To wonder why anyone with school-aged children would want to be a SAHM?

[Badtasteflump]

And what they do all day?

I have my flame-proof hard-hat ready

In the spirit of the general shit-stirring on here today I though I would ask this - as I do really wonder. Fair enough when you have pre-school aged children, I can understand wanting to be a SAHM. But once your children are at school full-time, what is there to do all day?

I work PT (school hours, basically). I manage (jointly with DH) to get all the housework, cooking, diy, etc) done in the evenings & weekends, no problem. If I were at home all day I really think I would go a bit mad - either that or I fear I would gradually become relegated to the role of house-slave, doing all the housework and childcare myself because I wouldn't have the excuse of a 'proper' job. . .

Quite agree with Wideawake and Celia - this really is a pointless and futile discussion. Everyone's lives are different, everyone has reasons for making their different choices. No one on here has the right to judge others for choices they don't fully understand. Why do women feel the need to do this? It's sad and weird.

I don't work because I don't have to. I am not prepared to take a job that someone else may need more than me just to please some people.
Oh, and it's not my husbands money I'm living off. I have my own that I earned previously and now I can comfortably live off the proceeds for as long as I need.

gay40 YOUR pastimes are very odd, you spend it doing "car insurance", how many cars have you got ? "gift buying", are these for yourself all year round ? and last but not the least researching the history of spiders!

The mind boggles... you are clearly not being very stimulated in your job whatever it is.

I don't live off anyone else either Barmy. I receive the absolute bare minimum maintenance for the DDs, don't get anything for myself from XH (wouldn't expect it), so as far as I'm concerned I'll do as I please.

Which is mostly pissfarting about.

badtasteflump do you get bored at weekends, wishing you were at work??

I'm not a SAHM at the mo, but would like to be. I guess it depends whether you enjoyed your work prior to having kids. I didn't.

The History of Spiders would be an excellent course to do, I will submit my biog to the tutor & you may all pissfart about studying how I have pissfarted about for the last few years.

We may even touch upon my previous incarnation before I started pissfarting about, the one before I met DH & had my own house, paid for with my own money.

Anyway, I'm off to shag the gardener & eat some pissfarting jaffacakes.

Mon am- run with friends Mon pm - help in DS classroom
Tues am - coffee with friends Tues pm - bike ride with friends (training)
Wed am - 3 hours paid work at nursery Wed pm - lunch with friends
Thurs am - town food shopping Thurs pm free
Fri am - free Fri pm lunch with friends and 2.40 Celebration assembly

All either free or low cost, we have coffee's at each others houses and take it in turns to do lunch. If you have mates around, it's a dream life. If I didn't see friends I can imagine that I would HATE being a SAHM.

Essentially though, if your kids are at school, you are pissfarting about from 9-3, filling up the day with car insurance, gift buying and "The History of Spiders" on the OU

Blimey. I didn't realise that being a magistrate and doing a law degree was 'pissfarting about'.

'Are there any SAHDs of school age children, out of curiosity?
'

DH might be in a year ot so, but it's the carer thing again. probably sahred though: we will both start hammering at jobs / self employment after Christmas then whoever gets The One first the other does kids.

I am btter qualified, but my field is taking bigger cuts so it could go either way tbh.

Mind he would lvoe it- today is his day off, he is building the carnival float: it leaves site at 4pm tomorrow and his side (electronics) has to be complete and safe- he'll work through until 5am, come home, sleep 3 hours then hand the thing voer to me as I eprform on it.

Doing carnival is pretty much our retirement plan as well.

It's one of those hobbies that whatever else happens you will always have plenty to fill your time with, whhetehr like him wiring light shows or me teaching the Charleston to the boys and myself.

As long as that continues we will never have an empty life. Which in this world with illnes and redundacy and all that cock is pretty damned great.

Oh I remember your lovely carnival activities!

Because people are different OP and they want different things. While some might be driven by wanting to get out the home and work either by a desire for certain achievements or financial reality there are others who get their enjoyment for caring for their family.

If everyone just accepts that then there wouldn't be this bitching and back-stabbing over WOHM and SAHM.

On behalf of the SAHM which I wish I still was and as I work only part-time kind of still am, there are many volunteering opportunities that would go wanting without the house mummy and daddy army! I spend Thursday afternoons helping out at my sons' school and it gives me more food for the soul and makes me so much more happy than work does! (And if it became a paid job I'd be skip happy beyond!)

Oh, and it's not my husbands money I'm living off. I have my own that I earned previously and now I can comfortably live off the proceeds for as long as I need. Exactly BarmyBiscuit - annoys the fuck out of me when people think I 'married well'. I didn't! I worked very very hard pre-children and saved very hard too. I have heard recently that one mother who was at my DC's school is jealous of my not working and yet the irony is that we both worked in London at the same time. She earnt a fortune and spent it all, I saved my income when I could.

"Yet none of them seem to have considered that a woman may have the wherewithal to support herself."

Pagwatch - I did point out upthread that I am a happily single SAHM at the moment unsupported by either the taxpayer or a significant other. And have been for 18 months.

But nobody wants to hear that.

I haven't ever taken one penny from a man (or woman). I chose to be at home when DS started school because in my opinion he has needed me around more in the past year than he has at any other time.

