Were you a full-time SAHM? ...or SAHD?

I haven't read the article, but I do feel Cherie Blair has done very well for herself. Sure, she may have benefitted form her connection with the ex-P.M., but she became a Q.C. on her own merit - or am I being naive? I agree with NanaAnna: we shouldn't condemn anyone for their life choices (as long as no-one suffers as a result). Back in the 60's my husband was out of work and we were living in a bedsit with a 1 year old daughter. I had no choice but to return to work full-time myself or we would still be living there, but I was lucky enough to find a really lovely childminder with a little girl of her own, who gave my daughter every care when I was at work. I have always worked part-time in teaching or secretarial work, 21 years full-time before retiring last year. My own daughter told me she admired me so much for going to work, and she has been able to follow her career and raise two very happy daughters herself. Whatever our choices, it is our personal business - please don't let us bitch on about other women!

Having read through this thread quickly (so may well have missed it) I can't understand why no-one has pointed out that being a SAHM is also work (very hard work!). I used to become incandescent when I had 3 small children, DH working an average 80 hours a week as a GP and people said that I wasn't working !! Why do we have this argument anyway? Can't we, as sensible adults, realise that different people make different choices, and that what works for one family may not work for another? In my mother's day (50s), women gave up going out to work when they got married, in mine (70s) they usually stopped when they had children, and in my daughters' (00s) it is normal to go back out to work while the children are little. Having said that, DD1 was made redundant and stayed at home before the children went to school, DD2 works from home and DDIL has stayed at home since the children were born. All with the support of their spouses and parents/parents in law.

There are enough pressures on women even in these days of almost-equality without our falling out among ourselves about each others' choices!

gosh will I be sued but basically she is white trailer tra osh

As far as I am concerned Cherie Blair is that interesting combination of a brilliant brain and cheap genes.

POGS we will have to wait and see , if a book does come out I can assure you I will NOT be buying it but guess others will . Why in this day and age dco wives of P.M. etc think we give a tinkers toss what they think , but I suppose with the advent of "OK and Hello" every one has to have their 15 mins of fame

I totally agree with NONU.

I could not care one hoot CB thinks.

Is there a book coming out!.

Glam don't forget logistics, that was a big part for me with a 15 year old needing to be collected while the 4 year old needed to be in bed et., etc...................

And I also think it teaches you lots of skills that are useful in the workplace: patience, negotiating skills, the ability to put yourself in another's shoes, organisational skills etc - all of which are transferable. And SAHMs often get involved in setting up toddler groups etc, and learn money management, grant applications, legal issues etc.

It is quite easy to talk up the things that you learn from being a parent and persuade employers that these things are valuable. I never hesitated to include them in interview situations. At one interview (for a post to run a youth arts project) I was asked how I would deal with difficult teenagers. I related it to my work as a mother and said that many people had asked me how I coped with having 3 teenage girls in the house, but that I had seen it as a joy watching their developing personalities - I said that it was all a matter of attitude - I got the job!

Employers should never downplay the value of the work of a parent and we should not let them!

I was a full-time mum, and would not have had it any other way. As far as I am concerned, raising my children has been the single most important 'career' of my life.
I have also worked in a wide variety of jobs, including being a civil servant, a teacher and a small business owner.
I have never seen my many years of full-time motherhood as any barrier to getting out there and taking on a new direction in the workplace later in life.
My 3 daughters value the years when they were my sole focus, and also respect how I resumed my education when they were older, and how I have reinvented myself work-wise when circumstances have forced change upon me. I would say I am an extremely resourceful person, and far from diminishing me, motherhood gave me many additional life-skills that I have since put to good use.
I have also known plenty of women who returned to work when they had small children and would have been very unhappy to stay at home for years on end. An unhappy mother is no good to any child! One neighbour of mine - a primary school teacher - could not wait to return to the classroom. She was forever saying that a class of 30 6 years olds were far easier to cope with than a toddler and a baby! She was visibly more relaxed and definitely happier once she went back to work.
No one has the right to judge any one else's choices or decisions. What we need is respect for each other, whatever our choices, but also society's recognition that choosing to be a full-time parent is a valid and valuable career choice. (For those who want to do it).
My heart goes out to those mothers who would love to stay at home with their children but have to return to work out of financial necessity. I am grateful that I was not in that position, but it does seem that many young women today are not so fortunate.

mishap how true the value's of being at home bring to a job application,mine would list the following: keeping up to date accounts,head chef,launderess.seamstress,electrician,mechanic,gardener,taxi-driver,teacher,nurse and countless other trades too numerous to mention,I would have liked to see Cherie Blair cope with childcare and her career if she was without nannies and home help.

Whenever I filled in a job application form I always included my years as a SAHM in the columns about my career. I did not see it as "time out" from something more important, but as an integral part of my career - I would always indicate what I had learned from it and the transferable skills that flowed from it.

The concept of a "career woman" having to define that career as anything that happens out of the home is illogical to me.

You can't go out to work if you have small children, without some help in looking after them. I'm sure Cherie Blair had lots of paid help, and how many of us can afford this? I sometimes wonder what planet she is on. She may be a clever career woman, but the practicalities of life seem to escape her. Couples must do what suits their income and circumstances and don't need any lessons from her. Incidentally, I thought she was a Catholic, so how come she admits to forgetting her contraceptives? We really don't want to know all this.

Cherie didn't do a very good job of making her kids self-sufficient. They all live in £1 million + properties in London thanks to her.

