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?

I think that perhaps the critisicm is harder to accept when you have no choice. It's a wonderful thing to be able to choose isn't it? I do have a choice now and I choose to work PT. DH chooses to work FT. That works for us.

When your circumstances drive you to do what you don't want to do, that's when you feel the pressure of increasingly tight judgypants.

I hated working after DD1 was born (12 years ago this week)! Became a self-employed locum so that I could be a mainly SAHM. BUT when DD1 was 18mths or so I was getting fed up of being a SAHM and my world being dominated by nappies, feeding, potty training etc

You have to find (cliche alert)a work/life balance and what that is is different for everyone. I've changed direction and now work in education so can have the school holidays off. DD2 is nearly 5mths and I'm itching to go back, just one morning a week for a year, but that's the right sanity balance for me.

This is how I saw it...

Being at home with one summer born baby and good maternity pay was great fun. However, got rather boring!

One three year old and one baby is just rather hardwork...again work could be preferable.

Having an older child at school and just a single child at home...fun again - could imagine being at home.

As they get older - not sure!

I work part time (as does dh) but sometimes work gets stressful. Then I long for the 'carefree' life of a SAHM. However, when work is interesting I'm glad I work. It's all swings and roundabouts really.

I, BTW, have DD1 (22 months) and now work 3dpw while DD is in nursery. I am expecting DC2 in March, my DM was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and the same week I accepted a promotion.

I'm knackered, stressed, and never sure that I'm doing the right thing but I'm am sure that I'd feel just the same if I was a SAHM or worked FT and had a maid :-o

msbossy - we do that and it works very, very well. All money, including CB/CTC, goes into one account. ALL household expenses are paid from that account. We each get an equal amount of "pocket money" paid monthly into our own accounts for personal expenses. If either of us pays cash for something for the dc's or the house, it's claimed back from the joint account.

I would love to work P/T but I can't get a job.

I do voluntary work currently but have little in the way of formal education after A levels and last 'worked' in 2003. Since then I've done some childminding but nothing formal or office based.

I have applied for many, many jobs. Mainly I don't even get a reply but sometimes I get a 'no, thanks'. Once I was offered an interview, but on the dates I'd said I couldn't make

I love being a SAHM but would be glad of the extra financial help being in work would bring.

Though if I got a job I'd lose out on my voluntary work which would make me

I definitely didn't make the decision in the 'babyhaze'. It was something I always wanted to do. However, a year down the line,I bit disappointed that I'm not such a 'successful' stay at home mum as I was when I was working. I think that's it for many people actually. You get a lot of reinforcement/ praise and a sense of productivity from work, which just doesn't exist when you are at home with kids.

I would say you have the best of both worlds.

I had to learn that even if I am not the best Mum in the world, my kids love the fact they have me all the time. And I am learning to enjoy them more and appreciate the small things. It's also really forced me to get my self esteem from within - and not from the success I enjoyed at work. Yay, personal growth !

It was absolutely the right decision for me and my family.
Enjoy my time with DTs so very much, love every day!
Have had near 20 years of jet-setting, 5 star life and was getting bored with it to be honest.
There's only so much rat race one can take regardless how well paid or glamorous the said race is.
No regrets. Zilch.

I have worked part time since before having kids and intend to stay part time. 3 days a week is plenty. Once the kids are through university my husband will cut down to part time if he can.
I think for many couples 2 part time workers can work better than 1 full time and 1 not working.
That does depend on you both having skills that can command a reasonable hourly rate though and a profession with flexibility.

poshpaws

Why a 'what if'"

Because I find it really hard to believe that anyone's life is 'perfect', that you enjoy everything you do or don't do, and that when things are shit or you are aware of the practical compromises in the decisions made, you don't wish 'I wish I wasn't having to do this/not having to do this'. This doesn't mean regretting the decision overall, wishing you'd made a different one, just acknowledging that the decision has its drawbacks. But maybe your life is just perfect!

