I don't understand how people can give up their career and be a stay at home parent ?

[lolstevelol]

You risk losing career progression, especially as jobs change so rapidly due to technology. The role you were doing a few years ago might look completely different today. Securing a stable office job is much harder now than it used to be.

You also miss out on pension contributions, which is a significant factor. Losing 5–10 years of contributions and compounding can be the difference between retiring at 58 and having to work until or beyond the state pension age.

Generally speaking, supporting a family on a single income while working can be more stressful than being a stay-at-home parent. Even when the job itself is manageable, workplace environments can be toxic, which can create tension and resentment between the working parent and the stay-at-home parent.

Very much so. There are mums and there are mums.

There isn’t an employer in the world that would have kept me on. No matter how sympathetic they were - I needed far too much time off to support my children

3/4 in my family have disabilities = a lot of medical appointments. Some weeks I would easily have 8 appointments to go to with Dr’s, hospitals, ot, physio, salt, specialist nurse, blood tests - plus all the meetings at school etc.

parenting was my full time job - no way could my husband and I both work and split all these appointments (plus all the sick days because of the kids conditions) as well as the usual school holidays etc. just totally unfair on any employee or people you work with as I literally some weeks could never be there as we had too much routine medical stuff as well as all the emergency hospital admissions etc .

only option was one of us to be at home.

Thankfully the world is changing. We’re closing the gender pay gap and more women than ever are financially independent. The availability of childcare means more women have a choice meaning they aren’t forced to give up work if they don’t want to.

I think a majority would rather be at home bringing up their children than leaving it to someone else, I know what I d rather do and did.

You do know that working mothers also bring up their children, don't you? This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to slate working women and it's not acceptable.

When I worked when my children were little I was at the house at 7 am and they were in bed for 8 o’clock. If I managed to get home for six.
I’d spend two hours a day with them
Five days a week.
Let’s not delude ourselves

And when mine were little, I got them up in the morning, dressed them, had breakfast with them before taking them to nursery. Picked them up at 5, did dinner, bed, bath, story. It's not about how much time, it's about dedicating it to your kids. No delusions at all here.

That might be your experience, it is not the same for everyone. I work and still see dd as much as I possibly could around school.

That’s still not much time every day in the grand scheme of things

Ok... So?

I know people who do this every day..... And they send the kids to the grandparents at some weekends so they can have couple time etc

Imo it isn't so much about spending time with your children as the lifestyle you offer them by being a SAHM. I stayed at home and so my children weren't in childcare all day. They went to the park every day. Walked the dog. Went cycling. I wanted this for them, not that I particularly thought they needed me as such.

my childminder did all that. They don't lock them in cages in childcare.
Sure, I wasn't there every workday to supervise the feeding of ducks, we fed the ducks over the weekend - but they quite like our current life and that would not be possible if I had been a SAHM, as simple as that.

I get that. I would have used a child minder, not a nursery if I had used child care. I had additional reasons for staying off - i did go back to work for a period and did use a child minder. I just find nurseries so indoors and busy.

And yet they have turned out to be fully functional, healthy, happy adults. Amazing what you can do if you invest in the time that you do have. It's alsmost as if there isn't a single correct way to bring up children.

I needed to work because we all needed to eat and keep a roof over our head. Would I have worked part time if that had been available for the first few years? Yes, but it wasn't back then. Would I ever have been a SAHM? No, I'm not cut out for it. I was bored out of my skull after 6 months of mat leave.

Some nurseries are very outdoorsy too. As always, you just have to choose wisely.

The nursery we use has fantastic outdoor provision and they also take children out for walks including parks and to feed the ducks.

Are the children safe? If so, then it’s none of your business another family chooses to parent their children.

It might not be how you choose to be a parent but the there are probably aspects of your parenting that other people could critique.

We purposely chose not to use grandparents as childcare when we worked and one of the reasons was that we wanted to use them as ad hoc childcare at weekends or for when we had city breaks. We don’t use them every weekend but we do still carve out couple time as it’s important to us.

The nursery my two went to was very outdoorsy. It was small, family run and with virtually zero staff turnover. Plenty of quiet time, there were quiet spaces for children that needed those, there was flexibility around nap times. Food was freshly cooked from scratch every day. It can be done.

But the main point is that you are not a better mother just because you stay at home. Good mothers come in all shapes and sizes, including working ones.

When my child was young we had at least a couple of hours in the morning as he’s always been an early riser. We’d drop him off at nursery around 8.15. He was always collected by one of us between 4-5pm.

When he started school he went to before/after school club 3 days a week. The other two days he was collected straight from school at 3.15.

I’m not deluding myself.

Where is your evidence that the majority of women want to be at home?
And FYI, working parents are still bringing up their children.

So it *Is about the money then as opposed to a simple lifestyle? It’s ok to admit that

I'm in a very urban area and it was a while ago. The nurseries we visited just had little gardens and it was a long way to parks so they didn't go. I do see more nursery kids out now tbf, now they have big buggies etc

I never said anything about being a better mother. This thread was about why some mothers stay at home and I'm chipping in with reasons.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a nice lifestyle as opposed to one that is ‘simple’.
Men NEVER get criticised for earning money. Yet when a mother chooses to work we get accused of working for luxuries and told we should sacrifice those ‘luxuries’ and if we don’t then we must be terrible mothers.
My wage contributes to mortgage and bills in the same way my husband’s wage does. Which, incidentally is part of being a responsible parent.

I grew up poor and in a house where things had to be sacrificed because we simply didn’t have money. I wanted a different life for my DS.

Well, of course it's about money. Life costs money. You know, things like housing, heating, clothes, food.

You're pushing the stereotype that women only work because they want luxuries - posh cars, holidays, nails, designer clothes. That is incredibly hateful. It's also a complete crock.

I understand completely if you have to work and there’s no way round it, I did after a while around my Dd and do now but I hate it and wish I didn’t have to