To feel sad some women are forced to go back to work

My 'kids' are now 22, 20 and 17 and when we had them, being a SAHM was a total non-issue, if that's what you wanted and you could afford this.

Most women I knew were SAHM in the pre-school years. I only ever met one or two women who tried full-time nurseries. Both took their kids out and U remember one friend telling me she did so because there was 'no love' in the nursery and she couldn't bear it.

I don't understand all the angst and drama in here about just being with your own baby.

If I'd had to have put a baby in a nursery, I would have been beyond devastated. Well, to be honest, I just would NOT have done that. The end.

Sounds like the COL crisis means women have less choice these days.

Of course it’s an option for men! If a mother prefers to go back to work and focus on her career while her husband enjoys running the household and doing the childcare, then of course that’s what they should do!

I know my partner would not have enjoyed running the household and childcare as much as me.

I don’t think your specific example is the shame necessarily but I do think it’s a shame that people don’t always have to option to do what they’d prefer. I’m a high earner and my salary would be too much to go without, so I had to go back to work after 13 months with my first and will do the same with my second (and I’m one of the lucky ones because for a lot of people it’s a lot less!), but I would love to have 2-3 years off with my children and be a sahm if I had the chance.

Then unless cashflow supports this they should be fully prepared to go back to work. Bills and overheads can't come as a shock surely? You've got 9months to think/plan and save if being a SAHM is feasible in the mid to long term.

Honestly I think that’s a cop out, there are lots of aspects to managing a home which can be split according to personal strengths and skills but I genuinely think hands-on parenting (including working less if that’s what’s required) should be as evenly split as possible.

Not doing this only adds to the cultural dynamic of child rearing being women’s work.

The couples I know where the woman has taken a step back at work to spend more time at home would all say “oh but that’s what works for us” but I am also 99.9% sure that the man taking a step back would have never seriously been on the table for discussion.

And it’s better for the kids to have both parents equally involved.

It’s like shared parental leave - many women don’t want to give up their maternity leave to convert to shared. I personally would have liked to taken all of my mat leave but I knew it was very important that my partner also had some of this time to bond.

So it sounds like you've made the life for yourself that you wanted and are very happy with that. I don't know why your sadness is only extended to women who would like to stay at home and can't, but you have no emotive statements to make for women in the opposite situation: ones who have to stay at home with children and are unhappy about it.

You're also plucking numbers out of the air - you 'feel like' 99% of babies are in nursery and seem to imply that's a bad thing. Actually, many families with working parents have grandparents doing some or all childcare, a lot of parents (more mothers than fathers I assume) work part time. You probably see fewer babies around because the birth rate is declining. That's causing a lot of panic in right wing circles in particular and the response is an endless churn of material online trying to persuade women that their purpose and fulfillment lies in relinquishing work and staying at home with children.

I think there are women for whom that's true, and women for whom it really isn't. Women aren't odd or lacking in maternal instinct or less feminine or 'normal' if they actually enjoy work and value spending some time apart from their children. Lots of babies spending some of their time in nursery - or with grandparents, or a childminder because nursery is really not the only option - are happy and stimulated and well cared for, and still very bonded to their loving parents. There isn't a superior way of doing it; women do and should have options and different solutions work for different families. So, if you want to feel sorry for other women, why not start a thread about how you feel equally sorry for those who are miserable as SAHMs as you are for those who are miserable working?

Women are still often the default parent, even if they work.

Women are asked about their plans after having a baby
Women are presented with ''a choice'' they have to make when having a baby
Women are judged for either staying at home or working

There's a reason why it is all on the woman. Societal norms.

Are we pretending that societal norms don't exist or influence people now?

It's presented as an option to women though but it isn't with men. Maybe more men would stay home, go part time etc if it was presented as an option as much as it is to women.

Everything I’ve said refers to either sex. It’s obviously up to the parents to decide if and who of them would prefer to stay at home and take a career break.

In reality it seems that women seem to enjoy it more than men, maybe because they’ve given birth, although I know a couple of cases where the father chose to stay at home and look after the kids as his wife was earning significantly more than him.

I'm sad that I couldnt send my kid out to work and contribute to the family, as in the olden days. She has long slim fingers - perfect for factory work!

And yet your next post refers exclusively to women!

You're not doing yourself any favours by being disingenuous here.

If all your education was simply to learn certain job tasks, then yes, it was wasted, regardless of how you choose to spend your time.

Personally i believe education is far more than that, and being educated makes you a better mother too. Most importantly, many women earn a great salary as a result of their education and can purchase a house/invest for the future, and they are then in a great financial position to take a break in their career!

No i don’t mean that at all.

The majority of my education was in no way relevant to my job in terms of subject matter. My degree I didn’t use from the moment I walked out of university. Should I not have bothered? If I were to quit my job now I wouldn’t see it as wasted. I have lots of skills that make me who I am that I can use in my daily life and I can use when interacting with others. Although I work, I don’t see myself only as an economic machine- I am not in the office far more than I am in it.

I went back for my sanity. Very glad to have a thriving career now dd is about to leave home.

If the education is relevant to the job, and you choose to give up the job then yes it is wasted.

Is education wasted if a person hasn’t got a paying job? Your education and experiences make you, well, you. I have GCSe’s in subjects I haven’t looked at in 25 years. Was it pointless me doing them then or did it give me all round knowledge to make me the person I am today regardless of what I am earning?

should rich people who never need to work a day in their life bother to go to school?

Nice try but no.

It's the job of schools to educate children. Not the parents. And the type of education which goes into a career, expensively obtained over years, is unlikely to be directly relevant to children. So yes, that education will be wasted if you choose to give up your job. And it's always women, isn't it? You don't see men desperate to give up a role outside the home and make themselves completely dependent on a woman.

You often hear people on this board complain about how employers are reluctant to take on women of child bearing age, but reading some of the posts here, I think I'd be reluctant too.