Sorry Xenia...

[duchesse]

...for starting that thread when I didn't believe you existed (and I genuinely didn't). I've done some proper research now, and realise that you are real person with fantastic real achievement. I apologise unreservedly for my previous thread, which was genuinely not designed to get at you since I did not believe you existed. I am aghast and incredibly impressed at how much you have achieved, and look forward to sparring with you again some time...

i meant the cleverer comment, oh dear, see what happens when you have to go off and do parenting stuff.

Most women do both and prefer that. A few some on this thread stay at home but it's very rare.
My nanny? We haven't had one really since the twins went to full time school. Most of your time as aparent remember is with children at school all day and both mothers and fathers who work full time put loads of input into their children. We usually had reasonable nannies, yes and I am sure many of them are better than women who resent being home (ie a lot of housewives at times) and they've had training in it but in terms of dealing with the more complex issues children present to you particularly as they get older I am sure parents who have a higher IQ are better able to deal with those challenges rather than being the kind of parent usually at the bottom of the socio-economic scale who thump them and say that will larn you.

I think thumping can cross the class divide, Xenia...

I am on over 100k a year - and am in bits about having to go back to work. I would absolutely stay at home if I could. No question. And I think it might be a harder choice if you're on the higher salaries, as your workplace expects more of you. No way am I ever going to be able to stop work at 5 or 5.30. So I'm not going to be able to be back for bath or bedtime. Ever. DH is studying - and his days are as busy as mine have been at properly busy work times - upshot is that our 7 month old will have to go to nursery. We have a lot of debt from a non-excessive London lifestyle anad can't afford a nanny. Anyway, I am supporting the family, and therefore the going back or not is a no-brainer, yet I hate hate hate to leave my baby. Have just been doing the settling-in at the nursery, and I have cried every day. And I am a City worker, hard and business-like in my former life. Am I the worst of all worlds, maybe? I look at my mum, who looked after us all as a SAHM while my dad made his way in the world, and when I was 15 I pitied her (my dad v traditional and she never worked, even when we were older and she might have chosen to). Now, I just want to be her.

Aw Piscan. I think it will get easier over the next few months.

My mother's unhappiness was directly related to her ceasing to work after 13 years in a career she enjoyed like many women. Of course you'll be glad you went back. Wait until you have 3 children at university like I do and then see how it has benefited them that you work for all kinds of reasons.

If your husband is just studying why can't he mind the baby too?

Xenia, I can't explain how horribly busy he is, studying. He is doing law and has somehow got into a massive amount of extra-curricular things (mooting, etc), which get you good contacts apparently, but take so much time (evenings and weekends). I am a lawyer but did a non-law degree so don't understand it fully. I did English and worked in McDonalds/pubs pretty much all the time around my lectures. However, DH does remind me that my 2:1 might have been a first if I'd not worked and survived more frugally. I think if he doesn't get a first, he will always blame the baby/me, and not sure what to do about that.

Xenia if DP sees the kids in the week he is lucky.
6am start 8pm hometime.
His parenting to be fair is pretty shit
I have to be 110% top parent to compensate

My eldest is doing that. If he gets a first or a 2/1 it won't make too much difference to his job prospects but I can see he's busier than my daughter was (when she wasn't doing law) with 5 hours lectures a week! I would have thought most first degree law students who are married could also look after a baby for half the day at least and getting men used to doing at least 50% is the key way to ensure you enjoy your career and family over the next 20 years in my view. Just make sure he does all the night waking from now on not you, ever, first principle... if you work full time, earn the most and he's just a student.

Duchesse - thank you and I hope hope hope it does get easier. Nothing that I've done in career terms (or otherwise in my life)
equates, in any way, to having had my baby and being with him. All I want to do is spend all of my time with him. Is that so odd?? And the only thing that's making me feel better about going back to work is saying to myself that I owe it to him to maintain an income for the family. The nursery seems horrible to me at the moment, but I think that my feelings about not wanting to leave him are a massive part of that. And it was better today than yesterday, a little. I would have sworn blind to anyone, even when pregnant, that I'd be back at work fine style within 6 months. I feel now like I'm failing on all counts - I'm trying to be a great mum, but am aware that it might all be for nothing, as he might not even remember me soon given the hours I'll have to do. And as an employee, I'll be useless if my head is with my baby at the nursery. And as a wife, I'm just awful, bringing misery upon a very busy person.

