to think it's okay to think your child's development would be best served by being with you in their early years AND still want to go back to work?

[arses]

Unashamedly a thread about a thread..

I made a point on another thread today that it is a shame that when the topic of early years childcare/SAHMs/WOHMs/nurseries etc arises that the debate becomes immediately polarised on the basis of anecdote.

There seems to be a lot of defensiveness among women about the choice to use childcare and return to work. I haven't met many men who share this response to discussions about early childhood development (though I have met some who have had quite strong opinions in favour of and against formalised childcare arrangements).

My 11 month old son is due to start nursery soon. I don't think it will do him any great favours, socially, emotionally or intellectually. It may stress him out a bit in the short-term and I'm not entirely convinced he won't find the days long, confusing and sometimes lonely. I think that, on balance, even the best of days in a nursery or with a childminder are probably a poor match for spending the time with his mum.

An older friend (with grown up children) was talking to me about childcare and advising me regarding a particular local nursery, which she extolled the virtues of highly and then said: "but of course, it isn't you".

This, to me (in a rational sense) is about the extent of it. In an emotional sense though, when I read a vitriolic thread about childcare I see such judgement and I get as swept up in it as many others. I wonder, why do we feel the need to defend this choice as we do? Is it really unreasonable to know and believe that your child would be better off with you but skip back off to work without feeling guilt about it? Is this a feminist issue?

What do people think?

I think some people can only see how THEY manage...they don't look further than their own noses....their DH or DP may earn only 15 grand a year...but they manage to be SAHMs so they think that ALL families could....the are not thinking about other peopls situations..they tend to judge by their own experience only.

If you are going back to work and you are happy with that then you don't need to answer or anyone else...not on here or in RL.

There are good and bad things about ANY situation and that includes a child being at home all day with Mum or Dad or a child being in nursery all day.

My children have both stayed here with me and some loads of days I have been too wied out bored or tired to DO anything with them other than feed or watch telly!

At nursery they would always have activities to do...and people playing with them...whie a child me feel unsettled at times during nursery day...he or she will generally adjust...there are good and bad to both...more money means better hols too!

Ignore ignore ignore!

Mmm it's a tricky one to answer.

My Ds age 2 goes to pre-school one day a week and I really feel like he learns alot and it does him good socially and intellectually but not sure about emotionally.

I do remember a thread i posted on when ds was just a few months old. The op was suggesting that her dc loved going to nursery because the toys were better !
I was a bit shocked that someone would choose to send there dc for this reason and as my ds was only a few months old, couldn't imagine ever wanting to part with him!!

I think if i had put ds in a nursery then I would defend that decision. Most of my friends whose dc go to nursery for most of the week say it will do him good when I said I was sending him to pre school.
So what I'm trying to say is whether your dc go 1 or 5 days a week you will justify what you do.

there is no right or wrong answer, everything depends on personalities/options/situations/childcare available.

If there was a right or wrong answer the decision would be easy.

I think it's OK for two reasons:

(1) it's not just about what's best for one person now, it's about what's best for everyone in the long run

(2) we make these decisions ALL the time and that's the way life is. It would be better if we ate freshly picked steamed vegetables at every meal and never took the car just because it was raining and took part with perfect interest and equanimity in every discussion and did 30 mins of exercise every day. Really, life goes on fine if you take the 'good enough' path.

i can say this now as my DDs are 5 and 6.
DD1 was in nursery from 8m
DD2 went much more part time, was older and went to pre-school at 3, DD1 stayed in nursery til she went to reception.

i can't see that DD1 suffered
but i can't see that DD2 missed out.

It's about doing what's right for you and your kids - we're all different and I am quite unashamed to say that I am definitely not cut out for being at home with small kids 24/7. Going back to work was a no-brainer for me because I was very unhappy at home and DD just saw me crying and not coping and generally not being the best mummy I could be. I am a much much better parent now that I work and she is in nursery.

I am interested in what you say about this being a feminist issue though. One of my huge huge bugbears is that women seem to agonise over this decision, and judge one another, and feel guilty and never quite think they've got it right. But men don't seem to feel this way about it. No one has asked my husband how he feels about leaving his daughter in nursery 5 days a week - there is an assumption that he doesn't have much interest in the matter. This is quite interesting - childcare arrangements are still assumed to be the woman's domain. Is no one else annoyed about this?

