Would you be a sahp?

[UraniumFlowerpot]

I’ve noticed a theme of advice along the lines of never give up your career / income to care for kids because who knows what might happen down the line with the earning partner, you might find yourself single and penniless.

I’m currently considering my options when baby arrives later this year. Hadn’t ever planned to be a sahp but husband out-earns me many times over and I’m finding my career motivation mostly gone by now. Just naturally reached a plateau and got bored. Seems pointlessly stressful to work and put baby in full time childcare for a salary that will realistically make no difference to our standard of living. Current career couldn’t be picked up again after a break, I could return later to something else likely for less money. Current career could, at a stretch, support a family. Potential careers after a break almost certainly couldn’t.

I’ve talked with DH about the vulnerability of giving up work, he’s very happy to pay generously into pension and savings for me — not sure how much difference this legally makes since it would all be matrimonial assets anyway, but the understanding and willingness is there. He’s not pushing me to give up work but definitely values that role a lot. I also already have savings from before marriage that would see me through a transition period if we split, and a small pension (plus up to date with NI payments).

So my question to mumsnet is: What amount of personal or matrimonial assets, or what arrangement with the earning partner, would make you feel comfortable with the decision to become a sahp or substantially reduce earning potential to better accommodate kids?

@UraniumFlowerpotto get back to your original question - my advice is not to give up your job before you have done a maternity leave with your child.

All career motivation may be gone but you do not want to be in the position of having given up a job about which you’re unenthusiastic only to realise you’re also unenthusiastic about looking after babies/small kids! And my experience is it’s quite difficult to tell how you’ll find it until you’ve done it.

As you can see, unfortunately, these threads often turn into a bun fight.

@SleeplessInWhereverno one is claiming to be busier than you or anyone else, certainly not me. You’re creating arguments for yourself.

Who said they can’t fit work in?
Why do you keep bringing up school aged children when responding directly to people who have several preschool aged children at home?

The majority of commenters generally seem to be saying they’ve made a choice for them and their children, not because they can’t fit housework around work. I can’t see a single person who has said.

You are right @Piglet89 : it isn't fair for pp to make presumptions about awareness.

And you are also right that being a sahm doesn't correlate with IQ. I think, however, some of your posts came across as implying it when you said you are very intelligent and couldn't do it.

But your point is fair: some intelligent people enjoy being a sahm and some don't. Ultimately what we really need is a society that caters for all those mums without judgment.

Yes I swither about whether it’s very high intelligence or the way that intelligence manifests (ie living in my own head) that makes it hard to spend loads of time with young kids.

BTW, you may well be less intellectually able than I am - and that is not an insult. There’ll be plenty of other things you’re much better at than I am. Intellectual ability is not the only measure of worth, so there’s no need to take it so personally.

Well they do turn into a bunfight because deep down some mums feel defensive of their choice of not having been a sahm and others feel defensive of being called lazy and told their job is without value.

And yet ultimately we all do one, the other or a combination and I don't believe there is a single right or wrong answer.

Yes, agreed. As I’ve said earlier on the thread: I think SAHPs add huge intrinsic value to their kids’ lives - and to society.

From a kind of anthropological perspective, I’m
now interested in answering the question of what it is about some of our characters that makes us find young kids so dull whereas others genuinely find them fascinating. TBF: I haven’t looked into it: I am sure someone has already answered that question and it wasn’t the point of the OP’s thread (I’ve tried to engage with her original question in one of my recent posts).

If you have a good career no. If you have an average job, yes. Obviously choose a husband who will look after you. Maybe keep the property you had before marriage as an investment or have other private investments so you have your own money. Plus be up to date on family finances.

Agree with this. I have a senior professional role, a DC and studied for a degree in my spare time.
My mum was a SAHM when I was little. Watching her made me never want to be one.

Exactly. Am also confused by the perception that SAHPs stay at home all day cleaning etc. I found the key to having behaved kids was doing something with them every day. A trip on a train to a free museum, a brisk walk or run in the park, lunch in the home of another parent… Then they are happy when they’re back home so you can do what you like while they play, reunited with their toys. My friends I kept from playgroups are no less intelligent or interesting than my colleagues now. Maybe I was lucky to live somewhere with diverse parents and lots of free stuff.

@CharlotteSometimeslikesanafternoonnap
Your poor mum. What an awful way to view her. And a horrible thing to say about her.
I loved the time my mother spent at home with us when I was a child.

