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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:
daisypad · 29/10/2009 15:08

Ahh - I wish I hadn't read this thread, which although brilliant and very entertaining has completely thrown me!

Maybe it's because it is half term and kids (5 and nearly 2) are driving me mad but am feeling very guilty as am a SAHM with cleaner and eldest in private school. To be honest I still never get a moment to myself, DH travels a lot and has long commute so it is just me much of the time and sadly no tennis or even nutting! But 5 and a half years in i am going mad!!! I need something else, need to be stimulated and somehow have my identity made up of something other than kids, husband, dog and house! I am also fed up of making all the conversation with other parents knowing full well they don't know what on earth to talk to me about (apart from mates that is).

Any suggestions for jobs that fit in with school hours/holidays and provide mental stimulation whilst also allowing my children to miss me a bit more so they stop treating me like a bloody skivvy (and VV so I miss them a bit too!)

SorciereAnna · 29/10/2009 15:10

Actually, the friend I wrote about in my previous post has already scaled her career back quite significantly to take the job that "only" entails this amount of overseas travel. And of course, by scaling back this way, she is lowering her career sights, therefore contributing to women's "failure" to reach career equality with men...

fiercebadrabbit · 29/10/2009 15:23

Does your friend mind travelling a lot and missing the odd school play? If so she should find another career and who gives a monkeys what that says about women's "failure"? If she's happy with her life (I would imagine she's exhausted) and her children seem happy then where's the problem?

SorciereAnna · 29/10/2009 15:32

I think she is very susceptible to social status (for a lot of easily explicable reasons) and finds it really hard to say "stop" to career and social progression, even if she is shattered (she is) and her children are missing out (they are).

fiercebadrabbit · 29/10/2009 15:44

If she loathes the job then she is daft but if she still enjoys it then she may well feel the short term exhaustion and stress will pay off in the long term when her children don't need her any more.

And would her children be happier if she wasn't working at all/in a less satisfying career and was therefore frustrated and resentful?

.

loobylu3 · 29/10/2009 15:44

daisy- sorry you are feeling like the unpaid skivvy Trying to think of jobs that may be flexible around school hours. Obviously, it depends on what skills/ qualifications you have and what you might enjoy:

Teaching assistant (obviously)
Part time shop assistant eg clothing / homeware store/
Part time receptionist
Business run from home. I know someone who does dog grooming because she enjoys this and another who looks after people's horses. There are lots of other possibilities.
Writing or something artistic if enjoy these things/ are good at them
Part time study- diplomas, etc
Voluntary/ charity work

Good luck!

daisypad · 29/10/2009 15:52

Thanks loobylu. I must also say I have absoultely loved being at home for the most part and very glad that i could do it for the kids and me, but now I am enjoying it less I don't think I'm doing a very good job of it!

I have already updated my CV! Sometimes you just need a nudge, and I think this thread might have done it for me .

mathanxiety · 29/10/2009 15:53

Daisy, I think you have identified a huge issue here, the lack of part time opportunities that ask for 'mum hours'. There's a huge demand for any sort of work with the right hours and no compulsory weekends, a big pool of labour very willing to work and disciplined enough to show up with a good attitude every day, and many 'soft' skills developed in the course of parenting. I don't think employers view parenting skills positively or see them as being adaptable to a work situation, and they have a notion of mothers as being too tied to children and home to be valuable employees.

mathanxiety · 29/10/2009 15:55

I also think that the Women's Lib movement sought to change the wrong half of society.

Litchick · 29/10/2009 16:01

Anna - does your 'very good friend' know you judge her choices and parenting so harshly?

For what it's worth, I think we need to be very careful about making judgements on others lives. We often don't know the full story.

On the school run I used to see a little boy standing around in the cold, obviously waiting for his school to open. He looked a bit snotty and scruffy. A ha I thought, another poor little bugger whose Mother has already gone out to work. What a rotten life.

Then one day we met them in the park and I got chatting to his Mum.
She is a hoot. Highly intelligent and clearly a wonderful Mum. Yes, she has to work ( she's a widow ) but her son is not remotely unhappy. He could stay in the house and watch telly but he told me he likes to run to school and get some fresh air.
They are trully a great family. Bilingual, avid readers, always laughing.

That will teach me to judge.

mathanxiety · 29/10/2009 16:10

It is a great pity that we as women cannot support each other enough and seem to spend a lot of our time sniping about how other women live their lives, and particularly in judging each other's performance as parents. We are not doing women as a whole any favours by focusing our critical eyes on ourselves so much. We are unfair to ourselves and to our daughters growing up in this atmosphere of constant comment about how we fulfill a biologically based role.

MORgueOSKY · 29/10/2009 16:30

I was probably being chippy. Someone had said something about class that had wound me up. But to say middle class children are mainly happy seemed to be an odd statement, because so are working class and upper class children and anyone alse in between. Infact class is irrelevan.

KnackeredOldHag · 29/10/2009 17:07

Litchick, I think that's a lovely story. It just goes to show how quick we can be to draw conclusions without necessarily realising that we only see a fraction of the whole picture.

