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

This feels like a very specific beef you have with a specific person or couple of people. I don’t know anyone who uses their parents for childcare with the sort of regularity you describe. I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just saying that suggesting it is 10% of all working mothers is likely a huge exaggeration.

I think you should work on whatever it is that makes you think they are looking down on you or what is causing you to feel crap. I suspect it is all in your head. Most of us who work full time (using paid childcare!) don’t have the time or energy to notice, let alone care, what others are doing.

I work full time. My kids go to nursery. My mum does occasionally have them for an evening or an hour at the weekend but never overnight, for a full day or instead of paid for childcare. And neither does anyone else I know!

So send your child to a nursery or childminder with more suitable hours? I don’t drive either, but I’ve still always had a FT job.

Full time working mum here. DM was still in work when DS1 was little, I went back 3 days after mat leave and he went to nursery 2 days. DH worked compressed hours, so he had one day to be at home while I was at work.

DM did help with DS2 as she'd retired by then (she was a nurse, retired early from full time nursing and just did bank). DS2 was a handful, so I felt that having both boys for a full day was too much to ask, so she used to have DS2 one day and do DS1 school pickup and tea the next when DS2 was in nursery. DS1 was starting school as mat leave for DS2 finished, thankfully.

Went back to a full time CAMHS service lead role once both boys were in school. I started work after school drop off, DM helped with school pickups a couple of days a week, they had a couple of days in after school clubs and DH finished early on Friday to pick them up. It was easier for her to have them both when they were school age. I don't feel we over-relied on her, I was conscious of trying not to anyway.

@Ruddeo if you didn’t work how did you support yourself and your baby?

I never knew anyone who used their mothers as full time childcare. In fact most of the mothers were working full time themselves

Huh?
nursery was open 8-6 when mine was small. I'm not going to claim I had no help because I was in the tax credits era so I got some fees paid but I worked 9-5 and used nursery around those hours. You can't say you can't find a 9-5 job within an hour's commute of a nursery surely?

Many people might use a combination of GPs, paid childcare and working part-time. Not sure how many parents who work full time solely use GPs for childcare

Surely its school nurseries that finish at 3, which are more for socialisation and preparing for school, you need a nursery that is for childcare which will have hours that better suit working times.

You think 90% of working mothers have free childcare from their mums? Sounds like absolute nonsense

Neither my nor my partners parents were alive by the time we had children. Never even had a babysitter until my children were high school age. You are being massively unreasonable and frankly talking nonsense.

I very much doubt that every nursery closes at 3pm. Yes school ones might but there are childminders and private nurseries that are open until 5.30pm or 6pm.

That's not to say the cost of private nurseries is workable, or that the system is beyond reproach because it's failing and FT working mother's are burnt out.

But don't make excuses.

That maybe your experience OP but certainly not mine in my friends circle there is only 1 person who gets some grandparent support.
The rest of us use private nurseries and babysitters.

My DC are now adults but when they were small my mum was still working herself, as we're the mums of almost all my friends. Plus most of us lived nowhere near our parents.

I honestly only know of one person who used her mum for after school care for her DC and she was a teacher, so didn't have to rely on her parents in the holidays.

That’s why people choose jobs that fit round childcare if they have no other options.

I’m surprised nurseries finish at 3, are they attached to schools rather than separate childcare nurseries?

What an odd post!

3 out of our 4 parents were dead by the time my DC was born, and the last one lived 8000 miles away - I never had any family member doing childcare. I worked full time; like so so many people without having parents to help, we managed just fine!

My mum lives in another country so would be a bit hard to rely on her for childcare... I use afterschool club and work out everything else between me and my partner. Though we did use his dad during autumn half term.

Would have been far easier during the nursery years as nursery definitely fit around all possible work hours because its open 24/7

I work full time. I always have. It wasn't to brag but to pay rent and bills.My parents do not provide unpaid childcare and when my children were very young childcare cost more than double the rent. That's the same for most people I know.

So maybe your 9/10 is wrong?

I didn't have any childcare from my mother or any pther help for that matter and, when my children were young enough for me to know other mothers with children of similar ages, there were two whose mums baby sat for 1 or 2 days a week and the rest of the time, and the rest of the mums, used paid childcare.

I knew one woman with a much older retired mum who would cook dinner for them once a week and do their laundry once a week. That's it.

As much as anything, when we were in our 20s and 30s, our mums were in their late 40s to late 50s and still worked full time themselves.

“All these mothers”
not this one
paid childcare for 12 very expensive years and no WFH

Childminder?

Not sure where you found the statistic that only 10% of children go to daycare?

If this was true, daycare providers wouldn’t be in demand. In actual fact, many grandparents are still in work themselves.

People make choices based on their own circumstances.

No there isn't.

Certainly around here most of the grandparents are still working, so very few available for childcare anyway.