To think, actually, WOH gets harder as they get older.

[Tournament]

I've worked (at least p-t) all my life. It was a choice for me, I wanted to get out to work, keep my career etc, although I did very much step back for a while, I always kept my hand in IYSWIM.

When DC were tiny, there was always some feeling of guilt at not always being there, but the day to day practicalities were easy. You got them up and dressed, bundled them in the car, handed them over to GP, childminder or nursery and then it was someone else's job to do everything for them until it was practically bedtime. They were cared for, fed and entertained without me ever really having to do anything. (When I was at work). I'd collect on my way home, take them home and put them to bed.

Now they're 9 & 11, there's homework to supervise, clubs to organise, taxi services to provide, sports and school events to watch (or to have to explain you can't) friendship issues or other worries to listen to and if I'm not around after school, they can't have friends back and they can't go to other's houses.

And in answer to original post, I feel more needed by dd now she is 8 than when she was tiny. Or even 4/5. I would love to work 5 days in 4 or something but not possible in my profession. I feel I am missing out but the alternative seems to be to give up completely on career!

Xenia is right we must take our place as rightful equals to men - why should they not have to make these difficult choices?

have far too low expectations.

Low expectations or different desires, different priorities?
My Mother worked in a care home for ten years.
She has no doubt that her presence in that home helped make the final years of the residents better. She wasn't paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year like you Xenia, but her job was just as important as yours is. I know you don't believe that a care worker does as important a job as you, but you are wrong.
And Xenia, plenty of people would find your work very boring.
I find the law boring.
I considered studying Law, having a good first degree and wondering about a career change. Law appealed because it pays so well. But the more I investigated, the more I realized I'd struggle to stay awake doing the coursework, it was so deathly dull.
A career in Law is not for everyone.

If your children squall, you are clearly abnegating responsibility for complex problem-solving . Housework is not in the job description of a Stay At Home Mother (read the words carefully).

One of the great attractions of being a SAHP is the creative freedom to live your life as you see fit and outside an institutional / cultural framework. No-one is telling you what to do and you can do as much of it as you wish. Of course, many parents lack the imagination and skills to seize that creative freedom and so cannot see what they would do left to their own devices. Those parents are, indeed, better off in a workplace that structures their day and gives them the purpose they are unable to find for themselves.

Having looked at the Relationships board, I think one reason that many women do not leave their high earning partner if they are a SAHM is because they are financially scared to leave and feel unable to support themselves or their children in anything like a basic standard of living. I have read so many posts saying- I'd love to leave, but I can't, where would I do, how would I earn a living? There's always benefits, or attempting to get maintenance, but I am really saddened by how many women are trapped by this.

I don't think it's that working parents divorce as they are both stressed, but there is some evidence that WOH mums are more likely to have affairs, which is fairly obvious as if you are home all day there's no-one to have an affair with. So, to the extent that you are limited in your economic and romantic choices as a SAH mum, you may be less willing to leave. I don't see this as a good reason to always have the woman at home though!

Stepawayfromthescreen - Im sitting on the beach right now during my lunch break. No kids, no stress. I get all my washing and ironing done for me. The kids arent messing up the house. I love full time I have to go back to part time in Jan and I am dreading it.

don't kid yourself Mumsyblouse, the working Mum's are affected too. Running 2 households following a divorce is expensive for both Mothers and Fathers. And since most women work these days, it's mostly working Mothers who are getting divorces!

I think it is hard to know if women or men with jobs have more affairs than those without. The mother at home carrying on with the milk man/pool boy/gardener or whatever is not that unusual a scenario. The point for equality though is that women are constantly made to think about work and children and men aren't - except in non sexist marriages.

(I think I tend not to say what I do or what I earn but I certainly think if women (and men) can pick work which will fascinate them for 40+ years they tend to have a better life than if they pick work they do not enjoy and if you can also pick work you love and is high paid - eg owning a string of care homes as a good few women do rather than on £6.20 an hour working in them - you will probably find life is easier).

& if you don't work and spend all your time "parenting " cooking and cleaning up after your husband, what are you other than a servant to others? How can you be a positive role model? I suppose it's fine if you think women's function is only to breed and raise the next generation. Sorry but I want more for my life than to be a convenient babysitter while men go and experience the world.

Some people women don't seem to have their own identity beyond being defined as a parent. It makes me angry that women still put themselves in this position.

There is also evidence that kids these days suffer from over parenting don't know how to use their imaginations or be bored. It worries me how the recession has increased the prevalence of sahm. We are seriously going back to the fifties.

only to raise the next generation
LOL!
You say that like it's a bad thing!

yy - being a house-elf is not a good career choice and nor does it provide an adequate role model for womanhood.

Madame laBean, what a thoroughly condescending rant that was.
I hope you don't work in diplomacy.

Raising the next generation should be a joint responsibility of both parents so that they can be their own people too.

