to think that the further you are from the world of work, the crazier being a working mum sounds?

[StripeyBear]

I did it for 3 years - motherhood and a (part-time, but) demanding job... when you were always running from pillar to post, and buying take-away pizza, and feeling guilty because your child was crying when you left, and always being tired and hassled and answering your blackberry on your days "off" and being f**ked off because your job wasn't half as interesting as the work you used to get when you were childless and in the office full-time-plus....

Almost 2 years of being a SAHM later, my working-mother-friends come round for coffee on their day off and moan about all of the above.. It sounds familiar, but now even their moaning exhausts me. I'm more in a swapping recipes for lemon-drizzle-cake and making my own pizza dough sort of head space. These days I just potter around - my whole life has slowed down.....

Don't get me wrong - I realise I'm fortunate that we can manage without the wage (and not everyone can), but I find I am barely worse off (once the childcare is taken into account, and it is so much easier to spend money wisely, now that I don't have to buy crappy pizza because I am too exhausted to cook or book my holiday at the last minute because I wasn't organised earlier). And life feels so much better now that I'm not always exhausted... and I actually have time to do interesting stuff like read (grown-up) books... and there is no stress around childcare and the like....

So when my friends come round and moan about their blackberries ringing and being side-lined for promotions and feeling stressed about organising a child's birthday party when they have no time to really do it and so on.... instead of feeling oodles of sympathy... all I can think is... WHY? WHY? Why are you doing it then?

AIBU? I sort of suspect I might be

OP do you think that caring for a child every morning, every evening, and every (broken) night of their lives, as well as two days at the weekend, is insignificant? Playtime, teatime, bedtime, bathtime, storytime, settling to sleep, up half the night, ready in the morning, travelling to childcare - is that nothing? Because to me these are really special and important times and I feel your post at 14.29 ignores them.

Coraltoes - that's a good point. And Stripey says she did WOHM for 3 years plus she's been a SAHM for 2 so that makes 5, which means, child at school?

Men cope with being away from their children because society expects nothing else. Women meanwhile must be bad mothers if they don't feel guilty about being at work.

I can honestly say I feel no guilt myself. I'd feel guiltier taking the easy life funded by my dh while throwing away my dreams and ambitions.

Also, in your DH shoes I'd be tempted to think a nursery might instil slightly less judgemental values do DC than you. Main carer doesn't have to equal best carer.

Btw the behavior s that I do are checking work emails on my "days off". I cannot imagine getting stressed about a children's party , how hard can it be ?

Threads like this make me glad I am neither.

AIBU to think that the further you are from the world of work, the crazier being a working mum sounds?

YANBU - it's called getting stuck in your own little world and losing perspective. It's called becoming closed-minded and forgetting that different people have different circumstances, and that even when they have the same circumstances different people make different choices, because not everyone likes the same things.

OP, Yep, I'm away from my DCs 40-50 hours a week.

They are in education, at activities they love and seeing their friends.

I presume you home educate and never let yours out of your sight?

The thought of making my own pizza dough and swapping lemon drizzle cake recipes makes me feel rather queasy. Even in my years as a SAHM I can't imagine I would have done such quaint 1950s things.

Why does someone else doing the childcare equate to 'worse' though, whether that's a child's male parent or a trained and qualified child professional?

There's good evidence on early years childcare - I believe it concludes fairly robustly that nurseries are not beneficial for children at all until they are at least 3 years old - unless their home situation is significantly chaotic (I'm talking about mothers who are drug users etc - not a bit of philly on the carpet after breakfast!).

I wasn't comfortable with a nursery for a young baby, so when I worked we had a nanny. In our area, you need a reasonably paid nanny is going to cost you about £6K a year for every day you work - so for a 5 day week, you're basically setting aside £30k a year. I think my wage was ok - but by the time you've paid that bill, commuting costs - higher rate tax on your own pay, suits lunches etc - I was lucky to have £50 a week over - so giving up work was fairly cost neutral. You have to remember that over certain thresholds, you get no help from gov on meeting childcare costs. We had some lovely nannies - but I do think children in general prefer their mother... and I suppose I believe that no one can raise your babies like you. Fair enough if you don't want to.

Badinage My husband loves his job - and wouldn't want to stop working f/t to care for our children. Maybe we are odd, but my babies were mostly looking for me at the end of a day with a nanny or when they are sick or when they wake in the night - but I have extended bf and coslept - so maybe other children are different. Anyway, there is no way I could contemplate leaving them over night, while I tootled off on business... whilst for my husband, his work-life has continued pretty much as it did before he had kids.

Can't think if someone asked or not, but DH is considerably happier now that I've given up work. The house always ran smoother on days I was at home before, and now it does that all the time. He never gets asks to cover me whilst I work early or late. It is easier and calmer. There is less money coming in, and I suppose we are more vulnerable as a household as we are totally dependent on his income - but there will always be downsides to every decision. I can understand how others reach different conclusions, but I think this works for us.

Coraltoes Yes - I was thinking about home educating www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1678900-to-suspect-I-would-make-a-better-job-of-teaching-my-child-P1-2-3-than-the-good-local-primary

I do thing the issues are different though - as children get older the issues are around education, not care... though I think I could easily be convinced we have the balance wrong in the UK and start formal education too early.

stripey - yes, I have found that i am very unhappy when I am away from my young son for long periods of time.

if I had to drop off at a nursery/cm by 8 am to get to work, then only get to pick him up after 5, just get to do tea and bedtime with them - then have 2 days out of seven with him for longer than that - I would be very very unhappy and seek pretty much any way I could to change that.

