To ask what SAHM,s with kids at school do with their days?

[totallyfrazzled]

I am mainly a SAHM but both my children are now school age. I do work PT, but as I work freelance my work days are erratics so I often find myself being a SAHM for a full week. Despite the fact that I do work, albeit slightly randomly, I find that I cannot give myself credit for the multiple tasks that I perform in anyone day at home....getting the DC's dressed and ready for school, driving them to school, clearing up the breakfast chaos, making the beds, doing the shopping, blah blah blah, preparing the evening meal, collecting the DC's, getting thru the homework, etc etc etc. i seem to be able to fill a whole day with domestic drudgery and still I am treading water, i.e. I am keeping everything at a status quo rather than actually achieving anything. I feel duty bound to keep on with domestic duties whilst not actually in renumerative employ. I feel guilty doing otherwise.Wondering if any one anyone else is in the same boat?

so daughters,would you encourage them marry well like mummy,stay at home
how do you channel and encourage ambition/career if option of being housewife
do you think sons can marry well, be a househusband,would you be ok with this

So, good for them.

Why should life be all about working? If you can get make a deal with someone and make each other happy with it, why not?

You get one go at life, if you can arrange it so you get to enjoy it then why not?

In my experience a lot of women become sahms when their child has SN.
I was never going to be a sahm but DS2s difficulties turned our lives upside down and something had to give.
This may not mean that they would class themselves as full time carers but a 'regular' family may have led them down a different path.

There are lots of reasons why women end up at home.

of course housewife see it as shared money.but pragmatically housewife didnt earn it.
they spend it, gym,cake,books shopping if this thread anything to go by

Actually my DH married well so I am not sure how to answer that.

I do hope they become good people with imagination and empathy. If that helps

I work 3 nights so the rest of the time is mine!

I do as little housework as possible, run lots, relax, shop a bit, bake sometimes and crochet lots. That's it really.....

I'm fortunate in that my job is satisfying and stimulating but also very stressful so doing 3 nights is the perfect balance in terms of time to recover mentally and physically.

I've never been a 9-5 worker so not having time off in the day horrifies me. Before dc's I worked day shifts so still had that time when DH was working and I love it!

I am also infinitely lazy so not having too much to do is absolute bliss for me DH finds it hard to sitcom do little, so at the weekend he will potter about doing not much but looking busy, whereas I will rush through jobs so I can sit and read, crochet or go MN.

SM if any of the long-term SAHMs I know had daughters (they don't, funnily enough) by the time those girls reached 12 or so they'd be thinking that being out of the workplace for such an extended period is not such a good idea

In all seriousness though I do wonder if these friends' future DILs might struggle if their husbands expect them to give up their careers to look after them and their children.

Scottish mummy - I'm about to become a Sahm for a bit. Literally as I'm overdue now!! I have a degree from one of the top 5 universities in the world, an 8 year career in industry followed by 3 years of running my own business. I'm financially independent enough to be able to still pay my way whilst I sah.

Partly luck, partly hard work and partly waiting until I was in my early 30s to get married. We are mortgage free due to hard wok (and luck) admittedly in our 20's. even if I decided never to work again and either study or do voluntary work how on earth will my future daughter not see me as a success in life.

And even if I was dependent on dh why on earth is that a bad example? Women can be independent but then want to do what they see as best in life for their family and kids. There are plenty of people in careers that mean that you have virtually no life unless one partner sah. That doesn't have to be the mum - and hurrah to those ladies I say. If you have to work, fine, if you want to work, fine and if you want to sah and can afford it without benefits, fine.

