AIBU to not want to leave my 6 month old any time soon?

[seri0usly]

Background - I'm taking 3 years out from working so he won't be attending nursery. He is exclusively breastfed and we've recently started the weaning process. He's my youngest and last child.

AIBU to not want to leave him with relatives that want to have him? I have no reason too and don't want to cause any upset to him just to please other people. AIBU?

Denying a father the right to look after their child is quite frankly totally fucking bananas!

i find it telling of the pressure mothers are put under that quite a few people have felt they need to justify having time away from their baby because of work requirements etc. it's like society tells us there's something wrong with just wanting a break for it's own sake. I have a nine month old. I won't be returning to work until he's three or so because I'm lucky enough not to have to. Do I spend time away from him? hell yes! I'm ME as well as his mum - I still like going to the pub, reading alone in cafes and having the odd baby free night's sleep and I don't need to be working to justify that. wanting some personal space is a perfectly valid reason to leave your baby for a bit!

havibg said that, I know plenty of people who have never left their baby for more than half an hour and that's what works for them. we're all different and ultimately what the daily fail et al wants is to divide and conquer us by pitting mothers against each other

I am pleased that I am not the only one to have spotted a definite shift in parenting over the past couple of decades - it's difficult to pin down what is is, but it's certainly there.
Maybe it's the constant need for validation, the competitiveness, the oversharing, the veneer of perfection that mums are so eager to portray now.
I am 49 and my generation were the ones who - rightly or wrongly - struggled to prove that having a child did not affect your career. We did not have flexible working, compressed hours, emergency leave etc and struggled through.
Now mums have all this, and it is as if they are now focusing the battle more on the home and validating their choices, they don't have to prove they can have it all, so concentrate instead on being mumzillas.
My son's generation (23) has been labelled as the most sensible one for years, so we can't have got it so wrong.
I think today's babies will grown up to be very entitled and expect their parents to answer their every whim, which is in effect what they are already doing to them as babies.

I am 24 and think that actually I am quite sensible, I don't think my DS will grow up entitled at all and I think it's quite a sweeping generalisation on a post about not being forced into leaving your children with people when you don't want to. There are selfish, entitled people of all generations including those trying to persuade a new mum to leave her baby if she doesn't feel ready.

Totally agree.

Cath - my mother would whole heartedly agree with you. I think you are probably right. I'm sure somewhere there is a connection to the role social media plays these days.

i am going to be home for a year with a 18 month old and a new born and I am really concerned about how I will cope. My mother just tuts at me as she had 4 children and managed just fine. She was stay at home mostly with a bit of child minding. Up until this week I was working full time , as was my husband . My dM couldn't understand why we needed a cleaner, why we were both exhausted. I politely explained that although she had 4 kids, she never worked FT when we were little.

shiveringhiccup Your writing was very much drawing a line between mums leaving kids and mums not by pointing out kids shouldn;t be left. words are read by real people. with real lives.

HTH.

Cathf- I do think social media has a lot to answer for, because everything has to be out there and imo it fuels competitive parenting.

I can SO identify what you say about our generation- there were none of the advantages such as extended maternity leave, subsidised childcare, paternity leave- in many ways it was really tough because we just went back to work when our babies were 3 or 4 months old and got on with it. But perhaps easier in another way because there wasn't so much angst. We didn't even have mobile phones, and the idea of CCTV in nurseries would have been incomprehensible- we just dropped our babies in childcare and picked them up at the end of the day. Perhaps in some ways that meant less worrying...

It does seem sometimes as though having waited years for things to progress, the current generation of mums are slow to take advantage of things like shared parental leave. The take up of that is shockingly low.

