to be getting pissed off with patronising people re returning to work full time

[nightowlmostly]

I was thinking about posting this thread the other day but got reminded by the one about the HV being all judgy abbout someone going back to work.

Basically, I earn about twice as much as my DH, so it makes sense for me to return to work full time after about 9 months off. Apart from that, he does all the cooking and therefore it is easier for him to do the shopping as well, so it makes sense in a few different ways. DH will go part time when I go back after xmas, so we will have our first xmas at home, all of us together. It seems right to go back to work then.

The thing that is bugging me is, a lot of the time when I mention this to anyone at work, they say something along the lines of, "Oh well, see how you feel when the time comes", or once there was the classic "But won't you find it hard leaving the baby with someone else, you're his mum!" even though he'll be with his dad!

It's just annoying, I don't believe that women are more cut out for child rearing than men, it's just the way society has been organised in the past. The way people are so patronising, suggesting that I will feel differently when the baby's here and I will want to stay home or at least work part time. Someone said maybe I would resent my DH getting to spend time with the DC while I'm at work, but I don't believe that just because I'm a woman I have the right to take that role if it is to the detriment of the family. Why wouldn't my Dh resent me if I was the one at home all day? I just get really frustrated with people's old fashioned ideas of what women and men should do, or what they will automatically want to do.

That turned into a bit of a rant, sorry! It is really getting wearing, people always assuming that I'll go part time, and seeming shocked when they find out different. I thought we'd all moved on!

But littlepie, it's entirely up to you, that's the point. The baby won't suffer either way! As long as you can manage and won't be horrendously stressed about money, I don't see why anyone would judge or feel they know better what might work for you or how you will feel. (Obviously they WILL judge, whatever you do, but they shouldn't!!)

YANBU to find it incredibly irritating.

It's odd just how many women feel this urgent need to be at home with their babies though, even those who are adamant that they will want to come back to work before they give birth. So your colleagues are probably just speaking from experience. They have no right to say it to you though, if you change your mind you do and if you don't you don't.

If bugs me how society decides how a woman is 'supposed' to feel about her children. I love kids but babies do nothing for me at all. I literally couldn't wait until I was able to put my daughters in nursery and go and look after other people's bigger, communicative children all day instead. Once my girls could walk and talk I started missing them. Until then, nope, home = bored witless, work = stimulating.

Like I said before OP, I understand you har real financial reasons for going back to work and it is great you are having nine months as the first 9/12 months are so important for baby to have the main carer around but - you are coming across as a tad defensive?! And you seem to make very sweeping statements about something you really don't know how you will
feel about once baby is here! Yes, keep making your plans but don't assume you will know how you will feel. And don't take people's comments too much to heart - you need an iron suit as a parent! Everyone will have a judgement or comment on everything you do!

you know what, when I went back to work full time I found the transition hard and maybe sometimes that is what people mean when they say 'won't you find that hard' or 'wait until you have to do it, you may not feel the same then'? I have been back in work about 5 months and it honestly feels like I have never been away, DS has settled and everything is lovely. It was a hard transition bt it had to be done and it's ok now.

I think a lot of people who decide not to go to work possibly never really liked their jobs anyway so they find it hard to undersand why someone else would feel happy to return.

I don't think it's sexist at all.

We can have all the equality we like and split everything down the line with our DH's but the fact remains, the baby grows inside the woman, the woman lactates and the woman gets the pregnancy and post pregnancy hormones.

Therefore, it can be a very natural thing for a woman to be more upset at leaving that baby and going out to work, than perhaps her DH would.

OP you do sound quite defensive and upset at this prospect and as you say, you have no choice so that's understandable.

But it's also understandable that some people will find it impossible to empathise with you if they've never had to go straight back to work.

YANBU - as soon as you do something outside the social norm every man (and woman) and his dog feels entitled to comment. When our DC3 was born DH started stopped work and became f/t SAHP to 3 DCs aged 4 1/2, 1 1/2 and 4 weeks (yes, weeks).

I earned considerably more than him, childcare costs meant that it simply wasnt worth him working.

No regrets and I didnt find going back to work difficult (I guess puts me in the sea sponge class then).

I'm pissed off wit it too. In our family I'm the main breadwinner and wmearn about 5 x what dp earns. It would be impossible for me to give up work and survive financially. Dp will be a sahd.

