Do Muffins Fulfill? A question for SAHMs-whose-children-are-out-of-the-home

[morningpaper]

Dear SAHMs-whose-children-are-out-of-the-home; (including nusery education - I have some friends whose 2-3 yos are now starting nursery from 9-3):

I would be very interested to know what you do during your time at home and how that leads to you living a life that you feel is fulfilling.

(Words kindly provided by Soapbox! )

This is quite a serious question, which I don't think has been answered. I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on this, as this is an option that lots of you have chosen, which is surprising to me in the light of the recent thread about how unfulfilling many people found staying at home.

(Suggestions for re-wording of the question will be given due consideration and I reserve the right to apologise at a later time if I find I have worded this offensively.)

(If you think this is none of my business to ask, then please move back to the cheese thread, rather than posting "It's none of your business!" which is obviously the case, but I am still genuinely curious.)

Answering personally, I am not a fulfilled SAHM. I find it very boring and I deeply miss the status I had as a working adult. But I do not want the stress that went with working, at the same time as raising children. Also, I don't quite fit your criteria as only three of my four chldren are at school. The youngest is still home full-time and his presence does stop me doing some things that would make me feel more fulfilled. When he goes to playgroup (in Sept - just received confirmation!) I will be able to get on with some more fulfilling activities (I have a number of writing activities and historical research I am involved in). When he goes to school, I plan to go back to work, though not full-time as, once you have tasted the cherry of freedom, I think it is hard to give it up again!

Caligula, I too used to listen to Radio 4 non-stop as a student and before I married. I then found that I couldn't hear it over baby's crying and stopped listening. It was only very recently that I realsied I could listen to it again and I was amazed at how such a small thing could lift my spirits. radio 4 taught me loads when I was a student and now I feel it keeps me in touch with the outside world.

atm I have ds1 and ds2 at playgroup 9-1pm and have 8month ds3 at home - however he is in bed now and will be there till I go out to pick up the others.

In this time I am usually working (freelance) - today I've finished a project (YAY!) so I'm going to laze around I'm afraid - I'm even leaving the housework cos I'm exhausted so I'm going to get a brew, some choc, watch a bit of TV and make an order of cards from my friends new venture (Phoenix Trading).

When the kids are all at school, what I will do with my hours is:

Work (still freelancing I hope)
Keep the house in order
Go to the gym
Go shopping
Meet other SAHM for lunch
Might even go to the cinema in the day on my own
Read books (what a luxury - can't remember when I last had time)
Take piano lessons (can't wait)
Bake and learn some new recipes (I love making stuff but never have time)
Would like to help out with reading in school

Thank you mummies for your responses.

I find it hard to understand, though, how your DH/DPs don't resent the time you have. Do they really not mind that you have so much more personal time than they do? Or do you work around this in some way?

(Although DP's full-time salary is a depressing 3x more than mine, due to his high tax and my low tax, I only have to work 1.5 days to bring in 1 day of his earnings. So we are planning that he will eventually work 4 days a week and I will work more, so that he gets more 'free' time (actually in our case, we are aiming for him to spend time at home WITH the children and not time at home by himself)).

My dh doesn't resent it because he gets away with doing absolutely no housework at all. Anyway, it is not like that. Dh and I are two parts of a working (both working, both fully functioning!) machine: he does the exciting, stressful, well-paid outside work, I do the boring, stressful, but free-time included indoor work. We are a team.

Hi MP

In my case, I don't have a DH to resent it, and tbh any man who would resent the fact that I had time to myself wouldn't be a man welcome in my house or my bed. When I lived with my xp he was at home most of the time (did freelance) and I never resented it - I loved the fact that I could walk into a clean house and just chill out. But I was also aware that for me to be able to do that, had taken time and effort on his part, and I never undervalued that.

Mp - my dh works shifts (one of the reasons it is easier for me to be at home), it also means he has quite a lot of daytime/freetime too.

AFAIK he doesn't begrudge me my free time, as I don't him. I worked very hard when my children were younger, full-time, then partime plus weekend work with 3 under 5's. We are happy at the moment and the fact that I'm at home is contributing to that- for us it's worth more than the few extra pounds in the bank if I worked more hours.

MP - once the children are at school, there still needs to be someone to take them to school, collect them from school and take them to after school activities. I couldn't go back to my old full time job and do that so I'll stay at home.

