To give up a well paid job to be a SAHM?

[Blackonesugarplease]

Name-changed for this.

DH thinks that I would be unreasonable to give up my job to be a SAHM to our young children.

In short, following a bereavement I have subconsciously re-evaluated my priorities. I am desperate to stay at home with my 3 young children as I can't bear to put them in childcare any more - getting them up at 6 and not seeing them for 11 hours a day, juggling the holidays etc. I know they're fine, but they're not with me, and I know I will never be able to get this time back.

If leave I'm unlikely to be able to return to the same career, let alone the same role, but I'm absolutely fine with that. I don't want to reduce my hours, I simply want to quit so I can focus 100% on the family as my job does interfere with my time at home.

I have a secure, relatively well-paid job and DH has a decent income too. If I leave my job we will have very little disposable income - c£450 a month for absolutely everything after mortgage, food, bills and loans - which is a big drop from our current income but I think it's just about do-able.

DH has been clear that he thinks I will regret the decision when we can't afford holidays, family lunches out etc - this is a big thing for me as I was raised in poverty so the idea of voluntarily giving up money is very difficult but right now I honestly think that I can worry about that later, and perhaps try to find some part-time or self-employed work in the longer term if necessary.

Factory! Wordfactory not press! Sorry

Flexi working is a case by case thing. Always worth asking.
Though worth remembering that though your hours may be dropped in theory, the reality is somehwat different.

wordfactory - breastfeeding rates in France are notoriously low and one of the main reasons that they are is that it is very difficult to continue to breastfeed when you are away from your baby all day!

janey, I never said that a man can't look after kids or women can't have a careers, where did I say that? I was getting at the fact that sometimes men like woman have no desire atall to be SAHP. Good for you that you hold exactly the same principles as your DH/DP and that he is totally clued up on being a '21st century' guy and all that but I am cynical I suppose and don't believe my DP is the only university educated, professional man that fundamentally, deep down does not want to be a SAHP. Your DH may be sexist in other ways you just don't know about. maybe he is less inclined to swear around women, maybe he doesn't think woman's football is any good. I'm sure your going to say, 'No he is great, he is Mr a equal Opps himself' but fundamentally it can't be true that all men are PC otherwise a lot more women would be granted flexi working patterns, senior positions wouldn't be dominated by men, women wouldn't be beheaded by the Taliban if equality has been achieved in this world.

Basically, my DP's wants to be an Architect not a SAHP, seen as I want to be at home at the mo it makes sense for him to continue to do this.

Womens' not woman's

It's not difficult. I have mixed fed two babies. Once your supply is as well established as it would be when you go back to work, be that three months, six months, whatever, you can adapt to mixed feeding easily. Or express.

I think there may be other reasons for low bf rate in France.

kittyandthefontanelles Tue 28-Aug-12 14:09:19
One more chap-I'm sorry but I don't know what ISTR or MMV means.

Jargon ISTR I seem to recall [ my kids are near/grown up]

MMV mileage may vary - in other words, your DH might not have enjoyed the experience of sharing the feeding (even the early BF stuff). I loved it, and did almost all the night feeds for DS.

"Dueling, in theory you can but how does it work in reality?"

Do you mean the breastfeeding and working? You need a pump and a room to pump in and somewhere to store breastmilk.

I went back to work full time when my son was 10 months old. I am very lucky because the nursery I use is on the doorstep so I went over once a day to breastfeed and left expressed milk for him too. After he'd settled in I stopped going over and he was a year old when I completely phased out breastfeeding him in the day. I continued to express and leave milk well beyond his first birthday. Even if he hadn't been so close I could have left breastmilk for him.

I was told by everyone that babies of that age can hold out until home-time and will be ok if drinking water and eating but fortunately I was producing loads of milk while away from him.

I know this isn't everyone's choice but lots of working mums do keep up the breastfeeding beyond maternity leave. My DS is now 20 months and still breastfeeding.

Wow Goldenbear- that's quite a leap to start creating all sorts of weird and uncomplimentary ideas about my dh! Btw- he doesn't want to be a SAHP - we both work. I was just making the point that many couples these days have the same interests and outlook and don't find that the man is desperate to be sole earner and the woman desperate to stay at home. It's just really quite normal and to be expected in the context of 21st century where we don't pigeonhole genders into a one size fits all any more (thank god)

Mixed feeding is not exclusively breast feeding- how do you do that if back at work when they are three months.

oh and I don't express at all in the day now, he still feeds like crazy on weekend days.

