Why do we have kids if we can't look after them ourselves?

Coming to this late, I would have been grateful if the OP had bothered to paragraph.

You know what, tothepoint88 you said you were sorry for your point of view.

Graciously accepted. :o

You tosser.

No I think a bit further back than that actually!

I have decided after reading 'Tothepoint88' view, I will now hand my notice in at work and get myself on benefits and apply for a council house.

FFS - what world are you living in? I don't currently claim anything, but I have to work. If I didn't my son and I would not have a house, be able to eat or put clothes on our back. My Ex-H was a total arse, who couldn't look after himself let alng provide for a wife and child, so I do the providing. My son spends 1 hour in a morning at child minders, playing with all his friends (just like at school) and he goes there for 2 hours, 3 afternoons a week. Other than that, he is with me. I don't go out socially - everything I do is about my son.

I would much prefer it to be this way, than live on some dossy council estate on benefits or have to rely on a man.

What is relatively new is mothers not going out to work. Afaik it is a post-war construct. Pre-war, wealthy mothers ran houses with loads of staff, which added to their social duties amounted to an occupation, and working class women (most of them) worked. Always had to.

Post-war, when domestic staff became hard to find due to full employment and new and exciting ways to earn a living, the previously staffed women found themselves having to do more for themselves, aided by new labour-saving appliances, whilst not suffering the stigma of "having" to go out to work which was seen as proof that one's husband was not making enough to feed the family. Not working outside the home was seen as a status symbol- proof that your man earned enough for the woman not to need to be employed.

At the same time there was a push for women who had been working and keeping the country going through the war to "go back" to the domestic sphere in order to leave the jobs for the returning men, even though few of them ever were solely in the domestic sphere in the first place. Social pressures led women to feel that they "ought" to be at home because that's what everyone was telling them.

I imagine that there was also in Britain a kind of post-war idealism about how children should be brought up, attempting to counter the very real neglect suffered by many during rationing and evacuation.

It's all such a huge combination of factors, but the basic thing is that the stay at home mother wasn't really "invented" until the late 40s/early 50s.

Underpaidandoverworked - tis true :)

Tanith - that's awful but thing is it's true. I've neve had neglectful employers (tho a few dappy ones lol) but obviously they do exsist

some parents know they don't have the patience to look after children 24/7 and have help

others don't admit they need help and are abusive parents :(

PSML at the idea of working mothers as something that has crept into motherhood in the last 20 or 30 years. Seriously, my dcs were studying Victorian women in junior school; they knew more than this when they were 8. What on earth was the state of British education 10 or 20 years when the OP was educated?

I don't think people should even try to justify their lives. Are the children safe, cared for and loved? That'll do.

Only read the OP. Sorry.

People out there are entitled to their opinion of course. And I am entitled to mine - that they are wrong.

Mothers going out to work is hardly new. In 1947 when my mother put in an appearance whilst my grandfather was studying to be an architect which had been delayed by the war, my grandmother went back our to work to pay the bills.

wow, OP if you were looking for a reaction, you certainly got it. Think you have posted as 'others' over the past few months too.

Why post this though on a forum for cms, au-pairs and nannies????

Could respond to your comments, but have better things to do.

Blondes, love your comment about a child's love

Ok have to admit have not read the whole thread.
I am a mum to 2 Dcs, i work part time, i drop my DCs to school and am here when they get home. My DS was at nursery part time whilst i worked before he started school and my DD was looked after by my sister whilst i was at work before she started school. In May I will have our 3rd baby who will be in nursery whilst i am at work. SELFISH? probably but i also see it as building a future for my children, keeping a roof over their heads and providing them with all they need. Do i have a choice? not really.....if i didnt work, my DCs would have an unhappy mummy. I say all this as a deputy manager of a nursery school and an ex childminder! Childcare is not an evil thing, it offers fantastic opportunities to children and whilst it isnt a match for parental care it IS not evil!

Sorry-lost half a sentence! Paid others to look after their DCs or had to work.

Jane Austin herself was actually fostered out to a village family until she was about 2 yrs old!! This was common. I think that maybe so many DCs died in infancy that they didn't want to get attached (just my theory)-perhaps they felt she would flourish in a rough and ready environment and boost her immune system. It seems weird these days! There never was a golden age. Women have either had the money to pay others to look after their DCs.

People romanticise about life in primitive societies and take the bit that they like about extended breast feeding etc-they ignore the fact that older siblings looked after the baby a lot while mother worked or the importance of grandmothers.
I stayed at home when mine were young, but I realise that I was very, very priviledged to choose. I know lots of young teacher now who would love to be home with their babies but they have to pay the bills-it is utterly ridiculous to say that they shouldn't have had them -and they are wonderful mothers.
It is very odd to say that being there all the time makes you a good mother. Poor little Finn in the blog is the centre of his mother's universe but he would emotionally be better off in a nursery part time!(at least IMO as I think his mother a loon!)

Togorama has said exactly what I wanted to say.

But I'll say it again anyway.

Women have always worked inside and outside the home for pay and for survival.

The biggest lie this generation has been sold is that feminism was about getting women into the workplace. It wasn't. Feminism was about getting women the same opportunities as men in education and the workplace.

Ever seen a Jane Austen adaptation? Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters didn?t work. But who answered the door to Mr. Darcy and served the food and educated after the children and cleaned the house? Ever been on a school trip to a Mill and looked at the pictures of the workers? Not many men there. In fact, most started work at 6 or 7 years old?it was only in our parents lifetime that children didn?t leave school at 14.

