Stay at home mums

wotnext

I am a SAHM too, although I do work PT but am going to resign in the hope of being able to run a small business from home. I was just really interested to hear other people's views and experiences.

If you are a SAHM do you sacrifice luxuries to ensure you can remain with your children? Have you made cutbacks to make ends meet or are you fortunate enough to have a partner who earns a good enough wage to be able to afford those little extras?

If you work do you find that your childcare costs almost cancel out your income? How do you balance work and home? I find running around after kiddies utterly exhausting and am forever wishing for more hours in the day. I honestly don't know how people cope with holding down a job and parenting, it must be incredibly difficult.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

wotnext wrote: »

I am a SAHM too, although I do work PT but am going to resign in the hope of being able to run a small business from home. I was just really interested to hear other people's views and experiences.

If you are a SAHM do you sacrifice luxuries to ensure you can remain with your children? Have you made cutbacks to make ends meet or are you fortunate enough to have a partner who earns a good enough wage to be able to afford those little extras?

If you work do you find that your childcare costs almost cancel out your income? How do you balance work and home? I find running around after kiddies utterly exhausting and am forever wishing for more hours in the day. I honestly don't know how people cope with holding down a job and parenting, it must be incredibly difficult.

Working mums sacrifice things too ya know

Nope - Nursery is £52.50 a week - household is classed as a "low" wage so we get help from WTC/CTC

Charlie1978

I have two children 12 and 6. I work from home and it is really tiring. My job enables me to continue with the school run and work over a little later to compensate any time I take out for the children and any events they may have. It is tiring. I probably work longer hours than I would being in an employed position but I just want to be here for my children.

Have another LO on the way now though and i'm not entirely sure how it's all going to work. Will cut back on hours and hope I can cope I guess. I don't want to go down the nursery route again. I just want to be here for my children.

Unfortunately we don't have much of a choice. I have to work. And what I bring in is pennies compared to the hubby who pays all the bills. My small wage goes a very small way in contributing and I always said it was nice to contribute something. However, if I could be a SAHM I really would. I have no energy whatsoever to cook nice meals or do the housework and our home is constantly a mess. Annoying but I can't do everything.

Unfortunately, this is just a fact of life and I feel I have the lesser of two evils being able to work from home and still be here for when my children come home from school. I'm relatively lucky and very proud considering the background I come from. My hubby has worked tirelessly hard to get where he is and we live comfortably and within our means.

There just never seems to be enough hours in the day!

jcr16

i don't really scarfies anything. yes we only have 1 holiday a yr, our mpv is 8 yrs old. but i don't see it as a scarfies. i'd rather less cash and be with my children and run our home. as long as bills are paid, were fed, clothed and warm. we have alot of love ,what more could working possibly give me.

of course if money was dire and i had to work i would. but i'd prob go for shelf stacking nighttime a a supermarket, while the children and hubby sleep's.then i could come home, see to kids get them to school, put a meal in slow cooker and have a sleep, then be ready in time to collect children from school.

HappyEnough

LoopyLil wrote: »

I am a SAHM, we decided that after our children were born it was important that one of us stays at home to look after them. We had them, they are our responsibility. I personally couldn't send them to a childminder, so it is upto one of us to look after them.

If they are ill, I don't have the worry about phoning into work to get a day off, school holidays/teacher training days aren't a problem.

It's hardwork being a full time parent/housewife, would I change it for a paid employment? - no way!

Being a SAHM is what is right for me and our children. My hubby doesn't see me as a 'status symbol' and he earns enough for us to get by as we live to our means. Our children are happy, we are happy. Being a SAHM is a job (and a half!)

Hi there
I am new to this, always reading but never posting, but seeing as this post struck such a chord with me i finally felt compelled to post!
I am a sahm of seven. Five of mine, and two step. My eldest now lives away in London, and my two step live with their mum, so guess technically a sahm to four. We made a decision when we began having children that it was better for US that i make childrearing and housewifely bits my career. It is challenging, and my husband is by no means a huge wage earner, but I agree so much with the above post. I have sacrificed alot to be at home, but it is purely financial, not emotional sacrifies. And what youve never had you never miss. My kids are all teens now, and I honestly believe they need me as much, maybe even more, now they are older. They all have different problems, rush in from school with so-and-so did that, so-and-so did this, they still need me. We have asked them if they would prefer me to work, to enable us to have more money, and their response was that money isnt important, knowing Im here for them, and in lots of cases their friends too, is the most important thing in the world to them. I do worry, money is tight, I have to say no alot, but Im happy, my husband is happy, and my children are all happy, emotionally secure kids, so my career choice made 20 years ago is the best choice for us. Not for everyone I do appreciate that, but it is for us.

