To just want to stay at home and make pancakes

[Drizzlewithatouchofgrey]

Last week of being at home with Dd, 5, until it’s back to school and work..all the rushing, emails, WhatsApp school groups and so on.
Lovely, slow morning making pancakes for Dd for breakfast, early morning dog walk, baking later.
Aibu to want to live like this everyday?
I’d very happily never work again, given the choice. People say they’d be bored, I wouldn’t, I’d walk the dog, meet friends, work out, read, write, cook great meals, be fully present with Dd without feeling rushed/stressed at times

If you can afford it and everyone is on board, go for it. I stayed at home until my youngest went to secondary. Happiest years of my life.

I found myself extremely career orientated when I had two kids under 4, loved being at the office.

Now they're 7 and 11 and wonderful little chaps, I love being at home with them and find them much more stimulating than work.

I stayed at home with my daughter until she was eight and I really loved every minute of it. I can honestly say that I was never bored, but then I've never been bored at any time in my life. We were very short of money with just my husbands salary and went without holidays most years, new clothes, and did all our own home improvements, but we both agreed it was worth it to give our daughter the best possible start in life. I hated it when I had to go back to work. I'm now gradually reducing my working hours ready for retirement and I'm really enjoying having the extra time at home again. I can't wait until I stop work altogether.

Er, here's a radical thought: some of us might need to pay the rent/mortgage and buy food for said people? Just putting it out there....

Are you only allowed to "bother having them" if someone else can pay for them?

To answer your question OP I can relate to this but as PPs have said part of the appeal of the lovely slow days is precisely because if you were doing them forever you would quickly get bored of them.

@SiouxseeSioux

because it can be boring?

Due to an unexpected combination of family circumstances, I am mostly at home for a couple of years, with school age DC, and only one day of other work/carer-type obligations each week.

Six months in, I absolutely love it. I am absolutely never on top of the housework either, so if I ever was bored, I'd have plenty to do at home... not sure if that day will ever come but at least I have a backup plan.

Otherwise I cook, take a class for my hobby, manage the DC's appointments/school stuff/activities, read, piss about on Mumsnet, research something if I take a fancy to it, see friends for coffee in their lunchbreaks, frantically do some washing or cleaning when things get too dire, take the dog for a walk, etc. I'm not really looking forward to this ending, I think I could happily potter about for many years yet! I honestly feel that being able to do this for a while is one of the greatest privileges of my life.

I'm an introvert though, and a lunchtime chat or hobby class plus afternoons/evenings with the family is well and truly enough social interaction for me. I suspect it would be much more challenging if i was more extroverted.

@Growlybear83

do you really not enjoy any aspects of work?

I think the perfect work/life balance is if you and your DP could afford to both work PT.

I feel like both of you would be stress free, no arguing about not having time for yourselves or because jobs round the house aren’t done or because one parent does most of the childcare etc.

I would hate to not work and be kept by my DH who was working FT but I’d also like to only work PT too but I’d want him to also work PT to make it fair.

I feel exactly the same. Me and DP are working hard to build up passive income so that we don't have to work.

Currently both self employed and working minimal hours from home, but only living hand to mouth (no debt though). Few more years and we'll have it sorted I think.

In the not too distant past, it was perfectly possible to live relatively well on one wage, being a SAHM was perfectly normal and wasn’t looked down on or thought of as ‘brain rotting’.

Of course mothers who want to work should but economic policy has been set up now that they HAVE to. It’s not positive progress and certainly not beneficial to women who are generally having to do everything a SAHM does AND work!

Sounds lovely 🥰

Positive progress would include not acting like it is only a choice for women to make.

It needs to be an option for men as well.

The grass isn't as green as people think it is on the stay at home side

I don't dislike my work but I would much rather not have to work and would feel much more fulfilled. I'm now self employed and have worked from home for many years, but I would never have returned to paid work out of choice and would never work again if I didn't have to.

I think the work I did as a stay at home mother was every bit as important and valuable as my husband's paid work during the years I was at home with my daughter. I worked very hard during that time, looking after her and renovating our house and garden, and never spent any significant amount of time out with friends, having lunches, shopping etc. I couldn't afford it for one thing, but the arrangement we had suited us. We moved house when I was six months pregnant, and the house was virtually derelict, with a big garden that was more like a jungle. By the time my daughter was born, we had managed to renovate two bedrooms, the bathroom, and kitchen, so there was always loads for me to do whilst I was home.

I always said that if we had children, it was always completely non negotiable for me to not stay at home until they started school, which was why we waited until I was in my mid thirties before trying to conceive, by which time my husband was earning more and it was just about affordable with careful budgeting.

It has actually and I have more to talk about than housework and children.

The grass isn't as green as people think it is on the stay at home side

I guess that staying at home is usually a choice whereas working usually isn’t.

If someone doesn’t like staying at home then they can usually just get a job or a volunteering role.

But if someone doesn’t like working then they can’t just give up their job because they have bills to pay.

