Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be glad I didn't sacrifice my career for my kids

422 replies

FunnysInLaJardin · 04/10/2025 22:40

Just that really.

I worked really hard for 15 years before the DC to establish my career in law. There was a certain amount of pressure to give it all up and be a SAHM.

I m so glad I didn't. My DC are now 15 and 20 and I have realised that that period of their childhood is so fleeting.

I did work PT while they were growing up, but now they are nearly grown, I am so pleased to have my work and career as the bit of me still standing.

OP posts:
Swissmeringue · 04/10/2025 23:50

Interesting that you felt pressure to become a SAHM. I felt massive pressure to return to work, like I was somehow letting myself (all that potential, training, qualifications, education!) and my kids down if I didn't. I lasted 18 months after going back the second time before quitting and I haven't looked back.

Even though I had a relatively successful career in business I was only ever in it for the paycheque, work can get directly in the sea tbh. I'm much happier now, we're all much happier so it's what works for us.

Delighted you got to do what worked for you and you can look back on it and feel like it was the right decision for your and your family.

pottylolly · 04/10/2025 23:54

I didn’t even go part time. Made it work with hybrid working and compressed hours while exclusive breastfeeding my dc until 4.5 years old. I did it without any family support. That doesn’t make me better than you does it? Similarly you succeeding doesn’t make you better than someone who didn’t do it your way.

MumWifeOther · 04/10/2025 23:55

FunnysInLaJardin · 04/10/2025 22:40

Just that really.

I worked really hard for 15 years before the DC to establish my career in law. There was a certain amount of pressure to give it all up and be a SAHM.

I m so glad I didn't. My DC are now 15 and 20 and I have realised that that period of their childhood is so fleeting.

I did work PT while they were growing up, but now they are nearly grown, I am so pleased to have my work and career as the bit of me still standing.

Other way round for me.

SAHM and home educated for the first decade of being a mother. All now in school and 1 is a teenager. Still a SAHM but also now running a business I can do while they’re at school.

So grateful I had the opportunity to spend as much time with them as I did ❤️

Thulpelly · 04/10/2025 23:56

Childhood IS fleeting.

NoKnickerElastic · 04/10/2025 23:57

Yay, go you.

Clonakilla · 04/10/2025 23:58

Virtually nobody does.

For a start, it’s very very rare to be a SAHM throughout your kids’ entire childhood. The vast majority of parents work in some capacity for much of it.

But also - no, not many people give up satisfying, meaningful lucrative work that it took them years to establish. Almost every thread considering being a SAHM on here is someone who doesn’t like their job, who isn’t paid very well at all, or who has not put much time and effort into establishing a career. Nobody does it ‘for the children’, they do it because it works for them for whatever reason. Which fits really - the whole idea of staying home with children is a relatively new invention of the emerging middle classes and was never about the wellbeing of children. It was a status symbol for men.

How lucky it is that the men supporting these choices don’t ’miss out on their children’ or want to ‘raise their children themselves’ or just feel ‘no career is more
important than my children’. And how lucky it is that so many women whose careers are in the emergency services or health care sectors keep working after children as if they all left, the kids of SAHMs would find emergency departments and PICUs almost entirely devoid of staff when they needed them to stay alive.

Nettleskeins · 05/10/2025 00:00

The word "sacrifice" is the interesting one here.

Nayyercheekyfeckers · 05/10/2025 00:01

There's pros and cons to both. Now that the kids are much older, you can appreciate that you have a different focus to fill a potential void. However, as time does fly by (for adults at least), I think that taking that time out for the kids is something that i wouldn't ever regret.

RoseAlone · 05/10/2025 00:01

It might have been right for you but not the right thing for your children but that's something you'll never know.
I gladly sacrificed my career. My children were and continue to be much more important.

Raineylainey · 05/10/2025 00:02

QuickPeachPoet · 04/10/2025 22:52

this response is brilliant and plenty more women need to read it.

Show quote history

Agree.

@ZenNudist I’m not on TikTok but I see a lot of viral videos from there being discussed on IG are from women who gave up careers for men in their 20s only to be screwed over in their 40s and beyond. It can go either way, and if people want to fine but they should’ve considered it carefully and definitely shouldn’t be pressured into doing it.

