To think we don’t realise what modern life is doing to families?

[MrsGrindah]

I’ll own up here.. not a mother myself but a stepmother.
But I spend a lot of time travelling on trains for work and see so many parents on the phone to their kids ( in the mornings and before bedtime). Yes it’s great that technology allows this, but I just feel sorry for people missing out on being with their families. Last week there was a man talking to his little boy, apologising that he had gone before the boy had woken up and wouldn’t be back by the time he went to bed. I felt so sorry for everyone
Not blaming the parents and of course we all have to work. My point is as a society we are becoming used to this and almost expect people to be prepared to sacrifice a significant chunk of family life. Just makes me feel sad to see it and I wonder whether we’ll regret it in years to come.

What the alternative? Even more not working at the cost to taxpayers?

Work should be seen as the norm. It's what responsible adults do.

Or are you suggesting that women shud stay home and only men should have careers?

Agree with posters stating that this isn't a new thing and life in the past wasn't as bucolic. Certainly would prefer to be a stressed working mother in the 21st century than an isolated housewife in the 1960s with limited options for communicating with others outside the home.

As for this I don't care if I am poor, as long as my kids are fed and we have a nice safe warm home I am happy

I really hate seeing stuff like this on MN where mums have traded not working for breadline poverty but being with the kids. Working is not just about having 'nice things' but having enough money to put away for savings and pensions. Think of the long game, mums! Your kids may not remember all the quality time you spent with them when they were toddlers but your adult children will definitely remember, and possibly resent, having to pay for your carehome and senior years if you don't have savings or a pension. I'm making a crude generalization but important point to make.

I remember once a friend who had a large salary talking about a friend with smaller salary who took worse paid work for more flexible hours (to be with children more) And large salaried friend said, We all have to make sacrifices (ie friend should stop dropping everything to go home to children early and it would advance her career earning power etc). Now large salaried friend had an expensive car, child at private school, two homes. Where was the sacrifice she was making, except out of her own choice to have this lifestyle? It wasn't necessary to survive or even to live "comfortably". She could have lived in smaller house, house in less expensive area (which wouldn't have affected her commute in any way or even schooling of child) She wanted the career, that was her choice, but it was not about "sacrifice". She did not have any family ties in that area either. It was the status quo to earn a large salary.

I think there are similar choices made when men and women decide to change their standard of living/location to adapt to family life, if working is the thing that influences your "standard of living" and finances it. This is two professional women, married, husbands in work, same no of children, same education, same values, but one chooses to adapt the other believes she is making a sacrifice to earn more. Children are grown up now, both lots turned out well, I suppose it is water under the bridge. In the end you have to do what is right for your family, but not feel bullied by others into making the wrong decision.

MotherofDragons makes a good point. I'm 48 and from 7yo I was responsible for getting me and 5yo DSis home from school and letting us into the house where we would wait until Mum (teacher) got home c. 5:30. We didn't see Dad during the week at all. He worked in FE with a long commute and evening classes on his timetable.

I often wonder how on earth my mother did it. My life is certainly not harder and my DC see a lot more of us, even though we both work FT, our employers are generally flexible enough to enable us to be there when it really matters.

I was born in the 70s - my dad used to leave messages on the back of business cards on the hall for us during the week as it as the only time we saw him - the business also opened Saturdays. As we got older it swopped to chess moves for a standing game played a move a day. Don't think it is a modern phenomenon - before him grandad out of the pit post union meeting wouldn't expect dad to be up and about - think you are overthinking and Skype/ FaceTime actually makes it much better.

Maybe I've misunderstood Op because I didn't take it that they were criticising working parents, more that the pressure people are under just to get by is having a detrimental effect. I'm one half of a full time working couple with two dc but I'm very lucky I'm on a good salary, reasonable commute etc.

I look at colleagues just 10 years younger, earning 30/40% less, trying to get mortgages, only able to afford a house 1.5 hours away, wanting to plan a family but worried as they don't have permanent contracts.

Given all the advances in technology, what we know these days about stress/mental health, the damage to the environment caused by how we live now, I just think companies, government, whatever could make big changes but it feels like there's no desire to. Work/life balance could be more than just a joke paragraph in the HR handbook!

