Nursery debate

[Adviceplease360]

For the past few days, there have been a number of threads about nurseries and the pros and cons. Personally, I am not keen on nurseries for under 3's and after 3 for 15 hours. What does everyone else think?

A childminder never could have done that as she would have had other children to look after and would have just left her to cry

WTF??? Loads of parents neglect their kids and loads of SAHPs have more than one to look after. Man, there are some ignorant people on here today.

papa as always when men start taking career breaks it will magically cease to lead to 'fucking up their careers' due to male privilege.

Right now in my company the men taking serious paternity leave or dropping to part time to care for children are being hailed as trail blazing heroes and no adaption, or scheme for supporting them could possibly be too much to ask for...and of course all the benefit of these new schemes is now beginning to flow down to the women who have been in sore need of it for decades.

Its shit, but making career breaks a male activity is a powerful way to address the injustices of the current system.

15 hours child free/one child less. I don't understand what there isn't to like

My daughter is an extremely sociable and adventurous little 17 month old girl - nursery provides her with an excellent outlet for that - so it's the best decision for her.

I couldn't cope being at home 7 days a week. I need my work for my own sanity. To feel like I have accomplished something for myself and to use my brain in a non domestic way. That is just me personally. Everyone is different.

We love our child and she is thriving, she is a very happy and confident wee girl.

Also just because she is nursery does NOT mean we are not raising her. And painting it like this is some sort of new thing where children are not raised by parents I think throughout history there have been extended family, communities, nannies, Victorian era nurseries in your own home, wet nurses. My husband and I are both very hands on with our child, we are raising her. When a child goes to school are the teachers raising them? Childcare and school settings of course play a part but don't say that just because someone uses some form of childcare that they are not raising their children.

madaleine yes indeed - in fact I think the advent of smart phones will be a much bigger perturbation to the way our children are brought up than mass nursery usage.

Assuming dicking around on your phone is not something nursery staff are encouraged to do while on duty there may be phenomenal advantages for children currently in nursery as they actually get adult interactions during the day.....

Again - it isn't necessarily a bad thing at all...but its a massive unknown how a generation of children raised by others will develop.
Nurseries aren't new. I'm 25 and I, and most of my generation, were cared for by nurseries and childminders and breakfast clubs and after school clubs. And I really don't see that it's done us any harm, actually.

Papa so your response to having a parent around full time might be better than none, is to deride anyone who doesn't have both parents around full time?

Not sure of the logic there....

podge do you have data on that? I don't think the majority of kids were in nursery, let alone full time nursery 25 years ago at all. Will happily bow to the existence of hard data on this issue though!

Also just because she is nursery does NOT mean we are not raising her. And painting it like this is some sort of new thing where children are not raised by parents I think throughout history there have been extended family, communities, nannies, Victorian era nurseries in your own home, wet nurses. My husband and I are both very hands on with our child, we are raising her. When a child goes to school are the teachers raising them? Childcare and school settings of course play a part but don't say that just because someone uses some form of childcare that they are not raising their children

Exactly. It's SUCH bullshit. Kids have been raised by non-parents for so so long. And people like Morphene are obviously incapable of understanding that for the vast majority of working parents, one wage is not enough to support a family and both parents have to work (and want to work). That does NOT mean they are not involved in raising their children- what sanctimonious bullshit.

You can do both. Having a career does not mean you should not have kids.

Papa so your response to having a parent around full time might be better than none, is to deride anyone who doesn't have both parents around full time?

Morphene I was being sarcastic. You were saying that you can't understand why anyone would have kids if they weren't prepared to spend 24/7 raising them and rubbished the idea that people may want to work to provide them with mental stimulation. You made out that people who work are not raising their own children just because they rely on childcare. It's fantastic for you working full time with your stay at home DH. Not a typical set-up for most women though and despite what happens at your progressive company, it is 95% of the time the woman who ends up giving up work, often grudgingly and with massive financial consequences later on down the line.

Basically, if you think that your child is best raised by your DH, fine. That's wonderful for you. For others, it is not. Does not make them bad parents and should not lead anyone to question why they had children. Not wanting to be a 24/7 carer is not the same as not wanting kids.

Feminism has a lot to answer for in the childcare debate yes.
Some women now view raising their own child as ‘boring’ & ‘unstimulating’ - it’s ‘women's work’ but just not this woman, because I’ve got a great job & staying at home all day wiping noses is beneath me.
Yes, raising a child is boring sometimes, & it’s bloody hard work, but if we all have the ‘I’m not doing it’ attitude then we will have every single child being raised by complete strangers.
I’m not sure that’s progress?

What about au pairs and nannies? Not all childcare involves lots of children. I see no issue with using childcare at all. So long as it is good quality and you know your child I.S safe, well cared for and mentally stimulated. Not everybody has the luxury to stay at home, and for those who do going to work is still a valid life choice. I think it is better for a child to be with at least one of the two primary care givers for as long as possible, but often that is a matter of months not years.

