to think that many SAHMs/part-time workers would have chosen differently with the benefit of hindsight?

[working9while5]

Just a thought, have come across this on another forum and wondering how it applies to me.

I have just the one dc. Originally, I was desperate to be a SAHM but grudgingly decided to go back p/t but cut it back to the bare, bare minimum (2 days a week).

A few months down the line, if I am honest I am wondering how much my decision was framed by having a small, non-mobile baby and enjoying lunches with friends and Summer walks. As the hormones/baby shock wears off, I do wonder why I am not going back to work 3 or even 4 days.. and if my thinking was very short-term.

Unfortunately, I effectively "gave away" the bulk of my permanent, public sector job and there is a job freeze in my area. So, my (hormonally-driven? rose-tinted?) decision, while not final, is not so easy to go back on. I am studying for a postgrad too, so it's not the end of the world.. but it has made me think.

I wondered what mothers who are much further down the line think with the benefit of hindsight? Was that initial decision the right one for you, or was it influenced by newbabyitis?

Well I'm a vociferous WOHM, but I'm prepared to admit there are some things I would have done differently.

I do think that wohming has been good for me and for us as a family. It's enabled the children to grow up seeing women as decisive and empowered economically. It's paid for their school fees and their gizmos. It's fostered a sense of independence. It was a huge source of stability when DH became ill with a condition that he will have for the rest of his life. It means that I have houses, pension. savings. It meant I had a source of stimulation and huge enjoyment beyond what I had at home. All these things were positive.

I do have a couple of regrets though. I would like to have spent more time with them at home when they were babies. I would also like to have spent a bit more time with them.

So I did compromise. And all compromises are a bit shitty; still you can't have it all. But you can have most of it (if you are fiendishly well-organised).

I loved my job before DD was born, but they wouldn't let me go PT and I was made redundant. Being a SAHM has been the biggest adjustment of my life. Some days it is bloody awful, I am exhausted and totally fed up, I feel like a complete failure as a mother and a person, my DD whines and cries all day and I hate everything. Other days, the sun shines, we go to the park, we laugh, have fun and I feel like the luckiest woman in the world. Unfortunately at the moment its about 75/25 rubbish to gold. I think my perception of being a SAHM were way off the mark.

Most housewives come to regret for a whole panoply of reasons from lack of money and power in a relationship to the sheer drudgery of unpaid domestic service which no one in any culture chooses to do. Even the Romans used slaves. I've worked full time for 26 years with 5 children and it is brilliant.

People don't say enough how there's often no going back. Of course you could start a business or do something better paid than your previous work but it can be hard to do that.

I have no regrets for bring a stay at home mum. I gave up a very lucrative career and with DH working 70 hours plus I feel that there were have been no point in having children just to put them in childcare.

It has been very hard work 1 have a nearly 6 and nearly 4 year old (girl then boy). When DS was born I felt so tired because he was a hungry 11lb baby and I breast fed him for a long time. In the end I had to get some paid help twice a week at tea time he used to cry if he wasnt being held so I had him in a sling for most of the time.

My two went to preschool for two mornings a week. It is only now that I look back and think yes I did the right thing. We havent been abroad for 5 years and I dont buy much for myself whereas I used to buy designer clothes etc etc.

I did make a great bunch of friends who have also gone on to have another child thru antenatal. We all had little girls first and we seemd to have dragged each other through the diffuclt times.

I have had some depression in the past so I didnt want mine in a nursey as I have read that long hours in a nursery can lead to despression later on in life and if I am honest that has been my main driver to staying at home.

DH is always making comments about how lucky I am I just wished I had gone away for a few days and left him to manage and demanded a clean house and dinner on the table. Sadly though men cannot breast feed.

There is light at the end of the tunnel as I have just set up a small business and have orders already. So regrets absolutely not.