I think this is such a good point. You often see people on those threads saying like, "I know some people have to go back to work" like that's the only reason it's acceptable.

I tend to agree with OP. I suspect that a full time parent for most of the time in the beginning is probably better. But realistically, neither DH nor I are the types to be full time parents and I would argue that a part time parent who is happy and involved is better than a full time one who is annoyed because he/she is bored.

Elporto - in a word. Yes.

A friend of mine put it neatly when she said, her DH told her that he would support her if she decided to stay home and if she decided to go back to work but he saw it entirely as her decision. It didn't even occur to him that he should be involved - he thought he was being helpful by simply "allowing" her to make the decision that was right for her.

I agree with ForMash and Imiss.

I am interested in your third paragraph, arses :

"I think that, on balance, even the best of days in a nursery or with a childminder are probably a poor match for spending the time with his mum".

I was/am a SAHM, and if I had the vast benefit of hindsight (and was able to find the right part time job), I would have gone back to work part time, because, the worst of days with a mum who is bored, stressed and frustrated are a poor match for spending time in "good-enough" quality childcare.

In practice, it actually isn't either/or - SAHMs send their DCs to playgroup (I did when mine were 2, half days - 2 at first, moving up to 5 half days at 3), because they need some time to themselves and/or they believe it to be a good thing for their DCs - but don't have any illusions that it is purely for the sake of the child's development.

Yanbu. But you would be hard pressed to find many people who'll say that irl. Virtually everyone I know whose kids are in nursery likes to tell me how much they learn and how much they love it there. And I always wonder whether they genuinely believe they learn more at nursery, or whether they're trying to justify themselves being back at work.

Disclaimer; I work part time but DS not in nursery.

Well, JLC, I suppose in terms of what I'm saying I wonder if the same is true for SAHMs.. do SAHM's feel that they have to say that their child is going to x playgroup for [insert reason to do with child] and/or does this boredom/stress/frustration translate into posts against working out of the home? Do we have to be on one side or the other, wringing our hands and crying our eyes out or, alternatively, enjoying every last moment of each of our children's development? I think most regulars will be able to think of posters who exemplify each pole.

It's just not seen as an issue for the majority of men. I know one couple who moved heaven and earth to share responsibility for childcare in the early years, but in their wider families and at work they were seen as oddities. Both workplaces felt they weren't very "committed" because if the woman had been "committed" to work she would have had additional back-up childcare, while the man was just, well, y'know, gay .

Yet, I know I feel it. The gut-wrenching etc.
It sets my teeth on edge, inexplicably, when I see a post saying that nursery is good for social skills in the under-2's. I think that anger is borne of the fact that I don't think we should have to justify it any more than a man would. I wonder how many of our dp's and dh's are at work being asked how our dc's are getting on at nursery and how well the transition is going and would they rather be at home with them..

I feel I am slightly contradicting myself here but it probably underlines how conflicted I am between feeling guilty, feeling that ds would be better in my care or my dh's and feeling that it is important for me and for our family that I do indeed work.

Incidentally, I will apologise on this thread as on the other for appallingly badly worded posts tonight: not a lot of sleep last night. If you read something and it makes no sense, it's probably because I made the point in a very ham-fisted way.

And agree yes is a feminist issue.
On basis of rarely being conscious decision for men. They seem to have no guilt about working ft on the whole. But do also think on positive side it's good to model for children that mothers can work outside the home.

In answer to your question, imo, yes.

I do think that very small children are probably best off with one of their parents full-time.

I also think that you need a vocation for 24 childcare - many people would find this very hard to do.

So families have to find the solution that's right for them.

YANBU - parents, though it does seem to be Mothers in particular, seem incapable of admitting that not everything they do, or have done, for their children is optimal.

They defend their choices in an almost comical way.

So nursery becomes either the last bastion of emotional wellbeing with little ones learning every second of every day, or, a dark place where children weep bitter tears.

Then they take it one step further and insist that those taking a different stance are actively damaging their children.

Hilarious, if it wasn't so tragic.

24 hour childcare.

YANBU. sometimes needs must.

