Not sure whether to be a sahm or not

[Flowerpicker1]

Had 2 under 2. My maternity leave is now coming to an end following the birth of my 2nd dc. Neither dc are in nursery. DH is on a good wage.

Have been given the option not to return to work if I don't want to. Dh can cover us. It would be part not full time anyway.3 days.

Not sure what to do. On one hand I'd love to be there for all of my dcs childhood but on the other I worry if I would cope. We don't have any family or support nearby.

If you work would you rather be a sahm and not put your children in nursery? Or have you done this and loved it/regretted it?

You said everything I wanted to say, spot on

it's not for me but you do what you think is best for you and your family.

I have not RTFT but this can never be emphasised enough: have you gone through all the things that might happen and will you still be financially secure? People don't like thinking about it but what if you have to become a carer for your DH who can no longer earn? He leaves you? your pension? You leave him? Your pension? He loses his job? Your pension? if you become sick and your DH has to stop work to become your carer? Have you thought about your pension?

I don't know any parent that sends their child to nursery for five days a week. It is often grandparents or the parents taking turns to look after them. Who can afford five days childcare?!

@FortSalem86 I’m assuming you don’t work? I know absolutely loads of working mothers whose children are in childcare 5 days a week. DS2 is 3 and the majority of his classmates are there Monday - Friday.

@berksandbeyond you can’t say “you don’t have to work” and in the next sentence say you choose to work to have financial independence. If you don’t have that; you clearly do have to work.

DON’T DO IT

Parental stress is bad for children’s mental health - stressed, unhappy parents have stressed, unhappy children.

I took a career break for 3 yrs after my mat leave ended with DC3. Best thing i did.

i have a job, not a career. Easy to find another.

Yes she can.

It's quite obvious that she means that her dh had enough money that should
She choose to be a sahm she could
But
She prefers to earn her own money personally &
That makes the joint household pot bigger & life more luxurious and protects her pension & future earning capabilities.

These two things are not mutually exclusive.

Yes I do work. Think some of them luckily have families nearby to help or use childminders.

@MiniTheMinx

blueshoes why are one third of YP aged between 12 and 18 self harming? Why are so many children so emotionally dystegulated? why are mainstream schools struggling to educate children who display extreme behaviours? why am I seeing more older YP who reject their own family in favour of being looked after? why are schools emplying more and more behaviour support staff in mainstream?

You have repeatedly come on here to post these fairly apocalyptic assessments of the MH of young people but have so far yet to posit any credible evidence of a link between this and working mothers.

I'm not going to deny that there is a huge rise in MH issues in young people and you do have experience in this field so I'm not going to argue that you don't know what you're talking about on this front. But I have seen no evidence whatsoever of any proof of correlation with a larger proportion of women working.

There are a myriad of potential triggering factors for this which I have seen reported including the rise of social media, body dysmorphia, lack of funding for MH support, greater economic uncertainty and many many others. Why is it that you are able to be so certain that there is a direct causal link between these MH issues and a larger proportion of women working? I have never seen any evidence of this in scientific literature and believe you me I've looked. You keep asking this rhetorical "why?" as if there were only one conclusion that this question led to which is mendacious. There are a vast number of potential conclusions to this question as I'm sure you know.

Also you seem to be discounting the very real negative impacts of women not working on their children's mental health. It's extremely well documented that a lot of women in the 1950s and 1960s were medicated to cope with the after effects of boredom, frustration and lack of agency which arose from the fact that society frowned upon them having any participation in the labour market. Meanwhile a lot of women have suffered financially from having a lack of independent finances, particularly post divorce. How is is that you are so quick to dismiss this? A mother's financial and mental health are extremely significant for the wellbeing of her child.

Clearly not all women with children want to work and that's fine. But a large number do, and the suggestion that women who choose to work are basically prioritising their needs over those of their children is inflammatory and one-sided.

