To ask what made you want to be a stay at home parent?

[Hjjo]

ds is 13 months. I feel like it’s constant and it won’t ever stop will it? He’s not even difficult. He’s a placid baby mostly. I’m just so bored. I feel terrible but I want to be at work and just away from the nappies and the routine and the non stop demands. I feel terrible for being able to be a sahm but not wanting to :(

You're going to find this absolutely wild but they let women get up to anything these days! Surgeons, nuclear engineers, investment bankers, playwrights. There are dames everywhere you look!

Council workers, midwives, teachers, and admin staff too -- some women even like their jobs and find them satisfying. I know, news to me too!

@Char65

One of the reasons for the current issues in society I believe is that too many children are left to their own devices and they get influenced by 'friends' and social media and drawn into gangs, drugs and antisocial behaviour because parents are working all hours or just don't care about them. As I said in my last post our two boys needed me more when they were teenagers than when they'd been younger.

I agree that teenagers need more parental support in some ways than very young children and I certainly think they need a lot more guidance. I have a nearly 13 year old who needs me much more now than she did when she was seven.

But I'm not sure that having their mother (and let's be honest it is almost always their mother) around on hand full time is necessarily a panacea for this. For many reasons: it doesn't support the development of healthy independence for one thing. Teenagers do need (in a safe and supervised way) to be able to start to try things on their own. And perhaps most importantly because if their mother (and again, it is usually the mother) does everything for them well into the second decade of their life it teaches them a damaging lesson about what the role of women is in their lives. A loving, engaged mother who also has her own interests outside of the home as well as being a rock to her children is usually a better rounded role model to both boys and girls than one who exists only to serve her children and husband.

Like anything in life it's a balance. Having an engaged, involved parent who has their eye on the ball and has your back is critical when you're a teenager and having your parents both working all hours isn't ideal. But I'm not convinced that a mother who hasn't worked for 15 years and has little other focus in her life other than her children is a better solution.

You do know, right, that some people actually enjoy their jobs? Not all work is repetitive and dull.

Some people enjoy their jobs......surely that's not hard to understand?

I think it's a bit sad that some people need to work to build confidence, friendships and feelings of value, let alone know how to spend their time, when we are on the cusp of an ai revolution.

How patronising.

Maybe try working just a day or 2 a week OP? I worked 2 days a week when mine were small and it felt like the best of both worlds. I was still their main caregiver as spent far more waking time with them than they would have at a nursery but it was nice to spend more time in adult company. Somehow it made my time with the DC more special too after having time to ‘miss’ them.

Well, I do really worry for people who will find themselves entirely redundant in the next decade or so after extolling the great value that work brings to their lives in giving them a solid platform to operate as a functioning human and the detrimental effect they believe it has to spend too much time around your children. 😬😬

@Thepeopleversuswork
Spot on.

I’ve worked since I was 14. We have three DC. I took one year of mat leave each time. Mixture of FT and PT working alongside studying with young DC. Did school runs and WFH. I’ve got financial security. I’ll have a decent pension. I can make my own financial decisions. No regrets.

I was a SAHM and their father was always working very long hours when they were young particularly so I had, and still have, a very strong bond with all 4 children. I'm far better at communicating with them than their father who brings other 'qualities' to the table - stubbornness, irritability and a somewhat blinkered traditional approach - whereas I'm more understanding and patient and will always listen. Their dad did take them camping and out on our boat when we had it and the eldest to rugby but he's never been good at expressing his emotions (he was born in 1952 and went to boarding school which he hated so he learnt not to show emotion) so none of them ever felt they could talk to him about how they felt in the same way they could talk to me.

Well, I do really worry for people who will find themselves entirely redundant in the next decade or so after extolling the great value that work brings to their lives in giving them a solid platform to operate as a functioning human and the detrimental effect they believe it has to spend too much time around your children. 😬😬

Are you for real? Who has said it's detrimental to spend too much time around your children? That would nobody!!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying work, having pride in your career and feeling that your career is a big part of your identity.
That doesn't mean parents who feel like this don't spend time with their children and don't enjoy spending time with their children. It's not an either or situation!

Yes AI is changing the labour market, but that means we adapt to these changes as a society.

See, that's a reason why we both work. It means that we both share the financial load so that one of us doesn't have to work all hours under the sun and we can both enjoy family time too.

@ElaineMBenes there’s quite a common narrative on here that people who enjoy their jobs are boring and have nothing to talk about other than work. It comes up a lot on these sorts of threads.

The other hoary old chestnut is that people have jobs because they want to buy handbags, shoes and fast cars. And “farm out” their children so they can do it.

