AIBU to be annoyed with mothers who can't be bothered to work?

[HellaH]

Went to a baby playgroup the other day and met yet another mother who has handed in her notice just because she has had a baby.

Thanks a lot! Now when I will go looking for a job employers will think that I too will hand in my notice if I fall pregnant again and will probably take on a man instead of me.

Can't wait for men to get more parental leave, maybe it will equal things out a bit!

And surely with the flexible working hours law and such a woman CAN go back to work without silly excuses.

And do you actually have kids, and if so, who raises them?

Hoovercraft I totally agree!

I'm amazed that such a high flier as Xenia finds time to be concerned over what others' family/work arrangments are!

I'm getting the impression from some women that if your life is not as hard/difficult as theirs then you are sitting on your arse doing nothing all day and should be judged for it.

I was a single parent with two children for over a decade and worked full-time always. I did not want to be on benefits and the only way around that was to work. That meant putting my children into full-time daycare until they went to school. I HATED it, absolutely HATED it. However I had to do it to give them nice things and opportunities of holidays and the such like.

Had my 3rd with DS and went onto maternity leave for the first time in my life and I am so grateful for having the opportunity of spending such precious early years time with my DD that I just wish every mum could have that opportunity if they wanted it.

If I didn't have to work in those early years I would have stayed at home. I make my choices for my family and not for somebody in another town that I don't even know.

"Would you work if you won £26,567,452 on the lottery?"

I would. But I may drop it to part time and I could afford holidays etc

I don't get these constant non-arguments either. I don't get why people get so wound up about something that doesn't really affect them.

I personally would want to keep working and would need to because of money most likely, but fully undersntad why women would want to stay at home once they've had children. Why the hell not if they can afford to.

I would want to keep working based on my own expereinces. My mum was a SAHM throughout. When you're little it's nice as she's always there for you. But when you're older, mum's always fucking there in your face! When I was 16-18 and doing my a-levels at 6th form college, I wasn't in class all day every day anymore. I only went to college when I had classes. She just hung around me and wouldn't let me alone. I sleep in when I don't have class and she badgered me to get up. Then if I didn't need to leave the house until later for an afternoon class she'd hang around me and question how long I was going to spend in the shower and was i just going to sit around the house all morning.

I'd never really been without her so TBH I would have apprecaited time alone in the house. We weren't rich we had one TV in the house and it was her territory. I got to watch a video I wanted once in a blue moon as there was always some shite she was watching. I'd have like the opportunity to watch what TV by myself, make my own breakfast, etc. But no, she hung round me and supervised me when I wasn't in college and had free time. She needed to get a fucking job for somethnig to do with her time other than get at me.

I also never saw my mother with a job. For me to see my mother working would be weird beyond belief and i don't think that's a good thing.

But once again, very much a personal choice and if women want to do it, why the hell not?!

I done things the opposite way, I worked full time and put my 1st 2 daughters into private day nursery straight after maternity leave. They hated it as did i but it had to be done due to lack of money. I then fell pregnant with my 3rd daughter and worked nights in a fish shop which is back breaking work. I got spd and had to leave. I then spilt up with the kids dad and found myself in an awful situation. Either put baby in nursery which i didnt want to do or to claim benefits. I done the latter. I have paid into the system for years as have my whole family. I have no qualms about claiming benefits and we have all had to do without and its done us no harm. I am returning to full time work at Easter. I feel my daughter is ready now to go into full time nursery. Everyone makes the choice which suits them and their families and shouldnt be slated either way.

