"What Do You Do?"

It's a question the rears it's ugly head once in a while.

It's a question that I sometimes answer with a passion. Ready for a fight that never comes.

It's a question that I sometimes answer with weakness and dread. Then I kick myself for not being proud and not fighting my corner when that question I dread is asked of me.

"What do you do?"

Such a simple question.

It should be a simple answer.

"I'm a stay at home mum" comes my reply.

It's either met with enthusiasm or jealousy...

"Oooh how fabulous!"

"You're so lucky! I wish I could afford to stay at home with the kids - they are only little for such a short time"

...Or it's met with misunderstanding or ignorance.

It happened to me again the other month.

An older brother of an ex-boyfriend I hadn't seen in years.

"So what are you doing now?" he said eagerly.

"I'm a stay at home mum".

"Ooooooh" he laughed "A lady of leisure!"

"Ha, yeah" came my feeble response as I wasn't prepared for a fight…but then I never am. "I wish!" I added on the end and then quickly changed the subject.

I'd like to think I would be ready to stand up for myself but I never am. I then spend the rest of the year month week day kicking myself for not being stronger and standing up for something I believe in. Something I love.

It makes me feel like crap.

But...

Why should I have to explain myself?

Why should anyone judge me for giving up a career to be with my kids?

Why should anyone think that being a stay-at-home-mum resembles the lifestyle of a WAG?

I don't judge women who return to work. In fact I salute them. I'm not entirely sure I could do it, especially full-time.

But this isn't going to be one of those posts that gives all the pros and cons about working versus staying at home. It's been done thousands of times over and the same divides remain. It's quite tiresome actually.

I just know that I hate being judged for the decision I've made. I hate people thinking I swan around each day meeting friends for coffee, having my nails done or going shopping.* It can also make me feel like some kind of second class citizen. Like I don't belong if you know what I mean?

The fact remains, I hate the "What do you do?" question and I don't think that feeling will ever change.

However, I love being a stay-at-home-mum (the clues in the blog!). I love that I am here for my kids and I can watch them both grow. I know that I have these feelings on my side and all the people who are ignorant to my decision can, quite frankly, do one!

If they want to think I lead a WAG lifestyle then let them. The thing is, I lead a lifestyle far more richer than any WAG. I lead a happy and healthy lifestyle with my children and that's something I'm mightily proud of.





* I still have spa vouchers I was given as a gift in March that I haven't used yet!

Which Way To Turn?

Right now I really don't know which way to turn.

I'm struggling a little.

I know this blog post will turn into a rambling mess but I need a 'thought dump'. I apologise in advance if it doesn't make sense.

Life seems to be going at 100 miles an hour but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere or doing anything fulfilling. Maybe this is what being a stay-at-home-mum is like at its worst?

Maybe I'm not exactly 'loving it' at the moment.

Regular readers will notice large gaps in my posts over the past couple of months.

I spent most of September and the first part of October (yes, my food poisoning/stomach thing had a relapse) being really ill and it knocked me for six. To be perfectly honest, since then it's really made me think about things. I was that poorly that Matt (and I, if I'm honest) was really worried. It scared us. It made us both realise just how fragile life can be. Those times at the hospital when I was in agony and Matt felt so helpless were awful.

This morning I took TC to a soft-play centre. I needed to get out somewhere. Anywhere that wasn't shopping. I was going to meet up with the lovely Sarah who lives just down the road but she's poorly. It's a good job in a way as Sarah probably wouldn't have known what to do with me.

The song Firework by Katy Perry came on whilst I was there.

I welled up.

Then the tears became sobs.

Luckily there were only a couple of people in there and I was sat in a corner so was able to get away with it.

That song makes me think of Multiple Mummy and Matilda Mae.

It's funny but doing that in public made me realise something.

I'm feeling quite low.

Christmas is coming and everyone is getting excited.

I should be getting excited but deep down I'm not.

Yes, I am struggling.

Struggling to make sense of such a cruel world. Struggling to make sense of everything. Struggling not to be torn apart knowing that friends are suffering.

I want to make this Christmas so special for my family. It's our first Christmas in our lovely new home. We are having the whole of downstairs decorated and there is lovely colour everywhere. TC is more aware of everything this year. MC is beside herself with excitement and she's top of her class in school too. We have so much to look forward to but I just can't shake this feeling I have.

