Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be a SAHM/Housewife with children at school?

999 replies

Pinkbutton85 · 29/05/2019 08:32

I've been a SAHM for the last 6 years. My youngest will be starting school in September and I'm unsure of what to do next. Financially, I don't need to work at present. Would you still be a SAHM if you didn't 'have' to be?

OP posts:
RomanyQueen1 · 30/05/2019 18:14

ClannLir

Of course, we H.edded for a while, which would have been difficult to do if I was working. I spent 4 years travelling with dd to enable her career.
My kids were/ are more important than any job or career, they come first. I'm certainly not going to get a job to appease some randoms on the internet, at the expense of dd education.
My next role is sahgm my ds and dil are happy for the offer of free childcare.

YouJustDoYou · 30/05/2019 18:16

Bit of a sidetrack, but to the earlier post about not having family support for childcare in holiday time etc, Sainsbury's do all day childcare sports Active day club at points around the country for £7.50 for the full day, including lunch. Just for info.

YouJustDoYou · 30/05/2019 18:16

Maybe theyll have one near to you.

VerbenaGirl · 30/05/2019 18:18

You could be a great help volunteering at the school or on the PTA? SAHMs keep those things going.

Pa1oma · 30/05/2019 18:19

Clann - I’m not saying bring a SAHM is necessary due to polygamy Grin. I’m just saying this happens and I see it and it’s a reality in Britain, so it’s no good telling my neighbour she should be doing this or that or the other is it? If she came on this forum, what wouid people say to her?

And as for the school thing, as long as there are schools such as St Paul’s, Latymer Upper etc concentrated in particular areas, parents will play the game to get their DC in, at 4+, 7+ 8+ or 11+ or whatever hoops they have to jump through. This is the norm where we live in fact. A nanny for whom English is a second language quite often can’t really be expected to get their head around all this because it is a nightmare, frankly, and it’s a very rare child indeed who gets in with no support whatsoever. It is what it is.

Icandothisallday · 30/05/2019 18:19

Why should I do something I don't want to do, just in case, maybe he divorces me?

Why do you have insurance?

As I said earlier. I was with dh for 18 years. It was only in the last 3 that he had a breakdown, a complete personality change and became a danger to me and the kids.

So I left. Before that he respected me as a person. We had a good life AND I always worked.

I worked so I also had a back up plan and financial independence. I am not sad about it. Why would you find other peoples choices sad? I love my career.

How would you take if someone said they found it really sad that a woman was happy just being a wife and mother and having no independence?

I am glad i did work. I am sure you are glad you dont. But its naive to think because he is a good husband, he would make a good exhusband. I hope it doesnt happen and if it does, I hope he isnt a dick.

I still think it's always worth having a back up plan rather than having everything depending on one person.

Icandothisallday · 30/05/2019 18:25

Oh and also I didnt say you had to work. I said you should be aware of the risks and not assume he would be decent

If in your opinion, the risk of divorce is low, you will do it. It's about weighing up risk.

I weighed it up and decided not a chance would I ever be financially vulnerable.

My decision paid off for me. I hope yours does too.

makingmammaries · 30/05/2019 18:27

I find it weird that some adult women still think it’s ok to spend their days reading and going to the gym (or volunteering, or making carnival costumes) while someone else earns the money. I’m not talking about people with significant core childcare responsibilities, but aboutI find it weird that some adult women still think it’s ok to spend their days reading and going to the gym (or volunteering, or making carnival costumes) while someone else earns the money. I’m not talking about people with significant core childcare responsibilities, but about those who just fancy staying home. Sorry if this is provocative but I can’t get my head round it.

Devilinatwinset · 30/05/2019 18:30

I couldn't faff about at home. My youngest started p1 in September 2017, I found myself with extra time, I got a second job, hated it, left, doubled my hours in my original job, that was fine for a while but by March 2018 I had enrolled at college. I've just finished my first year exams & have extra time on my hands and I'm bored already! There's loads that you could be doing. A course, a hobby etc. I don't know how people put their days in at home Confused

mbosnz · 30/05/2019 18:30

I find it weird that you had to type that out twice. Most odd. No wonder you have trouble getting your head around things.

Notabedofroses · 30/05/2019 18:30

milkshak3

yes that is exactly what I am saying, if you work full time of course you are not raising your children, you are paying someone else to do that for you.

Surely it is not rocket science to work out the numbers of hours the children spend with you versus the paid help?

You are, at best, only partially raising your own children. Weekends and maybe the odd hour after school. For some even that may be a stretch. You are not really raising your children at all if you are not there are you?

In a moment of honesty you would agree.

ClannLir · 30/05/2019 18:32

Romany, so now you can’t work because your grandchildren need you to be a SAH grandmother? Otherwise they won’t get home cooked meals and will be ‘outsourced to randomers’ because your daughter works?

