To ask what you think of SAHMs?

[HarryHarryHarry]

For the past 3 years I have been a SAHM. I never imagined that I would be one but I actually quite like it. Eventually I plan to go back to work but it could be that I just work unskilled-type jobs instead of having a proper career. I really don’t know what my options will be when the time comes. I might just stay home and focus on my writing, which is my real passion, or I might go back to university and retrain in something. (We are lucky that we can currently afford to get by on just one parent’s wages). Recently though I have been wondering what my children will think of me when they’re older. Especially my daughter. Am I a bad example to her?

If your mum was a SAHM, did you have any thoughts about that?

At one point she got an office job but quit after 2 weeks because it 'wasnt for her'
I would regularly see her crying over bills, constant fear about money and carrying that around with us was an awful experience I wish I had never had. I would often go to bed hungry.

I find it difficult to believe that anxiety wasn't at the root of this. I went through a dreadful phase of depression and anxiety when my DD was younger (stemming from PND which went undiagnosed for too long), I hid it from her and she will never know. I was a fun mum for her and the couple of mornings a week she had at nursery were actually because I wasn't coping. We don't know everything about our parents. In the same way that we don't tell our parents everything. My Mum had guilt over how much she worked and passed me round, I always say it's fine, I knew no different. But in reality it wasn't fine, but I know she had no options and I would never hurt her by saying that it wasn't fine.

It certainly sounds like there were mental health issues in that sad story that might be better addressed today. The point I took from it is not to downplay or fail to appreciate the really, really basic and crucial importance of being able to provide for your child. I'm not suggesting SAHMs lark about while their children freeze and starve (ffs) but some comments from some wealthier ones on here really, really do fail to appreciate the absolute paramount importance of having enough money before you can discuss how much better you think it is not to work.

I knew that I would be jumped on for saying something so blindingly obvious (and I would always choose to work anyway), but it's quite apparent from some comments from some posters that they really, truly haven't got this. They talk about work as if it's something dirty or lesser and even feel personally victimised if you don't acknowledge their own pretty extreme independent wealth.

Money isn't just something that's nice to have and gives you options, or an obsession for shallow materialists. It's absolutely crucial. It's hard to understand just how crucial if you've never had to go without it.

Money isn't just something that's nice to have and gives you options, or an obsession for shallow materialists. ➡️ It's absolutely crucial. It's hard to understand just how crucial if you've never had to go without it
Christ, that’s true. Growing up poor is something that never leaves you

Hmm, well I grew up very poor (not in U.K.) , but I guess I have a different value system as my mum was always at home and I guess that was something I took for granted. So, although I didn’t realise I was doing it, looking back, I think I must have instinctively gravitated towards a man such as DH. Not because he’s a high earner (we met in our 20s so I couldn’t have known how things would pan out). I guess I just knew that if we ever had kids, he would see his role as facilitating me being with them. We never even discussed it as far as I remember, It just came totally naturally and we never considered anything else. Money is all one and the same - I don’t understand couples with different finances etc and I would feel very insecure in that kind of marriage, even if I was working (as I obviously would be)! When I was working, it was in social work (children and families anyway), so DH said why waste your energy there when you can focus on your own DC and we don’t need the money. To be honest, at 30, I was burnt out with that work. Also, my salary had become insignificant compared to his by the time we were 30 as he is just incredibly business-minded and driven in that way. He’s never been on a salary as such - he’s an entrepreneur with various companies. But everything we have built up, we’ve achieved together. I’ve invested money and done a few profitable renovations over the years. I think what people really struggle to grasp on here is that when there is a SAHM (like me)! finances just merge. If I was working, it sound make no difference these days because in the overall scheme of where were at now, it would be negligible. But I love having more time to myself now as the kids are all 12+. Trying to decide whether to start up as a psychotherapist (part time) at the age of 48, as I’ve done the MA. I’ll probably wait until next year though now as one has GCSEs coming up and one A-levels. But it could be a new avenue for my 50s and I’m looking forward to it. Loads of friends who have been SAHMs retrain once the kids are a little older - often it’s in something they would never have dreamt of in their 20s. Life changes and you just go with it, I guess, DH is semi-retired now too and he’s 50.

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

It’s not necessarily a stark choice . Work or child It can be work and child. Both necessary, both important I chose work and children for me, and for them.

Yes, this.

I work part time currently, my DC are 9 and 5. And I'm confident that I have the right balance, for us, of being available for the children and earning enough. I also have a good career, that pays well and has a future, and if I'd given that up when the children were small I'd have been in a much worse position when the relationship broke down.

It's a personal decision but as with most things a balance, or a combination, often works well.

I think what people really struggle to grasp on here is that when there is a SAHM (like me)! finances just merge.