WidowWadman · 29/10/2009 18:14

I've been back to work for about a month, with my child in nursery full time, and I'm glad I am. I love my daughter dearly and wouldn't want to miss her anymore, but after 9 months at home it's simply good to get out again and have some time where I can wear my business hat and be among adults. Towards the end of my maternity leave I started seriously getting jealous of my husband, because he went to work every day and I didn't.

I don't feel guilty or think my daughter is missing out. She's not one for going to bed early anyway, so we have quality time in the evenings now instead of me growing impatient.

But that's me, everyone is different, I suppose there are people out there who enjoy being at home, it's up to them. However, I do think that
"what about my life when my kids grow up and leave home - what then?" is a valid question.

SorciereAnna · 29/10/2009 20:04

Of course we discuss the courses our lives have taken and the choices we have made! And why! I don't think that in the RL people are nearly as shy of discussing their differences as some posters on MN seem to think - there is nothing wrong with judging others' choices, just as others will judge yours. Why we should all apparently bury our heads in the sand and not make judgements is completely alien to me - how can you improve yourself if you do not judge that which you observe around you?

EdgarAllenPoo · 29/10/2009 21:29

financial independence is being able to go shopping for food or essential household/child stuff WITHOUT first having to ask DH for the cash. It feels like being given pocket money; and the first time he did it he actually asked for the change (never again mind you ). That felt so demeaning

erm..what's that thing called again..a 'joint bank account'?

DH & I ask each other about big purchases. who earns the money is unimportant - earning it does not give you any greater right over how it is spent. That's part of being a couple.

;independance is an illusion' - because everyone depends on other people. on your employe - for your work (even if you are self-employed, you depend on having customers, and on your bank) and, for anyone with kids, you depend on the childcarers that make it possible to work, or if you don't do paid work, you depend upon whichever person or organisation provides your income...so for me to claim to be 'independant'...whilst i depend upon my employer for an income, the governemnt to supplement that income, to my mum to look after my kids...etc etc - bit daft?

Quattrofangs · 29/10/2009 22:27

Oh Kew you are fab. I love this line:

"What I do supply him with has the stamp of approval of three social workers, one Kazkah judge, one UK judge and a ministry of Education (Ust-Kamenogorsk division) official."

I think it's the 'Ust-Kamenogorsk division' bit that makes it really authoritative.

I'm a bit unconvinced about the sufferings of poor little rich kids to be honest with you. Poor little poor kids have a much much worse time of it.

thumbscrewwitch · 29/10/2009 22:36

edgarallenpoo - feck off with your smartarse comments. I have a joint bank account in the UK with DH. Currently I have no banking facilities at all in Australia. How bloody rude of you!

TheFallenMadonna · 29/10/2009 22:46

Anna - with regard to judging other people as a means to self-improvement...

You've surely missed out the bit about being self-aware and reflecting on one's own performance? Merely congratulating oneself on being superior to those we observe isn't awfully constructive IMO.

Quattrofangs · 29/10/2009 22:54

Edgarallenpoo - I think you are missing the point about financial independence.

What you say about no man being an island is right of course. But we were discussing financial independence.

So you say "you depend on the childcarers that make it possible to work" but of course if they weren't able to do the childcare, you could always recruit different childcarers.

The whole point of financial independence is that you aren't financially dependent upon anyone else other than your employer/the state of your business or the economic situation.

TheFallenMadonna · 29/10/2009 23:01

I'm not financially independent I suppose, although I work full time. I enjoy the benefits of DH's larger income.

KnackeredOldHag · 29/10/2009 23:07

Anna, I just wonder what was it that you did for a living before you became a mother?

fiercebadrabbit · 30/10/2009 10:21

Anna, another question - I asked before but perhaps not seen - is your friend unhappy with her choice? Or does she think the short term pain of her set up will pay off in the long term? And is she aware her children are unhappy with it? And does she judge you for being a sahm?

EdgarAllenPoo · 30/10/2009 12:38

edgarallenpoo - feck off with your smartarse comments. I have a joint bank account in the UK with DH. Currently I have no banking facilities at all in Australia. How bloody rude of you!

i'm loving the irony in this statement.

you were implyng that if you don't earn money yourself, then you have to get 'argent de poche' - this is not the case.

EdgarAllenPoo · 30/10/2009 12:59

I think what is meant by 'financial independence' by some posters actually just means 'having more money' and by others means 'having own earning potential'

if you have more money, between the two of you, you have a wider range of choices open. If you have less, those options narrow.

if you have 'earning potential' it really is only that - if you don't have the job, it brings nothing to the bank. To my mind, pretty much everyone has some earning potential, even if they haven't don epaid work in donkey's.

i have very little financial freedom, cos our income is small (even though am sole earner). I would have greatly more if i was the wife of a millionaire who earned nothing herself, but had plenty to spend.

sometimes i wonder if the attitude that work produces 'financial indpendence' is caused by the bad old days of men demanding everything of their wives, and then going out to spend their money as they wanted (without discussing it ) on the grounds that 'I earn it don't i?'. You do hear of men treating their wives as housekeepers with an allowance - a job is not necessarily the answer for these women. Changing their husbands attitude is. although, if another woman is happy to live like that, far be it from me to rain on her parade...

my mum never did paid work after her first child, but the notion of her being dependent on my dad is really rather laughable....He is so dependent on her for everything (even financial, he may have earned the money, but he doesn't have the first clue what to do with it..)