I'm also feeling like a failure. Everywhere I turn on social media I see posts and photos of lovingly home-cooked meals. I see photos of amazing crafts, brilliant messy-play, amazing days out and lots of fun and happiness.

I know most people only post the good stuff but I wonder how these people have the time to do the things that they do? I sometimes feel like my kids are living on pasta and fish fingers most of the time and we don't get out and about enough.

I know my kids are happy and loved and that's what counts but I still feel like I'm letting them down.

I'm also trying to decide what to do about my blog.

I have seriously 'lost that blogging feeling'.

I started this blog to document my life as a stay-at-home-mum and to give myself and my children memories. I've let us all down. Somedays I feel like quitting but blogging has brought me so much. It's brought me unbelievable amounts of love and support. More importantly, it's brought some amazing friends into my life.

At the moment though I don't see how I can fit blogging in. I am desperately trying to spend time with TC. He's growing up so quickly and I don't want him to grow up. Knowing he's my last baby pulls at my heart a little. My days are filled with spending time with my children. When MC's at school and TC has his afternoon nap I'm sorting washing or tidying the house. When the kids go to bed I want to spend time with Matt. We get so little time together on our own that our evenings (when he's not away with work) are so precious. I love my husband so much and the evenings are our time. I don't see how social media is going to fit in?

At the time this post goes live I have 182 un-read emails in my inbox because I really can't face going through them and the more I ignore them, the more they build up.

Anyway, I think I'm my own worst enemy.

When I'm feeling like this I cut myself off. I shy away from social media and I stay in the house a lot.

It doesn't do me any good.

Thankfully I have mainly good days but I also have a few bad days.

Luckily I recognise the signs.

I need a plan.

I need to know what I'm doing and where I'm going or I have a feeling I'll lose myself (and my blog) along the way. I need to shake off this doom and gloom feeling. This feeling that something really bad is going to happen to me or my family.

I need to feel happy all the time again.

I need to know which way to turn.

Watch this space...

To Share...Or Not To Share?

Last week I wrote a blog post...okay, okay, I kind of wrote a blog post as the majority of it was a copied and pasted email from my gorgeous husband, Matt, telling me how much he loved me etc. I hold my hands up...I was a lazy blogger!

Anyway, after I'd posted it I was asked if Matt minded me posting personal things on my blog.

It got me thinking.

The thing is, Matt knows about my blog and 100% supports it. In fact, when I was thinking of packing it all in after only a couple of months of blogging, he was the one who made me stop pressing delete and boy am I glad he did!

I blogged the letter because, as I said in the post, I wanted to document it for me and the kids. I wanted to record just how lovely my husband can be...when he's not leaving the loo seat up or secretly eating chocolate, that is!

I may not blog as much as I used to but I still love it.

Blogging has given me an outlet in which to share my thoughts and feelings, a place to talk about being a stay-at-home-mum and it's brought me new and very dear friends both virtually and in real life. It's my little piece of cyberspace which will grow with me and my family. It's a place to leave my mark. A place where I hope my children will come to when they are old enough to read about their early years. It's my little corner of the Internet which is mine.

Matt knows that a lot of what goes on in my life goes on my blog. Obviously there are certain things I don't blog about.

I don't blog about our sex life (which is great, if you must know! MC and TC, if you are reading this, please don't be too freaked out by the thought of your Daddy and I doing the bad thing *ahem*), I don't blog about any major current health issues or worries within my circle of family and friends, I don't mention my children's names or friends and families names (Matt being the exception) either. A lot of blogs I see or read do these things. This is a personal choice but it's just something I choose not to do.

But that's what makes blogging so great.

Diversity.

Each and every blog is unique in its own way and that's what I love.

I love the openness and support that blogging offers. I love how you can think you're the only one thinking something then you realise you're not a loon alone after-all.

I do share quite a lot on my blog but I now have 2 years worth of memories, stories and photos to look back on.

I blog with openness and honesty about my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Guest Post...Chronicles Of A Reluctant Housedad - Anniversary

Keith is like my male opposite equivalent. Confused? Well, he blogs over at 'Chronicles of a Reluctant Housedad' which is a mix of witty musings (and mean recipes - boy that man can cook!) on his life since he swapped roles with his wife and became a stay-at-home-dad.  

