To think that SAHP is a total waste of time

[shouldntbeonhereagain]

I have been a SAHP for 12 years I recently had an operation that has meant I am completely immobile ( 3 months or so ) Becoming disabled means suddenly everyone living around you, not with you. I have four young children, and methods previously used for getting things done, honed through 12 years of busy mothering, have become redundant. All of the silent, unnoticed and minute habits and processes which have become reflexes of my daily life, have stopped instantly and completely. My energy is taken up with achieving very small physical matters of existence, slowly. I wash , brush my teeth , get a cup of tea and push it with a special trolley to the window t get some fresh air. I don't do anything much for anyone else in my household. I simply can't. For the first time in my life, since having children, I have put my own needs first. No , it is not gloriously liberating it is painful and frustrating and depressing , and frightening and destabilising But it is also very revealing., You have to shout. a lot. Ultimately, the children are in charge in a newly terrifying way. I have to ask for everything, five, seven , twenty times; and maybe one in 12 might get done partially or badly. I can't wash my self, prepare or carry my own food, climb the stairs without help. My life was a never ending manic flow of drop offs, washing, cleaning , planning, anticipating, weeing at the same time as putting on a load of washing on and making a cub scout payment. Spelling tests and cleaning the floor and batch cooking school lunches while planning a costume and trying to do the online shop, fielding arguments, walking the dog, taking the bins our, cleaning the fridge, sorting the winter gloves basket, finding the lost goggles, ordering birthday cards, sitting through karate , brass band , play rehearsals, ballet class for one, packed sandwiches and reading practise with another. It was exhausting and totally relentless . I have spent over a decade feeling like a swirling angsty ball of stressful ever giving energy that can never finish its work , never give enough, never be done.
what is even weirder though is now that I can do none of that, things seem to be much the same for everyone else. So, what's happening? Seems I have tied my self in knots trying to defend how indispensable I am to family life Who will do this if I don't ? They just don't get it , you don't know until you have done it. etc. Yes, the house is a tip and everyone looses their socks, the skirting boards are sticky the dog is fed up and the garden is overgrown. Yes the children are eating fishfingers and not salmon parcels. But do any of them really care except me ? I feel like I have wasted a huge chunk of time and it ahs taken this injury to teach me, I am better off doing something of my own , no one will mind . They probably wont even notice. I feel stunned , and cheated , and foolish. AIBU?

I am rather worried about who will sort the winter glove basket.

Oh I relate OP, had a fall and injury 18 months ago and felt the same. I work PT now which is good for my confidence but I'm still home before kids every day and during all school holidays. I feel everyone relies on me for everything yet no one even cares if I exist. Like I'm everything and nothing, kind of a paradox.

I've come to realise the nice food and organised laundry etc is very important and they reap the benefits every day but might never be truly grateful. As someone said upthread, people feel the same about their jobs, they sacrifice so much but are dispensable at the end of the day. I think its hard no matter what path you take.

The message here seems to be 'get more help'. Your children can't or won't and your DH is stretched. Also not everyone's priorities are the same.
Can you run to having another two hours from a cleaner? Or someone who will sort the washing and at least fold and put away if not iron? Hire a dog walker?
Good luck, it's hard.

I'm confused by your post. Before the OP the children clearly had a better homelife, better food (UPF's are not healthy), cleaner more welcoming environment to live in (which is better for everyone's mental health), young children shouldn't be having to do their own washing. Obviously, it can't be helped but their life is temporarily worse now than it was before.

You do always though as a parent, need to make time for yourself, but that doesn't need to be at the expense of your children. Both you and they are important.

My life was a never ending manic flow of drop offs, washing, cleaning , planning, anticipating, weeing at the same time as putting on a load of washing on and making a cub scout payment. Spelling tests and cleaning the floor and batch cooking school lunches while planning a costume and trying to do the online shop, fielding arguments, walking the dog, taking the bins our, cleaning the fridge, sorting the winter gloves basket, finding the lost goggles, ordering birthday cards, sitting through karate , brass band , play rehearsals, ballet class for one, packed sandwiches and reading practise with another. It was exhausting and totally relentless . I have spent over a decade feeling like a swirling angsty ball of stressful ever giving energy

That is the lot of parents, whether they work or not, to be honest. It’s a shame as it doesn’t sound like you’ve really enjoyed being a SAHM.

Ha
I always focus on practicalities then have a think. Yes to the above but also hug your children and tell them you love them at every possible opportunity.

I wanted to say just this- but @Beaniebaby86 has put it so much better than I could have.

I'm in a similar situation right now. Fell down some stairs in February, exploding my shoulder. Recovery from reconstructive surgery expected to take 12 to 18 months.

