to think that the further you are from the world of work, the crazier being a working mum sounds?

[StripeyBear]

I did it for 3 years - motherhood and a (part-time, but) demanding job... when you were always running from pillar to post, and buying take-away pizza, and feeling guilty because your child was crying when you left, and always being tired and hassled and answering your blackberry on your days "off" and being f**ked off because your job wasn't half as interesting as the work you used to get when you were childless and in the office full-time-plus....

Almost 2 years of being a SAHM later, my working-mother-friends come round for coffee on their day off and moan about all of the above.. It sounds familiar, but now even their moaning exhausts me. I'm more in a swapping recipes for lemon-drizzle-cake and making my own pizza dough sort of head space. These days I just potter around - my whole life has slowed down.....

Don't get me wrong - I realise I'm fortunate that we can manage without the wage (and not everyone can), but I find I am barely worse off (once the childcare is taken into account, and it is so much easier to spend money wisely, now that I don't have to buy crappy pizza because I am too exhausted to cook or book my holiday at the last minute because I wasn't organised earlier). And life feels so much better now that I'm not always exhausted... and I actually have time to do interesting stuff like read (grown-up) books... and there is no stress around childcare and the like....

So when my friends come round and moan about their blackberries ringing and being side-lined for promotions and feeling stressed about organising a child's birthday party when they have no time to really do it and so on.... instead of feeling oodles of sympathy... all I can think is... WHY? WHY? Why are you doing it then?

AIBU? I sort of suspect I might be

Stripeybear - just to pick up on your point about career women feeling anxious if they stay out of the job market for a whole to focus om family -

Unfortunately, that is a very well founded anxiety. Typically, before women have children, they compete very well with men in terms of work and earnings.

However, after they have children, overall they will earn less - not just for the time when they are not in the workforce, but when they return as well. This makes interesting reading - look for the point at the end about men's earnings overtaking women's in their 30s.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/young-women-earning-more-men

Comments about how hard it is to re-enter the workforce in a satisfactory way are not sour grapes or scaremongering. That really is how it is, unfortunately. It is a gender inequality issue.

Your clearly not a divorce lawyer are you stripey?

earlierintheweek It sounds like you have had a painful divorce - so sorry to hear that. It obviously depends on what assets you have, but marriage is the best framework for supporting a SAHM - the starting point for the division of assets is 50/50, with a presumption that assets follow the children where there is insufficient to meet their needs from half the marital pot.

That obviously breaks down where there is little to divide in the first place, or where the parent with care has difficulty securing a reasonable contribution because the other parent is in and out of work, or earns very little anyway.... but partnerships like this are vulnerable without divorce too, and being married is the best protection you can have.

You can only do your best. Our household is more vulnerable now that we have a sole earner, say if my husband lost his job or died or developed a gambling problem and cut off my access to his bank account... but can you plan your life on the basis that bloody horrible things will happen?

IME, unfortunately, the things that have always got me, I the things I never even imagined might happen

Stripey - I am not going to discuss the personal details of my life except to say that in my personal experience you are wrong, it doesn't work like that. And the experience of lots of others on this thread would also bear that out.

What I will say is that you are perfectly entitled to do exactly what you want anyone is, whether it's WOHM SAHM or anything in between, but you should be aware in doing so that you aren't as cushioned as you seem to think you are.

I do take your point rainrainandmorerain The thing - the problem is having children per se, isn't it? Prior to having kids my career was going great guns... I was blazing a trail... then I had a child and I felt like I was standing still... well I was standing still...

I suppose I am taking a huge hit by giving up work - I know that and accept that, but think it is worth it in order to be the person who looks after my child.

If you take your argument to its logical conclusion, then it is really an argument for not having a children at all as they damage your career

Right... off out.. hope everyone has a good morning

Stripey- some of your more recent posts have been more balanced and reasonable and you are trying to show some compassion towards posters
such as worried.

Unfortunately that doesn't cancel out your extremely ill thought out, smug OP, which comes across totally as mischief making at best, shit stirring at worst. There is no point to it other than to have a cheap swipe at women who frankly have more in their lives to juggle and think about than frigging pizza dough.

If you genuinely didn't mean to cause offence I would think twice before starting a thread like this in future, Because it's clearly hurtful to those women who, like you, don't have an interesting work life, but don't have the choice you have (at the moment!) to jack it in
And for those of us who do have interesting jobs and choose to do them rather than need to, its maybe not so hurtful but it's definitely insulting. And then the likes of hannahsister piles in with her nasty sexist comments and sweeping generalisations about children in nurseries having a less positive experience than if mum didn't work... Its not intelligent debate, it's just shit stirring .