I could be a SAHM but one of the biggest reasons I’ve never really given it much thought is because of how much my career would suffer long term and the actual cost of that over my lifetime. I work 3 days (although might be forced to up that soon as I was incredibly lucky to get that arrangement in my line of work) and it’s just a great balance.

IMO my kids (less so the baby if I’m honest but certainly my eldest) really benefit from nursery.

Well put.

@MiniTheMinx seems to be under the impression that women working is a new thing or that childcare use is a new thing?

There is no evidence to suggest that using childcare will result in mh issues in children. And thats not because there haven't been enough studies. There have. People have been trying to blame women for the ills of society for ever

I can only find a survey for the alleged 1 in 3 self harm stat? Most other clinical research says around 9%

Other research shows most sahms are forced into it due to finances so the idea that all sahms are fully engaged happy parents is as much bullshit as the rest of it.

The sexism on this thread is depressing as fuck. Men getting away with doing what they like because some women have to kid themselves on that theory kids would end up with mh issues if an but them looked after them

The argument is not "Nursery bad, home with mum good" because it's obviously going to be more complex than that. Being home with mum is hardly going to be ideal if you are in poverty, for a start. Nor is it going to be ideal if mum is unhappy or severely depressed. There are many instances we can all think of when, weighed against the alternative, children are probably better off in daycare.

But again, you can fully acknowledge all of the above but still realise that, just on a common sense basis, it is not ideal for babies and young toddlers to be in daycare for 90% of their waking lives. Because this is the reality for many babies / toddlers now and how long are we going to deny the potential impacts? Children are being bundled out the house and dropped off before 8am in some cases so parents can be at their desks at 8.30. They are even having breakfast at nursery. Then it's a long 10-hour structured day. That's a long day for an adult, let alone a baby / toddler. Sleeping on mats in the afternoon. Being collected when it's dark and then in bed, by 7.30, just to get up and do it all again the next day. Children are asking in the night and patterns if go-sleeping, just to get closeness to mum. Is this actual progress on a societal level when all is said and done? Who is actually bearing the brunt of all this (clue, it's not men). Modern society is so tough for women and children and there really are are no easy answers.

*waking in the night and adopting patterns of co-sleeping

@mantramama

But again, you can fully acknowledge all of the above but still realise that, just on a common sense basis, it is not ideal for babies and young toddlers to be in daycare for 90% of their waking lives.

For starters I would dispute that statistic.

A majority of women take at least nine months in maternity leave so the number of babies who are in daycare for 90% of their waking lives is hugely overstated. A large number of women go PT or compress hours when their children are small even when they do work so I question this figure.

Also this "common sense" assertion. "Common sense" is usually shorthand for "I don't have any real evidence for this so I'm going to default to the most commonly held view and hope it sways people emotionally".

I repeat that we don't have any actual evidence whatsoever, despite numerous long-term scientific studies having been undertaken, for a broad based societal negative impact on children of their mothers having worked FT.

And by the way, if you do believe this is a negative, why are you taking as read that it is your job and yours alone to alleviate this notional stress your child is undergoing by being in childcare? Why can't your partner play a part in this? (I am a single parent so this option wasn't open to me, but I'm curious that it is always perceived to be the sole role of the mother to step into this breach.)

No one is ever writing on their grave - "wish I had been more senior at work"

That's not completely true. I've heard lots of stories of women who regret giving up their career. My career is something I'm incredibly proud of and it will be something I reflect t in positively when I'm older.

Life is short. Actually find it incredibly sad the number of women who feel the need to prove themselves at work once they have kids.
Are women not allowed to enjoy their career when they have children? Do you feel the same way about men who progress in their career once they've had children? I find it sad that some people are so narrow minded and judgemental.

I do wonder why some people even bother having them given they just hand over their care to other people. Barely see them. What's the actual point?!

What's the actual point if you posting an insulting comment like this? Is is better children live in poverty? Such a dickhead comment to make.