Oh and he gets extra kudos as he mentioned me in a radio interview once ;-)

We've never met but I'd love to meet him because I think he's lovely - maybe one day it will happen.

I give you Keith and his perfectly timed guest post - Anniversary...

It was a year to the day that my wife and I swapped roles. I waved her off to her new job as a magazine editor and I started mine as a very reluctant housedad to our three children, my stepdaughter, now 10, and our sons, aged seven and four.

Why reluctant? Well, I never in a million years imagined for myself the role I now occupy. I – we – was/were forced into this situation by circumstances. I was made redundant from my job as a publishing executive in June 2010. And after six months trying, and failing, to land a position that would pay the mortgage and bills, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to happen.

But where's there's a will there's a Successful Other Half, and so when it became painfully clear that doors would continue to be slammed in my face, my wife started looking for work herself.

At one point, it was like a race to the finishing line. We had both reached the top two on the shortlist for positions but ultimately, I failed, and my wife prevailed.

It was a hammer blow to my ego. I hadn't had a day out of work since I became a journalist of my local newspaper 28 years previously. At first I struggled to cope, not just with the attack on my self-worth, but also with coming to terms with the day-to-day effort, drudgery and loneliness of my new life as a housedad: the cleaning, the ironing, the relentlessness of the school runs, the nagging and the perceived notion that I was somehow less of a man because I was no longer bringing home the bacon.

I wore my reluctance like a badge of honour, and created my blog to chronicle the new-to-me experiences of being the primary carer.

I come from a traditional working class background, the oldest of four boys, and we have always worked, a graft ethic etched into our DNA by our hard-working mother and father. None of us have ever been driven by status, but we are all motivated by the desire, the need, to earn. I could no more claim benefits than I could nail my scrotum to a table with a rusty nail. Fortunately, my wife earns a decent slab – enough to pay the bills – so I didn't need to consider that option (the benefits, not the scrotum piercing) but I still needed to make money. I could never, ever countenance being a Kept Man.

But then my wise wife pointed out to me that even if I was in a full-time job, I would have to clear around £30,000 before tax to pay for the childcare necessary to look after our London brood.

Added to that was the knowledge that there are around 200,000 housedads like me, either by choice or circumstance, so who was I to think that running the home and raising the kids was somehow beneath me?

Suddenly, I felt like I was earning, and that my paid job was to raise our children as best I could.

So instead of moping and sulking, I took to my role as a Stay At Home Dad as if it was a new career. I'd become Chief Executive of Kendricks Inc.

I relished spending time with my children, reading to them, helping them with their homework, teaching them about the realities of life by getting them involved with chores.  And they responded. Oh, how they responded. Children are incredibly adaptable and they started to look to me for approval, advice and direction, which took the pressure off my wife to focus on her stressful job and deliver the dough that I would subsequently turn into bread for the table.

But the real breakthrough was when I started my blog, and then began to Tweet. And instead of feeling isolated and trapped in my new role, I felt supported, encouraged and connected. I've never met any of the people who contact me, and perhaps I never will, but these new 'virtual' friendships mean a hell of a lot to me.

It is, in part, because of them – because of their comments on my blog posts, their engagement with my Tweets – that I now, a whole year on, I feel very happy to reveal the five words I thought I would never, ever say.

But most of all, the realisation of what really matters, what fulfilment is all about, what my place on this Earth is – for now at least – comes from the incredible woman I married and the amazing children who are my stepdaughter and sons,.

It's because of the 'gift' my wife gave me to spend so much time with my children and the fact that my children are just really bloody great, actually, that I can truly say:

I LOVE BEING A HOUSEDAD!

I spoke these five little words to my Successful Other Half the other night after a particularly hard week at the office. I half-expected her to throw me off our roof terrace because of how hard her working life is compared to my domestic existence. But instead, her eyes pricked with tears.

Y'see, my reluctance has made her feel guilty about any enjoyment she's had being the Family Go-Getter these past weeks and months. So instead of telling me she's had a buzzy old day making decisions and thriving under pressure, she's kept her pleasure to herself lest it provoke a spew of envy from me, her D'OH (that's Domestic Other Half!).

Now, I hope, we can both enjoy each other's triumphs and highs, instead of being worried about downplaying them to spare the other's imagined feelings. It's only been six months, and we've each been on a huge journey of transition, but we appear to have reached a point of acceptance. Long may that continue.

