Stay at Home Mums

I dont know why people ask for opinions on situations which are very much a personal choice, to me it wouldn’t matter what other people thought about it.

If she is going to stay at home I can understand the need for the child to be in nursery for a couple of days, looking after a little one is mind numbing and the child would benefit mixing with other children.

Not all women find looking after small children mind-numbing.

The young mother who decides to do so, presumably has friends who likewise are staying at home with their infants or toddlers.

My advice is do as you want, but do keep up your contributions to your pension fund, and make sure you have enough in the bank to tide you over a period with employment when you want back into the job market.

I wonder if nursery staff and childminders find childcare mind numbing?

I agree Luckygirl we should all respect other's choices. There's no 'one size fits all', we all have different circumstances and temperaments.

I was a sahm , then worked part time when they went to school. I don't regret it one minute, playgroup only once a week and lots of visits to my friends who had children the same age. It is a very personal choice and one parents should be happy with. Whatever works for that family is fine. Most parents work full time now but I do worry about the very long days children have in preschool care . I would have hated that! ( Old fashioned I know) but I was never bored being at home with my children . I was there for them the day after they threw up in the night - as they do occasionally, never had the stress of ringing my boss to say I couldn't come in to work, coffee meetup with friends , time to meet up with my lovely Mum or stay the afternoon with her - what's not to like!? I loved it. Each to their own , what matters is that parents make a choice that is right for them . Happy parents , happy child.

Women's liberation is to me about choice me too Luckygirl and I was fortunate to be a stay at home mum until our youngest started full time education.

Maybe there's a degree of jealousy from some who can't afford to do the same.

I went back to work full-time when both of mine were three months old, and that was exactly the right choice for me and my children. However, I would never put down anyone who chooses to be a stay-at-home mum. It's a bloomin' hard job, and I take my hat off to those who choose it. Thankfully, in this day and age, many women do have the choice whether to go back to work or not - something many of our forebears didn't have.

It is a matter of personal choice, when financial restrictions do not make it impossible.

I would also question this whole seemingly unquestioned belief that everyone should be pursuing a career and determined to get to the top etc etc. and that everything else should be subservient to the Great God Career. There are other things in life and the newspapers are full of stories of people who at sometime decided that the Great God Career was not their God and stepped away to do other things. Not just burntout bankers starting eco enterprises with stashed £millions, but teachers becoming supermarket workers and nurses becoming carers. A friend, who had a science degree and taught in a secondary school, actually stepped back to become a teaching assistant. Childcare was not a factor.

I will confess that I was another like Elowen33, who despite not regretting a day I spent at home with my children, did often find it mind-numbing. I used to describe it as going round with the mental blinds half down. This despite being involved in lots of community activities. My sister described the change in me when I went back to work as getting the pre-baby M0nica back.

I was out of the work market for seven years when my children were small, but I used it usefully to gain extra qualifications and came back to work not far below the level I was at when I gave up work and soon made progress

I am 78 next birthday and an only child.
My Mum stayed at home with me because in the 1950's that is what the vast majority of Mums did. My Dad was a bus driver, so money was always fairly tight but that generation was satisfied with the basics in life. WW2 was still fresh in peoples' minds and many things were still rationed. There were no labour saving gadgets like hoovers, microwaves, fridges, freezers, dishwashers, tumble dryers and washing machines. No ready meals, fast food and takeaways. Everything cooked from scratch. Housework was a hard slog with your sleeves rolled up every day. They were recycling Queens, much better than today's Mums. They darned socks, turned sheets sides to middle, unpicked and turned collars and cuffs on shirts. Holidays were rare and few families had a car, TV or a telephone and no social media. Thank God for that. I still can recall those early years at home with my Mum.
A very different world to today's Mum.
Time is the most precious commodity and when it is spent with your children it is never wasted. Her children will flourish having their Mum's attention during those short but informative years. Good luck to her, I say.

DH and I juggled my family home was abroad, we have had one fabulous Nanny and a disastrous au pair.

Children were in nursery from age 3.

We have had babies in baskets under the desk’s, playpen in corner of makeshift office during renovations.

Choice is key, we were fortunate, many others haven’t got a choice.

I do not judge SAHM’s or those who return to work, their life, their choices.

I was fortunate enough to stay at home for four years and returned to work only because we needed the money. I always planned to return to work, and my mother, a frustrated career woman, would have happily dealt with the child care from the beginning but I wanted to be with my children. I loved being with them and would have stayed at home longer if I could.
It is all down to choice, and I think if this woman can afford it, and she wants to, she should stay at home. But for women who can't it is difficult to resurrect a career, or even a job, if you have too much time out. I feel very sorry for young mothers forced back to work because two moderate salaries are essential for paying a mortgage and running a home today.

