for being a SAHM

[2shoeswhoismshadowsnumber1fan]

i am a SAHM because
I have a severely disabled child. I have to be on call 24/7 as she also has epilepsy/
Dh is happy for me to be a SAHM and we manage finacially.
apart from respite we have no one to help if she is ill or in the school hoildays.

2 shoes : you are not unreasonable! You are a very caring person. I think that in your circumstances I would also be a sahm. Just curious,(sorry have not read whole tread)

did you work before having your child? Did you enjoy your work?

Xenia: I completely understand your comments and arguments. Some mums might get pissed off because you touch a fibre! However I wholehearteadly agree with all your points.

yes i did but was made redundant whan ds was a baby

did you enjoyed it?

suppose enjoy life better now

I would still like to hear Xenia's views on those of us who choose to be Nannies!

Hey, just trying to understand your situation a bit, are you happy with the situation you are in? If your daugther did not require your daily care, would you have considered going back to work?

In my opinion, as long as your decision works for your family and you, the rest of the world can burn in hell.

I am not in the same situation as you, I really enjoyed and adored my career and after a year of being a mummy at home I cannot take it anymore. I can afford a nanny at home for my dd so I am getting back to work at the end the summer.

i do not konw if it work our for us, if i will get the same satisfaction but I am goingto give it a go.

Lots of hugs to you!

My father's partner is a criminal lawyer who has been lecturing law for the past ten years. Her students are all in their early twenties.

Interestingly, almost without exception, her students are telling her that they do not accept the current model (working parents, nursery from an early age, etc). The generation currently coming through want to dip in and out of their careers with the ultimate aim of one or other partner being a stay at home parent until children begin school.

They speak, I believe, from an experience far more eloquent than any political viewpoint. What these middle class children are saying is that they didn't enjoy the experience, and they wish to do things differently when their turn comes.

Until very recently, it was the norm for a parent (yes, usually the mother) to stay home to raise the children she chose to have. Why on earth this remains a contentious issue I will never know.

tbh i always planned to stay at home untill they started school. when ds was a tot i had a part time job which I loved. it was great LOADS of resposibility and i loved it. but when dd was born it was too much so had to give it up. so in answer if she hadn't have had cp. I would be working. but I LOVE being her carer and it is more rewarding than any paid job I could ever do.

I'm not trying to add fuel to the fire, honestly but have another perspective to add: I am a SAHM after a few years of trying to manage a high flying post part time and pretend I could hack it. I couldn't, but that was my personal decision. I run everything to do with a large house and very complicated family life while dh is buried in his work. I have a housekeeper/nanny, a cleaner and gardeners. I run them as well. I probably appear to be a spoilt and lazy cow, whereas I feel at full stretch most of the time. I don't play tennis or socialise in the daytime very much but I do do various forms of voluntary work. At the school youngest dc goes to, I am the norm - there are probably less than 15% working mums. That suggests that at a certain income level, being a sahm is also a lifestyle choice which many mums still make if given the chance. The interesting point though is that it all works provided that the relationship is a strong and equal one, with mutual respect between partners. I have known girlfriends feel pressurised into sex, for example, because they feel they have no leverage of their own once they have no independent income - and if I am honest, that lack of independent money is the one thing I wish I had, even though dh says that what is his is mine - it is not psychologically the same.

It's the strangest question I've ever seen on MN. The original one I mean.

Why unreasonable?

I'm certain that's true, but I'm a SAHM on a pitiful income. I clean my local pub in the mornings (7 days a week) and take my ds with me during the weekday. I also have several cleaning jobs I undertake when my dp comes home from work, plus bar work, etc., etc.

I had a good enough career before, but I made the sacrifices, and I'm happy to make them. If cleaning other people's bogs affords me the luxury of being with my son all day, then bring it on!

callmemadam good post!

So yet again, with your reasons and answering to your first post from this morning You are not being unreasonable!

Nighty night!
Lots of love to you!

NKF because i put it in the wrong place.

oh and yes you are not being unreasonable at all.

I was desperate to go to work after DD was born and I found the first few months a bit dull. Now (DD2) I enjoy everyminute of it and find work sooo sooo boring and unfulfilling - might be a sahm for a while.

maybe with the second one I'll enjot the first months, maybe not.

not only we are all different, we are all different ourselves at different times. let's give ourselves a break and do what we want, what we can and think it's best.

The callmemadam stay at home motherhood contrasting with the rr there; neat contrast. Obviously it's more senseible to marry the rich man and manage his home and servants in a slightly more leisured way (even though you feel you're at full stretch) than marrying the poor man and having a more average sort of scrubbing floors on the poverty line no help sort of life.

I just couldn't in either case manage the psychological issues of not working, not having that career satisfaction, the earning my own money. Obviously when 50% of married women divorce those with the richer husband who don't work are in the better and easier position unless he deliberately goes backrupt and hides all the money and then your children ome to you and say how could you jeopardise our futures by putting your eggs in the basket of this man. Anyway a risk many want to run. Is that a fair risk?

Don't agree rr that mothers haven't traditionally worked. They have all over the world at all times except a very few rather rich ones in the last 100 years, but even the richer Victorians had a live in servant (although most of the mothers worked then as most weren't rich). My grandmother worked. My great grandmother worked. People worked or starved. In WWII they all worked too. Women have always had to and wanted to work.

what you dont seem to understand Xenia is that for many women taking care of tehir family and home IS work. it fullfills them and they are doing the best they can in their opinion to raise their children.

YOU may not feel comfortable remaining home with your children (in which case you should be very gartefull of those who do choose that career) but there are many many women who feel that by chosing to give birth you should also want to actuially spend time with your child.

for a large number of women children are not a fashion accessory or a milestone they feel they should acompish, they are little people who require all teh attention they can lavish upon them.

You need to learn that jsut becasue someone feels the complete opposite to you that doesnt mean that their view is wrong. you live your life in the way you choose. so long as you are happy with teh way your children are raised, you can sleep at night and you dont feel that they will resent anything you have done then great....because thats all any parent can hope for.

interesting that u dont comment wehter your mother worked xenia..

I bet you ignore that last post too as well as the others i have. very selective. I am sure daddy dearest would make a really interesting analysis of you .. Lots of control issues/personailty issues I shouldnt doubt.

mamazon - very good post. I on the other hand couldnt be nice about it all anymore. Kinda of sick of the whole you are wrong and I am right and superior attitude Xenia is spouting. I cant remember if I have ever felt so irritated by someone on here.. hmm I know titiana..

awen i love you

Interesting that you accept that it's your psychological issues about not working that you couldn't manage if you didn't have a career.That is the point that a lot of posters have been making - you may generalise all you like, but it's our personal issues dictate our choices, not - as you pretend - your sense of destiny or your place in the history of women.... incidentally, I didn't marry a rich man; I gave up my career (earning as much as him) to build a family life that enabled him to become rich. And you know what - I'm bloody proud of him.

awen i was very very angry earlier with teh posts about Sn, but i realise that that is a sore subject for me so not necessarily what was actuially said.

i also realise that for some people their opinion is teh only one that matters, so there is little point wasting time and energy trying to alter their perspective

mamazon well said I think we could post and post on here and never get any where... as a very clever person said it is like a pete burns song