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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

and disloyal to womankind to NOT find this offensive?

798 replies

Astrid28 · 26/10/2009 11:26

I am now a SAHM. DH runs his own company and it got to the point where I could give up work if I wanted to. I wanted to, so here I am.

DH transfers money for the food shopping into my account and I also use the joint account for other things, like birthday presents, DD's lessons/pre-school clothes shopping etc.

A friend of mine has described me on several occasions as being an old fashioned housewife.

I laughed and said I suppose I am! She then went on to say that I shouldn't be pleased with the situation. Don't I find my life boring, and what about my life when my kids grow up and leave home - what then?

I'm still very happy with my situation, but should I be?? Am I 'letting the side' down?

OP posts:
AnnieLobeseder · 26/10/2009 22:29

thedolly - and there I was thinking that this was actually a decent debate on the old work topic for a change... cetainly the most thought-provoking and balanced one I've seen on MN.

jasper · 26/10/2009 22:30

abatdead, no it's not me

ApplesinmyPocket · 26/10/2009 22:31

"I think it's like a gift I have. I am never bored. I am always content and see things as glass half full."

Me too, Maggie. I've worked in various jobs, I've brought up two children, I've cared for three ageing and infirm relatives, and now I'm 'a houswife' - and this last six years of being at home, pleasing myself, is very definitely the happiest I've ever been.

As for 'what do you do all day? seriously?' I find it hard to fit in all the things I want to do. I went Christmas shopping in lovely Cotswold village this morning, made a Christmas cake later on, had a walk on a lovely Autumn day around the fields, picked walnuts from my elderly neighbour's tree and had a chat with her, delivered the village newsletter, made lunch for DP and me including a Bakewell Pudding from a 17th C recipe, played the piano (taught myself in the last year since the last daughter left for university -I don't play well and make slow progress, but I love it and find it entirely absorbing.)

This evening I've written a Hallowe'en quiz for the internet forum I run, talked to one daughter on MSN, emailed the other. I fitted a new hard drive to one of my pcs and puzzled a bit over a problem I've got with one of the others.

I can honestly say there was not one moment of the day I was bored, and indeed, many things I would have liked to have done which I didn't do (read some of my pile of library books for example.) I didn't even get time for Coronation Street as I had Saturday's newspaper to read (we only buy two a week as we found we weren't getting through them.)

I also write short stories for women's magazines when I get the time - which is 'paid employment' I suppose - but I only do it when I feel like it.

I find it astonishing that anyone can be 'bored' or feel 'unfulfilled' unless they're engaged in paid employment but this is the first time I've posted saying so and that only because I sensed a bit of a sneer at my 'unenviable existence'.

violethill · 26/10/2009 22:31

It was a fairly decent debate until thedolly's verbal diarrhoea annie

KnackeredOldHag · 26/10/2009 22:31

I agree absolutely Maggie.

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:32

Annie, that sounds like a great job to be honest! Can I come and wash your test tubes?

But you can't just apply for a job that appeals to you! I'd like to be a scientist ! It doesn't work like that.

Often on MN, women who got great A level results, did extremely well at university and then got great jobs that they really enjoy seem to berate other other women that that didn't happen for them. My choice aren't the same as those of the people who might question my SAH.

ninah · 26/10/2009 22:33

horses for courses
trying to make a C17th Bakewell tart would drive me insane

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 26/10/2009 22:33

I think it has been an interesting debate.

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:33

I agree Annie - good point, well made :-)

violethill · 26/10/2009 22:34

I'm loving the idea of C17th Bakewell tart!

Might try that at the weekend!

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:34

About stay at home Dads I mean!

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:36

Violethill fgs

"I think you sum that up very well Quattro.
I think, sadly, some women are trapped by their own lack of confidence that they can have worthwhile fulfilling careers while enjoying parenting too."

It's not 'sad' and it's not lack of confidence. You aren't listening.

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:37

How terribly middle class, Apples! And what does ones partner do to finance this lifestyle?

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:38

eh missmoopy, childcare for two children costs more than most people take home after tax. not necessarily middle class at all.

kneedeepinthedirtylaundry · 26/10/2009 22:38

I've had periods working and periods not working while looking after DS around nursery/school. During a period of working (and I like my work and find it satisfying), I can honestly say that I don't feel like someone who has it all but someone who has way more than I can handle, if I want to do either of my jobs as well as I think they should be done.

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:39

And some of us work AND parent. Its amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it!
I work whilst my daughter goes to school.

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:41

well good for you! is there a rule that everybody else has to do what you do?

Is it a bit unsettling when other people make other choices?

Is the only way you can rationalise those different choice be to assume they must be a bit thick?

I'm interested. Try to get behind why you find it so hard to believe that some women don't want to work...

Is it because it is incomprehensible to you that they jobs they would seek would be anything other than fabulously fulfilling and fascinating and well-paid??

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:42

Did Apples mention children? Other than to email them?
I fully understand the financial argument.

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:43

Well then, if you understand it.....

MaggieBruja · 26/10/2009 22:45

MissMoopy, Can you see how thoroughly eggregious it is to say, if you put your mind to it you could be amazing like me?!

I'd rather be amazing like ME, if that's OK.

TheFallenMadonna · 26/10/2009 22:45

Shouldn't we be celebrating Apple's choice MissMoopy?

MissMoopy · 26/10/2009 22:46

I don't think everyone should make the same choice. But I think some people hide behind the role of stay at home Mum in order to rationalise the fact they don't want to work. Call a spade a spade. If you don't want to work, don't. But don't sneer at those who do, or infer that we are lesser beings because we go to work.

TheFallenMadonna · 26/10/2009 22:49

Apples wasn't sneering. She was explaining her satisfaction with her choice.

You were sneering, with your middle class jibe...

EdgarAllenPoo · 26/10/2009 22:49

this debate always gets daft -

if someone else wants to do X in their life, let them go and do X.

if they want to walk into my house and tell me i should be doing X too, rather than merely telling me how much fun X is for them, then they are going too far.

It seems i have done/ am doing pretty much every job other people list as particularly boring....

but i find some notions strange - first the notion that if you earn the money, it is 'yours' - i don't see it that way, because when you have a family, that ceases to mean as much. it is not as though i can spend my salary only with a view to what i want. Nor did my DH take that view whilst he was working (he'd have had a very annoyed wifey if he had). Otherwise i most definitely would own a Desigual coat right now. And a Bohemia one...

second- that if you don't work, your daughters won't value education. Education has a value even if you think the world of work is worthless - a value all of its own.

third - the notion that one needs to have a specified task, otherwise you will just fritter your time away pointlessly - do we think all retired people having pointless lives?

fourth -the idea that all men have always had to work. the history books are full of shiftless men that live off industrious wives and mothers.

Quattrofangs · 26/10/2009 22:50

I don't see that lack of academic ability is a get-out-of-work-free card personally. Plenty of people aren't academically able and work for a living, in many cases very successfully.

I'm cool with other people making different choices, really I am. But y'know, I can't help but wonder who is paying for you to idle your time away picking walnuts and baking 17th century tarts. Because either you made the money yourself (fair play) or you're living off someone else. Be it the taxpayer or your husband or your parents.

For those of us without wealthy husbands or parents, suggesting that we should spend our days picking walnuts seems outlandish. It's not a choice we can make. Whether or not we would choose to make that choice is an entirely different question which comes back to the quality of the jobs that are available to us, amongst other things.