Feeling guilty for staying at home.

[lilly72]

I am currently feeling very guilty about not going back to work as my daughter is a year old. I find myself justifying why I stay at home and that I find it very satisfying and fulfilling. I am looking for part time work in the evenings for financial reasons, but feel that I am not doing the best for my daughter by staying at home with her. Lots of other Mums have suggested putting her in nursery for stimulation, suggesting not enough with me!

well said slug and sluglet is very lucky to have a mummy like you!

Azzie, I wasn't trying to say that all mums should stay at home with their kids. I have many friends who admit they simply would not be fulfilled. I have to admit feeling that way myself at times!. I just get very defensive when it feels that staying at home with the kids is not valued at all. There seem to be so many initiatives aiming to make it easier for women to return to work ( I appreciate these are not widespread but at least the idea is there) but very few making it easy for women to stay at home. I hate it when people ask me what I do since I imagine they think I'm lazing around doing nothing. And anyone who says I'm lucky I can afford not to work! My partner is a teacher earning around 30k. We have a 95k mortgage, live in London and have two kids to support. You do the maths!I have chosen not to work because i enjoy being with my children and I am happy to make the many sacrifices (no car, one week's holday in the U.K a year and 6 nights out a year-no I'm not kidding!. So why, when people ask me what I do am I embarrassed and usually say I am a primary school teacher ( my job before motherhood)

Joben, why just women?

That's what people sometimes object to.

Why do people use the holiday/car thing as an example of what they have "given up"?

Thanks Bluestar and Jasper.

Droile why did you miss your Mum when she was working? Did you have a Dad around? Did he work and if so what's the difference?

Joben I do know what you mean. I think sometimes that men take on feminism and make it work to their own advantage, just to suppress us further. The media would now have us as some kind of superwomen race, able to sustain loving relationships with our partners, hold onto brilliant careers, have babies and then go back to those brilliant careers whilst being the perfect doting mum and partner. Being a housewife and mother no longer seems to be enough, we must have a career too, or at least a career plan, or an education, we can't just stay at home and look after the children can we! God forbid no! What was women's rights all about eh? To stay at home being the little wifey? No skill in that is there? Yes we should do whatever we want, but there is no denying that there is increasing pressure put on mothers by the government and media to work after childbirth.

jbr, unfortunately that is how people are judged. I am a SAHM and have been keeping out of this but don't think Joben was wrong to list these things as sacrifices. I know some Mums work just to make ends meet but many work to be able to afford extras/luxuries, at the end of the day it is all about choices. I personally feel privileged to be able to stay at home with my children, although alot of the time I don't feel cut out for it but I wouldn't want to change it.

Rhubarb, very much agree with you on this, why is staying at home to look after children not a valid choice? Women's rights or no women's rights.

Joben, I too get very annoyed when people don't value the job that a SAHM does - I think that I would find it a lot harder work than the job I now do. Handling even the most difficult of my clients is a doddle compared to dealing with a militant 2 year old in full flow .

I confess I am always puzzled when I hear it said people don't value what a stay at home mum 0r Dad does.
I can honestly say I have NEVER heard this view expressed. In fact I have heard the opposite view expressed far more often, ie when people hear you are a stay at home parent ( I do lie sometimes ) they treat you like some kind of a sainted species!
Maybe I have just been lucky.

I too am a bit perplexed by it Jasper. All the women in my DH's family stay/stayed at home with their kids and they are roundly applauded for it. I generally find myself sheepishly confessing to the fact that I work and always stress that it is only 4 days a week. I guess though it depends who you come in contact with as older generations are probably more condemnatory while younger generations are the opposite.

I was made to feel quite bad recently when I met a woman with 2 children the same age as mine who had given up her career as a lawyer to stay at home (although her employer offered her a 3 day week). She and her hubbie eat M&S meals 5 nights a week becasue she said she would be "compromising" the quality of her childcare if she cooked while she was looking after them (she also does absolutely no cleaning for the same reason). Eek - I'm not even willing to sacrifice my nightly nosh up for my children let alone my job!!!!.

Rhubarb, it isn't being "super" though, it's what men would call normal.

However, I know women who didn't/don't work because they have pigs of men who think that tidying up is still a woman's "job" and if they did work, they wouldn't have much time to tidy up and their partners wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't even want to go out with someone like that, much less settle with them.

As I've said before, we've got to take the gender issue out of this. However, there are still people who think that at a certain age, children need a woman ie their mother to be physically there and Dad shouldn't get involved until later on.