The point is that no mater how nice her partner is being now about her being a SAHM, she will not have her own money and if they separate she will be in trouble. These days, sadly, every woman needs to have an escape fund. It’s standard advice to young women.

That's a shame they aren't supporting her with her choice. I stayed at home with my children and I was happy and fulfilled until they were in school and then went back to work. Seems perfectly natural to me.

I stayed home with our two until Himself arrived home from work around 5pm. I then took the car keys from him and worked audio typing out patient clinics at our local hospital until 9:30pm. 4 hours each evening Monday to Friday. He did bath times & bed times. I can’t remember what I did for food. I must have eaten with the children before I left. We were like a tag team. It worked for us. No regrets.

Imarocker

The point is that no mater how nice her partner is being now about her being a SAHM, she will not have her own money and if they separate she will be in trouble. These days, sadly, every woman needs to have an escape fund. It’s standard advice to young women.

Do they not have a joint bank account and both names on the mortgage or deeds?

DH has never considered it his money even though I was a SAHM for a few years.

Imarocker

The point is that no mater how nice her partner is being now about her being a SAHM, she will not have her own money and if they separate she will be in trouble. These days, sadly, every woman needs to have an escape fund. It’s standard advice to young women.

But if everything did end badly, she could use her giving up her job to look afterthe children would be considered in the fiancial settlement.

But, as I said up above, why is having a great successfuk career and hods of money seen as the only measure of success and happiness in life. If the marriage breaks up and she goes back and earns less than the very susbstantial amount she is earning now, providing it is sufficient for a reasonable level of living, so what. She may well consider the reduction in her career success a price worth paying for being home when her children were small.

Womens liberation is to me about choice. What suits one might not suit another. But this pile in on the poster as of spending 5 years with your children is a horrific idea really worries me.
Totally agree Lucky Girl. If there's massive peer pressure to go back to work (95% from posters who can't afford to SAH) then that negates the choice that's at the heart of liberation.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I stayed home with our two until Himself arrived home from work around 5pm. I then took the car keys from him and worked audio typing out patient clinics at our local hospital until 9:30pm. 4 hours each evening Monday to Friday. He did bath times & bed times. I can’t remember what I did for food. I must have eaten with the children before I left. We were like a tag team. It worked for us. No regrets.

Exactly it should be what works for each family 👍🏻

Elowen33 why should the child be in nursery 2 or 3 days if she's at home?

Lots of other ways to socialise!

I was a SAHM until our daughter went to uni and then did part time temping jobs. My mum was unavailable for childcare as she worked and my mother in law died not long after we married. I was around for school help outs and ferrying several children to various things etc. As well as that I was also around for my very elderly father in law for doctors and hospital visits etc.

"I will confess that I was another like Elowen33, who despite not regretting a day I spent at home with my children, did often find it mind-numbing. I used to describe it as going round with the mental blinds half down. This despite being involved in lots of community activities"

Never for a moment did I find it mind numbing - watching a small mind and personality develop was something fascinating to me - and finding ways to foster that used the little grey cells to the full.

When mine were young I taught evening classes to adults. Like FGT I left the house when DH came home and enjoyed my child free evenings.

Once they were older I worked days as well.

Back in those days lots of mums and it was mums not dads were SAHM so we had coffee mornings, playgroups, NHR and evening classes to keep up our brains and our friendships.

We even had our regular Wednesdays when 2 mums would look after up to 10 babies and toddlers for a couple of hours to give the other 6 mums time get their hair or teeth done or visit the library etc
I am still in touch with a couple of these women from 50 years ago!

Nowadays I don't believe there are networks like ours so it will be lonely for SAHM.

Not neccessarily lonely though, as many mums of small children work part-time & have some days off.
So there will be mums at home with their children that she can socilialise with.

I was a SAHM and certainly didn’t find it mind-numbing. I am well educated - I have two degrees - but I really loved it, and found it stimulating. I think many jobs are far more mind-numbing than caring for one’s children. It seems to me that it’s just as important to be there for them when they are adolescent as when they are small. When I was at school, I very much valued the fact that my mother was there to talk to when I came home, so I was determined to do the same for my children.

My mind isn’t numbed that easily!

Nor mine. The one thing I used to do was refer to adults as "grown ups", villains as "baddies", falls as "tumbles" etc when I was in adult company.