If you WOH, what did your mom do? - Page 3

[Peony]

My mom was a SAHM and to this day she is a homemaker. She never had any marketable skills or education to be able to support herself. While I loved having her home, I always wanted to be able to support myself if need be. I became an RN before having children, took a few years off while keeping my foot in the door doing volunteer work in my area and getting certifications. I returned to a part time flexible job that allows me to go to the clinic for a morning here and there, work from home a bit, but allows me a lot of time to just be with my children. 

[Lizbiz]

This thread is super interesting!  My mom married in the early 50s and went on to have 15 kids.  I was the last.  She stayed home with all of us, as you might imagine!  

She really enjoyed it, mostly, I think.  Of course, she talked about her former aspirations to become a lawyer, but really, she just fell hard for my dad and then they were pregnant two seconds after they got married and the babies kept coming.  She dropped out of college to marry him, but went back when I was in 3rd grade part-time.  She graduated from college a semester before I did!  

Happily though - she's a sweet wonderful inspiring mom - has her quirks of course - but she's just amazing.  She was always involved in our community volunteering, etc... but she was not the mom who worried about decorating her home or straightening - we got messy and played together and she would blow off her errands and take us younger ones to a double feature some Saturday afternoons :).  She'd forget to pack our lunches and then we'd get a delivery of fastfood at noon instead.  We especially loved that.  She read us books and let us dig in the garden and took us with her when we were old enough to many of her volunteer activities.  We were basically her free labor.  :)

Her identity is totally wrapped up in her family - but not in a weird way.  She's totally her own person and allows us to be as well, for the most part.   

I guess my own decisions have been influenced by my own Mom - she taught me a lot about what it means to be a mother.  She always encouraged all of her children to work and valued that... and I know she is so resourceful and skillful that if my Dad had passed away, we would have been fine.  She is actually a killer manager, after managing that many children for so many years.  

I love to work actually - and I'm on a good career path, but I really miss my kids.  If it were entirely up to me, and I would be guaranteed to have a career path if I took a break from working for a few years right now - I would probably SAH.  I could imagine a really wonderful life with them every day.  I did stay at home with my first for a while on and off, and I didn't get bored at all.  We got into a great routine...

But opportunity knocked and it was too good to pass up - so here I am working full time again!   

[Princessyoga]

My mother went to law school when I was really young. She then became a lawyer and went into politics. She loved us but was a workaholic. We had a live-in nanny. My Dad was a USMC officer and then worked after he retired. He did most of the taking to games and even the leader of the Campfire Girls.They both gave a me a strong work ethic and  a desire to acheive. Now that I am a mother, I work full time and am nearly finished with my second mother. I was a workaholic until I had by DD. I wish I could work part time. Now we are trying for #2. I will go part time after this baby. 

[nina_yyc]

My mom had kids late in life and gave up her career as a teacher even though she out-earned my dad when they got married.  I don't think she had any regrets because she really wanted to SAHM but watching her life as I grew up I always knew I would WOH.  My dad was a workaholic and she did 100% of the kid stuff, cooking, household chores, family life, and social planning.  I remember a lot of resentment and bitterness and constant family fights.  I was the only child and I have great memories of my early childhood with my mom at home but when I got older I thought she was overinvolved and really wanted her to have something else going on in her life!!

I guess because of this experience I always planned to WOH and never considered setting up my life so I could SAH until DD was born.  I was also really career-oriented in my 20s and although DD was planned I got pregnant fast before I really had time to mentally shift into mom mode.  I took a year of mat leave and considered SAH but in our situation it just didn't make sense...we were almost but not quite financially stable and DH and I are almost equal income earners.  DH had a really unhappy/mentally ill SAHM and really respects my career and doesn't think I would be happy as a SAHM.  I know I could make SAHMing work for me but I don't feel that it's my calling.  So I went back to work really just so I could re-qualify for mat leave for the second child we knew we wanted.  After DS I am still working part-time but we are very much a two career family.  With DD in school next year we need to free up some more time for family and we know we are going to re-evaluate again, but it's not necessarily me who will be cutting back on hours.