I'm glad I'm not alone in being anoyed that this is ALWAYS seen as the woman's issue to deal with and feel guilty about and not the man's.

My DH has never once been asked how he jugglings having a busy job with family life, but I and all my working mum friends are asked this question on a weekly basis. If we are demonstrably 'coping' then we are 'supermums' who 'do everything'. If we are not coping, well that just shows we shouldn't try to 'do / have everything'

I think it is somewhat born out of the assumption (true in a lot of cases) that a woman who works is also probably doing 90% of the childcare and housework and generally keeping the family going. This isn't the case in our house where DH and I try very hard to do 50/50 of childcare and housework between us so perhaps that's why it rankles so much.

Btw, I realise that I don't know any different having put DD in nursery from 11mo, but she is genuinely very very happy there, and the other kids seem to be very happy there too - I'm not just saying this to justify my decision, she really is a great well-adjusted and loving little girl. But maybe she would be that way anyway irrespective of who was caring for her in the daytime. The benefits of a loving stable home environment can't be underestimated IMO and we try very hard to provide that even though we do both work fulltime.

it depends what sort of a mum you are. My DCs would NOT have been better off with their mum as babies or toddlers, so I know for a fact that ther development was best served by being with their nanny and later nursery.

I see what you're saying, yes you should be able to say this openly and have a discussion without the cliche SAHM/WOHM vitriolic argument arising....

Litchick, exactly! Why do we do it? As stirlingstar above said, we make many choices in life that are less-than-best and, yes, I understand that the choices that we make for our kids are bound to carry some additional emotion.. but the hyperbole and extremes you describe just don't serve any purpose!

I am slowly learning I want to be able to discuss my life in a reasonably objective way without feeling the need to justify or degrade my own choices or those of others simply because, as a woman, society seems to think I should.

Good point stirlingstar about the long term view. I desperately wanted to stay at home after my dc's were born, but we just couldn't afford it. I insisted we sell up and move to a very cheap (and tough) area near dh work, poor schools etc so we could save money. It didn't happen for a variety of reasons and I know now it was for the best. We were lucky in that we could afford P/T and term time. At the time I was feeling so guilty that I was missing the long term implications for all of us. Of course they are fine!

It really doesn't help when people are very strident in their views, because if you have no choice, what can you do about it? Nothing, you have to live with people making you feel you are awful and uncaring. It goes without saying that dh lost not a single minutes sleep over any of it.

arses - you make sense. And I know it is very relevant to you ATM, so no wonder it is hard to get it clear in your head.

Here is another example of post-justification for some thing that may not be that bad, but a woman may feel guilty about (and therefore believe she will be judged for):

I chose not to breast feed my second child. Reasons were :

1. I had a terrible time trying, and ultimately failing, to bf DS1, and just wanted to avoid going through that again

2. I had to have a blood transfusion so was feeling really rough, so given I was not that motivated to begin with, I did not feel bad about not trying.

3. DS1 had done well on formula, and I saw the advantages of ff in terms of other people being able to feed him, and (as I justified it), bond with him.

I know breast milk is better for DCs, and yet I chose not to, for reasons I am happy with.

Here comes the post-rationalisation; It just so happened that DS1 was very very upset when DS2 was born. FF DS2 gave me a chance to have more time with DS1 (because other people could feed DS2, and because bottle feeding is less time-consuming). So in hindsight FF was best for all of us. Except perhaps DS2.

Arguably not ideal (because DS2 was not fed "the best"), but OK. Just one of the many compromises we make.

I think many women talk-up the pros and cons of their child care/working choices to make it sound as if doing anything different would be seminal.

Yet most well adjusted kids will be happy in a number of differing environments.

At the end of the day, these are not life threatening decisions. Which most men seem to instinctively accept.

You are absolutely right Litchick. All the children I know are happy, well adjusted, love their parents and lots of other people. They have a variety of care situations, but one thing in common - parents who love them and want to do their best for them.

Yup.
There are 60,000 children in the care system in the UK. These children ahve the worst outcoms of all children.

In the great scheme of things, whether a woman formula feeds, works, sends her kids to nursery, never cooks, allows the TV on too much, is barely important so long as the child is loved, nurtured and happy.

Pretending any of these things will have diabolical consequences is a kick in the teeth to all those children who have nothing in life.