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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To choose ME for nine months over my children?

283 replies

Inconceivable · 08/08/2012 20:18

I have three children varying in age from two to seven. I have been a SAHM for the last four years. Before that I had quite a good career and although I really enjoyed my time with the children, I really started to miss working. I then got offered a really good and interesting contract for nine months.

I decided to take it and I am really enjoying the work. However, the children are really finding it difficult to adjust with me working full time and it is really starting to show in their behaviour. It is breaking my heart to see them suffering but I really, really enjoy being back at work.

Am I be unreasonable to let them suffer and choose ME for nine months and just enjoy the work and ignore the price my children are paying for this? It is only temporary after all?

OP posts:
manicinsomniac · 08/08/2012 21:18

I don't think YABU at all

Personally, i don't believe that becoming a mum suddenly means you live for your children and nothing else. I love my children to bits but they are not my whole world. They will grow up and leave home and then, as a single parent, what would I have left if I put them first all the time? In our house the three of us are of equal importance and we all make compromises and sacrifices. I don't automatically put them first and I don't think that makes me selfish.

I suppose I have it easy in a way because I obviously HAVE to work full time as the only adult in the house. However, I adore my job and would never give it up or even go part time. I hate being at home. So I would choose to work whatever. Not everybody is fulfilled by being at home with kids all day, especially if they are at school!

You deserve a fulfilling career and your children will adjust, as millions of others do!

WorraLiberty · 08/08/2012 21:18

To all the people saying the OP's children are not suffering...

Are you saying you know her children better than the OP does?

If she says they're suffering, then isn't it a bit arrogant to tell her they are not? Confused

Just because your children might not suffer, it doesn't mean the 2yr old and the 5yr old in question here are not.

Or do children just never ever suffer because it doesn't suit?

LJBrownie · 08/08/2012 21:19

And, breastfeeding aside, men are entirely interchangeable as parents and I think it does them an incredible disservice to suggest that somehow women have some magical powers that 'they' don't possess...

Gumby · 08/08/2012 21:19

stay at work
think of your pension and contributing to the economy

LJ29 · 08/08/2012 21:19

When i joined Mumsnet they must have forgotten to ask me if I was a self righteous earthmother. Confused

SAHMs do a valuable job
Working mums do a working job

Neither is more important. There are benefits to both.
A mum at home who is unhappy bored and frustrated tho will benefit nobody.

TantrumsAndOlympicGoldBalloons · 08/08/2012 21:19

Yep, and I choose not to spend my life making myself and quite possibly my children miserable because I had given up work and had fuck all to do all day. But there you go. I'm an idiot. I should be working in a job I hate for minimum wage just so I can say "oh I wish I could be a SAHM"

Well I don't for one minute wish that. It is my idea of hell tbh.

HTH

Gumby · 08/08/2012 21:19

her children aren't suffering, they're adjusting, of course they'll miss her but it's only been a month

NutellaNutter · 08/08/2012 21:19

If you don't have to work full-time because of finances, PND etc. then YABU. A good compromise would be to work part-time. You chose to have children, so you need to step up to the plate and be their mum. The two year old especially needs you.

DontmindifIdo · 08/08/2012 21:20

They will cope. You need to make sure you do make the time you have with them as 100% family time, so pay for cleaners (2 a week if need be), ironing to be done, gardener too - and focus just on them when you aren't working.

You do have a right to a career too, and it's also a good thing for your family, you might not need your wage now, but you can't be certain in this climate you never will. You may be very, very glad as a family 10 years down the line that you still have an income.

Original poster
Inconceivable · 08/08/2012 21:20

CaseyShraeger that has just made feel a lot better! Grin

OP posts:
Flosshilde · 08/08/2012 21:20

Exactly LJ. My DH would be an excellent SAHP. Far better than me.

LJ29 · 08/08/2012 21:21

*valuable job not working job!

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2012 21:21

I don't think it's good that your children are suffering. However I don't think it's inevitable, and I also think it's only 50% your responsibility to sort out!

TantrumsAndOlympicGoldBalloons · 08/08/2012 21:22

Ok so cos I work full time im not their mum?

Someone had better tell them that then.

