AIBU to give up MA, become a SAHM and move from London

[happywifey]

I am half way through an MA, I have been given a couple of years out (max time allowed) in which time I have a 16 month old DD via IVF. I am meant to be returning this month. Childcare has been a nightmare for us as DD didn't settle at nursery so we decided to go down the Part time nanny / childminder route but we haven't been able to find someone for the days I need cover for, and some of the applicants have been very poor indeed.

My DH has said he is happy if I want to leave my Masters and be a SAHM as he feels I would provide the best care, and we would not have to pay the fees for nanny or for the rest of my MA. He says I can just go back and retake everything again in the future ( I am 40 - so no spring chicken). I am starting another round of IVF in the next 2 months too.

The mother/ nurturer in me says parenting is the most important job I will ever do , and babies grow up so fast. Also, the IVF journey has been so tough, why leave her now if I don't need to. I am beginning another cycle of IVF soon, and I can always go back at a later stage and do my MA. I am financially dependent on DH but currently I don't need to return to work - I am self employed and my DH has a good salary. On top of all this I have also been seriously considering a move from London - Big city life is somewhat lacking the sense of community I yearn for. Perhaps somewhere in the Kent Countryside with good transport links to London, lots of space, nature, nice schools.

However, I , in my current mummy brain with breastfeeding , toddler groups and lack of sleep, am wondering if I am romanticising being a SAHM, furthermore, a SAHM living outside of London. I am not bored here, there is so much on offer but tbh I only see a small group of friends now as I have no evening social life. I am enjoying the social chit chat and the toddler groups though, playdates, the baby culture, and the wealth of things to do in London. Nonetheless, I was doing great in my MA and new career before I had my DD. I previously read loads and since having DD I haven't read a single book, and rarely even read the daily newspapers. The feminist in me is telling me to get out off my backside and go do my MA now, do a bit of work part time, stay in London with such good work opportunities and find some childcare fast. I will have regrets in the future if I don't...

Please let me know your thoughts and whether I am romanticising the SAHM life somewhat and just need a good kick up the backside or alternatively whether it all seems pretty reasonable?

I'm not sure how realistic a 1/2 year break is for you but I might consider this option.

I see the point about employability but sims careers stand a break better than others.

I think if you had another 6/12 months even it would make a big difference.

I'd have liked to have a year or so out but it wasn't really possible.

Good luck with what you decide & the new round of treatment

If you are halfway through, how many essays/modules etc are left? Is it possible to leave halfway through and just return to it in a few years- would the same course be available?

I gave up work to be a SAHM for a few years. It was a great decision for our family. I ended up picking up little bits of work here and there so I was not completely out of the workforce, and after 3.5 years I went back to my old field but on a more part time and flexible basis.

A few things to think about, taking the longer view. Not all schools provide wrap around care, and if they do, the hours may not be long enough to facilitate both parents working and commuting. Even though I am back in the workforce now, I am likely to have to leave again when my DS turns 8 due to lack of childcare.

School holidays are a lovely time if you are not working, if you are both working they are a nightmare. I know some kids who spend almost their entire school holidays in childcare and I feel they are massively missing out compared to my own DC.

Being a SAHM allowed me to get involved volunteering with playgroup, school etc. I know every child in DS class and they run up to me to say hello, I love that. I also know every parent. I have done favours for loads of other parents, picking up their kids when they've been stuck, and now if I need help there are zillions of people I can ask.

We moved to a more rural and cheaper area which allowed us to pay off our mortgage, so financial security is much less of an issue. If my partner died or left me I wouldn't be able to work anyway, I rely on him because I have to leave for work before childcare opens. I suspect the same is true for most working couples.

Finally, moving house alone won't make you part of a community I love the community where I live, but if I was working all the time I wouldn't be part of it. The reason there is more community in rural areas is because people work less!

Depends on what motivates you. I have friends that are very happy SAHM who didn't originally plan to be.

It felt very strange going back to work after more than a year off with my DD but once I did I felt like myself again. I loved being a SAHM during maternity leave but now I'm back into my old work I can't imagine it any other way. Adult conversation, time to myself to read on my commute, analytic challenges.

When feminism refers to 'empowerment', financial independence is key and its the cornerstone to choice.

Good points, well made. Thankyou.

Good luck with what you decide & the new round of treatment

Thankyou!

Finally, moving house alone won't make you part of a community I love the community where I live, but if I was working all the time I wouldn't be part of it.

Thank you for your points, I suppose this is why, if I were to move, I would want to move soon ish so as I can develop those community links whilst I am not working full time ( the plan is working part to full time when DD and any future DC are older). TBH it sounds lovely to know all the children and parents at schools.

Adult conversation, time to myself to read on my commute, analytic challenges.

Yes, this is something I miss, and the teamwork thing is something I miss too.

Childcare is a headache in London but with persistance can be sorted. It is as much your H’s responsibility as yours to organise.

It is easy for your H to suggest YOU give up financial independence - the main risks - especially in the medium and long term - would be for you personally.

If you were doing Ok with the MA and this could be good for your career completing it seems sensible. Study on top of parenting and WoH is very hard: impossible for me personally.

having gone through IVF and not completed the last stage of a training qualification as it was in the last months of pregnancy, and then embarked on another IVF pregnancy, which put paid to all thoughts of work for the next well, however many years (I ended up with three under two years)

I would say, finish the MA, and pay through the nose for a good nanny. You will probably benefit from having someone to help anyway if you are doing IVF.

When you have finished your MA, then decide whether to be a SAHM.

