To just want to be a housewife?

[CasketBase]

I don’t know what’s happened to me. Growing up as a teen I was very rebellious and independent, I wanted the world. Started working early, went to university, started working full time and studied in my spare time. My job prior to having a child was serious and I was working my way up. Then DC came and I went part time self employed and ever since I’ve had her, I don’t want that life at all. She is 3 and is part time in nursery whilst I work but originally I wanted to do well in my work but now I don’t care. All I want is to look after my daughter, clean my home, and spend my time cooking and gardening.
Is this normal?! I could t care less about a career or earning lots of money or anything. I live rurally and all I care about now is nature and ‘homliness’. I genuinely love ironing, hanging out the washing and making the beds. I have ADHD and these were jobs that used to paralyse me, but now I find comfort and calmness in them and it’s the work I can’t cope with. Is this a phase? Or is this something to do with becoming a parent? It’s bizarre, it’s like I’ve had a personality transplant.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this as long as you have a back up plan and a plan for yourself in the future if anything happens to the relationship.
i like my job and have no interest in giving it up I like the security of having my own financial independence and not relying on a man plus i would get very bored of gardening and housework. I can see the appeal in a way though sometimes. Each to their own, everyone is different.

We are brainwashed into thinking if we are not frantically rushing around all day , juggling 10 balls in the air whilst still managing to earn a full time wage, our lives are meaningless.
Yes you will always get the women on here who find no enjoyment or contentment in being at home, looking after children, let them get on with it. They are usually miserable as sin in every area of their lives.
My Mum never worked once she had her children. She was the happiest Mum l knew.
never stressed, and never bothered going back to work once we were all independent.
We grew up in a calm and peaceful household. We all saw her as a fantastic role model, and feel sad we never got the same opportunity to stay home and concentrate on raising children and looking after the home.
Simplicity is key, if you can afford to stay home or just work part time then do it. You will never regret it.

This has been a bit of a depressing read. It is like the gender pay gap never happened. But then again, I am allergic to words like ‘housewife’ and ‘pottering’!

And there are some privileged viewpoints on here. I am from a culture where girls and women would do anything to get into good careers and senior positions. We don’t have it perfect in the UK but at least on paper women are able to apply for the highest roles, technically on an equal footing to men. On this thread we have so many women wanting to stay home, bake and clean whilst men do the Big Jobs. We have fought so hard for equality, yet women here now they (kind of) have it, want to turn their backs on it. I guess we take things for granted when we have them.

It is also naive to talk about the simple life and condemn people for wanting to earn more money. It is easy to label others as wanting a flashy lifestyle. The thing is, young kids are quite cheap. You don’t need much money. But when your children are older, it can be really helpful too assist them a bit when they are at university or leaving home, or with driving lessons. Also as the NHS becomes more and more challenged, it is good to have a bit of extra cash to help with health issues in yourselves and your children. I wouldn’t dismiss how helpful some extra money can be. It is not just needed for ‘flashy’ houses, cars or holidays. Money can relieve worries too. It is often people with enough money anyway who say money doesn’t matter…

The other thing I find irritating is all this talk about the rat race. There are many people who aren’t working in offices for big corporate firms. Many are public sector workers or people just keeping the country running as it is. I for one am also glad we have women MPs, doctors, lawyers, CEOs and judges. Women who established their careers in their child bearing years so that they can be in senior positions of power and achieve some equality and balance in the workplace at a senior level. I seem to be in a minority!

Anyway, I hope never to depend on a man or benefits (if I am lucky and healthy enough). Financial independence has always been important to me. My kids are at university now and thankfully realise the importance of being financially independent. I hope they manage to achieve that and don’t have to depend on a partner. Luck will come into that too of course.

I enjoy baking. But I also manage it with working full-time!

"Fought for equality".

No we fought for choice and freedom.

We fought so that if women want to be managers, they could be

This doesn't mean that every single woman wants to be a manager. We are all still individual. We are not a collective hive mind

Ah, I don’t have people around me who are completely exhausted by working a five day 9 to 5 week. Most work more actually. And in senior roles now as we are in our fifties. Maybe that influences our opinions. I also think we treat animals worse than humans really. We eat them for a start…

I think a lot of women would like to stay at home. I think that a lot of men would also like to stay at home.

