To ask if you couldn't imagine leaving your baby and then young dc with strangers?

I thought we weren’t supposed to lecture people on this thread.. I’ll take the impact on my pension in order to spend time with my children, that’s not something I will ever regret.

My son is going to be 2 yrs and 9 months when starting nursery. Should I wait til he is 3yrs and 2 months as that is the next intake. 😭😭😢 I don't want to rush him at all. Me and DH work part time so he does not need to go.

Important to think in the short, medium and long term when making decisions about staying at home and leaving work, and reevaluate it regularly. The impact on salary/pension can be there 10/20/30 years down the line, knock on effects on helping the children out with university etc, standard of living and your pension. It shouldn't only be based on the early years. I was a SAHM for a short time and it's only now that I realise the impact on the later years.

No, it’s not a poor nursery. Its one of the best you’re going to get. Thats why there’s a 2 year waiting list for it. But it’s still a nursery.. and as I said, I don’t like them for young babies.

You're contradicting yourself all over the place. Your comments made it perfectly clear it was poor, and that what the staff told you didn't match the reality. Just because you made a bad choice and it didn't work out well for your child is irrelevant to people whose children are cared for in excellent nurseries

My nursery fees, including funded hours and using the tax free childcare service is £1000/month for a full time place (5 days/week) in the south east. Nursery hours are 8 to 6. That is equivalent to the take home pay you would get working 20 hours per week at minimum wage (and if you were only working 20 hours per week, you'd not need 5 days a week childcare!). So your argument that very few people are financially better off by working is way way off the mark!

No, it’s not a poor nursery. Its one of the best you’re going to get. Thats why there’s a 2 year waiting list for it. But it’s still a nursery.. and as I said, I don’t like them for young babies.

Bully for you OP. Collect your Blue Peter badge and £200 for passing Go.

My kids were in childcare from 9 months. Shoot me now. 🙄

So, so judgmental and goady.

I'm intrigued if the OP has a partner and if they work and if that causes conflict if they can't understand why their partner would rather work than look after their DC. And if their partner would have preferred to stay at home how did they decide who would?

My spouse would prefer to be at home than at work, but one of us has to earn and she is better at it than me (she has a career in an industry she really believes in and feels is very important).

she believes as much as me that ds is better off with a parent at home, so that’s me.

I (female) definitely prefer working than looking after my dc full time. I don't feel any guilt about sending her to nursery. I'm very glsd I had her but have no desire to be a SAHM
My partner (male) on the other hand would rather be a SAHD. But the most important thing to both of us is financial security, paying our mortgage in our very small house, staying in a nice area near nice schools, being able to afford theatre trips, university, and any other opportunities our daughter might want to persue. And to do that we need 2 incomes at the moment
I also don't care what anyone else does.
I'm intrigued if the OP has a partner and if they work and if that causes conflict if they can't understand why their partner would rather work than look after their DC. And if their partner would have preferred to stay at home how did they decide who would?

I think people struggle with the loving bit- the feeling being that no one is going to love your child like family unless they are family, and people can just not take to some children they work with.

I didn’t expect loving from nursery staff- I expected trustworthy, competent and kind (which is what I got).

@HJA87 great that you're happy with your choice! It's lecturing other people which is annoying and makes you sound less content than you claim to be.

We get that you want to stay at home and that you chose a poor nursery first time round. That's you. Not everyone else.

Me going back to work and the DC going to nursery worked out brilliantly for us and that’s all I really care about
Dc are now all in their 20s and doing well , and we have a great relationship
And my earnings have helped support them in a style that they seem very accustomed to 😀

I work in a pre-school, I’m trustworthy, loving and competent. How depressing that people think we aren’t? 😢

I don’t know, I’m pretty happy with my choice to stay with them full time and I don’t think someone telling me that’s wrong would upset me. I hope and wish that you’ll feel more confident with your choice too as the time goes by.

So your kid is about 5 minutes old and you’re on here lecturing people with far more parenting experience about the long term impact of childcare? WTF?! 😂 Although I’m sure you’ll now claim your eldest child is 23 or some BS!

