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 assume you have savings, are continuing to pay into a pension and have worked out how you're going to support your children should your partner leave.

I think what you’re feeling is normal OP. It sounds like you have a fulfilled home life that you get enjoyment from. There’s no shame in that! It’s really nice that you feel calmness being at home looking after your family - embrace it!
I would also love to be a housewife - my dream would be for the both of us to be at home to enjoy it together but like many others on this thread im also hoping for that lottery win!

I'm with you 1000%. Right now I can't do it, but as soon as I can, that's exactly what I will do: become a housewife. And YANBU. Not everyone feels happy having a career, the same way not everyone feels happy being a housewife, and that's OK. You are not everybody and you're embracing what makes sense to you. Congratulations!!!!!

This has been covered in the thread, especially as I have repeated, I’m not actually going to stop working.

I’m 42. In a leadership position at a tech company. I worked incredibly hard to get here, worked full time even when the kids were young, with zero family help and with a husband who dumped the entire housework and life admin on me.

I just want to fuck it all and become a housewife. I’d do that n a heartbeat if we had retirement savings sorted and the house paid off.

@CasketBaseI know what you mean about the relationship between suddenly wanted to be a housewife after having a child and ADHD.

I think I have the same flavour of ADHD as you. I’m able to hyper focus on studying and career progression. The topics are like special interests and I’m goal focused.

I had the same issue with not enjoying house work before children but there is now a dopamine hit when the sheets are fresh and home cooked meals are on the table. Like mini goals/achievements. But now my hyper fixation with studying and career progression is gone!

In have to say though, my children are older than yours and as they become more independent my career drive is creeping back but with a different focus.

I took some time out of work when my youngest was born and it scratched the housewife itch! I’m glad I did it and look back on the time fondly. I studied and kept on top of my field though, this helped me get back in to the job market. If you’re self employed I’m might be easier to step in and out I imagine.

Then you're not going to be a housewife...

I don't necessarily think it's a mum thing. I think there is peace to be had in creating a calm cosy environment through house and garden work. I've long thought, through observation over the years, the happiest people are those who create, nurture, build etc be that gardening, cooking carpentry, look after animals etc. If you are early in your career I would be very wary of dropping it completely. Life changes for all of us in in unexpected ways and it's insurance to maintain some capability of self sufficiency. That is it's risky to rely entirely on another breadwinner.

I imagine it's that your ADHD hyperfocus has shifted from work to home. Nothing unusual about that in the ADHD world or in the other world either! Enjoy it.

Having a child made you love ironing? Really?!! You sound like Matt Walsh's dream woman, but each to their own. If you genuinely enjoy it and aren't playing a role, then knock yourself out and do as much ironing as you like.

I had a few years off work but I couldn’t do it. Found it boring and stressful. Financially I could have carried on SAHM-ing due to inheritance, so I wasn’t financially reliant on DH at all.

I am much happier working (though the point about irritating colleagues and ridiculous appraisals is valid).

Now in early 50’s, I am working full time. I am just getting started on working up through promotions that I didn’t have the confidence for 20 years ago. I also can’t imagine giving up the work that I studied so hard for so long to be qualified to do.

I am also a bit cautious that not working would make me stress about the little things, as I’ve seen that happen to so many others. They fuss about the tiniest decisions that don’t need more than a seconds headspace. The minutae of life gives them anxiety. They also seem to morph into a pattern of a trip to Tesco taking up a full day, and adding on a stop to get petrol exhausts them for the next day as well.

What if I become a pain like I read about so many mothers on here, their children tearing their hair out because mum messages five times a day and doesn’t understand that the working child can’t just break off a meeting to take their call about looking for the tv remote.

I don’t know about the effect on ADHD on embracing SAHM life. I suspect ADHD has different impacts on different personalities.

Looks like I’m working til I drop. I don’t know if I’ll regret it on my deathbed. I guess I won’t be there long enough for it to be a big deal.

My husband loves his job and has a decent income. He doesn’t care what I do as long as we’re all happy.

This is all you need to know.
You and your DH are the one's that pay your bills.

It's wholly dependent on what you and your DH want as a family, nothing to do with what should be expected as it's what the majority do.

The feeling of throwing off work pressures to be a wife/mother was something I don't regret for one minute, yes I took on all childcare/housework but then I saw that as being part of my choice..and my DH saw it as a job never just a SAHM.
DH was incredibly hands on with the DC at weekends, and we never had words over splitting jobs.

Not for everyone but then I wasn't everyone, I was me

25 years ago we started a business that's so far, put us in good stead living comfortably with a pension and savings.

So go for it, you're where you're supposed to be in life, enjoy it.
You'll possibly decide to take your PT work back to full time in however many years time, and that's OK too.

You feel how you feel, others having had the same feelings doesn't make them any more valid.

You have changed as a person since having a child and that's OK and pretty normal, I think you just acknowledge that this is you as a person now, you're not as ambitious or invested or focussed. You might get back to being that person, or you might find that this new version of yourself is pretty awesome too.