It is really fascinating to me that you correlate this phenomenon to an increase in working parents (which long predates the birth of current teens) and not with the exactly contemporaneous factors of a) widespread and often unregulated access to smartphones, tablets, social media, extreme pornography, etc and b) the systematic hollowing-out of CAMHS and other support service funding from 2010 onwards.

@mantramama

Do you have any links to the stats that 90% of toddlers spend most of their waking lives in 'day care'?

For it to be true that day care is negatively affecting the majority of children and therefore responsible for increase in mh issues and causing harms, there needs to be proof the majority of preschoolers spend most of their time in day care

I completely disagree with this.
Both parents to working full time doesn't have to negatively impact your ability to parent or negatively impact the children.

Being a good parent doesn't mean being physically present all day, every day. There is so much more to parenting and that includes making decisions for the family as a whole.

I have friends who are SAHP and there is no difference between their children and mine ( we both work full time) in terms of behaviour, emotional development, attachment or progress at school. They're all happy, well adjusted kids.

@Flowerpicker1
While I'm sure you've found reading the usual suspects regurgitate the same old arguments of previous SAHM threads really useful if your still reading for advice then
I would go back to work and see how it goes.
If your confidence has taken a hit it might be good for you, and obviously there's the financial side of things.
Is there any chance that your husband could condense hours or drop a day for a while?
If you do decide to stay at home then Twizbe has given brilliant advice.
Either way you need both of you to be on board and fully aware of each other's expectations.
Have a plan and an 'end' to staying at home if you do decide that, even if it changes over time.
Whatever you choose you both need to keep checking in that the situation is still working for the all family.

I know very few SAHP and I have to agree with @FortSalem86 that of the professional working families I know I can’t think of anyone who sends an under-3 for five full days in childcare. Generally one parent is part-time or both do compressed hours, so a weekday with each parent and then three in childcare, supplemented with grandparent help for a lucky few.

I appreciate the honesty of the pp who have said that they made their choice because they had a job, not a career. It’s a privilege to have a fulfilling, stimulating career and giving that up is a very different choice.

Parental stress is bad for children’s mental health - stressed, unhappy parents have stressed, unhappy children.

I was nearly suicidal during my enforced SAHM phase (complicated story, it was never in my plan beyond the minimum i thought i could/shoud do. My plan was 3-6 months, my reality was 3 years. DH took over from me, and would have done the lot if he could)

Me going back to work, and them going to nursery was the best for all of us.

why are one third of YP aged between 12 and 18 self harming? Why are so many children so emotionally dystegulated? why are mainstream schools struggling to educate children who display extreme behaviours? why am I seeing more older YP who reject their own family in favour of being looked after? why are schools emplying more and more behaviour support staff in mainstream?

Push off with blaming all this on women working. Women have ALWAYS worked. And how can you explain a family with 2 DCs one of whom has MH issues and one who doesn't? same upbringing same everything (as they say themself: why me, why not sibling?)

We don't need to rehash the "SAHM vs Working Outside The Home Mother" again. It has been done to death. We are in the fortunate position to say: make the choice, and change your mind if it doesn't suit. But these conversations are tediously boring when used by one or other (women! ffs - have some fucking solidarity) to bash people who do a different thing.

@TheMoops

No one is ever writing on their grave - "wish I had been more senior at work"

That's not completely true. I've heard lots of stories of women who regret giving up their career. My career is something I'm incredibly proud of and it will be something I reflect t in positively when I'm older.

Thank you very much for debunking this dreadful cliche. This is one of my absolute pet hates. There are so many women who come to hugely regret not having worked harder and built a career.

My mum was one of them. She had a glittering career in TV and gave it up to have children and basically never managed to reenter the workforce aside from a few short-term pin money and volunteering jobs. She was bitter and resentful about this until the day she died and she hammered into me throughout my childhood the importance of a career for self-esteem, independence and interest.

Of course there are plenty of women who don't regret giving their jobs up. And all power to them. But I really hate the way this phrase is used to imply that a career is a pointless time vacuum which women will come to regret. Given how difficult it still is for many women to have careers in the first place its such a spiteful and destructive comment.