The older and more independent he gets (he is nearly 3) the happier I am for him to spend time away from me (time in which he is happy, with relatives or some time at nursery).

As a feminist, I have no truck with the idea that mothers 'should' feel guilty about leaving their children. But also as a feminist, no one is going to tell ME I feel the 'wrong way' about my child for not being happy to leave him in large amounts of professional childcare when he is small.

As for the 'they will go to school' argument - what utter nonsense, I'm sorry. They go to school when they are 5. Not when they are one year old, or 2. There's a reason for that. It is because a greater degree of independence and an ability to cope with learning in that environment when they are 5. It is stupid as asking if you are going to be wiping their bottoms when they are still at university.

OP, So you were thinking about home educating, but actually don't?

Stripeybear - Thats not what all or even most dads are like.If they are very family orientated they dont want to leave them and work away once they have children.

Lady Widmerpool yes, small children require so much looking after, don't they. I'm sorry you felt I was dismissing all the things that working parents do, but if you're away for a 10 hour stretch at work, you inevitably miss an awful lot too. TBH, it is just a personal thing - I have tried it and it's not for me - though I appreciate other people make different choices. And no, earlierintheweek my older daughter isn't at school.

Oh I thought children in the UK were at school when they were 5. My mistake

Is your older daughter too young for school or have you chosen to home ed?
OP you are so lucky to have choices......many do not.

The OP raised the issue of time spent away from DCs.

I was pointing out that I would be 'away from them' for 40 hours a week anyway, what with them having school and friends and all. Oh, and my DCs went to the Nursery year at the local school when they were 3, and into Reception when they were 4.

Before that they attended lovely nurseries so I could work. As ExH had de-camped, I had to keep working, and work harder and work more. Like Worried345, I'm somewhat bemused by the suggestion that doing the very best I can for my DCs as a lone parent is somehow letting them down.

Christ - where to start with your last post?

Please link to this evidence on early years childcare. But make sure it's from a proper academic source and not some misogynist who thinks that women should be at home and would rip up his/her 'evidence' post-haste if anyone suggested in response that fathers did the childcaring instead of nurseries.

Why did you only take your wages into account when you weighed up the costs of childcare. Why didn't you add your husband's salary to the overall sum and then subtracted childcare, seeing as that was a joint responsibility?

Children 'in general' don't prefer their mothers, beyond the breast feeding stage. They are capable of loving an infinite number of people, as long as those people care for them and love them.

Ever wondered why your husband's life continued much as normal, or why it's socially acceptable for him to leave children overnight while working, or not to feel any guilt whatsoever about not missing his children while at work, to the point where he would consider giving up his career?

As long as women keep expounding these myths about children preferring mothers, that mothers are better equipped to look after children and worse still, judging other women who don't buy into this mythology and see the bigger picture, women will continue to be put down and confined to low-paid work and childcare whether they want that or not. And men who actually want to spend more time with their kids and share the financial burden with their partners will be chained to a worplace, whether they want that or not.

My children haven't reached school age - there is a nice local State school - I'm not ruling out HE or private - I'm just starting to think it through.

I think if I was at home all day twiddingly my thumbs I probably would want to do some sort of work - other than making lemon drizzle cake However, I do have 3 degrees and a decade of experience working at a fairly senior level, so I hope I wouldn't be completely unemployable. In my early 20s I set up a business - it started making profit in its first year and eventually sold as an on-going concern - though I didn't really like working bymyself tbh - but setting up a business might be an option. I also wouldn't be opposed to taking much lower paid work or doing some voluntary work or doing another professional qualification... I think it takes a bit of courage to throw in a well paid job to stay at home - but I don't think it has to be seen as such a terrible decision.

Rain I think you hit the nail on the head... it is all very well saying it is a gender equality issue and men need to share care equally and all that jazz - but it is IMHO women who feel it most keenly when they are separated from their children for long periods. I would say this is pretty much why you have the conintuing patterns of labour market participation that we have. Women want to spend time with their young children, and men are for the most part, happy to work full-time.

I do sympathise. I did that with my older daugther and I found it hard :(

[actually they did two years in Nursery and then Reception at the local school]

Stripey - I would say in my rl 80% of men would be happy to do an even split of childcare, and a lot of men change to jobs without travel once children are here.

I would say this is pretty much why you have the conintuing patterns of labour market participation that we have.

And I wouldn't say that.

The reason we have those continuing patterns of labour market participation is because of sexual inequalities that currently don't favour parents who want to work and parent for equal amounts of time as eachother. It's currently set as a default that fathers will work and mothers will not. It discriminates against the mothers who want to work, the fathers who do not - and those parents who want to spend equal amounts of time at work and with their children, earning money according to their skills and abilities and not their sex.

Well I think that the less you see your dcs the less you miss them. FWIW DH and I woh 3 days per week each. He is no less desperate to see them after 2 days away than I am. I also have stayed away for work since they were 1 and 3, leaving them in their father's care. Why on earth wouldn't I ?

it is IMHO women who feel it most keenly when they are separated from their children for long periods

Men are discouraged from letting themselves feeling that way, and discouraged from admitting that they do if they do feel it.

A couple may feel just as strongly as each other but each will never really know how strongly the other feels, so will revert to the stereotype because a mother's feelings are assumed to be stronger.