Yawn.

Women.

It's only women who aren't allowed to enjoy their work.

@SouthLondonMum22

Women.

It's only women who aren't allowed to enjoy their work.

Indeed @SouthLondonMum22 thank you for correcting me. Men work to provide. Women work to buy handbags and to play act dressing up for the boardroom while their children cry in Dickensian nurseries eating thin gruel.

The other hoary old chestnut is that people have jobs because they want to buy handbags, shoes and fast cars. And “farm out” their children so they can do it.

Yep I've heard this aimed at women in particular. Funny how women work for luxuries whereas men work to provide!

I bloody love my job and I'm not ashamed of that!

I'm a SAHM because I enjoy it and find it very fulfilling. But if I did not find it enjoyable or fulfilling then I would not do it. We are all individuals OP and there is nothing wrong with you wanting to return to work if that makes you feel happy and fulfilled.

The other common narrative I've seen is that SAHMs are boring, can only talk about their children, have no other interests outside of their children, and won't cope when their children are no longer around.

The reality is that people are multi-faceted and complex and generally have interests outside of work and/or home and both of these narratives are ridiculous.

It always amazes me that people deny any correlation between the massive increase in mental health problems in children and the massive increase in children being in full time childcare outside the home.
There are children doing 12 hour days in childcare- either nursery or school and wrap around care and it is just too much.

I think the fact that we have a society that requires two full time wages to survive pretty much is awful for our children.

I mentioned previously being a big fan of the concept alloparenting and this is a great article on it. If someone enjoys being Sahm and it works for their family then that's great. But I disagree with the notion that it's the only way to being up a child.

Op, this is a great article on why you shouldn't feel shame or guilt about finding parenting boring and why having other caregivers is a benefit for parents and children and is in fact keeping with how we've raised children for centuries https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/health/alloparenting-multiple-caregivers-raising-kids-wellness/index.html

I would absolutely love to be a SAHM (currently work 3 days a week), but then my job doesn’t allow for ten minutes to myself either and I’m constantly in demand all day, it’s actually much harder work than looking after my toddler all day.

I genuinely love being at home with my son, having little days out just the two of us, watching him learn new things every day. He was talking from a young age which probably helped- he’s 2 now and we can actually have proper conversations which is adorable. I also have a lot of friends and family with toddlers, who we meet up with regularly which helps. But as PPs have said, everyone is different. I’ve always wanted to be a mum, never been career minded and being a mum has (so far) lived up to everything I’ve hoped for.

Because it completely ignores other factors such as more knowledge and understanding about mental health issues in children. Not to mention the increase use of social media, the recent pandemic/lockdowns and the cost of living crisis just to name a few things.

But of course, working mothers are to blame. 🙄

I don't disagree with you about the multi-factorial nature of the rise in mental health issues, but PP's post wasn't about mothers specifically.

The problem of children spending most of their waking hours at school/nursery/wrap-around care could be solved by both parents being able to have part-time jobs and being able to be equally there for their children. The issue is needing TWO FULL-TIME jobs just to be able to afford the basics of life (housing, food), when in the past only one full-time salary was needed for a comfortable lifestyle.

I had no interest in being a SAHM after my first. It didn't make sense for me to not work financially anyway but I would have found it tedious. Now I've had my 2nd I wish I didn't have to go back to work a bit but we can't afford me to be a SAHM

I waited until I was older before I had my daughter so that we could afford for me to stay at home with her for several years. It was a real struggle financially and we went without holidays, meals out, new cars, new clothes etc for several years. But we both wanted me to stay home because we believed it would give our daughter the best possible start in life and I've got no regrets about any of the unnecessary luxuries we went without.

I hated every second of being pregnant and didn't really enjoy the first two or three months, partly because we moved house when I was six months pregnant into a semi derelict house which took us a long time to renovate ourselves because of the lack of money, but also because I was so inexperienced with babies- my daughter was the first small baby I had ever held. But I wanted to spend every minute I could with her, and never stopped being fascinated by watching her develop and turn into a proper little person. I didn't want to miss her saying her first word, taking her first step etc and I enjoyed every day playing with her, reading with her, and taking her out to the park, local museums, farms etc. I really missed her when she started school. I went back to work part time when she started junior school and managed to find work that fitted in with the school day, and in the evenings, when my husband was home to look after her. I never had any regrets about staying home, and would do the same again without a second thought.

I'm not blaming working mothers. I am saying the society that has been created by this government has made it impossible for people NOT to work and that has had an impact on children.