To think life is a lot easier & more relaxed if there’s one Sahp?

[Boredofwatchingthisonthebox]

Worked all my life, part time as a teen, through college, then Uni, then full time and some weekends.
Had Dc a little later in life and stayed at home for the first five years (worked three hours per week when Dh got home)
It wasn’t always easy, I was tired a lot, but grateful to be home. Life seemed to run a lot more smoothly. I was able to get any chores done during the day/week, there was no washing or cleaning the house or food shopping needing to be done at the weekends.
Now it’s back to full time, it’s all a juggle, we all barely see each other for long in the evenings, weekends are full of chores for one of the days, it’s all rushed etc

Aibu to think that having one Sahp (be it the mum or dad (if the dad were to do everything as efficiently 😆) is a better model?

Yes, one person doing the home work makes life easier. But the long term cost to the carer can be high (pension, self development etc) and also not everyone wants to do it. So no hard and fast best thing to do.

No, I'm not more relaxed as a sahp! much prefer to share the load.

I work 4 days /32 hours though - that is a great help. Wfh 2 days a week - this also helps as no commute.
Dh is often flexible in his work so there to sort the mornings (bring dc to the bus etc).

Mind you the house is a bit of a mess at the moment

‘Better’ is subjective. Neither my husband or I would like to be a SAHP, so we’d end up pretty miserable. A nanny and a housekeeper on the other hand - yes.

So well said!!! 🙌

Easier, yes. Better, not necessarily.

It would only be easier if

you had enough independent money behind you
and
tou don’t work effectively as a team on household chores
And
the working partner has a stress free ultra safe job
and
you can find mental and social stimulation suffiecjent to your needs

however for many people the stress of housework and shopping isn’t that great - clean the house in half an hour between us on a Friday evening ( everyone was basically housetrained so it wouldn’t get that bad. Housetraining you kids is actually a good thing )

we needed 2 salaries or we would have had to make hard choices - and hard money choices are one of the biggest causes of marital stress ( and our holidays were usually camping so not a lot of slack )

when my husbands job became pants we could let him take a package and look for something else ( short term belt tightening isn’t anything like long term ) - he wasn’t forced to stay in a job he hated

the children learned some independence and resilience ( and home skills ) that is sorely lacking in their generation

and I had my own life once they were grown

my brain needs stimulation which chikdcare never gave it and I could not talk nappy brands for hours like the mums groups seemed to do

the only caveat I will give is that I had a flexible role and employer so the odd hour off for a family thing could easily be paid back - two people working 9 to 5 with a big commute and limited holidays and no flexibility may well find that a different life is necessary

so each to their own/ sone people it works well for - others it’s a disaster

getting fed up of threads promoting one lifestyle as the answer for everyone - diversity is wonderful. being glad that your choices worked for you is great, thinking they will therefore be best for everyone is stupid

I think a full time sahp is not efficient once children are in school. modern technology means you simply do not need the 30 or so hours a week that children are in school to "run the home"

Most of the sahp of school aged DC i know have a lot of leisure time or create jobs to keep themselves busy. Eg

• getting a dog that they then need to spend hours walking
• a constant home/garden refurbishments that do not actually need doing
• a hobby business that doesn't really make any money
• insane volumes of cleaning & washing

I am a kind of SAHP which is a position I found myself in when I had to leave
my job on health grounds a few years ago.

Up until then I had worked for 23 years although I had dropped down to part time hours when I’d had my second child (down to 30 hours) which was 7 years ago.

Since leaving work I have retrained so that I’m now in a role that I work on a self-employed basis which I do a few days a week when the children are at school.

The wage I earn now is about 40-50% of what I used to earn when I had a standard 30 hour job outside the home, so our lifestyle has had to change a lot, but the drop in pay has definitely been worth it.

Our house runs so much more smoothly now, there is no rushing about, the children spend more time at home with us (we had to use wrap around care before) and we are generally just a happier and less stressed and tired family.

Being a SAHP was nothing I had envisaged in my parenting journey, and although my ill health forced me into this new role it has actually turned out to be better for all of us.

