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 is better at everything than every other mother. Look she can do maths and baking! Let her have her day in the sun.

I pay my cleaner £12.50 an hour. So I may be fucking up ds through inadequate nursery care but I retain the moral high ground when employing service providers :)

OP you complained about small rooms. Now nurseries are pulling the wool over our eyes because they talk about their good facilities.

There is a thread going at the moment with CMs talking about how little they make BTW. So if childcare professionals are underpaid it's not just in nurseries. But remember, it's not all about they money, according to you.

Why do you think caring for young children is a shit job OP?

the staff at dd2s nursery are the same staff that were there when dd1 was there mostly...5 years ago

a nursery will not be understaffed...certainly not a council run nursery anyway

It's an attachment issue not so much the poor quality of some of the staff.Babies and toddlers need attachment and security,they need familiarity and not fighting for attention.Boys in particular are affected by nurseries.

Childminders or nannies are far preferable for young children but neither are being made accessible for all.

Some of what Stripey says as a society we just don't want to hear. Women should be helped to keep careers going but we should also be enabling mums to juggle those formative years(many want to be there more)and improving childcare options.

Oh, and the unqualified illegal immigrants who look after my son also are high on crack and run a knocking shop next door.

And the nursery ratios are 1:54.

£7.50?! Holy fuck that is tight!

My thoughts exactly coral

coraltoes it's 4 times what I pay the nursery staff in the squalid hellhole I send my son.

:)

i interested to hear what you think the impact of nursery care, is going to be on the kids when they grow?....will they all end up in prison do you think? or might they not all vote tory?

slattenly can I recommend our latest venture, Li'l Moonshine Day Orphanages? Entirely staffed by a single workfare candidate, our 300 place nursery combines affordable childcare and knock off baby made booze! Ofsted gave us three hics in our last inspection.

Now you lot are being incredibly un-savvy. You should get the older ones looking after the younger ones, that would slash your overheads.

I vote Tory...I never went to nursery. #brokenbritain

In nursery the children do make attachments to one person.They are with the same person 40 hours a week.Their key worker

why do I work?because I want to,I like it,gives me approbation,and I'm good at it
you know what I don't mind the blackberry,the thrill of doing a demanding job is unbeatable
and I like being a good model to the kids,I work,I contribute.I'm not dependent upon dp

i dont buy this attachment crap...have you ever actually met a child with an attachment disorder? i have. a fair few. Do you know what kind of lives they come from???

my this reckoning, twins and triplets would grow up with attachment disorders

Polkadotcircus What a shame you feel your confidence is shot by being out of the workplace. I think it's a reflection of how little status is attached to being a stay at home parent.

Have you thought of re-training to do something different? Accepting a lower paid job than you are used to is no bad thing - and might help boost your confidence.

I think it would be helpful to have more gov support for women returning after a big gap, but we also need more acceptance that raising children is an important task and deserves to be respected.

And some more positive role models. One of my friends was very influential for me in getting my courage up to make the leap. She had had a career in nursing, but gave it up to raise her three children when her marriage broke down. She got some part-time work whilst they were at school, and now that the youngest is 11, she's doing a masters in counselling. I'm sure she'll make a huge success of this - it is so well suited to her skill set. Her 3 children are amongst the nicest I know.

I appreciate it can feel a bit daunting to be applying for jobs after so long out of the workplace, but it can have a happy ending. You'll also always know you did the best by your children. Childhood is so very short, and no one can take that away. Good luck x

Ah handbag I shall pm you details of the passport racket my DS is currently heading up. The pimp who runs the knocking shop next door says he has a real talent for faking passports. It's his little hands

earlier if you're talking about slashing overheads, you need to get them all into horsemeat burgers. Findus do a lovely range apparently, tastes just like beef.

Have finally ploughed through this thread and ignored dh for best part of the evening... (Not sure what that says about my attention to being a wife)

I (whispers) do agree with some of OPs recent points, society doesn't want to acknowledge a lot of what's wrong with our childcare systems...but an excellent book I highly recommend on this topic is 'shattered' by rebecca Asher. She says it much better than I could ever hope to (and links to proper research and everything) and it certainly gave me pause for thought.

Fwiw, our situation is dh earns more than I ever could hope to in my profession (he's set up own business since redundancy when ds born) and I haven't worked since qualifying shortly before ds born. I do worry about the impact on my career of not working for a substantial amount of time, but with no jobs around currently the decision is sort of being made for me, for the time being.

Ideally, I'd work part time and so would dh. But as he could earn much more in a day than a nursery would cost us, that's a difficult one to decide...although I'm now questioning whether it should be all about the money for us in that situation. And dh does have a fantastic bond with ds (better than mine sometimes) and does miss him when working (from home!). Better part time opportunities and flexibility - for both genders - is key IMO, but unlikely to happen until more men start demanding it.

we should also be enabling mums

What about the dads? Will no-one think of the dads?!!

you want government support to get you back to work stripey?

surely you could cash in one of those trust funds coming your way to help yourself?