RomanyQueen1 · 30/05/2019 18:33

I find it weird that some adult women still think it’s ok to spend their days reading and going to the gym (or volunteering, or making carnival costumes) while someone else earns the money.

I find it weird that some women still think this is why some parents decide not to work. when we have choice and of course free childcare from a parent. In 30 years I've never sat and watched tv, gone to the gym, met other sahm's for coffee, volunteering, making costumes or cakes Grin I do enjoy reading though Grin

makingmammaries · 30/05/2019 18:33

Mbosnz, rude much? Do you have anything constructive or relevant to say?

Pa1oma · 30/05/2019 18:33

Yes I agree. You can never be sure of anything but you have to weigh up the risks and do a cost - benefit analysis in terms of your own situation - present, medium-term and long-term. Personally I wouldn’t be a SAHM unless I knew I wouid not be financially vulnerable or worse off in the event of a separation because I simply wouldn’t risk my DC’s security in this way. If I has any doubts, I’d have maintained my own career because I couldn’t be feeling financially trapped.

isthatabloborwhat · 30/05/2019 18:33

I find it weird that the OP started this thread at just gone half eight this morning and hasn't been back yet.

mbosnz · 30/05/2019 18:34

Notabedofroses so when our children go to school - are the schools now raising them? I completely disagree. Parents still parent, regardless of whether they work, or whether they stay at home. A WOHP parent is still going to be doing the toilet training (unless they have a nanny), the feeding, the bathing, the homework, the looking after them when they're sick, reassuring them when they're frightened, comforting them when they're sad.

Scotland32 · 30/05/2019 18:35

I’m afraid I think it’s lazy not to contribute. Affordability isn’t really relevant. Having people who do something valuable with their time (paid work, charity work, other voluntary work) to contribute to society, and not just their own family, is what makes the world go round!
It’s perfectly possible to bring up a family and do other life ‘admin’ at the same time as working. Anyone who says they don’t have time for some form of work and family life is simply inefficient. (Unless of course they have a disability in which case that’s entirely different)

mbosnz · 30/05/2019 18:35

Mbosnz, rude much? Do you have anything constructive or relevant to say?

Plenty as it happens, have been doing so throughout the thread. Smile

You said you knew it would be provocative. . you said you knew it would be provocative.

YouJustDoYou · 30/05/2019 18:36

No decent pay for me. No career. Just, pre kids, menial jobs and shit circumstances and bad luck through no fault of my own. I get sneered at by some women now because I make part time wages from selling things I make, which apparently isn't good enough for them. Who cares how I make money? Im building up savings, but by bit. I'm using university business marketing knowledge and my language degree for what I do. But for some women Im defined by the fact I'm not actually employed. It's crazy.

LimitIsUp · 30/05/2019 18:36

"Sure, but don’t ask for 50/50 on everything should you divorce whilst claiming you “put your career in hold to bring up his kids”."

Fuck off to this misogynistic rubbish. I can't believe that nobody else has called Manclife1 out for this

RomanyQueen1 · 30/05/2019 18:37

Of course I can work if I want to, I just choose to spend my time with my family, and always have.
They come first, and this in our case is putting them first.
I'm not insinuating that working parents don't put their dc first btw, but this is what it entailed for us.
My dd is 15, and doesn't have children, probably won't have any either, her career is too important already Grin It's my ds1 and dil, and then soon no doubt will be ds2 and his baby.
Hopefully we'll have lots of time to travel too.

makingmammaries · 30/05/2019 18:39

mbosnz, I said sorry IF it was provocative. Some of you can’t bear not having your choices validated. I get it.

Icandothisallday · 30/05/2019 18:39

You are, at best, only partially raising your own children. Weekends and maybe the odd hour after school. For some even that may be a stretch. You are not really raising your children at all if you are not there are you?

So sahm of school age children are only partially raising them?

Do you really believe that sahm is the 'superior state'? In all cases?

mbosnz · 30/05/2019 18:41

I had a very entertaining conversation once, with a woman who absolutely went me for going into paid employment - when I had a husband who made enough for us all to live on. I was taking jobs away, and food off the table from people who really needed that job and money!

Just shows you can't win, really, doesn't it? Grin

As a (currently) SAHP, I'm doing volunteer work, that's actually part of the drawcard of currently being able to SAHP, as we embed ourselves into this country and community. Oh, and courses to increase my employability if and when I do try and get back into paid work. Some SAHP may sit around on their arses eating bon-bons all day, watching their 'stories' - I have yet to meet one of them. Most of us actually are fairly busy, and not just to the betterment of our own family.

Although previously SAHM's on the PTA were being badmouthed for how they're running things in such a way that it's not easy for the WOHP. Which gets us back to that you can't really win. . .