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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel judged?

57 replies

PriceEmUp · 12/11/2020 09:55

About going back to work. DD is nearly a year old and I’ve gone back to work full time.

I’ve had so many “you’re brave” “why full time?” “I can’t believe you leave her all week!” “Do you not miss her every day?”

Of course I miss her, but I also don’t want to live in extreme poverty if we don’t have to. I’m starting to feel really down like people are seeing me as I don’t care about DD and am happy to just leave her every day.

I don’t really know what my question is.. maybe - AIBU to tell people who say the above to bugger off?

OP posts:
Winterwoollies · 12/11/2020 10:52

I’ve been judged for working and studying from my baby being almost four months. I truly don’t care what people think, if anything I sort of enjoy that I get people’s backs up. Especially as the most judgemental people were my FIL and SIL.

thepeopleversuswork · 12/11/2020 11:04

Jroseforever is right... it sounds like these people are unusually old-fashioned and narrow-minded tbh. You need more grown-up and more progressive friends.

More mothers than not these days (pre-COVID anyway) work, and a year is a perfectly respectable amount of mat leave to take. You must be around people with quite old-fashioned views about women and child-rearing. Do you live somewhere quite rural?

You are totally within your rights to pull them up on this.

You don't have to explain yourself but if people carry on I'd ask them if they'd ask this question of a man and also say you'd quite like not to be wholly dependent on someone else's income. Job done.

PeggyPorschen · 12/11/2020 11:14

You can't win, so ignore. It's no-one's business anyway.

Just look at how abused you are on MN when you employ a nanny, dare having a job working longer hours than the mythical 9-5 (on a recent thread you cannot possibly work long hours unless you specifically try to avoid family time and your own children Hmm )
and how insulted and ridiculed SAHM are (being lazy and useless apparently, and worst!)

Basically, there will ALWAYS be someone jealous of whatever option you chose. They can fuck off as far as I am concerned.

Rosebel · 12/11/2020 11:25

Yeah go with your plan and tell them to bugger off. Actually I'd be less polite than that.
Never understand why it's got anything to do with other people if mum (or dad) decide to go back to work or not. Unfortunately it does seem to be something everyone thinks they can comment on.

WhenPushComesToShove · 12/11/2020 11:42

Make your choice, feel firm in your choice and don't feel undermined for your choice. Just smile and say 'it's my choice'.

nevernotstruggling · 12/11/2020 11:43

Op I had all this crap too when I went back when dd2 was 8 months. There wasn't a choice.

Pp 'do you ask men this question?' Is perfect - use that xx

Starfish1021 · 12/11/2020 11:52

You can’t win, and you are probably feeling more sensitive if this hadn’t been your initial plan. People are insensitive arseholes, and family can be the worst. Deep breath, stare hard and time them to be quiet. But it is so hard. I really struggled with this when I went back to work with my second and had to travel for work. People would ask such shit questions like ‘who is looking after the baby’ or gosh I could never do that. I was in hindsight suffering from PND and was driving myself nuts. When people made these comments I would go over them time and time again. I was just super vulnerable. Now I would laugh and tell them to fuck off. But it was hard then. Good luck

thepeopleversuswork · 12/11/2020 11:58

Starfish1021

"People would ask such shit questions like ‘who is looking after the baby’ or gosh I could never do that."

I've had questions like this in the past. It never ceases to amaze me how pig ignorant people can be.

I think you're well within your rights to be as rude as you feel OP, with idiots like this.

Silentplikebath · 12/11/2020 12:03

I found that saying ‘can we come and live with you, if we can’t pay the mortgage?’ soon shut my family up! Smile

PeggyPorschen · 12/11/2020 12:06

"People would ask such shit questions like ‘who is looking after the baby’ or gosh I could never do that."

depends on the context

it can be said in a judgemental tone
or be just a question, without any negative judgement implied. It's more obvious when it comes from a mother with a baby of the same age trying to figure out her own situation.

Starfish1021 · 12/11/2020 15:15

Really PeggyPorschen? that one was asked by my daughters key worker at nursery. My husband dropped and picked our children as regularly as I did. He also had to travel internationally. The first trip he took was when our daughter was 6 weeks (leaving me with a 2.5 year old as well). No one, and I mean no one asked him who would be taking care of the children

Starfish1021 · 12/11/2020 15:17

thepeopleversuswork The judgement at a time I was very low very so hard. But I had to travel or lose my job. It wasn’t much of a choice.

Jroseforever · 12/11/2020 15:31

@Starfish1021

Really PeggyPorschen? that one was asked by my daughters key worker at nursery. My husband dropped and picked our children as regularly as I did. He also had to travel internationally. The first trip he took was when our daughter was 6 weeks (leaving me with a 2.5 year old as well). No one, and I mean no one asked him who would be taking care of the children
Presumably you were on maternity leave?
PeggyPorschen · 12/11/2020 15:44

No one, and I mean no one asked him who would be taking care of the children

maybe because it's not such a massive leap to assume that the woman who actually gave birth would still be recovering and would be the one looking after the baby only 6 weeks old...

