there is nothing else in the world, i would rather do than stay at home and bring up my baby

[robinredbreast]

why do people think thats odd.
what a shallow materealistic world we liven

I'll be going back to work for the money.
I actually earn more than DH, all of my salary goes to paying for the mortgage and other bills, DH's supplies with our pin and shopping money for the month, maintenance for his ds, and few other sundry bits. He has a company car, I have my own as public tranport to my work is out of the question due to distance and location. However will be looking at requesting reduced hours (currently contracted to work 9 -5, though it is usually 8.30 - 5.30, often later!), reducing to 30 hours a week as we could afford the associated pay cut. But am also looking for a job which would be much more local to where I live, which could mean I wouldn't need a car anymore.
We don't go out that much, maybe once a month if we're lucky, we don't buy expensive clothes - we shop at Asda, Tesco and Ebay for clothes, and the only holiday we really get is a week or 2 in Spain, visiting my Spanish father, so all we really pay for is flights and car hire.
We're not wasteful with money, up until the point I went on to ML we have been saving up as much money as possible to cover my loss in salary without having to resort to credit cards and loans, as we have justr finished paying off the last of our loans, and now only have a mortgage - and my student loan, which I only started paying back last year .
So yes, another WOHM who won't be going back to work to fund facials, clothes from Next and holidays in the Bahamas
At the end of the day, whether you choose to be a SAHM or a WOHM or whether circumstances force you into a choice is up to you. And is nobody else's business. It all depends on your personal circumstances what is right for you and you kids, and no-one has the right to make you feel bad for your choice. And that goes double for you Anna888 and Xenia - I applaud your choices, they obviously work well for you but that doesn't mean they would for anyone else!

IN the 1970s mortgages were either 3 x 1 income or 3.5 joint incomes I think. When we borrowed in 1984 for our first house they added ourincomes together - I had a new baby but was working full time and we could borrow about 3 x our joint salary. Rates were sometimes up to 8 - 12% by the way and people today paying only 6% we would have looked on you with envy borrowing for nearly half what we did - so not in all senses are things worse now. You could get back to 9% interest rates or higher.

I don't necessarily work for the money. Of course, it helps, and i earn a good salary, but it is also rewarding, challenging and satisfying.

I am also the product of divorced parents and of course I very much hope that my husband I last the course. But I need to be sure that I can support myself if I ever need to stand alone and being financially dependent on a man feels very uncomfortable to me.

Bringing up children is a very important job and I made sure that my husband agreed with my view that it is a shared responsibility. So when our son is ill we share the responsibility of staying off work. Some couples I know even leave getting up in the middle of the night to the mother even where they both work. That isn't for me.

But those who choose not to work, that's fine. But it doesn't mean I love my son less that you love yours, as some have implied.

Cost of living is very high but i think this is because of tax, and because people will pay the prices (on credit) House prices are way too high and if you didn't get on in a slump or when they were low then meeting mortgage payments is a squeeze. I think a lot of women go back to work sooner than they would like because of the cost of living rather than choice. I think increased taxes are a real problem. Our petrol costs are really high and 80% of that is duty. Taxing reduces personal choice and means we all have to work harder and longer hours.

I took a year off but it was really tight, we were paying two mortgages at the time, but there was no way I was going back sooner. We ate what ate a lot of game ..

Also we assume a high standard of living. Historically most people could never dream of owning a house in the UK and many always lived with parents. In the 1901 census my grandfather lived in a terraced house shared with 25 other young men. Can you imagine it? It's how poles and other sometimes live when the come here - 4 to a bed room. In other words we have come to expect much higher standards although all of us could survive on a clay floor in a jungle hut if we had to or a park bench like that ex newsreader by the coast I suppose.

Alot of people say they work to be financially independent but in reality most working mums I know in dual income families are dependant on both wages and therefore will be just as knackered in a split as a SAHM single income family. To depend on both wages is not always a good situation to be in as if one person cannot work/leaves, the income can be halved and is less than needed. In my parents generation the men often earned a wage and the womens (often part time) wages was extra. These days due to cost of living/house prices etc people expect dual income as the norm. But maybe it is driving prices up and we are really not much better off.

We have an expect a lot more. With our first childn in 1984 all her baby clothes were second hand, we never bought things like orange juice because they were too expensive etc etc. People have just got used to more and more and more and see it all as necessities when in fact you could if you chose pare things right down to very little. But where is the fun in that? Earning working, forging a career, the adrenalin you get from doing a deal or whatever your work is is the spice of life for many working women who would rather lose an arm than be a housewife.

Different women have different lifestyles and families. I think that being a SAHM is a bit like eating Marmite. Some people love it as an existance where as other people want to get out the house.

I work full time even though there is no financial nessesity. However I hated being at home. I found it very lonely and isolating. I found small talk with other mothers difficult at mother and baby groups.

Yes, it's lovely to have children and to work. Why have one and not the other? Both are huge fun and life enhancing.

