To think all these mothers bragging about working full time are just using their own mothers as unpaid childcare?

It feels immature because you seem to have a grudge against a particular kind of woman who has family support. A more mature approach would be 'I chose not to work because I didn't have any support and the childcare would be too high a cost, that has set me back financially but on the other hand I got to spend time with my kids. Other women chose to work because they had family support, they probably wished they could spend more time with their kids but are happy their kids have a good relationship with GPs. Some women don't have support but work full time and pay for childcare. They probavly have it hard right now, financially and missing their kids, but they know they'll have better long term financial outlook'. Maturity is realising that every path has pros and cons, and we all try to make the best choices with what we have available to us.

Everything you say reeks of immaturity @Ruddeo just drop it.

You may be older now but you clearly still think and convey feelings like a 16yr old. @Ruddeo do yourself a favour and stop making this about everyone else and what “they have said or done to you” and start looking at yourself and what you need to do.

Eh? I have a childminder that i pay for. No grandma on the scene at all.

I work full time and use paid childcare.

Nurseries are generally open 8am to 6pm. I understand you work til 11 but you could have looked for another job that fit in nursery hours. UC would have paid 85% of your childcare too!

I don't know a lot of people who have grandparent help to be honest. If only 1 in 10 children are in paid childcare, why are nurseries over subscribed?

This is what I was thinking too. I’ve delayed having a family to ensure I’m in a financial position to raise a child. Children are expensive. If I wasn’t financially able to raise a child, I just wouldn’t. The same applies to considering whether I have the support system.

I am baffled by the amount of responses saying they do not know anyone who uses grandparents to help with childcare. I live in an extremely affluent area and Grandparents are out and about everywhere with little people!
I can guarantee that our local primary have more grandparents picking up than parents.
Myself and my peers help with Grandchildren on a regular basis for a couple of afternoons or a whole day every week.My grandson is at nursery 2.5 days a week and myself and son in-laws family share the other hours and pick other grandchild up from school on those days.

Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes parents pay for their own childcare.

No, OP, sorry to prove you wrong but my dm died when I was 5 months pregnant,and ex's mum died 15 years before. Both fs had been dead for 20 years.

So I've worked full time & cared for ds full time since 2012. Ex does maybe 14 nights a year.

It takes some planning but it can be done.

I work full time, my husband works part-time and does a lot of the childcare. We don't have any parental help. Stop being so judgy.

Op I don't see where the "bragging ".comes in
Childcare is a last resort no one thinks " I'll have a baby my choice then hand it over to young underpaid teens in an institution to look after it !! ""
Babies want their mum or primary care giver ,the person who loves them most in the world and the place they are most comfortable.

YABVVVU. We have never used any relatives as childcare, not even once. We both work fulltime.

I’ve given you the stats on this twice on this thread so now I just think you’re enjoying ranting.

But aside from that, your comments here are telling me you have a skewed view of what many families’ lives are like. It’s quite normal for parents to continue to fund their children when they are 16, 17, 18 and still at school. They will do things like paying for driving lessons because driving is an important life skill and for some young people living outside large towns and cities will be the only way they can get to work. People aren’t ‘bragging’ about being able to drive at 17 - that is a very normal thing to happen, even if it didn’t happen to you because of your circumstances. And I can’t believe that anyone tells you that you’re a bad mother for not working full time at 16 with a baby. I think you are envious of the lives around you that you didn’t get to have, and I think that you are the one beating yourself up about that.

I don't think anyone mentions that their parents paid for their driving lessons when they were 17 because this is a completely normal and expected thing to happen. People also don't mention that their parents paid for clarinet lessons, or school uniform.

A lot of professional women don't live near their families. So nursery is the only option

Most working parents I know who do have regular family help with childcare have it as a supplement to formal paid childcare and the balance generally tips to mostly using paid childcare (often the family help is partly down to the cost of childcare but also the family has usually offered/ are genuinely happy to help). This was my situation with my first. With my second my family help on an ad-hoc basis, rather than a regular day each week (which I’m still very grateful for). I was able to change my working pattern (and I do equivalent of 4 days now, mostly compressed).

I’m not suggesting there aren’t people who take advantage but I’d be surprised if it was a big majority. I guess I can only talk from my own experience though.

That said, it’s rubbish people are making you feel bad about how you do it. It seems whichever way you do something in parenthood, someone’s telling you you’re doing the wrong thing! Annoying all ‘round.

Paid childcare. School wraparound clubs, then a paid for babysitter when we want to go out which is expensive so doesn't happen very often!

Edit to add: paid for holiday clubs because no annual leave covers all the breaks!

In fairness, to you, most of us who are full time working mums aren’t 16.

There aren’t many 16 year olds in full time employment full stop, nevermind 16 year old mothers.

I can count on my two hands (less than my two hands) the number of times grandparents have spent any time alone with our dc in the 13 years since we had eldest. They’ve never taken then out for a day out or done anything fun with them alone. A handful of times in over a decade they have spent a few hours with them while Dh and I went somewhere. I even had to take my youngest with me to get my coil put in and once to the hospital to have stitches removed after surgery as Dh was away and we had no one else who could help.

In my personal experience, both our mums are run ragged and have very little in the way of quality of life because they have acquired man baby partners late in life who cannot function without someone cooking and caring for them and generally making a fuss. They can’t really go too far or spend time with friends or family because their partners throw a tantrum if they do. That is exhausting for them. It’s definitely not our children, who they might see for a few supervised hours every few months.

That said, back in the 80s, my grandparents definitely did do full time childcare, 8-6 from when I was 3 months to 5 years then they did the school runs and holidays and after school care til 6pm 5 days a week and usually had me 1-2 weekends. I, on the other hand, worked and paid for my own childcare and equitably shared the work with Dh so no one got lumbered doing every school holiday.

Wouldn't it be better to spend that energy looking at a your own life objectively? Ask yourself what would bring you happiness. Come up with ideas on how to make that happen. My current things I'm working towards are making a wfh day for myself by doing a very niche role in an otherwise customer facing role and tidying the house to the point where I can get a cleaner without being mortified.