If your parents worked full time when you were a child, how did you feel about it?

[grumpyy]

As a child were you ok going to after school/ breakfast clubs/ childminders/ school holiday clubs?
Did you wish you had a parent at home around to do pick ups? Did you resent them for working all day and not being able to spend as much time with you.

I've just been thinking this as my DM was a sahm and never ever worked bar a little bit of sewing from home. Even though she was around I don't really have memories of spending loads of time with her either. She just sort of did her own thing and I did my own. Im thinking of going back to work now we've had our last and just wondering what it was like from a child's perspective if you can remember. Personally I think it would have been good for DM to have worked pt to build her confidence. I felt she was wasted in the home. (Not saying sahm are wasted btw! But I think it would have really helped her).

Buzz, I do agree with you there.

We can only raise our children the best way we know how, and hope they don’t hate us for it as adults! 😂

My mum was a SAHP, she gave up work when I was born and never went back, although she did a bit of informal, un-OFSTEDed childminding (as people did back then) to make a few extra pounds. I loved having her at home, she picked me up every day and was there all through school holidays even when I was in secondary school. I hate that we'll have to use childcare in the holidays.

DizzyPhillips
I'd rather be 'skint'

Yes they both did, still do. (Nice of you to ask about 'parents', but realistically there were not that many fathers in our generation who would have chosen to be SAHDs). I didn't spend much time thinking about it, it was just normal. But I quite enjoyed coming home to empty house, I was always an introverted kid so loved a bit of peace and quiet to do my homework and read.
Mum loves her career, would have made a horrible SAHM anyway. She's still enjoying her job, and working full time - it's not a job you could easily get back into after taking decades off, and I'm pretty sure she would not be as happy with a little bit of volunteering or part time low skilled job.

My mother had been stay at home and then moved to full-time when I was still smallish. I don't really remember much difference in the amount of time or activities we did together and she made it so the activities or those watching me felt like just part of the routine - it's X day so we do X thing. We lived close enough to my maternal grandparents during most of my childhood that during summers and things like that once we were 7 or so, we were kinda just sent out and if we had a problem we were to go there if the adults at home were out or busy. It felt normal and, due to my mother's issues (a slowly less functioning addict throughout my childhood), I'm really glad my grandmother had been around even if she couldn't really physically do much other than have an open home due to her disabilities.

My parents were together on and off until I was 13 or so and there were major differences when living with my father. He kinda made me feel like an inconvenience, like he was doing me a huge favour that needed to make up for it by doing his laundry or other things rather than just normal routine and family things. He'd get either my grandmother or friends' parents involved in watching or transporting me well into my teens which led to me feeling like even when it was really bad situations where said friends were being coercive, I couldn't ask for changes due to that dynamic and feeling that this had been a favour to me to go there and to ask more would be ungrateful of me.

Lol at the passive aggressiveness of putting skint in inverted commas 😂

Holy to be fair I think your circumstance was quite extreme and I take your point. I think there is a balance to be struck

Yes , they worked for the family business (and weren't paid enough), worked 6 long days per week but it was necessary to feed us/provide a roof etc (although my Mam did used to use any non working hour going to clean my more than able bodied Nanas house instead of being there for us but thats another story). They couldn't afford childcare so we had to go to work with them and sit in the staff room, sometimes a member of staff used to feel sorry for us and take us out to the park in their lunchbreak (thank God non of them were child abusers!). I'd have loved to have gone to a proper childcare setting like holiday club etc.

My mum went back to full time work (with a commute and studying so really long hours) when I was 10. Initially I was really upset that she wouldnt be picking me up every day but she was never satisfied as a sahm and was much happier working full time and so genuinely a better mum
We had a nanny for a couple of years who was fantastic and we were as much a part of her family as she was ours .

My mum went back to work when I was 7. It was fine. Both parents were teachers so no holiday issue. No one ever picked us up from school anyway, even when mum was home! This was 1,000 years ago in the 70s.

I had an older sister, my brother tho was alone at home after school in y 4-5-6 until we got back from secondary school.

It's hard to compare as in those days parents just didn't spend much time with their kids, nor feel the need to police constantly. I do Value that my mum had her own career tho.

Both my parents worked FT and I never felt in any way that they weren’t there. What it meant was I didn’t have the awful teenage experience that many of my friends did when their parents argued over money for eg fixing a car. We had nannies and two of them were at my wedding. My DM would have been unbearable as a SAHM. I love her to bits and we’re close without being in each other’s pockets. I ring her for advice or to chat.

Equally, when DH and I discussed working the only combination we didn’t discuss was me not working as I would also be unbearable. He would cope better but it still isn’t for him. PT in my career is the worst of both worlds as you’d do the same amount of work for less credit and less money! I have stepped back by leaving private practice (goodbye routine 50 hour weeks) and that for us as a family is a good compromise.