JLou08 · 05/10/2025 00:07

Sounds like you had the best of both worlds. Getting to keep going in your career whist working part time so you still had plenty of time for your DC. Not everyone has the option to stay in a career part time. Do you think you may have felt differently if you had worked full time and had less time with your DC?

Dontlletmedownbruce · 05/10/2025 00:07

I think the big advantage you had OP was the option to go PT. I tried everything to get PT when my eldest was young, I remember thinking if I could even get a half day on Fridays I'd manage, but it was a no. I gave up to be a SAHM with occasional bouts of deep regret. Life can go in funny ways though. I got a PT job when kids started school and didn't intend it to be anything other than something to occupy me and earn some pocket money. I enjoyed it and went back to study it, and became very focused on it. I have this very strong sense that this is what I'm meant to do, and people tell me all the time that I'm talented at it, yet I know I would never in a million years have gone into this industry as a young woman.

Looking back on it now I feel very lucky how it worked out. For me the worst and wrong decision would have been staying working FT. I also am prone to guilt so I wouldn't have coped well handing them over to someone. I don't think my career would ever have flourished anyway, I can't say I ever saw work in my first career as anything other than a necessary evil to pay the bills.

JamDisaster · 05/10/2025 00:07

In many areas of law, switching to part time and never doing more than 32 hours a week would count as sacrificing your career. Well done for finding an area where that’s not the case.

Ohthatsabitshit · 05/10/2025 00:07

I don’t regret doing the exact opposite. I think there was a fair amount of pressure to return to paid employment and there is certainly a lot of disgust at sahms. Personally my children needed me at home and I wouldn’t have been a good working mum at all. I wouldn’t say I am happy and proud of our family.

AshLeaf · 05/10/2025 00:08

I had the savings to give up my interesting and lucrative career to be a SAHM, I’m so glad I did, my family are my favourite people, I’m glad I got to spend so much time with my kids when they were little, and not having to hand them over to someone else. I retrained for my new interesting career when they went to high school. My friend put her kids in nursery while she went to work because she knew she’d hate being with them 24 hours every day while they were little. She’s still a wonderful mum who’s close to her kids - everyone’s different.

Surely the moral of this thread is that everyone (including me) should recognise the privilege of having the choices that they do.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 05/10/2025 00:09

Nettleskeins · 05/10/2025 00:00

The word "sacrifice" is the interesting one here.

I agree.

I do think that either way it’s a choice.

notacooldad · 05/10/2025 00:12

It might have been right for you but not the right thing for your children but that's something you'll never know.
I gladly sacrificed my career. My children were and continue to be much more important.

Good for you!
My children were so important to me that Im glad that I worked because it meant we could continue living in our house, pay the bills and I could feed them when Dh's business folded when the financial crisis happened. I do know it was the right thing for them.

Also seeing as I had two boys, their dad was a great role model on how to run a house, and show that its not 'woman's work' to make dinner every night and to pick up after everyone,do the laundry etc and that mum needs down time.
This has paid dividends as they are now adults and aren't like the many 'man childs' that you read about on here that cant open a can of beans without making a mess or expect praise for doing so.

Nayyercheekyfeckers · 05/10/2025 00:13

Clonakilla · 04/10/2025 23:58

Virtually nobody does.

For a start, it’s very very rare to be a SAHM throughout your kids’ entire childhood. The vast majority of parents work in some capacity for much of it.

But also - no, not many people give up satisfying, meaningful lucrative work that it took them years to establish. Almost every thread considering being a SAHM on here is someone who doesn’t like their job, who isn’t paid very well at all, or who has not put much time and effort into establishing a career. Nobody does it ‘for the children’, they do it because it works for them for whatever reason. Which fits really - the whole idea of staying home with children is a relatively new invention of the emerging middle classes and was never about the wellbeing of children. It was a status symbol for men.

How lucky it is that the men supporting these choices don’t ’miss out on their children’ or want to ‘raise their children themselves’ or just feel ‘no career is more
important than my children’. And how lucky it is that so many women whose careers are in the emergency services or health care sectors keep working after children as if they all left, the kids of SAHMs would find emergency departments and PICUs almost entirely devoid of staff when they needed them to stay alive.

