S/o how did you know SAH in your twenties

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there any SAHMs here who intend to never work again ever for a single hour in their life (including part time/flex)? And never go back to school?

My mom became a sahm and never earned a dollar in her life again nor did she go back to school.

Me. DH grew up with a SAHM and highly values it. I always knew I wanted to be a SAHM. I have an MA and could return to work if needed. I am completely fulfilled taking care of my family. Some women want fulfillment outside of being wife/mom. I don’t. It works for us.

[Anonymous]

I began to SAH at age 28. I honestly didn’t think it would be but a year or so but then I kept having kids. No regrets three kids and 15 years later. I grew up in a household without a SAHM and my mother never really approved of my choice, and that’s ok (we are still very close).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The majority, really every person I know who is a sahm did not intend to sahm before having kids. Life changes

As a SAHM, I have a lot of SAHM friends. Only one I know personally went into the marriage wanting this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a bread-winning mom and had to attend daycare more than 40 hours a week since infancy. My mom could never come to elementary classes parties or chaperone field trips. I was so jealous of classmates who had their moms pick them up from school, while I had to attend aftercare. And mor often than not, the daycare ladies were disengaged and mean.

I never wanted that for my kids, and always knew I’d only be a mom if I could stay at home with them when they were young.

+1 same reason for me. I knew I wanted the opposite of how I was raised (full time daycare, camps all summer, after care, etc)

[Anonymous]

When I took prenatal yoga 12 years ago, most of the women were young, around 25, and having their first. About half of the class planned to SAH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a SAHM and it just seemed like fun and low stress.

Unfortunately after about 5 years I to it myself, I got bored and felt unstimulated. Husband didn't respect me anymore. It was very challenging to find a job to hire me. I finally did find something way below my market value but even after several years back, it's still challenging to apply for more senior roles despite stellar performance reviews and solid references. It's like I can't escape the black hole on my resume.

After several years the 5 year gap still comes up? Wow. Maybe a recruiter or professional resume builder could help you. My mom went back to finish her degree at 44 with a 20 year gap (!) and she has done really well professionally!

wow congrats to her! I'm sure it was even harder back then compared to now.
Do you mind sharing what kind of degree it was?

I think it’s easier if you finish a new degree and start over after the years of SAH, rather than trying to resume the career that you left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a bread-winning mom and had to attend daycare more than 40 hours a week since infancy. My mom could never come to elementary classes parties or chaperone field trips. I was so jealous of classmates who had their moms pick them up from school, while I had to attend aftercare. And mor often than not, the daycare ladies were disengaged and mean.

I never wanted that for my kids, and always knew I’d only be a mom if I could stay at home with them when they were young.

Curious on whether you and your mom have ever discussed this and her reaction?

We’ve discussed a little. My dad was very caring but never could hold a job, and she was bored to tears the few months she tried to stay home after my oldest sibling was born. She was involved in our childhoods, which were great in most ways, but the reality was with two working parents we spent our early years in daycares. It’s just not the same as your own mother, or family, caring for you. I know my mom did what was right for herself and her family, but I just wanted a different way.

My DH had a SAHM who went back to teaching when he was in middle school, so he was always supportive of me being home with our young kids.

I’m surprised you remember all this. I’ve brought up the daycare (and later preschool) my DS attended from 1-4 (and then he was at home b/c of COVID shut downs at age 4). He’s 8 now and seems to have no memory of any of it and in fact barely even remembers virtual kindergarten. Maybe it has to do with how long the hours are? Or maybe my kid has a terrible memory (to be fair he can barely remember what he ate the day before).

Yea I had to re-read that part as well. Maybe some people remember how preschool was, but I seriously doubt infants from 0-3 ish (daycare years) can recall that their caregivers 'seemed disengaged compared to my parents' or 'were mean' unless it is about a single seriously traumatic event or such. The part about being sad not seeing your parents at school events or being in summer camp all the time, I do understand and my guess is that it re-enforced pp's preference of staying at home with her kids, hence projecting over to her dislike of daycare from an adult's perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP finally back after the kids are in bed. So many interesting posts and perspectives.

My mom worked, but she was usually home by 4, and never brought work home with her (medical field). I work, mostly from home, but more hours than she did — usually 45-50 hours solid hours of work. One pro is that I do have the flexibility to show up to mid day school events as long as it’s not too frequent and I know in advance to block off my calendar.