I am slowly ploughing my way through all of the comments on this thread. Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts on this issue, and thank you OP. I have to return to work in 3 months; it's playing on my mind and the thought of it quite honestly leaves me with mixed emotions, the over-riding emotion being guilt! I have the option to return to my existing employers part time, 3 days a week (with a long commute by train for me, DH and DS) or applying for a job much closer to home full time. I am wrestling with the decision.
If I return 5 days I will get a little bit of quality time with DS everyday and be financially secure. If I go back part time, I won't see DS at all for 3 days of the week, except on the train on the way in to work and will barely earn enough to cover train fare and childcare. I wish I didn't feel so torn. I'm dreadfully worried people will think I am abandoning my DS for the sake of my career or love my career more than my DS, which couldn't be further off the mark.

I stopped working just over 10 years ago, when DS was born (new media marketing, blue chip firm, so a 'proper' job with good money and prospects).

So far, there're no regrets. It's worked out really well for us to concentrate of DH's career, as it freed him up to relocate hundreds of miles every few years for promotions and to be able to do very short notice business travel. He is now in a highly lucrative pan-European role, and we are expats in Switzerland. This would never have happened in a million years if I had carried on working. He has middle managers working for him who are enormously able with lots of potential but 'cannot' be promoted to site leader elsewhere in the UK 'because of my wife's job, and her mother's just up road and has the kids after school, etc'.

We have traded two moderately good careers/ incomes for one stellar one. And we both have a lot more free time this way, as evenings and weekends are entirely for leisure.

The relocating lifestyle has kept me busy, I have interests such as stock investing and now learning a foreign language. I do sometimes have twinges of 'wasting my degree', but it's true that my whole family is benefitting from my education and intelligence as it's challenging supporting the kids' education in a foreign language, making sure they keep up their English, etc.

I don't think I've ever had a 'sliding doors' moment about a virtual reality me who works PT/FT with two kids - that just seems too difficult and stressful. I do, however, confess to secret fantasies about being an ass-kicking corporate climber with no children at all...

But the point is that even if one partner earning one wage leads to financial vulnerability it doesn't have to. One person on this thread has mentioned that they are not on the mortgage and that in my experience is very unusual - and in some ways is a red herring. Ownership is not defined by who pays the mortgage and anyone can be added to the deeds.

The point regarding my DH's ability to earn money is that if I was not available to provide childcare he would share the burden of the cost of childcare thus reducing his income. There can be very few couples that don't have that issue.

If your partner is not putting your financial security on the same footing as his own then that is a problem with the partner you have chosen not with your choice of whether to work or not.

The bottom line is you need to choose your partner as effectively as you choose your career.

are you saying I made shit choice?

nancydewrocked - I think most people on a one salary income are only just able to afford to survive or maybe save a little for a rainy day - maybe a month or two's salary.

Even if they co-own a property, a loss of income would not be remedied by owning a heavily mortgaged property between two people, would it? Hardly insurance for the future if you don't have an income!

quite!! We hope to sell within 5 years maximum and then rent again anyway. I have no hang ups about it at all and not even sure how I came to mention it!! Maybe I could be added now - but for what? If DH died I couldn't afford it (even if I went to work FT) and hate it here anyway!!

In fact, when I originally considered p/t working, we had a piped dream that I would save my salary/use it to overpay the mortgage and we would live off dh's. However, when we crunched the numbers, even this is quite difficult (and I have a good salary).

I simply can't see how a family on one average salary are going to be as financially secure as a family on a double income. I see how childcare can make the difference between single- and double-income families negligible but, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, having an income to fall back on is obviously going to be easier.

I don't judge anyone for weighing up risks in their individual circumstances and saying, on balance, they feel they would work things out in a "worst case scenario": however, I don't think, as a rule, you can say a double income makes no difference to financial security whatsoever.

I just wanted to add that being a SAHM doesn't mean that you have less power in the relationship, or less money than your partner. My children certainly aren't growing up to think that what I do is 'less' than their fathers contribution.

My DH and I are a unit. We need income and childcare, so he provides one and I provide the other. My being at home has given him freedom in his career that he wouldn't have had if I had been at work as he would have had to do more in the way of childcare and wouldn't have been able to travel so much for work. My DH is well aware of what he has been able to do as a result of what I do.

Our money goes into our joint account and tbh, my DH barely sees it. I have made all the financial decisions for this family and our house is in both of our names.

I accept that in staying home I have lost out on pensions and we are vulnerable if my DH became unemployed, but I have made certain that policies are in place to protect me if something happened to my DH.

