To think modern life is shit for mums

[barelycoping1]

I have a 1 year old son and would give anything to be a SAHM. I don’t want to put him in nursery or with a childminder, I’m his mum and I want to bring him up myself - not pay someone else to do it. I want to spend every precious moment with him because he’s our first and last and I’ll never get to experience this special time again.

Sadly though I have no choice but to return to work so we can pay our mortgage and bills. I don’t earn that much more than the cost of nursery, but it is about £350 difference every month so worth it.

I just feel sad that I don’t have a choice in the matter thanks to the sodding cost of living and sky high rents/mortgages now. I wish we were back in the days where one salary could easily cover the mortgage on an average home. Hose prices have essentially adjusted now to mean that both parents need to work to keep a roof over their heads.

Also because I’m back at work, my free time is a constant battle trying to keep the house in order and deal with life admin. I’ve lost touch with quite a few friends because I have so little time.

AIBU to hate the fact that I have to go back to work and to feel sad that I’m missing out on time with my son? I know some people will say to find a job I love, but there’s no job in the world that I’d rather do than be a SAHM.

I feel so stretched all the time and like I’m on a hamster wheel and can’t get off. If this is what having it all means then it’s just shit, sorry. What can I do to change my life for the better?

Have you looked at every expense and really scrutinised what you need and what you could live without? Including food shopping? Down to the last penny. When we decided I would be a SAHM, my DH was on £26k and we lived in an expensive city. We lived in a little flat, mortgage not too hefty as it was a 25 or 30 year term, can't remember which. Cheaper (not so nice) area. We looked at every single bill and compared deals online for things like electricity, mobiles, internet.

I totally understand how you feel. If I were in your shoes, I'd look at downsizing to a smaller property in a cheaper area. If that's an option. Other things you could look into are: can you do your job on a freelance/consultant basis? Can you go part time? Part time in a different job? Consider being a childminder? Childminders are always full where I am. Come at the issue from a place of wanting to solve it. Yes I do agree that it's not fair if a mother wants to be with their child but has to work. Your feelings are valid. Ask yourself now - what changes can you make to make your dream a reality? Get into that mindset and you might find a way to make it work. Search for solutions. I'm sure you probably are.

Sorry, I'm not always the most coherent person when typing on forums. I hope you manage to figure things out.

I only look back at my time with my kids with misty-eyed fondness, even though I do remember it was hard work getting them ready and up and out for nursery every day. I don’t think they would have gained anything extra from me being at home full time - and my experiment with the third child in NOT sending him to nursery has proven that as true

I apologise for my earlier comments, they were snippy as anything.

This has always been an issue. I am a 60 something and have always worked. Don't forget that having young children at home is only a small part of your life and there is lots more to to it - you, your career and your marriage. I had my children late and we had a nanny when they were small - as we both worked very odd and long hours. This meant that a big part of our income went to paying her but we knew that this would only be for a few years. I loved my job and couldn't risk losing it. I have absolutely no regrets and my relationship with my now grown up sons is brilliant. Having children and working is normal for a huge number of woman. You must make sure your husband does his bit. If you are both working then the childcare and housework and admiin is joint responsibility. Alternatively there are always ways of downsizing and cutting down if you really can't face going back to work. Personally I couldn't bear to be dependant on the husband - much as I love him.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Couldn’t agree more, equality to me just means women have to do most of the child rearing and pay half the bills. I tend to think most women whether a sahm or a working mum do so because of lack of choice, pros and cons to both but usually either can’t afford not to work or can’t afford to work. I think the media and politicians have done a fantastic job belittling the role of raising children and consequently we have a vastly under funded, fucking expensive childcare system .

Very much this!

Haven't read the full thread and its not the most sensible financial decision but have you looked at borrowing money to see you through this period - I assume you will want to work when he starts school. If the shortfall is 350 per month you could look at a personal loan or adding it to your mortgage. As you say, they're only young once and a lot of people wouldn't think twice about raising money for a car or extension

I feel the exact same as you op, it’s crap it really is. I’m hoping to go part time eventually but we are renting and need both full time to have any hope of a mortgage. I like renting but a mortgage would be so much cheaper and so the only way to be part time as far as I can see!

I'm sorry but you lost me at "pay someone else to bring them up".
I haven't not brought up my own kids because I used a nursery and returned to work.

@barelycoping1

Also people saying £350 per month isn't worth it - £350 is a lot of money. I could probably sell some stuff on eBay to cover one month, but we don't have a huge amount of old stuff that is valuable. I've already sold it all!

