What do you honestly do all day…

[Thechatteringofthebirds]

If your a Sahm with dc at school?

Not a bashing thread, as this is sort of me and curious what others do

My Dd has just started school full time, so those days of being together all day, play date meet ups during the week daytime, days out etc are now gone 😩
I do work, but only two evenings per week and one weekend morning at the moment.
On a day of the week I plan for the times I teach, aside from that, I drop off, walk my dog, some tidying and washing (have a cleaner every fortnight) watch tv, read…then pick Dd up, go to the beach, walks, do her reading, dinner, bath, school things etc. What else do you do?
In September I’ll pick up more days and hours, but for these last few months I want to make sure I make the most of it.
What do you do or would do if you could?

I lie in bed and play on my phone for a big chunk of the day. Sometimes I do the washing. Often meet friends. Make dinner. I work 6 evenings a week and 9-3 is my downtime.

I do all the housework, laundry, grocery shopping etc. Go for a walk, meet Dh for lunch some days.
He's self employed so I keep on top of his books/accounts etc.
I don’t watch tv during the day but I might do some of my jigsaw if there’s one on the go.
Ds comes in off the bus at 3.30. I mind my neighbours kid in the afternoon too. Then it’s homework, dinner etc.

Are you kidding? I do the chores now in the evenings and weekends on top on the kids. Who do you think does it all when people are working?

Make myself a tea and breakfast and catch up with news. Check calendar for appointments/birthdays etc - sort as needed. Catch up on here (now), get properly dressed, dog walk 2hrs, lunch, paperwork/email/house admin, an hour or so on here, throw the hoover around/do some washing up then it's the end of the school day.

I often think keeping a truly clean and ordered household with all life admin done, if not be a full time job, certainly take 5 hours a day 5 days a week. DH and I work full time and have a toddler and even before the toddler the house was never as clean and orderly as I’d have liked. It would be great to do:
Daily vacuuming and floor cleaning
Daily doing and sorting of laundry, ironing and putting away (we always have piles of clean laundry on the couch or chairs ready to go away, and we just don’t iron)
Daily cooked from scratch meals
Daily taking all recycling out to correct bins
Daily microwave clean
Daily general tidy
Obviously daily washing of dishes and cleaning surfaces gets done anyway but would be great to not have to in evening
Weekly washing all sheets, getting out to dry, getting in and back on bed
Weekly full bathroom clean
Weekly emptying everything from fridge, getting rid of everything out of date, and doing full clean and putting everything back in
Weekly oven and air fryer clean
Weekly inside of windows clean
Weekly shredding all bills etc that aren’t needed
Weekly clean washing machine and dishwasher filters
Meal plan and food shop and make home cooked meals every day
Monthly take everything out of food cupboards, donate anything at near sell by that won’t be used, clean cupboard and put all back in
Monthly clean vacuum filter
Monthly de clutter and take clothes and toys to charity shop or sell on Vinted/ Facebook
Every two months washing curtains, drying and getting back up
Every two months flip mattress
Ensure there are always new toothbrushes every 6 weeks, new razor heads, toilet paper, enough nappies, hand soap etc etc

Keeping track of opening new higher interest savings accounts, applying for 0% credit cards, getting best rates on home and car insurance and utilities, sorting life insurance, organising wills, buying presents and cards for friends and family as required, doing all wrapping and posting, pay for any nursery meal bills, school trips, kids activities etc, sort outfits for things like world book day, organise repairs for appliances, sort boiler maintenance, sort car maintenance, do required DIY etc

I’m sure people will say they do all this and have a lovely visitor ready home and well organised life whilst working full time but in my life it’s just not like that, I do my high pressure job, look after my toddler, often work in evenings, do bare minimum in house and collapse at the end of the day. Weekends we try to enjoy time as a family. DH does equal full time work and childcare but probably even less in the house (but does all of the driving). It would be wonderful to have a housewife/ houseperson to do all those things I mentioned. We probably will get a cleaner but that’s only small amount of those tasks off the list.

Maybe so but this whole thread is geared up to cause strong reactions and judgement. I hate all the ‘it’s not as much time as you think’ SAHP brigade. You are VERY lucky to be in that position.

Strange post. Justified? Not contributing? He wouldn’t like you having free time? That’s sad.

