Is it possible to be fulfilled as a SAHM

[Prufrock]

Without getting all "self-actualised" , is there anybody who does actively enjoy being a SAHM, and if so, how can I?

It's not that I'm unhappy. I recognise that I am very lucky to have been able to make the choice to stay at home with my kids, and wouldn't change that choice. Working would be horrendous given the pressures of the only type of job I would enjoy doing as I'm kind of an all or nothing type person. But I am finding it quite difficult to get any real pleasure from being with my children all day.

We have a fairly full routine - toddler groups, classes, play dates. And I have a good "mummy" friend locally whose company I like. But whilst our days are pleasant, I can't say I really enjoy them - more like endure them. It feels like every activity I do with the kids is just done to tick of another hour before bedtime, and every day is just got through so I can tick of another day until the weekend. Then the weekend arrives, and it's not actually that special, and soon enough it's the beginning of another week......

I feel like I am coping very well with life as a SAHM - but I don't want to be coping. I want to be waking up each morning looking forward to spending another day with my two wonderful children, who I do love to bits. But insteadI get woken up each morning and I think "Ok, 12 hours to go, lets start filling them".

Please tell me - well something. I'm not sure if I do want to hear that this is normal and tha all over the country there are other women feeling like me, counting down the hours until their children are grown. But I'm also not sure if I want to hear that there is something wrong with me....

Agree, issymum. My mother was a "SAHM" but as well as looking after us she did EVERYTHING round the house (my father still wouldn't lift a cup off the table); kept hens and pigs; had two full-time lodgers for whom she cooked all meals; and did b&b in the summer. Oh, and she did all the standard things for then, like make jam, and chutney, and bread, and did all her own baking etc etc. I don't think music groups were really on the agenda

My mum was a SAHM and hated it. DIdn't really want kids so while she put the effort in with my sister as she had her very young, she gave up when I came round nearly 20 years later.

SHe cleaned the house, cooked dinner etc, but spent most days watching tv or sleeping, I think she was depressed looking back on it. I know she never took me to toddler groups etc, the first I saw of other children was nursery then school. When I was in reception class she came in 2 hours a week to help with reading (although that 'volunteering' was kind of pushed on parents) and never did anything with the school again.

She had a midlife crisis when I was 15, got a job had an affair etc.

I think part of the change goes along with the way that we cannot now let our children out of our sight.

My DM would not have been looking after us all day long as from about the age of 2 or so, I would have been outdoors playing with my sisters and other neighbouring children. We would have been sho'ed out from under her feet!

The two activities I do recall from my early childhood were the church coffee mornings (where the only child related activity was to play with other children) and the Tufty Club, where we learned to cross the road.

I did do dancing, brownies, piano lessons, etc when I was older, but not until I was 7 and deemed to be capable of getting there under my own steam. Piano lessons invoved changing buses twice

Helping out in the house was also important - from an early age it would be washing out the milk bottles, helping with baking, making a cup of tea, running errands to the corner shop.

I remember doing my brownies hostess badge at 7 YO and you had to lay a tray, make a cup of tea, serve it etc. Despite it being illogical I can't think of allowing my DD(nearly 7) to make a cup of tea for me yet!!!

I think today we feel we have to occupy our children all day long and have to ferry them around even when they are older. We feel more obligated to put our children first that our parents ever were. That inevitable brings stresses and strains along with it. Not to mention the time it consumes!

My Mum was like this too....but in those days that's what you expected and the expectations of others were different too-

1. few women worked unless they had to
2. if you didn't work then your work was looking after the home and the kids had to fit around it
3. you had your children earlier and hadn't ever had the personal freedom of owning your own property or earning a serious salary or travelling the world with only two pairs of nickers so you didn't miss the freedom.

There was no such thing as being a career mum i.e. dedicating yourself entirely to your childrens needs.

I spend my working days dreaming about being in the park with DS and the SAHM's I know often say to me 'you're so lucky...I feel I've lost my identity etc etc'....so who is content? Glad to read some of you are and sad to read some of your aren't. As for me...I know I expect too much from life...always have and probably always will.

For what it's worth I think we're doing a better job of being parents than our parents generation....maybe our children will be less practical as a result of our sensitivity and care but I reckon they'll be emotionally a whole lot stronger.

Oh not that word Issymum

Sometimes I too feel guilty that I don't like the SAHM bit, I really did expect to.

However, I am just so glad that I am in a position to choose whether to work or not. I cannot begin to imagine how stuffed full of ADs I would be if I were to have been forced by circumstances into being a SAHM.

I also think that those mums who have to work when they would prefer to be SAHMs have it much harder too!

Soapbox I agree with your post. My mother brought me up while running a shop and I must have spent most of my toddlerhood under the counter playing with coins or something ... I didn't interact with other children until school.

I'm not sure which generation will need the most therapy!

