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.

Are men with careers and parents miserable as sin too? Or does it just apply to women who dare have careers as parents?

I want to point out that I support longer paternity leave, more maternity/paternity options and I support equal pay and opportunities so that men can be at home instead of women (in heterosexual partnerships) if that’s what both parties want. However as I said earlier, I’m not aure that men want a life of domesticity. Yes not working, but a domestic life over work is t something I’ve heard many men say they desire, I only know one.

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.

Wow seriously?

Men aren't socialised in the same way women are so it's hard to say as society and societal norms have such a huge influence.

I know a lot of men who hate working , I have to say.

My father hated working. He always told me that. My brother hates working. My male cousin has told Me that he hates working.

My male colleagues in my job have said things like "we hate this place we are only here for the money. If only I could win the lottery etc"

I think a lot of people don't like working

Oh I don’t disagree about working, but I’m not sure how many would want to give up work to do cleaning and cooking and child rearing is my point. I may be wrong, but I haven’t met many men who would say they enjoy hanging the washing and baking and would choose that over going to work, does that make sense? I don’t mean just quitting work, I think many people would give up working in a formal sense if they had to!

Yes this is absolutely true.

This is a breathtakingly dim, reductive and offensive post. Women who enjoy work are "miserable as sin"?

What about women who have to work. Are they miserable as sin? Or is it just the ones who want to? Is it OK to slag off women who support their kids out of necessity or only the ones who enjoy their jobs?

There are people who enjoy working and people who enjoy being at home. I can come up with plenty of anecdata to counteract your ridiculous homespun bullshit about all SAHMs being happy. Like my own mother who hated being a SAHM so much it hugely impacted her mental health. t

Exactly.

And usually it’s the “it will never happen to me”
smug types.

Thanks for confirming that you made a baseless accusation.

No, I’m confirming that you’ve said a load of tripe as when I’ve called you up on it you’ve had a huff about one tiny detail rather than actually discussing the response. Which has only shown that your points are utterly irrelevant as even you can’t be arsed to have the conviction to stand by them. But that’s your prerogative.

Surely what women that went before us fought for was equality? Which means choices?

If a woman, or a man, or anyone actually wants to stay home doing the domestic stuff, and can afford to, that's ok?

The women that went before us didn't fight for us to have to work five days a week and be career driven. They fought so we could if we chose to.

You think all my points are irrelevant? Like how some cultures like mine would be so grateful to have the opportunities women in the UK do? Or the point about older kids being expensive and how it’s helpful to be able to support them if we can? Or how I like that we have senior women doctors and MPs and lawyers? If you disagree with all that, well then I think we are clearly very different people and won’t find common ground.

Because those were actually my main points which perhaps you missed in your indignant ranting about flashy lifestyles.

Talking about choices, how many men choose to stay at home? Women giving up work to stay home isn’t a free choice made in a vacuum. It reflects society’s expectations for men and for women.

I responded to what was irrelevant already, don’t twist my words and make out that I said anything if the sort. You clearly didn’t read my post, how ironic, because I said in response to you and somebody else how I celebrated such women and am thankful for them.

But your rhetoric of women who choose not to have careers is baseless and irrelevant, yes. And I say that as a woman with a career, despite not enjoying it.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if you’re happy, your husband is happy and it suits your family.

I love my job and think I’m a better mother for balancing it with an interesting and stimulating career, but everyone is different. Lots of people find fulfillment in creating a really beautiful home life.

I feel exactly the same!!

I was so career-driven when I was younger and very ambitious, now I have an almost 6 year old and I couldn't give a toss about work. If we could afford for me to give up and be a SAHM I would in a heart beat!

@TheAmusedQuail 'And if your marriage breaks down? A huge % do.
Then you'll be left, with children, no up to date marketable skills. With a man that pays you the bare minimum. Trying to exist in poverty. Making your children suffer not just a working mum (against your vision of earth mother) but also poverty. All because you lost ambition when you had a baby and couldn't see that you need to be financially productive. It's called the feminisation of poverty for a reason. It's a trap.'