I love my job, but if I could afford to stop, I would close my business tomorrow.

As it is, DH and both work part-time (no children) and overall we have a pretty great work-life balance. I run a dog-walking company and work about 4-5 hours a day, Monday to Friday. I have afternoons off and work the odd hour in the evenings. I don't work weekends.

DH works normal days but then has regular weeks off in between jobs. On average I'd say he works three weeks out of four, but sometimes he works two months straight then a month off, rather than a regular week every month.
He has weekends off too.

I think we have a great balance.

I feel like you OP and honestly felt tearful a couple of days ago at the thought of returning to work (today) and rejoining the hamster wheel of work, juggling DC, school, endless chores, school admin. The year group WhatsApp groups have already started in earnest. DC have taken on more hobbies as they've become older so there is constant ferrying around to various places.

I would NEVER get bored if I was to give up work and stay at home now. There is so much I want to do. So many books to read, art galleries to visit, films to watch, places to visit.

Last week I looked up a course I really want to do. It's an advanced language diploma which would give me a professional qualification in a language I speak fairly fluently and is a pre-requisite for a job I'm interested in doing one day. However it requires 20 hours study a week plus an exam next June and I don't hae 2 spare hours right now never mind 20. I feel angry and it's irrational really. I have an extremely well paid job that isn't particularly taxing, it's just time consuming. I hate the fact I have to log onto my laptop and sit through endless calls, meetings and then go to client/industry events that bore me silly.

I can't just leave work as I'm in a lot of debt after buying a house last year. I would never in a million years get another job that pays so well with all the flexibility I have right now at my current company so I can't change where I work.

Just feel stuck hence blowing £20 on lottery tickets last night.

I had a conversation along the lines of this yesterday with my work colleagues, whether we'd still rock up to work on the Monday if we won 1m on the lottery. It was pretty much a 50/50 split and said they'd carry on working in the same job.

I know everyone is different, but I thought that was pretty mental. I'd definitely not be doing my 9-5 if I had the money not to! My ideal world would be to not work, spend more time with my loved ones, spend more time just living life! Maybe I'd do little sideline things that I had a personal interest in but there is not a cat in hells chance I'd carry on coming to my 9-5pm 😂

Absolutely. We are trapped as capitalist drones. We should realise this and then all demand a better quality of life.
There must be a better way to live than the way some (most?) of us are living?

Sorry but this is a) incredibly naive and b) pretty sexist

a) What would happen in practice if all the "capitalist drones" downed tools as one and walked off? Firstly It betrays a complete lack of intelligence about what people's jobs entail. People talk about "capitalist drones" as if we're all thumping the boardroom table in our City offices with our shoulderpads. Ain't like that for most people.

Most working people don't work in these sorts of jobs. A very large number of them work in the public sector and specifically in the NHS. Almost all essential services in society are performed by salaried people: what would you think if all the teachers and doctors and paramedics and therapists and occupational health people just fucked off to spend more time with their kids? How would the kids be supported if all these people stopped working..... Oh yeah, the dads would still work wouldn't they.

Which brings me to

b) It's only ever mothers who are advised to stop being "capitalist drones" on these forums. Because it's always assumed that they can just stop work like that and hang out with their kids all day. What if the mother is the only breadwinner? What if the mother and father split tasks equally so the household couldn't function without the financial input of both partners? What if, shock horror, the mother enjoys working?

By all means people should lobby for a better work life balance and seek to split work in a way that benefits their children. But talking about "capitalist drones" is just reductionist and silly.

Work is over rated (unless you happen to absolutely love what you’re doing). For most it’s the money that makes us carry on working. After many years of experiencing work colleagues (some lovely, some I’d quite happily put on a one way trip to Mars) I love being at home and constructing the day just as I want and never having to associate with toxic people. I am older though and don’t think it’s healthy for a young person to be at home and not mixing with the wider world.

I couldn't agree more.

Usually, their husband's are doing the very thing they are judging women for doing so they can be SAHM's.

Men are providers with big, important careers
Women are trapped as capitalist drones and why did they bother having children?

The double standards and sexism are something else.

Not for everyone, carers for example.

I never get why people say "why did you bother having them" on here so...

Shock horror people enjoy different stages and aspects of parenting. I don't enjoy 24/7 with a baby and toddler. Doesn't mean I don't love them or shouldn't have had them!

This is all I have been thinking about for the past few months. Which has come as a big shock to me as I’ve always been very career driven, worked for the past 20 years non stop and went back when my kids were under one. Kids at breakfast and Afterschool club etc. I think I’ve always had lots of things I want to do but suppressed that side except when I can squeeze things in in the evening, but now the wanting to do them outweighs the wanting to work! I can’t actually stop as would be unfair for DH…but oh I dream about tackling the large pile of books on my list, choosing sewing projects, doing some artwork for my kids (I’m quite creative!), getting back into horse riding, getting back into swimming, baking and just breathing. I have an autistic son who as lovely as he is makes life quite stressful sometimes and I’ve suffered from insomnia for months.