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...

And doesn't that say a lot, Lizzie?

The thing I find interesting about the idea that e.g. caring not being beneficial in the business sector, is that it's all about this reflexive reality. About the perception of what caring is...

In reality, caring for someone with high care needs typically involves juggling a lot of appointments, sticking to tight medication and care schedules, often fighting within and against particular systems (many of the parents on this board with disabled children will have been involved in having their children's needs represented at tribunal), people may have had to become highly expert with obscure technical terms in a very short period of time, may need to understand extremely conceptually difficult treatment protocols and/or legalities around their child/parent's care, may have needed to get on top of e.g. probate etc. There may be quite substantial accounts involved in some cases e.g. deciding how to manage a family business when a partner or parent becomes ill. All of this while operating perhaps with limited sleep, with reduced income and with enhanced stress.

In terms of the skill that an entry-level position requires (and certainly when we start talking about bloody shop jobs!), there are a lot of skills there that are relevant across sectors. I think people have some sort of image of caring being about a lovely looking flibbertyjibbet of a girl mopping a fevered brow and looking benign and Florence Nightingale-like.

The stuff that gets touted as "transferable skills" across paid work (and is accepted as such at entry level) is quite frankly laughable.

Again, if it's about someone not having specific knowledge and skills, fair dues. However, it's not, is it? It's about a distaste for this wishy washy namby-pamby caring stuff which is of course, nothing like the real world which is far more important. And that, my dears, is the feminist issue.

yanbu, but to be honest, I had to get out of the career I was in and not many other jobs would have had the flexibility I needed with young children (or paid enough for a nanny to take over much of their care).
Stuck between a rock & a hard place...
Must read this thread carefully later, for success stories!

Excellent post working9while5

Personally, when I gave up work, jobs for people like me were easy-ish to come by.
Fast forward a few years and it's a different story.
I don't think I was being unreasonable to give up work at that time (2004) as the implications were different. However I should have got my finger out sooner, that's for sure.

I also think we need to more honest with ourselves and other women - so not to sugar coat it when people think they will be able to get back into the workplace easily and not to think that there will be loads of 9.30-3pm jobs out there.

Some of my sahm friends say to me that they really want to work but only within those hours and I just think it is completely unrealistic - part time usually actually means 2 or 3 full days, utilising after school clubs etc and not 5 days of 9.30-3pm.

Not read the whole thread but have yout thought about temping?

I was out of work for 3 years, actually doing a degree but when I started job hunting I left my degree of my CV and pretended I'd been a SAHM for 3 years. I temped via an agency and first temping job was a receptionist job for the NHS where after 3 weeks one of the executives asked me to be her PA.

All the jobs I've had in the past I've got through temping for the company first.

Working - well said.

Lljkk - you won't find many. Perhaps they are too busy working to post...

As Deberny says, a lot of it is the current economic situation. My DP gave up work when we had our first child, and he was a brilliant SAHD. However, when I got pregnant, he decided to get a job while I stayed at home on maternity leave. Of course, he got a job easily, because ten years ago the situation was much better - and we were ten years younger.

Fast forward to now, and I can't get a job, despite having done plenty of freelance stuff. The downturn, which has hit my freelance income, has also scuppered my chances of getting a job.

I think the same situation applies to many people who have lost their job too. If you are already in a job, it is much easier to get one.

Yes, I do think you widen your options with PT working if you are willing to do 2-3 full days, rather than short ones (depending on the field)

I work 2.5 days a week and did even when the kids were smaller. I still had to utilise childcare (initially nurseries, then childminder, then before and after school clubs). Also including the bloody awful worry/vast expense every year of holiday care

School time jobs, with school holidays are like hen's teeth

YANBU I originally would have loved to be a SAHM but it wasn't viable. Then I was made redundant shortly after returning from maternity leave and couldn't find a job for 18 months. (I admit I wasn't looking hard enough at first as I liked being with DS) I was a qualified teacher but would have taken anything that was more than childcare costs.

By the end of my time out if work, I was desperate and looking really hard. It was beginning to look as if I would not get any job, doing anything at all. I was very lucky to get my job and I think I only got it because they were desperate

With this baby (am pregnant) I will be sucking it up and ignoring my concerns about using nursery for a baby. I do not want to stay at home and end up unemployable.

Don't worry AF - I have no intention of staying at home forever 'to advance DHs career' I want and I'm having my own bloody career back thanks very much!

