Would you give up your job to try and make your home a happier one for your children?

[Muminthewest]

Would you give up a part time job to spend the hours your children (age 8 and 5) are at school, ensuring your family life is set up to be the calmest and happiest for a better future for you all?

So in place of paid work, you would aim for:

-all the weekly running of the house, although dull, would be done
-your home to be cleaner and clearer
-you would focus on your health (going for walks, making better & healthier meals for everyone)
-doing every drop off/pick up/club so your husband doesn’t need to fit his 9-5 job round the school day
-feeling set up to be the calm in your own and your family’s storm when they need it
-able to focus on their homework with them because nothing else is distracting you
-having time to do a 5/10/15 year future plan as the children grown up and move away and you inevitably want to go back to work, contributing to society and using your skills again
-doing home repairs
-all planning and logistics needed for the whole family
-etc.

Basically easing everything so you, your husband and your children have the opportunity to feel as happy as you can be.
I would still give the children age appropriate chores and expect them to do their homework, I will just have better capacity to run this approach.

Extra information:

• You and your husband both struggle badly with your mental health and are currently at (or beyond?) capacity
• Due to money from a (awful) death in the family, you own your own home (no mortgage, only bills)

It sounds like you want to and that's OK. You need to do what's right for you.

I've only not worked during my 9m maternity leaves and that was enough for me. I don't love work and home is often a balancing act but I need that focus and sense of achievement. I'm quite independent so need my own income to bring to the pot, I couldn't rely on my DH even if he was a high earner (he's not). I have a DH who shares all home chores, actually he does more than me. My DPs had an old fashioned gendered marriage with decades of resentment that imploded in their 50s.

I just wrote a long paragraph about why I love being a SAHM and how it helps our family but then I realised it doesn’t matter, you’re not me, or anyone else on this thread. You and your DH need to sit down and have a real thorough sensible discussion on this and if you feel on balance it would be positive then give it a go, set a time period to trial for and worse case scenario you go back to work if it doesn’t work out like you hoped. Honestly you only live once, do what’s right for you.

Quite

The OP’s kids will be gone in just over a decade. What then?

Personally I do wish I had worked harder outside the home, and I know plenty who do.

@stayathomer I guess it really depends on your job/working hours/commute. I just don't agree that not working = fantastic social life.

Long term SAHM here, 3 and 5 year old. Yes, I love being able to do all drop-offs and pickups, we don’t need holiday clubs etc, and I don’t dread going to work (of course some jobs are enjoyable!). I’m less tired than if I was working so DP gets long lie-ins at weekends etc. lots of benefits to it.
but, I make it very clear to DP, I am not exclusively the house chef, shopper, cleaner, driver etc. he can put his own dinner on if I’ve had a very long day parenting and run ragged, his day in the office might have been easier. I am not Cinderella, I can see how easily it could feel like that without clear boundaries.

You both have to completely agree that you are up for having a 1 income family, and value each other’s contribution. I will definitely be going back to PT work when youngest goes to school. I have a few hours to myself every week, and coming home choosing whether to clean the fridge or oven, sort the filing or buy a bday present for XYZ is depressing. Feel guilty for sitting down with a cuppa when he’s upstairs working..

*.. but I suspect in your case it isn’t going to solve the problem OP.

What you’re describing sounds like a fantasy in which you are wafting about as a domestic goddess in a perfect world with all your problems magically solved. Writing 5 and 10 year plans where you have a wonderful job similarly fall into fantasy.

I doubt retreating from the world is going to sort you out, it may make you less able to cope.*

Completely agree with the above.
I also think that a far better solution if you're feeling you really can't cope would be for you and your dh to both work part time and share the domestic chores- cooking , housework, admin, school runs. You say you're both finding things stressful so It seems odd to polarise things into one of you getting the 'easy life' while one continues working. And before anyone jumps on me for saying 'easy life' I don't mean that housework, life admin etc is nothing, because obviously it takes some effort but it's not comparable with going out and earning a living and ultimately it's what millions of people fit around a job anyway. And the focus on yourself - going for walks, reading, chilling - what about your dh? Why do you feel more deserving of this than him?

No one wants to live life feeling frazzled but equally it's not particularly helpful for school age children to grow up thinking life can only run smoothly if one parent doesn't work.

I also think this idea of writing 5 plans which mean you'll happily step back into a full time career when you want is pie in the sky. For a start, you'd probably find it hard to motivate yourself to work full time if you're used to having so much time for yourself and secondly, you won't be able to compete with people who've got more recent skills and experience.

At the end of the day this is up to you and your dh to decide, but it comes across very much as you having an idealised fantasy of what life would be like. A far more realistic and practical solution is to sit down with your dh, discuss where the pressure points are, maybe outsource more things like cleaning, do online shops and share the load for other things like cooking, laundry more equally- with the kids doing their bit too, because it's far more healthy for them to grow up in a family where everyone does their share rather than having a mother who waits on them hand and foot.

I’ve just resigned from my job as I was so unhappy in it and it was affecting my health, and our home life has been so much more pleasant for it.

I love being able to take my children to school and pick them up rather than use breakfast and after-school trips. I have been able to go to some of their special assemblies, concerts, watch them receive class awards and I have been able to attend sessions where parents are allowed in to the school to join in with their child’s lessons. I have also volunteered with a school trip and I have also got to see the sports days of both my children and it is all so lovely.

I do the chores, shopping and food prep whilst the children are at school and I love it that when my husband comes home from work we can all sit down together and enjoy dinner without life feeling so rushed. I love it that our evenings can be more relaxed and we are no longer trying to juggle the kids doing their homework, going to their extra-curricular activities, have a bath etc whilst constantly having to think about what chores are building up, or worry about how we going to get all those things done whilst also knowing we had work we needed to do ourselves.

