to ask for your childhood experiences of a working or stay at home mother?

[suddenlycupishalffull]

I do not want to start a bun fight on the old debate, what I'm interested in your experiences as a child of your mum working or staying at home. There's so much in the press at the moment about working mothers (link below of latest example), it seems there's a real push to get mothers back to work, and in another thread, another poster mentioned she felt her younger siblings benefitted from their mother going to work through her increased confidence and self-belief. So I wonder what was your experience as a child? I'll go first...my Mum stayed at home but to be fair I really don't have any memories of that magical golden childhood that a SAHM is meant to engender...we had holidays, some big ones, I wasn't aware that we struggled for money though I found out when my Dad died that they were struggling...I'm not sure that I was any happier for my Mum being there all the time but then I knew no different. What was your experience, particularly if your Mum went back to work when she had been at home or visa versa?

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/having-a-working-mother-works-for-daughters

My mum was a sahm throughout my childhood right until I was 18 .

She had been a legal secretary in the 40 s but when the war was over and the men came back she had to give her job back. She worked in the offices of a large dept store until her marriage. She was the only one in her family to go to grammar school but left at 16. Her dad came from a clever family so why she wasn't encouraged to do more I don't know. There was a teacher and a ships engineer amongst her aunts and uncle .

Don't think dad wanted her to work. It was nice having her to come home too and I was a much loved and wanted child. I would have loved siblings. I've always felt a bit sad that there was never someone else on my level and that I missed out.

When I was 18 I got a holiday job in a betting shop. I came home from the training one day to find mum asleep at 4 in the afternoon. This was a regular occurrence. I sat down and taught her the bets and the next day she came with me. Got a job and absolutely loved it. Ended up running her own shop.
Then her and her new friend went to college and sharpened up their typing and shorthand skills and mum got a job in a govt dept.

She's been a lovely mother and although she's still alive I miss her terribly as she has dementia. She was marvelous when my marriage was breaking down and my ex would come round and throw his little fat twat weight around. I'd ring her, she'd jump in a taxi and be here in 10 mins. That would shut him up.

My Mum worked full time once I was in school as did my Dad...it was the 70s....I went to my Nan after school and loved that. Funnily enough I only remember begging my Dad not to go to work...I missed him.

My mum worked nights. I have memories of entertaining myself in the afternoons whilst she slept (raiding her make up bag and painting myself with green eyeshadow!).

It didn't affect our home life, we still had plenty of time together, meals together, etc.

My mum was a sahm and I really loved her being around all the time. When I was about 10 she took up teaching music from home and still does this. Lovely childhood memories.

Dh's mum worked full time from when he was 8 weeks and his dgm looked after him . He got to hang out with his cousins all the time and says he had a great time . He said he can't remember ever wishing his mum was at home more ( in the nicest possible way )

My mum worked in a professional job.

My main memories in connection with this are of her coming in laden with shopping and starting cooking tea with her coat on whist ranting at us for being ungrateful because we were watching TV and hadn't been on the watch for her returning and rushed out offering to help her in any way possible.

However I suspect her real beef was with my dad, who worked in the same field as her but longer hours, and thus managed to be promoted faster and avoid doing anything around the house (although my parents had a lot of paid help - cleaner, gardener, nanny, paid odd job man and painter and decorator, dog walker... so my mum wasn't quite trying to run a house and work full time... none the less my dad largely abdicated responsibility).

As a young adult I slightly resented her decision to go part time and have "me time" to potter once we'd all left home, even though she'd worked full time throughout our childhoods (I know this was unreasonable and never voiced it, it was just a feeling).

My mother often regales me of all the wonderful things she did with us as children despite working when I vividly remember doing those things with the nanny, not her (learning to bake and cook with my little sister's nanny when I was a young teen for example). But she has form for re writing the past.

I am a SAHM mainly, though I work some self employed hours around the needs of the children. Having a working mother influenced this choice - I know its an unfashionable thing to say but my mother was always stressed and snappy and blamed us for not being grateful she was setting us such a good example - it would have been one thing if she'd needed to work to support us, but she didn't as my dad was a high earner - she told us again and again she was working to show us that women worked (and to pay our private school fees)... and it put me off! My sisters are sahms too!

My mum worked full time, and sometimes had a second job too. She massively resented it and was very vocal about how unfair it was that she had to work. My dad worked full time with lots of overtime and weekend work so we didn't see him much.
I always felt that my brother and I were inconveniences and that having to do anything for us was annoying for my mum.

