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!

Its the stability and reliabilty dc need.

I do not think its right to have children and not be there for them, to only see them for a limited time either each day or sometimes within a week.

Quite! What morals and standards will the dc be raised beleieving? Not the biological parents` that for sure.

Keey - so who's my daddy then? He wasn't at home that much during the week (although I forgot to time him) and when I grew up people even worked on Saturdays. Strangely enough I always thought of him as my Dad. Same goes for my Mum, although she was around for longer during the day. Apart from the 4 years when they both worked abroad and I only saw them once a month. Have I been fooling myself all my life?

"What morals and standards will the dc be raised beleieving? Not the biological parents` that for sure." I think I can answer this one for myself. When my parents were working abroad (4 years in two year stretches), my sister and I were left behind with my grandmother. We also had rgeular visits from a very extended family and a few of my parents' friends. We were in our teens by then, one might say an even more difficult age. I don't think my parents agonised over "parenting". The morals and standards were those they had and of the society we grew up in. When it comes down to it, I think morals and standards are quite similar across culttures, do as you want to have done etc. I can't remember a particular moral dilemma I had trouble with and needed advice for at the time. I guess I'd have asked my sister or my grandma or someone else. (I think I was more interested in boys, though, then anything more profound.)

I think its about the choice. I you are privillaged enough to have the choice of to work or not to. If you choose to work but dont necessarily need to, how can you justify the fact that the children are being brought up by a third party? Parents missing from school functions or missing out on the first words or steps. Not being there for the dc when it matters the most.

Grandparents and or other family memebers do not leave or find work elsewhere like a nanny or aupair. Grandparents and or other family members usually have the same values and morals as that of the parents. Aupairs and nannies do not have the same backgrounds. They do leave, they do go off elsewhere to find work or to travel etc. Also, i find that the foreign aupairs do not have much road sense or the same beliefs of dangers that our society has.

Okay there has to be a compromise here...
I think a mother has every right to pursue her career, just as a father does. But I cannot possibly imagine what kind of career would allow a parent only one hour a day to spend with thier child, on a continous bases.
So I guess the question is

What is an acceptable compromise? How much time is enough?

At any rate, I also think it would be sad if we judged the mother, since we are not in her shoes. Maybe being around a newbie turns her into a insecure wreck. It has been known to happen.

You guys still ripping people to shreds?

Three cheers for Haychee, anniemac, kerry.

Read back through the thread and you'll see a few examples of women working when they'd have had the choice not to.

I wasn't at home for my DS's first steps. I'd gone to Leeds with DH for the weekend. So my mum saw DS's first steps. I was in a LLL meeting when DD took her first steps. DS was there with me. I wanted to stop the meeting and tell everyone of the momentous occasion. We were all mums there but it didn't feel right somehow. So I enjoyed it quietly with DS. DH missed them both and somehow I think just now isn't giving it a further thought. He's probably thinking where he's going out for lunch, it being a Friday.

"Grandparents and or other family members usually have the same values and morals as that of the parents." They do but that's what I'm saying that it's that general bit that matters mostly rather than the particular "parenting" point we think is paramount just because it's discussed on a 500+ thread on a message board. I think a young au-pair is just as likely to know right from wrong as I do or my parents do. She may not be able to apply exactly my latest ideas (based on research, of course) of how to deal with a particular situation but then, neither would my parents. I could decide then that no-one is up to scratch or I could look at the bigger picture and realise this is not the be-all of what bringing up children is about.

Can we have a thread where WOHMs are only allowed to post something positive they can see about being a SAHM, and SAHMs are only allowed to post something positive they can see about being a WOHM?

Sounds like a classroom activity, but I think that we're getting to that point.

[recognising that there isn't actually a clear divide between a WOHM and a SAHM, and that in fact there's a continuum, as with most things in life]

From Leati:
But I cannot possibly imagine what kind of career would allow a parent only one hour a day to spend with thier child, on a continous bases.

Leati, I think a lot of careers have these limits, especially in the UK. But, I also think this is largely a result of the rediculously high cost of living here, which makes Southern California look like a cheap place to live.

I am in this position. I am currently working 50-55 hours per week because I really could do with a new car which I really can't afford. In order to work these hours, I get up at 5:00 or 5:30, get ready, get the kids up at 6:00, see them for 30 minutes, nanny takes over and I'm out the door by 7:00am. I return from work at 7:00pm and put the kids to bed at 7:30. So that's one hour per day IF I don't go out after work and IF I get up on time every morning. I'm not complaining. This is just life, and I'm sure there are plenty more like me.

