Giving up £60k job that I love to be SAHM

[Moomo]

After a lot A LOT of thinking I have pretty much decided not to go back to work and to be a SAHM - at least for a couple of years. But am giving up a £60k job that I really enjoyed to do so. DH earns £30k so it will be a massive drop in our income but I just can't face going back to work and leaving DS in childcare.

I was just wondering if anyone else has done the same thing and whether friends/family etc have been supportive as most people I tell think I am totally crazy and try and convince me not to do it. I'm not so worried about my career but a bit worried about the loss of income - we can still pay mortgage, bills etc but will be alot less luxuries/no saving/pension etc.

Would be really interested to know if anyone else has done the same/similar thing and how it worked out. I'm pretty confident of my decision but when everyone around me tells me I'm crazy I have moments of self doubt!

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit but I wanted to ask PenguinNZ how you handled the loss of the false identity and prestige that you got from your job.

I went back to work full time when both my DS were six months old. Last summer (when pg with DC3) I stopped work completely to become a SAHM (part time wasn't an option and something had to give for the sake of all our family).

We've just about got to grips with the money side of things (DH and I earnt the same) although that took a long time to get used to. But I am stuggling with the loss of identity that I got from my job. I know it is "false" but I agree it is comforting. How did you address this? When did you come to terms with it?

We all make decisions that we feel are best for ourselves and our families and whether it's concious or not, we look at other families and compare our situation to them.

Secretly we would like everyone else to make the same decisions as us, or to agree that we have made the best decision and that anything else is less than optimal in order to validate our choices. Unfortunately, on MN we are more likely to "voice" these inner thoughts and defend our positions rather more loudly that we would in RL.

Thankfully, not everyone is from the same background, up bringing, education, experiences etc or the world would be full of identical people and life would be very dull!!

Here's to respecting other people's choices and understanding that there is more than one right answer!!

Camomile tea? Vom. I despair of the choices some people make ...

My choice on a sunny weekend afternoon would be a nice dry white wine.

IHJL - the only problem with this thread is that you started accusing working parents of not being the primary care givers, which is nonsense.

And believe me, I am not interested in your personal life, I was just intrigued about all the jobs in which you seem to think both parents are working seven days a week, 11 hours a day, because I honestly know no families where that is the case. I would imagine if it were the case that a parent had to work those hours, every day, no days off or weekends, perhaps because they are setting up their own business etc, then it's highly likely the other parent would be at home all the time to try to provide some stability. Wouldn't be my ideal model of parenting, as it would mean one parent shouldering the entire financial responsibility while the other has to shoulder the total home responsbility. Many parents prefer more equal shares and role models. But I honestly do not know of any working parent who both do the hours you describe, and in fact I don't know any working parents who aren't also primary caregivers

P.S Quattro - agree about a nice dry white!

P.P.S also agree that primary care giver is a pretty joyless term. I prefer 'mum' or 'dad'. That's what parents are, whether they work or not. Interesting that the children themselves never have any trouble understanding that!!

I wonder if a lot of this is people not having had the experience of working and having children and somewhere along the line have decided that children dont understand who loves them most and who their main/primary/most important carer is.

Some children go to boarding schools at a very young age, some, like mine, are cared for by non family members outside of the home for 10 hours a day. But yes Violet youre right, they all know who mummy and daddy are (sweeping statement as I realise everyone doesnt have mummy & daddy)

My DD does this cute thing where she uses her arms to show how much she loves certain people. Her dad and I always get massive wide arms that nearly make her fall over. She ceratinly not confused about who loves her the most!

violethill: as I said, that's essentially semantics, and there's no agreeing on that front. Personally, I think that being called a bitch is more of a problem with this thread. I would struggle to like myself if I had called someone a bitch, even on an anonymous internet forum.

IHJL - I don't think anybody called you a bitch, although they did say you had been bitchy. One is an absolute that you are all the time, the other is a comment just on a particular set of statements you made. Nobody knows you well enough to pass judgment on the first, but is well within their rights to say the latter if they think your statements warrant. I'm sorry if you feel ganged up on, but maybe that is because the majority of feeling on this thread differs from yours.

As ever with these type of threads, it has descended into a war of words, literally in this case. We were doing well for a long while and I relished the discussion until it got a bit het up. IHJL, I don't mean that it descended when you joined - far from it. Your contribution is equally valid, even if many of us don't agree, and I do actually agree to a certain extent with you on the length of time a few children are in childcare so I'm not completely opposed to your views

Moomo - I hope that you have managed to get something useful from this thread, as I have So thanks for starting it

As for me, I'd quite like the white wine that is doing the rounds but as I'm 7 months pregnant the camomile tea might be more prudent...

Thanks, Meg. I'm glad you have found the thread useful despite everything!