I’ll admit that in my twenties, I would have been internally judgmental of women who planned to be SAHMs. I was academically very high achieving. I also married a man (raised by two working parents but with lots of grandparent support) who in his twenties when we first met probably would not been too keen on dating someone who wanted to be a SAHM. But now, I don’t think he’d have a problem with me dialing back at work if it made me happy. And he is very supportive and actually does 50% of the housework/childcare already. We have both learned that taking care of kids is truly a full time job in itself and you can’t have it all, whether you’re a man or a woman. Something has to give.

The only issue now is financial. DH and I are basically equal in both current salary and future earning potential, so it would be a substantial cut to our finances. And unfortunately in my field, going part time is very rare, but a girl can dream. I think the most likely scenario is that we will just try to outsource more.

My DH would not have married me if I had no ambition and only wanted to be a SAHM. I remember an ex of mine looked hurt when I said I wouldn’t even want to take the full maternity leave when I had kids one day. Ha would be he surprised to see me as a SAHM now. I stopped working when DH earned around 800k. He now earns a seven figure income. If he didn’t earn so much, I would definitely have gone back to work by now.

[Anonymous]

The SAHM's that I know have very luxurious lives and have kids in school. They travel all over the world and spend a lot of time with girlfriends during the day.

I grew up with a working mom but she had family help with raising us. I cannot fathom going into marriage wanting to be a SAHM but if people have that option and prefer that over working that's their choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a bread-winning mom and had to attend daycare more than 40 hours a week since infancy. My mom could never come to elementary classes parties or chaperone field trips. I was so jealous of classmates who had their moms pick them up from school, while I had to attend aftercare. And mor often than not, the daycare ladies were disengaged and mean.

I never wanted that for my kids, and always knew I’d only be a mom if I could stay at home with them when they were young.

Curious on whether you and your mom have ever discussed this and her reaction?

We’ve discussed a little. My dad was very caring but never could hold a job, and she was bored to tears the few months she tried to stay home after my oldest sibling was born. She was involved in our childhoods, which were great in most ways, but the reality was with two working parents we spent our early years in daycares. It’s just not the same as your own mother, or family, caring for you. I know my mom did what was right for herself and her family, but I just wanted a different way.

My DH had a SAHM who went back to teaching when he was in middle school, so he was always supportive of me being home with our young kids.

I’m surprised you remember all this. I’ve brought up the daycare (and later preschool) my DS attended from 1-4 (and then he was at home b/c of COVID shut downs at age 4). He’s 8 now and seems to have no memory of any of it and in fact barely even remembers virtual kindergarten. Maybe it has to do with how long the hours are? Or maybe my kid has a terrible memory (to be fair he can barely remember what he ate the day before).

Yea I had to re-read that part as well. Maybe some people remember how preschool was, but I seriously doubt infants from 0-3 ish (daycare years) can recall that their caregivers 'seemed disengaged compared to my parents' or 'were mean' unless it is about a single seriously traumatic event or such. The part about being sad not seeing your parents at school events or being in summer camp all the time, I do understand and my guess is that it re-enforced pp's preference of staying at home with her kids, hence projecting over to her dislike of daycare from an adult's perspective.

I stopped working when my son was 4. He is 12 now. He still remembers hating nap time at daycare and I remember all the days he cried when I dropped him off when I went to work. I think both he and I were traumatized by the whole experience.

I have some friends who show tough love. They have had some horrible nanny and daycare issues but they just got through it.

[Anonymous]

I work flexible hours, from home.

I come from a pretty traditional family. I was expected to get a degree but never use it after kids…My mom has one but worked for maybe a couple years after getting it? Women are expected to get degrees so they can teach their kids at home. We never went to daycare but did go to half day Christian school starting at age 4ish which is typical in our neighborhood. All the kids on our street did that and all had SAHMs and professional dads.

My dad expected me to sahm and actually was pretty mad I didn’t. My mom was a full time sahm and did everything around the house.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a SAHM but I think she was lonely and happier when she went back to work when I was in HS. My inclination to be a SAHM for the early years came from spending my 20s seeing how miserable coworkers with babies seemed to be, never having enough time, running from work to daycare, one who often called her DH to ask him to try to keep the baby awake so she could see him when she got home. That just didn't look like how I wanted to spend those years.

So, I stayed home, thinking it would be 3ish years. From my mom's cautionary tale, I put a lot of effort into building a strong social life plus continued to do freelance work so I stayed connected to my career. Ended up loving that phase of life and was home seven years before going back to FT work with no problem.