If I'd gone back to work when DS was born, three things would have happened.
Firstly, I'd have cleared around a tenner a week once childcare and travel was paid for, and that would have had to be put towards smart clothes for work. So in effect, we'd have been worse off.
Secondly, DS would be in school, not home educated, and we'd have missed out on what is turning out to be an amazing experience.
Thirdly, I'd have gone back to a job that, although well-paid and with good prospects, wasn't what I wanted to do. I want to play in an orchestra, not work in an office, so now I'm working as hard as I can to make that happen.
Why should I have to go back to an unfulfilling job, which was only ever meant to be a stopgap, to earn basically no money because London childcare is extortionate, just in case some hypothetical boss looks at someone I've never met and goes 'nah, not hiring her, she's got kids', when I can stay at home with my kids, educate them myself and significantly better myself to boot?
If you feel that having a paid job empowers you, is good for your family, fine. That's your choice to make. But you've no right to judge the choices of others.
Personally, I'm broke, and I've never, ever worked so hard, but I've also never felt so fulfilled or been so self-motivated.

I do get really fucked off reading posts from people saying "well how can it be possible to work, where are the jobs mums can do that fit in with school hours?!" um, they don't exist, not really, it's all about arrangements and compromise. I don't have any issue with SAHM, it's people that say they can't work becuase they have children.

That lady may have been working towards that for a long time,saving etc, and now she wants to be with her baby.Good for her,doesn't mean she is going to get benefits instead.Lots of people in the real world do what she has done.Because you may be a bit simple i will go on to explain she probably works her job around her little one at play group and with a new baby on the way she couldn't possibly find enough time for her job.Don't bother trying for her job because you will probably let yourself down soon as you open your mouth.IE I've come for my friends job who has left but i will never leave until retiring age regardless what life throws at me can i start now.Yea but no but.

Wonder where OP is?

Xenia why should I or those who want to stay at home with their children care about women who they don't even know and their future career prospects?

Family comes first and they will decide what is right for them.

Can just imagine it now...

No no, I have to go to work, For all the women out there...Kids? Nah, Working for others is far important.

And OP it won't be because of other women that your not employed it will most probably just be, well, YOU.

I love how being a SAHM is considered not working.

Not paid work.

And of course the baby looks after itself.

F**king idiot.

Xenia, I generally agree with your posts on threads like these. I think women (or men for that matter) who give up work for years on end are crazy - unless they're enormously wealthy I suppose. Or they have a project (in which case they're working really).

However I cannot agree with the statement, "Every woman going flexi time or part time or not working damages other women at work.". I really can't. I am fortunate in that I work in an environment where flexi and PT working are the norm for both men and women, whether or not they have young children. It's a shame more people can't enjoy this and I appreciate that it's not that common.

The emphasis though should be on enabling all men and women to have a good work/life balance. I hate expressions like "family-friendly". Like "breastfeeding room", they create a problem where one doesn't necessarily exist. If it's doable, a 20 yo single lad should have as much right to work compressed hours so he can go surfing on Fridays as a woman should to spend a day a week at home with her DCs.

I think Xenia secretly wants to stay at home and bake cakes while listening to Womans hour and drinking coffee :o

Morning workers/shirkers and lurkers

no interest at all in the OP and her 'opinion' but just checked in to see if there are any 'heads up' on nakkit TV presenters today?

got a sick child here so it's gonna be a long day............

What about those of us who run our own businesses? Im sure that has no impact on whether or not some other woman becomes a CEO or surgeon.

'Xenia why should I or those who want to stay at home with their children care about women who they don't even know and their future career prospects?'

I agree. Why should all those happy as SAHPs go back to work and use childcare just to make WOHMs happy or to fit with their ideology. That is like saying WOHMs should quit and be SAHMs so that mothers can be with their children and not forced to do other work.

Jenai you think women who give up work for years on end are "crazy" ? Why is this?
As I said before in my earlier post, even if I had been able to work flexi time in my job, the only time I have anyone to care for my DD is after 6pm when DH gets in from work so I would have to be up at 6am and care for her all day then work a nightshift while DH worked an 11 hour shift then had to get up in the night with DD as well?
Of course there is the option of daycare but as I was not in a highly paid job before, we would not be much better off if I went down this route either.
We are not loaded by any stretch of the imagination but we have enough coming in at the moment to allow me to stay at home which I am very grateful for.
I miss working a lot because I loved my job but my circumstances have changed and I would miss DD a whole lot more if I was working.

izzy, why do I care? Because as a human my insight and views is not just about my own family and home. Some women are however like that. The only space in which they have ani nterest is their domestic space and wider issues politics and the like is not where they have an interest. However plenty of women even housewives look beyond the home and have political, social and other interests beyond the home sphere.