I tend to keep on top of the daily jobs like the dusting, hoovering, general tidying, washing-up, the laundry etc but it’s at the weekend where we do the bigger cleaning jobs and me and DH blitz them together.

Life is so much calmer now and we are all so much happier for it.

Although I did love my job (though the negatives outweighed the positives when I reigned) life was definitely more chaotic when me and DH were both working.

No, you can do everything you've listed in your OP whilst working.

I was a SAHM for 7 years, it was only when I went back to work that I found myself again and divorced my husband. Being at home, a happy home does not make.

If we could afford a reduction in salary I'd look at DH also going part time. Helps with his MH, means you can split the stuff around the house/children etc and generally takes the pressure off both of you whilst you both keep your foot in at work.

@watersprites
We probably on average have 2 play dates a week, invite other families / couples to dinner every few weeks. We have no family here and most of our close friends don't either so they become our surrogate families and support network.
If we were both working we just wouldn't be able to make that happen. I consider keeping up our friendships and social life part of my "job". There have been times when I have worked and it's so much harder to juggle everything, and the last thing I feel like is hosting people when I'm tired. The kids definitely are happier when I'm not working. But I agree that it isn't for everyone. If you don't have a supportive husband or your career is very important to you then I can agree it's not for you. Any money earned by me or my husband is always just "our" money, he never makes me feel like it's just his. I think each family / person is different and whatever works for them is what's best. I think if you can make it work staying home, and you enjoy it, and have your husbands support it does result in less stress for everyone.

I kind of did this, but with the addition of home educating!
I've no regrets, but I will say that I didn't become a much tidier and more organised person just because I was home more of the time.
I think OP may be overestimating what she will get done during the school hours and how much that will improve everyone's life!
You'd be surprised how quickly the day goes.

Lack of confidence, and really not wanting to go back to work in child care.

Is dh on board?

@continentallentil and also I would be on a low wage and the child care would cost most of my wage.

Being a house slave would mess with my MH. It sounds like a real drudge.

Also what about pensions and long term plans for when the DC are grown up - going back to your career at a similar level will be very tough

Would you give up a part time job to spend the hours your children (age 8 and 5) are at school, ensuring your family life is set up to be the calmest and happiest for a better future for you all?

No fucking way. Not a chance. My mental health would personally collapse with the mundanity of life and a lack of personal finances.

It sounds like you’re gagging to give up work and are trying to build a case for your husband.

The obvious answer is he pulls his weight. He clearly isn’t.

So you don’t have shared finances, how does that work if you don’t have a job?

I wouldn’t because I would lose my mind. But plenty of people would love it so depends on who you are and what you enjoy. From your description sounds like you’d enjoy it so you should go for it.

Yes, I would.

If I didn't think my job was adding anything but stress to my life, I'd give it up.

I was a SAHM for years and now PT with a school hours job that fits round the kids (16 and 11). I'd recommend it.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't in your shoes.

Kids and running a home while working is stressful at the best of times. Add in poor MH and I can't see the benefit of having a job (if you personally just find working stressful)

I also have a 10-20 year plan to "have a career" once the kids turn 18, cos I'll only be 44 at that point.

I think I would shrivel up and die if my life were simply existing in servitude to others. The thought of facilitating DP’s focus on his 9-5 by taking drudgery off his plate gives me full-body anxiety.

I also don’t think you’d have time for the walks and personal fulfilment and everything else, because work expands to fill the time you have – the household stuff would just balloon. When you’re working FT, having the dishwasher loaded feels like an accomplishment. You stop work thinking, “well I’ll also now have time to properly clean the kitchen instead of doing the bare minimum, but find time for me, too,” but then when it comes to it you clean the kitchen but figure you might as well wipe the skirting boards, and repaint the hallway ceiling, and declutter the dining room, and so on. Then you look up one day in 10 years to discover your husband is streaks ahead at work and you can never catch up, the children are leaving home, and you’re as mentally fucked as ever and no one cares that the skirting boards are clean.

@newusernamelouie As I said it obviously depends on individual specifics. We do about 1 play date a week (combine them) but would struggle to do more due to dcs activities & obviously they see their friends at those things. I don't do a lot of dinner parties as I don't love cooking but we see friends regularly for social occasions. Granted I only work 25 hours & have 8 wks holiday plus have lots of family support. Our friendship groups are pretty much the ones we had from school so I guess unconsciously I don't need to make loads of effort. Having said that London is quite transitionary & my NCT friends all eventually left and half of my eldest primary class left over the years whereas I know my childhood London friends aren't going anywhere.

Not sure how feasible it is in your sector, but what about being 'very part time'? I work one day a week. DDs are 6 & 3. 3 y/o is about to do more hours at preschool, but I don't plan on increasing my hours soon.

This means we have little to no stress if either DD is ill, or during holidays etc. We have no childcare support from family, so it would be us taking time off work. There's also no stress over school / nursery runs either. I like being there to pick them up most days, and spending time with DD6 after school. I'm also able to be there for all school events & help out sometimes too.

DDs still see me go to work and hear me talk about work too. I feel like it's a good balance.

I also have a 10-20 year plan to "have a career" once the kids turn 18, cos I'll only be 44 at that point.

I think this is trickier these days in terms of well paid work. Less women are having dc and obviously flexi, remote & pt working helps mothers to stay in their role now so I think the competition for a good career is stronger. Obviously it depends on qualifications & experience though.

Part time is the holy grail! I'd stick with that OP. Can you drop a few hours?