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.

altkinmum I thought I'D written your post, then I realised it was somebody else

'Anyway, how can housewives not begin to understand a woman who goes back to work quickly but are very happy to enable their husbands to engage in such a moral wrong?'

Like it or not, it is mothers who give birth, as has been said already... They need time to get over the birth and time for breastfeeding etc if they choose to. Why must men and womne act exactly the same? Maybe it is OK to be different?

"I still really cannot understand how any one of any sex could actually enjoy 16 horus a day of course cleaning and looking after 3 under 5s. I just don't get it. I love doing that a bit, a few hours a day but all day every day... what can she possibly get out of it or is it like wasyhing the feet of the sick, a kind of servile pleasure type thing whilst you have grand interseting thoughts as you change nappy number 15"

Haven't you missed something there? However quickly the biological mother goes back to work, somebody will have to do this job. And it will be either a woman or a man, because we don't do nannying robots as yet. Yes, they will get paid, but the tedious details will still be there. What you are actually saying is that educated clever women, the kind who post on Mumsnet, should not be doing this tedious work, not that nobody should be doing it. Because that would clearly be absurd. Babies don't change their own nappies. And if I prefer to change my own baby's nappies, then that is no more a waste of my life than it would be a waste of the life of the person I would otherwise have to hire to do it.

What Cory said. How is it wrong or shameful to carry out the basic, necessary tasks that have kept the human race going for generations? How is ot beneath any member of the human race, male or female, to do the things that need to be done to keep us healthy, fed, clothed, clean?
Or does xenia support a return to the days when household tasks or nurturing of children was 'beneath' anyone above a certain level of wealth? Chambermaids? Wet nurses? Night nannies?

she didn't say it was wrong or shameful - she said it was boring.

I find it really sad that Xenia really believes that earning £100K is the best thing that you can do for your children.

Most of her earnings must have gone on private school fees and the nanny's wages. Does going to a private school and being brought up by a nanny really guarantee a successful and happy life? I guess it leads to a life where you go to a good university and get a well paid job in the City. So then they can afford to pay school fees etc for their child, and the cycle goes on... But is that really what life is all about?

Children just accept what they have got. It's only when you are an adult that you can look at life with more experience and take a different view on things. I thought that I was going to be a real career woman, but relationships, family, looking after my children etc all took priority. In my view having a state education and a job that earns less than £100K can still lead to a happy fulfilled life.

Working parents tend to spend a lot of loving time with their children and bring them up. Housewives love to go on about mothers (but never fathers, because they are God like man and no housewife would criticise a man for what he does of course, the bow down and worship them because the food they eat and indeed their whole life is predicated on keeping him happy) not bringing up their children.

Children most of all need love and contented paernts who bring them up intelligently. Some housewives do that well and some working mothers and plenty in both categories are pretty useless at that. But once you take that as read then having a higher family income does advantage children - study after study shows that. It's not rocket science.

Yes, I didn't say it was shameful. I clean the loos, As I've brought a family up over 26 years it's probably fairly likely I've done more housework than any housewife on this thread hour for hour. However I cannot understand any woman who wants to make that and the children her life when there is a huge world out there in which you can have fun with a career.

(Just for the record of course I couldn't live on £100k. I never said I earned that)

You make such sweeping generalisations Xenia that I find it hard to take your argument seriously. I suspect you have some interesting, if not valid, points to make but it just gets lots in this bile thing you have going against "housewives".

"However I cannot understand any woman who wants to make that and the children her life when there is a huge world out there in which you can have fun with a career."

But somebody has to make it their career, whether it's the biological father/mother or a hired nanny/childminder/nursery worker. Not understanding it does not do away with our need to get the work done.

And why is it worse to look after one's own children than to look after somebody else's for money. Presumably the nappies smell the same?

Anyway, I'd be interested to know what you'd make of a siutation where the woman is at home not working in gainful employment, but is independently wealthy of her husband, with an income from a property portfolio or similar, a husband who worked and earned that six-figure type salary, who outsourced all the bits she didnt' like (cleaning, perhaps, lawn mowing, car washing, ironing, etc) but did the bits she genuniely wanted to do - raising her children, playing with them, spending that quality time you mention working parents do.

Is that still a housewife or is it only people who couldn't afford to throw some money at the problem bits who get that title?

If a person goes to work to escape these bits, are they better or worse than someone who uses the money they previously earned and invested to escape these bits but ALSO does the majority of raising their children?

Where would that score on your hierarchy?

Well yes, I know loads of women who don't work and have a lot of money whether their own or their husband's and have a cleaner and nanny etc.

Am I being asked to define housewife? I think it's all non working wives. It's just a word. Nothing to get hung up on.

I don't have a hierarchy. The traditional British one was if you worked that was pretty low. If you were a professional in the traditioal processions that was a bit better but not as good as not having to work.

However I don't rank people. I just don't understand how any woman would prefer just doing the house stuff to being a surgeon or running her own business or whatever. I can understand that some women could get no other interesting work or they forge a career in childcare because they couldn't get the grades to do something more interesting and better paid but I don't have a hierarchy. It's just apparent all these housewives out there obviously feel upset when someone disagrees with them. Why does it bother anyone? I am not bothered if someone says it's wrong for me to work. Is it because internally they know they shouldn;'t just be housewives and wish they weren't?

You are still not answering my question, Xenia. Why is it wrong to spend time looking after your own children but acceptable to spend time looking after somebody else's?

And why would I necessarily want my children looked after by somebody whose main motivation was that "they couldn't get the grades to do something interesting".