Many of the things I'll do with the time between 9 and 3 benefit the whole family - I do/will manage finances, keep the house habitable, make sure everyone has clean clothes, shop for food and prepare meals for everyone AND I freelance so I'm contributing financially as well (though I don't think it matters if you don't because all the other things are valuable to the family too).

Dh has no responsibility for household issues really (although atm we share it at the weekend IF I'm not working) so I hardly think it's unfair.

Dd is at nursery three afternoons, I do work one morning and one afternoon but I take her with me rather than use my me time for work!

Tuesday afternoons I mostly go to college as I am studying for a degree, I just sit in the library and plough through my reading.

Sometimes if I am not feeling so noble I go home and go to sleep or if I am feeling virtuous ( which actually means the house is a tip and starting to get whiffy I blitz the house while listening to R4.

Thursday afternoon is official hoursework day, I get stuff done that is hard to do when dd is at home, like cleaning the blinds, the windows, cleaning the floors. If I am feeling on top of things I do this to r4 if am feeling a bit brain dead I iron while watching Dr Phil and the ilk!!

Other times or if I get the housework done speedily I meet friends for shopping and coffee, if I am not feeling so sociable I go for coffee on my own and take delight in being able to read the Guardian without dd jumping into it.

On a Friday afternoon my dp also finishes work at lunchtime so we have an afternoon of naughtiness!

I also use this time for my hobbies, so I sew, am currently starting a little kitchen garden, planning menus for the week, I make my own greetings cards.

My me time makes me a balanced person and a happy fulfilled mother, exactly what my daughter needs. Don't let anyone tell you that me time isn't precious and important, people who work have their weekends free whereas mothers have their children seven days a week, I see my me time as a kind of weekend spread over the week in little bits. I so know I am going to be shouted down by working mums who of course work and have their children at weekend - you are right and all due respect to you for that.

I will loose this time soon as I am registering to be a childminder, and it will be like loosing a friend. Dp will also miss the friday afternoons! But mortgage to pay, shoes so buy, and a non maintenace paying ex husband means I have little choice. But the adavantage of being divorced is at least the weekends are child free!

MP - just out of interest, I know you are a SAHM right now but don't you work from home too? If so, do you not find that fulfilling (the work) - do you not feel as if you have a balance between being able to be there for your children AND turn your mind to something more intellectually challenging?

Caligula, don't feel bad about reading books. Its a sure-fire way of keeping healthy mentally. And yes, Radio 4 is very good.

My dp does not resnet the time at all, he does work very hard to support us as a family and often comes home tired.

But he knows how much dd loves me being at home and that is worth more than any money I loose by being at home. I think he is also quite proud of the fact that he provides so well for us that I have been able to stop at home as long as I have.

If I have an essay deadline coming up, he comes home and does the housework after being at work so I have more time to study. Maybe I am just lucky, well there is no maybe about it I know I am lucky. As gobbledigook said it is hard to combine work with dropping off and collecting from nursery.

My ex husband is a different kettle of fish, he is always droning on about me being a lady of leisure, I know he would not have been happy to support me being a SAHM.

As I said in my previous message I am registering as a childminder, this was my decision not dp, infact he was quite concerned that I was taking in too much and that my quality of life (and probably his friday's) would be threatened.

GDG: yes I do work from home - some evenings and also a 10 hours a week when dd goes to nursery. I usually have a screen open on mumsnet and a screen open on my work!

I LOVE MY WORK SO MUCH - and I know I'm very lucky to feel that way. If I had a choice I would probably be locked up in a dark cave with a computer and a supply of tea and toast 24 hours a day until I die. However I would not be happy with dd being in full-time childcare - I am very aware of the large influence that her short time at nursery already has on her development, and I wouldn't want that extended into more hours there. Not that it's a negative influence - just that I want to be the one moulding her, if that's the right way of putting it.

I love her to pieces and when there are other adults around I enjoy looking after her a great deal, but when it is just one-on-one time I find it very very boring. She's adorable and good company but she doesn't stimulate me.

Ideally I would like it if her father spent more time looking after her and I spent more time working, and that is what we are hoping to achieve at some point - it's difficult because of the vast difference in our salaries (partly because he is older than me, but also because he is just a darn sight more successful ). We have moved from London to the countree and downgraded our lifestyle a lot, but because we have a lot of responsibility for our parents unfortunately this is a time in our lives when we need quite a lot of money in order to support them as well as ourselves.

