To give up work and be a sahm even though the kids are in primary school?

[Mowgli1970]

I hate my job. Have done for years. I only work 2 days a week but commute an hour each way so I leave early and get back late, then have to do tea, baths, reading books, bed routine for the kids (with dh). They're 10 and 7.

He's reluctantly agreed for me to give up. Reluctantly because it will put pressure on him to earn all the money and because he thinks I'll be bored with limited adult contact. It won't be a struggle, but it will mean cutting back on non-essentials.

Should I shut up and just be grateful that it's only a 2 day a week job, aibu to want to give up work altogether? Has anyone experience of being a sahm with older children? What would you do?

But I agree with the general point that you should be opting in rather than opting out. I love my job, but love running a home more.

I don't think children require more input. Their needs change and evolve over the years. However, I don't think needs are always met by being rushed off your feet all day - sometimes children need the exact opposite - space, time alone etc.

However, children certainly don't need direct input from parents while they are in school for the day!

Also, I think running a home is one of those things that can expand to fill the time available. I know some people who are extremely efficient, run their homes beautifully, always look good, have a successful career and several children. On the other hand, some people struggle with fewer children and no job!

I don't know much about the French school system, but if its something which monopolises parents time to a ridiculous degree it sounds awful!

Would you love it so much if you had to do it all the time? I've had the long holidays and wondered how on earth I could bear to go back to school. And now I'm back and engaged and busy and getting to know my new classes and I'm absorbed by it. Isn't that how it should be - loving what you do when you are doing it? Somehow at the moment, the grass is definitely greener wherever I happen to be at the time

French children are, of course, not "in school for the day" in the English sense. And you definitely have to teach them to defend themselves and fight their own corner (and do it for them pretty often).

Perhaps TFM, as I said I do love my job and am happy now I am back. I am not in my classroom being miserable all day but I do miss being at home and worry about what my family is missing. I have been a SAHM in the past and loved it and only went back to work as we ran out of money.

you're off more than you work.2day week and still you dont want to work?but happy to let dh also go without non essentials so you can do...............well what exactly?

change jobs,study,retrain but dont just chuck it in to do nowt.unfair upon your dh.esp current economic climate

easier to look for job from job.have you thought about an employment free cv.trying to get re-established after not working will be grim

It's not 'filling your days' that's the problem. Hell, I could fill mine easily and I don't even have kids. But all that baking bread, picking blackberries stuff is a luxury - it's FUN stuff. Not really fair to fill your days with fun stuff while your husband deals with the stress of being a self-employed sole provider.

It is massively melodramatic of me to mention it, but there have been quite a lot of incidences of men becoming so worked up about needing to provide everything for their family that when something happens, e.g. they lose their job, they have a total breakdown about it because their self-worth is so tied up in it and they feel like they've let everyone down. It's often listed as a big cause of suicide among men. OK, your husband is probably not going to top himself if you become a fulltime SAHM! But if he is reluctant about it, it's really not fair.

The number one thing you need to consider is the fact that it is bloody hard to get back into work when you've had a long gap. I speak with bitter experience - I worked FT with the oldest 3 DCs, and stopped when I had DC4. It was only meant to be for a couple of years, but I loved all the picking up from school stuff I'd never been able to do before, and 2 years has become 8.

I've been busy - an awful lot of voluntary work, a few periods of self employed work, but even with that, 8 years out of work is too many, it turns out, for employers to contemplate hiring you.

So don't burn your bridges. At some point you will want to work again, and it's much better to address what you actually want to do now than wait until your options have effectively been removed.

Fuschia my husband loves his job and he also loves being looked after. During the holidays I am not lazing about, I am usually up with him at 6.30 and start cleaning and doing chores. I accept that maybe different from the OP situation, as he is reluctant.

My husband loves coming home to a happy content DD rather than coming home from a hard day at work knowing that I have hours of work ahead of me. I love the fact that because I have done all the housework during the day we have our evenings and weekends together as a family rather than being stressed and snatching a few moments here and there.

2 days a week job ?

School aged kids ?

Your DH has agreed 'reluctantly' ?

I agree with GetOrf & TortoiseOnTheHalfShell (and everyone who agreed with them!)

With a 2/d working week you are already more a SAHM than a WOHM (proportionally speaking).

Yes, the school year is short and children seem to always be off. And yes, those unexpected days of illness etc as a WOHP can be hard to juggle, but the fact is that most of the time they are well and they are in school term time and you are at home.

I agree with those who have said that in the current climate I wouldn't be stepping out of the job market voluntarily if I didn't have to and the truth has always been (ime) that it is easier to get a job when you already have a job. Prospective employers tend to look more positively on those in continuous employment than those who have taken career breaks 'just because' (which is essentially what yours would be).

