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?

My mum was a SAHM til my sister was about 11. She did childminding for years from when I was about 3, and then she went and got a few odd low paid jobs, and then retrained to be a care worker. She is brilliant at her job. Growing up she always told us we could do anything and be anything if we worked hard. I never gave much thought to the idea that she had a variety of skills. I never knew she was a trained accountant and gave it up. I never knew the level of organisation she needed to manage us all (she had 5 under 6 YO at one point). Now, as a mum of 2 on mat leave, I have such admiration for her. Her not working never gave us ideas that we couldn't have careers. I am a teacher with masters, my sister is an oncology nurse. I will go back to work and try balance career and kids and I do want my DDs to know I can do both, but I think SAHMs to young kids are amazing. It's a seriously tough job that isn't appreciated.

Let me start by saying I'm not a SAHM. But I respect SAH mums a lot.

I think being there for your child at all times is the ideal scenario. I don't think there is anyone better suited to raising your child and looking after them than YOU.

I think that staying at home is actually harder than going to work, because being with babies and toddlers 24/7 is no walk in the park. Getting a break from them through work is easier ( for me at least ).

I regret that I am not a SAH mum and that I put my own ego first. I'm proud of the fact that I work because I feel like society unfortunately respects it more. It's a shame and I'm a hypocrite. But generally, people think staying at home is the easy way out. But it's reallly really not in my opinion. I also feel like I have more of a say at home because I work and contribute financially. If I didn't work my husband would expect everything done for him as ' I'm just at home '. This is how it is in most families I know.

So I'm a hypocrite because I do think staying at home is the best for the child, but I put my own need to be viewed as a success in our society above that. So I guess that doesn't make me the best mum does it.

Mum was SAHM. She was great and supported us loads AND she resented the imbalance of power it created in the marriage. When my parents divorced she was late 50’s and was very vulnerable and quite bitter and very worried about money.
I worry about this for SAHMs and wouldn’t give up my career. Helps that I enjoy it, have trained for many years for it and am senior enough to have flexibility and be able to do a lot of drop offs and pick ups despite working pretty close to full time.

I was very glad that my mum was a SAHM when I was little. I was an anxious child and didn't enjoy school much, I would have hated being in childcare. When I was a teenager, I found her expecting me to be at home so much quite suffocating, even though I didn't realise it at the time.

As an adult, I think it's very sad she didn't go back to work. It would have done her a world of good. She would have had greater self esteem, time to herself, a social life of her own that didn't revolve around the kids, a balanced relationship with my father, and I would have profited from being at home less as a young child.
I often hear the argument that SAHPs can do school runs, be at home when their children are sick etc. Being a WOHM myself I have realised that that isn't limited to SAHPs. You can be there for your child most of the time as a WOHP as well - and there is no need to be there and available all the time. It is okay to delegate to the children's father, grandparents, babysitter, nanny, nursery,.....!

I was a stay at home mum for 5 years. It was a blessing and a curse. It was great to spend time growing our family and spending quality time with my little ones. I will never regret that. But being a stay at home mum was fuelled by pnd thinking I would be an awful mum and my children wouldn’t love me if they weren’t with me 247 which I realise now is madness. In those 5 years I totally lost who I was beyond a mum. I slowly tip toed back into work part time and in year 7 I threw myself into a full time career. It’s been a juggle but I finally have me back.?

My mum was very open about how much she resented having to give up her job to have me. We lived in a commuter town to London and long hours, plus commuting time, plus evening functions and having to travel meant that children and the job were apparently not compatible so I got her full wrath for making her sacrifice the job she loved for me.

She then fought to get a different career once my younger brother started school and did reasonably well in a different field, but it wasn’t the job she loved, it wasn’t as glamorous and it was still my fault.

Consequently I’m not sure that I would ever choose to be a sahm.

I do wonder if for some it’s an easy opt out of the working world, either as an excuse why you don’t have a career job, an excuse to leave a crap or stressful job or when the dc are a bit older to be a yummy mummy / wag type who drops the kids of at school and spends the day lunching, shopping and going to the gym and has a cleaner and gardener. Whilst I have no doubt that there is a lot of work with young kids or children with special needs, being a sahp once the kids go back to school is not a full time job. It’s a luxury to be able to do that and many people cannot understand why people do that and then moan that they are skint and their DH needs to get a better job or use the line, it was agreed I would be the sahp so I never need to go back to work ever.

When I was growing up my mum was a sahm. She had given up a teaching career to do that. I must admit that on one level I was quite jealous of people whose mums had jobs, I was jealous of them going to someone else's house after school, it seemed exciting. Then my best friend's mum died and I was massively grateful to have my mum at home every day after school because I suddenly realised that I shouldn't take it for granted that she would always be there.

I was a sahm for a while and at the time I thought I liked it but I've been much happier since going back to work.

Basically, do what suits you and your family. It's your decision, it's no one else's business.