"Nobody does it ‘for the children’. "
Utter rubbish. I did. I gave up my career (law) for my children because I couldn't bear the thought of putting my babies into nursery for such long days. It just felt unnatural and wrong to me. The hours were largely incompatible with family life. Of course i missed work at times. It was easier and more sociable than being stuck at home with a baby and toddler. But I stuck it out and am so glad that I did. I'm also glad that the OP is happy with her choice. Both the OP and I appear to be very fortunate that we were able to make the best choice for our families. I just wish that other mothers had the same options.

materialgworl · 05/10/2025 00:24

RoseAlone · 05/10/2025 00:01

It might have been right for you but not the right thing for your children but that's something you'll never know.
I gladly sacrificed my career. My children were and continue to be much more important.

This is pure projection. You don’t need to do this to validate your circumstances. Jeez

Tess45 · 05/10/2025 00:29

I agree to an extent, I’m glad I do have my career but also really glad for the times I took out of my career and actually wish I’d given it less of a priority as my older children were growing up. I’ve now had more children with my now DH and think am very fortunate to have a good balance working just 2 days a week, being able to maintain my career and the role I love while also being at home most of the time.

Namerequired · 05/10/2025 00:35

I’m glad it worked out for you, it’s hard to get it right.
There are plenty of mums/parents out there who realised they missed those fleeting years of their kids growing up because of work. There’s plenty of sahm who realise they have got themselves in a vulnerable position by being so.
I was a working parent for 14yrs and a sahm for the last 10. 4 kids, big gaps lol. I have days I wish I had battled through and stayed at work, but then the other side feels my kids have benefited greatly from me being off. We are dealing with medical issues and nd though which complicates things again.
My eldest remembers me working too much and hating it. My younger don’t remember me working and I worry that hasn’t put the right work ethic into them.
I’ve stayed in a relationship that I would have left at times if I felt I had the option, but I didn’t and so we are still together. I worry about my financial future, I have no pension, no savings. But I hope it’s increased the chances for my children’s future. No one else would have put the work into them that I have. Had I been working could I have advocated for them as much, noticed as much? Maybe, maybe not 🤷🏻‍♀️
If you found a happy middle you were one of the clever/lucky ones. We are all just doing the best we can with the situation at the time, none of us having the gift of hindsight.

PrincessSophieFrederike · 05/10/2025 00:36

FunnysInLaJardin · 04/10/2025 22:40

Just that really.

I worked really hard for 15 years before the DC to establish my career in law. There was a certain amount of pressure to give it all up and be a SAHM.

I m so glad I didn't. My DC are now 15 and 20 and I have realised that that period of their childhood is so fleeting.

I did work PT while they were growing up, but now they are nearly grown, I am so pleased to have my work and career as the bit of me still standing.

I want to be a lawyer so it's cheering to read this (at uni now)

LivingTheLife1 · 05/10/2025 00:42

If you're happy with that, then who cares? I do think it's good to maintain some employability 'just in case'. The test of how your children experienced their childhoods will be what they decide to do with their own children. I only worked enough to keep my hand in (very little) because of my own experiences with a full time working mother. I know I'm lucky to have had that choice but I don't think I'll ever work more than part time. It makes the weekends much more fun and relaxing.

ThisTicklishFatball · 05/10/2025 00:42

The constant criticism stay-at-home moms (SAHMs) face every day is exhausting. It feels like these women are always being judged for their choices. Hopefully, SAHMs can prove the doubters wrong by making smart decisions and avoiding reasons for criticism. At the same time, it would be great if women could support each other more instead of tearing each other down.

On a positive note, earning an income as a stay-at-home mom is absolutely achievable by taking advantage of online opportunities. Those who think SAHMs are doomed or if SAHMs themselves feel hopeless likely aren't using the internet with the right intentions.

I'm grateful for the choice to be a stay-at-home mom after building a successful career that made it possible. Thanks to the smart decisions I made in my younger years, I now enjoy sources of passive income. My husband is a high earner, and I'm truly thankful for choosing the best partner to share my life with.

It's puzzling to me when I see others lacking trust in their husbands. If there was no trust before marriage, why would they go through with it? Could it have been out of desperation?

RabbitsEatPancakes · 05/10/2025 00:56

Good for you.

Childhoods were fleeting? Because you missed so much of them

You feel your job is a "part of you". Pretty sad to define yourself so much by your work.

When you're 90 I wonder what you'll be reminiscing about, cuddling your babies or team meetings?