To think that many sahms don't consider the long-term implications when deciding to give up work? ***this is not a sahm vs wohm debate***

[wannaBe]

This is not a thread criticizing anyone or their decisions...

When I decided to give up work to bring up DS, I did so in the knowledge that for me, staying at home with my dc was the best thing. We were fortunate as well in that financially we could afford for me to stay at home.

Back then, I had in mind that we would have two children, so realistically would have at least eight years at home until the youngest started school, and even then, going back to work wouldn't necessarily be something I would consider as would want to be there for after school/holidays etc, and finding a job that fits in with the above is almost impossible.

So, fast forward nine years and the two children we'd planned to have turned out to only be one, and I've been a sahm for that long, although I have done volunteering in that time (reading/helping in school/chair of governors/PTA etc...) so haven't been sat on my arse as such (although the amount of time I've spent on mn does contradict that statement somewhat, )

Now I'm in a position where I want to go back to work. Actually, I've been in that position for about the past 1.5/2 years but due to circumstances such as moving areas etc have only just been able to start exploring the possibility seriously.

And I've come to a realization which, although I guess I knew deep down, I never contemplated until now. Even if you take the fact that there are very few jobs for far too many applicants in the current climate, the one thing that employers seem to want above anything else is experience, and current experience at that.

And if you haven't worked for a number of years then the reality is that they will take the person who has worked more recently, every time. And as employers currently have the pick of applicants (regardless of who you are) the chances of getting a job in the current climate if you've been bringing up your children for the past however many years is minimal.

So what I've basically realized is that being a sahm has made me unemployable.

I don't regret my decision for a second. You can't ever get that time with your children again and I'm glad that I had that opportunity and took it.

But in retrospect I do wonder whether I should have sought even a part time work opportunity sooner - even if it was something minimal.

And equally I realize that you can't tell someone who is just choosing to give up work to be with their children that they may find that they're unemployable ten years down the line when the kids are at school and they want to go back to work again without seeming like you're criticizing their decision/lifestyle.

When we make decisions we often do so in the here and now, not necessarily with the future in mind - not for ourselves anyway.

I think employmentwise anyone who is currently out of work for any reason has it extremely hard anyway.

The thought of never working again for the next 30 years is frankly rather depressing...

Not read all the posts but will try to work my way through them. Am an interested observer and v interested in what op had to say as I'm on maty leave again, taking a year with dd2 and was only back for 4 months after dd1 (they are 20mo and 6 mo)

Work in NHS and it will probably be impossible for me to return to work in my area (which I do enjoy) if I didn't return from maty leave and became SAHM. I've privately been having this debate in my head recently about whether I should go back or not. OP from what I can read YANBU and I think I'll be going back to work..you've helped me think about the future and not just now, which is good!

Sorry crossed posts with you.

Yes, I accept that it is hard to relax standards, but relaxing them even a teeny bit does free up so much time and head space.
Otherwise, like my friend, one is in an endless loop of doing the same things to the highest possible level. Which apart from eanyhting else is time consuming and boring.

Sometimes I think it is worth giving ourselves permission to take things down a notch so we can do more. For example with my writing, my publishers like a book a year. I would lik to do a book every two years truth be told. But do I want to be very successful and have a huge readership? Or do I want to be one of those millions who have a perfect yet unpublished book?

You are confusing (purposefully?) my robust defence of prioritising family and home (not devotion - I am certainly no example of someone who puts 100% of her energies into her domestic life) as a valid life choice for highly educated women with a position à la Xenia of there being a single valid life choice of prioritising FT work.

I have mother friends who do everything from a lot more domesticity than me to those who work 50% of their time overseas. Most of them have deep-seated reasons for their choices. I sometimes think that a bit of psychotherapy would help some of them to relax a bit about putting quite so many eggs in a single basket, but I can understand where most of them are coming from. That doesn't mean that they all have happy families, however.

wordfactory - you see, this is where I disagree. It was much more time-consuming for me to "relax" my standards of English than to maintain my own default high standards. Lowering your standards only gives you more headspace if your own high standards were actually using headspace/energy to begin with.

To go back to the OP, I think the current recession has made this a more severe problem, although there is no doubt that women's careers have always taken a hit if they choose a lengthy break for domestic reasons, it is only recently that it is so hard to get back to the workplace altogether.

We can only make choices based on the information we have at the time on what we feel will be best for our families. No one knows what the future will hold. For me, I knew my lovely husband would never have the earning potential to give me what I wanted (horses!) so I have always had to earn myself.

I suits me that my husband isn't Mr Ambitious as we all benefit from family time, it is sad when dad can't be around so much and mum has to do it all. However, needs must and if a parent is going to stay at home I guess the other one will need to put the hours in.

For me, personally, I think it can be misguided to take a big chunk of time out when they are babies, then go back full time. I actually think older chilren need their parents attention more than the teenies, whose needs are fairly basic. I realise not everyone shares this view, but for me it made sense to keep working part time, freelance and flexibly long term. Although my girls are at school (one at high shool) I still have one at home sick and am having to work from home til my husband gets home to take over and I will then go to work. That is family life.