Similar experience, except I was a nanny in my early 20s. I had a ton of jobs and almost all of the moms were miserable. Some of the husbands would even apologize the mom didn't clean up even though they both worked full-time! I have concluded that being a mom sucks unless you have a lot of paid help. Stay at home mom, part-time mom, full-time mom. I have tired all.

What's wrong with part time mom? In my view, that's really the best of both worlds.

Because you are expected to do everything a SAHM does at home, and you are kind of a scut monkey and never really respected at work.

Or at least that’s been my experience.

The experience is different if you can get to a certain level before leaving. The part time moms in my industry are well compensated and are in subject matter expert type roles and not scut monkey roles…And they are paid enough that they can get help like an au pair or part time nanny or house manager.

[Anonymous]

I always knew I wanted to be at SAHM but also entertained the idea of going back to work, which I did part-time after having children.
However, after having the second child working because much more difficult, and expensive and inconvenient. I am glad I gave it a try because even though I’ve loved working and having colleagues, it is just not worth it right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a SAHM and it just seemed like fun and low stress.

Unfortunately after about 5 years I to it myself, I got bored and felt unstimulated. Husband didn't respect me anymore. It was very challenging to find a job to hire me. I finally did find something way below my market value but even after several years back, it's still challenging to apply for more senior roles despite stellar performance reviews and solid references. It's like I can't escape the black hole on my resume. [/quote

I agree. Maybe find a friend to help you with interview skills? I was out of the workforce for 11 years raising my family and am a top performer netting 374-450k a year in sales. No one even pays any attention to the fact that I stayed hom for a decade to raise my kids. My performance speaks louder than my gap so I can’t relate to this “black hole” argument.

After several years the 5 year gap still comes up? Wow. Maybe a recruiter or professional resume builder could help you. My mom went back to finish her degree at 44 with a 20 year gap (!) and she has done really well professionally!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a bread-winning mom and had to attend daycare more than 40 hours a week since infancy. My mom could never come to elementary classes parties or chaperone field trips. I was so jealous of classmates who had their moms pick them up from school, while I had to attend aftercare. And mor often than not, the daycare ladies were disengaged and mean.

I never wanted that for my kids, and always knew I’d only be a mom if I could stay at home with them when they were young.

Curious on whether you and your mom have ever discussed this and her reaction?

We’ve discussed a little. My dad was very caring but never could hold a job, and she was bored to tears the few months she tried to stay home after my oldest sibling was born. She was involved in our childhoods, which were great in most ways, but the reality was with two working parents we spent our early years in daycares. It’s just not the same as your own mother, or family, caring for you. I know my mom did what was right for herself and her family, but I just wanted a different way.

My DH had a SAHM who went back to teaching when he was in middle school, so he was always supportive of me being home with our young kids.

I’m surprised you remember all this. I’ve brought up the daycare (and later preschool) my DS attended from 1-4 (and then he was at home b/c of COVID shut downs at age 4). He’s 8 now and seems to have no memory of any of it and in fact barely even remembers virtual kindergarten. Maybe it has to do with how long the hours are? Or maybe my kid has a terrible memory (to be fair he can barely remember what he ate the day before).

Yea I had to re-read that part as well. Maybe some people remember how preschool was, but I seriously doubt infants from 0-3 ish (daycare years) can recall that their caregivers 'seemed disengaged compared to my parents' or 'were mean' unless it is about a single seriously traumatic event or such. The part about being sad not seeing your parents at school events or being in summer camp all the time, I do understand and my guess is that it re-enforced pp's preference of staying at home with her kids, hence projecting over to her dislike of daycare from an adult's perspective.

I stopped working when my son was 4. He is 12 now. He still remembers hating nap time at daycare and I remember all the days he cried when I dropped him off when I went to work. I think both he and I were traumatized by the whole experience.

I have some friends who show tough love. They have had some horrible nanny and daycare issues but they just got through it.

I’m the pp with the bread winning mom. I absolutely remember my daycare years. Having to eat whatever they served for breakfast snack and lunch (egg salad on rye for toddlers?) or be hungry and shamed for ‘pickiness.’ Shamed for washing my hands the wrong way, other kids picking on you or stealing toys. I don’t have trauma over daycare by any means, but I just did not want my own kids to be cared for like that in a group setting.