It was the other way round with us. My stepdad (dad to me though) worked as a teacher and took us to school and was there to pick us up too. No expectation of endless hours at work although he did bring marking home. My Mam worked as a nurse but I don’t really remember her being there much. All my childhood memories are of my dad as she worked so much. Teaching hours were far more family friendly. She didn’t even come abroad on holiday with us in the school holidays. We were comfortable financially though so there was that.

Yes, I think it is sad. People should have more of a choice of whether they want to be SAHM. Most money is piped into childcare. Free vouchers etc. What about those that want to stay at home and raise their children themselves? Why instead of vouchers can a basic amount of money not be paid to those that want to SAH? If someone had given me the choice, I probably would have stayed at home raising my children for longer - at least until school age.

The funny thing is my Mam is really supportive of me working only three days now I have kids when she was at work so much. She agrees how good it is for the kids to have both parents there (H works compressed hours so three days off a week).

I imagine it was hard to get part time hours as a nurse in the eighties though. I don’t know.

Cost of housing in particular is a massive factor. But I think people are more willing to travel longer distances to work than they were in the 1980s - or have less choice about looking for work further afield, without the salary necessarily compensating for the inconvenience.

The commute thing is interesting for me. I grew up outside the SE so although both my parents worked full time once I was at secondary school, my dad was always home by 1800 with a 30 minute commute if the traffic was heavy. My mum had anything from a 20 minute to a 40 minute commute depending on location, though her hours were longer and less predictable.

We live in the SE and our commute is 90 minutes each way. So on days where we both work, DS sees one of us for half an hour in the morning and the other for a couple of hours max prior to bedtime. We are very lucky that we have managed to arrange things so he is only in external childcare two days a week and is otherwise at home with one of us or his DGM.

I do feel really fortunate to have choices around work and, while in some ways things are more difficult, I have options open to me that my mother's generation could have only dreamed of (in terms of flexible working, etc). I'm very aware that not everyone is in this position though.

If you'd heard me on one of those conversations, it would actually be because it was rare, not the norm. I travel once or twice a month meaning I don't see my children for a day or so at a time. The rest of the time they see both of us pretty much every morning and evening. Things aren't always as they seem

I don't think it's ideal, but I think actually the few decades where most families would have at least the mother at home with the children are a historical anomaly.

Once you go further back, poor/working class women definitely worked in factories etc and the upper classes' children were raised by servants barely seeing their parents anyway. If you go back before the industrial revolution, most families lived on farms and both parents would be working the land- although their children would be with them, I'm not sure this was better in terms of "family life", and again the rich didn't raise their own children.

It's probably only ever been a small proportion of families where the mother stayed at home and looked after her children and the house herself without involving herself in some kind of other labour (e.g. agricultural). Also, historically, you were far more likely to have a parent die young- which is surely far more psychologically damaging than not seeing them during the working week.

Arguably modern technology keeps families more connected than they ever have been.

I refuse to apologise for having a career,working FT and having a family
I dont need to work, I want to work. I chose it,being mum simply isn’t enough
We’d not be in penury if i didn’t work but I’d not be fulfilled or happy
you seem to want to handwring and mythologise women stuck at home with limited choices
sole male wage to maintain the family and women doing the domestic & childcare isn’t my idyll

I actually think I like seeing parents talking to their kids on their phones.

What I don't like is parents who are on their phones and sitting next to their kids, who are also on phones or just sat in silence. Not so bad on a train, but very sad in a restaurant. Modern life has too much social media and not enough social interaction. Those that are using their phone on the journey home to communicate with their family are probably not the ones whose families are suffering.

I think the technology is a double edged sword. Yes you can facetime your kids from work but it makes it harder to switch off from work.

When I worked in the early 80s, when we went home that was that. So I could switch off and focus on my home life. Being given a mobile phone was the beginning of the end. Now DH's boss can text or email on a Sunday or even when we were driving through France on holiday. There is no escape.

Is this new? Growing up in the 1980s we barely saw my dad in the week. I'm sure he would have liked to have been around more but none of us were left scarred by this and I had a great childhood.

DH works 3 days a week and I work 2 day, we don't go on holiday, buy many things or have much money but we are spending lots of time with our children because for us, this is a priority.
I know people at my work place judge me for this but I'm just very definite about where I want my energy to go. As a child myself of a very busy/ stressed/ absent single parent, I want to give as much of my time to my LO.