I do wish Cherie Blair would keep her mouth shut , is any one really interested in what she says ? still as someone earlier remarked it gets her in the news and adds a bit more to the bank balance . ho hum

I really wonder how many yummy mummies(as defined by CB, marrying a rich husband so they don't have to go out to work themselves) there really are - I don't know any!
Her claim that she carried on with her career in order to make her children self-sufficient shouldn't fool any of us.
At various times since my children were born, I have worked full-time, part-time, and been a full-time mum for 8 years.
All of it was hard - and we make sacrifices whichever path we choose, once we become wives and mothers, because that's what human relationships are about.

I think it is a shame that some women feel they need to keep up their career in case the marriage fails. It never occured to me 44 years ago but I think it would now.

We had a joint bank account from the beginning and I never felt 'kept' because we each had our own role within the family so earning was only one part of that. In latter years when DH was working and paying 40% tax, he transferred all our savings to my name and I still have most of them even though since retirement we both pay 20%. Our sons are still on our credit cards and bank account since the days when they were students and needed access to our cash. We run our family on trust and it seems to work for us.

Watched TV programme last night about the 1950s kitchens revolution.. all that physical work that was required to keep the house and its occupants in clean clothes, hygienic conditions and fed! Must have been tremendously hard work to work outside the home and do all that! Plenty of women will have and still do that!

We both worked full-time from when the children were toddlers and we definitely have always seen ourselves as a team. We have always shared all the chores although there have been times when one has had to do more than the other because one of us was working away from home. My son and my daughter both combine work with running the household, although my son is regarded as very unusual by his Spanish in-laws. I remember when I was supposed to be a "company wife" (very bad at it) someone saying that she wouldn't go out to work in order to subsidise the company. I found that a very bizarre attitude at the time and she was one of the wives who was abandoned for a younger one later on.

I do consider myself a feminist but I see that as ensuring women have the same opportunities as men to make informed choices about their lives without being made to feel guilty/ pressured even in the more trivial wear make up /not to wear make up debate!!

I agree with kitty re the family being a team and as long as all members pull their weight and contribute for the mutual good it does not have to be divided into male /female or the earner to be more valued than the home maker.
If both man & woman choose (or have) to work that's OK too as long as childcare meets the needs of the child not the parents!

I had four years at home after 2nd baby and did similar things:set up playgroup, volunteer at youth club, shopping for elderly, ran a slimming club etc but also spent time putting the world to rights over coffee with other SAHM .. a sort of face to face forum really! whilst our kids played and learned to be socially interactive. A great time in my life I will not regret. as it helped to shape me and I met all kinds of people I might otherwise not have.

I gave up work when our first son was born and didn't go back until the third was 7 (18 years) and then it was only to pay school fees. I don't think I had a choice as there were no nurseries and we didn't have family near but I was happy doing it. My husband worked very long hours, was often away and rarely came home before the boys were in bed. There was no way we could both work.

I ran the school library, was treasurer of the PTA, did craft work with the infants, was on the DCC and chair of the social committee, helped out with poeple in all sorts of ways but not all at once! Where we lived it was not the working mums who did everything, it was people like me who gave a lot of time to others.

When I went back to college I was surprised to find out how easy it all was and when I started work I progressed very rapidly. Having been told how hard the working world was I found a lot of people with no commitment and no common sense, it was easy to go back to work after all that time but I did have a very good friend who looked after my son before and after school.

My DS and DiL each work 4 days a week so GS goes to nursery 3 days a week. They don't have a choice for one of them to give up work as they live in Wimbledon where life is very expensive and neither of them earns a huge salary so they have made a happy compromise.

I really don't think many women have a choice, just the priviledged few.

I have to say that staying at home when you have dependents of any age is hard work, but retirement for me is a complete doddle . However, when I had my four plus one children (ex-husband!) and I obtained full-time work, I would go to work for a rest!

Staying at home is hard, hard work! I totally agree that no woman should be made to feel in any way diminished if this is her choice.

kitty for someone who describes herself as 'not having to work' you certainly have been pulling your weight. It's time women who care for children, maintain a home, and do voluntary work in their community, received some sort of recognition that would enable them to have equal and independent status, particularly for women who subsequently find themselves having to sort out a lifestyle away from a partner in the event of relationship breakdown.

I agree with nanaej - the feminist movement doesn't seem to have achieved giving women more choice - just more pressure!

I was in the fortunate position of not having to work to maintain our family lifestyle but I have often been made to feel a lesser woman because I didn't have a career. I do realise that not all women have the option and not all women want to stay at home.

We see a family as a team with each person having their own role. My husband worked hard to bring home enough money to enable us to do the things we wanted to do while I did the things that kept the household and family running smoothly which enabled him to work hard etc etc. I certainly don't feel 'kept' by my husband and I am definitely NOT, nor ever was, a Yummy Mummy!

My husband has worked hard for the NHS all his working life and continues to do so in his retirement and, recognising our happy position, I did lots of voluntary work both for the children's school, in hospitals and in local playgroups but I still, often, felt as though I was not pulling my weight in society.

Definitely - ducks!!

How times have changed. My grandmother never worked a day in her life - other then war work on a Red Cross canteen during WW2. She came from a family where girls didn't have to work just left school, stayed at home until Mr.Right turned up.[considering she was a young woman in WW1 was lucky to meet someone]. My mother left school , did some nursing which she hated, the war arrived and she joined the WRENS.Met my father, got married, left WRENS [their rules] and had me. When we lived in Hong Kong we had servants, so she decided to go to Secretarial College to take a shorthand/typing course, and learnt to drive [if you know HK you know what a feat that was]. She finally got a part time job in the local council [we were back in Canada by then] and loved every moment of it. I went back to part time work when my son was 9 months old, had a 6 year gap when we lived in the US, returned here and have worked ever since. My DIL went back to work after 6 months of maternity leave for both her little girls. We all did what was expected of us.