I wanted my children looked after by somebody had chosen it because they thought it was interesting and worthwhile- whether myself or my perfectly intelligent and well qualified childminder.

I didn't say it was wrong to look after your children all day every day and do not work and not what most women want or do. I said it was boring and I can't understand why anyone would want it.

Yes but a girl who loves children who is clever will want to do most good for them and will become a doctor and specialise in paediatrics. A girl who cannot muster many GCSEs will do nanny stuff.

Because they are interested in the development of young minds? Because they like teaching and guiding? Because they find their children genuinely interesting people? Just a thought.

I know several men (though not, it must be said, in this country) who have chosen to be SAHDs for these reasons.

I have no particular reason to take either side; I've done a bit of both in my day: SAHM, part-time work, shared childcare with dh, worked from home. But I can certainly see the interest in looking after young children. My undergraduates are not always more interesting.

Xenia Sat 16-Oct-10 19:11:26
"Yes but a girl who loves children who is clever will want to do most good for them and will become a doctor and specialise in paediatrics. A girl who cannot muster many GCSEs will do nanny stuff."

Paedatric doctors do not actually get to see individual children very much in depth- and tbh I have often found them pretty clueless about what children are actually like. It is a very worthwhile career, but I would not say it is ideal for somebody interested in a more in-depth knowledge of what children are like.

Xenia, you do so have a hierarchy . And you tend to think that because you feel something is boring means it is boring. Your opinions are subjective, not objective, when it comes to deciding what is boring.

One reason a lot of women do their own childraising is that they would prefer their offspring to spend their days with someone intelligent. The chance to see psychology in action in your very own lab -- who wouldn't jump at that? Small children are the world's most interesting people imo.

What about Stay-at-home-dads? Are they housewives or house husbands? Or do they not inspire enough vitrol in you to give them a label?

Because you think everyone's getting annoyed but I dont see that - I just see confusion and surprise at your apparent annoyance with the whole thing. It might just be your posting style though.

"One reason a lot of women do their own childraising is that they would prefer their offspring to spend their days with someone intelligent."

Although I feel a bit embarrassed to do so, I do agree with this to a certain extent. The standard of childcare available for middle income professional families is often pretty woeful.

I went to visit a nursery this week that, really, I felt was only a few rungs above an orphanage in a developing world country. I visited at lunchtime (as I was asked not to) to find a row of eight babies in Antilop highchairs being spoonfed, conveyor-belt style, by a bored young girl. The cots were in a long, narrow and windowless room: ten cots in a long line against one wall, ten against the other. The construction "area" consisted of 10 tired, old bricks that wouldn't have looked out of place in a jumble sale. The toys were old and dirty, the carpet was sticky, the walls were peeling, the children obviously understimulated by unresponsive staff.
The price of this nursery, rated "satisfactory" by Ofsted? £54 a day.

With my quite decent grades and a background in linguistics and psychology, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my child in this (or a similar) environment full-time. There are no outstanding nurseries in our area and even the-best-of-the-rest just won't afford my son the developmental opportunities I feel he should have.

So, no, Xenia, I don't find changing nappies exhilarating. I do feel, though, that a child's early experiences have a lasting impact and I don't much feel like entrusting them to NVQ3 qualified teens so that I can toddle off to build my career researching the development of other people's children.

I was actually thoroughly impressed by our childminder: well read on child development, lovely garden with sandpit and water play, completely equipped with high quality toys and an excellent stock of books, other mindees lovely- couldn't fault her. And there were plenty like her locally.

But still not willing to admit that she was as good as MEEEE .

btw I did quite enjoy the nappies - all the tickling and giggling and silly songs that went with it. I didn't find there was anything in my PhD that un-equipped me for a good tickling session. But perhaps that is just a sign of my low intelligence (though clearly not of my inability to get GCSEs).

Hell, I loved my previous career but there are far more fun things to be done than work. I would work if we needed the money, we don't...so I don't. We have stripped our lifestyle to include only what we want, and not what we don't need. As such we can always support ourselves on one salary whilst still managing to save. At the moment DH is earning the money, maybe in future we will swap, we've both been the more lucrative at different points in our relationship.Or we'll both go part time one day, who knows.

It depresses me slightly that Xenia is utterly convinced that everyone in childcare (nursery nurses, childminders, nanny's etc) dont particularly want to be there and are only there due to lack of opportunity or intelligence, YET, despite that belief, is the only option she would consider for her own children as she wasn't willing (nor was her partner) to do it.

I dont have anything against daycare myself, though I acknowledge it can vary and to an extent you get what you pay for. But if I thought for a second that those involved in running the daycare didn't want to be there, or would rather be doing something else, I'd be very reluctant indeed to have children only to put them in there. It seems a strange thing to do if that is your take on childcare professionals.

But we do know. It will virtually always be the MrsC's not the Mr C's who shoot their careers to pieces and be left high and dry when things go wrong and the men won't have any of those issues because they make better choices.

All my brothers have been SAHDs at some stage. Their careers are not shot to pieces, but neither are SILs.

Only better in your eyes though Xenia, I'm financially secure and it would take the cock up to end all cock ups to lose that. I've trained in two professions, one of which I can walk in and out of at will. I was brought up being told that whatever I decide to do in life I must always be able to support my family when necessary, I've worked hard to establish us securely and make sure that I could continue to support us. I'm enjoying spending time with my very young DD, DH is enjoying work. (Well, he'd rather be at home but hey ho.) I have money coming in from rented property that is mine alone, the money still contributes to the household.