to feel guilty that I'm not a stay at home mummy living next to the sea who bakes and knits?

[ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight]

Well. I just looked at the mummy blog of an old uni friend. She has called it something really quite twee. I was scoffing a bit at the lentil weaveryness of it [bitchy emoticon], it's very 'we love to live as naturally as possible, today we knitted our own home baked bread' but actually then I thought it looked lovely and her DCs are probably having an incredibly lovely childhood. They live in a little village near the sea, she posts every single day with pictures of crafty lovely activities, unlike me who works and is lazy with DS and lets him do 'free play' (apparently that's an actual thing, not just being lazy) and we don't even have a garden DH takes him to the park and nursery do crafty things but I feel a bit lame.

Tell me that DS won't mind? I'm having my first serious attack of mummy guilt and I feel a bit crappy actually. Also I'm going back to work full time in May, DH will have him 4 days and 1 day in nursery, I need to for financial reasons, if I do we should be in a position to have DC2 next year, it all makes sense but I'm wobbling about only having DS 2 days a week

Thanks for this thread, kat.

I am going back to work full time in May (starting 3 days a week in mid-april) and I am so sad about it. I never thought I would feel this way, my mom and both my grandmothers worked when they had small children. In the U.S. it was normal to go back to full time work after 6 weeks (though I think they are getting 12 now?). I'll have had nearly 8 months with DS, but it's not enough!

When he was very little (and a bit boring), I was itching to go back to work. Now I really like watching him learn to eat, sit, stand, etc, and I've met so many great people going to activities with him. I can't believe it will all be over in a month. We just do not have the money for me to stay home. Too many debts to pay. Even with nursery fees my salary is not bad. I have tried for a part time job in the same pay band (they are rare) but just found out I didn't get it. My current job is at risk already due to budget cuts and there is a lot of restructuring going on, so asking for part time working is not likely to be viewed very well.

The thing is, DS is such a happy, sociable little boy, I think he will really enjoy nursery. It will be me that misses him, misses my mum friends, misses pottering around. It's the end of baby swimming lessons, rhyme time at the library, and Tuesday lunch group at the soft play place. Wish there was more stuff on the weekends for babies, but everything around here is during the week in the daytime.

I went back to work (admittedly from home) when my DD3 was 3 weeks old and I don't feel the slightest remorse. I have arranged our lives so that the baby does not suffer in the slightest (say I, hearing her whinge in the next room, ahem).

I use to try to be a perfect mummy like your friend but sometime in my mid 30s I grew up... You only ever have to be a good enough mother- do your best and that is good enough. You can't take yourself and your own personality out of the equation- you are central to your child's life.

Your friend is probably on Diazepam or Valium or cooking sherry to get through the day anyway...

at mrsboring's blog

Country life is not an idyll, unless you are 55 to a fit 70.

I am city born and bred but have many friends from the country. They all moved to the city the moment they finished school because there was NOTHING to do. One told me they used to have competitions to see who could hold onto the electric fence the longest. Another has buckshot scars on his buttocks because he and his brothers used to play a game where one stood by the clothesline with an air rifle, counted to 20 while the others scattered, and then opened fire.

That's what passes for entertainment in rural areas. In 12 years, your mate's blog is going to be much less smug, when she's talking about using her eyebrow tweezers to dig shot out of her DC's arses.

What a great thread! Thanks Kat

I've just come off Facebook as cannot bear some of the people on their - my supposed 'friends' who the only thing we have in common is that we have children. People who feel the need to sell a perfect brand to people in the hopes of intimidating them!

I'm a SAHM returning to 3days a week work in August - can't wait! - I'll be a better person I think.

'Mr Maker' does Arts and Crafts with my kids - any cakes they eat would be of the bought variety and the only play here is 'Free Play' - I do however do quite a bit of reading with them at bedtime, kiss them hundreds of times a day, tell them how great they are and I hope they will remember me for my love of dancing about to chart music with them while cooking them pasta

I live near the river and sometimes make my own bread and the other day I sewed a button back on.

[hands morloth 'mother of the week' award]

Ooh, can I get one too, Bariatric? I've made bread a couple of times. DD didn't actually touch it, but you know, I made it, so it definitely counts.

I agree with SmileysP. I could not live by the sea in England. Too sad-making.

Holidaying in Australia at beach house, no problem!

nickname - i made bread yesterday with dd and she loves it! do not bother me with your amateur attempst!

Oooh I love arts and crafts.

Yesterday my boys ran around the garden throwing mud at each other. Then DS1 painted DS2 green. While I was on MN.

This morning my daughter customised her duvet. With nail scissors. It now has holes. They're growing.

I'm perfect mum, me.

[pouts]

OP maybe she is a better mum than you, there's bound to be one somewhere, it's the law of averages. Bet you wouldn't have to look far to find some that were a sight worse than you either! Stop paying attention. There's always someone cleverer, richer, happier, thinner, more whateverer if you look for them. None of them make a jot of difference to you and your life.

