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?

Are you worrying about what others think or is it coming from you? I perfected not giving a fuck what others think years ago. Can recommend. 😉

DH had seven months of gardening leave year before last. He spent almost three in a slightly paralysed stage of mild panic before he started to settle down. Just decompress and do nothing for a bit, it’s fine. It will
come together.

You do. My opinion is that you seem unhappy.

Having received negative comments over the years for being a SAHM and being told I ‘should’ be at work, asked how I justify it etc, I find it odd. It’s like some people need my life to be stressful because theirs is and they take our choices as a personal attack on their life.

I get up with the dc’s at 7am, they leave at 7.30am - at which point I recently often go back to bed for a couple of hours as peri menopause means I’m not sleeping well.

I then get up and do all my household chores which takes me til about 1pm. Some days I run errands or go to the supermarket and once a week I either meet a friend or my dm for lunch. Some days il prep a meal or put something in the slow cooker. I have monthly hair and nail appointments. I spend a few hours each day looking online, sometimes Il get into a tv series and watch an episode of that.

Now the weather is getting warmer I want to start going for long walks again, there’s an 8 mile route I do that takes me about 2 hours.

I often think about getting a job but quite honestly I don’t know what I’d do, I quite like my alone time and I’m not even sure I’m employable any more!

I do get bored sometimes but overall, for me, it’s preferable to working in a dull job for a low wage (that would be the only thing I could get realistically) and I’d still have to do everything at home as noone else would! I see keeping our home clean and tidy and making sure that side of our lives run smoothly as my job.

Im not sure I would advise my dd’s to do the same though - I tell them to always keep working and earning their own money.

In the dim and distant past by the time I had walked kids to school and back again I would be about 945. Clear up breakfast dishes, make beds, do housework/washing/ironing, bit of gardening, have lunch, start dinner prep (all from scratch), walk to school and back again, dinner, homework, playtime, bath, bed, to time. Absolutely loved it, house was immaculate, kids and DP all happy. Money was very tight but we loved our old fashioned way.

I have lots of hobbies and do plenty of reading.

Also I now do Amazon product testing which is great because while I don't get paid in money I do get to keep the products and I've had some quite expensive bits of tech as well as lots of nice bits for around the home.

🤣🤣🤣

When my kids were at school I'd drop them off, walk the dog then go for a swim most mornings. Come home, breakfast and do the usual tidy up/laundry, food shop/whatever life admin. Then lunch or might go out, see my mother etc. Then I'd have about an hour or two before collecting kids, and I might read, plan dinner, do more laundry (we had at least three kids in the house sometimes four) ... then collect kids and it was full on til bed for them, then it was cook for me and husband.
Only when my babies were very young did I get bored. Once at school everything ramped up.
It was not the most exciting life but I was the anchor for my children. My husband was out of the house most days between 6am and 8pm, and there's plenty of mundane chores to get on with, but also I did have that swim and some time to myself which was great.

@StrawberryWater Ooh how do you get to do that for Amazon?

Dh had 3 months of gardening leave about 10 years ago…he spent 2 months and 3 weeks in that state

complete waste of his gardening leave 😀

I was always occupied, never busy. Volunteered at the school for reading and social events. My house was always clean and tidy, meals were varied and healthy, I was fit, the dog was walked, my social life was busy, kids lunches always tasty and varied, admin always in check. Books were read. Weekends were a relaxing time with kids and various kid related events.

@OrigamiStar What is your point? OP asked what people who don’t work do all day. I just told her what I do when I’m not working. Of course I know that people who work full time fix tax errors and switch mortgages too. I’m a single parent and for a long time I worked 50+ hours per week, so I’m familiar with the concept. But that wasn’t what OP asked.

I will probably be flamed but overall from seeing my own family and my friends, I think women are much more content just being at home than men are. Ok this is not the case for everyone but I have noticed it. My dh had six weeks between jobs once...he was bored and fed up. I saw a friend yesterday who is currently between jobs and she says she's absolutely loving it

I also think being busy is vastly overrated

I would be delighted in the short term. My house would be spotless, I would exercise a lot more and I would do more reading/watching TV. In the long term, I would be absolutely miserable as I would feel wasted and like I wasn’t achieving anything.

