To wonder why people have children when they clearly put their career first, by having a 24hr maternity nurse from day one and a full-time nanny from 3 months?

[gogetter]

Call me old fashioned but why bother when you are going to see your child for maybe an hour a day on weekdays?
It's not financially needed for mum to return to work (far from) so why leave your teeny weeny baby with a nanny during the most amazing time of their lifes?

A bit strange I fear!

People have children for lots of reasons. Quite a few women realise they have failed at their careers, will never make anything much of themselves so have a baby and become a Steford Housewife. Others have babies at 16 because they want something to love etc etc.

Most people work and have children, whether they're male or female and seem to manage that perfectly well. It's the more caring option ultimately given your husband or wife could die or abandon you etc.

So to make something of yourself you have to have a successful career? Is that how we are to be judged?

And I thought you were a feminist!

BUt what is actually a succesful career....how do we judge that one....obviously you must have studied and probably have a high paid Job?
Or would it be enough if it is a worthy one, such as say NUrse or Teacher or Solider, where the pay not necessarily reflect the actual commitment....hmmmmmm

I always thought the fight for womens equality was the fight for women to have CHOICES.

Choosing to be a housewife and raising a family doesnt not make a women any less worthy of one that chooses to follow the career path.They both contribute to society.

Some feminsist don't feel this way, they want women to have choices as long as its the choice to have a career

Pregnancy heartburn starting up now so swigging the gaviscon and turning in.

Think I enjoyed mn more when i was on ttc/pregnancy threads ..

Seems to me that you think the choice you have achieved is the choice to be able to be as unpleasant and sexist to your husband and men in general, as men routinely were about women. I'm sure that's what feminism was all about wasn't it (actually I expect it was for some women, but there we go).

For me equality has to include respecting other people's decisons and also being able to make the decisions I want without feeling that someone may be slagging me off for them. So I go to work, so I had a nanny when the kids were small (dd was three months old gasp!), well really so what? My family works as well as it can do - if we had had loads of money would we have made a different choices?. Well probably not then (maybe now when work is less exciting, but then with lots of money we could be doing all sorts of other things anyway).

Try fruitin Chocolatepeanut, its better than the gaviscon

Men and women are wired differently and that does make them better at some things and not at others although I stop well short at saying women are better than men at everything - I have 2 DSs to train to be useful members of society. Don't want to make them think they can't be better at anything. They might just give up and not try at all!

SAHM have failed at their careers! We can't all have 'careers' or who would work in the shop checkouts, clean the houses of working women, sit in call centres or any number of mind numbing jobs that people are paid to do. It is not true that you either have a high-flying career woman or you become a SAHM. Life isn't that simple.

There is the old adage about the regrets you have on your deathbed aren't about the business meetings you should have gone to but the time you could have spent with your family. I simply don't want to be that cliche.

Kerry - does that apply to dads as well? There'd be a huge proportion of children around not able to claim having a dad then... Read a few threads about SAHMs stuck at home with the children and their partners only passing by through their child's life, have you any vitriol left to berate them too? Can those serving in the armed forces and posted away from home be able to say they have children? Or only when they are on leave perhaps.

Kerry - thanks for being such a support to us WOHMs - you certainly know how to make someone feel good.

(Why the hell won't I learn to ignore these threads)

Message withdrawn

Nooka

I am not unpleaseant to men.I have many male friends and have a good relationship with my dh.

The way I feel about men is not about a choice, I have always felt that way, since I was a child. My mother did not make me like this either before its suggested. I just think pound for pound we can and do, much more than men.It doesnt make me hate them.

I dont walk around work or home spouting my opinion.Its just something that I and many other women feel.I am just trying to be honest

Ive only read the op and skimmed the comments since.