Xenia is right - women are constantly made to consider work v children and men are not because all the childcare stuff is assigned as the woman's responsibility automatically. Men are not attacked for wanting to be dads and also have a full time job. In an equal relationship both parents should share the earning and the caring responsibilities.

Bonsoir,

hark at you
Tell it how it is.
Having a great day with dd today, we have been to the library, had cake in town, yummy. Bit of maths and English and now she is practising her music and playing with her dad, the most beautiful duets. We are then going to do a bit of history, then to dance classes.
Dh will cook in between teaching a few students and then free for time together tonight.
I too would find far too many restrictions as a wohm. I have even managed a few business deals and a bit of admin as well and its not 2pm yet.

Morethanpotato, how do you and your dh earn a living? Your day does sound great. I would love it if there could be a happy medium (with the dad doing his fair share!) but for many people there doesn't seem to be one.

Madame

We have a small LTD company that does lots of musical stuff really. Dh is the musician and I do the business bits and pieces. I have always done this but only just now going to claim a wage and be employed.
We travel a fair bit, but only this country, although dh works abroad quite often.
Our youngest dd is 9 and H.ed since september, she loves music and would practice all day if I didn't keep her focussed on Maths English etc. Its great for us as never been conventional types, every day is different and has new challenges.
I know its not for everyone, but it suits us.

Had to scroll through a lot of bun fight to find the OP, but I agree. I have told several colleagues returning from ML to make the best of those early years. It's not about outsourcing parenting - you may well spend as much time with them, but nurseries, CMs, etc fit (within reason) around you, not vice versa. Suddenly when they hit school age, they need you to fit in with their timetable and they feel it much more keenly if you can't be there, no matter how much they accept the realities of life. It is hard to see how thrilled your 10yo is that a parent is there to watch him play in a match without feeling guilty about all the times when neither of us can go, even though he would never actually ask or expect us to be there.

Eg to do a job that allowed me to start at 9 & be home by 5/6 and not have emergency lates, I would have to take a 60% pay cut and childcare around school hours would cost same as my take home. Granted, OH would pay half but the job would likely have to be something rote which means i would not enjoy it and there would be no point me working ... Or i would have to be self employed but not very easy to do. Etc. THat is why the "happy medium" is hard to find!

uni thats another one. Doing all the open days with dd1 was hard going and impossible if I'd been working. Thankfully I was on maternity leave at the time.*

I work at a uni & very few students come with their parents . They're nearly 18 fgs!!!

& we also would not have been able to afford to get on property ladder had I not got this job. Now we can look for a bigger house so will have room for dc2 when we decide to ttc.

OH earning megabucks and having the choice for one partner not to work is a luxury but is rare- most families need 2 incomes to get same standard of living that was possible on one not that many years ago (eg own your house, have a car & occasional holidays)

that's rather odd. I went to a Uni open day and the vast majority, over 90%, had an adult (parent/relative) with them.

Ah, so I can see exactly what your problem is laBean.
You have no choice. You have to work.
So not really feminism, just basic economics?
But that doesn't excuse you taking the piss out of women and men who do have a choice.

house elf?
servant?
next time there's a debate on here about what sahm's should call themselves, nevermind full-time mother or 'at home with the kids', use your proper title of house elf, rofl! (sadly it wasn't a joke)

MadameLeBean: "There is also evidence that kids these days suffer from over parenting don't know how to use their imaginations or be bored. It worries me how the recession has increased the prevalence of sahm. We are seriously going back to the fifties."

I disagree with this. I believe that SAHMs of the 50s, or housewives as they were called then, were looking after the house and their husband, not their kids. (I remember the 70s, though not the 50s, and that was how it was then in my neck of the woods). Children played out, babies sat in prams, mothers were within shouting distances in case of broken arms, not hovering about going "and do you you remember the difference been cumulus clouds and cirrus clouds?" (If the arm turned out to be just sprained, you got short shrift for making a fuss)

Nowadays WOHPs work in other locations where they are not even in shouting distance, and arguably the children get more attention as someone has to officially take this role on and therefore professionalise it.

I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. My mother exerted an unusual degree of control over us as medium-sized children but I still felt that no one gave a shit about me. I read threads on here about how much people love their children nowadays, and how concerned they become at things that no one ever noticed in the past, and it makes me sad for how we all were then. We were just a rabble of feral, abused, ignored, smacked, bullied desperadoes, lips stained with kia ora, surviving on desperate barter of chews bought with found 1ps, always only one mojo away from being made to eat bitter privet.

I do have a choice. I choose to have a fulfilling career. I could afford to live in a small town and rent, and have an pt admin job or rely on OH's wages only , if we didn't live in London. The only reason we live here is because we both work here and it doesn't make sense to have 2 commutes. My point was that MOST families cannot survive on 1 income. Theoretically my household could. However owning my home is important to me where kids are in the picture.