to want to be a SAHM because my mother wasn't?

[Animol]

just been reading all the here and there banter about SAHMs and WOHM and missed reading experiences of people's own childhoods.
Try to cut it short: My mother went back to work when I was 10 or 11 and I know I haven't got nearly the same sort of relationship with her as my elder siblings do. During my teenage years she was so caught up in her job and the stress of it that she wasn't really there for me at all. It's made me determined to do it differently for my kids even though I don't find it easy to be a SAHM - I love being a Mum but the housework bit drives me bonkers :)
What did your Mums do? Are you doing the same?

Gaargh I would also be interested to know that!

No YANBU, but then I don't feel I'm BU to be a WOHM mother, and my mum WOHM also. It worked for her, and me, which is good really as I don't have much choice, if I want to pay the bills!

What annoys me is the whole concept of SAHM and WOHM as if there are only 2 states and not a massive range of options in between.

I had a great Mum who was largely a SAHM and worked a few shifts at a cafe.
However, she waited hand and foot on me and my Dad. Did everything for us. My Dad worked bloody hard but I didn't see him during the week really.

My mum was great but I think I would had found life easier if I had been made to do more and not have the expectation that I should take care of everyone.

So now, I left my really good job in London as it wasn't the life I wanted for my children.

I am freelance so, although warming a lot less, I take DS to school and pick him up 3 days and at 5 on the other 2. I have Fridays at home with DS2.

DH has a decent job but not a high flyer. HOWEVER, he is there for breakfast every morning and bath/storytime most nights. This is important to all of us.

I want my sons to see that it's not just women who look after while men work.

So I feel we have reached a compromise which works for us, as I'm sure everybody does.

My mum was a SAHM until my youngest sister was 5 (I was 9) then she went on to have a very full time (and fulfilling) career. She was an excellent SAHM and put a lot into it, and I was lucky to have a mother who could be there for school sports days and the like while I was at primary school - but I think my sister feels a bit like she missed out.

I have a toddler ds and am working part time, he's in childcare 16 hours a week. By the time he is at school I will hopefully be working school hours only. I don't have much desire to have a full time career, but can't afford to not work at all, so this is a good compromise for us.

11? Eleven?? You had your mother at home full time for more than 10 years and you think her going back to work at that age affected your relationship? Do you really think seeing your mother from 3-5 every day as a teenager would have altered the course of your relationship? Teens generally don't want to hang out with their parents all day!

YANBU if you genuinely want to stay home, but YABU if you are trying to make some sort of statement with this. Think about what's best for all of you and whether your kids are really going to be benefit from you being there every afternoon.

My mum worked pt in a profession, which meant db and I would let ourselves into the house after school from the age of 8+, being with CMs and gps and often hanging around mum's waiting room during holidays!

But tbh, I didn't think I ever felt that I needed to be with my mum during every hour I wasn't in school. In fact, I probably didn't want to! I can only believe that my experience of not having my mum around me every evening and every holiday was probably quite character building for me. I'm certainly quite happy to spend time in my own company, and rarely feel bored.

One thing I would be sad about now though, had she decided to become a SAHM, would be the knowledge that my mum had given up a fantastic career out of guilt and a quite possibly misplaced sense of her own importance in my life!

THere is a shade of grey here, I think my mum got it pretty spot-on. I respect her massively, and her attitude towards working has given me the conditioning to be a WOHM (pt) too, with ambitions and a strong sense of motivation.

profession - sounds rather dodgy, by that I meant medical profession

if you can afford to be a sahm then fecking good luck to you all. If you live in the real world where your mum works her fecking backside of to bring you up decent human beings then I have more respect for the working mums, wether they are part time , full time or whatever.. I personally am so fecking bored of the "omg if i work little billy will be scarred for life rubbish", in fact "little billy" will grow up a better person. Made a mistake with my first born but second born is a diamond and guess what " both were brought up by childminders"......... get over the every child is scarred by the absent mum shit live in the real world for gods sake

How ignorant sunshinelifeisgood, the op is commenting about how she actually felt. Not what she assumes her kids will feel. TBH though you sound like a miserable cow and your kids were lucky to not have to see you.

