I don't understand how people can give up their career and be a stay at home parent ?

[lolstevelol]

You risk losing career progression, especially as jobs change so rapidly due to technology. The role you were doing a few years ago might look completely different today. Securing a stable office job is much harder now than it used to be.

You also miss out on pension contributions, which is a significant factor. Losing 5–10 years of contributions and compounding can be the difference between retiring at 58 and having to work until or beyond the state pension age.

Generally speaking, supporting a family on a single income while working can be more stressful than being a stay-at-home parent. Even when the job itself is manageable, workplace environments can be toxic, which can create tension and resentment between the working parent and the stay-at-home parent.

I dont understand why a mother would want to have a full time job

I am really starting to wonder if my children are unusual - they prefer to have a roof over their head and eat occasionally, and this usually requires that I have an income. Am I doing it wrong?

I presume @BluebellShmoobell is just replying to the op (in an ironic/sarcastic way?) who started this thread. She’s basically quoted op’s title of this thread, but has reversed two key words.

I agree and think many do…but you’re not allowed to say it. There’s no way in the world I could have considered putting my baby in others care from 8-6, it’s so sad 😞

Does the expression 'naval gazing' mean 'looking at sailors'?

If so, what is 'navel gazing'?

I’ve been a SAHM for 19 years now. It’s been tough at times but it’s what was needed for my family. I was never able to have a career due to life circumstances.

🤣belly button I think

Meh some of us don’t have a choice. I’d love to go back to work but my DD can only manage 1 hour in nursery and sometimes less than that. If you honestly can’t understand why some parents are SAHP you have to be incredibly dim.

Why are you specifically focusing on mothers? I love my job and that doesn’t make me a bad parent.
And I’m still raising my child even if I have a full time job. Providing for your child financially is part of bring a parent.

I can't believe we're still judging each other like this in 2026.
Working for money, or not, has sod all to do with how much you love your kids and we all know that, don't we? Or have all the SAHM brains actually gone to mush?

So is being with them…

And? What’s your point?
Do you think working parents don’t spend time with their children?

Are you aware that there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week? Lot of time for parents to spend with their children, even if they work. You just have to make it a priority. Not rocket science.

Not if the kids are being dropped at 7:30 and collected at 6 and are in bed by 7 etc

People always quote these hours as some sort of ‘gotcha’ when the reality is that many parents work flexibly and often hybrid so therefore stagger drop offs and pick ups between them.
In my social circle I don’t know anyone who was using childcare between 7.30-6 five days a week even if they worked full time.

why do you need to understand it, their choice is theirs and your choice is yours.

There are weekends. There's bath time, dinner, story time. In the morning there's breakfast. And a lot of people don't work those kinds of hours and tag team pickups, as said by a pp. There's a subset of SAHMs who seem determined to paint working women as universally neglectful and uncaring. Would you care to tell me why?

I gave up my career when ds3 was born. At that point, I was an operating theatre staff nurse, working 25 hours a week, over 3 days. My nursery costs for ds1 and ds2 were £100 a week, and my take home pay was c.£150 - so, if I’d carried on working after having ds3, I would have been working for free.

If I had loved my career, and had felt that I was on track for promotions, it might have been worth it, @lolstevelol, but part timers were treated as very much second class citizens where I worked - I didn’t get sent on professional development courses, or give opportunities to take on management roles or tasks - that was all given to the full time staff, while I was used to fill in the gaps.

It was clear to me that I would never get promotion, and that I was not valued as a professional, so I was happy to give up a job where i wasn’t valued, and which I wasn’t really enjoying any more. I didn’t so in the clear knowledge that a sustained period of time out of the work force would mean I would lose the up-to-date professional skills I would need, and after three years, my registration would lapse, and therefore going back would be difficult, but I was happy with my choice.

I did this.

My job, on median wage at the time, did not pay enough to cover the cost of nursery. So it was as simple as that.

So many people who were born into money do not comprehend and can never comprehend that it does not matter how ‘little’ money you need to invest in your future. If you do not have it YOU DO NOT HAVE IT and you CANNOT make that investment.

Those of us with no bank if mum and dad to draw on have no good choices in life: the choice is between red, yellow, blue and green SHIT.

Yes I’ve regretted losing my career. Very much so. Some days I scream at my husband about it. Most days I regret ever having met him (and unlike the baby boomers I can’t afford to divorce). Some days I even regret having the kids - not because they are now wonderful but because I know that my daughter will face the same life choices, no matter how hard she does or does not work. Perhaps even worse given the state of the world. Because this world does not deserve them.

I had no good choices and the privilege of people like the op who have no comprehension of how shit life is for those of us born poor really sticks in my craw.

Exactly…

It’s just different priorities

Exactly what? Maybe read the responses to that post before agreeing to something that isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of what actually happens.

I think a lot of working mothers do prioritise trivial little things like food, housing, heating and all those unnecessary luxuries.

This persistent idea that it's possible for every woman to be a SAHM if only they cared enough and loved their kids enough is delusional, and that's without discussing single mothers.

I wouldn’t say it’s different priorities. Just a different way of approaching parenting and life.
Being a SAHM doesn’t mean you prioritise your children more than a mother who works.

Op it doesn’t have to be 5 to 10 years.
As a society we should start giving more value to the parental care of their children in the early years.

i didn't have babies so that a person with minimal education would be in charge of looking after them everyday during working hours in the same house and proving unhealthy meals (no peas every day is not good enough). Im really glad I took 4 years off.

Your opinion on what childcare is and what it provides is just that - an opinion.