Are you happy as a SAHM of school aged kids? Why or why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much $$ do you feel your partner would have to make for you to feel comfortable giving up your job?

It's not just how much my partner would need to make, it's how much in assets I would be guaranteed if something happened to said partner or we divorced. That would need to be a hell of a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much $$ do you feel your partner would have to make for you to feel comfortable giving up your job?

It's not just how much my partner would need to make, it's how much in assets I would be guaranteed if something happened to said partner or we divorced. That would need to be a hell of a lot.

Well there is life insurance in case of death, and a legal agreement in case of divorce. I don't worry about the latter. I think we'd need partner's income to be at least $300K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what would you do with your time? after a few months, wouldn't it get boring?

It always cracks me up when people ask this. You really can't think of anything you'd do other than go to work every day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds very lazy to quit working to stay at home once your children don't require childcare during the day because they're in school. Is that your actual plan? I don't know anyone who does/did that.

You are taking the phrase "stay at home" too literally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what would you do with your time? after a few months, wouldn't it get boring?

This has probably been responded to several times at this point, but no, it doesn't really get boring.

I have several hobbies, I go to the gym, I shop for the family, I clean, go see movies, take walks, volunteer for the kids' school, take walks, etc.

Certainly I have my days that I feel lonely, but overall I like having the space and time to explore and think.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I SAH full-time when my son was 0-2. I went back to work very part-time when he turned 2 (10 hours per week) and now work the same now (he is 5 and in Kindergarten). So I consider myself somewhat of a SAHM. I plan to continue working 10 hours per week throughout elementary school at least. I love my schedule. It's the perfect mix of work an leisure. Here's why I only work 10 hours per week:

-DH is in a very inflexible, non-family friendly job. His hours are 6 am - 6 pm and will never change. He can never do drop offs or pick ups, sick days or snow days. Since I have to do all those things it makes sense for me to have a very flexible, part-time job.

-No local family in the area to help out for sick days or snow days.

-DH can't attend any programs/events at the school unless he takes the entire day off, so he can't take the morning off to go to a school event, for example. Since we have no family in the area I feel like I need to be at every single school program/event so my son has someone there.

-DH works 70 hour weeks. I take care of all the grocery shopping, meal prep, cleaning and repairs.

-Since I don't work every day, I still have free time to get appointments done, shop, work out, hobbies, etc. It's great.

working mom here.

10 hours is nothing. why even bother? I think our interns even do more than 10 hours a week.

PP here. Why bother? Because I get to be a professional in the field I love but work reasonable hours, make good money (I get paid a lot per hour), and be there for everything my child needs (sick days, snow days, all school activities, volunteer at the school). It's enough hours that I stay intellectually engaged but not enough hours that I feel burned out. It's perfect and I love my schedule.

I guess I'm just wondering what you can even accomplish in 10 hours.

Are you per diem?

One ten hour day a week would make sense.

But splitting it up over 3 or 5 days is crazy. What could you even get done in that time?!

NP
I think the point is she can choose to just work ten hours and enjoy the work. Since she doesn’t need the money it keeps her brain sharp - also keeps her cv current.

Lol 10 hours isn’t going to keep your brain sharp. That’s just delusional.

Maybe it's delusional if you're not too sharp to begin with. Some of us don't need much to maintain it. You do you.

Keep telling yourself that. 10 hrs a week is what an intern does when they’re not serious about the job and mom and dad forced them into it.

What a stupid comparison.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I SAH full-time when my son was 0-2. I went back to work very part-time when he turned 2 (10 hours per week) and now work the same now (he is 5 and in Kindergarten). So I consider myself somewhat of a SAHM. I plan to continue working 10 hours per week throughout elementary school at least. I love my schedule. It's the perfect mix of work an leisure. Here's why I only work 10 hours per week:

-DH is in a very inflexible, non-family friendly job. His hours are 6 am - 6 pm and will never change. He can never do drop offs or pick ups, sick days or snow days. Since I have to do all those things it makes sense for me to have a very flexible, part-time job.

-No local family in the area to help out for sick days or snow days.

-DH can't attend any programs/events at the school unless he takes the entire day off, so he can't take the morning off to go to a school event, for example. Since we have no family in the area I feel like I need to be at every single school program/event so my son has someone there.

