'SAHMS' that have full time childcare or help - a fantastic liberation or downright lazy?

[Enid]

There are lots of mothers down here in Dorset who are (or whose husbands are) well off enough to afford NOT to work. I know a few and they all have full time aupairs or nannies. One of them has TWO nannies - one for each of her children.

It seems to be a matter of pride that you always take the nanny/au pair on holiday to help with your children. Also that the nanny/au pair takes the children to clubs and activities.

OK - I think it is outrageously lazy (and so does dh). What do you think?

No, spending time with your children is not generally drudgery. Some of the tasks asociated with it are, but i would never want to consign his care to a nanny all the time, or even most of the time. in fact, I think if I was a wealthy SAHM, I would be mad with frustration that DS had to go to school. I would always be wanting to take him out on trips to galleries and museums and theatre shows and diggerland and the raold Dahl museum, and the lake district and my friend who has just started a home-made choc factory, and Dungeness, and I would NEVER spend a day in a spa 'pampering' because I hate all that stuff!

PPH is a sahm with a nanny, isn't she? Let's ask her!

Me too, harpsi, but the old bat will insist on going out to work, so I can't leave the kids with her every time I want to go swimming.

All my friends are so damned selfish.

Better than I would be otherwise I mean - not better than anybody else.

that imo harp i only ask friend when need be and same vice versa. i dont think looking sfter children in this day and age is as tough as the dys when there was a house full of women . we do have things easier ( in general ) and to have it easier is to not look after them at all

i dont think you can compare a machine that does your dishes while you read a mag to a person who cares for your children while you read a mag

the dishes dont care who washes them, the children do care who plays with them/toilet trains them/makes their breakfast

i think children understand mummy and daddy going to work, but would they understand mummy having 'me-time'?

What about sahms who send their kids to boarding school?

i haven't read all the posts, but i will confess to being a full time sahm and have an au pair who works 25 hours a week for me.

I don't think i'm being lazy - I have 4 children aged 1-7 and no family near me at all and a husband who doesn't come home until the children are in bed. my au pair enables me to go on school runs without all four children, to take the eldest to various appointments without all children and for me to do a morning a week as a homestart volunteer. I don't get time to go out for coffee while she looks after the children. I am lucky as my mil has paid for me to have an au pair for a limited time. soon she is leaving and I am not getting a new au pair and it will be very tough i think.

i asked that ages ago blu, and no-one paid any attention

"I have v. little support from my dh as he is so busy earning the money to make these things possible"
Could this be a vicious circle?

But Batters this thread was all about sahms and childcare until working mums started defending themselves. I don't think anyone was attacking them!

my dh goes to work at 6am and gets home at 730am. but he would do that whether i worked too or not.

his working day is 13 and a half hrs, mine is 24/7 (wink)

i agree np, exactly

Would children understand mummy having "me time"

Of course not. But growing up, they bloody well need to understand it. I'm their mother, not their servant, and I don't think it's unreasonable that they learn that their mother is allowed to have leisure time which doesn't revolve around them as well as work. It's not a bad lesson, imo - I just wish I had the time to teach it them!

What's wrong with being lazy? Provided my indolence wasn't to the detriment of my children or a drain on anyone who wasn't actively happy to support it, I would be fabulously lazy. Dump the work ethic! Why is it morally superior to be pointlessly shuffling paper around a desk than lying gracefully on a day bed re-reading the 19th century novelists?

i have my me time in the evenings and weekends

Exactly Issymum.

Anyway I figure that if they see me reading 19th century novels or the newspapers, I'm teaching them subliminally the value of reading as a leisure activity.

Satine- yes it;s a vicious circle. But dh really enjoys his job, and is the kind of person who wouldn't be happy working if he wasn't giving 120% to his work. We have discussed many times him giving it all up for something less stressful, but he can earn considerably more than I pay out for other people to give me the practical support he cannot, so it makes sense for him to continue working.

me too np - i dont think i would cope all week if it wasnt for the evenings and weekends to refresh. plus babies sleep and children go to school ( unless at awkward age where they do neither) you just have to make do and all these bad points are all part of being a parent i think

doesnt anyone enjoy being a fulltime sahm?

I would enjoy it if I didn't have to fit in my job (I work from home).

I was just thinking that muma3
god anyone rading this would think being a SAHM was purgatory
I think it's bloody marvellous
anyone else

issymum couldn't agree more: dump the guilt...it's rubbish!

[this is the woman that is still coming to terms with having a cleaner once a week and feels tremedously guilty about it ]

I am one of those lazy expat mums who has a full time nanny cum cleaner cum housekeeper. I work mornings as a freelance journalist, but because my husband's job involves us having to move every two years, I have to start from scratch everywhere I go. In the last nine years, I have lived in Bombay, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok and now the U.K. My family lives thousands of miles away, and I don't know a soul in the U.K. I don't earn even half the nanny's wages, but I don't feel guilty about having my husband pay for her. I gave up a well paying job in my home country, not to mention family and friends, to travel around the world, and I think I am entitled to some perks. My husband has to work 12 hour days as well. I spend half the day with my children, from 2.00 pm to bedtime, but I am not there for every meal or Tumbletots outing or play date. if that makes me a lazy irresponsible cow, so be it. I think I have earned this privilege by living in countries like Thailand and Japan where there wasn't an English speaking person within ten miles of me, not to mention no playgroups, no Western style supermarkets, no friends for the first year. I may be soft for demanding "me" time, but if I can afford it, why not?

I also come from a country where middle class people have nannies and drivers, and the children turn out perfectly fine. if you don't want to hire help, fine, don't. But personally I think everyone would if they could, regardless of what they say on here.