(I'm on here, while ds's watch Disney XD. Maybe I'll suggest we all switch off and make scones and see what they think.......)

at first i thought you were envying me as i'm a beachside sahm meself, then i remembered i don't have a blog !

i find myself wishing i had a career and lived back in london where i'm not freezing my arse off in the north wind for 9 months of the year and had more people than just the odd retired yokel to talk to!

So right about the seaside Smileyspeepul Try Worthing in the winter. Less of an idyll, more of a hellhole.

I love this thread, it really cheers me up to know I am not the only sufferer of 'otherlifeenvy syndrome'

Ah the grass is always greener .

I am a SAHM as it wasn't financially worth me going back to work (childcare would cost more than what I could probably earn). I am a Childminder but at the moment I am only doing one day a week.

I often take DD out to toddler groups and the like. I was talking about it to my friend, who works part time (and feels very guilty for doing so) she sighed and said "oh you have such a lovely life getting to take [DD] out to groups and spend lots of time with her!' But the truth is...I would like to go to work. It would be so lovely sometimes to just have a break from 2 year old tantrums and constant mess of the house and worrying whether I am stimulating DD enough as I am not CMing today and I cant be arsed to paint, play, get the playdough out etc. I feel so guilty at times for thinking this as I love DD with all my heart and feel very grateful for the fact that I can be home with her.

Dawntigga is right. We beat ourselves up about our parenting too much.

My mum was SAHM too and I don't have many memories of her playing with me and if she did I would get annoyed with her as she didn't "play" right!

I often wonder if going to work would make me a better parent as it would make me appreciate the time that I have with DD more.

Oh and I can't bake, sew, knit to save my life .

I was brought up next to the sea in an area noted for its beauty. It was crap. No bank, no decent shops, no swimming pool, no decent bus service..... My main criterion for selecting where I live now is that it is in walking distance of M&S.

BTW the best childhood memory I have is when we used to go shopping in the city and have lunch, for some reason that always put Mum in a good mood, we had such a laugh together. I bet she hated living in the sticks too as she now lives 5 mins away from me (and even closer to M&S).

But surely brighton is reasonably lively all year round with the large student population and good range of shops? surely it is in a category of it's own?

agree with those who say bloggers have 'inflated sense of self' or 'vain'

dp says it is actually the other way round - as with the friend who rings you - asks disinterestedly how you are and then yacks for half an hour ' me - mine and some more about me' It is probably an attempt to actually convince themselves that their life is whacky and full...

those who have a great life are living it not blogging or photographing it

god how badly written - too tired to edit it sorry.

Never make a blogger me !

I leave the house at 0600 monday to friday and get home around 1800 when my DD age 4 and DS age 2 are having supper. They are always inordinately pleased to see me and demand stories and cuddles before bed which I find a great way to wind down. Weekends are family time and are sacrosanct. I cannot deny that I feel guilty that I spend so little time with them in comparison to other women (my sister and a lot of my school/university friends) but I know that I am a far better mother and wife being fulfilled at work as well as at home but that is purely personal. Everyone is different and what works for me is probably anathema to others. Do whatever makes you happy.

That froginthefield blog has got to be a piss-take, hasn't it?

Most blogs are artifice in my opinion. I reckon people sweep the clutter away to take the photographs and isn't it weird anyway to take photos of everything you make or eat?
Who has the time - I get 2 child free hours a day while the toddler sleeps and I can't keep on top of the chores (partly because I refuse to spend my only child free hours doing nothing but housework but that's another story!!).

God knows how these blogging yummy mummies find the time to grow/knit/bake/cook/weave their own and tell us all about it at the same time.

Artifice, I tells ya!!!

Blogging is like having friends rounds - you still shove the clutter in the nearest cupboard and share the dream, or like 'discussions' in the supermarket that would be full blown yelling in private.

It's edited and that's the point. Kids will always notice what they don't have... just like us adults so we just need to show them how to be happy

I live in the west of Ireland, 5 miles from the sea. If I tried to knit I would strangle myself so it can't be me.

Just remember that if your friend is English, ahe will always be seen, however kindly, as a 'blow-in'(it's not really a racist epithet, but tends to mean someone who doesn't know the identity of the second cousins of the person they are talking to).

That slightly off-centre relationship to a place in the community drives a certain percentage of people to try to be hyperauthentic, and could easily fuel that bloggish persona of someone at one with house, environment, children and universe.

If that's the case, her bubble will be ruptured between May and September because at some point every day someone will ask brightly 'Are you here on your holidays?'

I don't blog. Instead I busy myself with cod psychology.

At various times I've tried out different combinations of working and being at home and making any kind of switch always made me really anxious beforehand. There isn't one right way to do things as everyone here has shown.

We live in the countryside and actually although it prob is good for the dc it can be really hard for us adults, you just have a v different lifestyle to your old friend and it's easy to do the grass is always greener . . . I would agree her blog is prob to keep her sane, I think it sounds like you're doing great for your ds and you're just being too hard on yourself.