Well, our baby sleeps through and has since v early on (doesn't sleep much in the day tho). There's an interesting issue here, about home dynamics (for want of the right term). For us, its v hard - me, clearly v miserable about the prospect of having to go back to work - Dh, would love to be able to make it better by earning more but has been cast into subservient role by studying and that's clearly doing his head in - would love my job and my hours too, and is not as good with the baby as me. Ahhh!!! Tell me it will be OK. He has just told me that good people split up because life gets in the way.....

Our best friends in Hong Kong exemplify the Xenia model. They earn 200k, have live-in maid who works 24/7 & MIL live with them, send their eldest child to a good private school with as many extra-curric activities as you can name. They put aside 2k a month in savings for the children. However, this comes at a 'cost'. They both work very long hours & are abroad 4/5 times a yr for 2-3 weeks at a time. For the birth of the 2nd child in HK she got the statutory 10 wks mat leave. It means the time they do spend with los is very intense. They are hwr good parents (dd a delight), endlessly patient and caring; if something has to give it's usually sleep! Career is all important, as is securing the financial & educational futures of their children. They are the norm in HK.

Before children, dh & I were comfortably off living in the SE. When we had children we chose to move to a quieter part of the country, buy a bigger house & I chose to step off the promotional ladder and then to work p/t; I know many women who have chosen to do the same. I think, in part, it's because we are the (last?) generation to feel the benefits of having SAHM ourselves & want to give our children something similar. We are financially straightened whilst I am p/t but the benefits to our children outweigh the monetary cost in our minds. It's a simpler life I've gladly embraced & it's an empowering one.

Surely this is trite by now. But for SAHM mums like my mum, it was all about thinking you were raising girls who would be as good if not better than men in career terms. And come the day, all I want to be is my mum. And she must be raging at all that she sacrificed, just to have me think I want her life..

Pls (read your name properly now!)- I was convinced I'd be back at work a month after the birth of my first. Eleven months later I got a different job working for a lady who was setting up her business from home, and nanny-shared with her (it was a little flukey, but sadly didn't last beyond the birth of my second...).

Just to clarify- the eleven months passed without me returning to work...

I didn't mean to rant about me having to go back to work. In short, what I meant was, I always said I'd go back v soon after the baby, and in reality, its harder than I ever thought it would be, and I am in total admiration for all who have done it.

Pls, it does get easier! When I went back to work after having ds1, I truly felt as though I was giving him up for adoption! But he was fine, he didn't miss me at all so long as he was looked after, he was happy And he loved being with the other children in the nursery. Also, after you get back to work you fall into a routine, you do have to be more organised but after a while it runs in a more clockwork-like fashion. I am now expecting no. 4 and am still working 4 days a week and will be going back to work after this baby too. I, too, was shocked at the level of guilt and desolation I felt going back to work. Nothing had prepared me for it. I do think that perhaps we are built that way for a reason, namely so babies don't get abandoned! But you are not abandoning him, you are making sure he is well looked after. It is very much a juggling act but we are now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Ds1 is getting older and more responsible and we are at the point where he can be left home alone for short periods of time. And in the end, when all 4 have grown up, my career will still be there and I will be in a better position to help them out financially.

Pl, it gets easier and your mother is probably right. Ity gives women a lot more choice and power if they work. It is better for their children. The biggest predictor of child outcomes is family income. 23 year years ago I went back to work when our first one was a baby (the one now at law school). I remember particularly when I was breastfeeding at first it was hard to go back (I expressed milk at work which is not ideal) but as we had 3 under 4 having a nanny living out at home was cheaper and better. I do hope it's all arranged that if ever then ursery lets you down your student husband is number two. I hope you ensure he has more time with the child at weekends than you do. |I hope you rid yourself of any sexism in the marriage.

My ex husabnd (we were married fro 19 years) is a teacher, he always earned less and we knew that before we married. We discussed it. He's pretty feminist himself so he mever had any silly macho problems over that and we always agreed if the nanny didn't work out then he would give up work. He was around to help the nanny in school holidays. He did more than I did with the children although as we had a nany not massively more.