It's been a hell of a six months, and who knows where the next six will take us, but for now, I present to those who I've befriended a gallery (at the top of this post) of highlights of the Chronicles of a Very Happy Though Occasionally Frustrated And Prone To Temper Tantrums Housedad.

Guest Post...Inside The Wendy House - My Sliding Doors

Wendy from 'Inside The Wendy House' is someone who I've been friends with for just over a year (since I started blogging) - we just seemed to click and have spent many an evening in stitches chatting on Twitter. Maybe our joint love of toilet humour joined us together? 


Despite being a relatively 'newbie blogger' herself, when I plunged head first into this cyber world, she was so helpful and knowledgeable. I've met her a number of times now in real life and she's fabulous. Her love for her family overflows with a passion.


Plus she's one very cool mummy!


Here, in her guest post 'My Sliding Doors', she explains how, even though we are both SAHM's, our lives are so different...

Heather, the very lovely lady behind SAHM Loving It is off holidaying (lucky thing!) and has turned over her blog to a bunch of guest bloggers, of which I am honoured to be one.  

I first met Heather and her lovely little girl MC earlier this year, when we organised a day out at Cheshire Ice Cream Farm.  MC is almost the same age as Freddy, my little boy, and they played beautifully together. Me and Heather are similarly aged (OK I'm way older but I'll gloss over that!), both happily married, stay at home mums.  But our lives are very different.   MC is Heather's first born and Freddy is my fifth child.  

I  started out on my path to being a mum when I was just 19.  In my 24 years of motherhood I have had five children now aged 2, 9, 15, 20 and 24.  I have given birth in my teens, twenties, thirties and forties.  This has given me a large family with a big age range and I've never been without a little one.   When my family gets together there is an incredible dynamic.  The older children are fantastic role models to the younger ones and provide a lot of help and support.  I really enjoy my family life but sometimes wonder how different my life could have been if I'd followed Heather's way of doing things.  What if I hadn't become a teen mum?  What if I'd made a life for myself before becoming  a parent?

Being a mother has defined who I am for 24 years.  During this time I have had jobs but never a career.  I was all set to go to university with a string of A grades to my name.  However I didn't take the opportunity and fate saw me become a single mum instead.  I'll never know who that 'me' who graduated with a degree in Sociology and Psychology grew up to be.  I had aspirations to teach or counsel children with emotional difficulties.  Perhaps in an alternate reality, I've made a difference, helped people, made the world a better place?  I'll never know.

There is a whole world out there that I've never explored.  I've never had the wanderlust to backpack across Australia or drive Route 66 in a convertible, but I wonder if this is because I've always had to worry about the fact that I had children to consider.  Holidays became focused on the needs of the kids.  Their comfort, safety and enjoyment, teamed with the convenience and ease I needed to cope with holidaying with little ones, soon put a stop to any dreams I'd harboured about visiting the Mayan temples or exploring the jungles of Borneo.  Centre Parcs and Disneyland Paris became resorts of choice, pushing any urges to travel firmly to the darkest recesses of my mind.

My marriage has never existed without the responsibility of parenting.  My relationship with my husband has never had the carefree element of spontaneity, financial freedom or the joy of selfishly immersing ourselves into each other.  I already had two children when we got together and we had our third child a year before we got married.  There has always been the children to consider, even if we managed to find some time to be alone, the kids have always been at the forefront of our minds, monopolizing the conversation and influencing our decisions.  I wonder how our relationship may have been different had we had some together time, just the two of us.  Would we have become different people if we had spent the first years of our marriage getting to know one another as individuals rather than being parents?  Would I see my husband differently, have different expectations of his role in my life?

Having a child so young and with no partner did not put me in a good position financially.  However, I have always been frugal and shrewd with money and with hard work managed to ease my family's way up the ladder.  I started with nothing but we are now very comfortable in our own detached home.  I wonder if my frugality and ability to stretch my finances would have been as important to me had I never had to worry about money? If I'd had a good salary and found my way onto the property ladder in the 80s and made a few shrewd moves, could I now be in a huge house somewhere with a fancy postcode?  Would I be into designer labels instead of wearing high street and supermarket brands?  Would my values be different?  