Goldenbear Tue 28-Aug-12 14:40:42
fundamentally it can't be true that all men are PC otherwise a lot more women would be granted flexi working patterns, senior positions wouldn't be dominated by men, women wouldn't be beheaded by the Taliban if equality has been achieved in this world.

WTF?
Bit of a stretch to going from PC men (and I shared 20 years & longer ago) to beheadings isn't it.

You pump. How many women go back at three months these days though? Not many.

Expressing is not breastfeeding.

Most of my French female friends did breastfeed, and pretty much all of them say their milk supply dried up of its own accord quite soon after they returned to work.

Bonsoir I thought breast feeding rates in France were to do with the desire to get children independent of their mothers asap. Also the desire to return to the pre-prgnancy body is more importnat there. Culturally, breast feeding is not important.

In Holland where very few women SAH, breastfeeding rates are high by western standards.

The casual link seems to be length of maternity leave and the role played by the father. If the ML is long, and the father is hands on, it is much easier for a woman to breast feed and work. Plus of course the culture recognises its importance.

In France women do go back after 12 weeks. I think it's a big reason for lower BF rates.

The main reason breastfeeding rates are low in France because of the historically very long-standing reliance on wet nurses. Women just didn't feed their own babies (and infant mortality was extraordinarily high) and it never became a cultural norm in the way it did in England in the 19th century.

Educated mothers (the kind who are my friends!) mostly do all breastfeed and want to but work gets in the way.

Surely no one is suggesting that all men want to be SAHP (any more than all women do), or that it's 'sexist' for a man to not want to stay at home?

I can well believe that more women than men would choose that role (due to various biological and social factors), but there are plenty of women who do not want to SAHP, and quite a few men who do, and I doubt any of them have 'being PC' (whatever that means) as one of their reasons!

Ah well ML here tends to be much longer.
Bt the time many women return to work, their baby will be breast feeding in the morning and night anyway. Maybe a little lunch time slurp.

Bit puzzled on how the Taliban became relevant to a SAHM thread...

"a lot more women would be granted flexi working patterns, senior positions wouldn't be dominated by men"

For true equality a lot more people would be granted by flexi working patterns and senior positions wouldn't be dominated by people who have had to work stupidly long hours at the expense of their family life because that is what their boss did.

I don't think it's sexist for a man to not want to be a SAHP. I think it's kind of sexist if his reason is that he doesn't want his wife to be the sole earner (i.e. he would feel emasculated being a SAHD). That's basically saying it's okay for women to stay home with the kids but not men, which is just silly.

"Expressing is not breastfeeding"

fair point, but it's not bottle/formula feeding either. DS had a cup. It's how you keep your supply going so that when you Are with your baby you can breastfeed.

Your supply will not dry up just from not feeding for 8 - 10 hours.

Here I am, the proof. DS still gets plenty of breastfeeds at 20 months and I am definitely not dried up. He doesn't feed between 8am and 5.30 pm.

RE the going back to work at 3 months, no one needs to go back at 3 months, unless they are the sole breadwinner. Everyone who wants to breastfeed can take a year off if they want (Obviously not all of it paid) - I was off for 10 months (maternity leave + holiday) and planned to go back.

I dont think this works as a topic at all. Its so subjective and impossible to answer there is no "right" way despite the huffing and puffing and self justifications from both camps. Follow your gut instinct and work out the figures - what others do or do not do is utterly irrelevant as the decision is very personal.

Hubby and I both agreed I'd give up work to care for our family when we had one - meant giving up a "career" (round the clock computer support worldwide - on call 24/7 - does not fit well with BF)

It meant making a huge sacrifice monetarily - £29K pa 11 years ago- but we just re-cut our cloth according to our means, stayed in our "starter home" and I do not regret it for one minute- but it did take us BOTH buying into the life.....

It is not a career I want to go back to as a mum, so for now (kids are 10 and 11) I just do little part time "jobs" dinner lady, cleaner, chambermaid.... anything to keep me busy and sane and available when the kids are off school.

We are both (+ the kids) very happy with our decision and would make the same one again in a flash.... money isn't everything, that time can never be relived...

Quite a lot of my older colleagues who returned to work at 3 months continued bf no problem. Their babies were often fed exclusively bm not mixed (not that there is anything wrong with mixed, just saying)
And most women in the uk take loads longer off work than that now anyway