If you've given up work outside the home to be with the kids, are you happy with the decision?

[jeangenie]

Has anyone on here given up work to stay at home with the kids, even though it meant a financial struggle? How do you feel about the decision now?

(am considering this at the moment,trying to make myself hold back until I'm certain, but finding it hard to restrain myself this morning for some reason...)

This contributing to society bit - all parents whether working or SAH contribute to society by raising their children.

By me not working the last three years I have contributed to society by allowing my Dh to work long hours ( in the police service) and do his job. I didn;t see him for weeks after the London tube bombings - he was contributing to society by being on the team detecting these bombings and I was contibuting my keeping the household and family together and being there for the children.

' think that if you have a salaried job then alot of your emotonal and mental 'disc space' is already taken up by the time the childen get to have some.
By keeping my head clear for my children I can concentrate better on them.'

Do you think you can tell the difference between children and adults who have had SAHMs and those who haven't. I really don't think you could find any more cared for kids than mine. Although I do paid work, I am there at the school gates morning and afternoon, I help the children get changed for swimming, I help with homework. I think the only way you could tell my dds have a mum who works as a teacher is that dd1 knows all my colleagues, is familiar with my workplace, already has aspirations to go to college and get a job, does not see child-care or paid work as gendered, etc etc. Not saying SAHMS don't have these aspirations but children naturally use their parents as role models ...

Also, this assumption that SAHMs are better mums because they SAH is absolutely wrong. In fact, I'm sure I've read that WOHMs are more likely to spend quality time with their kids because it's limited while I know there are lots of SAHms (not all not even the majority) who spend all their time putting the kids in front of the box or give them to granny while they clean. I also see lots of young mums in the town centre ignoring their kids in pushchairs eating sweets for hours on end because they've got nothing else to do. I'm not saying all SAHMs are like this just that being a SAHM doesn't automatically make you a good parent.

i had dinner last night with 4 other SAHMs. i am the only one without an MBA. none of us is planning to go back to work until the littlest is in school and even then, no one is sure they will go back. two of us are sure we wont work out of home again if we can help it!

what do we do all day? well, rolled around with ds on floor- 1hr

feeding ds 1hr

making supper for dh 30mins

general laundry, housework- 2hrs (possibly)

shopping for clothes and xmas presents 3hrs

surfing net- 1hr

chatting on phone to mother and friends 45mins

studying spanish 45mins

getting ds to nap 40 mins

bathing ds and putting to bed 45mins (if lucky)

the pace of my life is slow. so what? the days fly by happily. i love my work at home like i loved teaching, but i am very grateful that i have the choice not to have to do both.

My dh earns the money for our family. he certainly doesnt see it as his, but ours. i buy whatever we need and i would be shocked if he questioned me.

it seems that the negative views expressed about SAHMs here are about when things go wrong, or extreme cases of mothers overprotecting/ becoming depressed/ etc etc... this can happen with all different sorts of mothering. I respect WOHMs. there are benefits to both. but please dont put my lifestyle or choices down.

'B&WC, so you don't think by concentrating solely on brinnging up your children in the belief tht you can have a better quality of life and be a better parent, therefore providing society with more rounded, useful and responsible members that you are not contributing as well as those who work?'

Not unless your kids are pre-school because otherwise you are doing nothing that I'm not doing as a working mum. And unless you're doing voluntary work etc etc while your kids are at school and you are not with them you are making no contribution to society. You cannot be actively parenting without your kids being with you.

OMG, read the thread Eggnog, I have never put SAHMS down. I have said many times that this a perfectly fine choice as long as you're happy with it. All I've said is that if your kids are at school in the hours that they are at school and you are at home you are not contributing to society. Where's the controversy?

B&WC said ' Not saying SAHMS don't have these aspirations but children naturally use their parents as role models ... '

What if you had a long and good a career before having children , does it make you a bad role model because you choose not to have one after children ?

