How many hours did you work after going back from maternity leave?

[twoorthreeorfour]

My contract is changing to 3 days, 22.5 hours. I wondered what other people do. If you reduced your hours, at what point did you go full time again?

Nor mine. I don’t recognise any of that.

nap time for example. A battle at home, cuddles and sleeping bags made no difference. Nursery I was utterly stunned, they all lay down and go to sleep! No “screaming babies” or screaming anyone.

health wise we were all fine. Odd bug but nothing out the ordinary.

staff turnover was very low. Same carers all the way through. Always correct staff ratios.

interesting food as well. One of the cooks was Caribbean and they got a lot of Caribbean food which they still love.

i can’t remember phone calls to pick them up. Maybe one or two. Nothing intrusive.

And did you know that for the 75% living above poverty there isn’t them much difference at all to happiness levels between those who are OK and those who are millionaires? Most people woefully misunderstand the true needs of under 3s because they are impatient, self-centred and it’s quite frankly inconvenient to meet those needs.

DT’s and their friends were never involved in drugs - they never had time. School, after school homework club then sports clubs and music practice.

I genuinely think it is in to days society in the same way women were judged for working 30+ years ago if they had young kids.
I don’t disagree with nursery and I agree in some situations it’s the better option than the child staying at home until 5 and for parents who want to both work it should be an option because people should be able to work and raise children but equally I think we should be able to have the option to stay at home until school age but for most people Col prevents that. I also think taking a career break shouldn’t impact on your career negatively.
In the nineties and prior to that there was a lot more one income families and it was affordable. Now the choice is taken away and because it’s not the norm it’s become the lesser option.

And? That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm referring to educational outcomes, health, future employment etc. We know that living in poverty impacts all of these.

Why do you feel the need to be so rude about working mothers?

Because I am absolutely sick of working mothers commenting on my life. How rude one poster was upthread questioning me on what u would do without my DH- absolutely none of her business!!! My initial comment on here was that OP can work 0 hours and she wouldn’t regret it. I haven’t. Others could just choose to comment separately that they would regret it, but oh no, they choose to jump on my experience then can’t hack it when I give some back. Or so they assume I’m quiet because I’m a housewife? Newsflash- I’m not. I didn’t actually directly comment to any people saying they work FT, but they always jump on comments from happy housewives. I absolutely will retaliate though.

No different from SAHM stating that they are doing better for their DC’s.

Children need unstructured down time to fully develop their imaginations.

I know my children have better from me because I am their Mum, I am irreplaceable and I love them in a way nobody else ever can. I’m not going to minimise that to make strangers feel better about their own decisions. I’m unimpressed by a person’s career- I will always believe each mother is best for their own unique baby/toddler. I respect mothers who own that and live by that, it’s far too important to delegate and do wish more women realised that! Society is destroying that knowledge for many.

They got that in after school club and at home. DT’s are now in their mid 20’s so I have the advantage of seeing the outcomes (successful) of our decisions.

DT’s have me as 100% as their mother (and DH as their father - you don’t seem to mention they have two equal parents) - always have and always will do. No one can replace our role as their parents.

Like I said upthread though for me it’s less about the affordability of being a single income family, it’s the precarious position, particularly for women, it puts them in.

it’s all the little things. We’re aware of DV and we don’t expect women to put up with that any more. We don’t expect people to put up with shitty marriages generally. So while divorce no longer has the stigma which is a good thing, men are also not expected to support ex wives, only children.

pensions are no longer the final salary gravy trains which can support families and wives for decades after the death of a spouse. Same for benefits- you’ll get them while your children are dependent, but you’ll be expected to work and once those children are adults you’re on your own.

it’s too much of a risk to me. My mum did benefit from my dad’s death in service benefits, and she has been able to live on that for nearly 50 years. That does not happen any more though. Dh’s pension would pay me a lump sum and a small amount but not enough to live on for the rest of my life- it’s a set sum and will run out.

so it does concern me that women seem so eager to be utterly financially dependent on a man, with no though as to what will happen if that single income disappears. We’ll also be retired before 60 and will be able to spend time with our adult kids and their families.

Of course you are only going to conveniently hear someone talk negatively about nurseries because that’s your opinion about them.

There are plenty of people who use them and have positive things to say about them. It’s funny that you don’t happen to know any of them.

@SayItLikeItIsLetsKeepItReal you are coming across as rude and patronising. The comments and the language you've used to describe working mothers is far worse than anything I've seen said about SAHP.
You've made a choice that works for your family and aligns to your values but you need to understand that your way isn't the only way.

These threads always go this way. I honestly don't care how other families manage - as long as I'm not being asked to pay for someone else, do whatever works for you. I refuse to engage in judgement though - my kids loved nursery and enjoyed it and are enjoying school now. The life they'd have had with me 100% of the time would have been far inferior and I would not have wished to provide 100% of their care while their father (my husband) had to work extra hard to subsidise this. We are both engaged parents 'and' engaged employees and have found a way to balance it all without any apparently downsides. Depends so much on your job, your needs, your children's needs etc etc. I know I can support my children with or without my husband and that's really important to me.

As a feminist I think it's unfortunate to default towards 'busy daddy with important job and mummy who is always around' but this is luckily going to get less and less common anyway so I don't need to worry too much about it.

Erm....what?!

So do working mothers, some of whom on here clearly expect all mothers to work FT like themselves. Will never happen, not because of inflexibility, the gender pay gap, yah di yah di yadda, but simply because many do not want to. Many are also extremely rude about SAHMs being lazy or using excessive screen time- highly insulting and untrue. It goes both ways.

I genuinely can't praise the nursery we used enough. They were amazing.
DS is 11 now but he stills speaks fondly of his time there.

Staff turnover is often used as a criticism but most of the staff who looked after DS are still there!

How many kids do you think in the 1950s who spent most of their time with their own families and outside away from screens eating healthy, home cooked food not pumped full of chemicals needed medication for ADHD/sleeping issues? Modern life is literally making our children ill, the West is morally, emotionally and spiritually defunct, and boy is it showing in our children. Check out youth mental health figures- terrifying!

The nursery we use is amazing too and also has low staff turnover. Of course some nurseries are poor but you could say that about some childminders and even some SAHM’s too.

Similar for us. I liked that the majority of staff were older (and way more experienced than me)- grandmother type which was lovely as we lived in a different country to our families.

Oh and fwiw I hated having a sahm. I found it smothering. I hated having to weigh up every penny, and having to go without quite a lot. As a teen in particular I’d have enjoyed some independence, more freedom and a bit more money so I could afford to go out with friends, join some after school activities etc.

my mum’s retired now and still counting pennies. Can’t travel, can’t afford this, can’t afford that.

my dc are adults and we recently discussed me working. Turns out they found many positives, they got more time with their dad than many of their peers, they often used my work as a ready excuse as to why they couldn’t do stuff they didn’t want to 😂. It helps my job is relatively “cool” and gets them points with their friends. They are also aware that a lot of the privileges they had growing up were because I worked.

I've not seen anyone say they expect all mothers to work full time. Most people advocate part time.

You need to accept that people do things differently to you and that's okay! Their children are thriving just as well as yours.

I also hated having a SAHM. It was miserable scrimping and scraping and never having any money.

It’s a big reason why I’d never be a SAHM myself.

You need to accept that people do things differently to you and that's okay! Their children are thriving just as well as yours.

This. Its not you vs them @SayItLikeItIsLetsKeepItReal Why can your kids not be happy AND working mothers kids be happy?