Just need to get to the point where doing so doesn't make us homeless [big sigh]

working9while5 good post

Actually one of the reasons I am doing an Autism MA- seems only sensible to consolidate all I have learned- and indeed on my course the two parents are the two high achievers and the most knowledgeable.

I don't think I ever intend on going back to PAYE employment. I'm studying counselling part-time so once its done and dusted (its a long, hard slog anyway!), I will want to dictate my own days/hrs, ie. self-employed. My DH is SE so guess he'll advise me when the time comes.

So not sure if you're BU or not, depends on what you want to do! For me, whatever it is, I want to do my own thing.

Working The complexity and dedication around looking after a sick relative is admirable and a real indicator of a persons character and for many reasons I would hugely admire that person.
However if they are applying for a job that requires certain skills that they havent been tapping into over the previous 2+ years then that means little.

Its not a feminist issue. Its simply that being out of the jobs market for anywhere over 18months can de-skill you and make you less attractive than someone who has been in the workforce for the previous 18 months. Thats not unfair, its completely understandable.

YANBU

I was very glad that I kept working, albeit from home, while my DCs were small. I am lucky to have work (translation, editing) that can be done from home, and by keeping up contacts (and not sleeping much!) I was able to maintain my profile with clients, and now work in-house for one of my former freelance clients.

I was also lucky that my DH took early retirement from his full-time teaching job and set up him own business, which meant he could be at home during holidays/illness etc.

I live abroad with no family near to help so DH and I had to muddle through as best we could. Paid off in the end, and now the DCs are teenagers, things are much easier.

I have told my DD to make sure she ALWAYS works in some shape or form, and that she needs to be independent financially.

I'm not a SAHM and I did consider the implications, because of the industry I'm in (IT) which is why I work now, but part-time (not as part time as I'd like!)

Just by having children, I killed my career. My peers (the ones without kids or who had them later) earn twice as much as I do now.
This is of course my choice - I dont want the responsiblity of a managerial role (Im not prepared to put the hours in) and I dont have the brain cells (sleep deprivation for 5 years will do that for you) to do the technical stuff anymore (plus any skills I had have gone) so I now test software which involves no responsiblity and only half as much brain power.

On the down side, its dull, I get no job satisfaction, and I get paid far less (its still a good wage - it was worth getting into the industry in the first place - but take off the childcare and its 3/4 of my salary gone) On the upside, I do enjoy working in general, I'm staying in the job market and am sufficiently 'in the know' to get more work in this area if I cant keep this one for whatever reason. Plus I get to spend a whole day and a half with my 'baby' (hes 2 now) as well as the weekend, and I collect my 4 year old from school 2 days a week which he loves. (He also loves out of school club - but it not the same as having mummy at the school gates)
My DH wants another one, but I dont. Mainly because we cant afford to pay for childcare for 3 kids and therefore I'd have to give up work - he says well its only for a few years - I say thats not the point because I need to stay in the job market. Even when my youngest starts school, I'm going to try and find somewhere that I can finish early a couple of days a week to pick them up, but giving up work completely for me is a really bad idea.

I am a living example of what AF has posted about. I put my financial wellbeing in the hands of a man, and now have no earning potential of my own. There was no pressure from anybody else to do so. Everybody thought it was a terrible idea but it was what I wanted to do, or thought I wanted to do. Now I find myself with no choices in life.

LizzieBusy Porcamiseria, you are both right, these issues do affect men. That's why me and my husband took a turn each at scuppering our careers and staying home for about two years each so both our children got to the pre-school stage being mostly cared for by us. I looked busier (i.e. you couldn't see I'd stayed out for a couple of years) and so fell back into full-time work relatively easily. He struggled for two years doing bits and pieces, and many many job interviews in which he had to explain his absence from that field (which was growing longer all the while), but eventually got back to where he was. We are both now seeking promotion.

I am incredibly glad I was forced back into the workplace by his redundancy (he wasn't a stay at home parent by choice, but it worked well). I enjoy my work, it occupies me nicely, I have a pension and I am not in the position the OP speaks of. My friends who also work are secretly/not so secretly very pleased to, especially as we all had to endure raised eyebrows about our use of childcare/general keeness on preserving our careers.