Ultimately, there are many 'right' ways to bring up children and those of us with adult children can see that as long as they are loved, cared for and enabled to form positive attachments, they can grow into emotionally healthy adults whether they spend the first 3 years or just the first 3 months solely with mum

Livin, you are right it is a generalisation - I know plenty of sensible younger mothers and some older questionable ones!
I was commenting more on the general shift in attitudes I see on here, maybe it's not representative.
I find it quite telling that you refer to a mum of a six-month-old as a 'new mum' as if she is still something very special.
Most of my age group were more interested in fitting the baby around the family, nowadays it seems that the family - and indeed the whole world! - must fit round baby, otherwise you are not being a good mother. There seems to be a general need to be validated as a mother which is new to me.
In general, we were pretty happy to take well-meaning advice from older family members as were happy to accept they had been there, done it and we were the proof that the babies actually survived reasonably well.
Now it seems that some mums are so determined to do things their way - my baby, my rules, I know what's best for MY baby etc - they push help away, which is very sad. There also is a lot of evidence here of the baby's father being pushed away, which actually makes me quite angry as this is an incredibly selfish act.
I find is incredibly sad that someone feels so defined by being a mum that she won't even let a relative look after baby for an hour or so.
As I said, it's difficult to put your finger on, but it is certainly there - I am just dreading being a grandma!

Yes, I certainly wouldn't right off an entire generation as likely to end up entitled and dysfunctional! It's a far more complex issue than that

But as a teacher, I see the enormous increase in mental health problems/ anxiety in young people. I don't believe there is one single cause: there are various things- the peer pressure they feel through social media, the education system which constantly measures them in a narrow way... But another element is definitely the pressure put on them by mothers (and I have to say it usually is mothers, rather than fathers) when the mum has centred her entire existence around that child. I have even come across some mothers who try to control their child's A level or university choices. And I mean control, not guide. There's a huge difference.

This seems a long way from the issue of whether to leave a 6 month old! But there's been some interesting discussion on here about parenting trends, and I agree with those who find the relatively recent intensive, child-is-the-centre-of-the-universe style which some parents adopt, has a lot to answer for.

As a teacher, when any parent asks me for the best way to support their child my response is 'talk to them, nurture them, support them - and have a life outside of them which gives you purpose and validation.' It's way too much pressure for a child to feel that they are responsible for their parent's sense of self worth

Oops that should be write off.

Is she not special? Is her baby not special? I don't get the point you're trying to make... My baby is special to me and how I choose to parent is also up to me. No wonder we feel the need to validate what we do when our parents generation think we are raising a hoard of 'entitled' brats. Advice is brilliant when it's wanted, otherwise it's a bit overbearing as is constant offers of unwanted childcare.

The reason why mental illness is up in younger people is because is because of better diagnosis, not bad parenting. Some of these comments are just awful & I don't see how they relate to a mum who doesn't want to have her 6 month old separated from her just yet.

the veneer of perfection that mums are so eager to portray now.

I definitely agree with that. Motherhood has become so fetishised in the last 15 years or so. Mothers need to be with their children 24/7, cook them meals from (the famed) scratch, never ever plonk them in front of a cartoon for 10 mins for a bit of quiet time. And aside from all this they need to also be a 'yummy mummy' and stay sexy.

I do think social media has a lot to answer for, because everything has to be out there and imo it fuels competitive parenting.

I agree with this too re. competitive parenting.

Well done Astoria for deliberately twisting people's posts! Yes, diagnosis is one factor- there are many others, including the added pressures of social media, narrow educational methods of measuring young people's abilities- and yes, the kind of parenting I see in my day to day life whereby a minority of parents invest all their own need for validation onto their children. Maybe you haven't seen a parent trying to control where and what their 17 year old studies at university - all done under the illusion that they are being helpful, when in fact they are pinning their own aspirations onto the young person. It's not pretty, and it can lead to young people crashing and burning

And to go back to the OP- I and practically 100% of people on this thread have said 'don't leave your child if you don't want to.' The discussion has moved on to far broader things than one individual mother.

Thanks Malvin

You know what I think is going to be pretty damaging to this generation of 6MO? Parents on tablets and I phones all the time

I find is incredibly sad that someone feels so defined by being a mum that she won't even let a relative look after baby for an hour or so

I totally agree with this.