Scottishmummy...I mostly sit around in my pants watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking cider. I think that's what you want to hear, isn't it? So you can judge some more?
As for encouraging girls not to be a sahm...don't know. I have sons.
I would hope that whatever they do they find it rewarding and are happy.
Agree with pag, had ds1 not had significant health problems, and then sen, maybe I would have gone back to work pt. but then ds2 came along.
I didn't actually marry well in the monetary sense, but we get by, the children want for nothing and we are happy.
But you don't want to hear that, do you?
Are you so narrow minded you cannot grasp the very simple premise that not everyone wants to be a wage slave til they are nearly 70?
They want to raise their kids, not outsource it, they want to care for their own home, not outsource it, the want to do voluntary work that they are passionate about rather than a minimum wage drudge job?
Perhaps like me they have frail ill parents to care for too?
And yes, I do see our money is shared. If I wasn't at home with the children he wouldn't be able to do his moon and earn the money in the first place.
We are a team.
Simple really.

Can you imagine still being a SAHM when your child is 12 though, free?

There's a difference between taking a few years out and being a SAHM long after your children have started school.

Funnily enough one of my WOHM friends posted on her Facebook yesterday asking mothers of daughters to tell them to marry a rich man! She was having a particularly bad day.

It's not that cut and dried though. I didn't marry a rich man , I married a man who was equal to me in status at work. I saved a lot of money while I was working ( for 18 years) and invested it carefully. When I gave up work I handed him enough to pay off my half of the mortgage. Since then his career has really taken off. Becoming a father gave him the drive and ambition he needed. He works very long and erratic hours ( as I did when I worked in the same field) and he could not do that if he needed to take an equal share of the childcare.

We are a partnership. We both enjoy what we do. I do not ever feel that I'm living off him. Without me being at home his job wouldn't last 5 minutes. He'd have to take a lower paid job and the job I'd be in wouldn't cover the shortfall in his salary.

My message to my daughter will be to work hard to provide for the life she wants. I hope she gets to enjoy her life as much as I do.

I´m a SAHM to teens-so shoot me!

I´ve got the chance & I´m grabbing it.

Perhaps coloured by the fact that my mum died before she retired.

If I live to the same age as my mum & her mum, I´ve got 13yrs left.

My children are 15 & 16.

I married well.

Not actually ashamed of that. I didn't marry him for his money (he didn't have any then).

Would be lying however if I didn't consider his potential to provide for a family when deciding whether to marry him or not.

Not my problem if other people make different decisions.

I am back at work now, it is good, the mortgage will be gone a lot sooner. But staying home when I did was excellent.

DH totally bankrolled that, he was happy to and I was happy to be 'kept'.

My DC all know about my career and they are bright enough to understand why our life is as it is. DS is at uni with career plans and ambitions. DD wants to be just like him.
Our children don't mimic our lives. Being a role model is important but we are not the template for our children's lives. It's more complicated than that.

About half of my friends are SAHMs. I have always worked part time, but finish in time to do school pickup.

A part of me has always been a bit envious at times, but now the children are older, I know that I simply could not spend my days wandering around the shops, or meeting for coffee.

But then I'm the daughter of a SAHM. From the age of 14 upwards, I secretly wished she worked, as I thought she had such a wasted life.

Just my experience.

DH wants to retire in a couple of years aged late 40s.
I wonder if he will endlessly have to explain himself.

I would love to go back to work dcs aged 14 & 10. However sometimes life throws things at you that you don't expect. People think I live a charmed life because I'm always smiling. They don't see the daily medication I have to take just to be able to get out of bed in the morning, bumped into someone a few weeks ago who couldn't believe it was me as she said you look like a 'cripple hunched over a walking stick'. Funny that she's not made any snidey comments to me about what I do all day. & yes I have a cleaner & have family help me out most days. & do u know why because I bloody need it! Off back to bed now till today's meds kick in.

I work p/t, 3 days per week. When ds2 starts school in Sept, I will have 2 days to myself. I can't wait!! Taking notes of all the things you lit do .......

Oh yes in a previous life I was a partner in a law firm.

I don't think I've wasted my life, and I've only one left at school.

We've discussed me going back to work more than once, but my DH is of the opinion that if I'm happy with what I do, he's happy.

If I sat around on my backside all day, and the house was a tip, I doubt he would be happy, but I don't. I never have. I've also volunteered since my youngest went to playgroup, doing more and more as my boys got older.

