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

Personally, I work full time developing a cure for a horrible virus which causes economic ruin in the third world. So I have a fulfilling job which is actually important. Then I come home and make cupcakes with my adorable well-adjusted DDs, and on Fridays we have home-made pizza. My DH does his share of domestic chores/childcare and we have a cleaner once a week.

I am awesome. My life is awesome. So of course I am smug, because I really do have it all. Everyone should be just like me. That includes you, OP.

Roud my way the going rate for cleaners is £20-£25 for two hours

Worships at the feet of AnnieLobeseder. In the next life I want to come back as you!

Seriously op, give it up. You should know you're onto a loser when even the other SAHM's are ashamed of you!!!

If having it all is working and having children.The vast majority of mums and dads manage this successfully.

bloody well said Slatternlymother

Oh, and we chucked my eldest into the day orphanage at 4 months. Despite our best efforts to screw her up, she seems remarkably fine. Go figure. Now the younger one was at home with me for 18 months, cos of expensive childcare and pesky crap like that. She has more behavioural issues than DD1. Ah well.....

Worried mummy is dead right- you give SAHM a bad name OP

janey68 Sun 10-Feb-13 22:19:44
Earning the minimum wage in a nursery is a shit job?
But you said its not about the money stripey.....!!

No, I said it is not necessary to earn everything you can - that you can slow your life down and allow other priorities to take precedence. I personally wouldn't work for a minimum wage. I'm trying to think if there is any circumstance in which I would do this... maybe if my life depended on it... but otherwise no.

Oh stripeybear

The nursery I send DS to does satisfy me. You are right there. If it didn't, I wouldn't send DS.

Because.. (and this may blow your drizzle-cake-addled-mind, so hold on to your socks), I don't have to send DS there.

Whilst, I do have to work (for several reasons, some financial, some personal) I don't need childcare

You see I (rather like your DH) have been fortunate enough to land a role that pays out enough tuscan pizza dough, to keep a family. So like you, DH gets to "potter" whilst I graft. Just like your family, but with the genders reveresed.

So DS could in fact, stay home all day building lego with his Daddy. But instead, 2 days a week I choose to fork out £50 per day to send the little blighter to a day orpahange. Because it fucking rocks and he loves it. He does loads more there than at home, and given I am only going to have 1 DC, he gets to mix with other children, which he loves.

I note you think "kids learn by filling yoghurt pots with sand". That's marvellous. Luckily, DS gets to do this both at home and at nursery, so I think we have your in-depth and far-reaching curriculum covered. Thankfully though, both at home and in childcare, he does a lot more than this. He also gets a lot of attention and 1-2-1 care.

Now, the tings my nursery have are not just a "list they trot out". Because, oddly enough, each morning and evening I pick DS up from nursert, I get to see these things. And ask how he has done, what he has done and when he has done it. And they give me photos of him doing it. So I am pretty certain they didn't just jot down "sensory area" on a mission statement and the shove him in a car park for 8 hours.

You ask how much I would like to pay the people who care for him. I'd pay them loads. Whatever I could afford and I only wish more of what I paid the nursery went directly to them. And do you know why?

Well, because unlike you, I see childcare as a hugely important role. Not some minimum wage, immigrant shitchore as you clearly do. I think the people who care for DS are bloody brilliant - I'd pay them anything I could. They are fantastic and I am honured and humbled that there are people in this world who will take a (wrongly) lower paid job because they have a vocation.

So it is a choice for me, childcare. And it works for DS.

I have, apparantly, come across as anti-SAHM on some threads. For the records, I am not. Good SAHMs do a bloody amazing role and brining up children well is hard work and hugely important. And undervalued.

But you know what is easy? Being smug on an internet forum because you are insecure about your own choices. Easy. We can all do that. We just don't want to. If your lemon drizzle cake is really fulfilling you that much, I am surprised you are on here getting your validation from pissing off other mums doing the best they can in their own cirucmstances. That is just a poor excuse for living. Get a new hobby. The cake's not working for you

btw, you are massively underpaying your cleaner and your friends moan because they don't think they can talk to you serioulsy any more because all you give a shit about (by your on admission) is pizza dough.

Good girl, WorriedMummy73 (you got The Big One this year too, then, eh?). Keep up the adoration and worship. You may sacrifice Creme Eggs to my awesomeness.

Slatts summed it up for me. Some people don't struggle. I don't struggle, I do it and I do it well.

And as much as some people can't accept this, it does not make my children any less loved, and less wanted, any less well adjusted or any less happy.

Sulawesi Sun 10-Feb-13 22:21:29
I totally agree that the OP is giving SAHM's a bad name.

What a strange thing to say - just because we both happen to stay at home, it doesn't mean we have much in common. I think SAHM are a pretty diverse lot.

Annie - I will set about constructing an altar as soon as it stops fecking snowing at my end!

YEAH BITCH!

And actually, my DS' nursery do leave him in a car park for 8 hours, so I'm way more neglectful than you.

Hmm, heated debate happening here!

I just wanted to point out that presumably what's best for small children is good consistent caring minding. If that can be provided by a partner able to stay home, great. For that to work the person staying at home needs to be able for it, enjoy it, be happy and satisfied doing it.

Children have always grown up in a huge variety of scenarios. It's a bit of an assumption to imply that mum at home is best 'cause unfortunately, it isn't always. I'm not sure when this ideal of mum at home being best arose really cause surely in the past that has always been rare? Mums have had to work or if family was rich, children had nurses?

We're never done picking up a stick to beat ourselves with iyam.

ChestyLeRoux Sun 10-Feb-13 22:23:31
Even as a qualified staff member I dont think i could provide all the opportunities of nursery at home.

You have NO IDEA how SCARY that sounds!

Stripey - I'm actually going to agree with something you've said - we SAHM's are a pretty diverse lot. And thank God for that - because I wouldn't want to be anything like you. I would rather be struggling each week to make ends meet (as my family often is, and was when I was a child) and know that we are happy, healthy, well-rounded human beings, than be as well-off as you are and looking down on others for daring to use childcare (because YOU think it's damaging - what crap) or working because - shock, horror - they actually enjoy their job and/or make a difference in the world.

The reason I said you are giving us all a bad name is because your remarks and posts on this thread have led to some bashing of SAHM's in general, when we're not all actually like you.