To be a traditional sahm ??

[ProudMum4Eva]

I personal have never been flamed for my choice in life, however I see many people who continuously get some sort of insult for their life choices. So here I thought I would share all for the first time.
I am 34 years old I got married at 18 straight from college. I am happily married with five wonderful children who I adore and do everything for. I have NEVER worked (outside the family home) my DH has always worked. He works traditional hours leaves about 8:10 mon-fri and is home for around 5:30. I do everything in the home cleaning, cooking, bathing the younger children, ironing and so on. I dote on my children and my husband. I love it they do not need to help me in the house I look after them and that is what I am good at.

I agree pagwatch, I didn't realise before coming on mumsnet that there was no such thing as a common law wife and have been encouraging my unmarried female friends with dc to get married so they have some claim on various things if it all goes tits up. I'd much rather live in a world where all my female friends could afford to support themselves whether married or not if it all went tits up, but unfortunately we are not there, yet.

bonsoir according to your posts you have a cultured continental lifestyle, fabulous clever children, a fantastic career pre dc, an amazing education etc, etc. I'm sure you are gorgeous and slim to boot. However, you are posting on mumsnet, same as me. I too have had a good education and lots of good fortune in my life, though I don't assume and wouldn't like to think other people were envious of me. It is never good imho to look at someone's outward trappings and try to judge and compare their happiness, self esteem or sense of worth to your own. I'm sure both me and my dh can discuss lots of things with ds as we are both educated and we can also put ourselves to matters outside the home that also make a difference to other people's dc too.

Handbag, I'm a very poor but well educated sahm, which skews your point a little.

I am not sure it does KobayashiMaru.

Handbag didn't say 'every single mumsnetter' - unless you took the flippant 'everyone sahm went to Oxford for a phd' as serious

I have been thinking about pointint tat out to mil for a while,about not knowing ant different.

My sil has just had baby number 6 and will be going back to work as a headteacher in March when the baby is 3 months old,she thinks its disgusting and is always bitching about her and about how terrible it is,i think she says so much to me because i am a sahm and she assumes i agree with her,I DONT!

I think next time she says it i will gently pointout that even though she stayed at homewith all 5 of her children until they were allat school,she had her first so young that she didnt actually have a career to go back to,so not only did she have the decision to make,she also hadno experience to say whether woh or sah would be better for her or her family.

My sil's kids are all polite,kind and well behaved and seem quite happy,so she is proof it can be done,and also i dont see anyone saying its terrible that the dad goes back to work(although fairplay he did go part time to spend more timeat home a coupleof years ago)plus sil is the main breadwinner so she cant afford not to go back.

sorry thatpost is awful i still have pine needles stuck under someofmy keys.

Apologies Bonsoir. It appears that I had incorrectly assumed that you were a SAHM in France rather than someone with current professional experience of UK public sector workers.
I still think, however, that your use of the word 'useless' is a poor choice as it makes you come across as rude, judgemental and dismissive. Perhaps you meant to say that some of the roles in the public sector seem to you to be a waste of money/ unnecessary or that people have not developed their skills appropriately over the years.

I agree with Handbagcrab's posts. I do think that channelling a huge amount of education and working experience solely into your DC is very insular. Apart from the separate point that higher level education was funded by the taxpayer for a lot of MNetters and it doesn't sit well with me not to share the benefits of that education from age 30/40 onwards.

Pagwatch- I think the every MN has an Oxbridge PhD was meant tongue in cheek.

Amber- it's a shame your MIL doesn't quit the bitching and try to make a positive contribution to the lives of your SIL's DC. That would be the thing to do if she had a genuine concern.

I think the op is no more iyswim.

and I imagine that she gets the school holidays off, thus making childcare issues simpler.
I think she's fantastic if she can raise 6 kids and be a head teacher.
Genuinely.
I know a few teachers. They work constantly. Heads work even more hours. If she can do that with 6 kids, all power to her.

I agree that Oxfordbags s post is good, except for Having too much to prove is as pathetic as subsuming yourself totally into a trad family lifestyle bubble about the trad family lifestyle bubble.

I would say it's nuts nowadays to talk about the trad family bubble. Who on earth nowadays lives in a bubble, everyone on here has access to the internet and a mine of info on anything they might have a hint of interest in.