No, we really don't struggle with this. MN is very very pro joint money, but we have threads every day from SAHMs who don't have their own free access to the pot. Did you not merge your finances when you married, while you were still working?

I have a different value system as my mum was always at home

Once again, the implication that the necessity of earning money is really a question of "values", and from someone who admits she gravitated towards a good provider. Unsurprising if you had a poor background but still, that same implication.

You do say you're not from the UK, so there might be cultural differences at play, I don't know. But still, that same old implication that mothers earning money is somehow about "values" rather than being a very basic essential, and from someone who isn't responsible at all for that essential.

When I was working, it was in social work (children and families anyway), so DH said why waste your energy there when you can focus on your own DC

Jaw dropping !
What a catch your DH is !

I've always worked since I was 16, kids all went to nursery. Then I had a child with additional needs and things changed.

I'm now a sahm, and whilst I have come to love it, like a pp said I'm able to go to all the school stuff and lots of stuff I wouldn't have been able to do had I been still working, I do feel judged.

I hadn't ever really thought of it tbh until a delivery driver turned up at my door and it was someone I worked with years back, he asked what I did now and I felt myself stuttering. He said is that you a stay at home mammy now? I felt myself trying to explain about how I was caring for my child.

It made me rethink and for a moment I felt embarrassment and I don't know why other than I felt judged and I genuinely don't think he meant that.

I told a guy in carphone warehouse once that I was a sahm. He said I was living the dream 😉
People judge everything - I don't know if it's that I'm getting old older now but I find I care less. They are not living my life - I am. Most people's jobs don't involve saving the world with their brilliance - those people are ticking along, doing what they need for their families or their own well-being. It shouldn't be judged negatively any more than sah should.
We all make the best choices we can with the information available to us at the time. That's really good enough.

I have a different value system as my mum was always at home

This is actually quite offensive. I am a lone parent and I have to work full time or my child would be taken into care. Nothing to do with "different value system".

As others have pointed out, your post assumes that the decision as to whether a mother should work and earn money is to with "values" (with the clear implication that a woman who works has poorer values). When actually a great many women have to work to support their children.

You seem not to have considered that you are making yourself financially vulnerable by choosing to rely 100% on your husband because of your superior "values". And that the only thing protecting your superior "values" is that you currently trust your husband. What happens to these values if he pulls the rug out from under your family, or he dies? Values won't put food on the table for your children.

This reminds me of a certain religious community that used to live round here. I liked those guys, enjoyed chatting to them and was happy to buy their recipe books to support them. But then they started asking me to give them money and food because they couldn't lower their spiritual values by dealing in filthy lucre (even though they sold books?). But it was fine for me to do it for them to enable their higher spirituality....

It's obviously not a perfect analogy as SAHMs belong and contribute to the same household that their money comes from. But it's still this pervading idea from some people that earning money - honest income as a life necessity - is a dirty thing. So make sure someone else does it for you, since you do need it.

Many religions and cultures have historically barred women from decent paying jobs, or working at all, and I promise you it wasn't to preserve women's higher calling.

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom I certainly don't feel that earning money is for someone else to do. I worked extremely long hours in a stressful and well paid job for 20 years so I'm quite experienced in earning money!

When DH and I got married we decided that before we had children we would save like mad in order for me to take a short career break when we had children. It ended up taking us 10 years to have kids so in that time we had saved an absolute fortune meaning that I could take as much time off as was needed. As mentioned in my previous post my savings paid off my share of the mortgage. In the end because we adopted I needed to be at home with them for longer than we anticipated so here I am 14 years later still a SAHM.

I hope I'm being clear in every post that I'm referring to some posters and not all SAHMs. I mention it though because it's coming up from more than one person and it does exist as a pervasive feeling that manifests itself in language like "values" and "best for the child" and "what matters most" and even "better things to do with my life" (that one was staggering).

There IS a lack of understanding in some circles of just how crucial provision is as a first need for a child. And there IS a feeling, again in some circles, that it is somehow lesser to take on any of this responsibility - if you're the mother. As @thepeopleversuswork said, it is actually rather offensive.

I’ve been a SAHM since 2015. My youngest are teenagers. They don’t need me at home but like the fact I’m always on hand for pick ups From school in the rain and dropping Off forgotten work. I’ve no intention of returning to full time paid work but after this is Over definitely something part time that I’ll enjoy.

2005 not 2015!

I’m always on hand for pick ups From school in the rain and dropping Off forgotten work.

As teenagers, should they not be responsible for this?

@Thefeep I think you may find that you may struggle to get back to work unless you have a particularly on-demand skill set.

I was a a sahm for that length of time (although I did part time casual stuff as well) and I found it almost impossible. It was a real shock to my system.

