Before I go any further I need to make this clear; If you are a mum who is in paid employment full time, you are a great mum. If you are a mum who is in paid employment part time, you are a great mum and if you are a mum who is at home raising your children full time, you are a great mum. We are all working mums who want the very best for our children, they are our world!
I know many mums.. Some really do have to work full time to break even and I feel for them. Thanks to this crappy government, families with one parent at home are unsupported. They expect both parents to be in paid employment and do not recognise the fact the mum at home is raising the next generation. If she was looking after someone else's child she would be "working hard", if she looks after her own child? She's "not working". You also have some mums who want to go back to work for "a break", I get that, I so get that, I certainly don't judge them for that decision.
So now I have made that clear I will continue.. After I had Ollie I returned to work part time, two days a week. Those two days were a break, I was the mum mentioned above needing a break. When Harrison came along I knew he would be my last and I didn't want to miss anything. I looked at our finances and soon realised that we were unlikely to break even each month. This was not going to stop me, I will simply get an evening job. I looked around and came to the conclusion that my options were; shop work, cleaning or care work. I went for shop work as it meant less hours at the weekend. I worked in a supermarket stacking shelves and it was possibly the crappiest job I have ever had, I lasted 2 years and finally quit when my eldest went to school. I was now a stay at home mum.
During this time, things were tight. We had a clapped out 3 door Corsa as our family car, we cancelled our TV package to the basic and we pretty much bought everything secondhand. I always kept in my mind that my parents had it harder in their day as they didn't even have a fridge! If ever I had to buy anything I would shop around and shop around again. I would even go from shop to shop to find the cheapest wrapping paper at Christmas. Everyday we would be counting the pennies and never had enough to "put aside for a rainy day". Thankfully, about a year in, my uncle bought us a car and helped out with the mortgage, that made a huge difference.
So here I am now, still a stay at home mum, but also a student, who is studying counselling, a volunteer and I also set up a small babysitting business. I rarely go out, I don't buy new clothes very often at all, and we have cheap holidays in term time (and no that's not abroad.. its a UK caravan holiday).
What gets me most is how the media portrays stay at home mums. We are not all "looked after woman" with rich husbands. For many of us this is not "a lifestyle choice", its simply what we believe needs to happen for our family. As I pointed out before, some mums have zero choice about returning to work but there are also mums who have made that "lifestyle choice" to return. I just wish they would take time to look at their lifestyle compared to the stay at home mums before they say "I wish I could afford to stay at home."
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