OP, YABU.

Latchkey children are not a modern phenomenon. Technology mitigates the effect of separation, and is not the enabler. There was no golden age where women could be at home for their children except maybe in the brief post-war boom where it was possible to have a sole working parent support an entire family.

If anything, technology aims people to work from home. My dh works remotely 2 days from home and I flexibly. I do conference calls/webex from home and with full access to all my documents. I might be overhead saying the same thing on the train to my ds as the father on the phone but what you don't hear is that the next day, I make up for it by being at home.

Please don't feel sorry for my dcs. If neither dh nor I feel guilt, neither should you feel pity. If anything, my dcs will have a nice downpayment for their first property and uni fees paid up for them by their ft working parents.

Well I commute & leave home before the kids get up, they are 11 and 15. I don’t like this but I do choose it, life is rarely perfect. It means I can leave work early and get back home between 5:30 and 6, we all cook tea and spend time together & I can drive them to clubs some evenings, help with homework, chat or just watch tv with them. The mornings are the downside, but there is lots of upside too. I enjoy my job & I’m good at it, and the money it brings in is necessary, without it we would have to do without a lot of stuff we take for granted. DH leaves early and doesn’t get home til 8pm. He didn’t really see the kids in the week when they were little but as they get older and stay up later, sees more of them. He still sees them every weekend! Overall I’d say our arrangements work well. We don’t really use social media much, but I do call the kids at 7:30 am every day to check they are up & getting ready for school.

Really, full time should equate to 3 days, now, and then we'd double the number of jobs available and have no unemployment, or very little. And then, despite working full time, everyone would have time to be human too.

5plus: Bit rich that OP! You know what is a lot more stressful for kids than parents working fulltime? It is 'blended' families, it is divorce, it is step parents and siblings being foisted on children

I am afraid I would have to agree with this. I don't think my dcs would want to swap their ft working parents for their friend's blended family and split week in 2 households with changeovers. Not that they would want to swap us for any reason at all ...

In a way I disagree... Mind, my dad was only ever a fleeting figure in my life, my gran and mom raised me, circumstances being what they were. My DH don't have any DC yet, but not for the lack of trying. I'd say today has it's perks. Yes, working hours and commute are enough to make a saint lose patience, but technology allows you to: a) stay in contact (my mum would go for weeks, working, stopping only to sort out the crises) which, if you play it right, means you are always up to date
b) you appreciate the time you have together more, making it more quality. Just because the moms were stay at home before, the sheer amount of housework meant the attention DC received wasn't that much more than today.
C) there is the option to delegate, task rabbit etc. stuff an spend the remaining time together, or even if you don't, things like spending the entire Monday in the laundry room will never happen again and a nutritious meal doesn't take a battle plan to sort out

So every age has it's perks and downfalls, trick is to learn from the past and apply it on today.

But then, maybe I'll change my tune with the actual hands on experience

I have that conversation with my kids at least once a week when I'm on the train back from somewhere for work and DH is putting them to bed. I always feel guilty. But then I'm lucky enough to work 3 long days so for 4 out of 7 days each week I'm around with them. Technology and things it enables like flexible working are just how things are nowadays, and for the most part theyre really positive for family life. I know so many people who see way more of their kids than they would do otherwise because tech allows them to work flexibly.

I agree with OP. Even if it is necessary I think it's sad. I was lucky, a child of the 70s whose dad was home by 4(builder) and mum didn't work until I was 10. Mortgages were cheaper then(there's was £25 a month!) but I do feel we expect more now; expensive holidays, cars, computers etc. When I was a kid holidays were camping or a week at Pontins and only a handful of people in our street had cars.

I think technology plays a major part here. Not only does it mean it's easier to stay in contact with families during the day, it also means that it is easier and sometimes expected, that you are 'available' at all times, so working, checking emails etc in the evenings/at weekends.

My dps both worked full time, dm worked in an office 9-5 and df was a shift worker in a factory. There were no mobiles and we didn't even have a home land line, so when they were at work I didn't see or hear from them. However, once they left work their time was their own. Dh and I also both work full time, but I'd love to be able to walk out of work on Friday and not think about work until Monday morning. It's much worse, I think, that work creeps into family time.