To hate how mums always have to sacrifice their career...

We all want what’s best for our kids. It’s also OK to balance that with what’s best for ourselves. For me, that has meant a full year of maternity with both, then working four days a week and staggering hours with DP so the kids do a medium-long day in nursery, four days a week, and have three days at home. For someone else, full-time is what’s best. For someone else, SAHPing is best. What’s not best for anyone is critiquing mothers who make a choice you wouldn’t. And also comparing dogs to babies is just weird.

Yes @SouthLondonMum22. I don't think there is any benefit to anyone of a miserable woman at home with a baby. Just as there's no point in a miserable woman at work away from a baby (assuming she has a choice).

It's about what you want and how you feel too. You've said so yourself.

Exactly the same as me. We just want and feel different things and believe that different things are best for our children.

No it's about what I believe was best for my kids. There is loads I can do with them at home and I wanted to do it. I spent years working with other peoples children- why wouldn't I want to be with my own? You talk as if there something weird about wanting to be with the children you brought into the world.

Exactly.

It's no different to a mother going back to work because of how she feels. Even at 3 months. 😉

Don't worry about it. Posters who express shock and concern at others choosing to use full-time childcare for their babies/toddlers generally do so because of insecurity. They aren't concerned for you or your child's wellbeing, they just want to make themselves feel better.

Both of my children went to nursery at the age of 6 months for 4 days a week so I could go back to work. They are now 17 and 20, happy, well-adjusted young adults with the world at their feet. Ignore the naysayers.

I would have been hugely resentful to have to be elsewhere, while another woman was spending time with my kids. I would have hated that.

So this is about how you feel. Not actually about your children at all.

When we had our children I took the hit as dh earned way more than me and his wages paid our bills.

he continued working days and I worked 3 evenings a week in a bar/restaurant. Did it for 18 years before going back to college to retrain where I now earn more than dh an hour. Meant we had no childcare fees and one of us was always home with the children.

Only problem was when he had to work away but my mum helped out then

life is full of circles and it all works out in the end.

Is that to me AllyCart?

Yes, if I'd had to return to work I would have felt persistently depressed and anxious and like something had been ripped out. That's how I would have felt. I would have been hugely resentful to have to be elsewhere, while another woman was spending time with my kids. I would have hated that. I would have been ok for DH to be with them but still - I'd rather be doing it myself (to be perfectly honest). That's my personality. My DH is hands on and great with the kids and actually around mostly anyway as he WFH and is flexible, but the 'babies stage' wasn't the same for him, as a man, emotionally or physically. Nor does it need to be. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Well said.

What I find sad is someone, assuming a woman, on this thread asking if we don't expect our DH's to provide for us. Like it was shocking women are capable of ''providing'' themselves or even earning more than their DH's.

Well, I diagree. I don't think it's sad, I think it's sensible. For me, the fact I can provide for myself and my children (and my husband should I need to) is a great thing. It gives me security and comfort. It also makes me believe that we can at some point get some gender eqaulity in society where women don't have to be financially reliant on men or always be the one taking the career hit. I am proud to raise a daughter exactly the same way as her brother, showing her women can do just the same things and can rely on themselves. Financial standig is not the most meaningful aspect of a relaionship generally, but when things start to go downhill it quickly becomes it because money is pretty essential.

and I think you are kidding yourself if you thing all, or even most, SAHM set ups are based on equal value and respect. Spend any day on MN and there are various threads about women being treated, essentially, as domestic labour because their DH "provides".

Still no thought on how you'd cope with being "persistently depressed and anxious" and feeling "as if something had been ripped out of" you if the father wanted to stay at home instead?

Yes I understand that Nordicrain. Everyone needs to find their own balance, short and long term. I guess what irks me is what almost seems like a hysterical terror of the very concept of 'living off a man' (even for a few months) and that this, for some posters, seems to be the be-all-and-end-all of life. I think this is quite sad. That's not to say I think women should be SAHMs for evermore, or that it's not important to take certain steps to protect yourself if you are a SAHM (for a period or indefinitely). I'm not arguing that. I am arguing that, it doesn't need to be 'he / she who has the job has the power in the relationship.' It's not inevitable. This (in my view) is a very puerile attitude towards family life and depressing because it suggests that earning potential is the most meaningful thing in a relationship dynamic. The reality is that most parents who decide one is a SAHP primarily value the child having a parent around - so it's not an 'uneven power balance' because there is mutual respect within a family unit and steps are taken to protect the SAHP (financially). It doesn't need to be an insecure power dynamic.