-DH works 70 hour weeks. I take care of all the grocery shopping, meal prep, cleaning and repairs.

-Since I don't work every day, I still have free time to get appointments done, shop, work out, hobbies, etc. It's great.

working mom here.

10 hours is nothing. why even bother? I think our interns even do more than 10 hours a week.

PP here. Why bother? Because I get to be a professional in the field I love but work reasonable hours, make good money (I get paid a lot per hour), and be there for everything my child needs (sick days, snow days, all school activities, volunteer at the school). It's enough hours that I stay intellectually engaged but not enough hours that I feel burned out. It's perfect and I love my schedule.

I guess I'm just wondering what you can even accomplish in 10 hours.

Are you per diem?

One ten hour day a week would make sense.

But splitting it up over 3 or 5 days is crazy. What could you even get done in that time?!

NP
I think the point is she can choose to just work ten hours and enjoy the work. Since she doesn’t need the money it keeps her brain sharp - also keeps her cv current.

Lol 10 hours isn’t going to keep your brain sharp. That’s just delusional.

Maybe it's delusional if you're not too sharp to begin with. Some of us don't need much to maintain it. You do you.

I used to work 10 hours or so a week teaching fitness classes- it was a fun hobby but how much could PP REALLY get paid an hour to make 10 hours worth it? Inless they make like $1000 an hour we are talking hobby money. If your hobby keeps you sharp that’s great- I enjoyed mine and I hope you enjoy yours- but let’s not pretend this is a valuable or lucrative or even well understood path.

I have a colleague who works about 15 hours a week at around 250 dollars an hour. If he works 48 weeks out of the year, that's 180,000/annually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much $$ do you feel your partner would have to make for you to feel comfortable giving up your job?

It's not just how much my partner would need to make, it's how much in assets I would be guaranteed if something happened to said partner or we divorced. That would need to be a hell of a lot.

Well there is life insurance in case of death, and a legal agreement in case of divorce. I don't worry about the latter. I think we'd need partner's income to be at least $300K.

That's more than my husband and I make together, so I wouldn't need that much. I'd be happy with $250k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much $$ do you feel your partner would have to make for you to feel comfortable giving up your job?

So this is what my spouse averaged when we divorced and I was a SAHM. Even with primary custody I would have had to go back to work and sell the house/move had I not had other assets. The divorce took a year, women/ make damn sure you’re a primary account holder on everything or you will very literally find an unwell or addicted spouse can literaly take everything and you have to pay (a lot!!!) to get it back. In the meantime you’re job hunting and trying to care for the needs of emotionally hurting kids and self. It’s not fun. Protect yourself ladies who are at home- most likely nothing will happen but PLEASE protect yourself on the off chance that it does.

I trusted mine with everything - had I not had emergency funds of my own he could have easily forced me to take less than fair terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was reading the other threads on this topic and it reminded me that I'm curious about SAHMs of school aged kids.

I work full time but I'm not crazy about my job and we don't need the money. Every time I come home complaining about one of my co workers or the workload (upper management refuses to hire extra staff to lessen it), my DH says "why don't you quit and stay home with the kids?"

I didn't want to do this when they were little but now that they are both easier to manage and in school all day, I am tempted.

Has anyone else quit to stay home once their kids started school? What was it like? Were you bored or did you feel fulfilled?

I have to admit, being able to do whatever I want for six hours a day sounds sooo nice right now!

Also I shouldn't h ave to say this but I obviously do: please no trolling. If you can't think of anything nice to say, just don't say anything at all.

Let’s just say it’s MUCH easier than working and raising kids.

