Ask the SAHM. Please. I need to talk to grown ups.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I absolutely refuse to call myself a SAHM.

Nothing kills the conversation more than saying, " Oh, what do I do? I am a SAHM." You can hear the crickets chirp.
I tell people that I am a Toxic Waste Removal Specialist. (amongst other titles) and I run with it as far as I can.

My two are a 3.5 year old boy and a 19 month old girl. And a overweight dog that is always on the wrong side of the door. I’m actually staying at home so I can be a doorman to my dog.

I love being home. I hate cooking. I am an indifferent housekeeper, I live in a semi-rural area and I rarely ( if ever) meet other women who are not brain dead lemmings capable of doing anything but bitch bitch bitch, which is the only drawback to the entire process.

I use to work out, ride my bike about 15 miles a night, swim, and watch got nuts if someone insomuch as muttered to me during a movie. I haven’t worked out in two years (no time, no money, no energy.) and I can now watch a movie - not R - with kids running amok in the room behaving like wild banshee’s. My lip reading skills have improved considerably.

I miss working out ( the bike rides and swimming - It was my church to me - but to be honest, the movies that Hollywood has been churning out with the twenty something one dimensional drones have been nearly all utter crap. So, no loss there.

Do I wish I had a paying job? Yes, but the only time I can work is late at night so as to avoid paying a sitter or shuttling my kids to my mother-in-law’s and my husband usually does not get home until 7 or 8pm, so that just blows for any 6pm - midnight job at the local IGA. Whooo.

I do crosswords, SDMB, pallindromes, write books for my kids , keep myself vastly entertained by being a life time member to the Walter Mitty Society to keep my brain from atrophying.

I cannot go back to my former job, as a travel agent, for reasons clearly defined by September 11th. It is a dying industry and was before the attacks thanks to the internet. I’m thinking of college soon.

Staying at home is not for everyone. Especially those who are nervous nellies who fret and fuss over every freakin’ dollar and keeping a perfect house and like to have outside conversation with adults.

I think I’ve left the zip code twice this month. I am not kidding.

My qualifications aside:

So, Bodypoet, my question to you is this? Do you think is cuter? Chris or Martin Kratt?

22

next year, hopefully, I plan on being a **SAHM{/b].
any advice?

this will be my first.

23

Damn. Guess I should go to IMHO for that one . . . jk;)

So do you use AIM much? I hear that can undullify things:)

24

do you eat the crusts when the kids ask you to cut them off?

just wondering :slight_smile:

25

Chris, definitely Chris. Martin needs to wear longer shorts.

26

Bodypoet, can we have your recipes for baked oatmeal and banana bread?

27

Boy, you all were busy while I was away today!

I hope it’s okay to respond to these individually, someone let me know if not, okay?

Know exactly what you mean, Dangerosa. For a very long time I worked out of the home. I’ve been basically at home for almost 3 years, except for the 10 months or so that I ran my studio. Even then I took both of the babies with me–very tiring stuff, that.

I think the important thing is that each parent examines the choices available, and I think it’s entirely okay to say SAHparenting is not the best choice.

I will say that I am not doing this for religious reasons, or because I think it’s my “place”, or anything like that. And truthfully, my first two kids were in private daycare from very early on, and I don’t think they are negatively affected at all. They’re great kids, and I don’t feel working made me a bad or inadequate parent.

