Lucky them.
Who wouldn’t want to stay at home?
I have blogged on this subject before, so I hope I don’t bore by revisiting a bit of that. Let’s start here.
Alice (name changed), 35, 2 children Sarah and Emily aged 2 & 6.
Husband: Senior Level IT Consultant.
She used to work as a buyer for John Lewis.
A demanding but essentially glamorous job
(lots of freebies, travel, deadlines and stress!).
Now she doesn’t work.
Instead she just stays at home and looks after the girls.
WHAT?????
You just let me get away with that??
SHE.
DOESN’T.
WORK???
Indulge me, because I wrote something like this a couple of years ago, but a quick round up of the work Alice doesn’t do..
And just for fun, let’s work out how much she would need to pay to have that work done by someone else.
Monday
6:30 – 8:30am
Children woken, cuddled, nappies, loo, breakfast, school bag checked, packed lunch made tooth-brushing done, clothes chosen/uniform ready
Alternatively:
2 Nanny hours @ £10 (subtotal: £20)
8:30-9.15am
Children safely strapped into car seats and driven to school at 8:45, then pre-school 9am.
Alternatively
Taxi minimum of £10 possibly extra
or more realistically: 1 further Nanny hour PLUS an extra good quality family car
(as you need to provide this for nannies) insurance, petrol, tax
Cost of average car and costs broken down in to a daily amount £15
9:15-11.45 noon
Drive home to tidy breakfast things, deal with post, hoover, bins out, bathroom cleaned, surfaces wiped dusting, clothes/bedding washed, beds changed, kitchen floor cleaned.
Alternatively: Cleaner x 2.5 hours (min) £25
11:45-1.15am
Sarah collected from pre-school. Home, lunch cooked and helped with.
Alternatively: 1.5 x Nanny hours £15
1:15-2:45pm
Bottom changed, potty training ongoing. Walk with Sarah to river to feed ducks then to park to play on swings.
Alternatively: 1.5 x Nanny hours £15
2:45-3:45
Sarah strapped in safely (with snack to take along) to collect Emily from school.
Brief liaise with teacher, and then home with additional somewhat petulant child who is coming to tea.
1 minor falling out, then making up again over a Paddington dressing gown.
Alternatively: 1.5 x Nanny hours £15
3:45-4:30pm
Visit to shop and post office with children to deliver birthday present to relative, buy new tax disc for husband, dry cleaning collected,
2 x dentist, 1 x doctors appointments made.
Alternatively: 1.5 x Nanny hours £15
PLUS
1.3/4 x Personal Assistant hours £25
4:30-5pm
Games in the garden with all 3 children (potty training ongoing) on poo in potty, one poo in pants –15 minutes on hold to Sky engineer,
5pm-6pm
Children’s ‘tea’ cooked and eaten whilst entertaining all three children (potty training ongoing)
Alternatively:
1 adult x children’s meals at local mid-priced restaurant £25
5:30-6:30pm
Emily’s friend is collected. Then: spelling homework tested, reading homework supervised, book bag emptied of letters events marked on calendar.
6:30pm
Bath 1: Emily
Hair washed, teeth brushed, hot milk story, cuddle (not ever as straightforward as that).
then
7pm (hahah – in theory)
Bath 2: Sarah as above.
PLUS
In-depth conversation about playground politics why Jessica is being mean at school and not sharing the skipping ropes at playtime and something about an important red rubber that you have literally no data on.
Expert, loving advice administered.
7:30pm Bedtime #2
Alternatively: 3 x Nanny Hours £30
7:30-8:30pm
Grown Up Dinner Cooked and eaten
Alternatively:
1 x Mid Priced local restaurant for 2 adults £30
OR private chef.
Now we’re being silly.
Who can afford a private chef?
8:30-9pm
On-line Shop
Alternatively:
Personal nutritionist, menu designer, and shopper
I’m guessing…. £20 evened out
9-10pm
Brownie Badges sewn on, uniform ironed, listen to whilst providing constructive feedback on husbands presentation for work (too many umms, stand up straight, smile more,
don’t rush your words)
Late night phone call from mother in law about Christmas plans.
Alternatively….dunno….who do you get to do that stuff. who would care enough to do it right?
1:15 and 3:50am
25 minutes each time of application of Super-nanny
Bedtime management (bedtime reading this week)
1 pull-up changed.
Alternatively: Night Nanny x £100 per night
often up to £150
Mondays total: £345
I have been RIDICULOUSLY conservative with those hourly rates btw, so I can’t be accused of exaggerating.
…to do things the way you would have done them.
Which is the way your partner would want to have them done.
PAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
Add it up.
Seriously.