My mum was a single mother and went back to work ft when I was 10weeks old,Monday-Friday 7-5. We lived with my dgf and du who worked full time/student and between the three of them there was always someone there and I really feel/felt I had the ideal.
when dm married a soldier (i was 7) we moved abroad and she had no choice but to sah for a couple of years. Once we came back to UK she always worked, school hours when I was early teen, so she was generally home at about the same time as Me. She's divorced now and works 50+ hours a week, I don't know how she does it and I've always been immensely proud of her, when she couldn't find work she opened a small cafe, when we were posted she became a cm, amazing work ethic which to some degree she's passed on (I've always worked).
Although DM regrets working and wishes she could have been a sahm, and has encouraged me to sah if I can once my maternity is up (ds1 is 5 and currently pg 37+2).

My mother was a SAHM. She said my father made her give up her nursing career. She says to me never to give up my job and never depend on a man!

I am firmly WOHM by choice and will probably never retire fully. My sister is WOHM as well.

My mum worked full time once I was at primary, she was on her own and worked very hard. I walked to school (small village) and was collected by babysitters. I'm going to try and secure a job whereby me and DH can make sure we can collect our kids ourselves, I don't want to miss important school things.

I remember being on my own a lot and feeling bored. I didn't do any activities. My mum came home about 6 so I hung around watching too much telly. Money was tight and my mum was obviously tired at weekends. I want my children to do more.

Interesting to read others views.

My mum was a SAHM.

I genuinely don't really remember anything pre- going to school, so all those wonderful times at home....don't know . I know my mum was very engaged with us as children (me and sister two years younger) but all the snippets of memory I have could well have been after school or weekends.

I remember my dad never being there, I remember the handful of times my dad cooked, I remember growing up so bone idle as mum did it all.

I work full time and DH is a SAHD. He's bored off his tits as DTS' are at school and DS3 is at nursery in the mornings.

My mum was working but also a raving alcoholic so not sure what to say really, she would probably have died earlier had she been a SAHM

My mother was variously a SAHM and PT WOHM. She absolutely adored playing with babies and little children but she was quite resentful of the work involved in bringing DC up. With hindsight I can see that she was a terrible manager of people and had poor problem-solving skills and so her grasp of what was required to bring up DC beyond early childhood was very weak.

I have a very different personality, education and skill set to my mother and work harder and am more effective a parent and I think my family "works" better as a result. But this is something I have had to teach myself - I am not reproducing something embedded from childhood.

My mum had me at 19 and has never worked since (she's now 47). I do have some great memories of the times we spent together when I was young, but once I became a teenager I noticed how unhappy and frustrated she was. And still is.

I can't help but feel she would have been and would be happier now if she had worked on some of her own goals outside the home. And maybe her having a part-time job once my sisters and I were at school would have meant my dad could've worked a little fewer hours, so we'd have spent more time with him and together as a family.

It made me feel bad that part of the cause of her unhappiness was that she had given up aiming for something herself to look after me.

I also hated how my dad saw her contribution to the family as pretty much worthless and how subservient she always seemed - asking for money, getting shouted at for house messiness, being worried about how my dad would react when he got home, leaving all decisions to him, etc.

Her goal has always been to care for her kids, and now she is fixated on when I'll have kids of my own (despite this being a few years away!). I think she would have enjoyed putting her caring nature into something like nursing or social care.

Overall, it really influenced me to be determined to be very independent and to focus on achieving what I wanted. But from reading threads like these, I think my mum's unhappy experience as a SAHM was largely due to her problematic relationship with my dad and is not typical of everyone's experiences.

My mum was a SAHM until we went to school. But then there wasn't any decent under fives childcare, unless you were very well off. If mothers worked (in the 60s), they left their children with family. My parents didn't have any family who they could trust to leave us with.
I don't have many memories of being under five before I went to school. (I went to school at 4 and a half), I know we used to play with lots of neighbourhood children in a shared backyard, so we weren't lonely.
When I was 9, my mum was a SAHM again for about 3 years after she was made redundant. I really enjoyed having her around, but we had much less money. She also over the 3 years lost a lot of confidence.
When she went back to work I really missed her when coming home from school. But I also really liked having new clothes, rather than hand me downs. She also got her confidence back.
My dad worked long hours in a low paid job. So he was not hands on at all, and at times I felt like he was almost a stranger. I have got to know him much better as an adult.
Was it better for my mum to work? The ideal from my POV would have been if she had worked part time once we went to school. But because she worked full time, she managed to get into a job she enjoyed, built up her skills, got qualifications, and had a better life. So from her POV, it was better to work full time.
I wish my dad had worked less hours though, and we had seen more of him.

My mum worked FT, for free for a while (wage swallowed up by childcare costs) after the birth of my little sister. She did so to keep her job open while she took the next career step.