Also, and this is the most crucial thing for me. It sounds like it could build resentment between you and your DH if you went ahead. That's not to say I think you should stay in the miserable job, but that perhaps you should stay where you are (better the devil you know and all that) and actively look for an alternative. Your DH's concerns strike me as pretty fair and to be considerate of the needs of the family unit as a whole.

Feeling stuck in a job you hate is shite, I sympathise with that but now is not the time to opt out of earning a salary to do nothing

Why not find a new job working evenings or half day weekends? You will still be able to take them to and from school and have most of the day to yourself during the week.
Best of all no childcare to pay.

I didn't say anything about lazing about, I said that the stuff you described (baking bread, blackberry picking) was fun stuff. It's not a waste of time or anything but it's also not really a justification for giving up a job that provides, I think, quite crucial steady money in an economic climate that could go down the toilet at any time. The essentials of running a household don't need to take all day, every day, all year! Otherwise how would people who work cope?

Not read the whole thread but I think it would be completely unfair on your dp to give up work. You're only working two days a week as it is and your children are in school all day. I think it could cause massive resentment.

Also, much easier I would think to find a new job from a position of employment than not.

Yabvu imho.

I gave up work when I was working 3 days a week and dd was due to go to school. I didn't regret it for a minute. The main difference was that DH loved me giving up my job as he loves his job and is as secure as it's possible to be in this mordern age.

I volunteered at school, got a job as a teaching assistant (temporary, but am in second year of the temp contract now) and am currently retraining at uni for a special needs role.

I loved being a SAHM. I did trade on Ebay for the first few years, which covered my 'lost' income, and I only went to work to help out the head at school.

Prior to this situation I would only have given up a job if I'd had another job to go to. But when dd started school and I suffered my 4th mc, I realised it was now or never. I could have the maternity leave I never had (which is what the career break started out as) and actually dedicate a bit of time to dd. (I went back to work when she was 14 weeks old).

I made the right move not just for me but for my family too and it worked on so many levels. Only you and your partner know if this will work for you. Take that into account, and not anything that anyone else says.

I gave up my job 3 years ago to be a SAHM of primary school DC because I'd had enough of the juggling and rushing around and the inadequate childcare and wanted to be around for my DC before and after school. I had some vague plans to retrain (I now have a new baby so this is a little way off yet), but basically just felt like I wanted a break and some time with the children. This has worked out very well imo, and I like being at home. My DH agreed to it at the time, but he's forgotten that, and still bangs on about how unfair it is. He's resentful that he has to earn all the money, even though we can comfortably afford for me not to work. Whenever there's an argument about anything he brings it up, oh you just gave up work because you fancied it etc. So I would say YANBU, but be wary, it will probably be an ongoing issue in your relationship if your DH is reluctant.

You must be more efficient than me fuschia, I simply cannot combine during term time running a house well and working. My husband works almost full time and has to most of the housework. The essentials of running a house do not take all day, you are right. They do take more hours than my husband and I have though. But we would like to provide my DD and future children with more than the essentials.

When I am not working the house goes from bein chaotic to absolute bliss. Yes some of it is fun luxury but we are happier for it.

I do think though that my personal and financial situation is slightly differnet from the OP. If my Husband were reluctant I would dismiss my desire to be a SAHM.

(Presumably NT) 10 & 7 year olds with a 'bath and bedtime routine' that needs to be 'done' by one or both parents ?

Am I a neglectful/unusual parent in that my 8 yr old as done her own 'bath/bedtime' routine since she was 6 ? She runs her own shower (set temp) washes herself and her hair, gets herself out, dries herself, puts her PJs on and brushes her teeth. The only part of the 'bedtime routine' DH & I do these days is tucking her in with a kiss at lights out. It was the same with DS1 & 2 (now 16.5 & 18).

Certainly not neglectful NomDeplume I am in awe.

Do they not get a story though?

Nope. She reads it herself or sits downstairs with DH and I until bedtime (her choice, not us being mean and refusing). She hasn't been bothered about bedtime stories for around a year or so. Same with the boys.

She likes to sit down in the day evey now and again and have a chapter of her book read by one of us, but not at night anymore for some strange reason.

Like I said I am in awe.

I would say you are being a little unreasonable to put so much pressure on your DH.

I am about to go back to a 3 day a week job and I have 4 children, two are not even at school yet. I am doing it because frankly I could not justify giving it up, financially, and putting all the burden on my DH.

Can't you use the time your children are at school to retrain or do something else that might counterbalance your current job dissatisfaction? Just a thought....

LOL Durga, DD is pretty awesome.....

(maybe we are weird)

No I know I am dreadfully inefficient and scatty. At least by staying home I only inflict myself on my family.

Don't put yourself down.

(Got to go and do the ironing now. See, I bet you managed to get that stuff done super early, so you can't be that disorganised)

I am playfully putting myself down. I am a fab wife and mother, it just takes me a little longer.

I do iron every morning at about 5 AM!

I have a husband to shag so I too must be off.