And that was a light day. There was no parents evening, or family get together, or after school activity, or Christmas costume made, or clothes shopping, or doctors visit, or baby clinic, or library trip, or fall off the monkey bars, or shoe shopping….
So here’s the reason for this email.
3 conversations that SEVERELY unnerved me.
One was Alice.
“I can’t justify joining the gym, because he’s out there earning all the money, and I get to be at home all day.”
Another was
“Yes, I know he earns a good income, but I have got myself a little part time job at the Co-Op so I have some of my own money.
We don’t NEED it as such, but I don’t like asking him to pay for treats for me”
And another.
“I SO missed coming to your class, but actually he needs to relax in the evening and I can’t expect him to babysit”
This Makes Me FUMING
And it’s not because that last lady couldn’t come to my class (although I loved her coming along – you could see how happy she is when she is there)
Ladies
and I want to say this to Stay-at-Home mums in particular today.
Yes, it is said
that your memory and most of your brain cells, are delivered along with the placenta.
To be cunningly replaced with fat.
BUT – YOU have also lost:
The self confidence that paid work gave you the status, the adult conversations, the chance to be in an air-conditioned office talking about interesting things to grown ups,
The pay packet into your account on the 30th of the month
The sick pay,
The holiday entitlement.
The pension.
You don’t see the friends you made at work.
The banter
The sense of accomplishment of a job well done.
Unless you have specific specialised skill in five or six years time if you can work out a way to go back to work
(and indeed if you want to)
You are five years behind.
Your colleagues have made progress.
Your industry has moved on.
You now need your employer to be
more flexible.
Can you still do school runs?
Time off with sick children?
Go to Christmas Performance?
And even if you can, are you less likely to get the promotion now?
(she’s got kids – we won’t add her to the delegate list
for the conference in Glasgow)
You relinquish what could have been your full potential. Gladly.
If someone offered you a job with no chance for promotion, 7 days a week, including nights on call, with NO holiday for 18 years.
I don’t imagine it would matter WHAT they paid you you wouldn’t want it.
Add the soft stuff to that.
Looking after children is about LOVE
That doesn’t make it EASIER to do.
That makes it HARDER.
Things take as long as they take.
Potty training takes long as it takes,
Getting wellies on a child takes as long as it takes.
My eldest child was such a strong (but bloody beautiful) baby, that it could take a full half an hour to get her into a car seat.
She did not like the car seat.
It was a nice car seat.
She could turn herself into an unbendable steel rod and I am pretty hench but this child wouldn’t be folded into that seat.
Also – because I loved her, it would at the same time make me collapse with laughter as it was making us late for wherever we were going whilst simultaneously be the funniest thing I have ever seen.
(Apologies to children #1 and #3 if you are reading this your brother was no better – but you had more of an iron will)
The reason it is HARDER to look after these children you LOVE is because you do ten million tiny little things carefully that no-one sees.
They aren’t measured.
There is no performance-related bonus scheme.
You are teaching them, guiding them, moulding them helping them socialise and be happy constantly worrying about them and analysing their mood.
You are a psychologist, and a life coach and a chef, and a teacher, and a nurse, and a friend and a companion and just EVERYTHING else.
You take more time and care to do all these things, because you love them.
Its harder than paid work, because you give it so much more of your effort.
Gladly.
Happily.
Often sleep-deprivedly.
With all your former benefits taken away.
And you still would gladly give do all of these things
AND give your life for this little person.
And start all over again tomorrow.
And you don’t think you have the RIGHT to invest in your health.
You don’t think that family income is yours to spend?
If you weren’t there and all these things had to be paid for even a GREAT staff of people that do what you do
How would your other half be able to do any of it?
You are ENABLING him to do that.
(and I know the roles of this can be reversed, but that
is for another email)
Please, if you take one thing from this email the next time someone asks you what you do,
please don’t say:
I JUST stay at home with the children.
There is no JUST about it.
This bit goes fast looking back on it, but time stands still while you are on the front line of it.
I don’t want to sound patronising and fluffy.
But you are doing the most important thing you could possibly do.
And noone celebrates you.
Well we do.
We fecking applaud you
(but know you would gladly trade that for 8 hours sleep and a spa day)
You have the RIGHT to spend your hard earned money SEE ABOVE ^^^^^^^^ on making yourself happy and healthy.
A happy, healthy you, is one that doesnt get ill all the time,
who doesnt have bad back
who isn’t depressed
who reclaims her self-confidence
who feels sexy again
Who is a better mum, wife and friend.
You deserve all of that.
Lots of Love
Tanya & Claire x x
We have something for you … Mindfulness For Busy Frazzled mums