To think the parents of children who are in childcare would like to see them more often?

[tori32]

I CM and have several sets of parents who finish work early on many occasions who never collect their child early. I know I am paid and it does not bother me in the slightest to look after them for their agreed hours, I just feel sorry for the child because they are missing out on this extra time with parents who work full time.

I was a working mum for 3 months (as in not CM) but always collected dd early when I finished early because I wanted to spend time with her. AIBU?

"Yes, I was thinking of starting a new thread asking: Am I being unreasonable to think childminders should give parents some money back if they collect their kids early?"

Haha can just imagine the response from the cm's. It would either be no or no

Viggoswife.

will you please accept my apologies for having said what I did yesterday.

I am not a SAHM nor a WOHM (just for the record) but I did not mean what I said in the way it came across.

Having re-read this thread this morning (whilst the kids find clothes to wear to go to an art thingy) I notice my comment really got to you. Sorry.

I think I will leave this thread now.

Good luck to all of you WOHM & let's hope your guilt doesn't weigh heavy on you on Monday morning

And all you SAHM, please don't get too smug, you never know when the shoe will be on the other foot & you will need to work out of the home.

Bye ladies, it's been an eye opener.

Viggoswife, I really do mean I am sorry for what I said to you.

viggoswife, I think you have kept your dignity and written some very measured responses within this thread, as you say your happiness seems to bring out unconcealed bitterness in others maybe not so happy

enjoy your kids, they are small for such a short time

WOsilence, my last post wasn't directed at you!! just written in general

Hatrick... oh god..

I give up, really I do.

I'm off.

eff this.

I dont agree chelsygirl, about someone's happiness bringing out 'unconcealed bitterness'!!! Weird idea.
I dont't think viggo meant to offend or come across as smug - her later posts make that plain. But I think the fact is that comments like 'I enjoy spending time with my children' just grate on everyone because it kind of suggests that some of us don't! I don't think I know a single mum who doesnt enjoy spending time with her kids. I also think that while children (hopefully) always enjoy being with their parents too, that doesnt mean they can't enjoy other things too. It's a big exciting world out there. A child who is secure in the knowledge that s/he is totally loved by her/his parents will be excited and stimulated by relationships outside the family too.
I think the mistake some people are making is to try to measure love and time - as if spending 10 hours a day with your child automatically makes it better for the child than 6 hours. Bollocks. Children dont think like that, though some adults do. With the exception of one or two very clingy and unconfident children, all the children I know have been very happy to go to CM/nursery/playgroup etc. My own dcs loved their nursery and still reminisce about it (they're teenagers!)
Also, some parents get very hung up on the pre school thing, feeling they cant possible leave their kids until they are school age. There's nothing 'magic' about the school age of 4 which means your child totally needs to be with its parents 24/7 until then. The school starting age is an arbitrary one (in other countries children start earlier or later). Look at it this way - once a child is born it starts an independent existence from its mother. In the early weeks, a lot of physical contact is desirable and necessary, but the whole of childhood is a journey of children growing into independent beings. People may have different approaches to it. At one extreme you have someone like Xenia who was back at work 2 weeks after giving birth, and at the other extreme you have parents who stay at home until their kids are at uni, maybe even home educating because they feel they need that level of control over their child's upbringing. And of course there's everything inbetween those two extremes. There is no right and wrong. It's pointless to quote stats or so-called child experts because there is no definitive evidence that any particular method of parenting is 'better'.

Twice this week, my ds has requested I don't pick him up from nursery before the end of the day which is 6 o'clock. He is 3 years old and he really loves going to nursery and hates being the one who is picked up first and misses story-time and free play. I can't leave him as I pick him up on my way back from work and I do miss him so I want some time at home with him. However, it did make me think that I must be very lucky with my chosen childcare arrangement . I don't think he would be impressed at all if I picked him up early and disrupted his routine. Makes me think that perhaps Tori32's children who are getting tearful aren't so happy in Tori32's care?

Of course it is possible that these parents really are trying to avoid spending much time with their child and that Tori is right in her judgement. There are parents who show very little interest in their children, both wohms and sahms. I would not go posting about them on a public forum though. You might have removed your picture, but if you are not now making the details up to redeem yourself on this thread, then it must be just a matter of time before they or a friend/family of theirs read this on MN ?

Very good post Alfiebabe. I found both my older children needed me more not less once they started school. In nursery they were used to much more one-to-one attention and getting cuddles than what they got at school and it was a big shock to them. I am not sure being in childcare prepares you from school. Perhaps being used to being away from your parents a bit, but the children in childcare are still attached to their carers in a way they will not get at school.

I'm finding the teenage years are another phase when we're needed more, not less. I'm actually leaving work earlier and bringing stuff home (I'm a teacher so luckily can do this to a certain extent) than I used to when my kids were younger!! I found the upper end of primary probably the easiest in terms of leaving them - they went to the after school club with their friends and I could easily stay at work til 5.30/6 knowing they'd whinge about having to leave their friends any earlier! Now we're into the teenage angst/ worries about options/ coursework etc it just feels like they need me around a bit more. I guess it's all phases and we need to use our judgement in responding to them, not have pre-determined ideas about what we 'ought' to do.

Message withdrawn

thank you, Alfiesbabe. You said it all for me.

Fairymum, similar experience here - my dd frequently asks to go to the afterschool club where she can play with the older girls and her friends who attend. Even though I invested in an aupair to collect her at 3 pm.

