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

I agree with Insomnia11

I don't know if it was the OP's intention but following her feeling that everyone has it in for SAHM's, heaps of people pile on with phrases like "exhausted little mites" and "I thought that bringing up well rounded, decent members of society was contribution enough" like WOHMs aren't doing that too.

Treat others as you would wish to be treated, if you don't like hearing people slating your life choices, stop thinking you're so effing special and better because of yours.

Harumph.

Ah, I see. Had the post been a little less garbled I'd have found it much easier to follow the train of your massively wrong assumptions reasoning.

Would this debate be more or less bitter of it was clear that there is negligible difference in a child's outcome whichever approach on used?

whatmeworry aren't the adults all around us evidence of that?

It's good parents that raise good children/ adults, not ones who aren't in paid employment or who are.

Anyone who can't see that is an actual stupid.

Oh I can't do tomorrow, I have Edward and Sophie coming for lunch. Would Friday suit? I can send the 'copter if you'd like to come here.

catgirl1976 Whether or not they are in one room or not is neither here nor there!

I just can't believe the amount of parents who think that nursery is the only way for their child to learn how to socialise and that will somehow end up with no social skills if they don't go! And the one's like yourself who actually think it is better for their child! Shocking.

I hear it over and over again. One particular instance is a grandmother who I know who looks after her daughters ds. She's been looking after him a few days a week for a year and he's coming along brilliantly, great social skills (age appropriate) and his GM takes him out and about and to play groups, to visit friends, she does cooking with him, plays with him, takes him to feed the ducks, he has a little group of friends that he sees each week. The daughter has now got the same idea as you and think it's "essential" for her 1.5 year old to go to nursery as otherwise he won't "develop". So he's going to be leaving the loving environment he has with his nan to be plonked in a nursery.

I know which environment I would prefer for mine if I had the choice.

This isn't about judging other people at all as I don't give a shit about what other people do, but can't understand how someone . . . anyone could think it's actually better AND necessary if you have other options. But as you say you would put your in nursery even if you were able to stay at home.

There could be a benefit in the child being away from a clse family member for a length of time each week. Socialising away from mum/ gran ect could foster a little extra self confidence... no?

I don't know, maybe not. I know children of SAHMs who are very well socialised and who don't go to nursery. But it's not that much of a ludicrous idea.

Most children have a sibling to socialise with by the time they go to school aged 5. Why do they need to start gearing up before then? What's the hurry?

whosegotmyeyebrows you "not judging" but you feel the need to say "plonked in a nursery"

It is completely baffling how one group of people can take such offense that others may not think their way is best, then be openly rude about other people's choices.

Maybe that grandmother was smothering the child... were you with them most of the time? My mum is fantastic with my DD but I wouldn't want her caring for her for a few days a week, she spoils her and fusses too much. But I suppose the mothering police would say that was better than plonking her in nursery...

scotchmeg You are right and it wasn't the best choice of words. I actually didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't normally think of it as "plonking" but just in this case where the child was very happy with his GM. Of course I don't know all the inns and outs but have spoken about it to both the GM and mum. I just hear this so much and it drives me crazy . . . that kids have to go to nursery and that they will be behind without it. I think it's linked to all the pushy parents around these days, that want their kids educated at nursery before starting school to try to get them to be the smartest in reception, as though this will make any difference when they are 18!

I just think if they have to go to nursery then fine, if they stay at home fine, but don't send them to nursery because you think it will give them as advantage all those years later when they go out to work/uni. It won't and I think people are daft for thinking it will.

You're absolutely right whose stay at home with them, send them to nursery, send them to a childminder, send them to your mother... there is no guarantee or even likeliness that any of these things with have any effect on your child at a later date.

Any one who thinks these things are going to get them a "better" kids at the end of it all are in for a big shock, else, they're just lucky... or maybe they've just done a really good job of raising them. That isn't detirmined by being in paid employment or not.