Twinset: Your arrangement sounds very good - particularly the Fridays!!

MP - your first 3 paras fit with my situation exactly (even down to having one screen with MN and one screen with work!!).

I know what you mean about it being 'boring' - when ds1 wants me to play trains my heart sinks! That's why a lot of the afternoons we go out because it's much easier to entertain them and the majority of the time we are with friends - the kids play with each other and the Mums chat!

Maybe I'm not the best person to be answering your question because like you, I do work in my 'spare time' and plan to continue this once the kids are in school.

MP - I also think it's perhaps harder in some ways if you just got one dd - I've got 3 ds's so they entertain each other a lot of the time.

My dh loves his work so much that I have to blackmail him to come home at all. When I worked I earned an equal amount to him but we never saw each other and would never have seen our child. One of us had to give up work to look after the baby, and that was a huge sacrifice for me, I will probably now earn substantially less when I do return and my savings and pension have been hit hard. In return for this sacrifice I reserve the right to read long novels while lying on the sofa in the conservatory drinking coffee. I refuse to martyr myself with housework, my husband does not feel guilty for asking me to wreck my working life so why should I feel guilty for having some standard of life while ds is at nursery?

I am finding all these threads really interesting MP - thanks for restarting this one.

My dp and I have a similar arrangement to the one you are hoping for with your dp. I work three days a week out of the home and work other hours in the evenings. Dp also works flexibly. The net result is we both have two days at home with the children and get by on very limited childcare really.

Our arrangement is great in many ways - I am someone who likes to work, like my job, think what I do is important, enjoy my workmates. DP and I both love spending the time we have with the children and they get the benefit of that. We both do childcare and both work so there is none of the polarisation that happens sometimes between partners when their lives have really diverged.

But it's still hard. The juggling is difficult. We have two competing sets of work priorities to manage against the needs of the children. We have taken an equal 'hit' in career terms. our oldest is now at school and childcare around school hours is much more problematic than nursery - plus after school activities and all the social stuff that goes with it.

In a grass is greener way I do think it would be easier if one of us worked and the other was at home - if our responsibilities were defined as some of the posters here describe. I can really understand, from that perspective, why people do extend being at home into the school-age years. I'll never be in a position to do it so am quite envious of those who do have the choice here.

puddle wrote: "In a grass is greener way I do think it would be easier if one of us worked and the other was at home - if our responsibilities were defined as some of the posters here describe."

I think it is the way that responsibilities divide in this situation which I personally find repellent! It DOES sound as though a lot of women have exchanged paid work for unpaid domestic responsibility ("I am happy because I don't do paid work/he is happy because the house is in order/his socks are washed"); the traditional 'housewife'. This is what makes me baulk and I find grates with my feminist convictions. Of course it's great to have choice - but I am surprised that women continue to choose primary domestic roles.

Easier? perhaps. Better? I'm not sure.

Ah, but MP I said one of us. It would be my dp - I earn much more than he does.

what's the matter with being a traditional housewife morningpaper?

lets face it, working in an office etc simply sucks. it just does. it's pointless, it's a waste of life and loads of people out there actually fool themselves into thinking they actually like it.

dw is a traditional house wife. it works out for both of us. when ds goes to school and she's left with spare time, i hope she uses it to goof off and have some fun instead of having to work for some silly corporation or some unreasonable boss. no point grinding her life down along with mine.

I think puddle has hit the nail on the head re the practical side of things. For example, just looking at my afternoon yesterday, I had to pick dd up at 3.30 from the school swimming pool to take her to a couple of weekly things that both occur on the same day. This meant that I had to leave home at 3pm (school is up to half-hour drive away) and we got home at 7 pm. So I put in a 4-hour stint at that end of the day. Parenting schoolage kids is like shift work.
Sorry but you did seem to want the detail mp.

When I try to imagine that situation, it makes me feel uncomfortable! I think it is the very inflexibility of the roles which grates with me. I also think DH would be incredibly boring if he was immersed in nothing but domestic responsibilities all day (and Sky Sports all evening) - I think I am better able to keep a broader range of interests than he is!

(All of this is, of course, largely irrelevant to anyone else's situation!)

domestic chores and sky sports is much more interesting than what i do all day at work... i'm an accountant.

It's not necessarily that women are choosing the domestic role. It still the case in the majority of families that the man is the bigger earner. If I'd earned more than dh than maybe our choices would have been different.