Indeed having views about the political impact of women chained to kinder kuche and kirsche is still a "woman's" issue and I have plenty of interests which are sexually neutral and nothing to do with families.

I also have had huge fun working full time whilst having 5 children over 26 years. It's wonderful and if you find something wonderful including a career and other women whine about youc an't work and have babies I think it's only fair to show other women that you can certainly work full time and have a family life and have a great very well paid career. It all works and it's lovely. Happy housewives can say much the same too about their happy lives but there still remains the political issue that every housewife means a talented woman lost who potentially might have helped run this company in a senior role and that'a a loss. We dont' want to get back to the days where women's brains in the 1880s were regarded as so deficient that they could never become doctors but only nurses etc.

I wouldn't want to be a woman (or a man) who hadn't done any paid (or relevant voluntary) work for the past decade or so, attempting to get back into the workplace right now - either because their DCs have flown the nest or their DP has lost their job.

I think it's worth working PT to keep your hand in basically.

I also think it wise to try and share the paid/domestic work with one's partner rather than having complete dominance in one sphere - but that's a personal thing I think.

Xenia why do you want to control women and their lives?..it's called choice..you have made yours why is it another woman cannot make hers?...

Helah. You shouldn't be 'flamed at all', if that's you opinion. It would not worry me if someone did not work, gave it up. Good luck to them.

Xenia - I think you're probably a little old to have a view on what it's like to be a new mother with a career. Your experience isn't everyone's. You keep going on about how well paid you are... as though that legitimises your decisions... well I for one gave up a six figure income to stay home with my child for a while longer. I will get back to it some time, but I'm in no rush.

Oh-ho..drawn into real debate here

*and please note, I'm not taking economics into my argument here, not going there

xenia, whilst I commend your recruitment drive here, I think you're taking some of the choice element out of feminism.

no we don't want to see a slide back to days where women's brains in the 1880s were regarded as so deficient that they could never become doctors but only nurses etc

but why should anyone have to work outside the home, just so people don't think they are letting the side down?

I am not academic at all. I don't believe I'm educationally lacking, I have 'A' levels, but studying and career in your ideal of great very well paid career is not for me. I have other talents , which I feel are utilised to a great potential, and works for me and my family.

I used to feel undermined and inadequate by comments such as yours, but since I don't feel I'm sapping the life blood out of any business nor sabotaging anyone elses career choice, it's really not a problem for me.

I'm a little torn. I do think it's the individuals choice whether they WOHM or not. I wouldn't seek to dictate this choice to anyone. However, I do have to agree with Xenia that when women make decisions to be SAHM, or (to a lesser extent) be part time or work flexibly it does have a negative effect on the perception of women in the workplace.

I used to work for a small firm, and the boss (a WOHM) admitted that if she was given the choice of an equally qualified man or woman of childbearing age then she would go for the man every time, not only because of the maternity leave problem, but also because of the retraining issue if the woman didn't return, or wanted to go p/t. I've also experienced negative views where I work now (civil service) expressed towards women (behind their backs) who work part time/flexibly etc.

Now, this is anecdotal evidence only, but I do think it's indicative of the general view. And that's the experience of a new mother with a career. I went back to work when DS1 was 3 months and will return from maternity leave in 3 months time.

I don't make my life decisions based on another persons perception of me in the workplace there are more important people in my life whos perceptions I value more tbh.

I also work in the civil service and there are many people who have the 'perception' that women get pregnant and disappear...some do that's their choice some are senior managers above the people who had much to say when they became pregnant..who knew..