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

Oh and i absolutely love spending time with my kids but i love to see them well fed, clothed, in a warm home etc and for all of that we need to earn money.

In the past children would in many societies have been cared for by "the village" and minded by friends, neighbours, relatives or more likely older siblings not that old themselves. It would have been unusual for women to be able to have dedicated themselves almost entirely to child rearing for years on end

My childminder was a neighbourhood lady. I had met her when DS was a baby and knew her for almost a year when he started with her. I'd seen her out with kids she looked after, or sometimes her own DC, chatted at the church toddler group and seen her at the playground. She'd held DS a few times and always talked to us. She didn't feel like a stranger.

The reality for most people is that some of childcare is needed to work & keep a roof over the family's heads.

I did both. Oldest two went to a childminder from 18months ish while I worked part time. My pay didn’t go up at all but the fees did so for child number three I quit and haven’t been back since (he’s 6). Can’t say it’s better or worse for any of them. Mine loved their childminder and the youngest loved being home. Kids adapt.

Agree.

Why not?

Why are women who are so snotty and superior about women working rather than staying at home so forgiving of their husbands, who have to work to allow them their superior lifestyle?

Can’t imahine why it’s different.

@MaryWelly

OP you mention friends who use nursery as they don't enjoy being parents. I know of people who are SAHM because they don't enjoy their jobs, nothing to do with prioritising their child.

A totally valid point. To be perfectly frank, if I'd had a mundane job which I didn't enjoy rather than a profession, I would have been far more likely to jack it in and stay at home. That wouldn't be any measure of how much I loved my child though!

And to go back to the OP, some mothers clearly feel so unable to leave their children that they move heaven and earth to avoid it; as with the OP it may be the impact of some childhood trauma of their own, but whatever the reason, it's not a measure of loving your child more, it's a reaction to your own feelings and needs.

Women can have it all but not at the same time.

Why ever not? Of course women can have children and careers at the same time. It's a perfectly normal thing to do.

Just to add - OP it does sound like you are listening to other people's experiences and viewpoints. It sounds like you have a lot of love for your children and you're entitled to make your own decisions. I personally think that if a child is loved and listened to other things like childcare etc don't make much impact!

Why?

Should children, and in particular girls, not have positive male role models and male figures they can trust?

Just wanted to take issue with people saying that going back to work means parents are not 'prioritising' their children.

There has been major research showing benefits to social skills, self-regulation and cognitive abilities for children who attended nurseries compared to those who didn't.

People who return to work don't love their children any less, or prioritise them less. I returned to work but my children are my number one priority.

Having children in nursery also allows one on one time with a newborn baby.
It helps reduce gender inequality. The latest research shows the gender pay gap opens up when women have children. It's actually quite small before.
It has better outcomes for the individual child.
They can do much more exciting activities than is feasible at home.
They have a broader group of adults they have bonds with, rather than it all focussed on mum.
The financial impact of becoming a SAHM is also much higher where the woman is the main earner.

Leaving your child with anyone but you is hard and can give feelings of guilt. But it's healthy for them to have a bigger circle of safe adults.

OP you mention friends who use nursery as they don't enjoy being parents. I know of people who are SAHM because they don't enjoy their jobs, nothing to do with prioritising their child. But I definitely wouldn't tar all SAHM with this brush. Everyone should be able to choose what's right for their family and what's important to them.

Being a working parent - mother or father doesn’t mean you are a less caring parent

REPEAT AFTER ME. Poverty is the biggest indicator of poor outcomes for children.

@PeonyBlushSuede absolutely agree.

Every parent I know prioritises their children above all else. Those who work and those who don't!

OK we've been here before - fathers looking after daughters is (probably) an exception. Men in general shouldn't be "trusted" to look after little children.

What I do, if I took three years out (or more, many have multiple children), the industry and the work would have changed so dramatically that I couldn't just go back. I took just over a year out for mat leave, because of how the AL accrual worked for me, and had to work twice as hard to figure out all the new ways of working, the new technology and the changes to the company. Triple that and I'd have to go back to entry level, if I could get in at all.

And my employer needs someone doing what I do, so if I'm not going back after mat leave they have to backfill my position. So my role isn't there to go back to. Where do I go? Do I start building my reputation again? From the bottom? Or do I take the flexibility and good will my previous hard work and reliability has afforded me and use it to my advantage to do my job and still be around for my DD whenever necessary? As well as giving her socialisation and activity that she really enjoys.