People comment as if we havent thought things through.

I always say "well, we haven't won the lottery yet" in response to the patronising, uninvited comments.

Thanks for all comments, negative as well! It's good to hear of others who have made this choice and find it works for them, I may have slight concerns that I will find it hard to go back full time but it's encouraging to hear people say that they did and it was fine.

As for me feeling defensive, I don't feel that way so sorry if it comes across like that. It's interesting to hear people's ideas about why people might say certain things, maybe they're not all coming from a patronising old fashioned place after all.

Anyway, hopefully things will all go to plan, I'm not naive enough to think things always work out as you thought they would, so we'll see I guess!

YANBU.

I had this too. It wouldn't have mattered how I felt, I would still have had to return to work because we needed my full-time income. People knew better than to comment when I was expecting no. 2.

At the risk of sounding patronising......you may well feel differently when your baby is born.

When I was pregnant I was going to return full time, and I even selected a nursery that opened at 7.30am because that was the time I used to get to work. This was all essential as I needed the money and couldn't afford to live any other way.

That resolution lasted until DS1 was about 2 months old, at which point I contacted work and asked about reducing my hours for my return.

Fast forward a few years and I now have two children, I work two days a week, and I'm lucky if I get to work before 9am. I have downsized. The things that seemed absolutely essential pre-baby are now meaningless.

I'm not saying everyone feels like this, but many do, and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that you may too. I would advise you to keep your options open where possible, and not get irritated with people who suggest you may not know exactly how you'll feel.

I think people say 'you won't know how you will feel until after it happens' to women more than men for two reasons...

1. You will he handling that first stretch of maternity leave, so you will form a bond with your baby that your husband won't have. Ergo, it will be harder to then leave the baby, having formed this attachment. Not to say your DH and the baby won't form their own bond but it simply won't be the same as the one a baby has for it's primary care in its first months of life.

1. Even when Dads do take their full 2 weeks' paternity leave, it is still pretty much always the Mum taking the main brunt of childcare in that time, especially if you're breastfeeding.

So - like it or not, it is going to be different - probably harder - for the Mum to then be apart from the baby. Not because she's a women / mother per se; but because she is the one that has formed a closer attachment to a person in their very first weeks and months of their life.

Now before you yell at me - I fully understand there's nothing you can do about your situation, and going back to work full time at 9 months isn't really that unusual a phenomenon - so you'll probably be fine.

But I genuinely think that most people are making these comments because they understand fully what that bond is like in a way men don't.

Velma - I assume you were earning twice what your DH did, and your decision to reduce your hours and be at home more had a huge impact on your household income?

YANBU - I went back to work full-time when my DS was 7 months and my DH took the role of the stay at home dad - he'd just finished at college and I was in a well paid job so for me to stay at home and DH to get a job would have meant slashing our already only one income by more than half so a no brainer situation really. When my DD was born 3 years later, i took 8 months off and had DH home the whole time and he's still SAHD to both kids. Cost us a heap of savings to have both of us at home for those months I was off but worth it. Yes you will miss your baby like crazy while you're at work but I can honestly say from experience that apart from breastfeeding, there is no difference between the level of care mums or dads provide. We swapped traditional roles purely to be able to pay the mortgage and I actually consider us lucky that we can afford to still have one parent full time at home. I often meet my DH and kids for lunch and stuff so that I don't feel like I'm missing out on too much being at work.

But I completely get where you're coming from with other people's remarks - we routinely get asked what my husband does for a living and then have to explain who stays at home. Amazingly though, when we say DH is a SAHD, loads of people then relate their experience that their DH did the same thing for a while.

Sounds like you've got a good plan, your baby will be awesomely looked after and everyone will be happy!

My baby is 20 days old and it's my second day back working FT! DS was two weeks late! DH is the SAHP for financial reasons. I always knew throughout my pregnancy I would be returning to work this soon and got into the mindset so I was ready. I've had loads of comments but I know what we've done is the best for our little family and that's what's important. Plus I would make a crap housewife!

20 days old? Did I read that correctly?

What's the problem? The minimum is two weeks - some people presumably have to go back after that.

I don't think people are being patronising, it is simply that many woman have trodden the path before you.

With DC 1 I was going to go back at 4 mths, I was the archetypal driven career woman, fielding calls from my bed whilst in labour and then after the baby arrived I just know I couldnt do it. Having been there I have probably cautioned others about setting their ideas in stone.

