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!

I'm not really sure, lucyellensmum, I had no clue what to do when dd was first born. A bit of extra help would have been lovely.

HD - i am sorry you are in this situation. It is not fair to be taken advantage of in this way, male or female.

I have a little saying if i feel that DP is criticising me - if you dont like the way i do things - do it yourself, its quite simple.

I think that it is really great that you stay home with your children, in spite of social pressure to do otherwise. You sound like a really great dad and it is interesting to see the other perspective.

This situation may well arise in our house sometime soon as i am thinking of returning to ft work and DP will be a SAHD, what actually worries me is that i just know that i am going to come home to a lovely tidy house, dinner on the table and a happy and fulfilled DD - grrrrrrrr

Hi HD. Sorry you are in this position. You had a thread on this before, didn't you?

I did feel a twinge of guilty recognition when I read your post because apart from shopping, cooking at weekends, washing up, ferrying the infants to their activities and reading with them, I do absolutely nothing around the house. No laundry, cleaning, gardening, changing the beds, painting, nothing at all. It's a deliberate policy.

There's only so much that can be done in the available time ...

HD, she really does nothing around the house at all or with dd? how is the paid work split in your house?

But quarttro, if I am right, you WOH? Of course the time you have at home for domestic chores is limited. I don't and can't expect my ft dh to fit much into his time at home. Mostly
we takes turns to do childcare on WEs/eves whilst the other catches up on their chores. I decide who does what based on available time and skills. And hire in help to fill in the gaps.

I am a project manager at work and it seems, at home too!

I do everything apart from work and dh works. I would love to get a pt job but dh does nights so it is totally impractical.

What ever works for you!

I didn't mean to turn this into a dw bashing thread.

Paid work is split equally, we both work full time. My doing everything else is a legacy from when I was a SAHD. I don't really mind, I'd like some more hours in the day for me to have some time to myself to relax is all.

HD - I kind of agree with you about the parenting courses. My BIL and his wife have adopted children and were very heavily vetted beforehand and watched for the first 18 months they had the children. They got a bit fed up with the intrusion but I always thought that it must be nice to have somebody say that actually you are good enough to be a parent, you have answered all the quesitons right and done a sort of apprenticeship. Not quite the same thing as a course but you have the confidence of knowing that you are probably going to be OK for the job. When you are handed your newborn in hospital and shown the door, short of doing something really terrible to your child you are left to it and nobody tells you if you are doing a good job or not. You might well be rubbish as a natural parent but it is too late as you already have the child.

Not sure how it work in practice though and I am not sure one course would be enough either!!!! Might well end up with some sort of nanny state that we would all resent but maybe parents do need more than an antenatal classes.

Sorry about the situation with your wife. I am sure that plenty of other SAHM are in the same position but it must be a bit more difficult to identify with them. Do you get any time to yourself when you can leave your wife in charge and go and do your own thing?

no niecie, it is not at all nice (nothing about it). However you are better prepared in advance.

and you don;t really get any feedback (at least I don;t) they just turn up every 6 weeks and make sure that DS is still alive and unharmed. So of course he falls over and bashes him head the day before every visit and I stress about it. Not nice.

Sorry HD - cross post. If you are both working FT then I can see why you get fed-up with dw cricitising but helping out as much as you would like. I still think you should leave her to it sometimes though.

ooh blimey your DW is annoying ME, HD.

I think you should withdraw your consent to her doing what she does. You need a more equal division of labour. And she needs to spend more time with your dd, for the sake of their relationship with each other. I say the same about dads who don't truly engage with their kids.

KC - I didn't realise that they still come every 6 weeks! How long will that last?

Sorry kewcumber - are you saying your dc are adopted? I didn't realise. My BIL and his wife were checked up on nearly every week. I suppose that might not feel very positive though - kind of like being spied on. Apparently their daughter had one day off school in the whole 18 mths before the adoption became official last December and they were on the phone within about 30 minutes of my SIL phoning the school to say she wouldn't be there that day, checking up on her.

What I thought was a positive thing though, is going into the whole parenting thing knowing that you are good enough and others thought you had what it takes not just to be an adequate parent but to be a good parent. I would have liked that kind of reassurance before I embarked on this adventure! And also little things like making sure their house was ready or they knew what to do in an emergency.

yes pot, we have a lovely visit on Friday in fact (plus three monthly review session with adoption manager) - very dull.

Yes, Neicie DS was adopted. HEnce more experience of attachmetn isseus than most.

Adoption training doesn't really focus on the practicality of day to day parenting though (like what to do in an emergency) more on attachement and bonding, dealing with behavioural problems, loss, difference etc. Of course some is just good parenting like fostering resilience in your child. All parents should encourage resilience but it is particularly important in children who were adopted because they have that little more to deal with. Most wouldn;t understand resilience though because they haven't been taught hwowever to most paretns it comes naturally and often invloves building self esteem which people are much more aware of.

I meant that they got phoned up not that they were visited that often.

"Sorry kewcumber - are you saying your dc are adopted"

no need to be sorry - no reason why you should be aware.

In families where both parents work full time often there isn't a chief and an indian but to make it work you do need some division of jobs. My husband dealt with putting on the washer and dishwasher and I got the school bags packed etc etc. I think it's very hard to share jobs. It's better if one person is responsible for each one.

And we're kind of assuming everyone is happy nuclear family here too when some of us work full time, have our children 100% of the time other than through choice, are divorced and if we didn't keep the children we'd all starve or rather go on benefits.

Xenia just triggered a prompt in my mind.... We just bought a dishwasher, I'm calling it Jehovah! Hoorahhhhh!!!

HD..I think the situtation you describe is only to common...only possibly more usual the "other" way round...it's unacceptable though....!

Another thought on the whole household chores thing and childcare thing within SAHM-ing...oddly if someone would pay a Nanny for childcare, they would not expect that Nanny to do all the chores (if they do any...suppose depends on the contract6, etc...)...so, obviously if someone is paid for doing childcare, it is completely acceptable that they should be spending their time with their charge wihtout having tedious distractions....however, the other common consensus seems to be though, that if a SAHM is bieng "enabled" to stay at home (of course one could argue that the SAHM enables the Parnter to further their career without distractions) then of course all chores should be automatically her job...hm....
I am really appreciative about my dh's approach to that....he accepts that some days one just has their hands full wiht teh Kids and that than doing the absolute basic is all one could be asked to do, and he is happy enough to give me a break and all.....I could really nto live with a 1950 husband...I would find that completely unacceptable...

lol at Jehovah the dishwasher...

in response to gogetter OP - imo up to other people how they manage their childcare commitments, career, staff allocation etc. Good mums come from all walks of life, good in all modalities - some SAHM some work,some study...many do combination of all these things. Frankly its a personal decision and it is empowering that women can chose what they want. i genuinely dont consider/think about anyone else child rearing choices - end of

Hear, hear ScottishMummy.

scottish mummy, I agree with all of your last post but I am different because I do think about other peoples choices because it fascinates me how differently we (parents) all think.
I am constantly thinking and talking to my dh about the choives friends have made as parents. is that judging? or is it questioning?
I question things in order to try and better myself alot of the time iyswim.

(this is partly why I get bogged off with people banging on about not judging, don't we all do it?)