to be totally fucked off with the antisahm comments on here?

[slackers]

Wtaf are you only a good role model to your DC if you are in paid employment?
Why does someone only be valid in society if they earn?
Why should I work only to pay someone else do a job to look after my DC? wtaf is the logic in that?
ffs

It's worse when your own child has left the school and you STILL have to go to sports day AND supervise and help run the bloody thing. I really like being a teacher. I really hate sports day.

Oh sweet Jeezus, Cathy, that must be classed as Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Amnesty could be brought in.

I do enjoy your contributions Xenia. But it is like reading a parallel universe. IME childcare as paid employment is characterised by low pay, low entry qualifications and young people. While lovely, the nursery DC1 went to when I did go back to work sent home daily notes on her which frequently appalled me. "Pass the pastle" being a memorable contribution.

OTOH, I am elite university educated and will probably pursue my own business in a couple of years when they're at school so decided when DC2 arrived to stay at home. Since our generation will probably need and be fit to work till we're well into our 70s I just see these few years as precious and valuable and I am grateful to have the opportunity to be the primary influence on our children. The decades ahead of me offer plenty of opportunities to do the work thing.

I appreciate I'm an anecdote of "mother", not data, but this world where people paid to look after our children are best qualified isn't one I recognise.

motherinferior- Oh, and also I do think that the money I earn pays the taxes which make my children's education possible. It's not all about volunteering in school, you know.

And the money I spend at the summer/ autumn/ Christmas fairs I attend with my DC contribute towards it's success. I actually like attending with them rather than manning a stall without them.

PMSL at Iliketherain's sudden stab at detachment....

Cathy- another teacher here. Sports day makes me want to run- very fast in the opposite direction! Like I said, bloody miracle that my teenagers are absolutely fine.

Anyone else getting a distinct whiff that ilikerain would really love us working mums to have raised sad, unloved disaffected children, so it would make her feel 'better about her position? She must be so disappointed with us!!

Iliketherain... Feel free to leave the conversation.

Itsatiggerday- another university educated set of parents here; we both work and are the primary influences on our children- who as teenagers are also set to head off to university. You disappointed too?!

All the children I know have also hated sports day. I think it would be a bit mean of me to enjoy it in those circumstances.

I do worry, faintly, that I should somehow try and indoctrinate my children into disliking sports day less. But then I come to my senses.

I do even quite enjoy volunteering at school fairs and so on. I'm a sociable type. I am very keen on my kids' school. I help at the school play, plastering makeup ineptly onto small faces. I have been known (when based from home) to send in cakes for cake sales (even though it's the slices of cheap swiss roll that all the kids want). Sports day, however, is in a special class of its own. Dante would have enjoyed writing about it.

Actually I've been known to make the occasional cake for PTA sales (polishes badge)
And I must confess to enjoying the nativity - I used to arrange cover so I could go to that. Bet liketherains really pissed off now- a working mum who gets time off to see her kids must be more of a threat than one who doesn't!
Still not a convert to sports days though

catgirl1976 hmmmmmmmmm i am not going to be a SAHM, but even if I was, I would still put my DCs in nursery as from what I have seen it is brilliant for socialisation etc and far better than just having them at home.

Oh dear. Sorry to be patronising but I have heard exactly the same thing from many 'about to be parents' or new parents and it's utter bollocks! They don't need to go to nursery to learn to socialise! I would actually think the child would get more out of NOT being in nursery as do you really think the best possible way to learn about life and socialising is being stuck in the same little room day after day, week after week. That's what their parent is for (assuming SAHM as you have described) as is going out and about as a little family, meeting up with friends, experiencing new things/places, little bus trips, going to the shop etc etc.

You do realise that until around 2ish or even later they don't even play with each other, just next to each other. There is no way on earth you could look at a group of 4 year olds about to start school and say which one's went to nursery because they are the most social.

BTW, SAHMs don't just "have them at home"!

I am not at the bottom of the food chain with no power or control. Rude rude, rude, arrogant ill educated, bad mannered and proves what a poster pointed out earlier - She really hates other women, doesn't she? (who earn less than £200K a year)

I got through sports day (in late secondary school) by secreting vodka in a robinsons squash bottle. I hope my DC do not discover this way of disliking sports day less.

Bet liketherains really pissed off now- a working mum who gets time off to see her kids must be more of a threat than one who doesn't!
:o

The good thing about being a SAHM, is that I have time to chill the wine and smuggle it in to sports day. Hence happy, smiling, waving and rosy cheeked picture of motherhood.

Oh dear I was put in my place there.......bottom of the food chain.

I am new here is this normal.......I thought it was a place where mums stuck together.

How's about you let catgirl decide what's best for HER child on the basis of what SHE already knows about the nursery HER child already attends?

Radical idea huh?

donthateme- I've also got a medal for my cake contributions.

IIII'm not a bbbad mum after aaalll.

donthateme I take my hat off to you.

From what I've seen their peer group starts to be a stronger and stronger influence on children as soon as they start school. I'm assuming that what we've done by the time they're 7 or so is going to be pretty important as after that we will be in amongst a chorus of voices they're paying attention to. By teenager stage I was thinking we'll be in the category of "good grief, why would I listen to them?"! I suppose I believe that the primacy of our influence is much greater now than it will ever be again. If yours still see you as by far their greatest voice, well done to you.

My main point was that Xenia assumes that the bulk of time in childrearing is best done by paid professionals. I was proposing that the typical profile of these professionals suggests they may not necessarily be so superior to the mothers of the children.

Yanbu...I couldn't give a shite personally, nobody elses business what me and DH decide for our family.

If people don't like it then tough tittie.

Itsatigger - I don't need any hats off to me- nothing exceptional about being a loving thoughtful attentive parent. It's this idea that theres a huge divide between working parents and non working parents when it comes to raising our children

Whoops posted too soon. It's this idea which I find odd

as it happens whosegot - the nursery in question doesnt actually keep the children in the same room all day........ why on earth would you think they would do that? How silly