Those to you who are unable to take time off from work because you don't want to be dependent on your partners obviously haven't work hard enough or been sensible enough to manage things better financially. Or that could be my position if I wanted to be as rude as some have been...

If Dh passed away I would probably be mreo secure as I have spent a lot of time and money making sure the insurance would cover a move back home and the purchse of at least a large stake in a shdared ownership home, which is more secure than my current rented. I met Dh at work which rather shows I can work- who after all would fall in love with the office joke? And with Mum on side I could agina, just she's too far away ATM and Dh's work is based here.

I'm not one, nor think I'll ever be in a position to be one, but being a SAHM with school-aged children is still a job, isn't it? It's not like you're a student lying in every morning, watching inane TV all day and then sloping off to the pub for the rest of the day, is it?

If I ever had the option to be one when my kids are at school, I think it would only make my family happier. Everything I currently try to squeeze in around work, I would do so much better - I quite like cooking, but would love to have the time to experiment, rather than rush off the same old dinners, I would be able to go to the gym more and be healthier - I don't have time at the moment, unless I get up at 5.30am, my house would be more organised and the garden wouldn't look like a run-down play ground. And for the record, it's not a gender thing, my dh would do exactly the same.

I would also see my kids more - I could pick them up from school, be there to take them to after school activities etc, instead of racing back from work to take over from the childminder to snatch an hour with them before bed.

I've always been a driven person - whether it be in my career or other aspects of my life. If I were able to be a SAHM, I wouldn't see it as a compromise or a doss - I'd take pride in it, like I do in my job.

Hully will be stalking you with pics Sunday LMAO- I designed most of this year's (think Art Deco / Clarice Cliff / Anything Goes) along with DH and should it work I will be claiming massive bragging rights!

if it doesn;t of course, we ll they voted for it, not my fault

And now to fulfil a few SAHM stereotypes with a haircut (Louise Brooks stylee) and fake tan. Once a year job but heck perfect timing for this thread

(hyper? moi? never!)

I'd love to see them. I think what you do is fab.

I would LOVE to be a SAHM. DS is 8.

I could tidy the house without interruption, and have time to apreciate it's tidiness before someone comes along to destroy it.

I could watch Jeremy Kyle EVERY day.

I could study without hassle, interruption or haste.

I could do a leisurely shop without someone asking for this that and the other.

I could cook healthy, cheap meals without exhaustion setting in.

I could do some gardening, currently my garden is a wasteland.

I am sure there is more.

Unfortunately, good, hardworking, solvent males are very thin on the ground. So that will never happen. Oh, well, nevermind. I can dream.

Oh, yes! I could have a dog. We'd love to have a dog, but it wouldn't be fair as I'm at work all day.

I'm not strictly a SAHM of a school-age child yet but will be soon and when I do I will spend most of the school hours trying to finish off writing my novel. Then I will start a new one. And so it will continue. I will also run more, cook more. I've spent a long long time climbing the career ladder and reaping the rewards. I'm 40+ now and am looking forward to stepping off the career ladder and focus on long-held dreams. I can afford it so I will.

For me to go back to work, I would need a job that was school hours, term time only and completely flexible in terms of taking time off at short notice. wither that or it would have to pay staggeringly well to cover childcare for three children. As soon-to-be XH works unpredictably long hours and is paid a ridiculously large salary for doing so, he is less use than a chocolate teapot wrt child care. My job is to look after the family and the house and that is what I am paid to do.

It is far more fulfilling and worthwhile than my previous job managing a team in an insurance company's finance department.

The woman up the road pulled the "brain atrophy" one when I said I was a SAHM. In the same breath she mentioned that her mother comes to her house to look after her dcs every day from 8 till 6.

In view of the fact that the law and a dodgy shoulder would have prevented me from pushing her teeth down her oesophagus, I stood mute.

I wholeheartedly agree that what are some working people doing that is so stimulating? I listen to Radio 4, read the papers - could probably discuss any news story you care to mention - so why am I apparently brain dead whilst someone else who happens to sit in an office is so much more mentally agile?

I was walking back from the school this morning behind two mums who were obviously SAHMs.

I know that was on the very first page but I have only started reading the thread and I had to say something about that.

How do you recognise a SAHM just from walking behind her?

I have 4 Dcs and have been a SAHM ever since my first one was born. I have loved every minute of it when my last DD started school a couple of weeks ago, I started working 4 days a week but I still am able to drop the Dcs in school. I have people asking me every morning on my way to school "aren't you getting bored now the Dcs are all in school?" My answer to them is "No I do enjoy a life of leisure" I have no intention of telling anyone I have started working because it is no one's buisness except from mine and my family whether I indeed do work or not.

I still look like a SAHM, probably because I started work but did not yet decide on a personality transplant so am still dressing in the very same way I always did, confy and casual.

People might look like houswives/SAHM but not be houswives or SAHM. Also, I would not have thought that working somehow means you cannot complain about things like household chores as IME most working women do not have self cleaning houses

Appearences can lead you to the wrong conclusions, do not relie on a first impression to make a judgement as it is likely you will get it wrong.

Now on a more general note, I long for a world where women will be able to chose exactly the career they want (that include being a SAHM) without being judged by the ones who have chosen a different path in life. Does the fact that some women choose to be SAHM/work full time/part time... have any impact on your own life?

Took me very long to write my poste so just read your post gramercy, I so agree with you regarding stimulation.