Also, tori is quoting an extreme example ie parents who don't collect early but more importantly, apparently do not do any child-related activities with their dcs over the weekend (although I question this as well in that just kicking around at home, as opposed to going out got softplay or whatever, with the family is child-related). If parents don't want to do anything at all with their children, I won't be quoting them as acme of good parenting. This applies to both SAHPs as well as WOHPs.

How is musing and inviting discussion over an extreme example supposed to engender understanding? Tori would do better to just thrash it out with the parents, than discuss them behind their backs on a public message board.

agree blueshoes. There;s a real danger in assuming that child related stuff has to cost money and be highly visible eh soft play/cinema/meal out.
Family time can be sitting at home playing a board game, cooking the dinner together, lounging in bed on a sunday morning chatting. How does the OP know what goes on behind closed doors??

Blueshoes, do you not think Tori decorated the truth a bit? What started of with parents who didn't rush to pick up their child the second they left work have now become parents who never spend time with their child.

Soft play is just sitting drinking coffee watching your children play in stinky places isn't it? I would rather die.

Oh god fairymum - the smell. You've brought it all back to me! Vile places!

I want to give 2 examples where I assumed my dcs wanted something, and when they actually were happy with the opposite:

The first is what I mentioned. I thought that once my dd started school, she would get more tired at 3. So rather than use the afterschool club (I had to initially), I hired an aupair to collect her at 3. Turns out, dd prefers the afterschool club anyway.

The second is when I went back to work after maternity leave and had to start using a ft nursery. I thought one year of attachment parenting/co-sleeping/bf-ing my clingy dcs would not make settling an easy thing. I fell off my chair how quickly they enjoyed it and ate/slept/behaved better and were more independent at nursery than I could have ever hoped.

So I was wrong about my dcs on those occasions. I am happy to learn from those experiences. I wonder if some parents who imagine that their children would prefer to be with them at home are some how deluding themselves just a teeny bit.

Give children more credit. They can, even when very little, enjoy a multitude of experiences with blood and unrelated carers and take different things from each person. No parent should need to feel that they are whole world to their child for that child to thrive.

alfies/fairy, my children are at the age where I am still in the softplay every weekend ! Do I get my good parent badge?

Fairy, tori did start with a fairly tame scenario and only when pushed, went into more detail about the parents' apparent neglect. The thing about bumping into parent at a carpark who did not pick child up there and then is perfectly understandable though. It IS not an ideal situation because dc will get unsettled whereas I may not have the flexibility to drop everything at that moment.

You only get the good parent badge if you go in with them. Not if you read a paper/drink coffee whilst keeping half an eye on them. They might wonder why you rather drink coffee than trash around in ball-pits smelling of wee.

Excellent post blueshoes. It's all about seeing and respecting your child as a person in their own right. They have their own personalities/interests/aptitudes/desires. Too many people have a fixed idea of what their child will want/be and this can actually backfire really badly. Children can end up feeling hugely pressurised to 'be' a certain way, simply because their parents have invested their own wants and needs in the child, rather than letting them be who they are as an individual.

tori32 on Fri 22-Feb-08 22:35:24
PS hunker I think you will find its only the second AIBU thread I have started in 6mths.
lulumama 'if you have a career which you have been to university and got a degree for..........' How do you think people become a nurse, raffle tickets? I trained for 4 years to be one and all the hardships that went with it. I felt that giving up nursing for a few years and even having to do a return to nursing course was a worthwhile thing to do to be able to see my dd for more than 1hr per day and not miss her growing up.....very strange concept.

yes, it is done by raffle tickets, pink ones, obviously..
ok, you trained as a nurse, and gave it up to spend more time with your DD. Does not mean that parents who don;t give it up are wrong. The post was not just about your choices, or my choices, but about everyone!

you just cannot get your head around the fact that what worked for you , might not be possible or indeed wanted by anyone else

logistically, financially , a lot of parents do not have the choice to give up what they do...

as i stated earlier down the thread, i doubt steve biddulph who has been quoted several times would have paid my mortgage and bills so i could stay at home when DS was a baby

also, as i asked before, why do you childmind if you are so averse to parents not spending all their time with their children?

and finally, i am a SAHM, who works sporadically, so no axe to grind or guilt etc about leaving my DCs in childcare is motivating my viewpoint.

Good post lulu. I still don't think we're going to get an answer to your question about why people childmind if they disagree with parents leaving their children!!

tori you've pissed me off. i fear my daughter's nursery nurses may feel like you do about me too. i trust hat despite this they think WELL FECK ME SHE'S PAYING MY WAGES SO WHY SHOULD I CARE.

i work part time, doing evenings or late afternoons. dd is 21 months, been going to nursery 2 afternoons since she was 7 months. normally i start work at 3 or 5pm. dh finishes work at 4pm. when i do my 3pm starts dd goes to nursery those afternoons, at 1pm. so i have from 1pm until 3pm twice a week to myself. AND I LOVE IT. sometimes i swap shifts here and there so i get the whole afternoon off AND I STILL SEND DD TO NURSERY. when dh and i have a week off work together WE STILL SEND DD TO NURSERY. we go out to lunch, get haircuts, go shopping, whatever. SOMETIMES WE JUST FECKING WELL SLEEP. sometimes we even farm her off to grandparents for an afternoon JUST COS WE LIKE A BLUMMIN REST SOMETIMES.

i absolutely adore dd, love to go shopping with her, happily go out to eat with her and so on and so. but you know what...there's more to me than being a mum.. i like having me time, i like being able to just FEKIN WELL GET ON WITH SHIT AND HAVE A SIT DOWN WITHOUT A TODDLER nipping at my heels. OK?!

Is this still going on?
Farking hell.
Time to stfu people, go watch american idol or something if you want to judge.

shall we go the pub, alfie??