Having said that, I think the recession is driving this absolute unemployability of anyone who doesn't have the perfect CV. I know plenty of people who have been working continuously for 20 years who are having difficulty getting work. It will ease, and people will be happier to take on less 'perfect' employees again, including hard-working mums who had five years out, if they have any sense.

I completely agree. I have been 'not working' for 18 years. The last 4 of which I have been doing a degree. But I feel now that it is worth diddly squat as there isn't anything out there in my field.
I feel I need to try for just a bit longer to get a job that I have spent the last four years training for, but I think I will eventually just get anything, which makes me sad. I could have done that 4 years ago.

I have already suggested to my DD's that they don't ever become full time SAHM's

I also find it a bit irritating that DH doesn't get why I don't apply for everything when he has been safe and happy in his chosen career since school.

I've been a SAHM for 6 years and i've recently started volunteering part time, in an attempt not to be left on the shelf in years to come.

It's been pretty odd really: the first hurdle, which took months to overcome, was finding childcare. Once i'd actually settled on a childminder for dd2 things seemed to fall into place.

In terms of what i actually do when i'm volunteering, I do wonder if the 'experience' i'm gaining is worth the £150 odd cost of childcare which dh effectively subsidises in order that i can do this. I've found myself starting pretty much where i left off 6 years ago; data entry, answering phones, stuffing envelopes. Except back then i was a young snippet of a thing at 24 and now i'm a prematurely aged 30 yr old and all the young snippets are telling me what to do! oh, and now i don't get paid, of course.

Having said that, the organisation i'm working for is one which i feel can really make a difference, so maybe that's something? I don't know...

I would only volunteer if its something you enjoy and feel is worthwhile. It wont help you get back into paid work at a decent level unless its in the volunteering/charity sector or your volunteer work is appropriate to career -
-web developer helping develop community websites
-nurse helping out at refuges etc

"Working The complexity and dedication around looking after a sick relative is admirable and a real indicator of a persons character and for many reasons I would hugely admire that person.
However if they are applying for a job that requires certain skills that they havent been tapping into over the previous 2+ years then that means little.

Its not a feminist issue. Its simply that being out of the jobs market for anywhere over 18months can de-skill you and make you less attractive than someone who has been in the workforce for the previous 18 months. Thats not unfair, its completely understandable."

If you read what I've written, it was very much in response to a post that suggested that caring didn't indicate "reliability" or a "workhorse attitude" and that was my bone of contention vs talking about specific knowledge and skills. I've said that in a number of posts. I also directed it at entry-level posts suggesting that a lot of people tout all sorts of nonsense as "transferable skills" to gain entry level, low-level jobs that really require nowhere near the level of organisation, reliability or, to be frank, mental acuity that caring does eg. "I did some accounts for the Student Union" etc.

I am saying that caring develops actual transferable skills in terms of speed of picking up on new information, organising and synthesising that information, acting on it, performing to schedules etc, all of which require "reliability" and "a workhorse attitude". It's not about it being "admirable", its about recognising that people can develop transferable skills suitable for entry level positions while doing a variety of roles and tasks including caring. I am not suggesting that people shouldn't update skills in professional roles or that there aren't some roles where a lot of time out would be disadvantageous (mentioned this above too). But frequently "time out of the workforce" is cited as a reason for lack of employability for people seeking jobs that really require on-the-job training and experience, where character is terribly pertinent to how they will perform on the job. Missing 18 months is also hugely overrated - someone with 15 years experience is somehow rendered less employable by this schema than someone with 5 who has been continuously employed. It doesn't make sense. It's a huge lack of imagination and complacency which probably costs a lot of recruiters and employers access to some of the best, most organised and most reliable of their potential workforce.

and for someone who didn't have a glittering career when she went on maternity leave? isn't it enough to have hopes of progressing within an organisation which interests me, even if the work i'm doing at present doesn't?

I do think that there should be career/financial "counselling" available to couples trying for a baby, taken up by one or both of them if preferred and the financial sacrifice being made by the woman in the short term and potentially the long term explained in realistic terms with reagrds the full effect of maternity leave.

I'm going to have to do return to practice course for nursing. Rather daunting but raising our dc with my at home is a choice we worked hard to have. Youngest is 7 weeks so going to be a while till I'm back in work. Left in 2007.

TFAM I am really sorry. If I could just make one woman think more carefully about how they can swept along without thinking, and end up in a nightmare, it would be worth it