Moaning mn career mums.Yes you...

[Jenna2012]

Been reading various threads on mn with interest for several weeks now.why do u ladies feel do pessimistic about ur work life balance and compete with the ' oh poor me title'. If you want a better quality of life, surely u can downsize and have less financial Responsibilty and then look after ur dc yourself instead of paying others to look after them. I just don't get why you have kids unless you wanna love And look them yourself. This doesnt apply to single parents.is the financial gain worth it?

Xroads

It is entirely possible for a sahm to raise children with a fantastic work ethic.

Let's no do the same as the op and just bludgeon other people's choices.

Very true pag.

I'm sure it's not intentional but some of the posters critisising the OP's ridiculous superior attitude seem to be doing the same thing.

SAHM are not necessarily uneducated, stupid, lazy or unambitious. There are reasons, good and valid reasons behind it for many, many women.

I also don't like the "your husband's going to leave you and then you're fucked" attitude. Why do these threads always resort to being nasty about the choices women on the other side of the fence make?

Surely you can make your case about working (if you can even be bothered to dignify this shite with a response) without looking down on the life choices of others?

FWIW I worked and am now preparing to study full time. So I'm not feeling defensive. Just a bit saddened really!

jenna have you actually answered the questions about your age, and the age of your DD? You said you were quite young, you sound very young in your posts, I sincerely hope too, that you are not planning on home schooling.

Jenna, after 17 pages you still haven't explained why a father doing his share of the childcare would be taking feminism too far!

When dc were little, both dh and I worked part-time so we could share the childcare. I found, not at all to my surprise, that apart from breastfeeding there was nothing I could do that my dh couldn't do just as well. His home cooked food is just as nutritious as mine and his cleaning got rid of the same dirt.

15 years later, when his department was suddenly marked for closure and he and all his colleagues were served with their redundancy notice, it was rather reassuring for dc to know that we still had mum's salary and would not need to sell the house/move away from their school/have to choose a college that doesn't provide training for dd's career choice because of lack of money for transport.

My mum was a sahm to 8 of us. She worked her arse off. Finally when we had all left home she was in her 50 she started a playgroup and volunteered for loads of local groups and doing WI sales and fund raising etc.
She helped at a local Psychiatric hospital and eventually worked there too until she retired.
Great womn. Still won't sit the fuck down

she's never worked a day in her life, guess what - her kids have no work ethic either

She worked every day of her life Xroads. That's the type of post I'm talking about.

So often on here a SAHM comes on having been abused by her DH for being lazy and 'doing nothing'. I hope, when they're seeking reassurance that their lives have some value, they don't stumble onto this thread.

I have to say I am also rather grateful to all the women who have chosen to stay in their careers and are therefore able to provide my dc with an education, with hospital care when they need it, with interesting books to read, with news and television etc etc.

I think all womens' situation is different OP. Some women genuinely feel unfulfilled staying at home 100% of the time. They still want to have children but maybe keep up other interests/career too. Perhaps their career is something it would be hard to get back into once their children are older.

I am a SAHM like you and I love staying at home with my 19 month old and soon to be new baby in January. But it is financially hard for DH and me. I would like to know how Mums who work and have more than one child make it worth their while financially to return to work.

I'll admit I've skipped from the first page to the last but I hope the OP's rose tinted view has been shredded by now.

It baffles me when one stay at home parent thinks they can educate their child better than anyone else. It takes a village and all that......

Also loving the way single parents are exempt from being stay at home parents. We don't matter do we. FFS.

You see, this is what always happens.
Now we have posters saying the children of SAHM have no work ethic and no strong female role models which is just as bad as the OP.

There's no right or wrong decision, is there?
We all do what we feel is right for our families.

My mum was an amazing role model who instilled a great work ethic, morals, values into me and my siblings.
She was a SAHM. She was, and still is amazing.

I am a WOHM, that doesn't mean that my daughter will do the same when she has a family.
Id be delighted if she was in the financial position to stay at home and age chose to do so. I'd be equally delighted if she continued to work.

All these comments about "wasting your life" "wasting your education" etc if you are SAHP are very poor.
IMHO SAHM are not wasting anything, they are making a choice that's right for them. Which is what we all should be doing without trying to imply one way is right and one is wrong.

Can't we just all raise our children in the way that works best for us, and let other people do the same?

pag of course a SAHP can have a great work ethic but I think it takes a bit more time and imagination for the kids to see it.

