Stay at Home vs. Work Debate

I did make the shift from SAH to WOH. One thing that I let go was lawn care, my DH took over that chore (for the most part I still occasionally help).

Although it has nothing to do with my work status but more to do with my age. I have let go a bit on housework. It just does not matter as much to me as it did in the past. I think one part of it was with children in the home I felt I had to be a god role model in keeping a clean house. Not an issue any more.

One thing I will not give up is sleep. I will never be one of those people who stays up late to finish a chore.

I'll answer my own question and say that since I am a WOH mostly by choice rather than necessity, I have always felt that my children should not have to give up anything significant because of my choice to WOH....that my "wants" shouldn't always trump theirs. When they have wanted to do something, I haven't let my WOH stand in the way, we've always found a way to make it happen. So my kids getting to experience the things they want to do, and that we believe are appropriate, has always been a priority.

We "cut corners" by sometimes hiring people to do things we are perfectly capable of doing for ourselves. My husband has been meaning to restain the deck for a couple of years. If he doesn't get to it next summer, we hire somebody.

We live in a shack, basically. It is a clean shack, because Paulina comes and cleans everything every week. But, I do not bother with too much cutesy stuff. What time I devote to "home-making" consists mostly of food shopping, cooking and cleaning after meals. 2-3 times a year, I make an excursion to Ikea for bits and pieces.

Ideally I would like to live in a nice home and more the way I grew up, but realistically I do not really want to make the time nor do I want to have to convince dh that we need real furniture, real light fixtures, real cutlery, antique carpets etc. My mother is somewhere between horrified and confused about dh's lack of interest in such things, but she does not have to live with us.

In short, food takes priority, the rest no so much.

I'm trying to think where I cut corners or rather how would it be different if I was a sahm versus a wohm....what I have let go is keeping up the photo albums (simply don't have the time to crop and paste, although I will again at some point so the photo's are stored safely), bible study, and I don't do as much for myself or with my friends as I used to do, but that may simply be the result of having kids and having a busy life.

No, I don't think my priorities would be different.