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2012 21:22

"NutellaNutter Wed 08-Aug-12 21:19:56
If you don't have to work full-time because of finances, PND etc. then YABU. A good compromise would be to work part-time. You chose to have children, so you need to step up to the plate and be their mum. The two year old especially needs you."

We could survive on my wage alone. Is my DH BU to work full time? Should be work part time? Should he step up to the plate and be their dad?

janey68 · 08/08/2012 21:23

Sounds like your children are adjusting to a change... Just like children adjust to playgroup/ school/ moving house etc etc

Doesn't mean they're suffering, I think you used a strong word there op, and I'm sure if you thought they were really suffering you would re think and sort things so they weren't.

Your children won't thank you for being a martyr. You want to use the skills you have and an added dimension to your life- that's great

Gatorade · 08/08/2012 21:24

I don't understand, if OP needed to work full time for financial reasons (to but a roof over her DCs head) she would be getting sympathy and being told that the children will adjust etc, but because she is doing something for herself people are making her feel bad about it.

Mrsjay · 08/08/2012 21:24

I am not saying her children are not unhappy or having trouble adjusting has the OP to give up her job or does she need to help her children adjust to this ?

of course they are unhappy their routine is different doesn't make it a bad thing. I was a sahm still am to a degree but i have a medical condition so i cant really work full time, I was home 24/7 with my children, that doesnt make me any better a parent than a working parent, I do think a young baby needs its mum full time but at 2 and 5 I do think children can adjust, and be happy, why is it selfish for a parent/ mother to work are working mothers any less mothers if they work are they neglecting their children why is it different if it is financial

Dancergirl · 08/08/2012 21:24

I completely disagree LJ, men are not interchangeable.

Quick straw poll: who do your dc want most when they are ill or need comforting? That would be Mummy in our house and pretty much all of my friends would agree.

ChaoticismyLife · 08/08/2012 21:24

Perhaps if the OP had worded her title differently I may feel more sympathetic, but to put your own desires over your very young children, because you WANT to, not because you NEED to, is selfish.

Does that apply to father's too? Hmm

Lots of sexism on this thread and I didn't even read every last post.

Littleplasticpeople · 08/08/2012 21:25

Yanbu. Plenty of people go to work fr selfish reasons. I could, financially at least, stay at home. In fact I did for three years. Then I decided I wanted to be at work, this was for many reasons. I know that my dcs would be happier with me at home in the short run, but not necessarily in the long run.

Long term I'm sure they will appreciate the reasons why I went back to work, nd they will benefit in many ways. As fr them suffering, in what way? As someone else said as long as they are fed, watered, cared for then they are not 'suffering', just not perhaps having their first choice scenario.

NoComet · 08/08/2012 21:25

If I had the chance to work for 9 months after 14 y as a SAHM by god I'd take it.

No I don't need the money, but I need the self respect.

There comes a time when you want to answer the question what do you do with something more interesting than "I'm a SAHM".

Society doesn't respect it as a role for the mother if senior school DC.Sad

SophieLeGiraffe · 08/08/2012 21:26

Wow, OP, the attitudes from some on here! although I don't know why I am surprised and I can't believe I am wading in on what has clearly become a good old SAHM vs WOHM "debate".

You did not give up on you just because you had children. You are still a person. Should someone, a father say, not do any hobbies at the weekend since that takes away from the only time he has to spend with the children he chose to have? No? Why not, it's the same thing.

Working is good for you. It is good for children to see their parents in other ways than only their personal carer. Some children thrive in child care. Some don't. The point is, it is all a choice and you have the right to exercise that and see what works best for your family. In two years your youngest will be a school and you will likely want to enter work and have people on MN telling you you a lazy if you don't.

Outside of the guilt we all feel always no matter what our choices, do not feel guilty.

The immediate problem you asked for advice on: give it time, a month is nothing. Adjust your childcare if necessary, talk to your children, they will more than cope, this is likely a temporary blip.

coppertop · 08/08/2012 21:26

Someone had better let MNHQ know that there's obviously a thriving market out there for Stepfordnet.com.

LJBrownie · 08/08/2012 21:27

It is such rubbish where someone says above that if you don't have to work due to finances or pnd etc then you need to not work in order to 'step up to the plate and be their mum'. Stop the guilt; stop the self-justification - children from loving homes are fine whether their parents work or not, it's just what people do for some hours of the day; not that big a deal!!