Not purposely at all Bonsoir.
TBH I don't get defensive in these debates for myself because I've done it all WOH, WIH, SAH and my current situation impacts very little on my family (which I know is absurdly fortunate and I am daily grateful). I can understand why women find it hard to continue with their old careers (been there and tried that) but I can also understand why many women don't feel SAH is for them (been there and treid that).

I had always taken from your posts that you thought being a SAHM was the absolute gold standard for women. I don't think I've ever heard you say anything that was less than critical of women you know that work.
So it always struck me that you considered it somehow wrong.

wordfactory - be careful to read my posts as opposed to the posts of others that "interpret" them.

IMVHO, SAHMs are much more sanguine about their choices than WOHMs, for understandable reasons.

lljkk: "Are we all so full of sour grapes only because jobs are so hard to get right now? I was fairly confident 4-5 years ago that I could easily enough get something (when I was ready), because the economy was booming then."
Agreed. I can't even get a part time accounts job at the moment. Neither can 2 of my friends and we are all part qualified. I currently have a job and have worked part time for the last 8 years. But only able to find 1 job, newspaper advertised, in the last 4 months to apply for. And I didn't even get an interview. was told he had 80 applicants.
Its just that the market is so bad, that is making us question ourselves so harshly.

I was a SAHM for 13 years and found it hard to get back to work too. There are courses, usually funded by the government, which are aimed specifically at women returning to work covering technology, cvs, interviews etc. They are free (I live in Scotland but I'm sure this applies to England too) and I found my course invaluable. It took a wee while but eventually I've got a job 4 mornings a week. It's not great pay but but is a stepping stone to other things when kids get a bit older and I maybe don't have to work around school hours. Don't give up, there is a way back to work!

In that case Bonsoir I shall very much look forward to your many posts in the future that don't critisise working women.

I now I must go and walk my silly puppy.

"It's just that the market is so bad, that is making us question ourselves so harshly."

I think those are very wise words. FWIW I know plenty of people with 20+ years of career behind them and no breaks who are struggling big time to get jobs right now.

wordfactory - you will find plenty on MN if you look around - in particular on boards about organising childcare

callmemrs "It's interesting because I have never met a mother who doesn't want her daughter to aspire to good qualifications and a successful work life. If we are raising our daughters to aspire to that, then its important to not blur that message with the suggestion that they motherhood is all about guilt and compromise and having to give things up"

In my case I had a successful career for 9 years before leaving the workplace. For me personally I think that has been a factor in feeling fulfilled as a SAHM (in a "been there, done that, now trying something else" way), but I do worry that if I never return to work my children won't even realise I was once a fairly high flier. It's funny how your self-worth is a complex mixture of what you think of yourself and what others think of you. Loving your inner contentment jasminerice - good for you!

Chandon "It does make me sad that so many women believe that looking after children, home, family in general, is considered somehow inferior to working outside the home"

To me, raising my children is not inferior in any way to a paid job, but looking after my home is (sorry if that offends anyone). And as your children start to move away from you, isn't that the main thing you are left with? When I was at university / working I phoned home maybe once a week! (Now I have small children my parents are once again very active and welcome in my life!)

"And as your children start to move away from you, isn't that the main thing you are left with?"

That's only true if you were living some sort of child-home duality for a number of years. It is good (vital) IMO to have interests outside the sphere of child and home that give you another network you can tap into both when your children are small (for some distraction/relief) and when they get older and need you less, or less regularly.

However, I do find domestic life pretty relaxing - I like it's low-key creative side. Not that I'd want to do that all day every day, but I would be entirely miserable if I never cooked/decorated/entertained etc.

I think that the choice about work should come long before you think about children, I think you have to choose the right career in the first place that affords the choice of part time, good status, etc. I wish I'd known before I left school and chose Uni courses that only a professional, in some professions, would be able to choose a more flexible life.

Anyone who feels that women should still work to give further opportunity later in life should be campaigning for better work flexibility.,

Yes, I would also echo that it's not a great time to be working out of the home at the moment either. In my field, everyone is frightened of redundancy, promotions are not happening, there's lots of short-term insecure work around and there's little movement in the job market as a whole.

Having said that, I do believe there to be structural reasons why in the UK women and men find it difficult to work around family life in all its forms (having children, elderly relatives). One really simple one is that children are required to be taken to the school gate or classroom door by the parent (or childcarer) til they are about 8/9 or even all the way til secondary. It is not the same in other European countries, most attend a very local school and walk by themselves from an early age. Or they have school buses which pick them up at 8 and drop them back at 4. The individual requirement of parents to be at a school often a long way away from their place of work (in my case) means that effectively one parent is trapped by the need to be somewhere at 9.30 and 2.30pm. Wraparound care is expensive and isn't necessary if the school bus picked everyone up at 8, recognising that the working day usually starts by 9. In our current British system, it makes sense for economic and other reasons for one parent to work part-time, the only work available doesn't demand qualifications or professional knowledge, and this parent is pretty much always the woman whose career is already devalued by taking a few years out to care for her children as babies/toddlers.

