OOh you SKIVING CUPCAKE BAKING SAHMS....read this

[HoorayHenry]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article5484714.ece

That sounds like a nightmare NBN. I thought the mums at our school (SW London) were very involved but they're nowhere near that bad.
And can you imagine the outrage it would cause here if children from ordinary comprehensives were barred from taking A levels?

Sounds like my worst nightmare Nighbynight. In the UK, that might describe a certain Surrey-type SW London SAHM?

Why are Bavarians so wealthy?

oops, lyra!

Really, we're nowhere near that bad.

Haven't read the article yet but just wanted to point out that Hassled Many women ARE forced to SAH due to prohibitively expensive childcare costs.

I don't have the choice

You still sound a bit chippy Nighbynight - you are probably imagining that they are judging you. I can't comment too specifically on your situation however, since I am not experiencing it

You'd hate me .My dh earns well so I'm a SAHM with 2 school age children, a cleaner and a gardener. I don't spend ages running in and out of school getting uber involved and setting the bar high as you put it (because I can think of better things to do - I spend a lot of time studying.. personal development rather than economic imperative). I am on the PTA however (so shoot me!)

How others live their lives is of little interest or concern to me so I don't judge other parents.

I have come across this theme a few times on mumsnet - deriding affluent SAHMs who have 'help', caricatured variously as lazy / gym bunnies / trophy wifes. It's vaguely amusing but a bit hackneyed now (bit like Janice Turner's article). Nothing will dissuade me that in general (perhaps you have grounds for your animousity) this attitude is motivated by craven jealously. That's quite understandable, if I wasn't me I'd be jealous too

Stepford, I don't think Nighbynight is jealous (though I can see why you might like to believe that). It is not the first time I have heard the Bavarian experience described in this light.

I wanted to be a SAHM, my 'career' never meant that much to me and I wanted to be a traditional wife and mother. If that makes me a lesser woman, so be it.

Idleness??? I wish, with 2 under 18 months I'm not often idle and I've never made a cupcake.

I do however change hundreds of nappies, make up hundreds of bottles and also try to keep the home semi tidy.

My DP is German, I must ask him about SAHM's, MIL has not worked since she married AFAIK but I thought that was generational, as a rule I don't look to MIL as a role model though

I wasn't personalising it to Nighbynight's experience I said "that in general (perhaps you have grounds for your animousity) this attitude is motivated by craven jealously"...although for the record, the Bavarian mothers seem harmless enough from the description given here.

No, in fact it was more attitudes like the one you promulgated about certain Surrey SAHMs....

I'm intrigued rather than perplexed - what other motivation could there be for snidey attitudes about this particular lifestyle other than envy ...or perhaps self doubt? Enlighten me.

I suppose we all have our prejudices. I have a few of mine own which I might be tempted to share....

'my own'

Apologies, Blueshoes, I forgot to ask - why would I "want to believe that" ?

I choose to be a SAHM

That article is COMPLETE BOLLOCKS

This article doesn't bother me quite as much as it seems to bother most of you.

Yes, she focuses on high earners but she's also focusing on 'choice' and to be honest it's only really high earners who have a genuine choice (although it works if also married to a high earner).

I am certainly sympathetic to the view that my job which i studied two degrees to get and love dearly is more attractive to me than a minimum wage job in a supermarket would be. I don't know yet how long i will SAH but i know i would want to SAH longer if i had a minimum wage drugergy job i hated.

The thing that DOES drive me mad in the article is the idea that a 'high flying' woman who wants to WOH can't have a few months Mat leave to recover from birth and breast feed their child... it doesn't matter how many nannys and cleaners you have, the two things that only the mother can do is give birth and breastfeed. I think it is every mother's duty regardless of job or other choices to try to do those two things.

Why are there never articles about stay at home dads written by men????
You don`t read men slagging each others choice off

At our school there are at least 5/6 SAHDs just on the infant school

women are their own worst critics

blueshoes, surrey is an awfully big county with a wide variety of people - bit harsh to lump us all together...

When i worked in a car insurance call center if a man called himself a SAHD they were put down as unemployed. If a woman was a SAHM she was a homemaker, but then that was 5yrs ago, might have changed.
The computer also did not recognise that people could change from MR to MRS and that some people could be over 100yrs old and still drive...yes they are out there!

stepford - people who have too little to do (not all SAHMs obviously), can be very irritating to others, by focussing on trivia, that is another reason.
the problem where I live, is that the yummy mummies are present in such large numbers that they up the average, which makes my life harder, because I look worse in comparison. They are utterly oblivious to this, and judge me as though I had the same amount of time as they do.

As for the judging - these people are not english! Bavarian people tend to say it how it is and I have had loads of crap, to which I tend to reply ever more shortly.

There are other women here who work full or part time, and we can laugh and exchange war stories about the yummy mummies sometimes. Some of the stuff they come out with is unbelievable.

blueshoes - I think it is the ratio of high wages in the tech industries to affordable housing that allows so many of them to stay at home while their husbands work. It is the same ratio that allows me, as a single mother of 4, to work full time.

nighbynight, at your raising your 4 dcs singlehandedly

As for Bavarians being blunt, the person who said that she does not hold it against you that you are divorced must take the cake. It shows a certain parochial outlook.

I can understand why you are irritated. It is far easier for me to tune this sort of thing out as I am not at the schoolgates much. And the school I chose for dd is far more friendly to working parents than the prep next door that likes to close their school from noon time on a Friday at a moment's notice!

Your experience in Bavaria is an extreme stereotype, verging on caricature. I am fully prepared to take lyra and thumb's word that Surrey is not like that .

Stepford, I see you weren't directing your 'jealous' comment to nighby. That would make sense because it seemed to me quite a leap to extrapolate from nighby's extreme experience to her being jealous. Hence my musing (wrongly it seems) that you yourself have issues.

Just read the article. That JT is truely a first class arsehole. Anyone who abandons a 5 day old baby to trot back to work shouldnt be having babies. 5 days after my section it still took me half hour to walk to the toilet, then again im just lazy. Sorry must rush, got to get back to my cupcakes....

dati has now been 'sacked' though, hasn't she?

I have to say, although I agree with you all, one little comment did strike a chord. Dh and I were both in the army - when I got pg I left as there was no way I was going to risk being deployed for 6 months and leave my child, and as we came to Germany soon afterwardsa, I have been a SAHM for 5 years. But sometimes I feel v pissed off that we were once equal as colleagues and now I have no professional status in the organisation that I still have to live amongst. And yes, I do resent sometimes him going to work for 12 hours a day while I deal with the children, as much as I love them.

What I don't get is why we've all been brainwashed into thinking working is good ?
Surely no matter what you do for a living the idea is to pay off the mortgage, raise the kids, collect your pension and then do as little as possible for "paid employment" until you die.
I loved my job, but I will love painting, gardening and BAKING for my grandchildren if not my children more.
All this crap about my career defines me, if that's true you need to get a life.