Mothers should always be with their children until they are 3 years old

[abacucat]

This is what one parenting "expert" is recommending in the name of attachment parenting. And he does mean mothers, not fathers. AIBU to think this is a load of rubbish? Babies and toddlers are not damaged as is alleged, from spending time apart from their mother.

www.drmomma.org/2010/07/mother-toddler-separation.html

Wow someone has mummy issues. What an idiot.

I don't know if most toddlers would prefer to be at home with their mums. I suspect my son would have preferred his dad at that age and I don't think he was the only one.

They don't seem to have any of this angst about childcare in Scandinavia. The majority of mums work, dads join in with childcare and the kids seem well-adjusted. Why is this bloke so sure they've got it wrong?

I agree with the pp that it's sexist claptrap trying to get women back into the kitchen (and out of the workforce). Keep your woman at home with no money and you've got control of her.

I was a single mum with a mortgage. There was no question about going back to work. Would she have paid my mortgage for me, I doubt it.
I.also don't agree with it at the other end of the spectrum though where parents are forced to work when they're not ready. I was lucky to have family to rally round and work it between us. Not everyone is so lucky and childcare isn't cheap.
Sorry for getting all politicalthis time in the morning

Nancydrawn is spot on. My own two were in full time nursery from five months and are kind, generous, funny, loving adults with professional jobs and happy relationships. I still see some of their nursery playmates who also appear to have lots of contact with their families and good jobs.

My adult DC and I are very close and ask them about nursery now and one can only remember a sports day in the park and the other that the nursery had ducks. Four years of full time nursery, that's how damaged they are 🤷‍♀️

I agree with @satsumaeater. It’s not just Scandinavia but France, South Africa, America- are the worlds children disadvantaged? If so it’s the new normal I guess. Misogynistic bollocks

So I guess the good doctor is also campaigning for better maternity rights and pay for women? Seeings how you get 3 months' unpaid in the US, IF you work for an employer with more than 50 employees - which many women don't? Or perhaps he is campaigning for universal heathcare so US women don't have to go back to work just for the health insurance. Oh wait - he is a rich doctor and his wife didn't have to work. He's telling all women to be like his wife. Marry well, mumsnetters. I think that is the take-home message.

This thread is showing how much things have changed.
15 yEars ago when I had Dc1, there was plenty of experts saying the same thing. Except that they were believed and women, like me, who were working were berated for that.

Onwards and forwards I’d say.

He's rehashing John Bowlby's theory on attachment which Bowlby developed in the 1950's and passing it off as his own idea.
As you can imagine many other theories/. Experiments on attachment has since been conducted, which challenge this theory.

I would say misusing rather than rehashing. Attachment theory would not support this bollocks at all.

Well my ds has been in full-time nursery for over a year now (he's just turned 3). Before that he had a day with MiL and a day with my sister and three days at a childminder.

In contrast my dn has been solely with my sister (same age).

My ds is much more socially aware than my dn (both great kids btw). I think nursery is great for my ds's development. He loves going.

I think I have a great bond with my boy. He's happy, healthy and has great self esteem. I wouldn't change a thing.

It really isn't on for anyone of either sex to dictate what mothers/parents "should" be doing. It depends on the child. It depends on the family's finances. On parents' careers and career goals. On the cost and availability of childcare locally. On the proximity of other family members. On the availability of local provision for young children. And probably more factors besides.

I have a theory that taking parenting advice from “experts” has been hugely damaging to our generation of parents actually. All it’s created is anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and industry driven by selling this crap

I completely agree. After so much bloody googling and stressing about various things, when DS was 4 months I stopped doing that and started just trusting my instincts. Much better.

Misogynistic crap. Maybe take down the link so he doesn't get more attention - you can still summarise for the thread, but not feed his ego by having lots of clicks from Mumsnet.

Thank god we have men like this telling us women how to live our lives. I dread to think how we would survive otherwise. He is presumably an expert of being up his own backside. What a twat.

I sort-of agree, in general - if I'm honest with myself, I think it would be optimal to be with your young children, and that mothers are the first attachment figure so it makes sense for it to be a mother.

However, life is not optimal, not 'best'... and I went back to work after a year with each of my children - mostly for my own sanity, rather than any need for money (in fact with my second, childcare was more than I earned, but I viewed it as an investment).
I am more than happy to be a less-than-optimal mother. I do my best and it will have to be good enough. I also occasionally feed my children junk food and they watch far too much TV. But they are loved, and happy, so...

There is way too much pressure nowadays to be a totally perfect parent, especially mother, in my opinion. Articles like this one fan the flames.

This is interesting reading (the thread, not the shite in the link you posted) as DS (nearly 12 months) starts nursery tomorrow part time as my mat leave ends.
its nice to know I won’t be scarring him for life. I have really guilt issues - I feel guilt over everything... we probably could just about scrape by on DHs salary but I don’t want to just ‘scrape by’ nor do I want to carry on being at home 7 days a week. I think i would get depressed. I think quality of time is more important than quantity (spent with your children)

Surely anybody who talks about what mothers "should" do as if there is a single way to raise a family has glued their Eurocentric, 21st century giggles too tightly to their face? There is no one way. Mothers, fathers and grandparents have deployed various survival strategies during our evolution to the current state of affairs. It can't be THAT dreadful to use childcare, as that's what we have always done, where necessary.

Goggles. But giggles works too.

If I’m going to reply in honesty, I’m going to say the ideal is for one of the parents, be it mum or dad, to be ‘at home’ with the child pre-school. This is just my opinion, which counts for nowt...it’s simply how I feel.
I know that a lot of women or parents in general cannot afford to stay at home with their child, while others find it absolutely mind-numbing and need to work for their sanity...but brass tacks of it, while babies and toddlers will be ok in full-time childcare, it’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Having had three children over ten years, I didn’t work and honestly, we had nothing extra financially speaking...we lived on the bare essentials...but we agreed that my presence was more valuable than any material gains we would have had from the extra income.

I’m not suggesting anyone should follow my example, each household is entirely different. That was what we were happy with and felt was right for our kids.

Erm.... he's obviously not the person at pre-school who has to deal with the dcs who have literally never been away from their mothers, and who are suddenly expected to cope all day without them. It can be really hard to watch the upset.

.but brass tacks of it, while babies and toddlers will be ok in full-time childcare, it’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Brass tacks of it, there is no "supposed to be". There is no rule book. We survive or we don't.

Well, DS2 seems to have survived spending the mornings with Daddy and afternoons in nursery while Mummy went to work. In fact, the pair of them were as happy as pigs in poop at home together while I went back to work.

Big old load of bollocks! I reckon he was a lazy bastard to have 11 kids with, and is justifying that by putting it all on his wife

True. As I say...my opinion counts for nowt as I can only realistically apply it to my own situation. I had a working partner who wasn’t a big earner by any means...but it meant that we could ‘survive’ as you put it.

I don’t want to cast judgement and believe wholeheartedly in choice and understanding there is a bigger picture.To me though, the ideal would always be for a parent to be at home with the child, pre-school. We can’t always facilitate the idea and I understand that...but I still think it’s the ideal.

Then a year and a half later when the child starts school it'll be the one who is screaming when the mother leaves. You can always tell which children have the clingy mothers.

pictish

In some ways, sure, but not in others (for me). I'm quite introverted, and my DD gets a hell of a lot out of her childcare provision that I know, hand on heart, she wouldn't get at home with me all the time.

Anyway, I think talk of "ideals" is flawed without comprehensive data and analysis of that data, showing that outcomes for children are significantly better under this "ideal" than otherwise. And I don't think that evidence exists.

You're entitled to think whatever you think, of course!