Working mums - would you rather be a SAHM?

[Feelingcrappy2]

Just out of curiosity. I have 2 little ones, very undecided whether or not to go back. Feel lucky that I have the option to stay home but not sure if I want another year of being in this flat!

Have we had “palmed off” and “farmed off” yet?

Frankly if a thread of this nature hasn’t seen these phrases used yet about working mums (mums only) - then it isn’t doing the sexism correctly.

And before anyone says but it’s about “choice” innit and this is what “worked best for our family” - it isn’t individual choices but profound amounts of societal and structural shaping that leads up to repeated situations where “DH earns 4x my salary, and we both agreed it would work best for me to quit work”.

It’s a shame you sister decided to remain with one employer only.

It’s a shame she didn’t also get herself hobbies and a shame she let her job miss out on her kids.

As a single parent, I didn’t miss out of years of my kids lives. I also had hobbies. I also have worked for many different companies. Never dedicated years of my life to any of them.

Do you think when kids go to school their parents are missing years of their lives?

If I were financially independent, absolutely!

I don't understand people saying, 'being at home was boring' ' the housework does not fill the day.'

Do these people really see nothing in life outside your job or cleaning the house?!

The world is absolutely full of interesting stuff I want to do, and experience and learn! Having a job stops me doing most of that. I'd absolutely love to have the time to do more of that stuff!

I play the lottery to buy time. I don't want a mansion or a helicopter or Prada. I want the time to do the things that I am most interested in. Being able to give up my job would allow me to do that.

I don’t understand why we, as women, always end up doing this to each other. Clearly everyone is going to champion the path they have taken. There is no need to slate the choices that you didn’t make. SAHMs aren’t some singular group who have no collective financial sense. Women who go out to work obviously aren’t failing as parents. There’s no need for working parents to educate us on how vulnerable we are, just as there is no need for SAHPs to keep banging on about missing out etc. Your choices are half chance - so are everyone else’s.

I'd go insane. Love my career and wouldn't be challenged or fulfilled without it.

Reduced hours might be nice though!

SAHM's usually have young children to look after though so it can be limited doing what you want when young children need to be entertained. They are also usually not financially independent.

I'm also passionate and incredibly interested in the industry I'm in which helps. I adore what I do.

Tbh the most enlightening part of this for me has been the amount of people who consider their career to be stimulating but found being a sahm boring and mind numbing. Couldn't have been more opposite for me.

As I mentioned I was a lecturer before and while I definitely didn't hate my job, I definitely hated the monotony of it. Getting up every day at the same time to make the same commute to the same building to see the same people and do the same thing for days, weeks, months, years on end....I felt like I was in the movie Groundhog Day sometimes 😂

I love how random and freeing being a sahm is. I wake up and maybe we'll go for a picnic, maybe we'll go swimming, maybe we'll stay in and do some baking? Now that they're in nursery/primary school I also get tons of me time to do whatever I feel like doing that day.

I think that's the thing I'd struggle with most. Having to get back into such a strict routine. But then I guess thats the beauty of working for yourself or having your own business so maybe entrepreneurship is the way to go should I ever need to get back to work any time soon 👩🏼‍💻

I feel you on this. One of many reasons I'd love to be a sahm is that 'groundhog day' feeling I get from my career sometimes...

You wouldn't want to switch lives would you? 😂

These threads are just poison because they always end up the same. Working mums for pages and pages making all sorts of backhanded remarks and insinuations about not wanting to be a SAHM because "depending on a man innit, I'd go braindead, I don't want to sit around the house all day, I have too much ambition, it's mind numbing, it'll just end badly, I need intellectual stimulation" (all examples lifted from this thread).

And then one of the SAHMs makes the inconceivable error of making the same mean spirited assumptions back and all of a sudden Hell has broke loose and Jesus wept. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you're going to be smug, smarmy and insulting then don't start playing innocent when you get it back.

OP I was a working full time mum for the majority of my children's upbringing and I wouldn't have changed it. Do whats best for you and yours and I wish you luck with whatever choice you make.

See how easy it is to state a preference for being a working mum without shitting on SAHMs everybody? 😉

Ultimately, it just goes to show how different people are which isn't surprising.

Maternity leave felt like Groundhog Day to me.

@minicheddars87 It is incredible that this topic seems to grab the attention of so many women who seem unable to state an opinion without crapping all over people who do the opposite of what they like. So bloody childish for grown adults with kids to behave that way.

Yes I was a sahm.
I certainly didn't find it all a bed of roses and at times extremely gruelling but I had little money and no help from family.
However it was also an absolute privalidge and an extraordinary time that went very fast looking back.
I work pretty much ft time now and enjoy that too!!

In fact it's almost a decade since I was a sahm.

Re used to routines etc many of us are now institutionalised from very young ages and used to the treadmill so it can be scary to be liberated from it.
People like and need routine.

I would have loved to be able to work part time or be a sahm but as a single parent it wasn't possible. Well I suppose anything is possible but I wouldn't have been able to afford my mortgage and we would have had no money. Now after struggling to work and do everything at home my teenage boys are so proud of me and what I have achieved work wise and I have a lot in common with my eldest as he has chosen a similar career to me. That's not a negative towards SAHP as I would have done that if given a choice but it all worked out well in the end anyway.

Wow, why are people so mean to SAHMs?

It absolutely goes both ways. You must be conveniently ignoring some of the comments on this thread.

The ratio is pretty off. For any 1 comment remotely mean spirited towards working mums there's about 15 rude, backhanded comments about SAHMs that all went unchecked for the majority of the thread. Tbh this is typical of any thread I see on here on the subject of SAHMs.

No, there's very clearly an imbalance in favour of working mums.

I disagree. I think the amount of comments are pretty even but the comments towards working mothers are harsher. SAHM's don't get called bad mothers, selfish, they don't even raise their own child etc like working mothers do.

On a thread similar to this I was called sick for sending my DS to nursery. When was the last time a SAHM was called sick?

I was happy with my decision to keep working.

Yes absolutly I would love to be a SAHM as long as there were no money worries.
Covid and Lockdown were the best days of my life.

I definitely wouldn’t want to be a SAHM. I love my child more than anything in the world but I would feel v lonely & isolated just being with my child all day, every day.

Looking at my friendship group, I actually don’t have any SAHM friends either.

Well, I spent 3 years as sahm but I was also living in the Middle East at the time. Loved it and don’t regret spending that time with my kids. I then I got a job part time when we moved back to the uk. This was later made full time. I work mostly from home, I think the juggle would be really stressful if I was in the office everyday. My DH also mostly works from home and does his share of club runs etc.

I've done both. SAHM for 3 years due to redundancy when pregnant and planning another child soonish after. I hated it. I mean, it made life easier in lots of ways and obviously I got to spend a lot more time with my baby, but boy was it boring. I also suffered huge confidence loss and missed my income after a short while.

Back to work part time now, earning a higher salary than before and enjoying the balance.

You need ying and yang in life. You won't appreciate the time off if you're always off.

I don’t think it’s possible to answer for anyone else.

for me - no. I love my job. It’s difficult, contributes to the community, absorbs me intellectually and emotionally, and took more than 15 years of education and training to achieve.

In addition, supporting myself is a key part of my identity and supporting my child is a key part of parenting.