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??

Custardo - but you missed the point of the OP. It wasn't about smug SAHMs but moaning ones.

custardo - I don't polish my taps or iron my knickers - in fact I don't iron at all - we send dh's shirts out.

I'm far too busy drinking coffee, lunching and mumsnetting

"I'm far too busy drinking coffee, lunching and mumsnetting" Blimey, just like being at work then? But you wouldn't be called lazy then.

not iron, but irony, possibly?

Haven't read the full thread, but one argument I think is pretty legitimate is that (based on two kids two years apart, which gives a conservative total pre-school period iyswim) by the time they are both in f-t school a sahm has done - and this is conservative -

1 year (6 months per child) of 18 hour days, 7 days a week

6 years of 12 hour days, 6 days a week (assuming a dp/dh to take the strain at weekends)

This amounts to 29,034 hours of work over 7 years. If you count a normal working year as 48 weeks (most people get holidays) that averages out at an 86 hour week. for seven years.

I therefore think they are fully entitled to sit on their arse.

Hmmm. I cannot work myself up to feel all sorry for these dp's who are "slogging their guts out" at work.

If its so bloody desirable then why don't they do the school run, the shopping, the cleaning, and the rest?

Dp is absolutely welcome to stay at home with our two whenever he wants. And if they go to school he is completely welcome to give up work and "do sweet FA all day", while I go out and work, so long as he understands that the role of general skivvy falls to him between the hours of 8-5, and that the kids do not give a f'k about his higher degrees.

Right now he chooses not to. He has always chosen not to, I have always been the one to cut back. We are differnt people differnt things suit us. But feel sorry for him? No, I think not.

Haven't read all this, so apologies if it's repeated.

My day starts with an argument - no, war, about socks not fitting, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and getting them out of the door. I can't drive, so getting food in for my faddy eaters who are starving by the time I get home will end in bloodshed if I don't get them a croissant for the moment they come in. That, coupled with everything else they want 'fresh' - 'Mummy, you bought this yesterday, I can tell', coupled with flicking the hoover over once a week and wanting to (and they wanting me to be) there when they get home, means there's eff all left to the day, really.

a wohm has usually done the same btw - just they did part of it in an office. I just think we all work ridiculously hard and no-one needs to justify sitting on their arse. even if some of us choose not to. horses for courses and all that

sleeping beauty-who picks up your children from school? if your children are sick, who looks after them? who takes them to after-school activities? who looks after them in the holidays?
who takes them to the dentist ?

i genuinely want to know the answers to these questions.

have also taken hatwomans figures and from them calculated back holiday owed...

somewhere around 44 weeks, even taking a 40 hour week....

now bear in mind your SAHM is still working now, before and after school...bit of arse sitting ok, really, I think.

Oh my god! That is all I can say

My DH always says after a weekend at home with the kids
"I'm off to work for a rest"

haven't got both dds in f-t school yet but my sahm days with kids at f-t school I would be fully on duty, as it were, 7.30-9.30 and 3.00 til 8.00 - which is a 6 and a half hour day - add say an average of an hour a day on housework, supermarket, buying white tights for Christmas play angel outfits and that's a full working day. and then there's the holidays...

i would love the answers to my questions.

ds1 is off school this week with a nasty infection that means he has to be at home.He may have to be at home next week too.If i worked, who would look after him? i can't see any employer allowing me to take a full week/2 weeks to care for him. dh certainly couldn't.We don't have any family to help out and friends all have their own lives and couldn't devote full days for 2 weks to caring for my child.
he couldn't be at childminder of nursery(9 too old anyway)
it's those kind of things that make people stay at home.

IME even with kids at school, domesticity is a full-time job.

I work part-time, from home (& feel lucky to be in such a rare situation) and I literally feel sometimes like I've worked for 5 minutes and then suddenly it's time to pick the kids up from school. Dh was without a job for 2 months this year and he did all the domestic stuff while I concentrated on work for those 2 months. He found the same. With all the shite you have to take care of around the house, there is really no time for sitting on your arse. He loved those 2 months, but found them busy. . .just as busy as "work."

If I didn't work (for money) I'd still view myself as very much working. I think having kids and being responsible for a household IS work, even if your kids are at school.

On the other hand I never understand people who are smug about not having to work. My mother, who was supported/provided for by my father in that old-fashioned way, actually thinks she's better than the women of her generation who have to work. Whereas I kind of feel sorry for her for having that view because it seems kind of provincial.

I think everyones circumstances are different so to make sweeping generalisations is a sign of ignorance and snobbery.

Medea, your mum's view is just old-school snobbery.

Today, it is more like 'my job pays enough to cover the childcare and still leave plenty left over. And it's utterly scintillating'. Lots of mums don't work because it isn't worth their while financially, not because they are rolling in it.

here's a discussion from a couple of weeks ago about how stressful it is to be WOHM.

There are no easy answers re to work or not to work, people just hav to find out what is best for their own particular circumstances

are you joking? I can't actually believe that you think sahm sit around drinking tea...wtf

Ooh, what's to understand? I had a lovely long nap this afternoon before doing the school run. Twas lovely.

Ho ho.. love a good fight.
I'm a sahm; my hubby and I made the decision, based on a lot of soul searching, that one of us should give up our jobs once we had the dds. We both loved our work, had great careers, are equally intelligent (met at same college at uni and got same degree level) so all it boiled down to was who earned more to keep us afloat- my dh. So i 'graciously' stopped working, and have missed it terribly for 3 years, but we have made the decision that one of us should be there for our kids if we can possibly manage it. So all this shouting about sahm's being lazy is bollocks imo- some of us are doing this for a very important reason- we have decided that it is best for our family. I'm not saying that is possible or even ideal for every family; everyone is different and that's why such sweeping generalisations make me vaguely irritated (I can't be cross: I'm too tired from full time childcare since 6am this morning...)

And actually, it is not an opportunity for an interesting debate at all. What is there to debate? Every family is different and there are umpteen variables that contribute to the decisions that couples/parents make about working or not working and who looks after the children and who does the housework blah blah.

If it works for a family that the husband plays the traditional role of 'breadwinner' while the wife/partner 'runs' the rest of the household whose business is it of anyone elses?

Apart from the fact that I'm fortunate enough to have a freelance career, this is how our house works (although dh shares responsibility when he is here - he does not get his pipe, slippers and meal on the table ) and we are all perfectly happy and stressfree. Personally I would not have my children spending a day at school with breakfast and after school club tagged on either end but if it works for you, you go right ahead. It's none of my business and I would never have the front to start a thread broadcasting what I think of that lifestyle choice.