To be fair, Stripey - it's not 'my argument', it is how it is! I call it structural sexism...

As things stand, having children IS likely to damage your career - if you are a woman.

If you are a man, it doesn't have a negative effect.

This doesn't mean that as individuals we can't buck the trend - and it's never a reason for mothers pursuing the path they want to, work-wise.

But unless we recognise that overall mothers are disadvantaged in the workforce, we won't change that situation.

the only thing I get from the op's posts is the fact she can afford to have these points of view

money is the deciding factor in everything, well it is to me

It depends on your personality.Some people are the type to get a lot done,and some cant manage.I like challenges, and want to do absolutely everything myself from bringing up my children to earning the money (control freak)

I do think a lot of it is organisation.I only had 2 weeks maternity the first time.I didnt know how to cook and I wasnt very domesticated.Now I have 2 children and a job I have managed to complete my degree, batch cook meals every weekend,and everything is very organised.

You do sound insufferably smug.. I can't give up work because I earn nearly twice as much as DH. This is the main reason the vast majority of working mums work. Although it has to be said that swapping lemon drizzle cake recipes isn't how I would fill my time if I were a sahm.

You can't win on this thread. As working mum and main breadwinner, I now feel like my problems and unhappinesses are down to not being organised and not one of life's 'achievers' (despite being Oxbridge grad/higher rate tax payer).

Maybe it is because I am an older mum and bloody tired all the time. (waits for some sprightly fifty year old with ivf triplet toddlers to spring up and tell me all about her fab job as a CEO....)

To sound less self pitying..... I am aware that personally I do not like a life that is minutely scheduled (never have) so if that is the price of being a 'successful' working mum, then it's not one I want to pay. I do want time (at my age) to stop and pick the daisies a bit. Batch cooking is something I need to try and do though.

I am not organized and probably moan, but I wouldn't give up my job for the world. Not only is it interesting (and I was very rubbish at household management anyway), I like talking with my colleagues, working on projects, interacting with students, and I also appreciate the financial freedom it gives me, as well as the pension. We need the money, but that isn't what drives me to work, it's because I'd only be at home for three days before starting a new project/book/website anyway, and I'd rather get paid for it.

Me and my friends who work full-time wouldn't swap it at all (ok, perhaps 4 days a week but not for less pay). We have noticed we tend to have a more equal balance over childcare/stronger identity than our friends who quit work and although we might have struggled through the early years, are now reaping the benefit. There is also the political dimension of women withdrawing from public visibility and life mentioned by another poster.

People do cheerfully support SAHP as a valid choice. What people on this thread do not fucking support, is said SAHP judging WOHMs from her position of peivelwge. That is when the grapes tend to sour.

It sounds from more recent posts like maybe you do understans factors which contribute to choosing to be a WOHM....which suggests your OP is a purposeful dig/a bit of sport/you not actually being happy with your choice/what?

Rain I go for a 'just in time' lowering standards approach. My job is very intense and I find I don't have time/energy to think of great meals or have the house looking wonderful. But and this is a big but, I have made this choice. Don't feel bad if you are not organized, you may be too tired to be both organized at home and at work (betting you are great at work). I spend my time on work, husband and children, the rest is a bit chaotic but we are all where we should be, in relatively clean clothes. I don't think setting crazily high standards is the way to go (I'm sure some can, but I can't be 100% in every area of my life at any one time).

I dont do amazing meals rainrain very far from it.I just do things like lasangne and cottage pie.This is impressive for me as when I had baby no 1 I couldnt cook,was in a situation with no maternity leave and was stressed and unorganised.

I thought I wanted to be sahm but when I did maternity leave with no 2 recently I realised it wasnt as exciting as I thought and I realised most of my friends spent their time watcing homes under the hammer and walking down the shop. I realised I definitely liked having aspirations and goals, and am not ready to give them up for a long time yet.

I appreciate reponses.... but.... see the post I made below.

I am not talking about 'amazing' meals - or having high standards of housekeeping. I am talking about ANY meals. ANY housekeeping. I am also, sadly, not great at work. I am a lot worse since I had ds, and cannot imagine that the arrival of no.2 shortly is going to make me any better.

In all honesty - I do think this is just me, tbh. I have achieved some impressive things with my career, that I am proud of - I have out earned my partner significantly and bought us a nice house in a lovely area. I am over 40 and I am not as hungry/desperate to prove myself in the world of work as I was, although there is still much that I am interested in exploring, from a creative pov. I am disappointed that looking after one child and working leaves me so bloody tired (been to the doctor, a lot - nothing systemic wrong with me, although I am ill a lot. Not depressed, either). I also have a partner who works from home who shares childcare and (to some degree) housework. Oh, and we have a cleaner once a week.