I agree BABY.

Some children are better off seeing their mum the most minimum time possible.

My mum always had a choice. She worked for a while then stopped. Most of the time she was home but i wouldn't say she particularly liked it really and i don't think it helped her depression. She had more disposable income than me because dad was in a decent, secure job.

She argued with me on the very first day i went back to work, leaving ds with her, who was 6 months old at the time, because she believed my place was at home and told me so in no uncertain terms. She also added that if my husband was in a better job then i wouldn't have to work. I was upset anyway at having to leave him and she just made me feel shite. I didn't speak to her for three months. It wasn't as if i was going back full time either, i went back jobshare, 2 and a half days a week.

I found working a nice escape, much as i loved my son and then my daughter. At work at the time i had many great fun colleagues and i looked forward to the social aspect too. I had the best of both worlds.

So i'm the opposite to you really.

My mother was a SAHM. She had and has no social skills, no confidence, a warped view of the "real world" and her life revolved more around her children than was healthy. All these things meant we have struggled to have a relationship as adults.

I grew up thinking there was no way I would be a SAHM. It's actually only recently that I've realised I was blaming the SAHM element for all the ills in my/my mother's relationship. It was the relationship that I didn't want to emulate - and whilst being a SAHM was undoubtedly a contributing cause it was not the only one.

To the OP - The issue isn't so much that your mother worked but that you didn't have the relationship/support you wanted as a teenager.

My mum was a SAHM, and I've chosen to work. So I'm doing the opposite to the OP.

There were lots of drawbacks to having a Sahm - money was very tight, we often couldn't afford to do things other children did, but that wasn't my main reason. To enable my mum to work, my dad worked ridiculous hours, even working at the weekends. This we have changed. I work part time, so I do the pick ups (except one day a week) and dh finishes work at 5pm every day.

I would never be a Sahm work if it meant that the father had to work very long hours to bring the money in, as I feel then the dad gets sidelined and his relationship with the children gets sacrificed. I prefer having a fully involved dh who does the homework / bathtimes / tea times etc... Even if that does mean I have to work part time.

Sorry to enable my mum to stay at home, my dad worked very long hours...

My mum was and still is a career-woman and loves her job. We have a very close relationship and I'm very proud or her achievements. I'm planning to be just like she was.

My mum always worked because she had to. My nan - her mum - also worked when her youngest (of 4) went to school, and she certainly didn't have to. I work part time - 30hours - and as I commented the other day, on another thread, whilst being a SAHM is I'm sure very busy and fulfilling - I don't mean that in a patronising way, no matter how it sounds! - it isn't something you can do for the rest of your life. And there is a lot of life left once your children are adults. I agree with the poster who said that they wouldn't want to be SAHM at the expense of their DH's relationship with the DC's - a lot of people I know who are SAHM can afford to be because their partners work crazy hours. THey earn a lot but they are never there. Also, I wouldn't want not to earn my own money, even though DH and I share all our money anyway.

?sorry for my children?. Interesting. thanks for posting. Lets discuss as it as topic worth exploring.
Sorry for my children- presume you mean an emotional response to some alleged or perceived failing they have to endure eg Nursery Mon-Frid 8-6?Feeling sorry always has a pejorative flavour to it.so my turn to ask a few questions
? What is it makes you feel sorry for them?
? Do you feel my dc receive a dysfunctional or inadequate arrangement?
? is it global use of nursery eg you?d not agree with nursery use regardless of hours? Or is there a permissible number of nursery hours you?d regard as acceptable
? is it that you think a woman should watch kids and not be at work elsewhere? Would you regard a woman should be at home ft? what about PT work and what about when kids are absent at school 9-3- where should mum be then?
? okay so if you feel sorry for kids whose mum works ft on basis mum is absent Mon-Frid 8-6?do you extend this to dad?s.do you feel sorry for them? Are they inadequate and absent too? Is it a female thing or do you regard all absence equally?