In 1842 an act was passed to stop pregnant women working down mines. But surely Victorian mothers didn?t work down mines?oh no. They must have passed this law for the sake of it. (sarcasm)

@ Minimathsmouse
?If our forebears had not placed child rearing above all else, we might still be living in caves.?

Are you fucking kidding me here? You claim to be a feminist but have you actually read any women?s history?

Until very recently (the past century) parents tended not to care very much about little babies. Most died before they were toddlers. If you were going to give birth to 12 children and hope that 2 or 3 of them reached puberty when they could go out to work and bring in money, you weren?t going to invest huge emotion in them when newborn. (not that mothers didn?t love their children but we can?t impose our views of what a good mother is on that era)

Try reading Inventing Motherhood by Anne Dally or Centuries of Childhood by Philippe Aries. They will tell you some unpalatable truths about our rose-tinted nostalgia for the good old days when women knew their place and men were the breadwinners and children were rosie cheeked cherubs.

Sorry about the rant but this idea about women only working outside the home in the past 30 years gets my goat.

OP - I think you are misguided, at best, and out for a fight, at worst. Most parents make their choices based on their situation at that time. When DS was born I was married, by the time he was 6 months old I was divorced. I work 4 days a week and have him in a lovely nursery that I worked hard to find

If I didn't work, we would not have a decent place to live (private rental) or have food/clothes etc. My exh was a twat who has trashed my credit rating and I will not get a mortgage for a very, very long time. I do not care what people like you think but wish you could be a little interested in other people's experiences to realise that life is not always easy.

OP - I think you are misguided, at best, and out for a fight, at worst. Most parents make their choices based on their situation at that time. When DS was born I was married, by the time he was 6 months old I was divorced. I work 4 days a week and have him in a lovely nursery that I worked hard to find

If I didn't work, we would not have a decent place to live (private rental) or have food/clothes etc. My exh was a twat who has trashed my credit rating and I will not get a mortgage for a very, very long time. I do not care what people like you think but wish you could be a little interested in other people's experiences to realise that life is not always easy.

Being a good parent is nothing to do with whether you work or not.

My own Mother didn't work when we were small but she didn't spend time with us either. Nor did she show us love or affection.

I would rather she'd been at work than at home yelling at us.

I work almost full time and I think I'm a pretty great Mum as it happens. I spend time with my DCs, they know without doubt that I love them and am there for them.

Also Joolyjoolyjoo speaks wisely! My children are raised by Me and my DH as well as their Grandparents, extended family, teachers and Childminder. It takes a community to raise a child. (Cliche emoticon)

I would go nuts if I didn't have a job. imo house keeping is not a full time occupation- like Boffinmum, we find that washing/cleaning (admittedly some outsourced)/laundry/cooking take up way less than a working week and is certainly what I did a degree and two postgraduate qualifications to end up doing. Looking after small is fun but very exhausting to do properly full time- after doing it full time with my older children (now aged 13, 15 and 17) I can see that a LOT of it could be outsourced. Parenthood is not an occupation, it's a role. Much as I personally would not now want to spend 60-70 hours a week out of the house while my children are small (and I did it for three years), I need something else to do besides chasing after my impish toddler. So I choose to employ an au pair to help me while I work from home. It's a win-win situation for me.

In my 17 years of parenting, I have met very, very few people who genuinely wanted to look after their children full-time. I have on the other hand recently met a lot of mothers (in particular) of teenagers who feel utterly out of the loop professionally and very lacking in self-esteem because they have taken 15-18 years out of the job market, who end up taking jobs very much not commensurate with their abilities or original qualifications.

sfxmum - quite! I think my DDs have a far more interesting and stimulating day being cared for by trained professional than by me, a rank amateur!

to OP

''The idea that somebody else can do a better job than the mum or dad is frankly odd''

plainly wrong being a biological parent does not suddenly endow you with the capacity to be a proper parent

and further

working away from home while entrusting the care of the child to a competent and caring professional does not mean you are not being a good parent

I am currently being very selfish by staying at home and planing to go back to work, hopefully something that allows me some time with my child and provides her with a good role model as she grows into a young woman

I am not being difficult, but once the kids are at school, what do SAHMs actually do though? I have always wondered.

It takes 6-8 hours a week to run my (big) house and do the laundry for 4 kids and 2 adults. When I am on leave I rattle through it and then I am sitting around wondering what to do next, tbh. Like that episode of Friends when Joey is teaching one of the others how to be unemployed and telling him off for doing all his jobs on the first day.

I just don't really get what people do if they are at home all that time on their own. Grow vegetables? Make things? Paint stuff?

I also anticipate he will need me around a bit more when he starts secondary. By working hard in between I can save enough to take another 6 months off then (if it works with my job at the time).

"I am currently thinking I would like to stay at home until s/he is 2, if we can afford it) and if I find I can cope with being a SAHM which I know can be difficult"

I found it difficult being at home with an under two year old and happily went back to work, happily meaning not that I liked leaving DS but that once in work I was fulfilled and got a break from DS. I have found it much more helpful to have teken 6 months off over the summer and for the first three months of him starting school. I have enjoyed it much more and I think that DS has got much more out of me being around than he did when I was off on maternity leave.

ben5 - if you're enjoying being at home, that's great. Some people do. If you can afford to stay home, also great. Some people can. Others can't.

The OP is trying to say that every mother should long for nothing other than to spend every waking hour doting over her DCs, should have no further ambitions for herself when the children are pre-school age, and is selfish if she doesn't fit this 1950s stereotype.

That's what we're objecting to here; not the idea of SAHMs, but the idea that being a SAHM is the ideal for every women and it's weird to be anything else, whether out of choice or necessity.

If the same things suited all of us, what a very boring place the world would be.