In my relationship, I don’t have to justify myself to my partner. He’s happy I have free time because he knows it works for me, for us as a family and we all benefit. He has more free time because of it too and knows our children have benefitted massively from having me at home. In the past when our children were younger, me being at home contributed to him being able to build a career, which he appreciates and acknowledges has resulted in us having a lovely, stress free life now.

I have a hobby that could be financially rewarding if I put more time in, so I'd do that.
I'd garden more often, put more time in at my allotment, read more, decorate my house and do the housework inbetween.

Yes and no.

I actually know lots of women who could live off their husbands salary just fine...yes they would have to cut back a bit but they could certainly manage. They choose to work. That's fine. That's their choice. But don't moan you don't have as much time as a sahm who has sacrificed her salary for the gift of time.

To the OP when she said what do you wish you could do - living in London and having all of these options in the day would be my answer! Nothing going on around here - even cinema's rarely showing anything before 5pm. Not quite enough time to get to London and home either, annoyingly.

And actually once you have children, even if they're at school, running the house and keeping up with everything is a huge amount of work. We shouldn't be asking what sahms are doing all day...we should be wondering how wohms are managing to cope with the huge amount of cooking, laundry, housework etc.

Unless you have lots of extra family support and lots of money to outsource chores, a family with two full time working parents is usually utterly exhausted and it's a miserable existence.

I was lucky

i was a stay at home mum (pretty much, worked one day a week in some years, not all) for over 20 years

dh didn’t mind me being home and he was well aware that most days i filled with seeing friends, he also cooked and cleaned to a greater or lesser extent and did the diy and gardening

I work 3 days a week now and we have a cleaner for two hours a week

I do whatever I feel like doing when I wake up.

Weird take to hate other women. It’s just a fact. 9-2.30 isn’t enough time to all the bits you’ve got to do AND spend days at exhibitions or at museums or whatever WOHM often think they would do if they stayed at home. Reality is they would helping with swimming, picking up a prescription, making packed lunches etc most of the time, just in a far less pressured way than if they were also working full time. They would probably not have the acres of leisure time they imagine. That’s all that’s being said.

I wasn't lucky but I have often been a SAHP. It's been a million little decisions that got us to this point. It is not luck that we've never had a new car, it isn't luck that we've often made our money work hard with less luxury. It wasn't lucky that we never used a roofer just got on with it.
It wasn't luck that got teenagers to decent exam grades, it was the slow drip of their work with us setting them up to succeed at the kitchen table. You might choose to use an after school club or a tutor or nothing but it's all choices.

So It's never luck; that suggests you don't have a choice. If you don't feel you have a choice you need to reframe that or alter your life. Own your decisions.

Forgot to add - I eat a lot of UPFs, I’m really fat and don’t clean my bathroom very often. And my kids make their own packed lunch. Life is pretty good.

I work part time, but when I’m not working I’m often bogged down with admin. There is always some major admin task on the go, currently changing my mortgage and sorting my pension. And for example, a call to HMRC to fix a tax error takes half a day!
I also run, I sometimes meet friends, and obviously all the usual domestic chores.

And yet people who work FT also fix tax errors and switch mortgages.

You’re coming across really badly. Bitter, jealous maybe. I’m not sure of your motivation and why you’re so bothered how other people live.

The OP asked what SAHMs do and they’ve answered. Just because you have to do a lot of that stuff on evenings and weekends, doesn’t make what posters are saying less valid.

I’m sure we’d all fit it in with working if we had to, but we don’t, therefore part of our day is spent doing those things. It’s nice to be able to do them without rushing and to have more free time with family imo. If you can’t/don’t want to be a SAHP, that doesn’t mean you should come on a thread and be an arse to those that are.

I’m not sure if I’m considered a stay at home mum as my kids are 17 and 18. I get up at 7 with the family. Put the washing on. Do the cleaning and hoovering. Have some lunch. Go for a run or walk the dogs, swim once a week. Gardening when the weather is nice. Some days are taken up with admin as eldest is disabled and there’s lots going on regarding his funding etc at the moment.

No one said they didn’t. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well mazel tov to them.
What’s that got to do with anything?
You do realise no one has to justify their lives to you? The question was “what do you do in the day” one answer is “sort out mortgage”. You may do it in the evening or on the commute or in your lunch break but this poster does it during the day. Why the rudeness?

Well I’m currently eating mini eggs watching 5 perform on This morning 😬 want to stop the feeling of feeling I should be doing something and just enjoy it

Whatever. MN is an opinion board. You therefore court opinions when you post.