To think life is very different now?

You have to do what you and your DH think is best for yourselves. So you only need to consider her views to the extent that you intend to take them onboard

But personally I do agree that women should have the CHOICE which they currently do not have anymore unless they have a) Money b) A wealthy (or struggling but willing to bear the burden) provider husband who appreciates the benefits of his children's mother being the primary care giver - to remain home with their children. I personally would - and did - move heaven and earth to avoid putting my children in nursery at months old. That I passionately disagree with.

The family is serving , predominantly male-centered (and male derived) capitalism instead of capitalism serving the family. See low birth rates as the inevitable end-stage of an ever increasingly annihilistic, individualist, materialist capitalist world order.

Same as Deag,only I'm 74, maternity leave in the 70s and 80s was 6 weeks after the birth, and you had to work several years equivalent of full time to accrue it. I got silly comments from mil,on a similar vein. I didn't pay for childcare,in the main,ex H and current DH worked nights I worked days, and visa Versa. We got round it that way. You do what works for you.

Just tell her that she was privileged to be wealthy enough to have a choice. Most women, past and present have needed to work and their children have turned out fine. Keep the message short and consistent and just keep repeating it like a dripping tap.

A cheery “oh I agree with you, MIL! Sadly, you. Didn’t raise DH to be earn enough to be able to afford a SAHM so I’ll have to work when we have kids. It’ll be interesting to see if this will encourage them to be more ambitious and they might be in a position to have my grandkids raised by a SAHM as we’d like”.

(and yes, I know this is full of sexist tropes and not very kind to OP’s husband, but sometimes the best way to deal with unreasonable people is to meet them at their level).

I’m a MiL and here’s my two penn’orth.
She can think but not utter this outdated, unrealistic tosh. Point out to her she might like to look after the baby one day a week as a benefit of you both working. That might change her tune.

Well, why don’t we force 50% all fathers to be SAHPs for five years and see where that leaves us in terms of ‘bonding’ for comparative purposes?

Just smile and nod at MIL

Let her have her opinions......you don't have to agree

There's often an idyllic notion that children were always with mothers until 5 or 6 and that its only a recent idea that anything else might happen. Its utter rubbish and not really borne out by what we see in the archaeological or historic record.

In reality, for millennia toddlers have often been left with older siblings or grandparents and children have played independently/unsupervised from much younger ages, relying on children of 8 & 9 to watch those as young as 3/4.

If anything girls were more likely to be around their mothers as they would have been expected to learn domestic skills and help with agricultural work, housekeeping, cooking, washing and clothes making.

The human race has never been able to spare half its healthiest, most productive young adult workers solely for childrearing. Women have always worked.

I do think however that the notion of children under 2/3 can be adequately cared for in large nurseries is a problem. Babies & young toddlers need to form a bond with with a consistent caregiver. Most nurseries do not provide this. Imo its more effective for a childcarer to look after mixed age groups with differing needs (mirroring what you might see in a normal nuclear family) than for 1 adult to attempt to care for 3 babies at once who all want holding etc.

How many stay at home dads do you know in order to compare who is the better SAHP?

"Thank you for sharing your opinion. Would you like another cup of coffee?"

Most of what she said is ridiculous, though I do think children benefit from having a SAHP in the early years.

She's not unreasonable to have or even express her own opinions, but she is unreasonable to keep banging on about it making it a criticism of you and wearing you down.

Agree. Her saying she thinks the gov should pay sounds to me like she's trying to say she feels sorry for you. From what you've written, I don't she expects you to not work, or even thinks that you should given the financial circumstances. Maybe she's just saying she wishes it was different for you.

It's an insensitive thing to say for sure, but I would try to see the good if you can. Just say "yeah that would be nice wouldn't it" and change the subject

Agree life is very different now. As for who needs someone more, I would argue boys need their dad more than ever as a hopefully good role model.