My view, is just quit. I know £350 sounds a lot and isn't easy to magic up, but this isn't going to be forever and you should be able to find ways to make some cash each month in ways people have suggested - make savings on non-essentials, part time flexible job like babysitting, surveys, selling stuff (buying it cheap and selling on, old baby items, outgrown clothes) etc. So the difference will be less than £350. Then think about the fact that in 3-4 years your only child will be at school so things will change. Also free nursery hours from age 3 if you would like your little one to go part time to a pre-school. So really you are only down £100-200 a month for a couple of years. I'd be trying to make this work in your situation, borrow some money from family or even a loan of some form, if you truly have no savings in the bank to carry you over. You and your child will get so much from this opportunity, you will be happy and family/work life balance will be so much easier for your partner too. A few thousand pound overall shouldn't stop you being able to make this choice. Think how insignificant this amount of money will be when you look back in years to come, and how glad you will be that you had this time with your little one.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

It is tough, and I suspect one way and another it always has been. My DM studied law, was called to the bar, then married and had 3 children and never worked outside the home again (normal for the time). I know she has regrets and I know that so much of her potential has never been expressed. I also see that since her DC are grown, with 2 of us living abroad, she has (successfully) faced the challenge of using her time in fulfilling ways.

However I also know how shit it is not to have time with your DC, and then to use your weekends catching up on chores, not have time for friends... Basically yes, it is tough.

My MIL studied law, but got married just before. I love hearing her stories around that time because it was bloody tough (she had 3 kids back to back, and was pregnant during the final years of her studies... this was the 70s). Her choice to keep her career helped her immensely when her DH died a decade later .

I have sympathy to an extent OP but I don't think we necessarily have it worse than other generations. My grandmother died a frustrated, bitter old lady who never quite got over the complete waste of her potential having spent years as house wife and being denied further education and a career, trapped in a marriage she wasn't particularly happy in. It was a great sadness that she never managed to recover from. My mum had to work full time in the 90s after the market crash impacted my self-employed dad's work. I am the first in my family of working class women to be university educated, to have progressed in my career pre-children and am now able to part-time while mine are little. It's a compromise that's not always perfect but it was a choice I had available that was denied to my mother and grandmother. The modern juggle is hard, sometimes really hard, but I don't think it's necessarily worse.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but could you not work opposite hours to your partner to earn £350 - say weekends if they work mon-fri? Or evenings?

I'd far prefer to be a mum nowadays than in say the turn of the 18/1900's. Tied to the kitchen and to the mangle? No protection from domestic abuse/marital rape, having no right to my own property, my own money or my own children? No thank you, the lives and rights of Mother have improved exponentially in the last hundred years but I would agree it's still hard.

Then again, in the 1950's many women still had to work it's a rosy tinted view. Unfortunately many were not given a choice though, you were simply handed your final payslip and told to be on your way. No maternity pay etc and very often they were still destitute.

I’m his mum and I want to bring him up myself - not pay someone else to do it.

I really hate this sentiment. I get you aren't happy with your personal situation, but statements like this are not helpful to anyone - including you!

I think we have it much easier than previous generations.
My grandmother never got over being offered a place at a prestigious grammar school age 14, that she had to decline it as per parents needed her to work in the mill. She got married, had 6 kids, one with a disability and was never able to work (no childcare). She was 14 in the 50's.

My generation (generally) got to stay on at school, had access to uni, careers advice and jobs. Obviously there are disadvantaged groups where these things are harder to obtain, but not impossible.

Completely sympathise ! I work full time and would love to at least go part time but to do that unfortunately I would have to drop all my responsibilities at work as well as hours so would be a huge pay cut. I am also the main earner so we just couldn’t realistically afford it. The jobs my husband and I do have set hours so no flex there either. If I had my time again I would do a different job but I just feel stuck now really. My husband my go part time to allow a less stressful life but it’s not ideally what either of us want but if it helps our family that is what we will do. No solutions but lots of sympathy!

I really feel for you and hope you can find a way to spend more time with your child. Lots of good suggestions on this thread. Regarding childminding/nannying, maybe providing an after school service would suit you.

@Reachersloveinterest

I'm sorry but you lost me at "pay someone else to bring them up". I haven't not brought up my own kids because I used a nursery and returned to work.

Nah the nursery were the ones that were bringing them up.

Just like a childminder is bringing up my child.

Oddly I noticed that my child's behaviour is better when she has spent time around children of different ages. Unfortunately due to Covid I can't mimic that once a week, let alone 3-4 times a week....

Firstly the 'paying someone else to raise my kids' line is shaming mums who work. No one simply hands their kids off to nursery and expects them to emerge as perfect children, we are the ones raising them every second we are together. We are potty training and teaching manners and values etc etc etc.

