Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

if I'm totally fed up of people assuming SAHMs are rich and idle?

366 replies

bohemianbint · 26/05/2008 11:25

I am one, because I CAN'T AFFORD TO PUT TWO CHILDREN INTO CHILDCARE.

I did initially go back to work, but got shafted by my boss and am about to take him to court. We are not minted and I don't spend my time watching tv, eating bicuits and buying handbags. More's the pity. I will go back to work my my children are older, for definite, but for now, I'm stuck, whether I like it or not.

I find it hard to believe I'm the only person who can't actually afford to work?

OP posts:
Niecie · 27/05/2008 11:45

Haven't read much of this but YANBU.

I didn't want to go back to work and so I didn't but as it stood there was no incentive to go back as about 85% of my salary would have gone on childcare leaving me enough to pay for my commute every day, lunch and a few work clothes! Since I didn't enjoy my job anyway, I certainly was not going to do it for nothing. When I do go back it won't be in the same field (I was planning a career change before the children came along) so it won't have harmed any career I had.

Maybe the decision would have been harder if I had been earning 3x as much but on the other hand, to be earning 3x as much I would have been putting my heart and soul into a job I loved so maybe I would have made a different choice. Who knows but knowing myself I doubt it. I am an all or nothing type of person. Either I am going to give my all to a job or to my children (whilst they were not of school age) - any compromise would not have made me happy.

I do believe I have made the best choice for my children though and I have no regrets. I don't think FT childcare would have changed them for the better - DS1 isn't very sociable but then he has mild AS so I can't expect him to be and DS2 is extremely sociable and picks up friends wherever we go. They are both bright, happy and gorgeous so I certainly haven't done them any harm. Their time at playgroup and out and about with me was socialisation enough.

Quattro - you maybe right about some of us not enjoying our careers and giving up but I do know several women who have given up good careers to be at home or at least take less well paid, less high flying part time jobs to spend time with their children. They had been doing the high flying stuff for 15 to 20 years and didn't want to spend the next 15-20 years doing it at the expense of their time with their children.

My SIL is one - gave up being an HR director of a well known company to be a SAHM for a few years. She has no regrets and has gone back to a low level, lower paid, job part-time and although not a stretch for her she is perfectly happy with her compromise.

Other university friends have also done it and there are high profile cases too (the CE of Pepsi springs to mind a few years ago). It happens.

blueshoes · 27/05/2008 11:46

posie: "If it's a choice (and it is always a choice) between top flight career or putting young children into full time childcare to endless research saying it does cause damage, then it is selfish, at best, for two partners to chase careers."

Emotive language alert!

Funny how so many ft dual high flying partnerships at my office seem to work well, albeit with good support and they can naturally afford thebest. Their children are also secure, happy, nicely-behaved and well, just children.

Kewcumber · 27/05/2008 11:46

I am defintely coasting at the moment in my career and only working 4 days a week. USed to have fire in my belly but it seems to have been extinguished! Can;t decide whetehr I will go back to it or whether I quite like the more laid back but poorer life.

duchesse · 27/05/2008 11:47

I would like to say as well that a top-flight career is not necessarily the same for everyone. To my mind, it is mostly measured in terms of a balance of personal fulfillment/ gain/ pain. A very poor artist who is struggling financially might nonetheless feel that they have a career worth saving.

blueshoes · 27/05/2008 11:48

kew, the laidback poorer life is definitely addictive!

Kewcumber · 27/05/2008 11:50

it is isn't it! My previous colleagues would be at my life now .

I do miss having money to spare though, ah well can;t have it all (can I?)

twinsetandpearls · 27/05/2008 11:50

When I look at dp and I there is only one of us that is career driven and I don't see how we could function as a family unit if we were both very focussed on our careers.

posieparker · 27/05/2008 11:51

and not or, and the choice is what's best for you or what's best for them

Niecie · 27/05/2008 11:53

Good point Duchesse.

So often a good job is measured by how much people earn but to my mind the personal fulfilment is much more important. I guess some people measure that how much they earn but others do it by contributing to society.

Maybe that is why some of us are happy to be SAHM and not get paid whilst others find that harder to take. (assuming that they don't need the money to survive of course).

Quattrocento · 27/05/2008 12:01

Niecie - it's the other way round.

I know a lot of high earners and almost none of them are financially motivated. They strive because of a number of factors - such as marketplace reputation, wanting to be the best etc. The money comes from that rather than causing the motivation.

Anna8888 · 27/05/2008 12:03

I know (personally) solicitors, strategy consultants, hospital doctors with successful careers that they enjoyed and had great prospects in, and employers desperate to hold on to them, who have given up work because the reality of a dual high-flying career family life was impossible to coordinate without huge suffering.

