To say loud and proud that it's better for my kids that I don't work

[yetanotherchangename]

There have been lots of threads about WOHM/SAHM at the moment, which frankly are beyond boring. HOWEVER on all of them I've seen SAHMs attacked (either for being naive, vacuous, lazy, money grabbing, downtrodden) etc., and I've seen a lot of SAHM explain why being at home is the only option for their family.

I've rarely if ever seen a SAHM openly say that it is a good thing for kids if they have a parent who doesn't work. I think we are too afraid of offending mothers who do work. Am I unreasonable to claim back some pride in what I am doing?

I don't think it's that hard to change the men in that way. The company I work for is pretty flexible and the men work flexibly to pick up children etc also.

Jassy - I think that you and I are both fortunate in that we have partners who are incredibly involved and active fathers. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Where we disagree is at what point the mother and father start sharing parenting responsibilities 50:50. I do not believe (based on our own family's experiences) that parenting needs to be shared 50:50 from birth or thereabouts in order for the vast majority of parenting to be shared 50:50 over a child's lifetime. There is a certain amount of anxiety (and pressure) among some mothers that encourages them to share parenting equally sooner than they would like for fear that otherwise it will never happen. All I want to do is reassure them that that is not the case and that they have every right, having been through pregnancy and labour, to take their time.

I was surprised at the speed of change once it was shown that they would be supported and that it was expected of them.

Bonsoir, I'm not saying we were 50:50 from day 1 - I was on mat leave and BFing. The converse was true when I was work and he was at home.

What we did was equally share decisions. At no point did my opinion automatically trump DH's.

Isn't it sad that we live in a world where involved male parents are considered lucky.

No I don't find it sad: it's a sign that things are going in the right direction. Look back a generation or two, measure the progress and jump for joy

None if the hormones, Petit, are as important as consistent, engaged and loving guidance. I'm sure that plenty of oxytocin-ed up women have found it difficult to bond with their baby and lots of non-oxytocined parents have nevertheless been loving, stable providers of very high quality parenting. Don't let's mistake hormones for magic

Parenting may not need a precise 50/50 mix, what has to be 50/50 is the individual impact on the parents' ability to be able to look after and provide for themselves in the future. I'm thinking of the recent judgmrnt which requites divorced SAHP to resume providing wholly for themselves in the context that they have taken a massive career hit in order to enable their ex to create a career that commands a disporportionately (to the other partner) high wage, but somehow owe nothing of that to the person that raised their children and kept their home while they did this.

Oxytocin is bonding, for new mothers. There isn't an alternative route.

You should gave told my body bonsoir when I had pnd and couldn't bond with dc1.

A time when I was fully relying on DH to give to dc1 the love and the emotional security that I couldn't give.

Even though he didn't have the hormones.

Outself I agree. We are increasingly in a society that expect women to be financially independent and to be able to look after themselves. If you expect a woman to be able to be able to stand on their two feet if they find themselves alone (divorce, death etc) then you expect women, mothers or not, to be working full time. Because let's not fool ourselves, To be be financially independent you do need to work full time.
And that means that being a SAHP is just not viable option unless it's for a short time (even better if it's organised like in Scandinavian countries and both parents end up taking a year off to look after their dc)

Sorry even as a mother of continual bawling, voracious feeding and colicky twins I had this primal urge to be with them for long after their birth even though it was bloody hard and not a picture of blissed out milky happiness.

Dp just didn't have the seem primal need,he just didn't and he is one of the most hands on dads I've met.He did all the nights when we had 3 under 15 months and raced home in his lunch hour to give me a break. He was still happy to go to work,however tough it was I simply wasn't.I needed to be with them.

I had PND with the third.Was still a fab mum and still needed to be with them.Some mums with PND are different.There is no one size fits all with PND,kids or families.

I don't see the problem if one parent is happy to work and one isn't.
The point is, not all parents fit that mould. Many are happy to both work as well as both being hands on parents.

LePetit my point isn't that hormones don't help bonding or that some women feel an enormous need/want to be with their baby.
My point is that some mothers don't. There are lots of reasons fur that. PND is one of them (and I didn't bond with dc1 until he was about 3yo after lots and lots of efforts on my part). And so me women just won't be feeling this overwhelming need to be with their dcs.
Even with dc2 and 3, I felt that by the time they were about 4~5 months I was happy to leave them with someone and get my 'own' life back.
I know that they are other women who feel like this. But few will ever dare voicing that fur fear to be seen as a 'bad' mother who should never has children in the first place.