Like I said, children growing up happy, healthy and emotionally well adjusted is the important thing. When mum and dad both have good careers without the downsides of having years out of work and shot-to-pieces pensions - win win

If one parent feels they need to stay at home in order for their children to grow into happy well adjusted people- that's fine; no problem! Just don't extrapolate from that, that everyone else needs to. It just comes across as being pretty resentful really.

What???????

That would be me. I had ‘no choice’ because I wanted to be in a nice house, have nice holidays etc. I didn’t want to sacrifice those things and be miserable. I have always put my kids first for all of their needs, and most of their wants, never missed a sports day or a performance.

But martyrdom isn’t for me. Don’t know you from Adam and not bothered if you want to talk about me either. My kids are older now, happy, confident and healthy. DH and I are both high earners because I never stopped working other than mat leave.

😜

And if you'd worded it like that from the start, people would have been fine.

You told them that they were damaging their children. You told them it was wrong.

You'd be upset if someone just randomly started spouting that the choices you'd made for your family were wrong and had caused damage to your children. That's not an opinion. That's vitriol.

My opinion is that nurseries as a general rule are not the optimal environment for very young children. You think they are/can be great. People are allowed to have their opinions so let’s just leave it at that. No need to get upset.

People only get upset when you tell them that their choices are damaging their children. That's why people are upset with you.

People are upset with OP for suggesting that we prefer working to our children but say nursery is good for them cos we won't admit it.

People got over what OP said because she acknowledged that seeing other people's experiences made her realise hers isn't the only right way.

You avoid questions and keep telling people that nursery is bad for their children. So they keep telling you why you're wrong and citing their experiences. And because you can't keep your own story straight anyway.

Just as an aside, you will find many mums who are higher rate taxpayers with their kids in nurseries too! Professionals and business women like myself. But to go back to your point...if a child sees their mother only without a job and at home looking after them whilst their father goes out to work, they will tend to assume that is the norm. I would say it's becoming the exception not the norm and that's actually a good thing for women as a group. Equality requires men and women to be well as equal as possible. If men and women perform entirely separate functions in society...equality of the sexes will never happen!

I feel like we’re going in circles now with this thread. The truth is, what other people do with their children does not affect me, so if nursery is the right choice for you, great.

It seems like no one can start a thread about not being a fan of nursery without people immediately getting defensive and taking it as a personal attack.

I think a good nursery is brilliant. My son spent two years at full time nursery from the age of 17 months. Before that he had been with a childminder from the age of 8 months. My daughter got a place at the nursery when she was 8 months old because being the sibling of a child already there bumped her up the waiting list. She has progressed much faster than her brother with all her milestones and is more confident. I think it's a very stimulating environment.

Both my children are very deeply attached to me, we did extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, the works.

These threads always end the same. That mums going to work are awful, don't care about their children. That nurseries are awful, damaging for children and that what is best for children is for them to be solely with their mums with no input from anyone else for the first few years of their lives.

I might be exaggerating but it's the general consensus. People have to do what is best for them. But for me and what is true, the concept of a mum solely being at home with baby is a relatively new one. Even John Bowlby who was one of the pioneers of attachment theory said it child-rearing wasn't for the job of a sole care giver and that they needed a lot of assistance. We're hard wired to not bring children up ourselves and to bring them up with the assistance of others. In hunter gathering tribes, babies were looked after by a range of caregivers up to 40% of the time.

We obviously don't live like these now so to me using nursery and paid childcare is a step on from this. It allows me a break from parenting to work and if need be time for myself. This allows me to be a parent because I'm not isolated, burnt or stressed from the demands of non-stop parenting.

If you can do this on your own then good for you. But women shouldn't be shamed or derided or told they are damaging their children when for centuries we've gone out to work and has help from others to look after children.

There's an article here with more information for those that are interested https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/21/it-felt-shameful-the-profound-loneliness-of-modern-motherhood