Hee hee. Well, if you weren’t looking for my blessing, I guess you gots it anyway. :smiley:
~karol

28

I don’t think I could afford two babies in daycare either. Here it costs $28/day for one. :eek:

I had a hard time adjusting to not bringing in an income. Depending on my husband for everything was very difficult for both of us…I am fiercely independent and had never had to ask anyone for money. Marriage counseling helped…he finally got his mind around the idea that “his” money is really “our” money, and that my job really is WORK. If you have a good relationship and can talk about these issues before you leave work, I think you will do fine. As far as working the budget goes…it takes time to adjust there too, but I am finding that it is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
Trust me, if you are home with two babies, you won’t get a chance to be lazy. :smiley: And no parent will see you that way, either.
Does your job allow you to take a long leave, so that you can give it a test drive? I was lucky that I was allowed a one-year leave, with the option of returning to my former position. I don’t think that’s typical, however.
Feel free to email me privately, I’ll be happy to talk you through it if I can.
[comforting voice]There, there, now. There, there.[/comforting voice]
~karol

29

A friend of mine uses the title “Virtuous Woman.” Cracks me up every time, but I think I’m a little too…I don’t know…herb gardeny for it. I haven’t quite come up with the perfect title for myself yet, although with the older boys, Toxic Waste Removal Specialist would certainly fit the bill.

Maybe “Discoverer of Hidden Things and Secret Diaries.” :smiley:

Who? :smiley:

~karol the cable-free mom

30

Oooh, a newbie. Will you have a newborn, or an older child? Either way, I think some of my most important advice would be:

  1. Make time for yourself every day. Every other day, minimum. Even if it just means locking the door and running the tub so everyone THINKS you’re bathing when, in fact, you’re scarfing down the rest of the Ben & Jerry’s with a big wooden spoon.
  2. A fairly clean house is good enough. A perfect house only makes your friends feel inadequate and wears you out. So let things slide a little.
  3. Painting a room is really good therapy, and if you visit a home center, you can buy mistinted paint for 3 or 4 bucks a gallon. I paint about every year. Plus it hides the handprints and markers on the wall.
  4. Life is far too short to fold underwear or sort socks.
  5. Learn to be relaxed. It sounds simple, but sometimes it isn’t. When you are home with the kids all day, sometimes you lose perspective, forgetting that the world does not revolve around whether or not you got the baby bathed today. Keep in touch with grown ups, too. That helps a lot, especially if they are supportive of your choice.

Any other SAHMs want to contribute your wisdom here?
~karol

31

[sub]How embarassing. Now they are really gonna think I’m a goober…[/sub]

Um, AIM? That’s an Instant Message thingy? I have aol, msn, and yahoo messengers. I think. :smiley:
~karol

32

No way. In my house, everyone eats crusts!

I have been known, however, to hide a bag of chips and eat them late at night, after all the kiddies have gone to bed.

And I’m certainly not averse to eating the very last chocolate chip cookie. :smiley:
~karol

33

It varies. Some people think it’s exceptionally cool, and others think he’s a lazy good-for-nothing leech. My family, at first, gave us a few raised eyebrows, but after a little while, as more and more of them started having kids, the fathers would say things like “man, I wish I could do what you guys are doing.” :smiley:

With us, it wasn’t really something we talked much about. It was just assumed that he would stay hom with the kids. Why? Because he’s a musician. He does actually work outside our home, but he works weekend nights. I work days, with a regular paycheck and health insurance. There was no real haggling about how we were going to do this. It was the natural thing for us to do.

He also teaches guitar now, at a local music store. But he’s able to do that in the evenings, after I get home from my job. Not much money in it, but it covers the child support for his older son.

Of course, we have no real social life together. And having a dad who’s a musician and a mom who’s just nuts anyway, our kids are…well, I politely call them “spirited.” :smiley: I think they’d have turned out differently if it had been me staying home, or if we both had day jobs and they were in day care (like perhaps they’d be a little less heathen). I think they’ll turn out okay, though. As a friend of mine once said about my daughter, “she doesn’t have an attitude, she’s just assertive.” :smiley:

34

Am I allowed? I’ll post them tomorrow…the banana bread is fairly regular-ol’-banana bread, but the baked oatmeal is great.
~karol

35

a newborn.

we are thinking of starting our family this coming up year.

36

When I was younger and people asked what my father did, some got the “he stays at home with my siblings.”

To which most of them replied, “Yes, but what does he DO?”