I've just returned to work PT after having my second child, my eldest is at school. I'm hating being away from my youngest and really enjoy my non-working days at home with her, but in the final few days and weeks of maternity leave, I was pretty ratty and that was because I needed a change of pace - and that's OK too.

As an aside, if you are able to WFH - you can hang out the washing too!

I don't relate to the feeling whatsoever - would be bored out of my mind unless the cooking and gardening was absolutely on my terms - but I'm not you. I'm not even sure why you've posted. It's not like you're saying you've started fancying little boys, or decided to make crack. Maybe at some level you're disappointed in what you've turned into? As if your teenage self might be angry with you.
Enjoy the domesticity! There's a lot to be said for finding contentment in the simple every day things in life

I love being a sahm. But I never cared about my job even before kids, it was just something that paid the bills and for my hobbies.

I feel like everyone I know has to choose to outsource one thing out of childcare, work, and housework. So they work and look after their child, but have a cleaner. Or they give up work and sacrifice their career. Or they have a child in nursery/nanny and can't spend as much time with their child. I don't think it's true that you can "have it all" in an enjoyable way.

I understand and feel the same way, however I know financial independence is important. His money is ours but my money is mine. I carried his children so yes, I am entitled to what he earns. That’s how we do it. I am self employed as a private tutor and I don’t make loads but what I do make I put away and I am learning about investing with the goal of growing my personal wealth. If I die an untimely death, this money will be for my children. I have a large family who live locally as well though, and two days a week I take brother and SILs younger kids, two days they (well SIL mostly) take mine, I don’t know if I would want to be at home with my kids all the time and have no work, but I do find my really rewarding, and it’s not really like a “normal” job. I get to work out my house, with kids who I like and who (most of the time) want to learn, I get to watch them progress and see the lightbulb moments which is very special to me.

Do you have good public transport? You say you live rurally. Will you want to introduce your child to city life? Galleries, libraries, the feeling of human activity, the buzz of a diverse population?

Are you or your husband paying into a pension?

Oh I absolutely agree! I feel this very much.

so to your original post: I have ADHD and a 3 year old son and I also would happily stay home, keeping the home nice and orderly and welcoming. I really don’t care about work, and I feel I am completely disposable at work. If we had universal basic income I would probably stop working for a few years ! Maybe would get bored once he’s older ? But there is so much outside the world of work which interests me …

to your second point about how we’ve been sold that it isn’t okay to want to stay home: I think to understand this we need to look back at the history of women’s rights.
Two generations ago my grandmother didn’t have her bank account until she turned 65 (my mum encouraged her to open one). My mother and many of her generation felt they were winning because they could go out and work a job and earn their own money (which could go into their own bank account!!). The fact they were still doing allll the housework and childcare was at that point (in my mums case in the 80s), overlooked.
Whereas now we find ourselves thinking , hang on, why do I have to do everything?? But our starting point is we assume we are entitled to our own bank accounts and money. We take it for granted.
does that make sense?? It certainly helped me understand how we’ve got to where we are.

PS the only experience I have of adhd and sahm is one friend who is both. Tbh, she still struggles to stay on top of the housework and says she would rather be working. So I'm not sure enjoying being a sahm would be directly linked to adhd.

I can relate. I want to be a stay-at-home dog mum. I have neither hound nor husband but I DO have a vision of me and a Newfoundland puppy bounding gracefully along the beach at St Andrews together, to a tasteful accompaniment of acoustic piano playing the soundtrack from Chariots of Fire whilst the hoi polloi watch us admiringly from afar.

Fuck the pension.

I would love to be a housewife and if we had the money I know DH would support me. I don’t care how old fashioned it makes me sound. I love being home. My kids are too old to need a SAHM but I’d still like to be at home. I think some of it does stem from being utterly ground down from working outside the home.

I haven’t got ADHD, and I feel the same. And now my child is grown-up and left home, I still feel the same! 😉

Is it really hard to understand that there are about as many scenarios as there are people?
I stopped work when I was pregnant with number one because I had terrible morning sickness and dh travelled a lot and worked very long hours .
necer worked in employment since. I have done various volunteering things and studied and went on to have 2 more dc.

Could my dh have pissed off somewhere? Sure. But he earned enough that tbh even splitting the assets and having him pay maintenance would have put me above most employed people in terms in financial security.

as it is we are very happy and enabling dh to not have to worry about domestic arrangements meant he could climb the corporate ladder taking international trips with no notice and work whatever hours were needed.

it worked and continues to work for us.

It’s obvious why she posted. It’s because there is such a big narrative about modern women must do this and be that and she’s saying ‘hang on. That’s not the life I want’

I had a successful career as an insurance underwriter which I gave up when I had my sons. We might be old fashioned in our thinking but we strongly felt that children need at least one parent to be there for them. I’ve never regretted not working and genuinely feel my sons have benefited from me being at home. I did go back to work p/t around school hours when they started high school.
I suppose I was fortunate that we could afford to have me at home.
Having said that each family is unique and have to do what’s right for them.