Back now but in a shit job I dislike. I need the money though - perhaps you don't.

In demand ffs

I love working tbh. I do 4 days and as a single parent being in work gives me adult conversation so its good for me. It's also a necessity

What some on here don't understand is that some of us come from very poor backgrounds. But now that we, through lucky circumstance or however life has turned out, don't HAVE to do what our parents had to do, somehow that means we cannot possibly comprehend how life is for some others when in fact they've just made utter assumptions about what life must be or must be have always been for them a d we have actually lived a hand to mouth life. Which Is understandable - humans will always judge and make assumptions. But just because we financially or, for whatever reason, have no choice but to stay at home and look after children now, they seem to think that means we are not providing/couldn't possibly understand/judge working parents. Which Is sad. There's no point really in trying to explain. Its sometimes horses for courses, sometimes circumstance, sometimes past experiences leading to current desires that lead us to the places where we are now in life. But how sad that some on here feel the need to utterly tear down anyone for the choices they have made in their lives. That they feel the need to state that just because you are able to stay at home must automatically mean you've never experienced a hand to mouth existence, so you couldn't possible.comprehend why parents have to work. How strange a viewpoint.

Arguing that everyone is wrong and only you are right in your viewpoint comes across as just lonely and sad and very 2d a d sadly this is why there is so little co passion and understanding amongst women especially. So what if staying at home works for that family? Their children? So what if someone enjoys working and their kids are happy to see mum working? So what of someone is in a place now in life where they can stay at home if they wish? What's it to you how someone feels?

If you want to stay at home and you have no choice, if you want to for medical reasons , if you want to just because, if you NEED to work (Which most do!), if you just want to work, god, why are you arguing?

Sorry , by ‘different value system,’ I was directly responding to the previous posters who were saying that if you have grown up poor, you will never give up the desire to earn your ‘own’ money because you understand the value if this more than other people, etc.

Certainly didn’t mean to imply different moral values, or anything like that.

I was just being honest that I grew up very poor (not even by British standards) but still, I don’t feel the same way they do.

@YouJustDoYou

What some on here don't understand is that some of us come from very poor backgrounds. But now that we, through lucky circumstance or however life has turned out, don't HAVE to do what our parents had to do, somehow that means we cannot possibly comprehend how life is for some others when in fact they've just made utter assumptions about what life must be or must be have always been for them a d we have actually lived a hand to mouth life. Which Is understandable - humans will always judge and make assumptions. But just because we financially or, for whatever reason, have no choice but to stay at home and look after children now, they seem to think that means we are not providing/couldn't possibly understand/judge working parents. Which Is sad. There's no point really in trying to explain. Its sometimes horses for courses, sometimes circumstance, sometimes past experiences leading to current desires that lead us to the places where we are now in life. But how sad that some on here feel the need to utterly tear down anyone for the choices they have made in their lives. That they feel the need to state that just because you are able to stay at home must automatically mean you've never experienced a hand to mouth existence, so you couldn't possible.comprehend why parents have to work. How strange a viewpoint.

Arguing that everyone is wrong and only you are right in your viewpoint comes across as just lonely and sad and very 2d a d sadly this is why there is so little co passion and understanding amongst women especially. So what if staying at home works for that family? Their children? So what if someone enjoys working and their kids are happy to see mum working? So what of someone is in a place now in life where they can stay at home if they wish? What's it to you how someone feels?

If you want to stay at home and you have no choice, if you want to for medical reasons , if you want to just because, if you NEED to work (Which most do!), if you just want to work, god, why are you arguing?

And Amen to that. I couldn’t agree more.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

There will be someone come along to pour cold water over you very soon though sadly.

That they feel the need to state that just because you are able to stay at home must automatically mean you've never experienced a hand to mouth existence

Nobody has said this. I said that people who don't appreciate the importance of money haven't had to live without it. Got a response from someone who grew up in poverty, with a SAHM, but gravitated towards a good provider so she could maintain her "different values" and hated working. I think my point still stands.

And I maintain that some comments on here from some individuals about the act of earning an honest living as a basic necessity betray an absolutely staggering level of ignorance and lack of appreciation.

My OH asked if I wanted to be a SAHM,,,my answer was firmly know. I suppose coming from a broken home and watching my mother struggle has made me and my sisters fiercely independent. I have always worked and have a good pension. I enjoyed my maternity leave, they have all gone to the same nursery and I am in a job which has allowed me alot of flexibility. If your a SAHM I hope your in a position to ensure your DH is paying into a pension for you or your name is on the mortgage if you have one and dont leave yourself vulnerable in the event things dont work out. You can no longer assume you can stay in the family home or get spousal maintenance .

firmly 'no' typo apologies