No its nothing to do with age, its a being stuck at home with the kids thing!! You dont say how old they are but if they are very young cant you find something to do with the kids? If they are older and you have the days to yourself how about finding some flexible work that you can do as and when you want?
It's a staying at home with the kids thing!
Rather than an OU course, why not try your local university? The one I went to (as a mature student, with school age children and a working hubby) had a creche. There were several mums and dads on my course who were able to attend because of it. It was heavily subsidised and ran in the school holidays as well. In addition (speaking for my course obviously), many of the tutors and lecturers were very understanding of the difficulties faced by mature student parents; they tried to plan 'reading/study weeks' to coincide with school holidays. (some of them also had school aged children, which helped)
I'm not sure if this would be the case with all FE establishments, but it's always worth asking; you have nothing to lose, after all.
Don't worry about finding the time. You've already said that you spend a lot of time watching TV or on here - that's time you could be using to study!. I know what you mean about shovelling snow while its snowing but believe me, it's far easier to do it all in a big tidy once or maybe twice a day than to be constantly running round. I'm not sure how old or how able your children are, but let them have a little responsibility for tidying up after themselves! You don't and shouldn't have to be cleaning and tidying after everyone. You deserve time to do what you want to do as well.
Bev
xx
When my kids were small, I took up home care work for the elderly. You can do as many or as few hours per week as you like. It's rewarding both socially and financially. Knowing you have made a difference to the day to day life of an older person is very satisfying.
Plus you get the added bonus of having adults to chat to while working, which it sounds as if you need. The loss of intereaction with other adults can hit stay at home parents very hard, as I know from experience.
Failing that, you could always try working an hour or two each day in a charity shop or somewhere that you would not be tied down to, if say the kids were ill or on school hols etc.
There are many opportunities out there. Pop down to your local job centre or library and find out about some of them and good luck!
Tracy-Jayne
As others have said, try for a local uni/colege course... some even have creches, so you wont be tied to the time when the lil one is at school for a couple of hours.
OU courses are good, BUT!!!!! you need to be committed and organised to do them, my parents did them but both were very organised people so put aside the time and nothing short of WW3 would have stoped them doing the time... Its a lot of work as the theory is that you potentially end up with a degree if you get enough points and stuff... I personaly would just end up saying "oh i'll do it tommorow"
have pm'd you with a weblink
orpheous
I stayed at home for 7 years after having my babies, up until the youngest was 3. Then I couldn't handle it anymore - know exactly where you're coming from!!
Does MrGenHerts work days or does he do shift work? I went out to work in the evenings, just 2 eves a week - it was a really crap job, v. tedious ...... but it was the making of me - brought back Misschief as her own person rather than MissyMum or MissyWife. The girls I worked with were bluddy brilliant, and every couple of months or so, we all just went out of an evening and had a blast.
So how about an evening job? Maybe bar work or something? Not the best paid job, but a good way to go out in a socal environment and get paid for it!
My kids are nearly 7 and youngest is 3 1/2 so in nursery for only 2 1/2 hours, so doesnt give me long to get anywhere to get things done. Ive looked into the local college but they dont have courses that are suited to me, as i wanted something more like Returniing to Work and they only had Return to Study. Also the courses that were possibly ok, were in the evenings so i had to rule that out cos i cant guarantee my hubby will be home let alone in the country.