Same as HolyForkingShirt my DM could have stayed home, as DF was the one earning more. DM's profession was more academic and not well paid. I think she worked because it was what she had her education for, and found it interesting and intellectually stimulating.

But I'm glad we had our nice, big house, because honestly it sometimes feels like I had a deeper emotional bond to the beautiful house and garden than to the people in it.

My parents both work full time and hard in very good jobs. They were still loving, kind, caring, generous and good parents. They still made time to do all the things with us that were important (days out, homework, school plays etc). I have nothing but respect for how hard they work and I know it's made me and my siblings have a high work ethic from watching their example.

I am deeply confused by the idea that family looking after DC is preferable to a good CM/nursery/nanny. My DM is fab with my DC but she is in her 70s and in no way should run around with a toddler all day. Our CM is adored by both DSs and is far better at enrichment than DM, DMIL (also lovely but rightly enjoying retirement) or I could ever be.

This thread is really about mothers working, since so few fathers work PT or SAH.

My parents both worked FT and my mother advised us never to be financially dependent if we could avoid it. Was good advice IMO and have followed it and after a few years PT and career/earnings detriment work FT myself.

My parents both worked and I didn't like it much. I was very introverted as a child and resented having to spend all my holidays (and mornings/after schools) in clubs with other children, being forced to take part in group activities. Most of my friends had a SAHP or one that worked part-time so they were at least available for some of the time.

It has influenced my beliefs and I do want my children to have a parent around as far as possible. DH grew up with a SAHM and wants the same for his children (not necessarily a mum, but a SAHP at least for the first few years).

I felt really lonely but that's probably because only one parent showed love, the other was abusive and negligent.

Both of my parents worked ft and I really didn't like it. My mum worked shifts, my dad more of a 9-5.30, my dad did more of the day to day care when I was little. My mum took my sister to school and started work at 12 then worked until 7.30, my dad took me to my childminder before school, and picked me up when he finished work. I only saw my mum for an hour or so a day during the week. When I was in secondary school my dad got a job that involved him working away mon-Thurs and I absolutely hated him being away. My mum would have her lunch hour at 5 ish and come home to make sure Ihad tea then go back to work, so I was alone a lot the 4 days he was away. It was shit tbh.

My mum would have hated being a SAHM, I think it might have suited my dad but he earned more than my mum (and let's be honest, it just didn't really happen in the 80's). I don't feel resentment towards them, we weren't wealthy, having 2 salaries meant that we had a holiday a year, days out etc and now when I think of my parents it's the holidays I remember fondly, but the day to day stuff was a bit crap. My mum left education to have my sister when she was very young and it was vital to her that me and my sister did well at school went on to uni etc. She died in her forties, me and my sister both did well at school and went to uni, we both became SAHMs.

I hated being in childcare and can still vividly remember being desperate after a day at school to just GO HOME. My childminder was absolutely awful though - mean - and then later various friends helped out but we always felt an inconvenience and it made my early teenage years really awkward with friendship balances. Such a relief when the LA provided a school bus so I could get home myself!

Reading the replies it sounds as though a lot depends on the childcare.

I didn't think anything of it.

I had a nanny and it was fab. Lovely parents happy to see me and spend time with me in evenings after they were home and weekends. Lovely nanny. Great home life set up.

Mum was able to finish work early 1 day a week and dad had a half day one weekday afternoon but worked a Saturday morning to make it up.

We are all affected by our childhoods differently of course. My parents chose a massive house on the most prestigious street in our town over working less. That has affected me deeply (I don't think it would have had such an effect if they were working full time just to cover the bills but they could easily have afforded for one to work part time).

My DH on the other hand had a SAHM and they were skint and that has affected him massively as an adult in terms if his attitude to work, money and parenting.

I absolutely loved sports clubs in the holidays, and PGL holidays.

I didn't know any different, so it was normal to me. My nan also worked full time when my mum was a child. I never considered being a sahm either.

Both my parents worked full time, it was all I knew and I didn't really think about it until everyone starts questioning it when you have your own kids. Never compared to other kids. At the time I had no issue with it, I have plenty of memories with both parents, I don't ever remember thinking I didn't see enough of them, and they even worked Saturday mornings too. I had a wonderful childhood.

Looking back, when I had kids it didn't occur to me for a second to stay home, I knew it wasn't a prerequisite for parenthood and I've always been career orientated. My mum had a job until I was in my teens when it progressed to a career, I didn't realise then but now I know what a huge influence this was to me. How it's driven me to get a career I love and how I don't need to put anything on hold for it. It's given me a very strong work ethic and the sense that I am important as an individual and a mother, as my mum demonstrated.

I genuinely believe it's been a hugely positive influence in my life, and interestingly my brother is career minded too but also a very hands on dad which my dad was too so I think it benefited us both.

For this reason I am very confident I am making the right decisions for my children, even though I feel I'm questioned for them much more than my own mother ever was and obviously more than my husband.