I hate the idea of losing all sense of self just to have children, giving up everything that made you YOU to raise children

This is a bit 2 dimensional. Why is someone's job the only thing that makes them who they are? There are so many things that make up a person. Just because you choose to only focus on your paid job, and let that define you, doesn't mean that everyone else does. The world is full of all sorts of people doing all sorts of things.

I think it must be lonely because every SAHM I know is involved in some sort of MLM. That really says to me that they are craving something else, these are not women who are poor or don't have access to the family pot.

Might be purely just the people I know

Mine was a SAHM when I was younger but then went back to work when my sister and I reached secondary age. I loved having her around as a primary aged child but as others have said I think I would have found it hard if she’d carried on doing the SAHM role forever - that element of feeling what else does she have in her life other than ‘just’ mothering etc.

I do also think it is good, for older DC especially, to see their mother working outside the home at some point - ie having other responsibilities and making a contribution to society in some way, even if this is via voluntary work rather than a paid role - and not just being at DC’s beck and call!

I have ended up doing similar with my own DC tbh. I was a SAHM for a good few years (again, absolutely acknowledging that we were lucky to be able to do this) and really enjoyed it but always did a lot of voluntary work too. I’m now back working after 10+ years as a SAHM

The SAHM role was absolutely right for me and for us all as a family at the time but I definitely reached a point of feeling that enough is enough and both DH, DC and I needed a different balance. I am loving being back at work! I have taken a job which isn’t in my original field but has similar elements (office based and people focused) and is also part time and fits well around the DC.. It’s done us all good to have adjusted the family dynamics a bit.

I think every family is different and you just have to go with what feels right for you. But also bear in mind that what you love when DC are 5 and 3 might not still be what you love when they’re 15 and 13. So it’s definitely worth having a back up plan.

I ve been both a SAHM and a working mum so have no particular feelings about it. Most of the SAHM I know with school aged dcs are pretty bored though and I must admit I do wonder what they do all day, particularly since March.

One SAHM on our class WhatsApp group is moaning about home schooling with her one dc which pissed me off somewhat. But other than that whatever.

I think it’s a huge personal risk, unless you’re independently v wealthy. Only a tiny minority of men do it.

I get irritated with the ‘facilitated men’ at work and socially: some of them think they’re ‘all that’ IMO!

My mum was a sahm when we were small but then my parents split and my mum had to work. Except with no qualifications and no real or recent work experience she couldn't financially support us very well at all.

She was my example as a woman to make sure I was educated and could earn well and to never be totally reliant financially on another person.

I now have a career, two children, a dh and work full time. I was lucky that we could afford to go part time when our children were small and I stalled my career for about 8 years.

If ever I give other friends who gave up work when their children came along a thought at most it is worry about what would happen to them if their relationship broke down - to one it has done and she has to live off benefits, I worry what will happen to her when her children are grown and she is still on benefits. I don't often think to much about other peoples choices as they don't affect me.

I really resent the idea that you have to be working or volunteering outside your own family in order to contribute to society. And I do work outside the home, before anyone jumps on me. I think it's a shitty message to children to tell them that caring for the people you love isn't in itself a contribution to a functioning society. The whole 'contributing to society' narrative is why unpaid caring for elderly, sick or disabled relatives is so undervalued. In financial terms it saves society an absolute fortune yet the people who do it, at great sacrifice to themselves, are seen as takers not contributors.

I worry about them. My mum was a stay at home mum for 15years for my sister and I. Now my parents are facing a retirement they are worried that they didn’t manage to save enough as my mum didn’t work. Also we were centre of my mums lives for so long that when we flew the nest my mum suddenly had a gapping whole in her life.

I feel the pressure to be there for her in a way I’m not sure I would have if she had had a career. That’s my experience so I project it on to the others I see. But I have no negative judgement for them. How can I? They just trying to do the best for their families like everyone else.

I don’t have a problem with it, but I’ve seen so many people regret it. Their youngest starts school and they can’t justify not working any more. When they look for roles, the realize that in the 6 or so years they’ve been off, all their contemporaries have become head of dept, director etc and they are competing for the same job they had years ago. I’m glad I carried on part time even when my salary barely covered childcare, it means that now I’m ready to focus on my career, I haven’t lost all that time

I'm afraid to say that after seeing how many of them locally have been sending their kids into school, I'm trying to fight the new found cynicism. Before, I thought that while it definitely wasn't something I could do, I respected that other women felt differently and if it suited them and their families and was a joint decision, that was what mattered. I also thought that it was something of a risk in terms of finances and marital status. That's not to say it's "wrong" to take that risk, but it should be taken into consideration.

I still think all that in the abstract. But I'm now starting to think that the proportion of women who were being honest about their motivations for not working, and what a societal good they were doing, may be lower than I had previously imagined.