If you want to be a SAHM and that is the most important thing to you then you have to make sacrifices. I know quite a few now in mid 20s , they live in areas where houses cost about 100k and don't go to baby clubs and share cars. Theres no coffees out and every penny is counted.

There is also the option of looking outside the 9-5. Working every fri/sat night as band 2 in NHS would get you about £500-£700 a month and then your husband could have the baby while you snooze til lunchtime. Then you have every single day to spend with your baby, put a small amount towards a pension and keep an employment going and would get a small maternity pay if you decide to have more. I personally do 2 shifts a week as a staff nurse and we don't use nursery for our youngest. I love having at least 5 days of freedom with him. My best friends avoided childcare for years doing cleaning nights and putting themselves through masters.

Hi OP, I do get how you feel, even though I enjoy working and never considered being a SAHM. I think it should be possible and I strongly believe that feminism was about choice and many choices are valid.

What I came on to say that it is important to plan back from where you want to be in a few years' time. Your DC will not be little for ever and primary school age is more complicated in some ways. You need to work on minimising unnecessary expenditure and maximising what you are paid for the hours you work. That could be relocating, retraining, having a serious discussion with DH about his contribution to practical matters, etc. Work out what would really improve your quality of life and do it, starting small and achievable.

I used to book a babysitter once a month on a Saturday night and send DH to a kids and dads club at a church (£1 and all the biscuits you can eat!) so I could plan Monday's lessons.

I also changed job a couple of times and negotiated a higher salary for less hours. My current school is considerably more parent friendly than my former ones,

You can improve your life if you have a plan and stick to it.

Not read the whole thread and I’m sure someone else has prob said this already, but you don’t seem to have addressed it in your posts, so ...

£350 a month is about 10 hours a week working in a supermarket or a pub. Obviously I don’t know all your circumstances, but would it work to give up your job and get something with a couple of 5 hour evening or weekend shifts while your DH looks after your DC?

but I promise you, if you were transported back to the 50's and you were a SAHM, you would not have lots of time to just play with the kids. You'd be a thousand times more knackered than you are now.

It's the 1950's not 1850's !. Full employment and the end of rationing in 1954 heralded the post war boom. The house building programme was building more affordable housing than ever before, incuding high standard social housing, new schools and new towns Available credit in the form of higher purchase put domestic appliances like vacuume cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators and TV within the reach of most. Car ownership was putting the railways out of business. Higher education was available, not just university but technical colleges and adult education. Fundamentally the 1950's bought unprecedented change to this country at just about every level, only exceeded by that of the 1960's.

You may have had an Electrolux twin-tub, rather than a Zanuzssi Okie cokie 2000 automatic but the majority were nolonger on their hands and kness with a cloth and a bar of carbolic, you had Flash and a squeezy mop for that.

Finally with the Comet 4 coming into service in 1955 and the Boeing 707 in 1958 we were now in the, " Jet Age". Wait a few years and you had two weeks on the Costa's from Luton Airport.

As an older woman, I feel sad knowing how brief childhood is... gone in a flash believe me. If it suits a woman to work then do be it but as you say you don't get a second chance at resting your child.
If there is another option even with less money then take it, I did work when my 4 were little but part time and still have trouble remembering them little..
Life seems to have become a race..... to what?

I think you’re misguided in thinking it’s modern times which mean women have to work. It is now, and always has been about how wealthy you are. Both of my grandmothers worked once they’d had kids - one because she was a professional and wanted to (but could have chosen not to because she was married to a relatively well paid professional). The other in low paid jobs to help make ends meet.

Of my 4 great- grandmothers, 1 was the main bread winner because she was widowed, 1 worked nights to help make ends meet, 1 was a farmer’s wife so whilst not paid outside the home was doing the work of running a farm. Only one didn’t work - because they were rich and she didn’t need to.

It is a fantasy you know, this idea that for long periods of history women haven’t needed to work. And even when they didn’t “work” outside the home, their lives were much physical harder work than now. You’d be much better to make peace with your lot or try to find tweaks to it, rather than bemoan what you perceive you haven’t got.

If you really want to be a sahm there might be ways to make it work (and starting a new thread to ask specifically for advice on that might be a good idea). We ran on a shoe string for the first few years - didn’t drive if I could walk, there were no takeaways or coffees, no hair dressers, no new clothes for me, and generally a make do and mend attitude. I did childminding too and some free lance writing. Another sahm I know took in foreign students. It can be done but you both have to be willing to make the sacrifices if you think it’s worthwhile. Putting it very simply, I was living a similar lifestyle to my dp’s generation of the 70s/80s.
We’re better off now but it was a struggle for the first few years.