Good idea, legalalien, that should shut up a few!

eleusis,

It really makes me sad to hear that you have to work so hard. I am sure it is difficult. I think the one thing that many posters on here don't get is ....that the mum probably feels sad about being away from baby so much. I am sure she feels torn between a career that is important to her and spending more time with her babe.

Still think it wront to judge mom because you don't know what is going on behind the scenes.

wrong

Ive managed to strick a balance with my work life and home life. My dh is clearly the breadwinner - he earns far more than me. I then have a choice to stay home fulltime and be skint or to work and have more spending money for the childrens outings, cars, clothes etc etc. I choose work, but i dont need any childcare, if i do its only for an odd couple of hours max. I am a driving instructor and am lucky because i can choose my hours around my family commitments. Some are not so lucky, and have to work fulltime.

Its those that do not have to work but choose to be out of the house for very long hours that i think are failing their children.

Leati,
Thanks, but there is a light at the end of my tunnel. DD goes to school full time in Jan, and two years later DS will do the same. And when that happens my childcare costs will plummet and I won't have to be a slave to my company. And I can have a new car.

Imprint... well I believe at least 50% of our imprint is genetic on our children for a start so that's a pretty big imprint even if we abandon them at birth and never see them again. Then I also believe we get very close to those we spend a lot of time with. Everyone does at all stages of their lives. Children of working parents do spend a lot of time with their parents. Children who were shipped from India to the UK to board at age 7 and didn't see their parents until they were 18, many cases were like that, did not bond with the parents and were closer to their grandparents or host families in the UK.

Families where the mother or father isn't there so much aren't closer to that child. My daughter's friend's family moved to London for the good education - mother and boy and girl child nad the father who is Korean worked in Nigeria. They saw him a few times a year. They will not be as close to him as if he were there. These things are obvious. But I don't thin you can go from those extremes to say the average working British family where mother and father work full time which is very very common are in the same category. Mother comes home breast feeds baby, is probably up every 2 or 3 hours in the night with wretched baby doing far too much bonding, more than you wants at times until it sleeps.

Would be very intersting compare the children of housewives at the age of my older ones, 18, 20 and 22 and the children of mothers with very busy careers at that stage and look at how different the relationships are. I suspect the housewives find it harder when the children leave for university than I did as they have made the children their all, their life. It's suffocating and bad for children. The working mothers (most mothers) have better relationships.

Obviously I completely disagree with that.

"Its those that do not have to work but choose to be out of the house for very long hours that i think are failing their children."

Let;s change that to "It's those who choose to work when they don't have to, whether they are male or female, who best benefit their children"

What exactly is the difference between the parents who have to work for financial reasons and therefore dont see their DC's as much?
And those who don't work, but still have nanny's etc and therefore don't see DC's as much?

Surely the outcome is the same. The bottom line is that the DC's are not with the parents.
So why judge the 2 sets of parents differently? I really do not understand it!

Xenia, I would think you are right wiht what you are saying in that 3. paragraph,i.e. it being more difficult to let go for a Housewife/motherwhen Kids fly the nest, if those were her life...that is kinda obvious...possibly as obvious a statement as that those that retire after a liftime in a Job they loved would find the change difficult.

I have had occasions where I wondered why a couple had that child if all they did was really palm it off.
I know of one couple that didn't seem to enjoy their child at all, that didn't seem to enjoy spending any time wiht teh child and where it truely looked like this child was just a status symbol,as it wold aid the father in his promotion, as it doesn't look all that bad to be a family man The people were nice enough , but it was still very unfair on the child...
However, I do believe these are rare cases. I don't think it's wrong, for a mom, to want to work and further her career, etc...however, if you have children BOTH PARENTS should try to find the right family/workinglife balance....I am not naive to think that ths is always possible (dh is in the Army, it's what he does, and therefore he will spend time away, etc...)!
Not sure if that made sense.

Personal choice. Shocked at the gall of people who criticise others choice. But guess this is the forum they are "brave" enough to do it ie anonymously.

In our family we look at if differently - the staying at home is the desirable thing to do rather than slaving in an office. My DH would love to stay at home but someone has earn the cash. I am the lucky one able to spend time with DD. We chose that he would be the wage earner as hes slightly brainier than me and enjoyed his job more than I enjoyed mine.

Please stop justifying your decisions - no one has a right to judge.

dal, don't think that those against nanny's as described int eh op, would be in favour for fulltime nannies when the mother is a sahm....lol...
tbh, I personally find that a bit worse....well, I can understand having help....but fulltime nanny so that maybe you can go and do as you please as you did before Kids....hm...that just says to me STATUSSYMBOL KID...I mena, surely we are all aware that having a Kid is to some extent meant to infringe on our normal life, and indeed is a simple fact of having Kids!
I know that is so judgemental....bad me...