Hellobee Boards

No, because I have every other Friday off (today), and we never have that fun outing that's in my head! We have tantrum city, followed by a refusal to walk, refusal to ride, refusal to eat, meltdown in chick fil a. I give mad props to SAHM, it's hard trying to reason with a 2yr old! Twice a month is enough for me! As she's sitting on the floor feeding the yorkies cheetos. At least she isn't kicking them lol

I do! Having just come off mat leave I know that the reality wouldn't match up with the picture in my head but I keep thinking of all the fun summer things I'd love to do and how great it would be if I could do them on weekdays when everything isn't so jam packed busy.

In my ideal world I'd be a part-time SAHM. I'd love to work 4- 6 hour days and have more time home each day and one extra full day with the kids. Or have the summer off.
I do like to work though so I can u-plug from the kiddo's for a little bit and get some more adult interaction. I think being a full time SAHM would be bad for my own sanity.

I'm on maternity leave for the next 2.5 weeks and really struggling with this. While recovery was awful, spending all this time with my boys has been incredible. I am loving it so much and have been having so many emotional breakdowns at the thought of returning to work.

Think my ideal would be working 2-3x a week... but I do remember when I was a SAHM, I really struggled. I also worked really hard for my career and could never fully walk away.

But I am really longing to be home now that I've had a taste of it on leave

@josina: Same!!

@mrskansas: I absolutely feel the same way! While I know that SAH is by no means easier at all, my logic is always, why am I spending a majority of my time/life somewhere I don't want to be! I rather work for my kids than for "strangers"! But since I am the breadwinner, I have to force myself to look at the positives of WOH and then just make weekends count.

@LBee: same. Then I get a few extra days off and I'm like, "whew, this is hard!"

@josina: Yes, shorter work days would be ideal. One thing I don't like about working is I feel like we don't get to do fun stuff on weekdays, like go to the park. It's basically dinner, a little playtime and then bed.

Jealous? No. If I want to, I could theoretically stop working after giving my notice.

I love my son, do not get me wrong, but he doesn't want to be around me all the time anymore either. He would much rather be with his friends (he's 6 and in kindergarten now), so even in the summer, with school out, he is really excited to go to camp.

I also am very "picky" about who I spend my time with and my circle of friends is mostly made up of women that are working. I haven't been able to "gel" with any of the stay at home moms that I've come across for various reasons (it's me, NOT them) so I unless I had my pick of friends to spend time with, I'd be very lonely most days.

I'm not jealous of their days. I enjoy my work, and my kids loooove school. And if I want to have a fun day at the splash pad, I take a day off and make it happen. What I AM jealous of is only wearing one hat. Trying to balance a full time job, while also doing all the things a SAHM does (cook, clean, grocery shop, do the laundry, have meaningful interaction with my children on a daily basis, etc, etc, etc) gets exhausting.

@mrskansas: sometimes I do. Especially with the "what does summer look like wtih your LO" post. I mean, what are we doing this summer? Same thing we do every day. Daycare drop off, work, rush to get dinner/bath done, then bedtime. While I don't wish to be a SAHM, what I wouldn't give to have summers off like my mom did. Not only summers but spring break, winter break, etc (she was a teacher). What I wouldn't give to spend all summer at the pool with my kid like my mom did. Instead I have 3 weeks of PTO I get to allocate every year and pray I save some time so I can have Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas off to maybe enjoy the holidays every year.

@mrskansas: Well, since I work in education, I kind of have the best of both worlds. I work and get a paycheck and have a career I love and have been doing for 14 years now. But I also get summers off and can do those things with my kids. I don't generally get jealous of my SAHM friends, because I know the realities of their life and I feel like it's really good for them, but not that good for my specific situation. Also, there are very real tradeoffs, like their husbands are much less involved with the kids even when they are both home, because SAHMs are the default parent. Whereas my husband and I have a very equitable split because we both work full time--and having an equitable split is something that is very good for my personality type.

HOWEVER, the one thing I get jealous about is people who have an easy SAH life--I do have several friends in town who SAH, and also have babysitters or nannies, and have cleaners. I left work a smidge early on Wednesday to take my kids to the doctor, and as I was racing home to get the kids, I passed by a coffee place and saw two of my SAHM friends, SANS KIDS, having a deep and intense conversation sitting outside at the outdoor tables. And it was like, 2pm in the afternoon and they both had workout gear on and had clearly just come from a workout. Their kids were clearly home with sitters. Meanwhile, I'm juggling work, kids, cleaning house, cooking, packing lunches, washing all that crap at night. I definitely felt a pang then.