My stepmum brought up 3 kids whilst building up her own company. My brothers went to their grandparents and nursery. They're all fine.

A lot of families don't have the luxury of non-working, local grandparents who want to look after their DGCs. We don't.

'It takes a village' and all that.

One of the problems here is that traditional support networks have been eroded but not replaced with anything except private childcare. Women are now expected, if not required, to contribute financially to running a home and family - quite different from 100 years ago (in certain classes). But we haven't changed the way the world of work operates, we haven't added copious childcare alternatives (say, each place of work must have a creche attached by law or similar), our collective attitudes to BFing working mums are still ridiculous and so on and so forth.

You get, what, 20-30 hours free childcare from age 2-3? And 4-6 months paid ML (I'm self-employed so I don't know)? So from age 6mo - 2, you have zero financial support from anyone but your partner, should you have one.

The rug's been pulled out from under women's feet and not replaced with anything. Women now have the right to earn but also the responsibility and are still doing the vast majority of the homecare they did decades ago. And then some bugger comes along and says we're all terrible mums for putting our kids in childcare so we can tackle all this work? Get out of town.

Yes, raising a child is boring sometimes, & it’s bloody hard work, but if we all have the ‘I’m not doing it’ attitude then we will have every single child being raised by complete strangers

Well, the child will get to know them and they will not be strangers then will they? It's hardly like working parents go out on the street every morning asking some random to mind their kids.

Feminism does not 'have a lot to answer for'. The truth is that childcare in the home IS boring and isolating work and not everyone enjoys it (and as a result they are not the best person to be doing it). It is STILL women who get the blame for being bad parents if they want to maintain their career. At least now they have a choice- women didn't used to have a choice and many children grew up in miserable homes with abusive mothers who didn't really want to be stay at home parents.

Op still hasn't answered what childcare she uses?

I'd like to know when the world changed from one wage being the single and only way a family ever got supported to the supposed impossibility of that occurring these days...

What most people mean when they say they can't afford to support their family on one wage wouldn't be recognised as truth by our grandparents generation or our parents generation. As anyone struggling to run a family on benefits alone will attest to, its possible to raise your kids on very little money indeed.

Its a choice to have both parents work, not by any stretch a proven bad one...in fact it may well end up a proven good one (if my suspicions about phone use are correct) but don't pretend it isn't a choice to either have kids and or to place them in full time nursery.

Why is family childcare seen as superior to nursery anyway? My child could, actually, be looked after by family members but I chose to place her in nursery part time because they were sticking TV on all day and leaving her to it! At nursery she has a lovely outdoor area, songs, games and art and crafts everyday. She loves it!

Morphene stop being such a GF. We couldn't afford the rent on one wage, let alone anything else. People on benefits have their housing heavily subsidised if not completely paid for. For most of us, it's the biggest expense. And yes I have been on benefits and I couldn't afford to take my kids anywhere or do anything that cost money.

Papafran
Yes I do see what you’re saying, but the thing with these debates is we’re all talking about our own personal experiences. I was a SAHM until ds started school nursery at 4 ( for just 2.5 hours a day ) I made huge financial sacrifices just to be with him every day for those first 4 years - I loved it, it was honestly the best time of my life and don’t regret a minute of it ( I don’t even regret the £15.000 credit card bill I ran up!

podge it isn't seen as inferior. Its different. We don't really know how different. It also really depends on the age of the child. We expect all kids over the age of 5 to be spending significant time out of the home....and that has been the norm for over a hundred years.

We relatively recently on a societal timescale decided to start putting much younger children in childcare regularly. Now we have mass use of nursery's for children from 6 months and even younger.

It is reasonable to question whether these latest developments are actually to the benefit of the average child. There are certainly some it will hugely benefit and others it will hugely disadvantage due to individual circumstances....but on average....is it benefiting children to be in full time nursery from 6 months?

We ought to be able to ask the question without imploding with guilt about our own personal choices...because right now we have no idea what the answer might be...and popping your kid out straight into the hands of professional baby wranglers may be the best option....or only having children if both parents are willing and able to spend the first 2 years with the child full time may be the best option.......or it may make sweet FA difference what you do......we just don't know.

What most people mean when they say they can't afford to support their family on one wage wouldn't be recognised as truth by our grandparents generation or our parents generation.

They probably had a different support network, much more family-based with all the women pitching in, different generations living under the same roof and so on. Modern life has largely isolated a lot of us.

Also, working class women have always worked and had kids at the same time. Otherwise they starved.

DS went from 5 months old loved it and benefited greatly IMO

Also I had to work and didn't like the idea of a childminder because;

less facilities
only 1 person looking after him instead of a group - so always cover at nursery if someone needs the loo, a break, becomes unwell
Less children to mix with

So it worked for me

Just like the breast/bottle debate: you won’t be able to tell which adults went to nursery or not 😂