Stay at home mums with kids at school, why dont they get jobs??

[sleepinbeauty]

Just a bit hacked off with mums at school, they moan about having no life away from their kids/ not much money, yet they all seem to refuse to get jobs or careers!
why do some women just want to do sweet FA all day when their kids are at school? They seem content for their husbands to slog their guts out at work while they drink cups of tea and watch daytime tv! Dont get it! i think its called laziness??

I'm wohm and pretty career-oriented but still fail to see what's so great about being driven and ambitous. It's good for some people and not for others. I can see a lot of mileage in the argument that the constant chasing after something you haven't got that is an integral part of ambition is not the best way to fulfillment

i have lots of other interests outside work , thanks. i go running a lot, i swim, i go to the pub with my friends, i read. i dont mean to offend so many people, its just that lots of women seem to live their lives through their children .

sleepinbeauty, are you really the big bad wolf?

Children are a BIG part of some womens lives , hopefully all of us. Perhaps they have waited along time for them to arrive and have had succesful careers etc. Please do not be judgmental about it all.

Howvever you will be pleased to hera as a SAHM last year whilst one was at school and the other at playgroup I ran and trained enought to complete this years London Marathon , so never really had time to sit on my backside being lazy.

You got to the pub to see friends some SAHM meet for coffee to see friends whats the difference ? I wouldn't say that going to pub to meet friends is really an outside interest ...

Well if it is such a concern to you - go stand for government.
I am a newly lone parent of 4 kids - I am also a highly qualified nurse that now CANNOT afford to work,and I adore my carreer.
Perhaps a bit of thought for WHY some of these mums are not at work woud be adviable.
It makes my blood boil to be labeled when i have given over 20 years service to the NHS and thanks to rat man desrerting me I am now a waster.
God hlp all at the school gates - maybe we should wear a sign round our necks in case we cause offence.

"its just that lots of women seem to live their lives through their children"
No more than a lot of people, women included, live their lives through their work. Just because someone has a passion for something whether it working outside the home or first hand taking care of home and family there is no reason to deride their choice. Children at school have to be taken there, picked up, cared for when sick, cared for during the holidays. Someone has to care for the children and if a parent prefers to do that themselves rather than delegate it to someone else why should it be assumed they are brain-dead? I've known quite a few sahm who have been involved in lots of activities during the time their children are at school. Another thing to take into account - when I worked full-time I never realised what a rich and interesting world was still happening during the hours I was working. It was only when I left work that I discovered a whole new dimension to life.

I am now 40 yrs old, I have worked since I was 18 years old . I am now a SAHM , I have given 16 years of my working life serving as a Police Officer and seen some horrible things also have done some very exciting things whci I would never do now that I have children as I am not prepared to put my life at risk.

does that make me a bad person because I now put my children first ? I've had my career and acheived alot and am very content and seceure in what I am now doing, perhaps more than some others I feel...

just wondering, sleepinbeauty, how much time do you spend with your kids? Didn't you say your DH works very long hours, so who is with the children while you are running, down the pub etc etc? Not being judgemental, just curious, you must be super-organised, something i am definaetly not!!

My mum NEVER went to work. She would spend all day at home, drinking, smoking and doing a bit of cooking but letting my dad sort out the cleaning of the house and cooking when he got home.
WHAT was her excuse??? Manic depression.
My DH goes out to work 5 times a week and i'm a SAHM with a 4yr old (just started school) and a 22 month old.
I would LOVE to have a p/time job but it would have to be early in the morning or late in the evening as i'm BU*RED if i'm going to work for peanuts for someone else to look after my kids.
I don't do coffee mornings and i don't have enough money for shopping so what do is do with my time??
Well, for a start i do VOLUNTUARY work for Age Concern, doing gardening and i drive old people to their appointments.
I've also done meals on wheels for the WWI and i enjoy doing all this.
SAHM who have kids at school should do more voluntuary work as then they will be doing something for the community and then no-one can pick of them and accuse them of being lazy.
Sleeping Beauty, maybe you should suggest this to the mothers who moaned at your school.
Thats my tuppence worth!