I went to a 'soft play' place this afternoon which made me think of this thread... If Dante had been a woman, this would definitely be one Level of Hell. I can't even leave my dd for one minute because she is so tiny that she is fathoms below in the ball pool if I turn my back for a minute. I was crawling after her through sticky tunnels, covered in food stains, my pregnant belly hanging obscenely out of my trousers, wondering how many different types of urine a forensic test would find at the bottom of the ball pit, and I really didn't enjoy it... I spent ten minutes talking to another mum I know (ignoring shouts of 'rescue me!' from the BABY area where my 2 year old was still managing to disappear beneath the waves of plastic balls) and basically that's what redeems the experience from being totally depressing for me, but it's definitely far from being personally fulfilling!

True Issymum.

Why ARE they always airless?!

The main problem is that dd LOVES them so much and I HATE them so much. When I suggested going today, for the first time in months she actually pooed herself with excitement (poo in pants, even less fun than soft-play areas).

It's the same as casinos, mp - no clocks, no windows. Nothing that might remind you that it's Nicer Outside.

absolutely pmsl at Snafu! Actually, I DON'T do all that 'entertain my children all day' stuff; I firmly believe they need to learn to entertain themselves, be bored, hang about, watch telly, and most of the time all I think dd (18mos) wants is to be with me. Sure, she likes the farm and the zoo and the park - ah, I said I don't do anything but obviously I do! I do these things rather than structured activities but mainly so we get out of the house and she gets worn out, so it's mostly in aid of a good nights sleep - but she's also happy pottering in the garden or looking at her books or being at a friend's house. I even managed to read the paper cover to cover once last week as she waddled about after some ducks. I think for me it's adult company I miss but I can't face group activities to get it and I really need to meet some people who are on my wavelength. I love this thread, it's my favourite for ages. Soapbox, I think your point about expectations is so true - I expected to be in a good professional job by now and for it to fulfil me and challenge me and provide us with a good life but actually, I spend a lot of my day with a child who can't yet speak, and some of the rest of it doing chores.

Do you think that it's actually our fault then? If we didn't take them to soft play/music classes etc but just integrated them into the things we need to do, along with a healthy dose of ignoring (just like our mothers did), everyone might be happier?

I would be perfectly happy never to work again...but only if I win the lottery and have a nice daily housekeeper/nanny and lots of spending money too..... (aloha wakes with a start from pleasant fantasy...)

I do think lots of us - and I definitely inclulde myself in this - do get our knickers in an awful twist about never letting the little blighters just 'be' for an hour or so.

If I think back to my own childhood, my happy memories aren't of the interminable (and frankly torturous) ballet/piano classes that my mother sent me to but rather of the 'downtime' spent just playing, reading, imagining, etc etc etc. So I think we can make rods for our own backs desperately trying to cram in lots of 'activities' when actually it's the other stuff that kids remember and probably get just as much - if not more - out of.

My mother was really shocked that mothers today don't use "pens". She asked me how I was ever going to get anything done? She made all her own jam, marmalade, chutney, mayonaise, baking etc etc. She made all our clothes apart from trousers. She had a manky old twintub washing machine & still used a mangle for nappies. (I am only 36 just in case anyone thinks I must be 60!) There is no way she could have been entertaining three children as well.
A mother's role has definintely changed.

Prufrock, how are you and what do you think of this thread? Bugsy, I read your post thinking pens? pens? Why do you need a pen? and then realised you mean a playPEN. That's how fried my brain is

i couldn't work out what the pens were for either. for making lists of things to make I thought. but we have computers...

Frankly amazed at how many of you do the toddler gropu/singing/drama/Tumble Tots/coffee morning stuff. And yes www,I hate the fucking park although not as much as I hate those bloody soft play areas.

I don't do any of that stuff with my two (well,very rarely) as I feel that noone is listening to anyone else,they're just all droning on about how well their kids sleeps/walks/talks or else going into mind numbing detail about their dietary habits,bowel movements or funny little ways.
Yaaaaaaaaaaawn.......

Actually,living in remote Eastern Turkey now, couldn't do those things if I tried as I doubt baby gymnastics is high on the list of priorities for the average Kurdish family of ten....

I like someone's point about making the whole sahm thing a 'project'. I am useless with babies,and I gave up a 'good' job to come here to be with my dh (prior to this was at home alone with dd and working f/t. An absolute killer.
I actually quite enjoy my own company,so days spent at home are ok for the moment. This isn't my 'real' life so I don't do loads of housework or cook. Cost of living here is so low we eat out every day (and the food is great) A daily Turkish lesson keeps my mind ticking over. I think what gets me most is the noise and the mess. I am one of those who likes peace to think and read..

I've now been off work for a year and come September will have to do something. Probably an MSc in my field.
What 'fulfills' me at present is resumption of my patchwork and quilting. Thus even if I've done nothing but sit in all day with my kids,I've also completed another square of my opus!

snafu, that's the thing - my happiest memories are always of helping my parents (but especially my mum) do things - cooking, gardening, shopping, washing the car etc. My mum certainly never frazzled herself trying to get us all from A to B and wouldn't have set foot in a soft play centre - far too sensible . But she made a mean chutney and read a broadsheet cover to cover every day.

Oh God, I'd die if I couldn't read a broadsheet every day. Top priority...