Monkeytrousers · 27/05/2008 12:03

Lets hope we never get to the plight of women in the US on the 'work or starve' policy brought in by that supposed Democtrat, Clinton. One woman was 'sancioned' (i.e. coerced) to take a job in a slaughter house 11 days after giving birth, had to walk 6 miles to get there and had to slaughter 40-50 chickens a minute for six hours straight on a work placement scheme.

You can be 'sanctioned' by refusing any job in the hope a better one will come along or if you miss an interview.

legalalien · 27/05/2008 12:09

blueshoes

"I have lots of women friends who are victims of their own easy success, but feel like a fraud for not wanting to go for that promotion. Of course, the decision to have children gives a convenient excuse. It was for me. "

couldn't agree more. maybe we should have a city lunch for professionals whose fire has been extinguished (I think you are in the city? I am still a mumsnet newbie without an encyclopedic knowledge of posters!)

(mind you, DH is probably right in claiming that although not ambitious, I remain fiercely competitive. which goes a long way in law).

Niecie · 27/05/2008 12:14

Quattro - I was thinking more on the line of these threads. There seems to be an assumption that if you are well paid it is a job worth hanging on to and if you don't get paid you are wasting your time.

I wasn't really questioning the motivation of the individuals in those situations. What motivates people isn't for me to say.

Telling SAHM to go out and earn money is just a waste of time. It doesn't take into account the fulfillment and enjoyment of giving up time with their children (if that is what they want).

Sorry, I knew as soon as I pressed 'post' that I hadn't explained myself very well and somebody would pick me up on something.

blueshoes · 27/05/2008 12:20

ah legalalien, I guess from your name that I could be in the same profession. It always struck me as funny that the qualities to be a successful mid-level to senior associate (attention to detail, almost perfectionism, executing a perfect transaction) could be a liability as a partner.

Where the personal qualities of a partner are an entreprenurial spirit, ability to build a team, ability to delegate and 'let go' to chosen team and a drive to win clients. No wonder so many people (men and women) turn away at the threshold.

Am laughing at a 'extinguished fire' city meet up. I would be up for it. Yes, I am in the city.

Kewcumber · 27/05/2008 12:23

I'm up for an exthinguished fire city lunch too - though am crap at both organising or attending on the whole!!!

paranoidmother · 27/05/2008 12:28

I can't afford to work full time either. I manage a part time saturday job whilst DH is at home to look after the kids but can't afford to send 2 DD/DS to a childminder for the whole week.

We can't afford a holiday abroad or a new car this year either.

It annoys me that it's also assumed as I am at home I have plenty of time on my hands to do anything I like, like TV, read etc. Ahhhh I have 2 toddlers of course I have time!!! NOT!

legalalien · 27/05/2008 12:33

will try and get my act together and start a lunch thread this afternoon.

Always interests me that lawyers see partnership as the ultimate thing to aspire to in the legal career. I once tried to convince some partners that I didn't see it that way - I don't think they believed me.

(btw, and unrelated, any lawyers reading, CAT me if you know anyone who is looking for a full time (but regular hours and very flexible / family friendly) in house commercial lawyer role, reasonably senior but without management responsibility. Am changing my job and can't (morally) leave the building until I find a replacement).

(thread hijack over)

squiffy · 27/05/2008 16:12

Not sure if there is still a fire in my belly or just a touch of heartburn. But am definately open to discuss this over lunch.

handlemecarefully · 27/05/2008 17:29

Quattro - also responding to your bogus and groundless assumption that SAHMs are women with previously unsuccessful careers. When I quit I was in senior management responsible for some 200 personnel (of varying grades, i.e. some of whom were departmental managers themselves), and a budget of several £M. My next post would have been a Director role

A school mum friend was formerly a GP, but with a barrister husband doesn't want to employ the army of support necessary to manage the logistics of 5 children when both parents work long hours in demanding careers. She thought she'd ditch some of the stress of juggling...she did enjoy her career though ...but ever the pragmatist...

Twig hasn't been on this thread but formerly was in a 'high flying' career

In my case I have never really been driven by a career - I happened to be doing extremely well in my field and enjoyed it well enough, but consider this; I felt that I had nothing else to 'prove' and that the cost of continuing was too high (type of work that requires long hours and a lot of commitment)

Quattrocento · 27/05/2008 17:56

We can only speak from our personal experience HMC. From what you've said, it sounds as though the cap fits though.

posieparker · 27/05/2008 18:03

I have never met anyone in their later years who wished they worked more, but many, if not all, wished they spent more time with their children.....

Anna8888 · 27/05/2008 18:09

posieparker - indeed

My partner was 30 and in the throes of his first general management position when he had his first born son. The second son followed quite quickly after that.

Our daughter was born just before his 4Oth birthday. He has spent far more time with her than he did with the boys at the same age, and he regrets that he wasn't around so much for them.

sarah293 · 27/05/2008 18:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

posieparker · 27/05/2008 18:14

Come come riven , you know you're not busy all day and you embroider your lingerie ready to service your man, heck mine gets a frequent MOT!!!

Swipe left for the next trending thread