That nasty "full time mothers" organisation keep saying it's a "child's need" to have their mother there and anything else is PC gone mad!

cor Bells, your lawyer acquaintance sounds a bit neurotic! Most of us enjoy preparing food, at least sometimes (ok it would be good if we always choose when exactly) but she sounds as if she has set herself some pretty stringent rules re "childcare". I can't even imagine describing looking after my own children as "childcare".

JBR, my dad died when I was little. I missed him too, but there was nothing to be done about that. When I say I missed my mum when she was at work, I mean I missed them both. Why did I miss her? What a question! Because I loved her, she was the centre of my universe and I felt insecure without her. Kids are little creatures who have just come into the world - they need their parents. I think there's a kind of imprinting that's genetically programmed to ensure the survival of the species. If we didn't give a monkeys who we were with in the first few years, it would all go pear-shaped.

Jbr, thinking again about your question, re the men/women thing, I think Kids just miss their primary caretaker. Since this is usually the mother, that's the one they focus on most. Another example of men doing b....r all! When I was 5, I went to live with my grandparents 200 miles away, so it was bye-bye mummmy altogether, except for the couple of times a year that she visited. My grandparents didn't leave me with anyone else, but if they had, I'm sure I would have missed them equally, as they were both full time 'parents' to me.

You haven't answered me Jbr, and I've waited ages.

Droile, may be wrong but I got the impression Jbr has disappeared too, everything is getting a bit weird!

Apologies Jbr, I've just noticed you posting on another thread on the 15th, sorry!

All you SAHM?s ? I had a taste of what you mean at the weekend. Went to a dinner hosted by one of my husband?s colleagues and we took our 2 children with us and put them to bed when we got there. I was chatting to one of the women?s husbands and he asked if my son went to Nursery. When I said that he went between 9 ? 12 5 days a week, his response was ?So I guess you get to sleep for 3 hours every morning then?. Leaving aside the automatic assumption that because I had children I didn?t work, I was amazed that he thought that a 10 month old baby wouldn?t interfere just a teensy bit with a three hour nap and that even if you only had one child, that housework, laundry, food shopping etc wouldn?t impinge either. Extraordinary!!.

bells2, amazing isn't it? Well, I've now had a taste of what you do too, started working yesterday (after 4 years as a SAHM) and blimey, you all have my complete admiration. It's a nightmare!

WWW - tell us more!

Hi Jbr! Glad to have you back.
I'm listening.

Bells2 and all you other working outside the home parents, this is why I think it's a nightmare and well done to all of you!

Yesterday morning I got up, persuaded ds to get dressed (having helped him choose night before but still a small performance), got his breakfast, had a shower, opened post, paid bill over the phone that was getting very red, called woman who is organising b.castle for ds's birthday party, told her I'd lost the acceptance slip, got her address again, put £5 deposit in envelope, got ds to run to postbox 2 doors along while I watched him, got all lunches out of fridge x 3, ate a banana very fast, called my step sister to say happy birthday, got in car with ds, realised no petrol, filled up, dropped him as fast as pos at school, collected form from school that needed completing, got to work. That was easy peasy. Left work in a rush, worrying about whether I'd get to school on time today (dp was collecting yesterday), got home, went shopping for fruit, bread, boring things, bought birthday invitations, wrote all 30 of them, spoke to sister, ate, got ds in bath and hairwashed, chose clothes for today for him, went out, bought stamps and delivered birthday invitations, read ds a story, kissed him a million times, put clean washing away, filled in school form, put another load on, washed up, put new loo rolls in loos, made packed lunches x 3, asked dp to get me wine, realised about to run out of loo roll, picked up toys from floor, drank said wine, came on mumsnet, talked to dp for an hour about whether to have a baby or not, went to bed. Aaagghhhh! And when I got to school today the teacher said: Did you realise there's a book bag he's supposed to take home every day and read with you? No!!! I didn't, so will have to remember that today too.

And I only have one child who is generally quite cooperative and I only work part time so I reckon I've got it really easy compared to others. Also dp usually helps a lot but was out last night. The work's easy, the logistics are a pain. Phew, feel better now! Have to go or I'll be the only mummy not there bang on time. And we need coffee and washing up liquid!

Crumbs WWW, I got exhausted just reading it. It is difficult to squeeze all the household/child related chores into just a few hours every evening (let alone the fun bits) no doubt about it. Hope your partner is pulling his weight.