My Mum never worked - she was a caring mother thats my role model .

there are other role models that children have like teachers !

being a SAHM is not solely about actively parenting. when ds is asleep i study spanish. today i spent a lot of time on the phone as a friend's sister has died suddenly. as i have more spare time than most i was able to do stuff others couldnt do. i went out for coffee with a friend who is a little depressed, i hope chatting helped her feel a bit less isolated in a new country. blah blah blah. SAHMs actively contribute to society all the time. when i was teaching it was the SAHMs who came on school trips to help. to suggest we have no role outside helicoptering round our kids is insulting. we are the invisible glue inside society doing thousands of small invisible little jobs that actively contribute. you seem to feel strongly negative towards us, why? i have no probs with WOHMs

What I'm doing is not making myself more tired than I am by doing a paid job, so that when I am with my children I am not tired from work. The majority of working mums cannot be there at the school gates, cannot go to assemblies etc. I see them dropping their kids off at school, rushing off, leaving their children lookinf lost frankly. I remember very clearly as a child really resenting the fact that my teacher mother could not hang around in the playground with me, could not come to the appropriate assemblies and do all the other things that the sahms could.
It's a simple fact that if you work, even if your children are at school there are many times when they will need you during school hours, often for very incidental things. I would prefer that I could always be there for those things. If I worked , even within school hours, I could not.

eggnogg - your kid(s) are still at home, so fair enough. You're busy enough and if you're lucky get a bit of me time too. But how about when they reach school-age, how will you feel the school hours and feel fulfilled then?

fill the school hours even! Maybe i should SAH and have more rest (and i mean that sincerely, mentally as much as anything from all the rushing!)

I only came on this thread once, and I'll not be coming on again, as I've been reading further and am beginning to find some of it incredibly upsetting.
kittyschristmascrackers. 'It is my own opinion that mothers who work cannot give of themselves in the way that sahms can.' Yes, it's your opinion, fine, and no I don't want to stop anyone posting their own opinion because it might upset me, etc. etc. bla bla. But do you know what I go through, and do you know how I tear myself apart for my ds, and do you know how much I would love not to have to work for the next couple of years.
I'm off, I'm clearly not robust enough for this.

Mummydear, you are so right.
I resent the fact that my mum worked. I would have much more respect for her if she had deicated more trime to being a mother.
It's a strange assumption that the only role model worth aspiring to is one that can draw a salary

My Dh was all for me to go back to work this September , the first week the children were at school , DS2 had hospital appoitmnet , cat had to be taken to vet for operation and then post op care, car broke down and had to be relayed to garage. I did all these things whilst DH went off to work and never had to worry about a thing.

Not saying that this happens every week but who else is going to do the running around , bloody nightmare if you're working .

olittletown... the mothers I am talking about here are those who have a choice but still chose to work. Those that have to work have to work.

oh berolina, I feel for you! It's horrible, isn't it? If you've recently gone back, I promise you it does get easier, but the guilt always lurks, unfortunately, no matter how keen you are you work

Oh right, fine then, I'm a cr*p mother but get dispensation because I can't help it. Hallelujah.

'It's a simple fact that if you work, even if your children are at school there are many times when they will need you during school hours, often for very incidental things.'

How totally bizarre. If my kids needed me during school hours i.e. if they were ill I'd be there. Actually my dd's school is 10 mins walk from my work. How else could I possibly 'be there' for my kids during school hours. The teachers would treat any mum who just turned up to see their kids as a crazy loon.

I never said that

Sorry RTTH, that was to kitty, not you. - I've been back since ds was 5 months, but work at a uni so am at home a fair bit, especially in semester breaks, so I'm lucky in that way, I know I am - but I sometimes feel like I'm trying to sah and woh at the same time iykwim.

well, I'm one of those mums as I dn't "have " to work but have chosen to for my sanity/future life post-preschool and independence. I'm not saying being a SAHM can't give those things, but not sure such a life could for me. Not wise to condemn others for choosing a very different life from your own, they're not necessarily making yr parents' mistakes. You can also be damn sure that you'llbe making mistakes that your parents didn't make too! Such is life.

No, you didn't say that I personally am a cr*p mother. But you did say that IYO wohms are inferior mothers to yourself.

so b&wc I take it your job allows you to leave at anytime your children mught need you during the day, assemblies, school trips etc?

i dont know yet, but my mother didnt work when we went to school. she was always busy doing stuff, bit of voluntary work, coffee with friends, the house, whatever. if i get bored then i will get a job.

we are all different, my WOHM friends say they could never be me. they think they would get bored etc... but i dont. i took a year off before i got married and happily pottered about during the days. i had worked so damned hard the previous 10 years i enjoyed the break.

I can't speak for kitty, but I think some of us (me certainly) were taking issue with the suggestion from b&wc that SAHMs are contributing nothing to society and that we are defined only by the paid work that we do. I find that offensive and hurtful, personally, although it's far from the first time I've heard it.

It's awful that people are getting hurt AGAIN on this, be it SAHMs who feel belittled or WOHMS who feel slated. I'm bowing out of it too, it's going the way these threads always do.

crossed wires! My message was for kitty.