Plans_all_plans

I class myself as a SAHM, although I work part time now my DD is old enough to attend a school nursery in the mornings (she's nearly 4). I wanted a job that would fit round my child and it does that perfectly: I'm able to drop her off and pick her up every day. Then we have afternoons free to play/go out etc. Even if I didn't work she'd have been going to nursery, so I might as well earn money while she's out.

If I hadn't found a job that was flexible with hours/would fit round my DD etc, I wouldn't have started working and would have stayed a full time SAHM.

If we have future children, I'd ask if I could work evenings at my current job and I'd go out once my husband got home from work. If they said no I'd quit in a heartbeat to SAH.

My husband's mum has stayed at home since he was born, so he would like our kids to benefit like he did. I don't he sees it as a status symbol though! It's not like I'm driving a top of the range Mercedes and getting my nails done weekly like a footballers wife!

Normal women can be SAHMs too!

In terms of sacrificing things for me to stay at home: if I worked full time we could have afforded a 4 bed detached, been able to go on foreign holidays every year, have a flashier car etc. However we both knew that we wanted me to stay at home, so we live in a more modest home, have a foreign holiday every now and again and drive an older car. So in that respect we 'made sacrifices' for me to stay at home, but we never had them in the first place, so it didn't feel like a sacrifice IYSWIM.

We don;t sacrifice day to day stuff, though I'd certainly be prepared to do it if I had to in order to be able to stay at home.

tooldle

Can I just bust this myth that working parents don't bring up their own children, or get to see much of them.
I work, can you guess? I think we sometimes forget that there are 168 hours in a week. Standard school hours in our part of the world are 32.5hours per week. If kids take any after school activities, netball, rugby etc then the time spent in school increases. Typically full time jobs range from 35-40 hours, some more, some a little less, deoending on travel etc. Not much of a differential.
In our household we work 65 hours between us. Utilising flexible working one of us starts very early whilst the other gets child up and off to school, the early starter picks up from school whilst the last start is still at work.
I can understand people having a preference to stay home when the kids are tiny babies but it wouldn't be my choice.

Plans_all_plans

I would say most of those commenting have children under 5, so that's why they say working parents don;t see much of their kids. If your kids are under 5 and both parents work, then you don't get to see much of them in my book. When they start school it is a slightly different ball game.

tashmartin

Hi all i'm a sahm and have found that it was the best decision that myself and my partner made. I have 2 kids age 6 and 5 and worked as a full time reatil manager until my youngest was 2. DH also worked fulltime as a shift manager and as a result the kids were in nursery 4 days a week. DH would go 3 or 4 days at a time without seeing myself or the kids due to his shift patterns and I always felt that my days off were rushed and lacking in quality time with them. We had no money spare every month due to nursery fees and eating rubbish because of lack of time to prepare anything. We both agreed that me giving up my job would be more beneficial to the whole family. As a result our relationship with each other and the children has improved tremendously because I actually have the time to give rather than stretching myself too thin, the kids are happier and we have managed to overpay our mortgage every month ( which will be paid off in full in 3 years!)simply by having the time to cook from scratch and having the time to shop around ( plus having the time to read this site!). So, although being a sahm isn't always as glamourous as those of the women mentioned in the daily mail article it has been a lifesaver for me.

andrealm

There seems to be a bit of a misconception that sahms are either on benefits or else married to very rich men. In actual fact many, like me are married to men on fairly average salaries. I wanted to be a sahm and as I didn't earn much, my salary would have been chewed up by childcare costs. So either way, we had a large drop in our income.

I don't miss my job at all and I think I would find it very stressful to work full time while my children were young. my mum worked full time as a teacher when I was young and I never felt I missed out on anything because she worked. I had a lovely childminder and my mum would do baking, crafts etc. with me when she was at home.

Dd1 has had a lot of hospital appointments this year, I don't know how I would have been able to get time off for all of them if I worked. She started school this year and between half terms, teacher training days and school closing early for parents' interviews, it's much easier logistically when one parent is at home. Dd2 is only 2 so is still at home, although we go out most mornings to toddler groups.