It's rare that a mother doesn't want to stay with her own kids for the first few weeks

it's not rare that a father would love to as well, but someone has to work, and fathers don't really need any time off to recover from labour and child birth.

Parental leave should be shared, but the part needed for recovery will never need to be.

Jroseforever · 12/11/2020 15:47

@PeggyPorschen

No one, and I mean no one asked him who would be taking care of the children

maybe because it's not such a massive leap to assume that the woman who actually gave birth would still be recovering and would be the one looking after the baby only 6 weeks old...

It's rare that a mother doesn't want to stay with her own kids for the first few weeks

it's not rare that a father would love to as well, but someone has to work, and fathers don't really need any time off to recover from labour and child birth.

Parental leave should be shared, but the part needed for recovery will never need to be.

This

My husband also travelled at week 5. Didn’t occur to me to be offended or pissed off that no one enquired who would be looking after the baby.

I would have been rather confused had they had done so, given... I’d been looking after the baby since my husband had very reluctantly and sadly returned to work after paternity leave

user1493413286 · 12/11/2020 15:47

When people said to me I started saying “no one said that to my DH when he went back after 2 weeks” or I’d cut them off by saying that it’s that or not be able to afford a home which shut people up.

the80sweregreat · 12/11/2020 15:53

Does dd's dad have all these questions?
I feel for you as I had this in 1993 when I went back full time! Nothing changes.
Don't do what I did and take it too much to heart. Because I did and it died by help matters. Nod and smile and do what's right for you and your family.
That's all that matters.

Starfish1021 · 12/11/2020 18:03

PeggyPorschen Deep breath. My last response. My husband and I both travelled internationally for work. For the entire time our children attended the nursery (until we moved counties and our son was already at soon). I went back to work after 13 months. Whenever I went on a trip, there were pointed questions, including who’s going to look after the baby. Another gem from that time was ‘it isn’t the same when dad goes away’. Yes, it absolutely never occurred to people to ask him about childcare plans because the presumption was I would do the childcare even after I returned to work. I’m also not sure why the comment i couldn’t do that wasn’t also aimed at making me feel as shit as possible. We lived in what I consider a good pretty conservative place and me travelling may have been out of the norm. However, it was pointed and it did make me feel like shit.

Glitteryone · 12/11/2020 18:09

YANBU

My eldest is now 12 and I’ve been questioned about this since she was a baby. However as I’m a single parent, i fail to see how we would survive if I didn’t work full time!

firesong · 12/11/2020 18:30

It's true, judgement whatever you do! Not so for the fathers of the same children!

ChristmasReindeer · 12/11/2020 18:38

@EssentialHummus

A woman’s place is in the wrong.
Exactly this.

Choose not to have kids? Selfish, bitter, not a real woman, waste of life.

Have one kid? Selfish leaving your child lonely, bad mother, bad wife, bad woman.

Two kids? Probably the wrong 'combination' or the wrong gap.

More than 2? You're basically single handedly responsible for the downfall of the planet.

Breastfeed? Bottlefeed? SAHM? WOHM? Part time? Nanny? Childminder? Family provides childcare? Tech? No tech? Emphasis on arts? Emphasis on maths? The name you chose? ALL WRONG.

Just do what you want because someone somewhere will find something wrong with any choice you choose anyway.

MrsGatsby99 · 12/11/2020 18:42

'It works for us' is a good comeback for a lot of situations. Shrug and smile.
Or, 'I like my job and love my DC and want to be able to help to provide for them'.
Or, if they keep on going on about it, 'oh, well, please feel free to pay our bills/mortgage/rent etc...and I will stay at home and look after DC myself!'

After that, distance yourself...don't say anything.

Remember, people can only make you feel inferior if you allow them to.

mbosnz · 12/11/2020 19:08

I think I'd go down the route of saying, 'not interested in discussing this with you', and refusing to listen to another word of their blethering. It's none of their fricking business, and they can keep their judgmental busybodying to themselves.

Randompersonisme · 12/11/2020 20:31

I went back full time after my first. I had this all the time! We made the decision for the long term benefits as a family. Just started may leave with my second and I don't plan to go back full time with this one.

My colleagues would occasionally say something without realising when I could hear (unintentionally). They would backtrack but had already said it. I would generally have a sarcastic response and that would end the conversation.

It is exhausting but it meant I valued my leave and weekends so much. We did so many fun things with my first. The housework/maintenance did suffer at times though.as we were too shattered to do anything one first was in bed.

Laiste · 12/11/2020 20:35

Funnily enough the more annoying comments have come from family.

Ah family. The people who never filter their views.

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