But when I feel that stuff, I just have to evaluate what I'm missing and talk to my husband and try to get that need met. When I saw my friends having coffee, I realized I need a little alone time or friends time without kids and I try to make it happen. If I take a minute to think about it, I don't want to switch lives with either one of them. What they are doing works for them, and that's great. But I wouldn't want the marriages they have or the household balance they have, so what works for us is something different.

It's hard, though!

I get jealous sometimes of my best friend who is a SAHM but then when I think of the reality of her life I realize how much I would hate to stay at home. Me working just provides our family a balance that I really need; I could not deal with being the default parent long term and as another poster put it, many women can stay at home only bc their husbands work really demanding careers and are not able to help out at home much. For me PERSONALLY I just would not be ok with that life. I am very lucky though because I get summers off and vaca time during the year as a teacher.

I totally get that it's hard to not feel jealous sometimes! Would it be doable to plan a few days during the summer where you took a day off or went home early so you could do something special with your daughter?

I have done FT SAHM, PTSAHM/WOHM, and FT WOHM. Honestly there are pros and cons to each. For ME personally I felt like I got the most time to myself as a FT WOHM and I find being a SAHM the most exhausting. As others have said the SAHP is the default everything and the reason I did it and a huge part of the reason I now am PT is because my dh's schedule is demanding- which I imagine puts pressure on him although he likes his job and doesn't seem to mind at this point. However, I also understand the feeling like most of your life revolves around someone or something you don't care about when you don't like your job and that is incredibly frustrating! All this to say, take a day off if a splash pad Day is what you're looking for. It's not worth being jealous of SAHMs because that comes with a lot more than splash pads and leggings and target.

Noooo! I did enjoy my (Canadian) year long mat leaves, but I LOVE my job (as an NICU nurse) and I feel like the kids and I all do better with some time apart. They love their daycare and I feel like our time together is better when I am off work. Full disclosure, I only work 30 hours per week instead of full time.

@Anagram: I am curious, though, if you were staying at home, is that what your life would look like (the scene where you described the moms out to coffee after working out)?

It wouldn't for me, and I think that's why I don't really aspire to it.

@dc yoga bee: lol couldn't have said better

I had SAHM envy until I actually had my kids and saw how hard it is to be alone with them all day. It's not the fun filled day I imagined. Now I just have PT working mom envy

I adore staying home with my little. That said some days are HARD. Wednesday she spent almost the whole day pulling my hair and smacking me. We don't have family close so I don't usually have an option to just take her somewhere for an hour so I can get a break.
On those days I wish I had a job, with reasonable adult people to talk to.
And I think staying home or working are both super valuable things to do

Take a day off every once in a while to hang with the littles if you can

@mrskansas: I stay at home and I sometimes get jealous of parents who work out of the home/ my husband. The reality is there are pros and cons to both and both have difficult parts. I definitely don't do these amazing adventures and crafts everyday....or very often. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have gotten lunch out during the week. Right now I am pregnant and home with a toddler. I take care of another toddler 10 hours a day, but now have about a year off from that and then will have that toddler back plus an infant along with my toddler and infant. It can be really stressful, isolating, and lonely to be home all day everyday even with a trip out to the park thrown in. My husband travels for 3-5 days at a time fairly often too so not having a break at bedtime is tiring.

Presenting the flip side! I often don't get anything done around the house except for a few loads of dishes and don't understand why I don't have a sparkling house, delicious dinners made, and cool art everywhere...

I took a year off after each kid was born and returned to work both times at part time. The boys are in daycare full time 5 days a week (mostly because DS2 only has the option for full time in the infant room and they go to the same school). I go in 3 full days a week (and come in after hours or weekends when it's busy) and have 2 days "off" to get all our household stuff done.

It really is the perfect balance for me. Those 3 days when I'm at work, I'm fully present And engaged. It also makes splitting up sick days easier for DH and I. I'm making enough money to pay for daycare, I have two days to do all our errands and household stuff and any personal care for me, and all doctors appointments and stuff for the kids happen on my days off. Then we can focus on family time together on the weekends.

Having done a year at home with each kid, I can say full-time SAHMing is not for me - at least at this younger baby and toddler stage. I think me being home with them that first year was invaluable to them, but it was a huge sacrifice for me, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Worth it, but hard. I can see wanting to be a SAHM once my kids are in school and past naps and able to hold conversations and do activities together, (especially since I would have those school days to go to Target and work out), but right now two boys 20 months apart deep in the toddler phase is not where I'm going to excel full-time as a mom.

The weekends we have a pretty low key day on Sunday with church and getting ready for the week (I work M,T,W) but we try to plan to do something on Saturday mornings together as a family. Usually it's like a 2 hour excursion outside like a museum or farmers market or whatever. Then lunch and naps. Saturday evenings we often invite our friends over for dinner and they play with the kids and it's a little more special. That amount of fun stuff is really plenty right now for my tots. They just do better on reliable routines anyway.