Above all, I find it hard to believe any woman making this decision doesn't regret fairly profoundly that it is seen as her decision (with all the shit that then gets thrown). Are you really not bothered that your DH isn't sitting at a computer typing about how glad he is that you and he had the resources to allow him to choose to be a parent in full-time employment, rather than you typing about how the pair of you allowed you to make the choice?

Am I right in saying that it is a fairly small percentage of women who are absolutely happy with their choice or situation? Even at that they may be happy for the moment but full of regrets a few years down the line.
Most would like a better balance - as in highly paid and personally rewarding p/t work that fits in with school term/holidays.

That is as rare as hens teeth so I think its just a case of trying to find happiness and contentment in the situation you are in rather than beating yourself up day in day out.

Think is such a personal decision and a difficult choice, if you have the luxury of choice.

I took full year maternity with both of mine and went back pt - 2 days a week initially then upped it to 3 after a year. Feel lucky I was able to get part time as, for me, it feels right. Im a bit more financially independent and able to spend 4 days a week with my children. I enjoy my job, time with colleagues and professional development.

Dont regret going back to work so far. Ask me again in 10 years time.

Whitehorn

Or, accepting that the choices you made were right for you, and using the unhappiness and discontent to try and change the fact you had to make them?

I think most people make a choice that feels right "at the time".

For me, in the last 7 years it has meant a mix of all; SAHM, working full and part time.

I would say that for me, they all felt like the right choice at the time but still a compromise.

With SAHM I was compromising on my career; with part-time compromising on both career and children; with full time working compromising mainly on my sanity (!) but also on the time for the children.

I think choices for many many families are also often dictated by finances.

For us for example, giving up on my career means/has meant renouncing to half our family income; not an easy choice. For friends and family where one partner's income is half or in some cases a quarter of the household income, then it's a slightly easier choice to make perhaps.

This may not be the right time but if anyone can still ask for one (e.g. if public sector) I would recommend considering a 'career break'. I had 3 years at home and by the end of that time (dd1 4.6, dd2 2.6, ds1 1) I was delighted to go back. The cons of being home were evident (I'm not a gifted sahm) and though I would have stayed off longer had I been able to, I didn't want to lose my very flexible, interesting albeit often stressful job entirely.

I was incredibly lucky to get the break and an iron clad job to go back to (well, unless we all get made redundant, always a possibility ...) but all I did was ask. It's a hard one for HR to refuse I think ... and now employers may be happy to get you off payroll for a year or three ...

Also, if you don't go back, you don't have to repay anything, so it's good if you're not entirely sure whether to give up your career or not. It gives you a long time to decide.

love being there for my children, would have been devastated to put them in a nursery as babies (had to put daughter in nursery as a toddler after breaking my leg - rough on both of us) BUT hate being financially dependent on husband and mad as hell that will lose child benefit (husband just over threshold tax rate); making me more of a non-person. Think society totally discounts value of childcare whether by mothers or paid carers - feel we live in child hating society.

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but there is a great book that tackles the issue of the poverty and economic dependency that women experience from having chosen to prioritise care for their family in the short-term over their own long-term financial interests. It's by Leslie Bennetts and is called TheFeminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?'.

Her main point is not to attack SAHMs but she just points out that mothers working is not prioritised as an issue for the woman's long-term financial future and the financial security of her children but almost always on what is best for baby in the short-term. In her words 'a man is not a financial plan'. Sure, it's great to be at home when a baby is at its most demanding and it's a wrench to be away from her/him but what about further down the line? What happens to the happy 28-year old SAHM when she is a 48-year old divorcee or widow or even just unemployed mother of adult/teenage children? The requirements of children are mainly a short-term issue, yet women suffer long-term poverty as a result. No-one in society focuses on this - only on what suits men or what suits the immediate needs of children.

