Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not see a time when I’ll ever work?

301 replies

sparklyonions · 30/09/2018 09:50

DC3 is due in January. DC1 is 6, DC2 is 3. Dh is self-employed. We have no support network at all around us.

AIBU to not see a time when I might be able to work? Yes possibly when all kids are in secondary school but that won’t be for another twelve years or so. I can’t see how we’d manage with us both working and we don’t live in an area where there are loads of available jobs.

OP posts:
ladybirdsaredotty · 30/09/2018 11:33

Also, there are many different types of 'care work.' I work in a respite service for children with various disabilities, and I guarantee you it's a far cry from most people's idea of traditional 'care work.' For a start, I only use my car to drive TO work, so it's not like my car is getting especially worn out, as OP suggested in her reply to me Confused

BewareOfDragons · 30/09/2018 11:33

Ahhhh.... so this is just a woe is me sympathy post. Sorry, OP. Missed that.

But you're not going to get much sympathy here:

You chose to leave school after your GCSEs, not get any qualifications, and then had children.

And now you're unhappy because you chose to live in the middle of nowhere.

And the only jobs you could get are minimum wage. Which you appear to feel are beneath you, even though you don't have any qualifications for anything else.

Again, you chose to leave school/training without any qualifications. And this is what happens when you do...

Stop whinging, stop looking for sympathy, and start looking at what you can do about it. There have been some excellent suggestions on this thread about how to go back to school, Open University, how to find jobs that work around your husband's hours, moving areas, etc.

ilovesooty · 30/09/2018 11:34

Is your husband reluctant to support your working or planning to pursue career planning?

Sorry if that's not the case but it's the thought that's occurring to me.

AnnabelTheAntelope · 30/09/2018 11:34

Working and being able to afford childcare is in many ways a luxury of the middle classes.

I agree and it’s why I can’t work the same hours as my dh. So I work evenings and weekends instead and see a lot less of dh. Op doesn’t want to do this and that’s completely fine. I only do it to get out for a few hours and a bit of extra money. Otherwise, I’d stay at home as working weekdays for me is a luxury we can’t afford just now. If it was guaranteed to lead to a great career we could stretch to it, but I’d only be able to do admin jobs as that’s what I did pre-dcs.

And I don’t think the op’s had the worst time on here tbh. Sahms on other threads have to put up with out and out abuse from some people. It’s a disgrace actually - the sahm bashing on here sometimes. I haven’t really seen it on this particular thread though, but could have missed it.

0hCrepe · 30/09/2018 11:34

Ok I think I get where you’re coming from but the mere mention of ‘work’ and ‘can’t’ understandably led everyone to try and find solutions to make it a ‘can’. You feel stuck but don’t want to unstick? Else why would it even be an issue to post about?
Also is living rurally a must? Does your dh farm the land around you? Because if you don’t need to live there for his work and you have no support network wouldn’t you be better in terms of schooling, amenities and socialising - for you and the kids - to be nearer to others, if you’re renting it’s not too hard to move?

Iwantaunicorn · 30/09/2018 11:35

@sparklyonions I think I get where you’re coming from. I’ve only got DTs but I feel like I’ll never get back to work, and if I do it’ll be a job, not a glittering career.

The reality is, I could go back to work. I could work pt round dh hours, do evenings and weekends, set up something for myself, I could make it work if I wanted to. What I can’t do currently is go back to full time 9-5 hours because I’ll lose money, and I don’t want to work full time for a loss. That’s my choice, plenty of others make different choices.

From what you’ve written, you can go back to work. Perhaps not yet, but when you’re ready you’ll make it work.

BitchQueen90 · 30/09/2018 11:36

@continuallychargingmyphone I'm not qualified past GCSE levels either. I ended up a single mum on benefits after splitting with my exh. My confidence was absolutely shot, I didn't believe that I'd do well in any job and I festered on income support for 3 years. But I realised that if I wanted a decent future for my DS I needed to do something proactive. I started to do a few hours of volunteer work when he got his free nursery hours and that opened a lot of doors for me.

I'm not berating OP for being a SAHP but for claiming that it's impossible for her to work. That's just not true. If she doesn't want to work that's not an issue. But it's not "can't", it's "won't."

AnnabelTheAntelope · 30/09/2018 11:37

And I actually have more than one qualification btw, including a degree, but work as a waitress. I think the op might have irked people a little by saying “it’s only care work or waitressing round here” as if that’s not a job worth thinking about. I don’t think she meant it that way though. Just meant it wouldn’t be worth putting dcs in childcare for, which is true. It would end up costing her money to go to work, unless her dh would have dcs on evenings and weekends like mine does.

ilovesooty · 30/09/2018 11:38

If her husband is controlling her it's can't. And he might be.

SleepingStandingUp · 30/09/2018 11:39

@sparklyonions

Aibu is essentially a question based post.

Are you being unreasonable for seeing no time when you'll ever work?