My sons see me as happy and fulfilled being at home. They know I had a good job before I became a SAHM, and they know I gave it up because one of us had to. It would have cost more than my salary to have our children looked after whilst I worked. They wouldn't have been able to do all the activities they did when they were younger. We have no family near us, so any time one of them was sick or off school we would have had hassle finding someone to look after them, and I know our lives are much easier and stress free because we decided I'd stay at home.

Every now and again I think I'd like to work. Then something happens to make me realise we're much better off with me being at home. The house is clean and tidy, there is always clean, ironed clothing, food in the fridge, a home cooked meal every night and I have always been home when they come in from school to ask about their day and chat to them.

Yes, I go to the gym. Yes, I occasionally have coffee or lunch with friends. What's wrong with an hour or two to myself a week?

Angels - perhaps it is an age thing. I know of SAHMs but they are much older than my friends and I. But then I don't think anyone I know could afford not to work.

I would never want to be a SAHM unless I had enough money in the bank to ensure I could support myself to a decent standard forever. So I suppose that would be several million or something (considering my potential salary until retirement). I couldn't bear to be one of the women on here who gets left by their partner/left their partner themselves having not worked for 20 years. Of course you hope that doesn't happen but...

Also I think I'd have to find something more interesting to do when the kids went to school. Each to their own of course but it all sounds rather dull long term. Added to that I like work and plan to make my professional mark on the world, I don't think it's for me. Of course I hope I am able to somehow find that balance when our children come! Hopefully soon

Jenai - yes I can. We live rurally so there will be school runs and after school clubs to sort out. I also think its important to be there for your kids for quite a long time. If we are financially well off enough for me not to have to work why would I? Its partly my pre dc worl that would have enabled the situation. Yes, I would want to do something productive with my time but I know what I'd do - either a masters/phd in the subject I'm passionate about/ being involved on committees and things for my other passion/ voluntary work, especially locally in my village.

However, I am extremely lucky to have 2 things - a business that runs itself if I keep an eye on it and that if I want to return to part time I can.

Not everyone Is or wants to be a wage slave. Some have higher ambitions, others have other priorities in life and quite rightly so. How boring would the world be if we all did 9 - 5.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I have been a SAHM for nearly 9 years. In the beginning, I took redundancy after my first child and a very pleasant time that was, as I had a financial cushion. I because pregnant with my second child 3 years later and life was a bit tougher, not so much savings, recession hit but we were still okay, just squeezed financially more. I found life a lot harder, financially and my second child not as easy but I plodded through but it certainly wasn't the same as the first 2 or 3 years at home. Turns out that my younger child almost certainly is ASD, which explains why I found things so much tougher with him as a toddler. The last 2 years have been taken up with sorting out school issues, he has only been full time for the last term. During this time we also had a bereavement which took up lots of hospital visits. Once my child's schooling is properly sorted, still ongoing, I am not sure what I will do. Part of me wants to stay at home as it's the only break I get, even though there is always stuff to do and another part of me wants to go back to work. Life is supposed to be about choices though. I don't buy into this thing that women HAVE to have a career to get the respect and set an example to their daughters. Anyway, I don't have daughters, and judging by the threads on here as a mil, I will be wrong whatever I do!!! Seriously, though, choices in life. And sometimes it isn't choice anyway, it's circumstances.

free, studying and running a business (even if it runs itself) isn't the same as "only" (note the "s there please!) running a house and looking after children!

I became a sahm when DS was diagnosed with SN. He is 14 now, and it would be a bit easier to work now that he has a suitable school and fewer appointments. Before that it was pretty much impossible to work as he needed quite a lot of therapy and could only attend school p/t.

I am doing a degree p/t now, I do some voluntary work, plus I have my own health issues which require a lot of clinic appointments. I spend a fair bit of time pottering around, but the other commitments mean it wouldn't be practical to look for work anyway. I would get bored without my study or voluntary work and I think adult social contact and the structure of attending classes/having deadlines are important. But financially I don't need to work (we are mortgage free and have a healthy amount of savings, about half in my name) and fortunately DH and I are both happy with this arrangement.