I agree. In an ideal world both parents would, eg, work 4 days a week with a child in daycare (if no extended family) for only 3 days. Obviously impossible for many people but it would be good to have a society wide conversation without judgment or condemnation of others’ situations/decisions

Everyone has different ways of doing things.
My mam is in her late 60s and spent a lot of time with her grandparents when growing up whilst both her parents worked.
My mam worked part time around school hours (went back to work after I was 2 as maternity leave was only a few weeks and had to leave her job for 2 years when she had my sister, went back to work then had to leave again to have me) and my dad was a police officer so used to stay up after night shifts/late shifts to look after us.
We weren't in childcare until school nursery. My dad parents were busy looking after my cousins and my mams parents weren't well enough for childcare and nursery is expensive.

I'm 36 now.

My cousins were in nursery/brought up by grandparents and my auntie and uncle hardly ever took AL during school holidays.

I am the shift worker in our house, my husband works 4 days compressed hours. We need 1 afterschool childcare per week.
I didn't feel comfortable sending my child into childcare when she was unable to speak and not toilet trained. Also the price of childcare was more than my wage!

Two things can be true at the same time. 1) all other things being equal, children are better off not being put into nursery at a very young age and 2) varying family circumstances mean that a child can be better off being put into nursery at a young age.

How to handle these conversations? I worry that when we have kids she will go on and on about it.

Why are you bothering even thinking about it. Life is too short. She isn't saying anything nasty and it doesn't sound like she is trying to upset you so smile and nod and enjoy the rest of your day.

Yes, clearly our generation is doing so much better, raising kids with lower rates of suicide, fewer MH issues, higher levels of life satisfaction than the previous generation... Oh, wait...

Smile and nod. Then, merrily do exactly as you please. She has no power over your decisions unless you give it to her.

My MIL said similar things, and occasionally still does. But she has a daughter and two sons and all of her daughter and daughter in law's work. So she's had to bite her tongue as she's outnumbered.

I think it's fairly common of her generation to think it - her and most of her peers will have stayed at home, so they're bound to think that's the right choice. But they don't have experience of how much housing costs now. Also, I think in our family all the women out-earn the men so we'd be making ourselves significantly poorer by taking her advice.

The tactic around our dinner table is usually to change the subject and pretend she hasn't said anything

She can have her opinions but they are not realistic. As PP have said, just smile and move on and ignore.
IMHO, she is completely wrong on all points. Nursery is a great thing for kids, it helps them socialise, share, learn skills from professionals etc.
I was lucky enough to go part time so my kids experience nursery and a parent at home. DH worked from home and has done for 20 years so kids had both of us there a lot.
Do what works for your family.

I loved my mum being at home when I was a child.

But I didn’t know different. Dad came home at 5pm.

Life’s not like that now. I’m freelance & often WFH.

DS would prefer me not to be distracted by work.

And DH works long hours. Your MIL had it good…

It would be nice if your DH shut the conversation down if she keeps going on about it but realistically she's not going to be convinced to change her view so I would just ignore. Having said that, once you do have a baby and she sees the reality of how it all works now in practice, her perception may change a little. The boys thing I would definitely just ignore!

I've never been a SAHM but in all honesty I do think it's best for the child to have a SAHP if being completely black and white about it.

But for me you cant think of the above in isolation. The following are all true for me and if only 1 applied I might have stayed home for his benefit but as a package I'm comfortable with my decison:

• My mental health would be on the floor and I would be unhappy
• My own financial situation would be precarious.
• We would be worse off financially as a family...now and in future. And DS's quality of life in the financial sense long term would be significantly worse.
• DS would have a default parent (I love that he has always been equally happy with either one of us)
• I have a perfect balance (IMO) now as I am able to be home at end of school time. I was only able to do this by having kept my career going full time after mat leave and getting myself into a position to negotiate.

Unfortunately life has got harder for most people in that both parents need to work now to pay the bills. Your MIl Is not being realistic, just ignore her.