It works for my DH and me. His job is irregular and takes him away 2 nights a week. He also likes to sleep until 8:40 which he can because I'm a natural early waker and tend to our two DS who are now in secondary so it's much easier than it used to be. He knows he can always go out in the evening whenever he wants to see a friend/football game or cinema because I'm home. One DS is autistic and can't be left alone. Personally I prefer working out and reading as hobbies while he's the social butterfly so it works for us. If I were to work we would divorce because he wouldn't do his part of house chores and has never even looked at our DS homework. I have put lot of effort in helping DS1 advance because he's got a learning disability and even home schooled him for 2 years when he was too anxious to go to school. My number one is my children's wellbeing and I'm happy to be able to concentrate on that while DH works.

What has put me off the idea of ever encouraging my DD to be a SAHM are the number of threats on Mumsnet from women in abusive relationships who feel they can’t leave due to being financially dependent. They feel trapped and see no way out.

I have seen relationships where having a SAHP has worked but many more where this leads to an imbalance of power in the relationship. Overall I just feel it makes women too vulnerable. I’ve spent a lot of time talking this through with friends recently due to a situation that one of them is in and the overwhelming feeling about how to never get trapped in an abusive relationship as a woman is to not become a SAHM mum unless you have an established career you can pick up again at short notice.

And this is not about not trusting your partner. NOBODY knows what the future of their relationship will look like. Yes, some have red flags early on but many don’t. And women who think their partners would never cheat or don’t have the potential to become abusive are naive and don’t understand how abuse works.

Amen

Of course life is easier for a working person if someone else does the bulk of their childcare and household tasks for them. That's why rich people historically had (and let's face it still have by a different name) servants and wet nurses.

Of course life is easier for a parent who wants to be with their kids most of the time if someone else works and pays for this life for them.

But is it a better 'model'? Well only if the arrangement suits two people with complimentary interests and skills. Personally I know that if I were a SAHP...

• it would be crap for my mental health as I rely on work to keep me feeling stimulated and purposeful;
• it would be bad for my DD as I don't have a skill set well suited to raising her full time (I've got to be honest about this. I love spending a weekend or evening with her but days and days of continually being in 'mum' role without a break would drive me mad and I don't believe i'd be good at it. I'm just not prepared to do the hours and hours of messy crafts and imaginative things that nursery seems to do with her);
• it wouldn't result in a lovely looking and well-organised home because I'm mediocre at housework and cooking at best, and dire at more intricate practical tasks like home renovations, and even worse at all of the above when trying to look after my DD at the same time. I certainly wouldn't be 'efficient' - love how you seem to assume it's only men with that problem;
• it would mean less money for savings for my DD's future and for lovely holidays and activities for her;
• it would put more pressure on my DH to keep working in a stressful job knowing he has no option to retire early or go part time or step down to a different role or try something different because all our finances depend on him.

Sounds great.

And no my DH wouldn't want to be a SAHP either, or at least not full-time.

I don't think the perfect model exists and I don't get why we even need a 'model'. All people and families are different.

I actually think it’s easier if everyone is gone all day!

days we all at home the place gets destroyed by the kids and there’s all sorts of tidying and cleaning to do because we are making meals and have dishes and stuff to clean

the days we all have work and nursery we come home and the house isn’t messy or dirty - no dishes to clean or anything

we always leave the kitchen clean before we go to bed

we don’t even have breakfast as we all get it at work or nursery

so we come home to a clean house as we left it and just give the kids a snack as they’ve had tea at nursery and then. They are pretty much straight to bath and bed

then it’s just dinner for myself and husband and that’s it

i have a day off in the week and the place is in bits by 8am 🤣

I wonder would all the SAHMs be so quick to stay at home if their husbands did not earn good money. Would they stay at home if they did not have holidays or a second car?

One poster said her dad was a lecturer earning 100k in today's money. Both of us work full time and don't even earn that.

At what point are the benefits of SAHM outweighed by the lack of funds to take the family on holiday, have a car??

I would hate to be at home if I couldn't afford to buy an ice cream or coffee at a day out.

I don’t think it’s better. I’m on maternity leave with my second but I don’t think it’s that tiring compared to working and childcare/household responsibilities on top of that. Theres less to do during the day if one of you isn’t working and it’s good for sickness etc but I like having the extra money and security. Me and dh are both super close to ds1. And we aren’t living so close to the breadline. I like being able to afford days out, a coffee when I go out etc. I never had that growing up.