It's hard being helpless, watching your well oiled machine descend into chaos. But trust me, they notice. They'll be keeping it in. But they'll be feeling it. My DS's teacher told me that he'd cried a couple of times at school because he was overwhelmed with worry about mummy. And DH nearly cried last night when I managed to cook a proper meal instead of frozen pizza.

I just came to say you write so articulately and so perfectly about the struggle of being a mother that I was very struck by it. The relentlessness, how completely and utterly unnoticed it is by everyone, the desperation to prove your value and your input… it’s all so hard and so real.

I hope you have a good recovery and with it, find a sense of strength and recognition of your self and your purpose. I hope you’re recognised by your teammate and husband. Nothing you’ve done is futile. I hope the people you have done it for see that and see you.

Yes... I can relate. It's simular to when you leave a job and you think you are the lynchpin of the whole operation. You leave and everything carries on fine without you.

Sounds like you are a very efficient and conscientious parent. The fact that your kids and husband manage to muddle through without you has debunked your narrative of supermum.

That could be a good thing. They can adapt and learn some independence and resillience while you get better. Surely that's a win?

As humans, we are very adaptable.
Your family's life is different now but it sounds like everyone is trying to muddle along and sounds much more stressful than before.
Things are messier, food is less healthy and life is more chaotic and this will be having an impact on your family.
Don't underestimate what you were doing but likewise, don't overestimate sahm either. I always think the best balance is working part time.
When you're not available to do everything all the time, children become more resilient and more independent.

I think your view is clouded at the moment by the pain and frustration of your disability. Even if they notice things are not getting done now they wouldn't tell you as they must see how difficult just living is for you at the moment. No doubt your husband notices but I think most kids are inherently selfish and don't get how much you do until they are older. So I don't think your time was wasted unless you resented doing it at the time.

No act of love is ever wasted.
the trouble with mothering is that it is not recognised nor rewarded economically. Therefore no value is placed on it - by society, by men , by governments, by husbands, by other working women (sometimes).
the value in mothering is greater than the sum of its parts. It cannot be quantified.
yes - fish fingers are fine once in a while - but people never take a holistic look at these things.
YOU know your worth OP.
i wish you a speedy recovery

I hope you get better soon. It is immensely frustrating to be incapacitated and reliant on others. I have been there.
I think you have mothered your children so well that they are able to help manage after a fashion at least. They do still need you! They are not as young as when you were doing everything.
Take the best care of yourself you can. I remember I gave the sparrows in my garden names I spent so much time watching them everyday whilst recovering from eating breakfast until I could manage the stairs again. Back to ‘normal’ now!

Really sorry to hear your struggles OP. I hope you feel better soon 💐

could you tell me, has anyone in your family commented on how much they’ve realised you did?

As others have said, you all as a family may be able to get through this in the way you’ve described for a short time, but after a while it will become apparent that their life is just more chaotic and less pleasant without you doing what you’ve been doing.

They’ll grow out of clothes and end up wearing things which are too tight around the waist because no-one has really kept a close eye on whether it’s fitting them properly. They’ll wear their winter coat for too long into the warm weather because they’d outgrown their summer one last year and it was given to charity and no-one has thought about buying a new one.

One of their shoes has a hole RIGHT THROUGH the sole because no-one has been cleaning them regularly to notice and you just thought they were whingeing about their sock feeling wet when it rains because you didn’t have time to really listen to them properly.

Or their toothbrush bristles will be splayed and ineffective. Plus the gaps between dentist checkups have got a bit longer than they used to be so that when they do go there is an issue with tartare build up.

They won’t have the money for no uniform day because they forgot about it, even though they remembered to wear their own clothes. Which look odd, because they don’t go together because they’ve had to just put on whatever they could find that was clean and ironed rather than what would have looked nicest.

They will stop asking for play dates because you’ve had to say no, it’s not possible, sorry, too many times. When they DO manage to have someone round they can’t really kick a ball about in the garden because the grass has got too long and whenever they have to retrieve the ball from the borders they come out scratched because some brambles have grown out of hand.

You’ll start noticing they are getting a bit overweight because they’ve been eating too many ready meals or junk and you haven’t been able to take them out to the park to run around.

On more than one occasion you’ve had to send them to school containing a sandwich made from slightly stale bread because you were too busy to run out to get a new loaf (and the nice bread maker-made bread stopped being made months ago)

etc etc etc

These are all things that have happened in my house, not because I have been an incapacitated SAHM for a length of time but because I work full time, DH works long hours and I just can’t keep all the plates spinning anymore and many have dropped and the ones left have chips on (in both senses of the word. Probably oven chips 😆)

Life is just less pleasant all round when certain things just stop getting done, or done in a haphazard way. WHATEVER the reason. Short term it isn’t too noticeable but when it becomes the norm then yes, life becomes just that little bit less enjoyable all round. The kids will get to an age when the lack of choice over what is available for them to wear stresses them out. Or be too embarrassed to invite friends back after school because the place is a tip. Etc etc.