As I said earlier, it is swings and roundabouts, but it's important that people considering SAH are aware that the power in a relationship is about how you are as a couple, and not necessarily about who WOH.

It's ludicrous to assume that everyone is better off when two people work, my dh's single income is twice my neighbours dual income!

I regret that I couldn't have it all, but decided that staying at home was worth the risk of my career. It's worked out okay for us, there are days when I wish I worked but not nearly enough!!

Worse than not working, for me, was not prioritising myself at all. So friendships fell by the way side and any interests....perhaps working outside the home would have ensured these didn't slip?

If I worked, my WHOLE wage would have just about paid for my travel and DS's childcare. I am not a high earner, I'm not a thicky and happy with what I normally do - but I HATED my last job and it took me two buses and a train to get there - without a child in tow! But besides all that, we both wanted me at home with DS.

Oh and I would never have considered a nursery or CM and so a Nanny would cost at least £600 per week.

maxybrown if that was directed at me then I have no idea what sort of choice you have made.

If however you ask your DH to put you on the deeds of your house so that you are both equal owners and he refuses then I would suggest that is indicative of him not valuing your contribution to the relationship. In which case yes you have made the wrong choice.

no no no he has not refused to put me on the mortgage!! far from it, crikey if he was like that I would have ran!

Posie, if you read what I wrote, I said that where the single earner has an average salary, it is less likely that this will be more than what two earners will bring in and/or if one partner loses their job, it is probably, on balance, in an average situation, going to be easier to cope if both are working.

If your dh with a high single income lost his job and you were not working, this would lead to more financial insecurity, even if this were short-term. This does not mean I question your choice, it is your choice. In my personal circumstance, however, I can't see how we could be as financially secure on one income as we will be on two (despite me reducing my hours hugely).

I don't see why it is relevant that you would never have considered a nursery or a CM by the way, and I suspect you are trying to make a point about nursery/CM as an option. We have avoided any value judgements about this so far and I hope that will continue on this thread.

I am not for a minute suggesting that a couple on one salary are necessarily going to be as financially secure as a couple on two salaries. But I absolutely maintain that financial security is not about who earns the money. It is about what is done with it and the dynamics of your relationship.

maxy Good. That was the point I was making - sorry I thought it was clear

Nancy, what about the situation where loss of one/the higher income would lead to defaulting on the mortgage? As maxybrown says, if - for whatever reason - her husband was no longer paying the mortgage and she were working full-time, she couldn't afford the repayment.

So, while I agree with you in situations where there are actual assets that are not owned by the bank, I think that there are situations where external influences will dictate financial security more than the dynamic of the couple.

Working on the one hand you are arguing a position where the salaries of both partners are needed for day to day survival but on the other you say it would be much easier if one lost their job if he other was working. I am not sure that follows.

If for example DH earns £7 and I earn £3 (keeping it simple here ) therefore giving us a combined income of £10, and our outgoings are say £9 (because there is no spare money left to reduce mortgage/save/pay pensions) Then if DH loses his job, it really makes little difference whether I earn £3 or £0 - we can't afford the £9 outgoings and are fecked until he gets a new job.

No, of course a single income family is not as financially secure as a double income family and this worries me. But I know that I am employable if it wasn't for the fact that I have to look after the children. If DH wasn't working I could find work fairly easily, given that he would then be responsible for childcare. Also, this is a temporary phase of insecurity - DC3 will be 3 next year and then our childcare costs will decrease enormously.

However, I've taken pains to make sure that I am still employable by working freelance, continuing my training etc so that there's no major gap on my CV. And I would still have to take on work that is way below what my experience and qualifications merit. But then I was lucky enough to have the choice of staying at home when the DCs were very small and I did really enjoy it.

Yes nancy but some income is always better than none at all. £3 would help with day-to-day expenses especially if you took a mortgage holiday etc.

Xposts there working but my pp kind of deals with it.

In the situation you describe DH needs to be finding a new job PDQ.

Equally in the short term I would be looking for work - I am not saying that I or anyone else should ever refuse to work but I cannot really see the point in sacrificing so much (which is just how I personally feel) "just in case" the sky was to fall.