I think you are quite lucky if you have a job which is huge fun. My previous jobs were fun at times but were also stressful, boring and tedious as well. I think we women are quite fortunate to have the option (if we want it and can do it) of a break from paid employment.

to the op, so why don't you cut your costs drastically and stay at home?

whats odd about that?

well i didn't know this thread was still going, i would just like to say sorry for the rude way i posted this, i was just getting a bit fed up of being made to feel like a freak, but as i say that dosn't make it right to retaliate
it is not a choice for everyone and it must of been horrible for those that don't to read my silly comments
and two wrongs do not make a right

i think as mums we are damnd if we do and damned if we don't when it comes to work, so its best to just decide how YOU want to do things and try hard to ignore silly comments
as we can't please everyone

most of the mothers I know from the playground etc think I am VERY odd as a working Mum. It's not the "done thing" where we live but I honestly don't see how these women I know cope financially (huge Land Rovers, massive houses, kids clothed from Next etc).
Their DH's must have very well paid jobs I imagine.

I am a SAHM but I'm not "Mumsy". I hate that description. I just love being a SAHM, wouldn't miss out on these first few years for anything.

Better go got to back to knitting bootees and baking short bread....

I think this thread is still going because it's really interesting, and something we all struggle with from one angle or another. Personally picked up on it because I'm a FTWM (gotta love these acronyms) and HATING it at the moment.

We "need" my salary (in the sense of DH's covering fixed outgoings, mine paying to feed and clothe us - as well as the nursery fees, of course ). There are certainly other ways I could earn that money than in my current job. But I'm too risk-averse to go freelance (and we couldn't swallow the financial risk of a fallow few months while starting up), and work at too senior a level to easily find a part-time job at a similar level. Working part-time would be likely to mean a massive drop in salary rather than just one proportional to the cut in hours, as I'd almost certainly have to take a more junior post.

My employer is actually very supportive. I work from home half the week (although I have a 1.5-hour commute each way the rest of the time), they are completely OK with me having to leave early on occasion to manage pick-ups etc., and trust me to get the job done in a flexible way. But I just can't handle full-time hours and three children, particularly with a DH with a demanding job of his own, and no interest whatsoever in housework or the non-fun bits of childcare. It's driving me mad not coping.

I've been through the full spectrum of attitudes to work over my three. Desperate to get back with the first (difficult baby, didn't sleep through 'til he was nearly 3, I was very young and just couldn't handle parenthood AT ALL); more ambivalent with second, but still needed, psychologically, to do something outside the home; and with the third, I had such a wonderful year of mat leave I dreaded going back. And not surprisingly have been pretty miserable.

as per MumtoCharlotteMay 's comment - I have a dd of 7 months and I just LOVE her so much , but days like today where we are sitting at home and could not be bothered to go out , makes me feel very down.

I know that fresh air can do you lots of good - but it is like packing for a weekend camping holiday going out with a baby!

Saying that, we do a lot of fun stuff like meeting up with our antenatal group on a weekly basis, taking swimming as well as singing and signing lessons and other nice things, but I do feel very lonely as we are from South Africa (been in the UK for 3 years now) and have no family (support structure) here and no real friends.

I do also realise that dd will soon get more interactive and then we can have lots of fun doing things together, but at the moment (bless her little soul!) things aren't so exciting.

If you asked me a month ago whether I want to go back to work or not, I would have cried instantly at the thought, but now that some of my antenatal group friends (the only ones I have) have gone back to work, I must say I am jealous and can't wait to go back to work in June.

Fortunately, I have the choice to go back full time or part time - so I am still weighing up my options - as a secretary I don't get paid a lot, so I am not really going back for the money, though it will help buying the groceries!!

I need people around me to survive and I know that dd is a person, but we can't sit at the table having a cup of tea and a conversation (yet).

This is a very difficult issue for me as I am feeling awefully guilty at the moment for all these thoughts going through my mind and I think I am being disloyal to my dd who is so lovely and such a blessing in our lives.

I also feel guilty that I have the choice to stay at home and I choose not to - especially as I was the one who always told people 'why have children if you don't want to raise them yourself?'

I am very close to tears now as I am feeling very emotional today and also feel guilty for being so impatient with dd today when she refused to eat - I was friendly and smiled the whole time, but inside me I felt like pushing the spoon past her tongue to force the food into her mouth after trying for an hour to get some food into her.

I realise she is teething, hence the lack of appetite, but then I think if I don't try to get food into her then I am also a bad mommy for not feeding my baby.

oh my word - now I am in tears ;--))

in retrospect I might be the boring one - not my lovely dd who absolutely LOVES exploring her new world!!

Hi Rabbitbreath
Being a new Mum without close friends and family on hand can be really tough and lonely. I found it easier once I became close friends with one or two other Mums. As for feeling guilty about being frustrated with your baby - i've found I still get frustrated with my kids (my eldest is 5 and my youngest is 7 months) but I don't feel so bad about it now. Sometimes they do just drive you bonkers.