to be saddened by a three week old baby in full time childcare?

[lilystyles]

At a local toddler group last week there was a childminder who I'm friendly with, she had with her a new child, a baby of 3 weeks who's mother had gone back to work full-time in teh pub she and her husband own. I am not judging this woman, it's her choice but I couldn't help but feel sad at the situation.

This from loobylu3 has made me feel more "saddened" than anything else I have read on MN:
^'I fell profoundly and intensely in love with my children over the first few weeks of their life. I felt completely obsessed with them, thought about them non-stop, yearned for them - their physical presence, the smell and feel of them. Felt anxious when I couldn't see them. I assumed this was what the 'bonding' process was and that it was a normal, instinctive mammalian response to becoming a mother.'

I felt the same. It IS a normal, instinctive feeling. I guess that some women override it because of necessity or because a small number of women seem to regard children as an accessory rather than a person with needs as important as their own."^

So, anyone who does not feel this physical yearning is not NORMAL or is deliberately overiding their own nature? Or treating children like handbags? Do you not understand that different women have different responses to becoming mothers? Does PND factor into your cosy little world at all? In your pretty little head have you decided that anyone who doesn't LOVE parenting a newborn is somehow unnatural.
This is perhaps one of the most smug, ignorant and stupid posts I have ever read.

gosh, we've managed to throw breastfeeding into the mix, this thread is now complete!

BTW, apes as well as human infants in the caves were not nursed only by their mother but by any available lactating female in the group. Even in the beggining of the 20th century it was common practice women who failed to breastfeed would give the baby to someone else in the family (sister, aunt etc.)

i feel that the childminder shouldn't have told you the info about the family in the first place.

I must admit I have read only the beginning to middle of the thread and then the very end. I just want to point one thing out though - I make choices for my family and they suit me. I don't try and apply those choices to somebody else's family because they may not suit them and it would be hugely arrogant of me to say ' Because I felt x you WILL feel x too or you will be WRONG'
Is the baby being cared for - yes. THat's really as far as public interest goes.

All of you who are 'sad' about this really need to pull yourselves together. Across the world there are countless children dying every day because of poverty, disease and war. Getting you knickers in a twist over paid childcare is a luxury. Be sad about things that matter.

yes what NL said

Totally agree NL.

Another one in complete agreement with NL here....

Acinonyx - not just my family! I went to a multilingual school/grew up in a multilingual country/send my child to a multilingual school/live in a multilingual environment. And have studied language in multiple forms. I know some people eg fondly imagine (and claim) that little children pick up foreign languages like sponges from their peers, but it isn't true.

LilianGish - so do I!

No-one can learn a language properly from someone who does not master that language competently and who has a vested interest in passing on that language. So it stands to reason that little children do not learn language well from their peers whose language skills are poorly developed...

SuzieHomemaker - your point about language does not disprove mine.

totally agree NL

surely the savings from not having a childminder and stat. maternity pay would cover a temp. landlady for a while.
Removing any economic factor.

Maybe she wanted to go back, which is fine for her, but sad for the baby.

My aunt did this with her ds and he still is a bitter (he also got sent to boarding school though so didn't really know his parents as only saw them summer and xmas hols).

I know why I am here. Hijacking this thread. only becasue it is very personal to me at the moment.
Yesterday My best friend said I was 'no more than a dutiful mother', never a loving maternal one, and that I had always had attachemnt problems to ds1 and thats why he now has Oppositional Defiant Disorder. My mum says that she does not agree that I had attachemnt problems. I breastfeed both ds's and they both went to nursery part time at 1 year. But after a few weeks I would happily leave him with dh, whose care I trusted implicitly, whilst I went for a coffee. without a backward glance.
And I never did feel the feelings that tittybang bang describes.
But I still maintain I am a jolly good mum.

I guess I am still recovering from the shock of what my best freind said. And this is why this thread has hit home for me so much.

But this slagging of eachother, is just too much. we are our own worst enemies in this. as proven here.

"Across the world there are countless children dying every day because of poverty, disease and war. Getting you knickers in a twist over paid childcare is a luxury. Be sad about things that matter"

Oh come on - these things don't have to be exclusive!

