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?!

Jimjams - yes my personal favourite in wind up comments is "I couldn't be a SAHM because I'd be bored stiff" ie. I am so intelligent and you're a bit dumb if you can watch tweenies all day. Its a totally patronising attitude not to mention complete bollocks!

agree with scummy and tigermoth - great posts, agree with every word.

and pinkfluffpudding agree with your point. life with small children is b**y hard work whether you woh or sah. since, like tm, i have no choice but to work, when will i get the "reward" i "deserve"? i.e.a few hours on my own every day?

Haven't read whole thread but can see it is very heated!!!!
I was a full time sahm for 4 years, and went back to supply teaching 2 days a week last year...by choice.
I relished every moment of being at home, and when ds2 starts school full time in Sept I will continue to work only 2 days a week ,OUT OF CHOICE.
Yes I will be using the other 3 days to go to the gym, read , catch up with friends and family, and I don'tfeel guilty at all. I will also use the time to clean, keep house, run errands for self and others. I am lucky to have a dh who supports me in this, and I in no way feel I am wasting the 4 years I spent at university doing my B.ed.
Instead I feel incredibly lucky to have the best of both worlds, and can not understand the opinions of those who feel we should be obliged to fill every second of our day with something worthy. As a result of my family choices, I feel a more relaxed Mom, Wife , and person. This has a direct effect on my family who benefit from this.
Feel like I am defendindg my choice here, but in fact I feel no need to. My family are happy, and that is all that matters.

Good post, spykid.

I know things have become heated at times on this thread, so I've lurked about a bit

The last few posts have made very good points. I especially liked Gobbledigook 'looking after one 1yr old is nothing like looking after 3 under 4!' My goodness me HOW TRUE! Going from one to three closed down tons of 'choices', if you want to call them that for me. A friend I have that still has one, has far more freedom of choice and flexiblilty (and sanity!) than I do. It's just an observation though - don't want to kick this off again!

Re the "I'd be bored if I stayed at home" remark, someone said that to me recently and I quoted my extremely irritating French teacher at her. "Only boring people are ever bored". It was also a favourite of that hideous girl's magazine, Jackie (anyone remember that?!)

Stopped the conversation stone dead.

Agree Caligula - if you find it boring all the time then I think you are seriously lacking in imagination.

All 'jobs' have some times of boredom but it's no more boring and tedious than working outside the home imo. I think you just have to get out there and meet people - of course it's boring if you stay in all day talking to nobody but your child.

Well I confess to having been bored to tears when I had a spell at home.

Fairly happy to accept that I may be a boring person though

The only think I would want to do if I wasn't working was travelling and with a DH at work and children at school there isn't much chance of doing that for a few years yet.

OTOH, I have just worked out that I only spend 11 hours less per week with my children than SAHM's would do. With holidays and bank holidays etc I am able to spend half the holidays with them too. So I now feel much better that I am not depriving my DCs too much by choosing to WOTH

Ooooh Caligula! Jackie magazine! You've just taken me right back to the 70's and spookily the Saturday fix of Dr Who is still on. Agree, Jackie was pants, unfortunately my mum thought My Guy was a bit too racey and so I was stuck with bloomin' Jackie (at home at least).

Vis a vis this whole working versus stay at home boredom thing. I think if you chuck yourself into being at home 100% it can be rewarding. I've done both since having my boys and neither is stimulating all the time. I spent this afternoon, for instance, doing the Hokey Cokey in a primary school hall. All in the name of work. The real Hokey Cokey as in dance, not the white powdered chemical kind.

but there si a difference between people who have children under 4 not at school obviously working in the home and people who have chool aged children who do not volunteer in any capacity.

what do you do whilst your kids are at school? and is this a justifyable reason for being bored to tears?

the boredom argument and you must be a boring person comment - i can see your point when refering to under school aged children becuase you could paint with them and do ABC's and jigsaws and lots of things. does this still apply if your kids are at school and you go home after dropping them off? i admit i do find the concept of defining your own self worth on your children hard to grasp.

But why should there be this automatic assumption that being at home = being bored? I don't know about you, but I've got loads of books I haven't read yet, a radio which teaches me masses about stuff I would never find out about if I was working in an office (recent programmes have discussed among other things, Shakespeare, the idea of beauty as truth, starting with Plato and working through mediaeval and Victorian ideas on aesthetics, wonderful, moving stories about ordinary people who lived through the war, Hans Christian Andersen's approach to re-inventing folk tales, From Our Own Correspondent, Reza Aslan on the need for an Islamic Reformation; I could go on and go through the Radio 4 schedule, but I think I've made the point;) how can I possibly be bored with all that to listen to? To say nothing of the books I have - I'm currently in the middle of a Jane Austen biography and an examination of the role the transatlantic slave trade played in the growth of capitalism. Not to mention the videos and DVD?s of films I haven?t got round to watching, plus Mumsnet of course, and the papers ? what is this boredom of which you speak? I simply am not familiar with it. The only boring bit of my life, is when I have to tear myself away from Mumsnet and Woman?s Hour, and get on with doing my paid job! I really honestly do not understand why people assume that other people should be bored to tears in their own home, and why being at home is defining yourself by your children. I don?t think I do that at all, but I certainly don?t define myself by my paid job either. Frankly, I find it gets in the way of listening to the radio and reading.