If women want the right to stay at home, men should also have the right to stay at home.

Sadly we can't all give up work or how would anyone survive.

I dont eat animals.

And lets take a look at an amimal that no one eats : dogs.

we definitely treat dogs (in general) better than we treat humans.

Have you read the book ‘careless people’? Written by a senior woman who used to work at Facebook. I think what Sheryl Sandberg said she did, and how she actually treated women, pregnant or otherwise is very different to what she has written about herself. Q depressing really.

Good for you, genuinely. I wish I could become vegetarian, but I’m not there yet. I do think it is in general a better way to live.

I think some dogs in this country lead a very privileged life and better than some humans. But I still think on average there is lots of animal neglect and I’m not sure that keeping animals in cages is the decent thing to do anyway. But perhaps I won’t derail this thread any more with this!

but I definitely don’t think expecting healthy humans to work five days a week is a huge deal.

I think it really depends on the workplace. I've worked in some jobs where I felt they were like absolute hell. I remember one of my colleagues going off on stress leave

My current job is okay.

if you can afford to stay home or just work part time then do it. You will never regret it.

How do you know?

I think it probably is a phase and mostly bound up with that blissful time of having small children pottering around, getting enough sleep, still being young yourself and leaning in to domesticity usually for the first time in your life.
You probably won’t still be loving hanging the washing up in 10 years time on a rainy November day when you’re in peri menopause dealing with a teenager.
The problem is you can always give up work to hang up washing but after a while out of the workplace it gets more difficult to do the opposite.
I was very very close to giving up work completely in 2019, I only didn’t because Covid happened and things became uncertain. I LOVE my job now, my attitude has completely changed. I work very PT though and get the best of all worlds
If you can do try and keep your hand in with work long term, but otherwise enjoy the washing whilst it gives you joy x

Come on, this post is sanctimonious bullshit.

You can’t say you’re in the minority for being proud that other women have paved the way, of course many of us are. If that’s what they wanted then that’s amazing and I’m proud of all the women I know and those I don’t who want to have a career and thrive in it. This thread is about how I feel. My feelings and why I don’t strive for those things any more. I don’t want the rat race and flashy stuff, it doesn’t appeal to me. If it appeals to you that’s great, but my feelings have changed and whilst I’m not stopping working, it’s frustrating that a choice means you HAVE to want those things to people like you. It’s a choice and maybe hormones, maybe burnout, maybe fear of time disappearing, I don’t know (hence why I am asking) has made me want to just be home. Just because women want to have the choice doesn’t mean they don’t respect the fact that they can go out to work.

And you are lucky if you’ve never had to rely on anyone else, some people have to due to job loss or loss of health, some people have no option other than to rely on others. I feel lucky that I have been able to make a choice when others who want to haven’t been able to. The passive aggressive sniping at me working part time ‘I hope I never have to rely on a man’ is embarrassing. I’m so glad that to me, feminism is about supporting women’s choices and not about forcing my opinions on others. I am still working, I just wanted to express my feelings out loud as a way of analysing them. And I’m allowed to and if other women have those desires they’re allowed to have them too. Thankfully, we’re all different. The difference is I support women whatever they choose, you only support the ones who choose what you want.

I don’t want the rat race and flashy stuff, it doesn’t appeal to me. If it appeals to you that’s great

If you can’t be bothered to read my comment, then I can’t be bothered to engage further. Could you point out where I said that I enjoy the rat race and flashy stuff?

I also really dislike dismissive comments about women's careers as being about "the rat race and flashy stuff"

My career makes a real difference to the world around me, it's no "rat race" and it's not about flashy stuff any more than DH's career is

What a well thought out and carefully constructed response.

OP call me Mystic Meg....

Nothing wrong with it at all. One of my close friends is a housewife and has never had a desire to be anything else. Now her daughters are older she works part time for something to occupy herself with and (the extra money is nice).It was so normal for me growing up. Loads of the girls at my school at housewife moms who just did a few shifts here or there at the super market or as dinner ladies but were primarily home focused. One of my old schoolfriends was open from a young age she just wanted to he married with kids. She went to uni and her field would have been graphic design but she was lucky enough to meet a man and marry young and has just focused on being a wife and mother ever since.