I am sure your husband can be as good as you with the baby and should be allowed to get better at it. I really hink this is the key issue for most working mothers, not work, not discrimiantion at work - it's having equality at home. You see it on MN threads all the time - all those husbands who are supportive and don't help - a dreadful word - but do their fair share. As he is the student he should fetch and take to the nursery for example. That will also spare you the trauma of dropping off too.

Also when you're older as I am you get better perspective over it. As teenagers children do their own thing, need you less and can actually admire their mother and her career. It feeds into their attitudes too - my daughters will talk about being surprised at sexist relationships they see because they aren't used to that norm. Being a housewife with a low family income is just dire. Continuing to work is fine. you get used to it, children benefit from different adults in their lives. My children saw their mother, father and nanny regularly and bonded with them all. I think they were enhanced by that exposure beyond the family. Also let's not forget the money. 20 years on we live in a lovely house, go skiing, they've been to good private schools, they are benefiting themselves now.. obviously women who marry rich men also get those things but it's on the back of a man and not really very morally sound or such a good example to daughters. Most women nowadays and in the past have always worked.

All I can say is it would be a lot harder, worse for your family and your relationship if you stayed home. If your husband has a problem with women earning more he needs therapy, not a housewife.

Xenia, don't you think the fact that your ex was a teacher made a huge (if not all) the difference in terms of you being able to maintain a career? For those of us married to fellow City professionals, it is not the fact that one parent is working a 60 - 80 hour week with frequent travelling and night time entertaining, it's the fact that both are doing it. Unless you get 2 Nannies, it is virtually impossible to get childcare to cover that, leaving aside the issue of how much time children get to spend with their parents.

As far as £100k being a big or attainable salary depending on your point of view is concerned, I'm not sure I go along with that. Those who live in grinding poverty are all too aware that they are worse off than the majority, is it too much to expect recognition from those on more than £100k that they are in a tiny minority?

Xenia I am intrigued now to know who you are. I admit I have gooogled to no avail. I cannot read all your posts there are too many. You bear striking resemblances to Nicola Horlick but you cannot be her since you have not lost a child to leukaemia. Pu me out of my misery!!???

Yes, it was easier that he taught although the school day ended at 5.40pm every day by the way and because of what he did he was in school after school a few nights a week and he worked most weekends teaching all day Saturday and then playing the organ on Sundays. It certainly wasn't the normal state school teaching and he also did school summer camps to earn more money in school holidays.

I don't want to be identified and there's nothing to know. I'm not famous in that kind of way. It's not interesting who I am.

"My mother's unhappiness was directly related to her ceasing to work after 13 years in a career she enjoyed like many women." Fine, Xenia, but you cannot extrapolate from your mother's experience that all women would be happier working .

I think the reverse also happens pretty often - women working unhappily when they would rather be at home with their children.

Actually, what I really think is that there is no perfect solution - every choice is going to be a compromise somewhere along the line - and it is best to be upfront about what that compromise is, rather than pretending that one has oneself found the perfect solution to life.

I think what is key to anyone's happiness, man or woman, is self-determination. If you feel forced into doing or being anything life-changing against your will, you are going to be stressed and unhappy. For some, that might mean staying at home when they would rather be back at work, or going back to work when they would rather be at home. Likewise being stuck in a crappy job with few prospects, chances for decision making, or alternatives.

After lots of soul-searching and agonising about what would be best for my DD I decided to stay at work after I was head-hunted back when she was 10 months old. Every time I finished I got another call and ended up doing something 'for just 3 months'.

The money I earn has given me such huge freedoms and choices that I decided DD would be better off with the flexibility my income brings/brought. I've managed my employment for the last two years to enable me to work from home, do the school run/ballet/swimming/violin lessons and still earn my income (in the top 1% of my country).

DP doesn't contribute and I pay for the house/nanny/school fees/car etc etc. Although DP has asked me to marry him (admittedly 5 years after he reneged on our engagement) I have the confidence to say no, I don't want to be married. I don't really see how it would benefit me.

I feel awkward about all of this and never mention it online (have namechanged). Oddly enough in the circles I move in I don't feel particularly rich because everybody else is inherited wealth and I earn mine. I see jaws drop when I can't make coffee at 11am because I'm working. The feeling is (I suspect) that I should have married better

(thump)

That'll larn you, Ordinaria.

Oooh, sorry. That was a mistake. I meant to be highly emotionally intelligent and sympathise, but with this low social classification by the nice demographic people based on job title, I just can't.