful manners. I do believe that having confident, sociable kids comes more from how sociable and confident the parents are though, as opposed to whether they go to nursery or not.

Have I taken a risk being fully financially reliant on my husband? Yes, I have, but it’s been to the benefit of our whole family, so was/is worth the risk. No-one knows what tomorrow holds, so I believe in making the best decision based on the information I have available to me in the present. I wouldn’t change my decision for a second, and do not look forward to having to return to paid work in the future.

Was the right decision financially in terms of what I'd been earning when the kids came along and was the right decision in terms of DD2 having some additional needs and me having the flexibility to cope with the hospital's wonderful habit of short notice appointments it's nigh-on impossible to reschedule. The kids did their 15 funded hours at preschool and coped fine with school starting and socially - we had them at a great preschool though - they loved it there.

Found it very lonely though (but I'm not a natural friendship magnet), and quite dis-empowering in terms of feeling like I had no financial independence whatsoever and now the kids are at school it's been quite boring during the day - I've done a lot of voluntary bits and bobs though to fill the time in.

I'm now at a situation where it's going to be very hard for me to return to my original career as there've been ridiculous changes in education - when my kids were born academies were only just starting out and still very rare and the changes in the curriculum and assessment are bonkers - I've reskilled to the point I can cope on supply but I don't think I'm ever going to be a prime candidate for a permanent job anymore... so I'm retraining and heading back to university.

Was the right decision for the right time but wasn't the funnest one for me personally - I took one for the team so to speak.

From the other side. I went back to work full time when DD was 3 months old (no maternity pay in those days) and I was the main bread winner.

Financially it was doable (well until the recession hit) because DH worked mainly night shifts or weekends and my parents were around when DD was very young.

Logically it was a nightmare, just with DH doing shift work and his job was 3 hours away so I had to pick up the slack. We moved away from my parents and PIL lived at the other end of the country.

Looking back now DD is an adult I do feel like I missed out on a lot esp in the early years with play groups and just pottering around etc, I barely remember them other than a few months off I had between jobs after we moved and I loved it. What I would have changed was going PT when she was young. It just wasn't financially tenable though.

I don't regret going FT when she was at school because I was home at 5:30. I was lucky in that I had flexible working so I could make it to the assemblies etc,. And that I had all weekends to spend with her, watch her sports.

BUT my DH died when my DD was 13, so if I stopped working I would be down the shit creek without a paddle. So keep in mind financial security OP.

But also DD did enjoy nursery, however she wasn't full time because of shift work and my parents. She is still friends with a couple of girls she went to nursery with nearly 20 years ago. I would have felt a lot of guilt if she was there say 8am-6pm. And back then childcare was more reasonable priced, esp compared to current prices.

@Mumofone25391 you can always find a reason to feel bad - my DD is just like that and she went to 4 days or FT nursery - she's just a parent/adult focused character. You do your best - I don't think they really socialise much under at least 3 either.

@PerfectPeony2 you can always start building savings now? It's never too late to change things. Also mull over asking to do 3 shorter days or 2 full days or perhaps. There are many different crises throughout childhood where you feel they need you, this won't be the last hurdle, they don't stop needing you at 3, 5, 8 or even teens!

I’m basically a SAHM although I do work a minimum of two hours a week during term time - that can increase if I choose to do more as I’m self employed and my skills are in demand.

It was never a big debate for us - we both wanted a parent to be doing the childcare and school pick ups, not a random stranger; we have no family help. The dc did go to nursery part time from two years old to give me a break and because it’s fun for them.

I’m never bored; in fact there aren’t enough hours in the day for all the stuff I want and need to do. I have a cleaner and dh does all the cooking, so there’s not much drudge work.

Dh makes more than enough money to support us both and pays into a pension for me, so i will never need to work for financial reasons. But since my skills are in demand, I can increase my workload as much as I like. It’s physical work though, so age and decrepitude will limit me eventually.

It’s been the right choice for us, and I’m grateful I’ve been in a position to choose it.

Other side of the coin, I’m not a SAHM though I have been off with both of mine for a year of mat leave and a bit of part time work following that.

But I actually think it’s wonderful for all of us that I am working and not a SAHM. Besides the financial advantages and less worry about the future, I really love my work and being able to do something I love means I’m happier and more present when I am at home. The thing is though that I’m not run ragged.

My dh and I share the school runs. He does it 2-3 days a week (we have one at primary school and one in nursery) and I do it 2-3 times a week. This means we both get days to focus on work and ourselves without one of us (me) racing from school to work and work to school and always stressed. We both get to enjoy one on one time with the dc and we both get to put full attention on work. Because he’s there as much as me, they get lots of time with their dad and my career has really benefited. It would be a lot more stressful - and frankly completely impossible - if all of it was totally on me to sort out.

To offer another point of view, before I had DC, someone told me that they actually need you more when they're older and to plan my career around that.

I went back FT when they were each 6 months old (2DC). I paid a family member the going rate for childcare.

I worked FT until DC2 was 3.5 then dropped down to a 4 day week. But in the meantime I'd had a promotion meaning I earnt the same for my 4 day week as I did FT when I had DC1.

I then side-stepped into an easier job, for a more flexible employer. Meaning I get a decent amount of paid holiday, paid leave for looking after poorly DC (3 days/child/year which can rollover into the next year - I currently have 18 days available!) and I'm reasonable flexible. I've not missed a parents meeting or school show yet, and I've been able to go into the school to help at various activities from time to time.

My day off coincides with the day the DC don't have school (not UK) so I get a lot of time with them.

They definitely need me more as they get older.

Other side of the coin, I’m not a SAHM

Then why are you contributing to this particular thread?

*Other side of the coin, I’m not a SAHM

Then why are you contributing to this particular thread*

crystalvisions I thought mindutopias post was interesting actually as it’s good to get a perspective from someone who is working part time.