I am of the opinion that a good nursery can benefit children on various levels, regardless of their parents working or non working status.

And based on the little experience I have, children do interact with each other from a very young age. Of course they won't play like 5 yrs old when they are 2, but they do play together and acknowledge each other.

Believing that a small child's place is by his/her mother's side 24/7 is just as bizarre as wanting to socialize a 12 months old baby at all costs, imho.

Yes Francagoestohollywood I think it is about balance.

if you're s crap parent you're a crap parent regardless of whether you work or not, and your children will suffer for it. I meet emotionally deprived children all the time, their parents aren't cruel, or horrible, or spiteful or physically neglectful, they're misguided a lot of the time and just don't "get" them. A child is better off with a couple of full time working parents who can connect and contain them emotionally than SAH parents who're unavailable emotionally, and for whatever reason can't meet their needs.

Indeed Whose.

I don't think there is much benefit in group childcare (unless it is needed obviously) before age 2.5-3. My 2 year old is very advanced and we go to toddler groups etc., but they do really do more parallel play at this age rather than interact. So I don't think it is socially necessary at all before then, more of a personal choice.

lockets I am a SAHM of 5 also (well since DC2). I agree that many children of SAHP do plenty of socialising. Shopping, park, toddler groups, friends etc.

lockets it's great that you do all that with your kids and I applaud you. I would hate to do all that every single day, I like being at home and pottering about, or in the garden. I loathe playgroups, mum and child get togethers, play centres etc. I have one day a week off with ds (aside from the weekends) and we spend it just the 2 of us at home, just playing and getting on with jobs whilst he sings and chatters away.

He'd be very "unsocialised" if it was down to e as I find all the aforementioned activities you mention a chore, and exhausting and I'd be miserable.

Lockets, it isn't necessarily so, I believe. There are many women who don't have a strong group of friends they can share their days with.

For instance, when my dc were little and we had been living in the UK just for a short time I didn't know anybody with a small child like me, and I didn't like toddlers groups.

I also come from a country where togetherness and socialising is considered crucial, so I might have a slightly different view of group childcare.

lockets yes I believe it is.

lockets - I agree. There are so many threads about SAHMs that seem to assume that mothers never venture outside the home or do anything at all and that for their own good and that of their offspring, the mothers should therefore go to work and the children to nursery in order to socialise.

Whereas my experience has always been that the days have been busy with other people of all ages, doing things that we enjoy and that are ultimately good for children because they are participating in the world around them.

Eighteen months ago my neighbour and I both gave birth to a baby daughter. She was desperate to return to work and she clearly was not coping with being at home all day with the baby.

She knew that I had decided not to return to work and used to tell me at great length about how nursery was the best thing for a child, for both their educational and social needs and how I couldn't possibly do as good a job on my own at home.

She also told me how much she'd be earning. I felt so sorry for her trying to justify her position. I replied that I didn't earn enough to make it worth returning to work so that she would feel better. I earned three times as much as she did.

I now have a very happy child who talks clearly and is discovering how to read amongst other things. My neighbour's child seems constantly frustrated and has yet to talk. This may be nothing whatsoever to do with parenting methods but it has certainly stopped my neighbour from telling me how to raise my child.

My point, do it your own way and don't criticise anyone else.

arg not this one again. There are just some very judgy people here on MN. Also IME most people are not "glamourous rich lazy SAHM's" but either temporarily not working to care for little children, or part-time or home workers, fitting in childcare with other commitments. It's easy to feel guilty when going off to work full-time imagining that other people are having a lovely and parasitically free life. Just like it's easy for SAHM's thus attacked to get all cross and say 'well I must care more about my kids because I'm there for them more' But most of us don't fit either model and do each other a disservice. We're all mothers n'est-ce pas?

But again Bonsoir you assume everyone has a similar life as you, in a wonderful city, with enough money to have a coffee in a nice cafè and most of all the ability to chit chat to anyone.

But it is not like that for everyone. And you know it!