I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but ... I think I want to be a SAHM

[fisil]

The thing is, I love my work. I would do it without pay if I could live too! But I also love my sons. And I ache. I physically ache for them during the day sometimes.

They are very happy at nursery, and I am very happy at work. I bring home nothing (c. £60 a week after childcare), so financially it wouldn't be an issue.

The issue is, would I go mad? When I was home with ds1 (until he was 8 months) I ended up having counselling because I was so unhappy and bored and frustrated. The moment I went back to work I felt better. Since then I have suffered from depression again (when I was pg with ds2) and am now successfully on ADs.

So please tell me successful stories - well, the truth is what I really want - about career women turning into happy and fulfilled SAHMs!

Scummymummy you're so good at analysing situations, have you ever thought that you could make a fortune as a life coach?

Fisil my advice to you would be to seriously look at proper p/t working hours.

Scummy, you are wonderful! What you wrote about feeling guilt for having suffered depression when ds1 was a baby and again when ds2 was in my tummy is a good thought, but it didn't give me any feelings of recognition inside, so I don't think it applies to me. The housework thought was good too. I might be totally barking, but my thinking on housework is that at the moment nothing gets done because I'm trying to cram in a job and children and I resent time out to housework. But if I was pottering at home while the children played, fought, made mud pies, trapped their fingers etc. then it would be a different issue. I was thinking like this yesterday, and so I pushed the two sofas into the centre of the room together and the boys played "boats" on them while I vacummed around the scuzzy floor under the sofas. In other words, housework would be part of life - that's my hope.

I did some research at church today and found out the following:
I would have no problem finding tutees - in fact I found one straight away. So I would do tutoring in the evenings.
There are several people locally who like to do ad hoc childminding. You book up a couple of days in advance, that's all. So I could be available for occassional supply or consultancy work (when I want to), which would give me a bit of escape and bring in some pennies.

Oh yes, and you're right Cam. I am going to do some number crunching and work out whether 2 days a week would be possible. The only worry is that when I was 3 days a week I had a full time job description - don't know how they'd deal with 2 days!

Message withdrawn

same as everything - good days - bad days

but you can't go back ....
can't get those first years back .....
special years .....

go for it

fisil
I became a SAHM after DD1 as paying travel costs and childcare would have left me out of pocket but I LOVE it and now find I am so busy that I still don't have time for housework - don't ask me what I do - I don't know
Anyway DH started his own business so I now do 2 mornings for him which is great as it is flexible and it is nice to be doing something which helps us all. Maybe further along the way you could work with your DH?
My fear is once both girls are in school fulltime I will have to work more and will struggle with childcare during the hols as I don't have family nearby...
If it's really what you want - enjoy it while you can - you can always go back...

Well it sounds like your mind is made up. Good news about the tutee availability as well.

(You are a sweetie, Cam. However, I think life coaching is for glamorous Carole Caplin types who don't blush when they charge £5000 a second. So I'd need my own life coach to get me to that stage...)

fisil I'm really enjoying not working at the mo. it takes a while to get into it, and you do spend the first few months (OK, year) reading (in my case) "The Lawyer" and the FT, and it takes a good year to stop saying "not at the moment, but I USED to be a lawyer" when people say "do you work?". I think that is because when you work in a career you really enjoy, a lot of your identity and self worth is bound up in what you do, and it takes a while to let that go. But the drop in stress levels is FANTASTIC (by the time I stopped work I had 3 children and was doing 4 days a week and felt that I had three jobs - wife, mother and employee, and wasn't doing any of them properly), and you WILL find enough to keep you interested etc. Don't look back to what it was like when you were at home with an 8 mth old, because babies, although sweet, are bloody boring really. Now your children are older and there are two of them, there will be much more to do with them and they will start having social life etc and so will you.

Give it a go, as everyone says you CAN always go back. But give it a good 3-4 months to settle in to it and a year to really feel like you are fulfilled. And if after a year you are bored and etc, then see if you can go back to some part time work...

Good luck!