Children are vulnerable so of course it feels wrong to seem to prioritise your own financial future over them but what Bennetts points out is that this is effectively emotional blackmail by society of women/mothers and also a financially secure, fulfilled mother helps her children as much as she helps herself.

i have three kids, and have always battled with maintaining the balance between work and home. I've worked part time, though that has pretty much always meant cramming a full time job into part time hours.
I think there are only two real factors - one is economic, most women work because they have to, and that includes people who are risk averse and want to ensure their family is financially secure e.g. so that if one person loses their job there is still an income; the other is that you can't be in two places at one time.
The main thing is to try your hardest to achieve something which you are happy with (even if it's not absolutely perfect) as otherwise the kids pick up on the stress; and that you provide good wrap round care and attention for your kids. I know tons of very well adjusted children who have had childcare of one kind or another, the key being that they still get what they need from their parents.

I'm only three years down the line as a SAHM, but I think with hindsight I'd have pushed for a jobshare and worked two days a week and found a childminder for DS.

That's not to say that I'm unhappy with my life, but I think it might have been a little more fulfilling (although also more stressful).

I'm well aware though that if I had done that, then I'd probably be saying that I wish I'd given up work to be a full time SAHM.

InMyPrime
Leslie Bennett made a really great point. I found it quite persuasive, however its written in a US context where it really us a case of come back to work 6 weeks post birth or you are gone. At least here we have a bit more balance. I think its really perilous to stake your future on any man, no matter how good the relationship. He may not cheat/leave but he could die!

I loved my job as a PA but was made redundant when I was 7 months pregnant with twins. Shock, horror I thought but I was actually pleased the decision was taken from me to stay at home. I am so glad to have stayed at home too, although of course it's not all roses. At times I have felt quite isolated and lonely and just stressed with having twins! I am in a fortunate position where it is not essential to our household income that I work, but I do work from home managing holiday cottages, but it is mainly weekend work during the summer months. I am thinking of retraining in something, but heavens knows what. At 42 I'm starting to feel a little panicky about what I can do though. I think my brain has been a bit mushed being at home but I still wouldn't have missed it for the world though.

Exactly, Whitehorn. Or less dramatically, he could lose his job.

I would advise my own ds against giving up paid work entirely for years on end. And would do the same if I had a dd.

I think it is a little more complicated than hindsight alone, circumstance plays a role too

I have been SAHM for 5yrs except for a brief period when I worked full time, long hrs
Ideally I would have wanted some sort of flexi work part time work but it did not really work out
hopefully I will go back to some sort of work soon but am not sure I really want proper full time and certainly not the hrs I used to do before, I would never see dd
but I think it is important that dd sees me in employment, my mother was self employed

but even if I am not a natural at the baby/home thing I liked having had the opportunity to change a few things about me whihc the change in role allowed me to do
but it is intensely personal

no such thing as a career now but the experience remains
but then again I expect that being over 40 now will be against me when looking for work

InMyPrime
"48-year old divorcee or widow or even just unemployed mother of adult/teenage children? The requirements of children are mainly a short-term issue"

I am 48, fotunately neither widowed or divorced, DS age 14 DD age 11 (both at secondary school). Last worked full time before DS was born and have since dipped in and out of job market, as well as volunteering.

Agree that we compromise ourselves by the choices we make, but cannot agree that the requirements of children are a short term issue - those older kids need parenting too, maybe not so full on as when they are younger but they are still time consuming!

IMO both partners working part time would be ideal - but can anyone live on that?? And where are those fulfilling flexible part time jobs for women? Not around here!

The benefit of hindsight is wonderful and I probably would have waited an extra two years to have a baby had I been able to see into the future.

I went back to work 3 days per week when DD1 was 5.5 months old (at the time only 6 months maternity leave was given) I gave up work before I was pregnant with DD2, following a second miscarriage. I was probably depressed at the time and obssessed with babies but I was also stressed out by work and trying to study for a post grad qualification. It all made perfect sense at the time.

I never really fully enjoyed being a SAHM. I wasn't very good at making good friends with other mothers and so found it isolating. I did, however, enjoy being available to my pre-school children, if that makes sense, and saw my role as their teacher. And when the weather was good and the children reached a talkative age, we had some great days. But now, having struggled to find a job in the past two years, I bemoan having stepped out of the workforce. (Though fingers crossed, if my references come back okay, I have secured a new, good job)