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.

I'm saying if you can't take the heat don't start threads saying you aer sorry for those of us who have the huge privilege of happy family lives and a career. Weep no tears for us for we have the better path.

oh, FFS!

We're arguing here while we're all saying the same thing: children need content parents!

I would want to shoot myself in the head every minute of every day if I was a SAHM, not very good for my children. My mate loves it, did arts and crafts and played playdoh while they were little, now they're teenagers she has ample time in her hands to volunteer in things she loves and is also very crafty and content to pursue hobbie. She's happy, her DH is happy, which makes their children happy.

My children are happy and thriving because i have been working since 5 weeks after I had them and provided them with fantastic care, they're confident and we have a fantastic relationship of trust and respect. Working made me happy and my DH happy, and vuala!

I found it bizzare for the OP to feel sorry for another baby the mother whose she doesn't even know. Other than that I hope every set of parents have the opportunity to do what makes them feel fulfilled and happy, isn't that what our children need most?

Twighlight - thank you. Unfortunately, many people on this thread don't want to accept the "content parents", "what is best for one is not best for all" line because that deprives them of the opportunity to assert that their way is best, either openly or by knocking down comments from the other side. And I am talking about posts from both sides here.
When someone is talking about their own experience, that is completely anecdotal. People are very quick to point out that anecdotes are not evidence of a general pattern. So why, when someone posts about their experience, or that of their parents, is there a little flurry to say "ooh, but maybe....."? If you believe in what you are doing, either just get on with it and let everyone else get on with what they are doing, or if you really feel the need to respond to someone else's personal experience, why not do so with valid arguments, not random little theories about why they might be wrong?
But I am not sure why anyone feels the need to undermine someone else's experience and situation. With the exception of Xenia, who is to be frank being a little bizarre, no working mums are telling SAHMS that their children are being disadvantaged.

And even I said studies show contented parents are the best. It's the whingers... I am so tired working to keep you etc etc or I have sacrified my career and life for you to be at home with you who make unhappy children. I still take the view that most women are happier working and I do think it's worth poniting out to women that plenty of us go back to work very very soon and it can be briliant - you get a good break from the child, chance for your body to recover in an office, get yourself back and are a better parent which is why most men and many women do go back to work and you never see in the press this standard bearing for the working women who return to work quickly so I think it's very important it has a voice. So I make those comments but just as housewives saying they are sad I have taken what is the better course don't worry me just as a contented housewife or husband wont' be worried to hear an opposite point of view.

We are very we live in a country where women can return to work in 2 week (4 if you work in a factory) and we have that freedom to do so. We must also work to ensure that remains so. We dont' all want to be ghettoised inot low paid and flextime worth through assumptions that just because you've got breasts you clean up and don't earn much and are assumed to be the one yielding the duster at home. Threads like this with this title perpetuate that sexism.

The people that threads like this are difficult for are those people who do feel vulnerable or who are having to take a route that is not ideal for them and that they are unhappy with. It is hard to have people being critical when your choice is not really a choice.

True and at the moment loads of people want work and can't even find bar work. i do think if most of us work 100% harder than others and think smart not just hard and use lateral thinking problems can be solved.

Twilight and Kungfupannda -- What people find objectionable in Xenia's posts is her assertion that SAHMs are stupid, and are letting the side down, her blanket assumptions that working parents are better for their children, happier women. And because of her use of the term 'housewives'.

What Xenia describes here 'you get a good break from the child, chance for your body to recover in an office, get yourself back and are a better parent... ' is the existence of a baby incubator.

Still waiting for those studies. Quite funny to see the idea of lateral thinking being bandied about.

But working mothers also get put down by stay at home mothers, sometimes people imply that they do the greatest sacrifice and what's best for the children, and use that expression that I hate: "full time mum"

Those of us who work, we're still full time parents, I don't become suddenly childless when I'm not with my son!

Besides, though the term I prefer is stay at home mum, what's offensive about being called a housewife? Being a mum is not a job, but being a housewife is, as it's usually expected that if you stay at home you have to cook and clean and cater for everybody else. That's definitely a job and a bloody hard one too.

mathanxiety - I know what people find objectionable in Xenia's posts. That is why I have twice objected!

Men go to work (and work very hard just as women do at work) and then come home to their families. Most men want to spend time with them and love them. They are mostly good parents. They hug and bond with their chidlren and have evenings and weekends with them. Most mothres do that too.

To suggest we are baby incubators if we are women and do that but men aren't is sexist as well as wrong. Working parents bring up chidlren. the fact we can do several things - work and have children is just because we're superior at things. Obviously some people aren't up to work and family life but those housewives are a minority.

Housewife is a 50s term for SAHMs. It has a negative connotation of someone hoovering in high heels and her hair done, her brain, far less important than her lipstick, idle in her head, her self-worth defined in inverse proportion to the amount of dust in her home. It defines a woman's occupation in the same terms as her relationship to a man.

It says much about Xenia's attitude towards SAHMs that she would use a term that conjures up an era when the ideal woman was one who knew her place and whose aim in life was to get that M-R-S in front of her name and keep it there.

