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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to want to go to work?

67 replies

Tamlyn07 · 18/04/2014 14:17

I knew I wanted to be a vet when I was 13. It was all I wanted to be and worked hard to get into Girton and then to get my license. I invested seven years of study and spent another two years establishing my practice.

I gave birth in December and I want to go back to work...I love my job, I cant imagine not doing it.

However my husband, who has just been made an SHO said he can support my DS and me and I don't have to go back. That I can be a stay at home mum until my DS goes to reception.....and everyone friends and family think this is an amazing idea.

I feel like I am being a bad mother for choosing to go to work when I don't have to ......MM worked full time since I was 3 months and I barely saw her because she travelled a lot, but I still love her and we still spend time together and have a great relationship.

I feel like I am duty bound to be a stay at home mother.....where so many mothers have no choice to go to work....I feel like a bad mother for wanting/longing to go back to work. I have worked all my life....I was making pizzas at my uncles restaurant when I was 17 to save up money for Uni.

To be at home, to meet other non working mothers and talk about washing up detergent and do household chores and ask my DH for £20 for groceries seems like my idea of hell.....

Any advice will be welcome

OP posts:

Finola1step · 18/04/2014 16:19

It's entirely up to you.

As it is your practice, you would be wise to work at least part time to over see its management. But this does not mean you have to be there full time. Would it be possible to keep the nanny full time and maybe put in about 4 or 5 hours a day at work?

I will advise you to keep your long term options open though. I have found that my dc have needed me more and more as they have got older. It was easier to work full time when my ds was little and in nursery part time (rest of time juggled around dh's freelance work). But now that we have a 6 and 3 year old, the juggling is very different.

Different strokes for different folks but keep your options open.

Aventurine · 18/04/2014 16:22

It sounds like you'd bore other SAHPs to tears with your scintillating detergent conversation. Please go back for everyone's sake.

Bumbershoot · 18/04/2014 16:23

Go back if that's what you want - as you've said, your other two were fine, and honestly if you think sahms sit around talking about washing detergent, I'm not sure you'd make a very good one.

Sandthorn · 18/04/2014 16:30

If your husband thinks the kids need a parent around, could he stay hone or go part time?

Some people want to go back to work, others want to stay home. Either is fine, but it doesn't help your case being sniffy about the alternative choice.

DameFanny · 18/04/2014 16:36

Go back to work. If your DH thinks your children need a stay at home parent then he should be volunteering.

And iirc it's considerably harder to become a vet than a doctor, so why waste the training?

TheWordFactory · 18/04/2014 16:38

So OP, does your DH expect you to sell your business?

Lonecatwithkitten · 18/04/2014 17:51

I am a vet too and I went back to running my own business when DD was three months old, because being a SAHP was not for me. I have utmost respect for my SAHP friends who undertake long hours of lone working which was just something I could not handle.
Go back if you want to, but there is just something about your post Cambridge is 6 years to qualify not 7. In the profession we talk about being qualified not having a 'licence' though you may mean your PDP.

janey68 · 18/04/2014 18:04

If you want to work, then do it. It seems very odd to feel that you 'ought' to be at home just because your husband says so, even though you've managed perfectly well for the last few years and your children are fine. If he has strong feelings about being home, why can't he do it?
You've done well for yourself building up your own practice so I can completely understand you not wanting to chuck it all in. I preferred working part time while my kids were pre school age, but I totally get where you're coming from, not everyone wants to give up their career

Marvintheparanoid · 18/04/2014 18:08

Don't do it. I did it against my better judgement because everyone convinced me its what a good mother should do and the fall-out nearly broke my marriage. Being a SAHP is a decision you should take only if you are 100% certain. Your children will be much happier with a happy mother who is with them part of the time than a mother who is with them all the time and resents it. Plan proper childcare, restart working part-time and see how it goes. If you find you are not too exhausted juggling home and work and your DS is thriving, then please keep working and don't feel guilty.

Pimpf · 18/04/2014 18:11

If you are happy, your children will be happy. You are lucky to be in a position where you can choose.

Maybe your dh thought that for whatever reason you might want to take this time out, just talk to him and let him know that that won't work for you.

aermingers · 18/04/2014 18:21

Do what you want. I work part time because I can't afford to do otherwise. But I also find it is good for my little boy to go to childcare where he mixes with other children for a few days so it works for us.

I'm generally of the opinion (as I think most people are these days) that if women have the option they should take whichever they want.

It makes me cross when people suggest that they 'should' do either. Be that the Daily Mail trying to guilt women into staying home or Cherie Blair saying SAHMs are making a 'disasterous mistake'.

We're lucky that to some extent we have a choice and we shouldn't feel guilty for exercising it whichever way we choose.

