Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that SAHM's with school-age children are in fact just stay at home people?

321 replies

Pissyflaps · 27/02/2008 10:40

I'm going to get flamed backwards for this, but I really don't care. I'm also going to be accused of all manner of trollery, bite me.

It's my opinion, I want yours - so, SAHM's who's children are at school-all day, aren't they just stay at home people? Not a lot of parenting goes on as far as I can tell.

OP posts:
sagacious · 27/02/2008 15:33

lol @ wank like a monkey

padboz · 27/02/2008 15:47
Desiderata · 27/02/2008 15:49

There have been some weird fuckers on here of late, n'est ce pas?

padboz · 27/02/2008 16:01

you calling me weird Desi?

Caz10 · 27/02/2008 16:02

i will freely admit to being of SAHM as i will be going back to full time work when dd is 7 mths, for purely financial reasons. if we could afford it, i'd stay off, simple as that. someone a few pages back bandied about the "left-over" figure of about £500 saying it wasn't worth working for that...helloooo?!! i'll be needing every penny of the (consderably less than £500) amount i am left with after childcare to errr oooh i dunno squander on things like THE MORTGAGE!

anyway, i think the OP does have a point by wondering, because if working people manage to do all the housework/bills etc that have been cited here as Things To Fill The Day, and work too, they can't possibly take all that long?

(nb that doesn't obviously count the volunteery type things, that i would love to do but won't have time, again am

pofaced · 27/02/2008 16:03

FFS I cannot believe that in this day and age women have to justify the choices they make to anyone: it is equally valid for a mother to stay at home and look after her kids as it is for her to be a brain surgeon... whether she spends the hours between 9and 3.30 drinking gin and having her nails done or helping out at school/ old folks home is neither here nor there. Why are people so envious/ resentful of choices other people have made... if you decide to stay at home and take the reduction in social esteem/ economic circumstances, that's your call. Or if you go to work to pay the mortgage and child care that's also your decision. I've done both and have found it massively more difficult to be a SAHM than a hot shit career woman with moeny to spend... and perhaps to really rile OP, I worked (not every day but full time by doing 15 hour days)when kids were pre-school and then stopped when they went to school as I felt they needed me around more.

Desiderata · 27/02/2008 16:04

Nope! But you've got to admit I was better at the thread-kill than you

padboz · 27/02/2008 16:07

its not dead apparently desi - you started it again! - its therefore undead - anyone got a plan?

tori32 · 27/02/2008 16:07

No, because mums are still mums where ever their kids are My mum is still just that even though I left home years ago although she now refers to her self as retired!

piratecat · 27/02/2008 16:09

I can't afford to work, put that in your pipette and smoke it!!

I am a lone parent now, not thru choice.

Everyone has different circs, lives, relations, and localities.

There is little point working unless I found a very good full time job. I live in a tiny town in the back of beyond, so they really are non existent.

I live on benifits now.I once owned my own flat in London, and both dh and I worked.

Now I rent from the council, and cannot find a job worth doing, becuase of the money I would lose.

I AM currently looking for other ways, self employment, a new direction. Yet as the sole carer of my dd, who does need me round the clock it really isn't easy to even get time to think for me.

tori32 · 27/02/2008 16:12

Ooooh and what if said child is ill, injured etc. Obviously SAHM's are just that, not just people. They still do tasks looking after their DC's directly and indirectly whilst children are at school.

captainmummy · 27/02/2008 16:14

Die, Troll - Die!!!!!!!!

tori32 · 27/02/2008 16:15

piratecat I know exactly where you are coming from and I am not a lone parent. Even with DH working I can't afford full time childcare . So I said if I can't beat them, join them- now CM and earning more after bills than I did nursing.

piratecat · 27/02/2008 16:17

I have a very healthy respect for CM's, I think they must be mad angels with nerves of steel!!!

widgypog · 27/02/2008 16:25

I havent read the whole thread but I have dd who starts school in september and I am actively looking for jobs to start then. I will only work term time and have holidays off unpaid.

I dont 'need' the money but it waould be useful for holidays etc.

I have come to a dead end in local retail, supermarkets etc but called an advert in the paper this morning and it looks promising that they can offer me something the hours that i want.

I get bored when my dd is at playgroup and resort to walking my mums dogs or doing an exercise class, all of which I can do in the evening if I worked so I think pissy flaps has a point as I cant actually fill the hours.

btw I have a neighbour who has children at school and she doesnt work and she always says she doesnt sit down for a minute. Her car is always in and out but i honestly dont know what she does all day.

bozza · 27/02/2008 16:35

So tori because I work my child is not going to get ill, injured etc? I certainly hope that is the case.

Caz10 - good post.

CaptainUnderpants · 27/02/2008 16:55

Are we still here ?

Pissyflaps - it would be interesting to know whether you work or are a SAHP with a preschooler , then we may be able to understand where you are coming from , at the moment you are very defensive about imparting some more info about yourself .

Pissyflap you said 'Why is it relevant what I do all day? '

Why is it relevant what a SAHM does all day ?

Does you no harm , its a choice just like the choice you have made not to tell us anything about yourself .

themildmanneredjanitor · 27/02/2008 17:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

scaryteacher · 27/02/2008 17:05

Caz10 - When I was teaching I felt like I was a hamster on a treadmill trying to keep all the balls in the air. Housework got done very sketchily at weekends, as I always had planning/marking for the next week. Half terms and holidays were when some housework got done.

The knock-on effect of trying to do it all and work were some very late nights and early mornings, and sometimes, I just didn't go to bed. At least being a SAHM, I now have time to do things and do them properly, not at break neck speed and with mistakes. I also have more time to spend with DS, who is now home from school by 1620, rather than being picked up at 1850, having been dropped off at 0745. I went back on a job share when DS was 6 months, as we needed the money. Now, I don't have to work, but it's been 12 years to get to this point.

scaryteacher · 27/02/2008 17:05

What's wrong with being called Gavin?

foxythesnowman · 27/02/2008 17:06

I sincerely hope that any 16 year old boy has better things to do than dream up daft threads on here.

the youth off today ... tut

themildmanneredjanitor · 27/02/2008 17:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WigWamBam · 27/02/2008 17:10

I don't think it's a 16 year old called Gavin.

I think it's a journalist who is too lazy to research his/her assignment properly, and has chosen to get some nice, convenient, bite-size quotes to fill his/her article.

Which doesn't mean he's not called Gavin ...

CaptainUnderpants · 27/02/2008 17:18

if you google 'Pissyflaps' then MN comes up No 1 !!

handlemecarefully · 27/02/2008 17:25

Like a few others - when youngest dc starts at school in September I shall be thrilled to be still staying at home. Think I shall become a 'yummy' and cultivate feelings of envy amongst my peers

I don't feel I need to justify not working - it would infact be a pointless exercise in hair shirt wearing for me to go to work; given current household income

Swipe left for the next trending thread