Well said.

When I look back on my last job (17 years of working in a set role) I think about what it did to me…..it broke me in so many ways and I let it slowly break me and all I got from it was crappy pay, ridiculous amounts of hours, no thanks for anything and feeling like it was all so pointless. I would be there, watching others climb up the greasy pole and for what? To be treated exactly the same way but for a small increase in pay. It’s like some kind of competition: who can climb the ladder the highest and who can do it first? It felt like a very surreal life. It all felt like a nasty competition with people willing to turn on their colleagues in order to further themselves.

Over my 17 years of working I worked in 4 different jobs (but all the same role) and the same traits were seen no matter where I went.

In a lot of ways I did love my job and I certainly miss elements of it, but being away from it now makes me see how I was a slave to it all and making lots of money for other people whilst my physical and emotional health was sacrificed for it.

My husband currently works in a senior role in his job but he recently accepted a new job in a more junior role which will include a 13% pay cut but no amount of money is worth sacrificing your happiness and your well-being for.

It will of course affect our lifestyle, which has already been impacted by my drop of income, but I’m behind him 100%. He has seen how much happier I am now I’m out of the rat-race (to use your term) and he deserves to have the same level of reduced stress in life that I do. Life is too short.

Like you say, who needs a good plated toilet seat?

Being able to support yourself isn’t ’stupid ass-kissing capitalist bullshit’. Making yourself economically dependent on someone you’re also in a romantic/sexual/ marital relationship with is a deeply stupid idea.

What is it that you seem to feel such anger about in relation to careers, @Agix — don’t you like what you do for a living? Not having to go to work wouldn’t be ‘amazing’ for me. I like what I do, and it’s valuable.

Your dh sounds very selfish and inflexible

The ideal solution for me would be working 4 days in the week and one weekend day.

I could’ve had a day of no kids to do the housework and sort stuff out - then focus on the kids in my weekend day/work the other day.

I often wonder why this isn’t a choice.

Would work well for single parents - work whilst the other parent has the kids, and get a day off in the week.

Alternatively, I’d like what my husband has - a wife.

It depends, one partner at home until dc are 18 then yes probably easier? But they may be dissatisfied & financial implications.

I work p/t & have slowly build up to 4 days & that works well for us.

DH is hybrid which also helps

It works for my DH and me. His job is irregular and takes him away 2 nights a week. He also likes to sleep until 8:40 which he can because I'm a natural early waker and tend to our two DS who are now in secondary so it's much easier than it used to be. He knows he can always go out in the evening whenever he wants to see a friend/football game or cinema because I'm home. One DS is autistic and can't be left alone. Personally I prefer working out and reading as hobbies while he's the social butterfly so it works for us. If I were to work we would divorce because he wouldn't do his part of house chores and has never even looked at our DS homework. I have put lot of effort in helping DS1 advance because he's got a learning disability and even home schooled him for 2 years when he was too anxious to go to school. My number one is my children's wellbeing and I'm happy to be able to concentrate on that while DH works.

Is this actually real?

I’m not sure I get your point here. Most are stay at home parents as they can afford it. If they couldn’t they wouldn’t go back to working outside the home. Also a lot of “big high paying jobs” relay on someone keeping things going at home.

I think if there was more flexibility in all jobs (within reason i get it wouldnt work for all jobs) and more childcare available particularly for SEN then more families could have a balance and find what's right for them.

If you're options are minimum wage jobs which typically aren't flexible at all often set non family friendly shifts. If you also don't have access to childcare if it costs way more than you earn/if you need specialist childcare. Then it makes no sense to try and work full time.

Our school offers no wraparound care or holiday care. The only holiday clubs around do sports which none of mine like and its times like 9 till 1 and doesn't run the whole 6 weeks either.I'd also need sen provision which doesn't exist where I am or you have to hire a specialist nanny which would be very expensive.

I know people who have tried working part time in a school (TA/Office) thinking that's the answer but then still struggled for childcare for the inset days or hours they have to be in earlier or later than the school day.

Not everyone has childcare or grandparents/family that help so for lots working just doesn't make sense. I think at the core that's what we all want the choice to choose for our family what works without loosing out immeasurably on other aspects of our life.