Xenia, any evidence for you views yet?

your

"Being a mum is not a job, but being a housewife is."

What exactly are you trying to say here?

Bringing a child into the world ie becoming a mother/father is not a job. But bringing up children ie being a mother/father is a job, that parents do with more or less application.

Do men bear babies, Xenia? If they did and then returned to their desks a week after birth because that was 'best' for all, then I would have characterised them as baby incubators.

I will characterise a woman who insists on returning to work a very short time after giving birth as a biology denier, a baby machine, because that imo is what such women are. They are letting down those women and men too who would like to see more family friendly policies in the workplace for all by their desperation to appear committed to their jobs.

It's neither sexist nor is it wrong to point out a basic fact of biology. Men simply do not bear babies.

This thread is turning into a complete cliche.....

I take the opposite view. Every woman who cops out of the work place because she cannot hack it and goes part time or gives up work is kicking the rest of us in the teeth and damaging her daughtesr' prospects. They are traitors in a sense but there we are. Luckily we all live in a country where we can express different views from each other.

Many many women return to work soon after having babies and they also nurture them. I adored breastfeeding. I even fed twins. I've never bottle fed a baby ever and every few hours all night you're locked together in a physical embrace the baby feeding from you. it's a wonderful thing and it's also pretty wonderful to be acbk at work in the day too earning and having proefssional satisfaction. With the older children I had to express milk and that's a nuisance but it's a reasonable compromise for all the benefits the children get from a mother with a good career.

And who said a week? I was taking business calls the next day. Having ab aby isn't an illness. It's a natural process. there are very unfit mothers around, people who eat junk food, are 4 stone over weight etc and some of those might not be fit enough to do much more than sit still eating cream b uns but plenty of us are able to get on wtih life fairly soon after and really enjoy our babies and our work.

Oh really, Xenia? Is that what you think? I don't think anyone on MN knows that's what you think! It's great to have such clarification!

Now, about that evidence..
Can you explain:
a) how you know that women "cop out of the workplace because [they] cannot hack it"
b) how women who go part time are damaging their daughter's prospects?
c) how you know that women who go back to work are "better at psychology" than women who don't?
d) the evidence for your assertion that the children of women who stay at home are disadvantaged (where family income is at a reasonable level e.g. no one starving, on the streets or relying on benefits)

and, of course:
e) anything at all that backs up your opinion that mothers can offer nothing that money can't buy.

In your own time, Xenia.

Bonsoir

what I mean is, I consider it a responsibility to take care of one's children, whether on my own or with help from a partner, a nanny, a grandmother, a nursery. But I don't see it a a job, maybe it's my language skills getting in the way there.

That's why for me the "full time mother" term makes no sense, where are the part timers? And what about women that work and take care of their children, do they count as having two jobs?

The reason I mention the housewife issue, is because a dear friend of mine who is a SAHM once said to me "I love being with my son, I don't tire of it, he's the best. But I hate that I'm also expected to clean, cook, wash and get the partner's dinner ready and waiting".

There's usually the assumption that if you stay home, you're also housekeeper. And, if you live on your own it's easier than if you take care of everybody else's mess as well.

Taking care of my DS is a responsibility and a pleasure, taking care of the house is a job I don't particularly enjoy and I think even today, we still carry that burden far more than our partners.

It's typical when you hear arguments against households that employ cleaners, such as that a poor woman gets to do the rich woman's job. It's not her job is it? It's also the partner's and the childrens'; yet somehow she should be the one doing it.

I hope it's clear that I'm not putting down housewives or stay at home mums. Personally I cope better by working part time, as staying at home didn't agree with me.

Where I get upset is when it's implied I'm not a full time mother because I work, or when that my mum who is near retirement still gets people commenting on what superior mothers they are for never working.

So Xenia you just popped yours out naturally without any side effects then? This enabled you to work so quickly afterwards, well lucky you.

Friggin hell!..I only read the last page of this thread and it gave me a headache!!!...tbh opinions are what they are...
I personally think as a mother you should at least try to mother your children for a while..you know.. get to know them...and vice versa..I don't believe you can truly remote parent a child and it not have side-affects...

as for SAHM being a job?..fuck yes if it's what you do full-time , what you put effort into...

if you choose to work outside the home its a choice and to work well and to be taken seriously you have to have some kind of commitment and show it...why is it different if you choose to stay home and parent your your child?..

I btw.. work full-time,due to my current circumstances and if they change I will change my working hours...because I want to...and right now i feel i need to...

yes all mothers need to do what makes them feel happy and content but they also need to as mothers to observe what our children need because no matter what job we choose to take/do they are our responsibility and we are who they rely on..

mumcentreplus, does that mean that as you work outside, you don't do your job as a mother? You're a part time mother?

No I'm doing what I have to do as a mother..providing for my children...thats part of my job too...and tbh would i make SAHM of the year?.. I doubt it...but the career-break i took I would never regret..

thanks for clarifying Mumcentreplus, you sound like you've reached a good balance; I hope I haven't offended anybody with the term housewife by the way.