My mum was a sahm for years and I loved it. I was lucky, she was around until they divorced then she had to take on shiftwork when I was 11.
Then I had to collect my primary aged sister from the minder on way home from high school. Then do dinner or serve what mum had left slow cooking.
The former was definitely easier as a kid!

@namechangeforfriday

As an adult, seeing my mum in an unhappy and dead marriage with my dad but unable to leave because she has no money, I’ve got to be honest and say it does make me respect her less that she didn’t look after her financial future. I see her (and my dad, who is problematic for many other reasons) as an example of everything I don’t want to be. I also don’t think it’s fair for one person in the relationship to have sole responsibility for the finances - on the flip side, I don’t think it’s fair for one person to do 100% of the parenting either. My ideal would be both PT workers doing 50% parenting. I also have to admit I don’t respect women who stay at home past their kids being in school, especially secondary. It just seems incredibly indulgent to potter about doing degrees and hobbies while husband brings home the bacon, what if he fancies jacking it in to pursue his interests all day? (Same applies to SAHDs too, of course)

I can see some of this with my own mother. Although she eventually did go back to work, she quite clearly has some sort of expectation that my father should be the one responsible for their finances. She would like to retire (and for my father to continue working) but she just hasn’t built up her pension pot enough and my Dad quite rightly is having none of it. I’d be horrified at the thought of being completely financially dependent and having that attitude. I wouldn’t have even said we benefited that much from her being home. There was no encouragement on hobbies, help with school work etc. I don’t remember her playing with us just as entertaining ourselves mostly. I’m sure many SAHMs are not like that at all with their kids but in her case it didn’t seem to be something she did for us.

I’m a sahm, my mother worked long shifts and my father had two jobs,

My husband and I made the decision for me to stay at home based on a lot of factors and it’s what works for us at this time ,

I hope when my daughter is an adult she will make her own decisions and do whatever works for her family

Why is it ok to judge women who stay home and choose to bring up their children.

If someone posted that they have little respect for working parents because they don’t see why anyone would bother to have children if they’re just going to stick them in nursery from 8 in the morning until 6 pm from the age of 6 months They would be told not to be so judgemental.

As a PP said, it is wrong that people associate someone’s earned respect with the amount of contribution they do outside the home, as opposed to bringing up their own family rather than leaving someone else to do it.

I was a SAHM because we could afford it. In retrospect I should have gone back to work earlier, and as I also have a disability I have found it impossible to get back into work now, but while anyone could judge me for that I do not understand why any parent would want to put their children i nursery at the earliest age so they could go back to work if they could afford not to.

And as much as there might be posters on here who say they judge their mums for not working, there will be posters who say they judge their mums for not being there for them. In fact there are many women on here who judge their partners for working long hours and not being there for the kids.

It’s all subjective.

It’s a double edged sword.

I was a SAHM for seven years. Was able to be a member of the PTA, was at the school regularly to help out, never missed a school event. Plenty of time to help do homework ect.. every thing was much more relaxed.

Now I own my own business and the kids really feel my time away from them and I’m struggling with school work now they are off school. Every thing is a rush.

However I need my dds to know that there is no expectation for females to have to give up a career or be a home maker. It still is very much a mans world and I think change will happen when mothers show their dds that women can have it all too.

I loved being a SAHM but for me personally that’s all I became, my identity wrapped around my children and their school. I needed more.

However now I have more I see how simple life was when I was a SAHM

I was a SAHM for three years with my first child. My mother SAH for similar proportion of time with each child. She didn’t have any professional qualifications and worked in any job she could as my father restricted her income and she wanted her own cash.

It meant we often had to accompany her to various cash jobs but it wasn’t a big deal. I remember wondering though, why she was ‘wasting our holiday time for a pittance’ as I saw it.

Later on she began to work for my father in a pseudo professional capacity, although unqualified. Initially everyone thought she was only there because of my father, but she was brilliant at her role and rapidly accepted as an expert in this area. I learnt that you can earn respect by working hard and self managing your career.

On the other hand I am professionally qualified but took a career break from a senior position. Then found it impossible to return at the same level post maternity. My experience growing up meant that I wasn’t ashamed to take any role I could when we needed the money as a family. And I did, working right at the bottom for a period and re-establishing myself. It was difficult, embarrassing on occasion and I found it very humbling.

8 years on I am in a more senior position that I was when I had my first child and I think my resilience is partly due to what I saw my own mother do.

Bloody Hell! Better tell her that eh?

I think SAHMs are very fortunate. I am envious that I can’t be a SAHM as we aren’t in a financial position to do it. Or rather, as a couple DH and I haven’t made the financial decisions to enable me to do it. That’s the consequence of our decision.

The majority of my friends are SAHMs abs interestingly they all seem quite judgey of each other’s laziness, or seem to spend a lot of their time finding ‘things’ to do to look busy. All of their children are of school age but I wouldn’t say any of them inspire me with their use of child free time (obviously school closures aside)