Sahm is a post war affectation. point is sahm is not historically what most women and children have done,work for centuries has been women and children activity.legislation such as various factory and education acts decreased children in workplace.
this notion of sahm as norm is a misnomer. it is a post war phenomenon
so this allusion to mum and kids at home as norm is a social construct historically women hacve always worked
I reserve my sorrow for kids who are emotionally and physically neglected. kids who receive no affirmation, lack or regard, and physical neglect/abuse. Unfortunately there are too many kids in this category
Don?t feel sorry for my loved, regarded ,happy dc . its misplaced and dripping sentimentality
I can honestly say I have never had any qualms about ft work and nursery use.no guilt. nada. none. and yes its as statement of fact my kids at nursery ft. and we are happy they are happy.win-win

apologies.wrong thread.to quick to post

My mum was a SAHM till I was 10.

Because of this we were quite poor: never bought anything new (always second hand), went on holiday to Wales in a tent every summer, our house was scruffy and cold becuase they could afford to redecorate or funish it nicely and we never had the heating on, our meals were quite dull and repetitive, and we hardly ever had any treats.

I was bullied at primary school for my old fashioned scruffy hand me down clothes (before the days of uniform) and for not having the latest fad (only something like a bouncy ball or marbles, this was the early 80s).

I didn't really mind that much as I didn't know any different.

But then my mum went back to work and it was GREAT.

We went on holiday to France (still in a tent!), we got a dishwasher (that was brilliant as it was the kids job to do the washing up and we always moaned), we got a freezer! and nice food to go in it like fish fingers and ice cream, we got things like yogurts (woohoo) and nutella. And new clothes from actual shops. And the house was done up with double glazing and EVERYTHING.

It was seriously BRILLIANT (I was a teenager and very shallow).

People on threads like these always talk about the parent who WOHM "enabling" the other parent to SAH.

They never talk about the fact that the SAHP enables the WOHP to progress in their career, work long hours so that they can be considered reliable, etc. Having a SAH partner is incredibly beneficial to the parent who WOH, but people rarely notice that. I always feel it's worth pointing it out.

smacks of martyrdom give up own career to facilitate and enable someone else progression - and then how does the unwaged ever get self back on track.or they accept a protracted period of not working and dependence upon someone else

I'm also a little sceptical of this idea that someone can only progress in' their career if they have a partner at home. It seems outdated tbh- a kind of old fashioned excuse for expecting the partner to take responsibility for everything on the domestic front. Obviously if one partner is jetting off around the world, or working 15 hour days in the cut and thrust of the city then they aren't going to be around to do nursery drop offs. But it doesn't actually mean the other partner can't work. And tbh in this day and age I think that model of having the wife at home to keep the domestic show on the road thus allowing the husband to work is just not that common. Dh and me have both progressed in our careers without feeling the other one needed to not work to enable this

FWIW, I am the main breadwinner in my family. Senior role, good salary. My DH did spend a short period as a SAHD but tbh, it makes no difference to my career if he is at home or not. Sure, I did less housework when he was at home all the time, but that made no difference to my paid job.

if the career is so high flying and well paid the earner can hire staff for all manner stuff. doesn't need a housewife sat at home enabling by not working.how is someone else not working contributory and beneficial?

There's always the part time working option, so have a little of doing it both ways? I work 3 days per week, which for us is a good balance. I'm v. lucky to have understanding employers, my boss is also a part time working mum. I still get 4 days per week of DC. I'm certainly happier to be around them now, than when DD was born I took a 2yr career break and did the SAHM thing, it didn't suit me.

My mother was a WAHM and she hated it. We were looked after by family but my mothers attitude was so negative that it really informed our attitude towards the situation. I think your parents attitude has a real bearing on your perception