I do think it is me that is the problem. I have another friend in the same line of work who like me worked very hard when her babies were very small - she has ongoing health problems and some sort of fatigue - she says she thinks she was 'broken' 5 years ago, when her daughter was born and she had to keep working. She just hasn't recovered. It sounds dramatic, but that is the closest to how I feel.

Rainrain - If your the main breadwinner cant your dh do the majority of cleaning/cooking?

chesty - not an option, in a nutshell.

He works full time too - and is self employed like me, and in a creative job - but earns less ( it is a more erratic/lower paying profession).

If I asked him to pick up the majority of household jobs on the grounds that he earns less than I do, he would refuse.

(I'm not sure what I think about that. If I posted a reverse aibu saying 'I work full time, so does my partner, he earns more than me so expects me to do the majority of cooking/cleaning - I wonder what response I would get!)

He genuinely shares the childcare in a way that more men should - BUT he does find it an effort, and there have been times (in arguments) where he is at pains to remind me that he does much more on that front than pretty much every other dad we know of. This is true - but the implication that I should be grateful is not one that I appreciate. I do not constantly remind him that it is thanks to my superior earning power that we are in the very nice house we own, for example.

The added complication is that both our jobs are unpredictable. We never have a year's work lined up - unemployment is only a stone's throw away. This makes planning any kind of long term childcare a pita (can't plan much in advance, wouldn't want to be stuck paying for childcare we weren't using if we weren't working that month). It also means that formalising an arrangement such that he stop working (which he wouldn't do anyway, work is too important to him) to allow me to work more would put a lot of pressure on me (more than if I had a full time paye job, iyswim).

So on we go.

Rain since I went back to work pt I've been ill so much. I'm having blood tests to check things are ok and taking loads of supplements but I'm still full of cold this weekend. It's all fine til I'm ill and then things start to fall apart. Be kind to yourself, you can have a healthy diet & not cook all day. You can have a good life without working on something 16 hours a day. I read what folks do on here & they must not sleep to fit it all in and mn to tell everyone about it too :)

Rainrain - You should tell him that most dads to do lots of childcare if their wives work its what they are meant to do.

Worried 345 I really hope you feel better soon. That sounds like absolute shit. If you are near Bristol let me know - happy to do some shopping for you if that helps. I am not at working at the moment, so lots of time on my hands.

the op is right that marriage gives you some protection but it is NOT the holy Grail. If your ex gets arsey, you can get dragged out in long legal battles that will very quickly eat up £20-50K or even more of your assets. Yes, children are the courts first priority but the husband also has a right to be housed. Even if you are comfortably off, once you split that money has to fund two households so you are inevitably going to take a bit hit. Plus the move more and more is against spousal maintenance for joint lives and the expectation is that once your children are at school, you get a job.

This is obviously going to be difficult if you have never worked or not worked for many years. You will be looking at jobs at the less skilled end of the market, your earnings will be low. Even if you do get a house out of the divorce, you still have to spend money on your utility bills and maintenance/repair costs.

My basic advice would be

• if you have children, get married
• if you have a skill/profession, try hard to keep your hand in
• if you don't have a skill/profession, build up some savings
• make sure the main bread winner is covered by life insurance/income protection etc
• don't make assumptions about how your life will pan out
• don't be smug

-don't judge others choices when you know or understand little about their lives

chesty - yep, for sure - his point is always that he works full time too, when we have a conversation (or argument) about childcare. It is an odd one - intellectually, calmly, he has no problem at all about doing what he does, in theory! in practice... when he is angry about something else, sometimes he says things which make it sound like he feels he is doing something EXCEPTIONAL, for which I do not show enough gratitude.

His attutide toward my career is the same. Calmly, rationally, he has no problem with it - he is quite happy to acknowledge the pleasant material things we have that my earnings have bought for us. He says he would not have been able to do anything like it on his earnings.

But when he is in a bad mood and looking for things to criticise - he often makes out that I have been 'lucky' in my work (of course, I have - an element of luck comes into a lot of things! I have also worked very very hard). He makes out that although we both work, I have been 'luckier' than he has.

I have said on another thread - I actually dread getting into a position where I earn less than him (with a new baby on the way, this might happen) - as I think he would very quickly use HIS position as main breadwinner to drop out of doing as much household work as he could.

handbagcrab - that's a lovely post, I really appreciate it. yes, I've done the thousand blood tests too! I did get a diagnosis of post viral fatigue a while ago - but bearing in mind all the doctor said was 'rest and take it easy', it wasn't much help. I have never been so consistently ill with various things as I have since having a baby. And it takes so bloody long to recover. That has been a real shock - I was very healthy pre-mum days, and never thought much about illness at all.