Also think the previous comments about 'life experience' pretty snobbish as I presume they are talking gap year 'yaah, yaah', or perhaps swanning off to 'save' someone in a third world country. I doubt packing shelves at Tesco or working weekends in Boots fills the requirement.

Oxfordbags at 13:11 that is.

I would quite like to be a SAHM one day if I could afford it. The 'do everything for your kids, they're only kids once' attitude isn't very helpful in helping them grow into responsible adults though, IMHO.

I also wonder how well a serial SAHM can discuss the world of work and career choices with an older child, I'd they themselves have NEVER worked. A male teenager might just talk to his father about this. By a daughter? Who gives the female perspective? Who can she lean on for experience and advice for how it is for a female in the world of work? The strongest re model she has is that a woman's role is to serve a man and look after the home. Her horizons as a teenager are fairly likely to be quite narrow on this basis I would have thought. Unless she looks at mum and decides she definitely doesn't want that for herself

We are all limited in our ability to discuss the adult world with our DCs by our own experience - the best thing is for children/teens and beyond to have a wide variety of adults to call upon and for them to find their own role models and mentors.

I couldn't tell my DCs a thing about what it would be like to be a doctor or a research scientist or a sportsperson...

My mother worked in a psychiatric hospital, it had bugger all to do with strategy consulting and she still has no clue what my skills are. Was it a problem? Don't think so.

Bonsoir you're referring specifically to distinct jobs. I'm talking about what it's like to be a working adult, the world of work at large, the importance of choices at various stages, role models etc.

OK. My mother was a SAHM for parts of my childhood. She and I are totally unable to talk about our respective experiences of being a SAHM - our lives are wildly different.

I'm not sure that parents are that useful when it comes to work, tbh. Each generation is so very different. In fact, we distinctly discourage DP's DF from ever talking about work to the DSSs. DFIL worked in an era when white men had an easy time of it - we don't want him giving the DSSs wrong impressions of the lifestyle that awaits them.

Bonsoir from your numerous posts it is clear that you believe no one is better placed to guide your DSSs than you. But unfortunately not everyone has a resident Bonsoir to guide them. Most people rely on observations throughout child/teenage/young adult years. And if a daughter only has a serial SAHM to go on, then IMO that narrows her observations/horizons

My point is that mothers (or stepmothers) don't do much guiding - not the reverse.

Bonsoir - I'm confused. I thought the general point most SAHM make for their decision is they believe they are the best equipped to guide their children - so they are prepared to sacrifice their career for that reason. But at some point that stops and if you are a mother or stepmother - you aren't any use?

Is the world of work really that different from say 30 years ago?
Chances are, our offspring dont end up in the same field anyway.
And I would have thought that most SAHM, had worked for a few years first,before becoming SAHMs.

And there are always books and internet to help fill in gaps.

I doubt any SAHM is sitting at home all day with her head in a romance novel. She possibly reads more papers/ listens to more informative radio/tv/ sees more of the world when out and about/ and mixes with a broader mix of the population than someone who commutes a dull commute journey to a full time less than interesting job. So are in a just as good a position as anyone else to advise or guide DCs.

Stop scraping the barrel to find reasons that a SAHM is bad for her DCs.

God I must be really worse at this sah lark than I thought, there is no way one earth I mix with a broader mix than when I was working. At least not a very interesting mix anyway. I feel like my world has shrunk quite considerably and if it weren't for the things I have taken on outside of that role I would have gone quite mad.
Thats just me though. The salient point is that a good mother is a good mother whether or not she works, or how much. And nobody (nobody who matters) really cares which you choose to do. It's your own insecurities that make you think others are judging you, and leading you to judge others.

Bickie- just to throw into the mix: many WOHP also believe they are best equipped as the primary carers to guide their children, and indeed they are providing the parenting and are the primary influence. It's perfectly compatible with working. You are simply outsourcing some aspects of the practical tasks involved in childcare and some aspects of learning to other people. That's a perfectly natural process anyway, as most parents whether working or not use playgroups/ nursery/school along with all sorts of other informal influences on the child anyway.

Kobayashimaru speaks sense!

A good mother is a good mother (and a good father is a good father). End of .

I would never claim that being a WOHM makes my children in any way 'better'. I am also absolutely sure it does my children no harm either. It does, however, make my life considerably better!