Why is it the mums? I know it's because that's what society teaches us but you don't have to look at it like that. You and husband assuming he's the kids dad are jointly responsible.
Make sure you're using the tax free childcare.
Take the job and in term time it will be better, you need to take a long term view.

You started off by saying that it really would be awful for OP to take the job as her child was "only" 18 months old. And you have continued to comment on the apparent ills of childcare/ not being with your children all the time unless you HAVE to be away.

You also went on to say how anxious it made you to leave your kids which I think is probably the crux of it and why you feel you have to justify what you did by putting your own standards onto other women. You and other posters have repeatedly suggested that working unless you HAVE to isn't putting your kids first or doing what is best for them, which is what I am commenting on.

Look, spending 12 hrs a day away from my kids wasn't for me either. I chose a husband and job where I could have excellent work life balance and progress my career. I took my full mat leave, and went slightly part time. Could I have earnt more/ been more successful, sure, but it would mean sacrificing something I didn't want to (i.e. what I felt was a good amout of time with my kids). Could I have become a SAHM and rely on DH to "provide" while I cooked, cleaned and wipped bums, also sure, but it would also mean a sacrifice that I didn't want make (my own values and wellbeing, and our lifesytle and the type of rolemodel I wanted to be). I don't however need to poo poo women who choose differently. For themselves or their families.

Where did I say women HAVE to be SAHMs?

pp is also continuing to completely ignore the fact that DH and I can both be flexible so 8-5 is standard but if it's possible, one of us will pick him up earlier.

Ok, so 9 months. After that it's ok, right? Why exactly do women then have to be SAHMs/ sacrifice their careers for kids then?

I used to work in child protection. Even in the most dire circumstances - eg. where babies are born addicted to heroin, or the mother had serious mental health issues, social services will still try to keep mother and baby together in the first 6 months, eg. in a mother and baby unit. Even if the baby has to be removed and put into foster care, these are specialist foster caters and the mother will usually have set contact times (supervised). This may mean they are there most of the day, or sometimes a few hours, building up gradually. The first 6 -9 months are important. That's why there is maternity leave and that's why social services will spend thousands on facilitating mother and child contact in that time.

I didn't say 4 hrs at a time. I said 6 waking hours. 9-5 but with a 2 hr nap.

And you and other posters have backtracked a little, from being general babies and small children, to now just being very young babies. Which, I guess, is good. Becuase in relality most people take at least 6 months mat leave and often more.

Anyway, i am curious, what is the hourly cut off and age that is acceptable for you/ where no damage is done to the child? You say 4 hrs for 4 days is ok, 8-5 for 5 isn't. 12 weeks is not ok, so what is? And are you able to base those limits on something, or is it just your personal feelings?

A toddler or young child in childcare 4 days a week for 4 hours at a time is nowhere near the same as 12 week old babies in nurseries from 8 to 5, 5 days per week. If nurseries are open from 7-6 and take 6 week olds, then presumably that is the life of some babies.

well, make up your mind? Either putting kids in childcare to work is awful and putting yourself over what's best for your kids or it isn't?

But nobody would have any issue with that Nordicrain. Why would they?

In case you were in doubt, the above is in my view far better for my kids than if I had become a SAHM.

No, it doesn't always have to be the veyr best. Especially when that is at the sacrifice of other things. Best is also fluid. Would it really be best for my kids to be with me 24/7? Should I take them out of school so we don't have to be apart for a single second? Should both DH and I quit our jobs so we could be together as a family all the time? Even if that means having no money at all? Would that be what is best for our children?

For me, what is best for my kids is what we have chosen. They have great lives with lots of time with both their parents. They are seeing an equal household, and their mum working in a successful rewarding career and exercising financial independence. They have access to lots of clubs, holidays etc because our finances are pretty good and never go without. When they were small they went to fantastic childcare settings (not strangers thanks), which was balanced with lots of good quality time with us (I already explained how we essentially spent only about 5 of their waking hours apart, 4 days a week. and all free time was family time as we outsourced lots of chores, thanks to our joint income).