With you on the R4 thing Caligula although the afternoon plays can get a bit silly.

Ooh, at that point I switch off - 45 minutes to concentrate on earning my living!

Caligula - I'll try to explain but I know I'm going to find it hard to articulate.

I didn't find listening to radio and reading did it for me because it was a bit too vicarious. Like living life through other peoples experiences rather than my own.

I don't want to listen or read in a passive way as to what other people think, I want to be in the middle of the debate putting my views into the discussion.

If I'm being recklessly candid - and I confess it is a bit egotistic - I want to be the person who people are listening to, not the listener

I'll now wait for the droves to descend on me for daring to admit to having an ego

Soapbox, that's perfectly valid - but for most mothers, the jobs open to them which fit in with seeing enough of their children to be acceptable to them, don't allow their voices to be heard. They consist of doing something someone else has told them to.

(That's not just jobs for mothers, thinking about it. That's lots of jobs, for everyone. Until you get to a very high position in a company or are self-employed, how many jobs genuinely give workers a voice? Most of my working life was spent pretending to agree with the boss and toe-ing the company line, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be promoted).

And keep boosting that ego!

It's ok to have an ego soapbox we've all got one, but I learn far more from listening to radio 4 or reading than by talking myself

Not going to descend on you at all Anyone with the name soapbox must have an ego, unless it refers to a love of washing

I like listening to things like The Moral Maze. Yes, it is a bunch of people putting forward their opinions and ideas but I find it helps me as I usually hear an opinion or viewpoint that hadn't occurred to me. I love R4 and a dose of Virgin now and then to hear Mr Blue Sky.

I love to learn new things R4 in particular does it for me.

It's interesting, though, I can understand you POV Soapbox, I often feel I'm hibernating atm and occasionally think I should go and get a "proper" job.

But then I look at how easy, stress-free and ordered my life is, and how happy my kids are, and know it's not worth upsetting the apple-cart. Plenty of time to get out there later, when my kids don't need me as much and I'm older and wiser (hopefully).

So - do you all shout at the radio too then

I have to say that one of my most fulfilling and enjoyable jobs was a temp data entry job where we could bring in a walkman. Worked my way through most of the unabridged talking books in the library those couple of months

Hmm, maybe I shouldn't confess that .

I do wonder to some extent whether part of it is down to the fact I was an only child so I'm pretty self-sufficient.

One of my friends always says that if you're going to have a crap job, do something manual, so that your brain is your own. The most depressing jobs I've ever had are ones which require just enough brain-power to stop me thinking about something more interesting, but not enough to actively engage me. Deadly.

so the answer is -you are continuing to educate yourself. one means being radio 4. this then further reinforces my bored to tears idea. of course if we were all stimulated by the same things the world would be rather dull, having studied shakey and plato - both having bored me to destraction, i would love to hear from mums who occupy their time in other ways.

re the defining of oneself - this is a wide area and i simplified it far too much in one sweeping statement but caligula and soapbox you made me think some more on this topic and i do think that i am largely a sum of my experiences. i fear if those experiences were limited to only my children and very limited extra curricular activity then (speaking purely for myself) i would not be happy with the product. that is to say that if a person needs no more than their family and radio four and books for example they are no better or worse than i.

however, it still facinates me what a person may do other than listening to radio 4 whilst their kids are at school, i think i hold this fascination as my yearn to either be in education outside the home or the economics of needing to work ( which negated choice of working or type of work)was a very strong pull for me and my own self worth. the world of work whether you like your job or loath it is a very large part of a working mothers life. her experiences, friendships, relationships etc cannot help but shape the way she thinks and considers things and people. this is why i am interested to hear other peoples points of view.

(btw - promotion has never interested me and is not why i do the job i do. in fact i find middle management hateful and largely unnecessary.)

well I did have a boring job but I was constantly thinking about the more productive things I could be going if I was at home.

Caligula - right on!

Personally, I loved being at home when I was a SAHM and was never bored. Picking up a book, phoning an old friend, writing a letter, whenever I wanted to was sheer luxury. However, and this is a big however - this was after many years of work and I knew this blessed state was only temporary. I knew I would go back to work, so I made the most of it. I had already defined myself in terms of my job - I had skills, I knew what my strengths and weaknesses were, I knew what sort of job I would go back to.

On the other hand, the isolation of being a SAHD made my dh depressed and bored. All the reading in the world did not change this. He can get through a book a day, loves radio 4, TV documentaries, reads a 'proper' paper etc. Once school and nursery kicked in, he certainly had time to feed his brain this way, but it did not make him happy or fulfilled. He also slept very badly. He definitely lost confidence in his ablities. Even when he did work from home - he had his own small business - he hated the isolation of it. This is not just my opinion, and my experience of living with him - this is what he told me.

As soon as he started his present job, meeting and working with many different people and having a more defined pattern to his working day, he was a new man. His sleep problems disappeared within weeks, he got his confidence back, and the clouds of depression and boredom lifted. He needed very much to be defined by other people outside the family for his own sense of identity and self worth.

You can argue this is because he is a man, and women don't feel that same pressure to have a job - and you may be right of course.