Haven't read any of this but I won't be working when all three of mine are at school, and not full time until they leave. My mum had a great career but the fact was that she missed a lot of what was going on in my life, particularly how unhappy I was at school, because she was never there to see me coming home so sad. I might be nothing more than a SAHM and I daresay not a good one, but at least I will be there for my kids to sound off at when they get home.

I used to work with quite a few high achieving women but found that on the whole once you looked beneath the Estee Lauder they were often quite insecure PEOPLE. The DRIVE to achieve was often more of a NEED to PROVE.

No insult meant to anyone here just an observation.

Im a SAHM but this doesnt stop me from having loads of interests, for starters I love to read and of course I love music (hence the name!!)

The mums who moaned at the school have as much right to moan a bit when they feel down as anyone else. I moaned when I was having a bad spell at work as did a lot of my colleagues. When everything isn't going as well as you would like sometimes a good old moan helps and when other people empathise then you don't feel quite so alone. It doesn't always mean that you want to pack it all in.

Simple, I don't need to

I spent 21 yrs working extremely hard, working late, suffering from stress and exhaustion - even through my pregnancy.

Met a lovely man, got married at 39, had my dd at 40 and 2.5 yrs later I'm enjoying time at home with my little girl and when she is at nursery I indulge in my hobbies, get the housework,do the shopping & get the gardening done.
Granted, still hard work, but I'd much rather that than being back in the workplace.

I agree that some women do like to complain but do nothing to change their situation BUT it's not always easy to make the changes that suit you and your family commitments.
My sister is separated from her husband and has two dd's at school. She has found it almost impossible to find a job that fitsin with school hours that also pays enough to keep her head above water.

I do think children can be proud of their parents.

If everyone wanted exactly the same things then it would be pretty boring, plus harder to get jobs etc. Conversations may be pointless as you wouldn't need to know about ur bf's day if it was exactly the same as yours. Everyone's different & wants different things for a reason & surely this should be seen as a good thing. (Unless of course they involve things which are illegal but we'll ignore that option).

I don't really need to work, but I want to. I don't feel that my LO is any worse off. It probably would have been much easier for me just to drop out of my education & not work but I doubt I would have felt as happy as I do now & this would impact upon LO.

Everyone has a bad moment every so often. Everyone moans about something at some point!

I do know where you are coming from,Sleepingbeauty.
I realised that I had no life other than my children when I was at a wedding that DH was Bestman at recently and seated next to 2 friends who couldn't have children..I had NOTHING to say and that made me sad......a month on and I am now a member of a gym, have joined DS1's Preschool committee and started selling Childrens books...all quite minor but they have put a spring in my step!

I think it is unfair to say that a lot of women live through their children but some certainly do and we have all met them. I know a couple of them and one is a wohm and one is sahm.

Having had no time to read this thread yet, I am making a random comment.

This is really for people who work outside the home,have babies or toddlers and feel that they 'should' be at home with them - and don't enjoy their job into the bargain and worry about the future.

I broadly felt like this when my sons were little.

My then job was not making me happy, but the years I spent at it IMO helped me get a nicer, more interesting job, with more flexible family friendly hours and hand on heart I am really happy with my job now. My sons are now aged 7 and 12. In an ideal world, I would be at home by 3.30 when my sons are back from school as that would ease a lot of evening stress, but I do not feel guilty for coming home at 6.00 pm. We manage, just as we have always done.

The years I have put in working have, I think, really helped me get into a line of work I like that also fits in well with my family ( I get about 10 weeks flexileave and holiday a year). Feeling happy and fulfilled at work is very important to me, I have come to realise. If I had not worked for a big chunk of those toddler years, I think it would be much less likely I'd have got the job I have now.