Everything I have done as an adult has been done primarily as a parent.  I barely had a chance to get to know myself as an individual, before I became a mother, so I truly do not know who I may have become had my life taken a different path.  Would I have had a great career and earned lots of money, travelled the world and embarked on a romantic love affair with the man who would ultimately father my children?  I simply don't know. And if I'm completely honest, I don't really care!  You see, I have an amazing family who I live for. I have a husband that I adore, who stepped up to the mark when I needed him and has never let me or our children down.  I am never bored with my brood aged between 2 and 24, there is always something going on and their needs are so different it is a non-stop and immensely rewarding job parenting them all.  I find huge comfort knowing that the older kids will always be there to support the younger ones through all the stages of their lives.  I may not have planned this life, but I wouldn't swap it. 

I may not know who I might have become, but I know for a fact that my kids have made me who I am now...and I'm pretty proud to be that woman!

Back To Work

Today is the day that most people return to work after the festive period.  I say ‘most’ people but I don’t fall under that category.  I’m a ‘stay at home mum’ (SAHM).  I never in a million years thought that when I had children I would give up work but I absolutely love it.

I think sometimes more career-minded people, in a rather pitying way that makes me mad, can look down on SAHM’s.  This usually happens when they don’t have children themselves.  Maybe they think we sit around all day drinking coffee and watching daytime television.  Fact of the matter is I don’t.  Yes I go on twitter (and now this blog aha!) but it’s done quickly on my phone and usually when I’m waiting for something like the toaster or the microwave or I'm fed up playing with Mega Bloks ;-)

My working friends quite regularly ask me if I ‘miss’ work.  I never quite know how to answer that.  I wouldn’t say I miss work.  I certainly don’t miss the 124 miles of driving every day.  I don’t miss getting mad in the car at the idiots who don’t use the lanes on the motorway in the correct way.  I don’t miss the Bank Holiday traffic and me getting angry at all the caravan owners sat in the middle lanes or trying to over-take trucks and clogging up my journey home.  I don’t miss having disagreements with ‘creative’ bods who haven’t listened to me or read my brief correctly and me running around like an idiot trying to get something else done to present at a meeting.  I do however miss my income.  At the end of the day that’s what the vast majority of people work for no matter how much they say they ‘love’ their jobs.  

I don’t have any desire to return to work in the near future.  I left school at 16 and had plans to go to college but I landed myself a job.  I was on £35 a week and I loved it.  I worked my way up through the company, moving divisions and eventually achieved a manager role within marketing.  As the first signs of the recession started to hit about 4 years ago I was made redundant.  It hit me hard as the company was like my family; I’d grown up with it.  I was lucky enough to be offered a job elsewhere straight away and lucky for me I loved it.  Problem was it was 62 miles away from home and I also had to spend time driving up to Cumbria and down to Oxford.  Fortunately the pay was good and they paid business AND personal on my company car.  Happy days!  Fast-forward 2 years and I’m leaving to have a baby…eek!

At that point I was hit with a decision.  As it was I started my maternity leave early.  I left Christmas Eve when my baby wasn’t due until 16^th March!  It was mainly my husbands decision as he didn’t want me doing all the driving in the final trimester.  I was happy as it gave me time to prepare for having a baby.  I think Matt and I both just knew I wouldn’t be going back to work.  We’ve had to make some sacrifices but that’s what having children is all about.   We’ve never led overly extravagant lifestyles but we have been known to splurge from time-to-time – well now we certainly live a more frugal lifestyle.  We’ve had to adapt to this change in our life.  I have to say though that sometimes I do struggle not having my own income.  I’ve always had a wage.  For almost 20 years I worked and bought things for myself - I even bought my first car myself at the age of 18 when most of my friends were getting them as presents. 

Anyway, I digress.  Sorry.  I can see me amending this blog post a few times after publishing it!  I’m really happy being a SAHM.  I love spending time with my daughter and thankfully I still have contact with adults.  I meet regularly with my groups of friends, most without children or children who are 17+ so I get to have conversations other than potty training and tantrums.  I also have a few great friends with children of the same age as my daughter.   I honestly don’t think I’d have the time to work and do all the things I want to do. 

I’m not saying I’ll be a SAHM forever, but for now I think I deserve some time off for good behaviour.  Until then I’m savouring each day with my daughter and secretly dreading the day I have to go back to work.




Photographer: luigi diamanti