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

Exactly as Badinage and Trills say.

The default mode is always 'easier'.

OP - your description of working life doesnt in any way reflect mine or my DH or the way DH feels about the DC.
He would have snapped up the opportunity to take Mat leave .

My choice to be a WOHM was in part not wanting to give up a job I love and partly because it wasnt a huge sacrifice to leave my DC with their own father (age 1 after a years mat leave each time) while I worked part time.

The difference is though, that I realise these circumstances along with a short commute - 15 mins and a flexible working pattern apply only to me .
I would be foolish to start a thread telling all women they should work because it was easy/ worked well for me !

ChestyLeRoux Sun 10-Feb-13 15:43:58
Stripey - I would say in my rl 80% of men would be happy to do an even split of childcare, and a lot of men change to jobs without travel once children are here.

That's interesting - am discussing that figure with DH and we don't know anyone whose family has a SAHD. We know some families where the DH does a full working week compressed into 4 days, so that they do a day's childcare as well. We don't know anyone whose got a p/t working DH, while the DW works f/t.

What sort of jobs do you rl friends do Chesty? Just interested!

Men are discouraged from letting themselves feeling that way, and discouraged from admitting that they do if they do feel it.

I asked DH for a comment and he said: "Bollocks"

However I suspect he was supressing his true feelings

Im saying who would be happy to do it.Most dads work round the mums here though, and its about even mums and dads that do nursery drop offs/pick ups.Also men attend the surestart cafe, and we have quite a few single dads.

All sorts really mainly the hotels,shops,warehouse etc.I knew lots of men that left travelling jobs when they had children.Dh left the forces and took 30% paycut first off, but he doesnt want to leave them as its too hard to be apart for more than a night.Lots of his friends have done the same.

Also rhythm and rhyme group and the charity parenst group in town are both 50% men here.

Money isn't everything you know (passive aggressive fucking smiley emoticon)

Fine. Then you won't mind paying my mortgage for me every month eh? And my council tax. Ooo the gas bills going to be a bit hefty this month. I will pm you my account and sort code for the transfer.

Of course money isn't everything dear heart, but it is a massive part of what I need to keep a roof over my daughters head and food in her stomach.

OP Your husband thinks it's bollocks that men can feel discouraged from showing their feelings about missing their children?

DH has been a SAHD for the past 3 years or so. We know plenty of couples with this arrangement but I'm thinking me and stripeybear don't live in the same area or planet for that matter.

Our children have gone to him for the cuddles when they are hurt, or walked right past me and ask him for a drink. It hurts at first but the kids needs are met. And if you're hung up on attachment parenting, then there's no reason why the attachment should be to the mother and not the father.

It's supposed to be about the kids, not me.

I believe us swapping roles a few years into this parenting malarky has given the children a more balanced outlook on male/female roles. But only time will tell, so I await to see how they approach relationships and parenting themselves in the future. I suspect they won't tolerate the inequality you are promoting and why should they?

I don't think he was suppressing his true feelings and neither, it seems do you Stripey.

The point we're making is that it isn't just some mothers who miss their children when they are at work; some fathers do too. As there are some mothers who don't miss their children while at work and some fathers don't either. Socially though, it's more acceptable for your husband to say 'bollocks' to the suggestion that he might miss his children and have fears about admitting it. It's regarded as more 'normal' for fathers to be able to function quite happily at work with no separation anxiety at all - and for children to feel no separation anxiety about their fathers not being around for long periods of the day.

Fathers also have the benefit of not being negatively judged by other parents or people generally - and certainly not other men - for being FT working parents. Mothers do though. Fathers often get judged negatively by others if they are SAHPs, or work part-time because child-care and home management is regarded as a low status activity. But oh wait, women get judged negatively for that too.

Notice how it doesn't matter what a mother does, she'll be negatively judged for it? And how since mothers are women, that points to sexual inequality and nothing else?

verrry well put badinage.

I worked full-time (5 days) for 4 years as a single mum and it was a bit too much. There was no time for anything. Now I work part-time (4 days) and I feel I have a good work/life balance. I wouldn't want to work 5 days again, but I most certainly wouldn't want to not work ever again. I had a year at home when dd was born and it was very boring and lonely. I missed the social aspect of work, the sense of purpose and the money.

If feeding your children food you didn't make from scratch is what you can manage today - then they are loved and fed. - Sorry but that did make me chuckle.

In answer to the last part of your OP, isn't it obvious??
You know nothing of their finances. They work because they have to.
I'm very glad you don't have to but please don't rub it in for those who would love to do what you do and can't.

I will be arsed to enter into this tired old debate when men start saying "being a working dad is just so stressful! Why do it?!"

E.g when Hell freezes over.

Sorry but that comment 'money isn't everything' has just disgusted and enraged me so much that I conclude this op is just shit stirring or very unhappy with the choices she has made.

So I am not going to engage with this any further.

"If feeding your children food you didn't make from scratch is what you can manage today - then they are loved and fed".

gah!

Spero I'm right there with you.

What badinage, linerunner and trills are saying so eloquently

Striped- you kicked off by writing an inflammatory op, clearly intended to big yourself up somehow because your husband earns more than you (wtf?) and putting down women whose lives aren't an exact parallel to yours. You're not helping by continuing to post talking about 'evidence' which proves that nurseries are detrimental to children under 3, and saying that parents who work don't raise their children, and that mums are the 'number one' parent and other such bollocks.

This isn't intelligent debate, it really isn't and you aren't doing yourself any favour by continuing to dig this big hole

Agree with spero

yep, sign me up for the spero fanclub instead.

[the end]

Not bread. Thread.
Obviously.

You're right stripey, my children are different to yours. They "look for" both of us. They want daddy as well as mummy, probably because he mucks in and all that. Terribly unconventional, I know.