To answer the OP - I would absolutely be a SAHM. If you want to and you can then why not?
I work very part time, the only reason I kept it up is because I’m self employed in the kind of business where if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to just step back in and it is quite lucrative.

Absolutely! Some of the most interesting and vibrant women I have ever met were sahps. I’ve stayed friends with them too!

I would absolutely love to be a sahm, my children are two and 8 months and I’m dreading going back to work (despite having a really good career), just because I’ll miss them and my time with them so much. My reasons for going back are mainly because I am quite considerably the higher earner and we do need my salary, and also because I can’t help but want to be financially comfortable enough to do the lovely holidays with them, not have to consider anything I buy for them and continue to be able to afford a relatively big home. Those reasons aside though, I’d stay at home with them in a heartbeat

I can absolutely appreciate that some women (and some men) are forced into being a SAHP because of their own illness or disability or that of a child, repeated redundancies, being a trailing spouse etc etc, but no one interesting of either sex chooses to do it.

Matilda was one of my top name choices if it’s a girl… will have to rethink that now 😂

I can't really believe I just read such a sweeping, judgmental and ignorant comment.

It's judgemental, absolutely. I don't see that as a bad thing. I find the idea that not judging is a good thing weird. And I've been around a fair bit, lived in a lot of countries and have had a lot of different circles, and while I have dear friends who are SAHPs, it's always been thrust upon them by circumstances -- it's not the free choice of an interesting person.

no one interesting of either sex chooses to do it.

Do they become uninteresting at the point they choose to become SAHPs? Or do these dull people walk among us, preparing to release their dull potential upon giving up work? Is it the not working that makes them dull in your (not so humble) opinion? Or is it that they are choosing to do so in favour of looking after kids?

I fail to see how working in a shop, in a cafe, in the accounts department for a bland multinational, in telesales etc etc etc automatically makes you any more interesting as a person.

I think that I’m a fairly interesting person, and was most certainly not forced into becoming a stay at home mother. I had a good career and was in a senior position before I had my daughter, and we made a lot of sacrifices to enable me to stay at home with her. When we decided to have a child, we discussed carefully what we wanted to do, and I wouldn’t have had a child if I’d not been able to stay home full time until she started school. No-one is forced to have children and I don’t see the point if you’re going to miss their valuable first years and give them the best possible start in life. My daughter benefited far more from being at home with me every day and not having a new car, exotic holidays etc than if I’d gone back to work and put her in a nursery or with a childminder who, no matter how diligent they might have been, wouldn’t have given her the love, care, attention, or education that I was able to.

Making judgements about hundreds of millions of people because based on the SAHPs you've met doesn't make you sound judgemental, it makes you sound like an idiot to think you can possibly make that judgement.

But you speak as if your experience of life is the final word on it.

You just obviously have not moved in the circles with interesting sahms. Many of my sahm friends have been in very elite roles - or are Oxbridge professorships not "interesting" enough for you?

What utter crap. I’ve lived in a few countries too and I know some hugely creative, dynamic, vibrant, interesting women who are sahms. Some chose to go back to work, some are still sahps, some run charities or volunteer. and some have carved out a new freelance life for themselves. The ones who are still sahps are in no way any less noticeably interesting or active.

If anything it takes a lot of dynamism and confidence to make a life for yourself without the status, structure, predicability and money that being in employment gives you. You have to be very self-disciplined, flexible, determined and creative to make it work.

And let's face it: there are a lot of plodding, pedestrian 9 to 5 jobs out there that hardly constitute evidence of being "interesting."

Yes, someone has to do it, but even those people are probably not trying to maintain the mere fact of doing it automatically elevates them to being more vibrant or interesting than a sahm.

I totally "get" people that want to be a SAHP when their child is very young, even though it wouldn't be my personal choice.
When they are at school far less so.

@SleeplessInWhereveras @Allbutterwaffle68said, DH is an active parent. He doesn’t default all of the child related aspects to me! He also shock horror takes them to swimming lessons at weekends (after being the only one of us who participated in the pool with them during lessons as babies/toddlers) and sometimes does kids parties!

he enjoys picking them up from school, chatting to them about their day so he generally does pick up while I do drop off to allow him to get to the office early. (He also sorts their breakfasts and does teeth with them while I get showered and ready)

Cooking - quite simply because he enjoys it. We usually try to eat together and take turns in cooking but there’s no hard and fast rule. He will also cook if I am not home at tea time.

Quite simply, we are still a team, regardless of me being a SAHM