There is no way I would want to mix the way I work now with motherhood. It would send me to an early grave trying to fit in 60+ hour weeks, plus a whole second shift as a mom.

I haven’t said that women’s careers are those things, I would defend any woman’s choice of career or choice to solely raise her children. I haven’t used the phrase ‘Ray race’ I don’t think, but when I’ve talked about not wanting things like foreign holidays and cars etc I’m referring to my own choice not to dearie more money. None of this has been linked to women choosing to have a career.

The difference is that whilst I’m willing to defend a woman’s choice to work all she wants and have equal pay and rights, it seems I have to apologise for discussing my internal desire to stay home and raise my child. Even though I’m not actually going to stop working. That’s not fair feminism to make me feel bad for assessing my feelings. It’s not right.

Im sorry if anyone has made you feel a type of way but I don’t feel that way about your choices at all, your choices are your choices and I respect them, but some posters don’t respect mine.

And yes this leaves women with gaps in their CV / in a financally precarious position (which marriage offers some protection for) but that’s their business.

@CasketBase Didn't you get the memo? A fair few Mumsnutters can't stand the idea of SAHM/housewives. The usual suspects have jumped on this thread quicker than a tramp on chips.. AGAIN. 😴

When I had my first son aged 32 I had been used to working in a demanding full-time job that required lots of interaction with people on a daily basis. I found suddenly going from that, to sitting at home with a crying baby a total and utter shock to the system. It was like the rug had just been literally yanked from under me and I was in freefall. I was a rabbit in the headlights. I don't think I enjoyed my 9 months at home with my first baby that much because of the culture shock. In fact, I was itching to get back to the office and have a break!

So back I went, part-time, but it wasn't like it was before. Everything and nothing had changed. I remember sitting in the office one morning and looking at an excel spreadsheet, and everyone was so quiet and calm and collected around me. I could go to the toilet in peace. Eat my lunch in peace. But..............it felt............surreal. I felt like it wasn't "real." I missed my baby boy. I kept thinking about him - and never stopped. He was always on my mind. I worried about whether he was happy, what he was doing, were the nursery staff looking after him well and had he eaten his lunch? If he had cried and clung to me when dropping him off in the morning I felt uneasy all day.

I had my 2nd son aged 36 and I LOVED my maternity leave with him. I think he healed me. I was no longer in transition. I knew I could do both, and when I went back to work the 2nd time around, I was a lot more easy going because I had made some peace with who I was and where my true priorities lie. Work is important to me but my sons come first, always have, always will. You can be a devoted mum and work, but having my babies fundamentally changed me, on a profound level. If I lost my job tomorrow I would worry, from the financial side but I'd be ok. I'd just find another one. My sons - they are irreplaceable and I like watching them grow.

I really relate to this. It has taken so long for women to be taken seriously workwise and it is so important for women to be represented in professions. It is easier to stay at home with the kids if you can afford it, so I can see why women do it but I do feel like they are letting the side down a bit. Friends of mine who chose that path put up with so much shit from their husbands too! They never get a day off from serving people.
I did work part time 3 - 4 days a week when the kids were pre school age, there's a massive gap between doing that and doing no paid work at all.

I find the ‘you must want what we want otherwise you’re betraying women’ (and now letting them down apparently) rhetoric really uncomfortable. Why can’t we have different desires in life?! I’m incredibly grateful to so many women who went before me, who paved the way, but I’m also grateful to my mam who stayed off work till I was 8 to be with me before she went to work full time. It’s weird how to some people, wanting to just raise your child is a negative issue. It’s just a choice!

@Tartanboots

It is easier to stay at home with the kids if you can afford it, so I can see why women do it but I do feel like they are letting the side down a bit.

No, there should be no judgement on a woman who chooses to be a full time mum and run her house. There is profound joy and satisfaction in doing this. More rewarding in many ways than sitting at a desk crunching numbers and wasting energy sustaining a work personality - no one gives a hoot about you at work, you'd be replaced tomorrow if you walked out the door and forgotten about in a month or less. I'm all for working mums - I am one, but let's not pour scorn on those who choose what is often the harder but more rewarding path