Grr. He does the job of a stereotypical mother. He cooks, he cleans, he has an affair with the milkman—er, strike that last one. But for . . . oh around ten or so years, he stayed at home raising four kids.

I dunno which got the more difficult reaction; hearing he was a nurse or a stay-at-home father. Fortunately I’m at the point where people mostly don’t make underhanded comments, and if they do I catch them on 'em.:smiley:

37

Usually I get a really positive responce. But this one time…

We were at a funeral for a friend of the (wife’s) family. Way out in the Butt-End Of Nowhere, Indiana (You’re in Bloomington? This was the other side of Indy. Ingalls.) All the men-folk are standing around, looking uneasy. Since I’m the only one not from town, (so everyone doesn’t know my full life’s history) they ask “So, what do you do?”

They figure I work in a factory like everyone else.

“Why, I’m a Stay At Home Dad.”

They had no idea what to say to that. So I added “And I groom dogs part time.”

That was fun. I can be so mean.

And Bad News Babboon, get a good hand lotion. You’ll be washing your hands 1,000 times an HOUR.
-Rue.

38

Cristi and Rue, you two are my heroes. ( ok, all the other SAH-parents too.)

MY ADVICE [sub]god, I love dishing out advice [/sub] for the Newbie:

  1. Don’t worry about the housework. I clean only when company comes over - which is only maybe three times a year - **It’s the PICKING UP OF CRAPOLA (toys, tools, shoes - oh-god-do-I hate-shoes) that will wear you (me) down. My house is always (or nearly always) tidy…moreso when I take my glasses off. [sub]I’m not kidding…ok, yes I am.[/sub]

2)Discover or rediscover a hobby. This will save your sanity.

  1. Don’t be afraid to shove your husband out of bed at 3am for a feeding/diaper change of the baby. Just because he brings in the money and works hard does not exclude him from the drudgery jobs of parenting.

  2. Having a child makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.

  3. Above all, keep a sense of humor. You will encounter by the droves the “Well, MY BABY had TEETH at 3 months…” crapola. This kind of braggadocio is fine , but what happens is that it escalates into a competition. Stop it dead with a " Wellllll, MY BABY is translating the DEAD SEA SCROLLS." or “My Son WAS NEVER constipated after we switched to table food. I’m sure this information will help him get into Harvard.”

  4. Don’t worry about money. There will never be enough.

7)This is key here: If you buy everything for your child, all the really cool toys that you really wanted as a child but your mean nasty parents wouldn’t get you that Stretch Armstrong Doll for you, then A) you had children to raise the snot nose child that your parents were trying to avoid - and apparently you need another spanking - and b) whatever you buy, you end up picking up. c) Dust bunnies provide hours of amusement. :slight_smile:

8)Think of the reasons you want to bring a child into this world. What do you have to share with this future human being? What are your passions that you hope that little Jr. will share with you? do you have a great love of the outdoors? Can you paint really well? Are you gifted with woodworking? Can you write exceptionally well? ( My husband is an outstanding craftsman with an encyclopedia like memory for repairs and sports. I am the writer, comedy releif and medicine woman/ educator of sorts. We like traveling and are very open minded Michiganians as Open minded as people from this state can be.)

If you want a child because the phrase " I’ve always wanted a BAAAAAABY" runs through your mind, put your face close to the screen so I can slap you upsidedahead. You are not ready. Get a dog. Get a cat. Babies are HUGE responsibilities, not some playthings.
I would write more, but a) I don’t want to overwhelm you and b) my son is running amok downstairs and c) my daughter has been held captive in her crib and she is out of stuffed animals and things to throw out to keep her amused while I write this blathering missive.

39

Whooops. Sorry about the bolding.

I am a retard without 2 cups of java in me in the morning.

40

Mine would be here.

(And derned tootin’ I’m a hero. I don’t wear this cape and spandex number just 'cause they are so derned fetching on me.)
-Rue.