The other point I was making us that DH, as a man with no hormones and according to you no need to be with his children the same way that I should have done, did a grand job if looking after dc1. Saying that all men just carry in as before and don't really care/worry about their baby when they are at work is insulting to men IMO.

I'm not disagreeing with you.Simply pointing out waaaay down why there are probably more sahm than sahf.

Lot's of women don't experience a "primal need" and suggesting that it is innate to WOMEN and not just about your particular experience does violence to those women.

What do you mean, there is no other route Bonsoir? I just don't buy it, my friend has one adopted and one BC and you misrepresent her by suggesting birth induced oxytocin, which doesn't even work for all birth mothers, is the only way she could bond. It's massively ignorant and offensive to say she is more or better bonded with her BC, which us what you are effectively saying.

I'd rather have a consistent, loving bond for life frim someone unrelayed to the DC than a tiny few months fuelled on oxytocin followed by poor and inconsistent parenting. Oxcytocin is just a scientific term being employed to denigrate women with pnd, fathers, adoptive parents and has the handy side effect of making women feel obliged to demonstrate their bond by sacrificing their social equality to parenthood, and feeling like they should be thankful for that and taking only the love of their children as payment. Don't get me wring, the love of my children is a rare and precious thing. But it doesn't pay the rent.

I agree that different couples should divvy up family responsibilities as they jointly see fit. It just shouldn't disadvantage the person taking up the majority of the childcare

Xpost.

The point is really that you might be feeling this need to be a mum. You Might have bonded even with PND. And you might have done a beautiful job.
But not all women do.

And wanting to force women into that mould if 'I can't bear to be separated from my dcs' is just as wrong as putting men into the 'I don't care at all and I will carry in going to work as it has no impact on me what so ever' camp either.

People are different. Different things work for different people. So let's stop judging and making assumptions in everyone should feel and do from our very own experience of what we feel Should happen.

Petit, honestly oxytocin explains the whole of social history? I say bullshit. It doesn't even work universally to bond mothers and babies so I doubt it can design the whole of human history

By do you think it's like this KePetit?
Maybe just maybe because society has always told men it wasn't their thing and they aren't able to do a good job at childcare? Or that they don't share a bond as strong as the mum with the baby? Or because it's completely devaluated?

It's not because there are more SAHM thanks that SAHD that fathers wouldn't want to do so. Rather they are told they shouldn't because it's a mothers role.... Right

No.

We are thankfully all free to choose. I don't think men as a group are shy in coming forward if they want something. They simply aren't choosing to be sahp. Women know they can be or do whatever they want.Many choose to have a break,you may not like that but they do.

As an aside other than damage to a career what is sooooo bad about having a break?Yes nothing,so shouldn't we be focusing on lessening the damage and enabling whichever parent chooses to be a sahp to have that break and a career to return to.Shoehorning women into denying their want of a break and a change to their pre dc lifestyle is wrong. Obviously enabling either parent is important but if more women want it what exactly is wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with it.
To return to the actual point of this thread, what is wrong is to try to make some claim of parenting superiority just because the mother gives up work.

There would be no human history without oxytocin.

I have discussed this fact with Michel Odent over lunch.

I didn't take it as inference of parenting superiority but as a declaration of deciding that something was better for her child.

Inserting a "their" may have been a better choice of words,no idea if it was omitted in error,long since given up on rereading the whole loooong thread.

Ffs this argument again? Really? Surely we all do what's right for our families, whether that be working or staying at home.

No one way is the correct way (refusing to say what I do!) but harping on about it shows a lack of confidence in your choice and trying to make yourself feel better by putting others down.

Do what you need to do and get on with it!

I'm sure I can't be the only person to doubt Michael Oden'ts qualification to pontificate on the causes of All Human History.

People talking about oxytocin and saying it's vital and essential to parenting relationships are doing violence to all those people forming parenting bonds without the birth induced input of oxytocin. It also suggests that if you don't feel its bonding effects you aren't fully human, which is violent again. Please stop it