Mental health problems among children and among new mothers in this country are at an all-time high. There's no logic to say that just because children are dying in other countries we have no business feeling sorry for vulnerable children in this country who we feel are getting a raw deal. There are plenty of well-fed, well-dressed children in this country who will go on to develop severe depressive illness in adulthood because of problems rooted in their early childhood experience within the family. Are we not allowed to feel sad about these things?

And the OP isn't getting her knicks in a twist about 'paid childcare' - she's sad about the separation of a newborn baby from its mother. What's so outrageous about that? Newborn babies used to be routinely separated from mothers in hospital, until we realised what a crap practice it is for both mothers and babies. I find it hilarious that those people who will jump in and defend the value of skin to skin contact in the first few hours after birth seem to come over all cynical about the value of a baby who is only very slightly older - still a newborn - spending time in its mother's arms.

I take your point Bonsoir and Lilian - I think the influence of peers must be greater for slightly older children.

Totally agree NL.

oblov - what aahurtful and stupid thing for your friend to say.

I am totally outraged on your behalf.

In all honesty she is no friend.

Hope you have other people to turn to.

"But if, as you say, you had to 'work it out', it implies that it was a bit of a chore".

Oh no - not a chore at all! My mum was THRILLED to have my dd. I'm thinking more about the fact that my mum used to do things like stick her finger in her sherry and let my dd suck it off! And let her nasty, neurotic, smelly breathed Jack Russells lick dd up and down all the time. And leave dd alone sleeping in her pram under a tree at the end of the (huge) garden, in full view of the road.....

Christ, when I think about it now I shudder. But they just loved each other so much. Still do. (and I named dd after my mum too!)

Oblov - I just had to look up Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and by all accounts the actual cause is totally unknown so unless she has some knowledge the rest of medical science don't know she is talking out her arse.

"Or, if someone doesn't do thta, they are nothing, other than, SELFISH ?
Does every single MN poster feel that way, and that way only ?"

You can't help how you feel. And funnily enough in my case by far my most difficult child is the one I was most passionate about as a newborn. My middle dc I took far, far longer to bond with. He's 'perfect peter' now - super loving, self-reliant, sensitive, fun-loving. Go figure!

Tittybangbang how is this child getting a raw deal? She has her parents and another consistent carer. That is the case for many, many families. It's the way those families work - it is not an instant recipe for misery and mental ill health.

Bonsoir, I agree completely with your point about the emotional needs of babies and how the physical needs come to the fore later (3 to 6 being the most demanding age ime). My own DCs spent all their time with me and I feel privileged to have been able to spend those years at home. Wiped out, certainly on occasion, but I feel I was lucky.

WRT language they managed to learn American English, despite my best efforts, but thankfully not the local big city accent, much more 'standard American'. I will never forget how I cringed when DD1 first uttered the word 'France' though (close your eyes and try to imagine Calamity Jane) she definitely never heard that particular pronunciation at home. However, I picked up American English too to some extent, so as the years wore on I think we all ended up much the same. When you live abroad, your own language, separated from it's natural environment, changes slightly even though you might not be aware of it. The ear can do strange things to you.

Sheeeesh, its....

Titty - we have no idea if there really is a problem here. We have no idea about the quality of care either from the parents or the childminder. So how can we possibly say that this child is one the vulnerable you speak?

''Mental health problems among children and among new mothers in this country are at an all-time high.'' How can anyone really know this? Compared to when? Is this taking account of increased diagnostic criteria and medical care? 30 years ago, children weren't deemed capable of many of the diagnoses given now. I'm not saying these diagnoses are meaningless - only that comparison with days gone by are nigh on impossible.

Titty, you didn't answer my question ?
I was hoping that you would tell me that you appreciate that not everyone feels that way. But that it doesn't make you any less of a mother.

So say you felt this way about one of your children. But it was harder to bond with middle dc.
So how do you expalin this.

I thought i had bonded with ds1. my friend says no. my mum says yes.
My love for ds2 was HUGE. instantly.
what is the logic of this ?
Please explain, coz I am none the wiser.

Thank you for your nice post Clouds.