What do you think about "not doing anything" when children are at school/nursery?

[morningpaper]

My daughter's peers are starting nurseries ... and I'm finding myself really SHOCKED at the fact that my mummy-friends aren't doing anything with their time while their children are out of the home. I asked a friend last week what she did and she said "Oh I just get home, tidy up a bit, have a coffee - and then I have to pick him up again!"

As I work from home there is ALWAYS some work I can do. I also do voluntary work and could always do with more time to get stuff done.

I also don't understand why their partners are happy with them just taking 'mornings off' to themselves - aren't they a bit miffed?

I'm probably just jealous but I can't help but think that they are just plain lazy! What do other people feel about this?!

well he suggested.......just what will I do that earns his kind of money when i only have GCSE's and an A level?

Why are they reasonable questions to ask - and why is it reasonable to ask them in a way that gets people's backs up? What business is it of yours or anyone else's how people decide to live their lives, or why?

dinosaur - I work! part time.

Bugsy my situation wasnt really the same as I didnt know anyone down here. If I could have been a SAHM in London in might have been different.

A lot of competition down here if you are a SAHM....better to opt out and work!

MP, I don't mean your original question particularly, I just mean the way it developed with people having a go at each other.

WWWB: I apologised for upsetting people with my original post.

However we DID have a huge thread about how unfulfilling a lot of women found being a SAHM was. But there are a lot of women who are CHOOSING to extend that period of their lives. I'm therefore surprised that SO MANY of you really are finding it fulfilling in some way - which it appears from this thread that you are.

morningpaper the other thread was about emoticons, this one is about how you 'fill' that time in a practical sense. i think that is the difference

Add me to the lazy and loving it brigade.

My DD has even asked to go to after school club like her friends do and when I tell her she doesnt have to because mummy doesnt work anymore so I can collect her from school she gets cross and tells me to go back to work!

Im thinking of putting her in one day a week and extending the day doing nothing much at all

Jimjams, I don't know if sahms are more likely to get divorced. They are certainly less equipped for life after divorce that women who are earning in most cases though! I would find that worrying if I was a long-term sahm. I also think it's always better if you can to share with your partner and not polarise your roles too much. If I was a sahm, my dh would have to work harder and spend less time with the children. I want us both to share equally. I think as long as women want to be sahms, then men will never really get the opportunity to get more involved at home and with the children. I would think it's both parts intersts to share more evenly at home!

Fio: I don't think they are that different. For me being a SAHM is unfulfilling because it's based around housework and lack of adult company - which is why the minute my kids are at school I shall be filling every hour with work and adult company ...

oh fairymum that is such a nasty thing to write

sahms are less equiped for divorce, dont we all not want that to happen?

wellm morningpaper i agree, i crave adult company too

And my other point was that I think, from reading MN and from knowing sahms myself, that their lives are often monotone and clock-watching. I think in many cases working parents enjoy the time they spend with their children and have more energy for them and spend less time in front of the telly and so one. Of course you have the fantastic sahms who do plenty of things with their kids and the working mums who never see theirs. I know some really fullfillled sahms, but most of the ones I have met through toddler-groups spend an awful lot of time moaning about their Dh's not understanding their lives and watching telly with and without kids.

fio, emoticons?

Fio: Sadly it's true though. My own mum was divorced after 40 years of being a SAHM and she is now scraping by on a state pension in a small flat - not the happy married retirement she always dreamed of (partly why I have to keep working as she is now largely dependent on her children).

Haven't got time to read everything since I last posted but will come back to it later to see who fell out most vociferously. I tried to lighten the mood with my lovely poem...

One of the absolute givens of any parenting website is that any thread started by a WOTH parent asking about a SAHPs life, or vice versa, will end up with insults flying, danders rising, exchanges of cross words. Surely everyone knows this?

You can't speak for all SAHMs in one sweeping generalisation though, Fairymum.

Martha I AM a SAHM but definitely one that will work as soon as my children are out of the house....

Fio2, why is a nasty thing to write? Is it not reality? You haven't been earning for years, you have no pension? You don't expect your partner to provide for you after divorce? You children yes, sure, but not for you I am guessing? In fact, I actually think that sahms should be paid for the work they do and given points towards their pension, but ony for a few years while your children are really small.

Fio2, why is a nasty thing to write? Is it not reality? You haven't been earning for years, you have no pension? You don't expect your partner to provide for you after divorce? You children yes, sure, but not for you I am guessing? In fact, I actually think that sahms should be paid for the work they do and given points towards their pension, but ony for a few years while your children are really small.

pmsl ninah I have just lost the will to live

wigwambam, read my posts and i am not generalising at all.

(BK, I realised that MP is a SAHM but it was the only equivalent thread I could think of that fitted the implications)

MP I would be a bit stunned if my DH said that given that he earns over 5 times what I ever could. Somehow I doubt he'd want to take the drop in lifestyle but hey, I'd give it a go

I have read your posts and I'm sorry, but I see sweeping generalisations about what SAHMs are and what SAHMs do.

afraid in my circumstance my husband would have to pay for me after a divorce, sorry!

But anyhow I am in my mid 20's and I am planning on resuming some sort of a career, but this is not about me. Its about judging other women when it is none of your business. FWIW my Mother divorced my Father after 18 years and she got his pension