I just wanted to say that i have friends who have an au-pair from spain. This is au-pair number 4 in a 2yr period. She has just left after being with the family for 10months. Yet another will be arriving early september. Meanwhile the 2dc are in spain with their grandparents for 5 weeks!
I can empathise with those parents who have to work fulltime. But what i do disagree with is to plan to have a child that you know you will not be looking after yourself, and as the op says probobly only see the dc or an hour a day. This i dont think is right. A child needs its parents, if you have to work then you find the childcare that suits the hours and needs of your family. But my friends who have had these aupairs have big problems. The dc do not take to the new aupairs immediately, there are battles. The dc play on the language problems, ie they know the aupair will not recognise or be quick at reacting to cheekyness or rudeness and so they get away with it. I can see the problems this family have with finding any other type of childcare that would cover their working hours (mother is air hostess, father is oncall engineer) but, the dc are paying the price.
Also i would question the morals that these kinds of dc are being brought up with. They most certainly arent being taught their morals and values from their parents but from a childcare provider, a third party, of some description.
I know for a fact that it is not a financial choice that was made when the aupair was brought in and mum went back to work. They are very well off, have a huge house, 2 cars, holiday every 3months, property in Spain etc etc. It was more a matter of mum had to go back to work to remain sane. To get back into an adult world.
I prefer to stay at home wherever possible and take and collect my dc from to and from school, to be there for them, to set in their morals and values by me not a third party. They are only young children once (and while i agree its not much fun looking after a baby, it can be quite lonely) but once they are grown up, thats it you dont get the opportunity again. Why pay good money to do a job that should be done by yourself, why throw away good money on childcare and miss out on milestones in their lives?

I agree with the OP. It is rather strange and certainly not a choice i would make.

Haychee - I thought au-apirs weren't there to look after small children like this? We had a few looking after DS for a couple of hours after school. They were there to bring him home and play with him till we got home. I know they were working full-time for other families with younger children but the mums were always at home and they were just a pair of extra hands. I think that's the right way to go, I wouldn't expect someone very young and with limited knowledge of the language to bring up my children. So I think basically I'm agreeing with you that the situation you describe is not great.

BTW I don't see anything wrong with the kids being with the grandparents in Spain for 5 weeks. My sister lives in Cyprus and she took her DDs over to Romania to stay with my parents for their summer holidays. The main reason was that she thought Cyprus was much too hot, she still hasn't got used to the climate, despite air conditioning etc. Also for the girls to learn the language and get to know their GPs better. She was on the phone every day and she didn't enjoy being away from them but sometimes you take other things into account.

That was last summer, this summer there are temperatures of 40+ Celsius in Romania too, very hot.

Yes, thats right. If the parents are there and the au-pair is being used as simply an extra pair of hands, then thats fair enough. But, increasingly i find that aupairs are being chosen as the cheapest and most reliable form of fulltime childcare. Yes they are cheap and they are there day and night to watch the children.
But on the flip side there are language issues and they dont tend to stay long (1yr max). Children need stability, these dc that i know have now had 5 aupairs in 2yrs. All of whom have been very different from the previous. Some play with the children, some do not, some are strict, some are not. The dc have to get used to the new aupairs ways and tolerance levels. I find it quite disturbing that mum goes off to work knowing full well that the dc are going to run amock for the entire time that she is gone (which is usually overnight or 2nights). Dad maybe around but sometimes not until the dc are in bed and gone again before they wake up.

Babies of 3 months do not "need" psychologically or physically a blood relation with them 24/7. Anyway stay at home mother thinking so is kidding herself. I suppose if you love being home, didn't have much of a job anyway and can live with the sexism of that set up go and do it but don't do it because it's better for the children. You aren't in some hallowed place of best practice. You are just one option which many of us don't think is best even where women have a choice.

Most parents who work leave their child with other loving adults and the child thrives. That is often in the UK a grandparent but often also a nanny or nursery. Our first live out nanny stayed 10 years. That is not the new au pair every few months someone mentioned. It is more often the case it is like the person who mentioned their boss who always used nannies for the children form a young age and had lovely children. There is no rule book which says damaged child if only says father for X hours a day and mother Y hours. What they need is stability and love, a pattern of reliability in their lives and actually often to be taken out of poverty and women working isone of the best routes out of poverty as most women on the planet know.

No there isnt much wrong with spending 5wks with the grandparents, only they havnt had anytime with their own parents for a long time. Its always a case of shipping them out to others. They are only off to spain for the summer hols because the last aupair has just left and the new one doesnt start until september. Mum has recently had a short break with her girlfriends (not with the dc or family). Why could she not of spent some of her annual leave with the dc, rather than on an adult break? Priorities are wrong here.

so one hour a day in the week is unacceptable. How about 1hr 10 mins? 5 hrs? 4hr 25 mins? Please let me know at which point I am allowed to consider myself a parent?

Does it make a difference if a family member looks after DS? Is only a biologically related carer acceptable (which of course puts me right up shit creek on that score).

Apart from these extreme cases of people who send their children to boarding school as a 20 week foetus who obviously are out of order, at what point do the rest of us because parents?

Xenia
What they need is stability and love, a pattern of reliability in their lives and actually often to be taken out of poverty and women working isone of the best routes out of poverty as most women on the planet know.

Superbly put/written! Stability and relaibility is the key!

become parents