Aside from that, who's paying for my pension? Who is making sure my shares and investments are still being put into? Who's planning for my retirement once my child is grown? Because all of DHs earnings are going towards keeping us afloat day to day. There wouldn't be anything left after that to plan for our retirement. And three or four years can make a massive difference to those things.

If I take multiple years off work and DH leaves, or dies, or is suddenly unable to work, is that entry level position I have to take going to keep us afloat? Is it going to pay all the bills AND let DD have the activities she loves (swimming, dancing, gymnastics, anything)?

Have you thought through anything other than your own belief that mothers should be martyr's to their family while fathers get to continue progressing their careers and earning potential?

@Parker231 "I love being a parent - DT’s are our greatest accomplishment. However DH and I have careers so we used a nursery with highly educated professional staff- two of which became our babysitters. DH is a doctor - would you prefer he stayed home with DT’s ?"

I agree.

Also outside of being a parent I am still a person in my own right - and I do sometimes like having time for myself and to be myself and not just Mum.

My son is my world - but I still exist outside of him

HI OP, YABU. My child (now adult) was looked after by a childminder who I hadn't known before from 10 months until starting school. I was a single parent and sadly, parents dead. I needed to work to support myself and child. Childminder was a truly fantastic woman who I am indebted to till this day. In an ideal world (which doesn't exist), children would be cared for by close family members but that's not an option for many, for valid reasons.
I recall a friend of mine telling me that she would never leave her child with a childminder; very thoughtless comment. This friend was a SAHM until her children were much older and was financially supported by her high earning husband. People need to think before they speak (myself included)!

@HJA87 dh and I both worked for no immediate financial gain when we had 2 children at nursery and one school age child in wraparound care. So I guess in your opinion I'm beyond insanity!

However, your whole perspective is based on the premise that having one parent not working is 'better' for the child. That's your opinion. It doesn't make it true.

Our children went to a fantastic nursery where they experienced activities and relationships which added to their lives. It wasn't a replacement for anything, it wasn't 'lesser' than time spent with us as parents, it was another experience. I'm not claiming it was better (or worse) than if I'd packed in my job and stayed at home- it was a different experience of equal worth.

I'd also add that remaining in work meant my pension and longer term prospects were completely unaffected. Yes some careers can be rebuilt but many are negatively impacted by several years out of the workplace and occupational pensions are definitely impacted!

But actually those factors were not the foremost ones in my decision to keep working and use childcare. The main reasons were that dh and I were both equally skilled in the workplace, we enjoyed our work lives and we didn't make the assumption that one of us should need to leave in order to be good parents. And actually I really liked the fact we could afford an excellent nursery (which we wouldn't have been able to without both earning.)

Our children are adults now, happy, well adjusted adults who have achieved well and are at the start of their own careers. They have a great relationship with dh and me. So, I don't know why anyone would assume things could be any better if I'd given up my job!

The picture is far more nuanced than that, and you can hardly call most day nurseries "formal education".

Some studies have shown marginal increases in behavioural issues and aggression in children who started nursery early, others have shown small advantages in cognitive skills and language development.

There's a wide discrepancy in outcomes based on the quality of the childcare received. There's not much certainty regarding correlation vs causation.

Benefits have also been identified based on having a working mother as opposed to a SAHM during childhood.

There's no cut-and-dried answer to whether all children are better off in nursery, with a childminder, or at home, although there's a million "experts" with an opinion. You know your child's personality and your family situation and you make a choice based on that.

I think we can safely say the OP got exactly what they wanted from this thread

What a hideous and ugly thread.

So much misogyny.

The patriarchy is safe and thriving clearly.

I don't think the "working for £10" argument exists. Most working parents I know have more than £10. They also have pension contributions and work benefits, for example healthcare or death at work benefit which add up to more than a tenner! But each to their own, I don't judge SAHP so I don't be expected to either!

If you didn't financially need to work or had friends you could leave them with, that's great for you. Not all of us are so lucky.

My post wasn't clear - I was referring to the SAHP who seem to spend all their energies on justifying why they're better parents than everyone else.

I assume WOHP (like me) don't have the energy to worry about what anyone else thinks 😂

If more women did this then putting careers on pause etc wouldn’t be so looked down upon by employers.

I'm not sure I agree. I mean, it's not worked out so well for us in the past has it?

What we need is more MEN pausing careers, working family friendly hours and insisting on flexibility.