I think what bugs me more than being ganged up on is being grossly - wilfully - misrepresented and misinterpreted. Being slagged off on the basis of things I never said is really very galling. But hey ho, tomorrow is another day!

The primary carer is just the parent who spends most time with the children. I know this because when dh and I separated and I asked for legal advice on a separation agreement she figured out I was the primary carer because the children spent one more night in my house than dh's. The time with school/the childminder was considered irrelevant.

I'm sad that this otherwise interesting thread has turned into the usual boring fight. IHJL's comments were catty and unnecessary, but would probably have been better ignored, as most working parents tend to do in RL. These sorts of discussion just tend to irritate and upset everyone.

I had just one point to add to the discussion, which is that mothers should stop thinking about their income funding childcare. It is a family decision as to what arrangements to make, using the family income. Otherwise it just perpetuates the idea that mothers are totally responsible for looking after children.

You have deffo made the right decision...no one on their death bed ever wishes they'd spent more time at the office..

...your child is now your priority, you can always go back to work when dc is at school....

Good luck..

why give up the £60k job and not the £30k job?or were you emphatic you wanted to be sahm? do maintain cpd/current knowledge/professional contacts so if you decide to return when school starts it is easier to do so.dont cut yourself completley off either

hope you can make this work.afterall we all do what we think is right thing

People on their death bed may well wish they'd achieved a wider variety of experiences in their life though

Can I also say that all parents make their children their priority - that's dead straightforward. This doesn't have to be a competition - some parents are happy not working, some parents are happy working - the children come first each and every time though

ah but those on death bed are grateful to see those of us who work.and are available and trained for such things.about to shuffle off the mortal coil no one calls for a housewife to be in attendance

Yes...that's very true VH....but the op has already achieved alot..and now needs to take time out to raise her child...imo..

If she couldn't afford to stay at home I'd advise her to go back to work...no point being at home with the bills mounting up..
but she can afford to give up work and seems really unhappy at the thought of leaving her child..

LOL very true scottishmummy!!

My point really though, is that the trite old saying about 'No one on their death bed wishes they'd spent more time at the office' is just meaningless. It implies that going to work means sitting in some dull office, being bored out of your mind, doing a pointless job.

I hope on my death bed I look back over my life and feel contented and fulfilled with my life - and yes, the most important chunk of that will be about family, my children etc, but there will also be a lot of other things to feel fulfilled about - places I've visited, books I've read, people I've met, things I've learned .... and quite a lot of that comes from life outside the nuclear family.

Is this a music thread?

No QC it isn't.....but does anyone really care..?

music thread?is there some inference here i dont get

Well, I really very much doubt that on my death bed i will be thinking about 3.5 years of my life that I went to work instead of stayed at home with my DD.

When theyre at school what we're really talking about is a couple of hours 5 days a week difference.

So, assuming I live a long life and die at the average age of 80 or whatever, I will not be thinkin about those years.

No the death bed thingo holds no sway whatsoever I'm afraid.

I mean the op could stop working and find that in five years she is spending a lot of time cleaning the house while her children are at school as funds are too low for help.

Plus work can be good for you. My parents are very worried about having to retire and they are seventy. They love working at careers they love.

I don't think about those early years and my children are 9 and 11. I went back to work when they were six and three months respectively, and I have no regrets (why would I? it was what I wanted to do and we had good childcare). Regrets are a bad idea in any case, better to seize the current day than wallow in the past. The past is the past. I don't think that in later years you can really tell the difference between those children who had a parent at home and those who had an alternative carer or nursery care, so long as they were happy, and I think the same is true for parents too.

Make an informed decision that feels right for your family (or as right as possible at least) and then move on. Very few things are set in stone - we've had a nanny with their own child too, a nanny, dh at home, a childminder, me at home and now dh at home again, and fairly shortly we won't need childcare anymore. All of these arrangements have had their pros and cons.

The only thing that surprised me with the OP was how much they though that the nanny option would cost - we had a full time day nanny when we were earning probably 60k between us, and had money over to live, but perhaps her family has much higher outgoings than we did.

On my deathbed (if I have one that is, and if I am compus mentus enough to think) I expect to look back over many many years (I hope!) not focus on the two or three when my children were very small - in fact given that those years were peculiarly painful for all sorts of reasons I hope very much that I'll be thinking about something else!

I agree marsha - Realistically, one of the best, and most unselfish things we can do for our children is to encourage them to aim for an interesing and fulfilling work life, because one thing's for sure: their generation is probably going to be working until 70 or beyond. I hope my children (my son and my daughters) grow up knowing first hand that working is not only necessary if you want to have control and choices in your life, but that it can also be extremely liberating and fulfilling.

In this particular case Moomo is looking for reassurance. They can afford as a family for her not to return to work, she doesn't want to return to work...so why should she?