So, OP, you have been contributing to the smooth running of everything all these years which has enabled a more pleasant day to day life for everyone, even if they don’t realise it. Looked at individually all these things may seem trivial (like, does it really matter that you have fish fingers instead of salmon parcels?) but it’s the sum of the parts that matters. And anyway, when you’ve had a bad day, the weather is atrocious, you’ve just had some bad news about a friend, one of the kids are sad that they didn’t get picked for the team, your other half is stressed about a work deadline, you all sitting down together to salmon parcels instead of fish fingers, looking out on a well-kept garden with some lovely spring flowers out, just cheers you all up that little bit just to make a difference to your day.

I am 50 now and looking forward to a few years time to a less frenetic pace of day to day life when I CAN find time to keep the house and garden to the standard I prefer it. And cook nice meals every day. Or just a snack if I want. Buy some plants from the garden centre and actually put them in the ground instead of them slowly dying in their pot because I haven’t had time to clear the weeds to find a space for them.

i hope you recover fully soon and get your life back to how you want it to be.

I think this sad realisation happens to us all at some point. But, what are you going to do about it?

There's tonnes to address here, why isn't Dh doing more. How old are your children? You say you've been doing it for 12 years so presumably your eldest is 12, a 12-year-old can do quite a lot.. what about all the other children do they have jobs to do? Do they ever help out or put things in the dishwasher or pair the socks?

My Dh is amazing and steps up, and he makes sure the boys have always done their jobs. But even then recently I realised ds2 wasn't that appreciate of the extra bits I do, eg finding more apps to help gcse studying. by that I mean it happens to most of us that we realise that others don't appreciate the little things we do and sometimes you have to stop and think is it worth me continuing this or things need to change.

Brilliant post- and the kids may not seemingly appreciate it now. But they do know they have a lovely mummy. And in years to come as adults they will look back, they will see how wonderful their child hood was, how it set them in good habits and what a wonderful mum they have

“sorting the winter gloves basket, finding the lost goggles, ordering birthday cards”

see I don’t get this mentality at all. I find it self flagellating and martyrish.

sorting a glove basket - takes max 5 minutes

likewise looking for goggles 🥽

ordering a birthday card ? Online? Maybe 2 minutes max?

you have a ‘woe is me ‘ attitude and that’s what’s getting you down. Stop navel gazing and sweating the small stuff.

also stop yelling at your kids- not their fault you’re recovering at the moment. Have a little grace.

@Sunnysideup999 OK, I'll bite

"No act of love is ever wasted"

I demonstrate love for my children by (1) contributing financially to the family through working, (2) DH and I being positive role models for equality and (3) ensuring that I can support myself and children on my own, should the need arise

And I also cook, clean, keep an eye on homework, sort the winter glove basket etc

I would do less, way less. I have started doing far less for everybody and am enjoying it immensely.

Get the kids aware of what needs to be done and get them to start doing things.

You have gone from manager and doer to manager only now. And as you can see, the new doers are not getting it done to how you were doing, even though there are multiple of them. They 100% care, just not more than they don't care. I am assuming that kids are pretty young, so understandable that they don't care much as long as basic needs are met.
What I would say is that people are going to start to burnout pretty soon. You are already telling them to do things multiple times and things are not getting done. Obviously, some things can be let go.
But I think a family meeting is in order to deal out chores to those most able to do them and how they do need to get done.
This has all just happened and they are all slipping already. You have spent years cultivating schedules and chores and how to get things done. Sure, it doesn't seem hard, but you seem to forget that what you used to do, you know have 1 husband, 4 kids and some friends and family doing to take up the slack. That is like at least 6-7 people doing what you used to do alone and doing it half-assed and with multiple prompts to even get that done.
If anything, this should show you how much value you have added and how you have been crushing it.
It also will show you that some of it could maybe be let go of. Just a bit.

Bite what? My post was not controversial- or implying that mother’s don’t also contribute economically. Just that the unseen, unrecognised piece of ‘mothering’ is not valued in the way an income producing job is.
and many of us up and down the land do two roles - one paid and one unpaid. My point is that the second has inherent value for our children even if wider society doesn’t see it.
my post was about OP and her circumstances - which she is struggling with.
I wonder why you choose to read it about you and see it as controversial…

I think they way you run the household can inform how your children raise their children whether its the way you make bolognese or fill a duvet or sense of taste it also creates that nostalgia for what we call home that nest space that we later create as adults to cocoon in. I feel women have always worked apart from when it became industrialised outside the home or if wealthy domestic was outsourced but mothering or the domestic load or housekeeping were and are very important invisible work with no status these days but its the creation of home being where your heart is. Its done with love ,care ,frustration , sweat and tears just like any of life’s work just unsung and undone in an instant