To NOT feel guilty that my kids are in childcare?

Same. 😂

Exactly.

I still spend plenty of quality time with them, especially when you factor in weekends, annual leave and the such like not to mention the quality time you can still have in the mornings and after nursery. When mine were younger, they would often sleep for 3 of the hours spent at nursery.

But even if babies are in 8-4, 5 days per week, the fact is, most of their waking lives are spent with others, rather than at home. That's still a long day for an infant, sorry, but it is. I know a lot of people have no choice, but that still doesn't make it ideal and companies / parental leave policies will never change as long as people pretend it is. School is different because they are 4/5 by then and their needs evolve accordingly.

I agree with this - I really do not think that 8-6 M-F is common at all.

Also this stuff all forgets.. weekends, bank holidays, annual leave. Once you add all of that up, even the small number of preschool age children in nursery 5 days a week are spending a lot of time at home - depending on annual leave allowances, it ends up being about 40% of the year

Are they? Statistically the majority of women don't go back to work full time, they go back part time which doesn't add up with all these babies going to childcare 8-6 every single day.

That also doesn't count those who will use Grandparents for some days or how flexible working is more common now so like us, even if they do work full time they can flex their hours so can pick up early the majority of the time.

Each to their own. Mine hated nursery so I became a SAHM when I got chance and worked school hours only while they were at primary school. Money was tight but not impossible as a result but we have no regrets. It worked for us.

DC are in their 20s now and have said that they were grateful at not having to go to after school clubs. I think both like time away from people so that they can decompress.

We were lucky to be able to survive on one salary. My colleagues with young DC now have no choice - the world is a much more expensive place now.

Not all babies will be in childcare 8-6, but a lot are. So parents see them for what - 30 mins in the morning (rushing out the door) and then an hour or two in the evenings? That's it. I know this is 'modern life' but it's far from ideal for anyone.

Some children will go to wraparound care so the hours would be very similar.

But then at the same time, not all children go to nursery full time and even those that do, it doesn't necessarily mean every day or 8-6.

Mine go every day but 8-6 would be rare because DH and I flex our hours so one of us can almost always pick up early.

You develop the most under 5.

school days are considerably shorter than nursery hours 8-6pm or sometimes longer

I've never felt that I should be with them at all times, even when they were teeny tiny I was happy enough to leave them with DH if we needed something from the shop or whatever and they had sleepovers with Grandparents from a young age too.

Maybe I evolved incorrectly. 😂

I don’t think it’s just ‘society’ that makes mums feel guilty about childcare. Although that too. I think there’s something evolved in us to feel that we should be with our children at all times, for obvious evolutionary reasons.
Both those reasons can be safely ignored when you know they’re safe and happy. I struggled with being 1000% sure when they were too small to speak, but it’s like immunisations, a minuscule risk for a gigantic benefit.

Then there’s the guilt caused by ‘not raising’ your child. They’ll get lots of external influences once they start school.
They still spend more time at home. And ‘evolution’ would have had a tribe raising a child, not a mother locked at the hip. The child even gets some distance from mum which is healthy when they’re growing up. It can be less healthy during the teen years when you need a lot of influence to steer them away from trouble, but having money and a career can impress teens just as much. And of course you can have both internal and external influence if you both work and get quality time when you’re together.

OP seems to have got the hang of it. As long as kids know you love them and genuinely want to spend lots of time with them there are many more important things to worry about than some childcare. And if you’re not that maternal, childcare would be actively important to fill in the gaps so you can maintain positivity with your kids. And even the notion that you’re ‘guilty’ proves what a caring, loving parent you are. Win.

Because society tells mums that they should feel guilty for daring to want a career, it's called ''mum guilt'' for a reason. No one expects dads to feel guilty for wanting a career because mums are always judged far harsher than dads.

No one should feel guilty for having their child in nursery in my eyes.

Despite the fact that they will only spend a few years at nursery? Not to mention nursery workers come and go as the child moves rooms etc but obviously parents don't.

It would also mean that schools raise children but funnily enough no one seems to say that teachers raise children.

She just hated it. She would cry and cry and staff told me they managed to get her to settle after I'd go and then one time I left and forgot to tell them something so I headed back and saw her sat on one of the staffs lap and she was shaking her and telling her to stop crying. She was a very chatty little thing and wouldn't talk for hours after I'd collect her.

Why? Two afternoons are very short and it would have been good preparation for when she started school.

Okay? 🤷

I am a bit on the fence about ‘other people raising them’. If your child spends significantly more daylight hours at nursery than at home, the biggest impact on shaping them is coming from nursery not home?

Exactly how I feel about you. Why start arguing with someone on the internet and trying to tell them what they REALLY meant if you’re not sensitive about what they said?

What’s ’needlessly combative’ are all the guilty mums on here ruffling their necks because I used an example of WHY someone might feel guilty at having their children in childcare.
If you’re so convinced I’m wrong, and you’re all not just desperately projecting, find another reason why mums feel guilty at leaving their kids in childcare. Anything at all.

Mine went for 2 afternoons when she was 3 and that was 13 years ago, still feel guilty even now. However I dont think others should feel that way. I think most children enjoy going.

There is absolutely no need for anyone to feel guilty about sending their child to nursery. And sending them to nursery doesn’t mean that someone else is raising them.
it really is that simple. Anyone saying otherwise is just plain wrong.

Your logic is full of holes. Why do people feel guilty for having their child in nursery at all? People do - most people do, OP thinks people do. So: why? If you have any answer at all…you’re just picking on me because your perception was that I judge you. Because I DON’T judge you, you must be judging yourself. Or you just wouldn’t care what I’d said. And you certainly wouldn’t be dressing it up as some faux defence of people who don’t have any choice about nursery. Why would they have any reason to feel guilty?
Rather than trying to persuade a perfectly innocent person on the internet that they’re doing something they aren’t, wouldn’t it be healthier for you to root out why you feel guilty? Because I guarantee you that you really don’t need to.

I know I posted on here ages ago, but can't remember what I said.

My kids are excellently behaved teens (better than I was). Articulate and bright. They were in nursery and childminder and asc from 9 months old.

If we're going down the 'other people raise your children in nursery' route, maybe all children should be in nursery from 9 months, so that schools are full of well behaved kids.

Or maybe my kids were well behaved in nursery because of the way we brought them up at home....

I think the phrase ‘someone else raising them’ is needlessly combative. No one raised my kids but me and my husband. We don’t have family here, we don’t have anyone else but we did have them in nursery 30 hours a week or so from 1-school. The other endless, endless hours at 2am and 4am and all the times they were sick or hurt or not asleep for whatever reason. Every morning, weekend, every decision to be made was us. And when my husband was working away a lot it was only me. The nursery looked after them physically of course and they cared about them - but nursery workers and nursery children come and go and we saw plenty of both.

so yes - the nursery had a part as per other families who have grandparents or an auntie or whoever else is in the village of options. But like any other working parents, we raised our own children. So that particular phrase is really troubling and could be quite triggering.

Someone else obviously provides financially for her....