Ridiculously dramatic statements, there. I have quite a few friends who were SAHM's when their dc were little and who's marriages subsequently broke down (myself included). None of us are living in 'poverty'. In reality, the norm is that exH supports and mum goes back to work part or full time.

The desire to be at home with your baby rather than being in paid employment is not a 'loss of ambition'; it is an alteration in ambition and priority. It is not and does not make a woman any less important than another (and you have not written that but it is very much in the tone of your statements).

Men can choose to stay home if they want to and the family can afford it.

No one is making you stay home. But OP is a woman who was career driven and has found that she now feels differently. She's still working she's not making any decisions based on finances or what her husband is doing or what he chooses.

She's allowed to want to stay home. Just because you would prefer something different doesn't mean she can't want that.

Awfully smug of you.

The lack of support for women making different choices on this thread is so disheartening.

If you've been out of the market for 5, 6, 7 years, your skills won't be as marketable. It's logical. I have witnessed it with lovely friends. Either mutual divorce, or he left her for another woman, or he was just a cheating git who thought he could do better. None of the women who came through that were 1) As marketable as they were prebaby and 2) Had a much lower standard of living afterwards.

Have you seen the reams of threads on MN about men that shirk their financial responsibility for children? And who are negotiating the quagmire of the benefits system, trying to keep a stable and comfortable roof over their children's heads?

You have totally (and probably wilfully - given your ignoring of all the evidence available on this topic) misread the tone of my writing. No one blames a mother for wanting to be with her baby. It is natural. But we live in patriarchy. Designed for men. To further the interests of men. To pin your whole life and well being on a man is always a huge gamble. I think I'd take a gamble on my own standard of living, but I wouldn't gamble with my children's.

I remember when my DH became a SAHP a few years back. There was so much judgement, particularly from my SAHM friends.
I think you should do what works for you.

One thing I am glad about having a career is my pension which gives me financial security whatever the future brings. I’ve always been the higher earner so we now live off my pension and can afford DS’s uni costs via my very part time job.
If anything happens to my DH my income will not change.

My advice would be to build up a private pension for yourself. Obviously this would need to be with your DH’s agreement. A close friend of mine, who has been a happy SAHM since having her children, is now having meltdowns because she has no real security in place. She doesn’t even have the guarantee of a state pension since she doesn’t know if her NI has been paid as part of her silent involvement in the family business. It probably has but she is only now realising the implications. She may even have a private pension but has been happily doing her housewife thing without a thought of what happens if her DH dies.
Most of us go through life assuming that retirement will be great. The reality is that most end up with £12k a year to live off because they assume it will all work out. I’m glad I listened to the doom and gloom when I was in my 20s. In a flash I’m now 60 and reaping the reward of sacrificing a big chunk of my monthly income to a pension that at the time seemed a lifetime away.

It’s actually great being paid to do nothing, realistically it’s reclaiming the money I paid in but it still feels good.

Is it such a huge influence though? How is that quantitively measurable for you to make such a statement. Hormones and biology on the other hand are scientifically proven to affect men and women's behaviours in different ways, particularly during pregnancy and after childbirth.

Nor should we ignore that practical element of the SAHP being the one who earned less which is more often than not the woman. Please don't come back with the gender pay gap argument, I'm sure we have been through it before and don't agree whatsoever.

Of ALL and (I am not exaggerating) ALL the women I have friendships with, have worked with, my own family members, who are mainly working class girls... their husbands and boyfriends earn more. This is because they work in childcare, offices, cleaning, whilst their partners are tradesmen or lorry drivers.

Yanbu

I have worked and studied since I was 18 and now have a high paying responsible job, in part so I can show my DD that women can achieve anything they set their mind to.

I wish I could stay home making beds and baking and doing every school run.

I’m going to change tack and try to teach her to be content with whatever makes her fulfilled. Big salary and meeting the ‘checklist’ isn’t that joyous.