I am also looking to find work in Devon - this will benefit everyone in our family. Again, if I had not worked for most of the last 10 years, this option would be more difficult.

I don't see what's wrong with living through your children, if that's what you want to do.

I personally wouldn't advise it, as when they grow up you'll turn into an interfering MIL if you haven't developed any interests outside your family, but as part of a temporary lifestage, I can't see why "living through your children" is any worse than living through your work, or living through your hobbies, or living through your booze and drugs. It's just a phrase which is used to denigrate women imo.

I worked when ds1 and ds2 were little, didn't with ds3 as our situation had changed. On the whole, ( and taking into account financial strain / pressure on DH- which I don't feel so bad about as I was the breadwinner for a long time whilst he couldn't work) the family is much more stable now. it might be because Dh works shifts, and if I worked in the day we'd literally never see each other on 5 / 7 days; I think it's a comnibation of lots of things though.

I'm not fully a SAHM of course, I'm a student but as Dhs ays, though that brings in some cash, the vast majority is debt. It does mean I get out though; I'd go stir crazy otherwise. As a person, I'm probably more confident when I have something to do outside the home.

My Mum was at home all the time we were (still is, though she takes my nephews in now) and her few attempts at going back to work rapidly led to marital issues, because Dad worked the same shifts as my DH.

I think the key is to find the right balance for your family and just go with that. How anyone can mange a high flying job with kids needing colection / trip support etc I have no idea, and all power to them. I struggled enough when mine were at Mum's, and therefore secure, just to do holidays and fit in work commitments. That was when Dh was on days, couldn't do it now.

I do think that perssure on women to have to work is just a sdestructive as forbidding them from doing it; prescriptive lifestyles don't work for anyone, and completely defy the whole point of womens liberation.

Also I think we need to remember that for many, many families, by the time you've taken into account the sheer hassle of not having an adult there to do all the ironing, homework, ferrying around stuff, plus the cost of childcare, it just isn't worth getting a job outside the home. And some people are in constant re-evaluation mode ("should I, shouldn't I") and part of that balancing process is having a bit of a whinge about it at the school gates.

Pity they can't do that without being accused of being failures though.

This discussion has veered off the OP's point though, which was about SAHM's who don't have children at home during school hours.

I work full time, but do one of those days from home - which is today.

So far I've done the school run come home, put the breakfast stuff away, made the beds, run the hoover round, shoved some bleach down the toilets, put the washing on and was sitting down on my lardy arse by 9.45.

I've surfed a bit, done a bit of work, and now the day is spreading out before me, with seemingly endless possibilities of how I will spend it.

It is a complete piece of piss - be honest! What the flip is there to do during the day?

It is the complete and utter contrast to the mayhem that is a working in the office day for me - but without my glorious Fridays at home I don't think I would work at all! It keeps me sane

Anyway, my point is this really. Those of you who have no children at home during the day should stop pretending it is hard work! It isn't! However, just be honest and truthful about how wonderful slothdom and me time is! What is so bad about having a little time each day to laze around and enjoy a few hours piece and quite, gym or retail therapy?

I couldn't do it every day so wouldn't choose to sah, but most people wouldn't choose my life either! So we're all different and make different choices where we can. Some poor buggers don't get a choice - forced to work when they'd rather be at home, or forced to be at home when they would rather work! Lets save our energy to try and make real choices available to as many women as possible.

As an aside, for those of you who don't want anyone else bringing up your children (i.e. in childcare) would you describe your DH as bringing up his children or is it just you that does it?

Erm that would be peace and quite it wouldn't it

My kids aren't at home in school hours now (boo hoo) but DH is, Mums at school mightn't know that though?

AAAaand they don't know I'm a student either with piles to do.....

here's my honesta dvie,

don't judge other people: it's highly unlikely you know really know all their life details, reasonings and emotions. neither do you necessarily have the same priorities. Acceptance is a beautiful thing