Now, no doubt I will be deluged by people who say they love the walk to school, and think of it as an excellent way to bond with their children. Personally, that's not what I see when I drive to school (five mornings a week), I see lots of harassed stressed parents trying to get their children in on time, shouting a lot. After school I see lots of quite tired children who go home and watch telly, not do educational activities. I do not think the quality of family life would be vastly diminished by putting the children on a school bus at 8am and picking them up from the stop at 4pm (allowing 8 working hours, not 4).

This is just an example how the structures of our society, in very subtle ways, scupper women's opportunities to work (note: if you don't want to work, it's a whole different ball-game). Even if you wanted to work part-time, it may be much more effective to work from 8.30-1 than try and fit around school hours which are highly inconvenient, quite frankly, for most jobs.

Hardgoing - I think you are overstating the situation regarding school. School hours are much more difficult for parents here in France than in England! Three hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, canteens are far from universal - that makes four school runs a day, and then children don't go to school on Wednesday and need to be ferried left right and centre to extra-curricular activities. It is totally unforgiving!

Yes, I agree Bonsoir, some countries are worse than the UK. I was thinking more of my husband's country (don't want to out myself) and the US. But many French women do work- what do they do?

A lot of French people have slaves nounous in my neck of the woods. There are also after school clubs in some schools and canteens, but there are an awful lot of complaints about the non-universality of wraparound care. Morning drop off is very much the preserve of parents on their way to work.

What my friends from Nordic countries and also some Mediterranean countries say is that childcare is much cheaper as a proportion of income. Therefore haivng a childminder take three children to school, or running a school bus instead of invididuals driving in cars, offers an economy of scale, if you like. Unless, like I say, you have so many precious moments on the school run which if you drive, is quite unlikely (walking is sooo much nicer).

Referring to OP, I was a SAHM, I intended to go back to work and study for a degree when the youngest DC started school, but DH became ill and GP also needed care, I looked after DGM for seven years until dementia became too advanced. Degree was shelved, can't afford that now. I then found myself looking for work 10 years after I had intended!! I also took courses throughout that time to keep me up to date but I felt as if potential employers felt SAHMs/carers do nothing all day and aquire no skills! The only job offer I could get was an customer assistant for a major retail company. I now find myself 45 40 and starting at the beginning. Hopefully will get into management eventually. My decision to spend a few years looking after my children spiralled into long term out of workplace affecting my long term future.

I was made redundant when my DS was 2 months old. My SMP has now finished and I am faced with the prospect of finding a new job. I was a careers adviser in secondary schools, a role which has been completely taken out of our area (and most in the country), so, ironically, I will be looking for a change in career. Even after only 9 months out of the workplace, I feel I am lost confidence in myself to go back to work and the prospect of going back to work after having a baby to a new job, with new colleagues etc is really daunting. I also feel that by not working, I have lost part of my previous identity IYSWIM, which is difficult. The jobs that I could apply for now, without retraining, are all very low pay, often pro-rata'd (sp) as school support jobs are paid term time only. This will barely cover child care costs, so I feel a bit like I'm in a no-win situation.

I lived in Spain and childcare was much much cheaper as a proportion of income. However, I would say that this meant there was (a) huge pressure on women to return to work after mat. leave (16 weeks) - SAHMs were seen as lazy (b) a much longer working day - working til 8pm is quite normal (c) very poor quality of childcare if you weren't able to rely on family (which used to bethe norm but is no longer as GPs are often still working now) (d) flexible or PT work was almost non-existent beyond your child's first year (you are legally entitled to PT for the first year because it's common to bf for the first year at least).
I find the UK very enlightened by comparison (not to say there isn't roomfor improvement).

Very interesting thread.

I worked in HR Management for 12 years prior to having DD and gave 7 years of long hours and weekend working to my last job then after DD was born they refused me part time or job share. I would have happily gone back 3 full days or even four at a push but they wouldn't allow my role to be part time. All I wanted was one or two days a week with my daughter while she was small.

Ironically while working there I had pushed through lots of family friendly stuff and our call centre employed lots of parents on flexible hours.

After that I decided never to work for someone else again and I now have my own business. I intend to pursue another business idea once DD2 starts school.

Friends who still work in HR are saying that even entry level roles are getting huge amounts of applicants so it will make it even harder for someone who has been out of the workforce for any length of time to get back in again.

Here's a good book on this topic that I read a couple of years ago when DH and I started planning a family. Some really inspiring stories in there to release your inner feminist:
The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?

I face the career break dilemma myself at the moment as we've just had DS and I had planned to only take a year off. Just after DS's birth, however, DH was offered a really good, well-paid job abroad, where I won't be allowed to work due to visa restrictions so am suddenly on the 'SAHM' path now. It's not too bad for now since DS is so young but I do worry that I'll wake up one day and be 40, an unhappy housewife, financially dependent on DH and unemployable. A shiver did go down my spine when we had to fill out my status on the visa application and we had to write 'homemaker' for me because the only alternative was 'unemployed'!