What I have more of an issue with is peoples refusal to comprehend that sometimes finances dictate "choice"

I'm a single parent. No DH or his earnings to consider.

20 days old. Correct!

Well done Salad, as you say, sometimes it is just the best or only thing to do for your family. When that happens you have to just get on with it.

I think if you have a pragmatic disposition then you dont get so emotional about the decision. Or perhaps it is the other way round, if you are less emotional then you make more pragmatic deciosions.

We did this too (almost 20 years ago now), simply because I earned more than my DH. He was a nurse, so in fact was able to work part-time (weekends & some nights), but he looked after the children during the day. Worked very well for us.

OP if the comments piss you off, think of some good responses. I used to say, "It will suit us, and I earn a lot more than him and we don't want to lose the house".

I don't have a baby yet but it just strikes me as one more thing to get judgy about with new mums.

I have two colleagues, one with small baby and one pg now with DC2.

Colleague 1 is f/t earner, went back f/t after about 5 mos, slaves her life out but can't wait to get home to her DC. She is fab at work, really good at her job, but I know she'd like to go p/t if she could (sadly that's not an option with what we do).

Colleague 2 had DC1 abroad and had two weeks mat leave - yes 10 working days! She is now going to take 6mos ML with DC2 but is already making us all promise to slip out of work and meet her for coffee so she has some grown ups to talk to! She is convinced she'll go mad on ML......

The thing is, both my colleagues are really good at their jobs, both have a financial need to work (well, 'need' is relative, but ykwim), but both have totally different feelings about what they are doing. No, you don't know how you will feel, but pointing it out endlessly is not precisely helpful!

I had 4 and a half months off. It was supposed to be 5 but I'd not factored in the nursery's wretched settling in policy (seemingly random hours and then half days).

I always knew I'd be going back f/t - for starters my job is f/t and if I couldn't do it, I'd be out of one. If I lost it, I'd be unlikely to get a similar grade permanent position in this country. I also love what I do. (Most of the time :) )

I can't remember much of my ML. DH was at home too, hadn't got a job so DS got a lot of attention. There certainly wasn't much sitting about in coffee shops!
When I did talk about when I went back, I too got jumped on by people, mostly women, who just couldn't understand why I wasn't going part time. Didn't matter what I said, until I said that I was the breadwinner. Only then did our family's choice get accepted.

I even got my 5 mins of infamy in a newspaper after writing to them on this very topic!

You know what, OP, I'm with you. I too am pissed off with the blanket assumption that it is always the woman who does the bulk of the childcare after the first few months, and always will be. It is just so blinkered.

I know tons of couples where the woman earns the cash but no one seems to take a more balanced view of things; it just seems that everyone is stuck on the 'oh well that's how it's always been so that's what everyone does, let's just ignore the practical circumstances and carry on without thinking shall we?'

No one had much to say about my reducing my hours at work (apart from nodding approvingly) but when DH briefly reduced his to cover some childcare when I went back to work (he's gone back full time now cos he had to change jobs) you'd think he'd donated a kidney, the amount of congratulating he got for making the sacrifice.

Comments abounded about the damage to his career. (ummm, what about mine? )

DH's brother, who was raised by a professional working mother on her own, was frankly astonished when he found out. It was like he'd totally forgotten that all his life, his own mother has had a career of her own!

I was told by one ex-colleague who was visiting my workplace that I should go home 'because my daughter needed me' one afternoon. He didn't seem to think that DH, who was looking after her at the time, was sufficient in that respect...

Hopefully, we will all grow out of this silliness in time!

silverten that's awful what your ex-colleague said.

I had something similar said to me. I was working late on a Friday night to try and get a particular piece of work finished for a client. Client came over to my office at about 7pm and immediately said, "shouldnt you be at home putting the baby to bed?"

I managed to contain my and and said that I was quite sure DD's Dad could manage and obviously I'd prefer to be at home putting the baby to bed but I'm here finishing a piece of work for YOUR benefit.

I like this client a lot so I'm hoping he was being appreciative of my staying late rather than actually being serious (and just expressing it slightly weirdly), but it was telling that in a room of 5 people staying late, 4 of whom had children who might need putting to bed, I was the only female one asked about it.