Not a bashing thread - course it's not.

And it's not "all day" either, is it? School is generally 9-3, and if your children are primary age, you walk them there and pick them up. So really, depending on how close you are to school, it's 9.30 to 2.30.

So in those 5 hours you do all the jobs that need doing - washing, shopping, cooking, going to the bank, whatever. Stuff that if you were working you'd have to squeeze into evenings and weekends, and as you've done them during the day, you have time free in evenings and weekends to do fun stuff. Or you meet a friend for a walk and a coffee, visit elderly relatives, volunteer a shift in your local charity shop, go to the gym. Or hobbies - paint watercolours, bake, build life size models of the houses of parliament out of cereal boxes, knit, learn Klingon on duolingo. Whatever floats your boat.

I always think that people who profess that they would be "so bored" at home all day or "can't possibly imagine" what people who are home 9-3 do with their time must be entirely lacking in imagination.

I mean it's nearly 11am now. I got back from the school run at 8.45. stripped the beds and put a wash on, unloaded and loaded dishwasher. Popped to the supermarket and dh asked me to buy him breakfast when I was out...he WFH. Came home and I've just unpacked the shopping. I'm now going to do some ironing, hang out the washing I've just done, put on another load. I need to clean the bathrooms. I will make dh lunch and prep dinner for kids. They eat as soon as they step through the door. I should run hoover run round the upstairs. I then need to pop out to buy some stationery supplies my dd asked for this morning and some tights. I couldn't buy these in the supermarket this morning hence why I need to go out again. I then need to leave at 2.30 to get my dd so the day is gone really

• Food shopping
• Laundry (where the fuck does it all come from?)
• Cleaning and putting stuff away
• Wonder why I ever left my ft job
• More laundry
• Hoover
• Run the school PTA (why did I volunteer? 🤦‍♀️)
• Doom scroll on my phone
• Write a list of things to do which will include laundry
• Hoover again
• school runs
• play referee to my bickering kids
• wonder why I left my ft job for this
• laundry

Ha. Me too. Having nothing to do and relaxing is a great use of time in my opinion.

I'm a stay at home mum of a teen but also I'm also disabled . My days vary, I wake my teen and if I can drive I take them to school. Do 1-2 loads of washing, drying, folding through the day. Do my DHs packed lunch for the next day. Plan and cook an evening meal. Some mornings I might do a sport hobby. Some afternoons I might do a craft hobby. Hoover and mop daily. Change beds every 7-14 days. Food shop once a week. Gentle gardening in summer. But some days I do nothing and just sit on the couch dosed up to the gills on pain killers.

Forgot to add my actual full time job of reading all the emails from school 🤦‍♀️😂

My dog's imaginary personality doesn't just dream itself up. I work hard on that.

We had a builder in for a week whilst I was a full on primary school SAHP stage.
Him and his mate got so much done between 8 and 5 and sat down for proper structured breaks. But back at their homes their wives were also on the school run,laundry, sorting out book day costumes, picking up a parent for a blood test, thinking and then sorting out tea. The only reason those guys could actually rock up and concentrate fully was because there was a ton of support running home logistics. We just don't value it enough.

I don't miss the frantic multi tasking of those days. Peri menopause knocked me sideways. Just starting to get my brain in gear again.

They invite you to do it.

Not sure what the criteria for being chosen is. For other people I know who do it it seems to be quite random.

But it's good to look busy when my dh pops downstairs for coffee 😁

I shop (I enjoy it being quieter than the weekends), exercise, meet friends for coffee or lunch, cinema, admin, long walks, coffee on my own with a good book, netflix (if I'm tired or it's cold and rainy), afternoon nap.

I do work but I love my days off especially as I have from 8-5pm before I'm needed somewhere.