When my DC see my books on the shelves in WHSmiths they can easily make the connection between all those hours in front of a PC and the tangible end product.

Yet when I have days when I have to do house/child related things, I can see the connection is not so strong. Not that whatever I was doing wasn't valuable to me and our family.

Word
I know. It is harder. But that is parenting. Yes we model what we can but we also have to explain and find ways to make them understand. It's exactly the same as teaching children that not everyone has money and what that means when you have it yourself.

And I was responding to the post above which said '7 children and a sahm so guess what - the children have no work ethic'

Oh sure pag...frankly I know working people with no work ethic...just there to do the minimum and collect their cheque .

Inadreamworld - lots of WOHM are taking a big hit to carry on working and don't clear all that much once childcare is taken into account. But they do it because ten years down the line they won't have those costs, will have kept their pension going and probably been promoted.

Others earn enough to make it worthwhile anyway. One of my children is at school, other with a CM. I work school hours. After childcare I still add 1500 a month to the household coffers. It's worth it.

Oh dear.

To all the SAHMs out there: well done, and glad you're in a position to do what you do. It's a tough job, and I'm sure there are days when you think "I wish I could sit by myself in a nice quiet office with a hot coffee without having to watch the sodding Octonauts for the millionth time before thinking up something creative to do with papier mache. I would love to have a grown-up conversation that doesn't involve kids for a change. And then all I get is 'you're just a SAHM'.". Remember to look after yourself as well as your DCs.

To all the WOHMs out there: well done, and glad you're in a position to do what you do. It's a tough job, and I'm sure there are days when you think "I wish I could just stay at home and potter about with the DCs instead of lurching from dropping off the kids to public transport to frantic meetings to pick up again, only to hope the kids go to bed at a half-reasonable time so I can log on and finish all the work I didn't do in the day before doing it all again tomorrow. And all I get is 'don't you feel guilty leaving your kids with strangers?'." Remember to look after yourself as well as your DCs.

Hopefully that's balanced enough. Poor me! Poor you! Poor everyone!

I also think the idea that all women have choices is idiotic.

Many women work because they have to. They're not doing it to buy diamonds and caviar. They have to pay the rent and buy school shoes.

Also, many women who would love to work are not able to. They may have DC with special needs or elderly parents. They may not be able to find childcare. Or, commonly, they simply can't get back into the workplace after a period away from it.

Thos of us who have a real choice, should be flipping grateful.

All these comments about "wasting your life" "wasting your education" etc if you are SAHP are very poor.

This. So smug. Which is when these threads usually descend into chaos.

I work. I love it. It stretches me and my brain to do scary stuff that i wouldn't do at home. Tried being at home for a while, reading great literature and writing in my spare time but was climbing the walls after a year. I wouldn't be a good parent to tiny kids in that state, but i happen to think when they hit 8 or 9 i will come into my own. Least that's the hope

. It's just not for me. I have a Short attention span, best leave it to the proffessionals.

My mum was the same but from a generation that stayed at home. Clearly drove her mad because she ended up on every committee and organising group going. Chair of the PTA and WI, always organising some fete or other. Felt like i spent my childhood stuffing beanbag frogs for the WI. So there you go OP, SAHP = child slavery. How's that for stupidly provocative and controversial, eh? Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Some very spiteful people on here. Tell me what kind of person wills a persons marriage to fail?

I think some women are very suited to being SAHP. They have a 'knack' for it that I don't have. I like my weekends and evenings with my DD, but couldn't do it all day.

My neice wouldn't be happy as a WOHM. She is nervous and introverted and has not got a good standard of education. Yet in the home, she is firm, strong, consistant, manages to stick to a (very tight) budget and follow complicated recipes to get the very best and the very most from the food she is able to afford.

I've often thought she should be a childminder, but she is nervous of having to deal with other parents. She considered fostering for a while - again something I think she'd be great at, but couldn't cope with the paperwork etc.

I have a great deal of respect for SAHMs (and dads). I have a great deal of respect for WOHMs. I have no respect for someone who judges either...

walter who is smug? me?

I have a clean house and home cooked meals which dh cooks as he's better at it than me home from work before me.

I don't get this 'it's traditional for women to stay at home' because I can remember both my grandma's working before they retired. My dear granddad used to do the housework and make dinner as he retired before my grandma. Traditional my arse.