Full-time stay at home mum's - a dying breed?

[Fuschia]

minder Wrote:

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> I couldn't justify having a cleaner if I was a

> SAHM and also not do any ironing! With husband

> needing a shirt every day and three teenagers it's

> not possible to not do any ironing and cleaning!

I have just started a thread on this topic

I don't agree children were left to cry in the garden while our mums did housework

We helped! In our own way

Or we plAyed by ourselves

[cuppa tea]

So mum's these days are failures as they are unable to clean the house as well as look after the kids? Looking after young children and meeting their needs is a full time job. There is barely time for anything else.

I don't want to spend my day forcing my kids to do housework either....that would not be a good use of time.

If you have teenagers, presumably they are at school every day?....this is totally different from having young dependent children. If my kids were at school each day I wouldn't consider myself a SAHM!

[sophiechristophy]

I agree cuppa tea - expecting a 1 year old to help with the housework is a little unrealistic...

[cuppa tea]

@ Dudley - what a brilliant post! Especially the point about being a primary educator and the immense priority we place on schools. We are delegating our children's education to the schools after all.

[bluesuperted]

Also thought Dudley's post was excellent. Totally agree re: respective respect/lack of respect in the public/private spheres with regards to raising children.

[Dudley]

A quick reply.

1)I fully accepted I am extremely lucky to have a cleaner. This is in my original post.

2) When I was talking about cleaning to the neglect of children, I meant babies under 1. I seemed to spend most of my time breast feeding mine under the age of 1 (and I am still doing that - how did that happen?). Can't clean and breast feed!

3) Of course I intend my child (hopefully children) to pull their weight around their house but 6 month old babies can't do this. I am really looking forward to putting little daughter to work: making my tea, rubbing my feet and baking me cakes (this is a joke-ish). Seriously though she is already helping me empty the dishwasher although I have to catch the plates pretty quickly before they hit the floor! She also like to hand me pegs when I put the washing out.

Trust me, I do my far bit of cleaning.

[cuppa tea]

3) Of course I intend my child (hopefully children) to pull their weight around their house but 6 month old babies can't do this. I am really looking forward to putting little daughter to work: making my tea, rubbing my feet and baking me cakes (this is a joke-ish). Seriously though she is already helping me empty the dishwasher although I have to catch the plates pretty quickly before they hit the floor! She also like to hand me pegs when I put the washing out.

Trust me, I do my far bit of cleaning."

You may be waiting a LONG time! Mine go through phases of 'helping'...love mopping the floor, washing up etc, but usually it's just a phase. If I attempted to get them to pull their weight I would spend all day nagging. It is x1000 times quicker to do it myself and a hell of a lot less painful! their time will come when they have to clean their own home.

[minder]

The time will come when my children will have to clean their own home. My youngest is 12, then 15 and 18. They all have demands on them at the moment with starting secondary, taking GCSEs and oldest taking A levels. I wouldn't expect them to do major cleaning - they do keep their rooms tidy (most of the time)!

But even when they were young, I wouldn't have had a cleaner in. That's just me - I prefer to do it myself and still do in the evenings and at weekends, even though I work from home 5 days a week(8am - 6pm).

Then again, I cleaned other peoples houses when my own were babies and toddlers to make ends meet.

[Ruth_Baldock]

Fuschia, not everyone was left to cry, I suppose, but my Husband and SIL have very vivid memories of that happening; and this was only in the early 80s! He's older than her, by 2 years, and remembers her shrieking her head off (he was old enough to amuse himself by then). He said his Dad would reguarly come home to a spotless house but frantic children. It was just the way his parents had seen things done, and hence how they wanted to do it too. But, as I've said, my MIL often says 'I wish I had just relaxed about it all and done it your way'...nice to know I'm doing something right!

My Mum once (jokingly) said she'd have left me in the garden to cry, but I used to make the cats scratch the sofas when I cried and she couldn't afford to buy new ones. Thanks, Mum.