Signed,

former SAHM of 9 year old twins who went back to work last year

[Anonymous]

Use your imagination people. Things long-term SAHMs I know have done to fill the hours:

-lawyer volunteers at pro bono clinics and is reading every Supreme Court case ever written just for kicks
-one took up old interest in painting and after about 10 years of working at it has a gallery show coming up
-I know three who went to lots of writing classes and seminars and book clubs and writing groups and have published books that they wrote over the course of years
-a handful took Master Gardiner courses and volunteer at public school gardens, National Children's garden, Hillwood, British Embassy, and at least two of them started related businesses and one is starting up a related .org
-another handful took Master Naturalist classes and are volunteering in national parks, stream cleaning, teaching clubs in public schools, and volunteer environmental advocacy
- several turned their after school club volunteering into small businesses
-one learns a language through the year and takes the kids on a long trip to a country to practice the language each summer (she's on her third).
- one who is very religious runs prayer groups and volunteers all over the place
- one took up photography and is pretty darned good, and maybe will make money at if she wants to someday
-a bunch studying tech to try to keep one step ahead of the kids!

and so on. And sometimes they have a 3-hour lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use your imagination people. Things long-term SAHMs I know have done to fill the hours:

-lawyer volunteers at pro bono clinics and is reading every Supreme Court case ever written just for kicks
-one took up old interest in painting and after about 10 years of working at it has a gallery show coming up
-I know three who went to lots of writing classes and seminars and book clubs and writing groups and have published books that they wrote over the course of years
-a handful took Master Gardiner courses and volunteer at public school gardens, National Children's garden, Hillwood, British Embassy, and at least two of them started related businesses and one is starting up a related .org
-another handful took Master Naturalist classes and are volunteering in national parks, stream cleaning, teaching clubs in public schools, and volunteer environmental advocacy
- several turned their after school club volunteering into small businesses
-one learns a language through the year and takes the kids on a long trip to a country to practice the language each summer (she's on her third).
- one who is very religious runs prayer groups and volunteers all over the place
- one took up photography and is pretty darned good, and maybe will make money at if she wants to someday
-a bunch studying tech to try to keep one step ahead of the kids!

and so on. And sometimes they have a 3-hour lunch.

Sounds like you know a lot of super pretentious, insecure people. Yeash.

[Anonymous]

I've been a stay at home mom for 11 years (three kids) and this is the first year my kids have been in full time school. I very much enjoy my life and keep myself busy.

That being said, I will warn you of one little catch which is that at least half of my SAHM friends went back to work once their youngest was in full time school, for financial reasons mostly. I still have my friends to get together with for workouts or lunches, etc, but it isn't as social as it was when our kids were younger and we had playgroups and met up at the playground etc. That phase of my life was much more socially engaging than my career ever was (small office at a nonprofit).

At least in my area, there are fewer SAHMs to connect with when your kids are school age vs. pre-k, so you'll need to find your network. Maybe that isn't other moms at all - maybe you'll want to find a hobby, or a running group, hit the dog park, etc. But social connection is important for mental wellbeing and that aspect of it gets harder as a SAHM of older children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Use your imagination people. Things long-term SAHMs I know have done to fill the hours:

-lawyer volunteers at pro bono clinics and is reading every Supreme Court case ever written just for kicks
-one took up old interest in painting and after about 10 years of working at it has a gallery show coming up
-I know three who went to lots of writing classes and seminars and book clubs and writing groups and have published books that they wrote over the course of years
-a handful took Master Gardiner courses and volunteer at public school gardens, National Children's garden, Hillwood, British Embassy, and at least two of them started related businesses and one is starting up a related .org
-another handful took Master Naturalist classes and are volunteering in national parks, stream cleaning, teaching clubs in public schools, and volunteer environmental advocacy
- several turned their after school club volunteering into small businesses
-one learns a language through the year and takes the kids on a long trip to a country to practice the language each summer (she's on her third).
- one who is very religious runs prayer groups and volunteers all over the place
- one took up photography and is pretty darned good, and maybe will make money at if she wants to someday
-a bunch studying tech to try to keep one step ahead of the kids!

and so on. And sometimes they have a 3-hour lunch.

Sounds like you know a lot of super pretentious, insecure people. Yeash.

Huh? I think you are projecting a bit, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much $$ do you feel your partner would have to make for you to feel comfortable giving up your job?

It's not just how much my partner would need to make, it's how much in assets I would be guaranteed if something happened to said partner or we divorced. That would need to be a hell of a lot.

Well there is life insurance in case of death, and a legal agreement in case of divorce. I don't worry about the latter. I think we'd need partner's income to be at least $300K.

Yeah, no. It would need to be a sizable life insurance policy, we'd need outstanding disability coverage and, for me, a post-nup. There's no way I'd assume fairness in a divorce, even in a "rock-solid" marriage.