Well if your DH is happy to financially support you to stay home once the kids are in school full time, uni, left home then no. If you're happy to do that once you no longer have three kids to run around after, crack on.

Are you being unreasonable to think you should never have to work because DH should support you even if this affects your quality of life baring in mind you won't always be eligible for any benefits you get now

Are you being unreasonable to think you can't ever work? Of course

WoahBodyforrrrm · 30/09/2018 11:39

It’s as simple as this. Either you want to work, in which case you will make it work like millions of other parents do. Or you don’t want to work, in which case you’ll continue to make every excuse under the sun.

DistanceCall · 30/09/2018 11:39

Yes I appreciate people use paid childcare but I wouldn’t make any sort of profit from working then, which defeats the object.

Well, there is your future pension and your continuing to have a career. If you disappear from the market for 12 years, it will be much harded to get back in.

continuallychargingmyphone · 30/09/2018 11:40

And well done to you bitch

I was once in a similar boat.

However, laying into the OP (I don’t mean you personally) isn’t productive in any way. My thoughts were similar to sootys, to be honest. I could be wrong.

OP was young when she had her first child and has been pregnant or had a baby ever since. She says there is no support at all.

Read between the lines Hmm

Isittimeforbed · 30/09/2018 11:40

You don't want to work, and it doesn't sound like you ever really did want to. Despite also having 3 DC of similar ages I have made different choices; your choices wouldn't have suited me as I feel they are rather short-sighted. But they are choices, own them.

continuallychargingmyphone · 30/09/2018 11:41

Well thank goodness at least one other person has a bit of compassion Flowers sooty

ilovesooty · 30/09/2018 11:42

For goodness sake. The OP sounds isolated and seriously devoid of self confidence. Some if the responses are horribly unempathic.

Thesmallthings · 30/09/2018 11:43

Personally I think your making excuses. If you actually wanted to or needed to work you would find a away.

Work evenings. Weekends. Yes your partner might not like it but it IS an option to work.

Yes studying with a baby is hard but 1000s of people do it.

Look for work you can do at home.

There is options iv you actually wanted to. Half the population do it. Though I understand it is over whelming.

Barbie222 · 30/09/2018 11:43

Yes I appreciate people use paid childcare but I wouldn’t make any sort of profit from working then, which defeats the object.

It has to be seen as the costs of having a child, which is offset by having an unbroken career and pension at the other end. It never occurred to me not to work, even when I had 2 under 3s before the days of 15 hours funding and every month was a loss. I used savings and credit and it paid off.

MaisyPops · 30/09/2018 11:44

I'm not berating OP for being a SAHP but for claiming that it's impossible for her to work. That's just not true. If she doesn't want to work that's not an issue. But it's not "can't", it's "won't."
This.
Make whatever choices are right for you and your family circumstance. There is still a difference between can't and won't. And the thread did read as a potential "here's a thread to prove to my DH that I can't possibly work".

ilovesooty · 30/09/2018 11:46

Thanks continually

I'm surprised no one else can see what we can see.

Now a vulnerable woman has felt she has to apologise and is going to deregister.

I've normally expressed little patience with the view that this site is unpleasant but this thread has been.

continuallychargingmyphone · 30/09/2018 11:46

This thread is actually quite an upsetting read.

Men who really want their wives to have a lucrative career do not generally suggest living somewhere very rural and having three children in six years maisy in short it isn’t the ops dh I think we need to worry about.

AnnabelTheAntelope · 30/09/2018 11:48

Well thank goodness at least one other person has a bit of compassion

What? Because not everyone made the huge leap to assume her husband is abusive, we are devoid of compassion? Righto!

And “read between the lines Hmm” = “make stuff up Hmm”.

Obviously if the op is in an abusive relationship that’s terrible, but you can’t just assert that and then make snide wee digs at other posters simply because they didn’t jump to the same conclusion as you.

Thesmallthings · 30/09/2018 11:49

Where has she said she's being abused?

All iv seen is her say she can't work weekends as dh wouldn't like as they won't see each other?

Yes he could be controlling or he could have just said a thought but isn't actually stopping her from working or even realising that she actually want to do it.

You can not say she's vulnerable from one sentence.

AnnabelTheAntelope · 30/09/2018 11:50

I've normally expressed little patience with the view that this site is unpleasant but this thread has been.

I feel exactly the same about this thread tbh, but I think the unpleasantness has come from the other side than you do.

continuallychargingmyphone · 30/09/2018 11:53

I don’t think the op was unpleasant at all. Posters were straight in there to order her to do this and that; she tried to explain herself and got shouted down.

And no, we don’t know she has an abusive husband. That’s my concern to be honest. We don’t know anything because she didn’t get a chance to speak.

I don’t know but I have known many women fitting this description and sorry op if I offend. Usually young, craving affection, either from broken homes or care leavers or just plain disinterested homes. Man comes along and so do babies and any attempt made at working is sabotaged (often with another pregnancy.)

I could be very wrong.

But I’d have liked op to have been able to answer that.

Swipe left for the next trending thread