It's better for a child to have a happy fulfilled working parent than a miserable SAHP.

With being a vet could you organise your work so that you could spend some more time at home if you wanted?

PurplePidjin · 18/04/2014 18:32

Surely this works both ways - your income would justifiably allow him to be the SAHP. How does he feel about that?

just1moretime · 18/04/2014 18:38

I wasn't cut out to be a sahm either but thought I should do it. I genuinely feel my dcs didn't get much out of me being a sahm because I was terrible at it. Iwas obsessed with the housework, didn't take them anywhere because I had all the time in the world to do that when the never ending cleaning was finished which of course it never was, so I was around but not doing anything constructive. I hated it. It was like doing a job that I hate and was terrible at for no pay (the house not the kids!) Now I work part time my 2 weekdays with my DS are precious. We are out all the time. The house is a tip but I can justify a cleaner once in a while and I don't care if the family pants aren't ironed or about separating the washing into whites and coloureds at all!!

nocheeseinhouse · 18/04/2014 18:46

Your post is a bit odd, are you in the UK? The language used about your own career, and your husband's, aren't what people would actually use in those careers.

In response, no, you are not unreasonable to wish to keep your career.

Lonecatwithkitten · 18/04/2014 18:50

I guess in UK nocheese for the reference to Girton one of the Cambridge colleges that accepts vets.

nocheeseinhouse · 18/04/2014 18:55

If in UK, then very strange, as doctors don't get 'made an SHO'- the SHO grade doesn't exist any more, and even in common parlance you 'become' one, not made, as it's the usual progression, if you get me? And that would happen in August, unless very out of programme, so not a 'just'. The first year of the old 'SHO' grade is Fy2, and if he can support you, and 3 kids, on an Fy2's salary, well done him. Your post doesn't quite add up, can you explain the situation?

Odaat · 18/04/2014 19:07

Your veiw in SAHMs is odd. Personally I wouldn't leave my baby at 3 months , but I wouldn't make a sarcy remark about someone doing that either. I feel you are belittling SAHMs by making remarks about 'discussing detergents' ... You should perhaps rethink how you say things.

Oh sod it, forget being the bigger person- Leaving a 3 month old baby with a nanny when you do not have to is weird as far as I am concerned. Why hve the babies if you don't want to be at home with them much at all?

BigBoobiedBertha · 18/04/2014 19:09

I did think it odd that in the Op she said her DH would be supporting her and her DS and then in the second post, she suddenly had 3 children. I did wonder if DH would be supporting the other 2 as well

expatinscotland · 18/04/2014 19:09

If you want to work full time, then do! Why is it the some pan who always has it suggested to her to go part-time? Sexist bollocks.

HappyMummyOfOne · 18/04/2014 19:16

Go for it OP. You are happy with your childcare and if it means so much to your DH to have a parent home let him quit work.

Odaat, most men take two weeks off and don't get asked why they had children! What a bizarre comment.

Sunnydaysablazeinhope · 18/04/2014 19:26

Well, thanks so much for belittling those that sahp.

I appreciate your desire to work. I do too. I'm a sahp presently. I'm degree educated. I've worked in senior positions in the City. But apparently all I want to talk about and all the people I have met wish to discuss is washing up? We no longer watch the news. Baby is far more interesting. I what? No longer have worthy opinions? Why? Because I have two children? I'm less than you because I procreated and stayed at home or just because I presently am at home.

Now my choices are my business. Yours are yours. I don't care either way. Just do whatever with no regrets and hundred per cent. Less is not an option any more.

But please, don't insult others whilst making your own choices. Or blame us either. Then you lose all credibility you have earnt.

Odaat · 18/04/2014 19:42

I have a masters degree but choose to stay at home! Your degree should not determine wether you stay at home or not...

Mummyofone - to clarify ; if her dh wa at home I wouldn't pass judgement. Its having kids then leaving them with a nanny at a very young age that baffles me

Doingakatereddy · 18/04/2014 19:43

I went back to work PT at 3.5 months & did regret it. Wished I'd hung out a bit longer & spent less time at shite baby rhyme time classes.

However, I'm now a SAHM, have loved it at times but now I cannot wait to go back to work!

My point is, no decision is forever - you change change at any time, but doing someone else's view of what's best for you is a very bad idea

Odaat · 18/04/2014 19:43

Ps I'll say again... I only criticised because she felt the need to.

monicalewinski · 18/04/2014 20:19

If you want to go back to work, go back to work.

Thousands of women every year go back to work because they want to, not because they have to.

I went back full time after 4 months with my first, 6 months with my 2nd - I've had guilt over the years of course, but the kids are spectacularly unaffected.

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