I chose to be a SAHM and don't regret that for a second, but it would have been useful to just have that piece of paper saying I had finished the course (technical course), if i could have plucked up courage to do the last bit over whilst my little ones were very small. (Might have only been a 6 month course of study to do final module)

I felt passionately involved in the early years, and was determined not to miss a moment of what I regarded as a miraculous set of pregnancies after infertility. However, I don't think the children would have minded if I had had a very very good nanny, and paid extra for that. I wasn't up for the financial investment, and now I wish I had done it, if it had been time limited.

However, I did not intend to go back within 6 years at least, and in the event a child with SENs stopped me going back when I tried to later, in an even less demanding role than I had envisaged when I did the training.

You don't know what is in the future, but you can control the next few months.

I stayed in London, as husband wanted to, but I really really wish we had moved to the country and now lived in a larger house with big garden for less money than we have invested in the current one. But that is just me. Certainly people who have moved, say the driving everywhere gets them down...

Are there good jobs in your field outside London (eg NHS, social work, teaching) or would you both commute?

If the latter, both commuting can be very difficult

I live in the commuter belt and childcare and housing are easier, but the commute is a massive drawback. I know a number women who wanted to continue to WoH who have given up WoH or taken huge pay cuts to get a local job due to the strain of both parents commuting. Their “deal” with their Hs is often that the Hs work long hours and travel and the women do everything at home. That wouldn’t be for me.

So, don't rule out thoughts of being an SAHM, but don't think an MA will be entirely incompatible with the next few months, if you find the right person to help with little one. Once I had twins and a toddler I had to find a helper for a few hours a day for a year anyway, so my control freakery/earth motheriness on that front had to end!!

What do you mean by moving away for "nice schools"? Best schools are in London.

I do think that a lot of people who can conceive when and how they wish, don't quite understand how stressful IVF is, or indeed planning your life when infertility is thrown into the mix. It IS years you cannot get back, it is a chance you will never have again, and often we DO look back and think, why did I put myself through all that stress, to achieve x y z, when that (the babies, the pregancies, the rest of my life with those children unfolding in a whole myriad of parallel circumstances) was actually what I really wanted.

No-one else can dictate to you the satisfactions of your career and your financial position if it is not what matters to YOU.

I'm really happy with the choice I made, considering how things turned out; if they had turned out slightly differently, and we had been in financial difficulties and more dependent on my income or marriage had failed, or anything that can and does happen, I suspect I would have stepped up the plate in that eventuality But when I didn't need to, I'm glad that I took advantage of my choice to be a SAHM.

Could you switch to a distance learning option for your MA?

Personally I think community is easier to find and maintain in London than rurally. There's more facilities and opportunities for being sociable and lots of things are in walking distance or on good public transport routes. I think rural living can be very isolating/-ed.

There's an awful lot of obsessing about attachment going on here.

OP, do you think that mothers who go back to work aren't as attached to their children, or that the children aren't firmly attached to their working mothers? If you don't then getting your masters shouldn't affect them in the way you're worrying about.

Also - anyone else baffled by the notion upthread that if you don't live in London there just aren't enough parks?!?!

anyone else baffled by the notion upthread that if you don't live in London there just aren't enough parks?!?!

Not really. IME with the 'country', much of the land is private/fenced off/agricultural rather than suitable for walking or playing or picnicking in/without things like children's playgrounds. Not to mention the swathes of land owned by aristos that you have to pay to use and/or drive to.

I'm not saying parks etc don't exist outside of cities, but in cities, especially London, there tends to be more choice. And it's all more accessible if you're not driving.

Yes, but there are thousands of places that exist somewhere between London and private/aristo/rural land.

Sure. The poster who brings up this subject, though, is talking about rural Sussex. Perhaps it's quite similar to where the OP is talking about moving to.

anyone else baffled by the notion upthread that if you don't live in London there just aren't enough parks?!?!

Yes, we have lots of parks, at least one in every town up here. I have one across the road from me We also tend to have larger gardens as London is really a concrete jungle.

As for only London having good schools LMAO, look at the schools in the top 100 not a lot at the top end from London, although they do well for public schools. State, private and grammar tend to do well in the North.

Also - anyone else baffled by the notion upthread that if you don't live in London there just aren't enough parks?!?!

Ironically, I've found this to be true in a sense I had my son in London and moved to a village when he was a baby. In my bit of (scuzzy) north London, almost no one had gardens or private outdoor space, which meant everyone used nearby parks as gardens, ate in them, socialised in them, did hobbies in them etc and there are a lot of London parks.

When I moved to the country, obviously we were surrounded by fields, but outdoor space is used very differently by the people who live in our village, for obvious reasons. It's a hugely car-dependent place, and everyone has a garden, and tends to disappear into it for leisure purposes, so there is little communal outdoor space -- there is a small playground, next to a playing field, but it's not a community focus the way London parks were.

I do take my now six year old to walk in the fields, but it's clay, so almost impossible in wet parts of the year, and we tend not to see many people, anyway -- the dog walkers seem to use only the field paths closest to the village.

And while I cycled in London, here it is far too dangerous to take a small child on my bike or on a trailer or on his own bike out onto narrow, windy national speed-limit roads where no one expects to see a pedestrian or lone cyclist -- bikes can't be used on field paths, so we would have to put bikes on our car and drive either ten miles into the nearest city or fifteen miles to a lake with a big cycle path to be somewhere we could cycle safely.

It's not a criticism of the countryside, just an acknowledgement of the different use of outdoor space in rural areas.

Maybe the answer is a town
Lots of parks, green spaces to play, cycle lanes, and wide pavements if you don't fancy the roads.

Have you looked at childminders?
One of the issues of the long maternity leave in the uk is that nursery starts right when children are at the worst age for a new person to bond with. its almost as if it was designed to make mums feel extra guilt

We live just outside London - life us expensive. you might need a car, every course, playgroup etc costs money (£8 upwards) and requires travel. you’ll need to select the area very carefully if you want to be able to meet anybody without spending a fortune.