And shivering there's masses of difference between saying "you do what's best for you" and "you're totally right in doing this because evidence shows X and Y reasons for which your choice is right" obviously others who choose differently are then being told that their choices are wrong.

You cannot come on to a forum where there are plenty of parents who lead a work-home life and say shit like its best for kids to be with their mums and not have it interpreted as what you are saying by default - ie. it's not good for babies to be cared for by others who aren't their mums.

I have nothing to defend against you, nothing to be defensive about. I have a fab life, a fab baby and a fab career. But every time people spout the things that were spouted on this thread, the things circulated in our society by rags like The Mail and the stuff that feeds into a sexist system, then I will attack those words. Not defend my own choices.

Lots of comments here from women who don't appear to like other women.

How dare a mother feel she doesn't want other people to look after her baby just yet? How dare mothers use iPhones? Weren't things better in my day? We had it harder than mothers today? Why are mother so precious?

Of course there's nothing wrong with a mum not wanting her baby to be looked after by others just yet. And there's nothing wrong with a mother being happy for her bay to go to relatives if she needs / wants a break. It's what works for her, neither is more viruous than the other.

How about supporting free and informed choice and celebrating mothers wanting to do the best thing for their baby? So much nastiness and judgement. It's really bloody sad

"I find how keen people are to separate mums from new babies abut strange - often under the guise of helping out!"

It is because they are trying to help out. I was desperate for someone to come and help out with DC1. I hated never being alone.

Personally, I find people like the OP as strange as you guys find your relatives who are trying to help out. Your relatives - the helpful ones that you think are lying about wanting to help - were presumably like I was, when they had children. And they don't want anyone to through what they did.

Yy pingu

Do what's right for you. Why give a shit what other people do?

Do whatever is right for you but personally I find it rather odd that you cannot/will not leave your baby - esp. the poster who didn't even leave her child with it's own father .

I wanted my child to be independent so for me it was important that I could leave him, what if you are rushed into hospital or drop dead? I remember a friend was shocked when I went out for an evening with my DH when DS was 10 days old (my mother was with him and we were only five minutes away if he needed feeding ).

Also I needed time alone - I had a lovely friend who enjoyed taking my baby for a walk - gave me an hour or so to do whatever I wanted. You read so many problems about separation anxiety and have to wonder if it is because some mothers won't let their baby out of their sight. But I have a friend who hates being away for her children (& they are in their 20s now ).

But what worked for me clearly isn't the same for everyone - do whatever makes you happy.

What houseconfusion says. There's a world of difference between saying

'this is what I do, it works for me, but you do whatever you choose' and saying

'This is what I do, you do whatever you want but evidence shows my way is right

Many of us have been around long enough to know that 'evidence' for many things relating to bringing up children is often conflicting, or that one parental trend will be discredited a few years down the line.

Other than where there is really hard unequivocal evidence about some aspect of child rearing (eg putting babies to sleep on their backs, not smoking etc) there is an entire spectrum of ways to raise happy, well adjusted young people, who will become happy well adjusted adults. Isn't that what we're all aiming for?

Overall i don't think this thread has been particularly judgemental... People are voicing their own experiences, and so long as they aren't extrapolating from that that they are 'right', then what's the problem.

Like I said earlier - I was sole carer for my first born for just 12 weeks, after which she was looked after by a cm when dh and I were at work. My other 2 children spent considerably longer at home with me. You wouldn't be able to tell who spent longer with me if you met them now. More importantly- they didn't know until I told them!

So- mums of 3/6/12/ whatever months old- do what YOU want because it is the right thing for YOUR family. Don't feel pressured into feeling there is only one 'right' way- there are many.

A professional has posted to say there is no evidence. So that's just not worth addressing even.

I think it's very very wrong to not allow a child's father care for them-
Unless there are protection issues- it's their father they have every right to care for the child. Stop being a control freak!