We didn't miss out. We had a lovely home, no stress about lack of money, family time at the weekends and two excellent role models for parents who taught us that it is absolutely unacceptable to rely on other people to contribute towards your life choices.

Mine was a single mother who always worked. My nan used to look after me before I started school and then in the school holidays. I remember feelings of horrible guilt because I loved my nan more than my mum and I felt that was wrong. But that only lasted until I was about 7/8.

I think her being a single parent had a far greater effect on my childhood than her employment status. I had no adult men in my life until I went to secondary school and had some male teachers. Now, at 25, I still find it far more difficult to relate to men than I do women.

My Mum didn't work when I was a child. She was bored and angry and frustrated and did none of the lovely things you hear SAHM talk about. She started work when my little brother left uni and is a much happier person now.

My mum stayed at home until I was about fourteen and then worked for a year oe so until she became ill. I remember loving her being at home, and we were incredibly close. My dad helped out as well, but I understood from a young age that he had to work long hours and be tired for us to have our lovely house.
Now, i've just had my third child, and am happy to go back to work, even if I don't have to to support my family, but because I love what I do! My eldest daughter is at boarding school, but I feel as if we are amazingly close still, and I love not having to send my three year old to nursery at the moment.
I think it very much depends on your family, to be honest, and whether you enjoy working.

My mum worked as a very high-flying solicitor - my grandmother did all the childcare when I was young, she had never worked & did loads of baking, knitting etc so as a child I never felt I missed out, but when I was a teenager I went home after school & I really noticed it then - the bus would drop me off at 4 & my parents didn't get home until about 7 - I remember sitting watching crap TV a lot, then being expected to dash around after them when they got home because they would be tired & grumpy.

But I was proud of my mum as well - she was very glam compared to my friends mums, & my friends were always in awe when they would come round & she was in a suit & heels, with her mobile going & a g&t in one hand & a Marlboro light in the other.

My Mum had 5 children. As soon as my youngest sister started school (I was 9) she went to college, trained as an infant school teacher and worked full time until she had to retire due to ill health in her 50's. I'm very proud of her.
We were basically latch key kids for a couple of hours in the evening (totally normal in the 70's). It was fine. I think I grew up more independent and mature as a result.

My Mum worked part time until I was about 10, then she got a full time job. It worked well as her part time job was flexible hours, and she could fit it around the school run etc, but when my sister and I were old enough to take ourselves to school and back she got a full time job.
I think it worked well - she was always home by 5.30, and I didn't get in from school until 4.30 or so, so I was only on my own for about an hour or so.

My mum worked part time when we were really young but I kept getting ill so she ended up giving it up as they weren't understanding about it. Then she worked part time when I was a about 7. She was usually around at the end of school and I really appreciated that, I used to hate having to go home with anyone else or even having someone else come and baby sit!!!

Later on we got sent to boarding school as my dad worked abroad and it was all paid for. I hated it. My mum didn't need to work anymore so was a typical expat wife stereotype, playing bridge, tennis and socialising. She was always around in the holidays when we were home though. I used to live for the holidays and really missed home.

My mum stayed at home until I was about 11. My dad worked his arse off to enable her to do so and she kept the house immaculate, 'cooked' (mum is not a natural in the kitchen!), and I was always well turned out with everything I needed for school, support with homework etc. Money was tight but we always had a week away every year - usually a caravan in the West Country or similar, and free/cheap days out locally.

Now I'm in my late 30's and my parents are in their 70's. I am not sure that having a SAHM had that much impact on my life. My mum has always 'worn the trousers' and continues to do so, especially re their finances. I know that when you're married everything is joint, but tbh she wouldn't have those assets to be in charge of had it not been for my dad and he gets no say whatsoever, which tbh I resent on his behalf.

In spite of my Dad working long hours and split shifts when I was a child, I am much more like him, we have similar interests and am emotionally closer to him than I am to my mum. Don't get me wrong, I love her dearly, she has been a massive support to me on a practical level over the years which I truly appreciate, but we are like chalk and cheese and the older we both get the harder that is to manage.

By contrast I was back at work, albeit part time (have always done around 25 hours a week), when DD was 18 weeks old. She is nearly 11 now and I couldn't wish for a happier, closer relationship with my daughter. We naturally just 'get' one another, have lots in common and love spending time together. I just hope it continues through the teen years and into adulthood.

My mother was a SAHM until my younger grit her started secondary school. Then she did some part-time teaching.

Tbh I resented her being at home. She had previously earned much more than my dad and I thought it would make more sense for her to work and my dad to be the stay at home parent. We were very, very poor and I blamed her for us missing out on the things other children had. Plus I got on much better with my father so would have preferred him to be the parent around.