To hate how mums always have to sacrifice their career...

[rumun88]

I have 2 kids .. one 18 month old and a 6 year old. I work in a cafe for an estate, one week day and one weekend day and there's no flexibility in that I have to do a weekend day.

I've been offered a job as a GP receptionist and I would love to take it. But it's only £10.42 an hour and with it being weekdays we would need to pay childcare. Basically with the summer hols coming up, childcare for both kids would cost more than my wage. DH will cover it, but part of me is thinking what's the point when it means I'm not bringing any money to the pot technically. I'd also have to have both kids in different childcare settings which are opposite side of town by 7.30am. In my current job he works from home the 1 week day and is home the weekend day so no childcare.

So I have the choice, take the new job and get my weekends back but don't exactly earn, keep my current job and work every single weekend.. or be a SAHM.

Please help. I could cry! I was a dental nurse before kids and again childcare was an issue. We have no family support.

What would you do?

Is that to me AllyCart?

Yes, if I'd had to return to work I would have felt persistently depressed and anxious and like something had been ripped out. That's how I would have felt. I would have been hugely resentful to have to be elsewhere, while another woman was spending time with my kids. I would have hated that. I would have been ok for DH to be with them but still - I'd rather be doing it myself (to be perfectly honest). That's my personality. My DH is hands on and great with the kids and actually around mostly anyway as he WFH and is flexible, but the 'babies stage' wasn't the same for him, as a man, emotionally or physically. Nor does it need to be. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

When we had our children I took the hit as dh earned way more than me and his wages paid our bills.

he continued working days and I worked 3 evenings a week in a bar/restaurant. Did it for 18 years before going back to college to retrain where I now earn more than dh an hour. Meant we had no childcare fees and one of us was always home with the children.

Only problem was when he had to work away but my mum helped out then

life is full of circles and it all works out in the end.

I would have been hugely resentful to have to be elsewhere, while another woman was spending time with my kids. I would have hated that.

So this is about how you feel. Not actually about your children at all.

Don't worry about it. Posters who express shock and concern at others choosing to use full-time childcare for their babies/toddlers generally do so because of insecurity. They aren't concerned for you or your child's wellbeing, they just want to make themselves feel better.

Both of my children went to nursery at the age of 6 months for 4 days a week so I could go back to work. They are now 17 and 20, happy, well-adjusted young adults with the world at their feet. Ignore the naysayers.

Exactly.

It's no different to a mother going back to work because of how she feels. Even at 3 months. 😉

No it's about what I believe was best for my kids. There is loads I can do with them at home and I wanted to do it. I spent years working with other peoples children- why wouldn't I want to be with my own? You talk as if there something weird about wanting to be with the children you brought into the world.

It's about what you want and how you feel too. You've said so yourself.

Exactly the same as me. We just want and feel different things and believe that different things are best for our children.

Yes @SouthLondonMum22. I don't think there is any benefit to anyone of a miserable woman at home with a baby. Just as there's no point in a miserable woman at work away from a baby (assuming she has a choice).

We all want what’s best for our kids. It’s also OK to balance that with what’s best for ourselves. For me, that has meant a full year of maternity with both, then working four days a week and staggering hours with DP so the kids do a medium-long day in nursery, four days a week, and have three days at home. For someone else, full-time is what’s best. For someone else, SAHPing is best. What’s not best for anyone is critiquing mothers who make a choice you wouldn’t. And also comparing dogs to babies is just weird.

Why is your kids spending time with another woman awful for them? Hating that is not about them, it's about you.

And, here we go again, working, or using childcare, doesn't mean you don't spend time with your kids.

Essentially this is reflection of your anxiety about leaving your kids. I'm sorry it was tough, I struggled leaving DD too initially. Luckily she thrived with the arrangements we had and seeing that calmed my anxiety.

But when did putting your children in childcare become 'default?' We didn't want to put our kids in childcare and there was no need to so we didn't. That's not anxiety really, childcare was just something that never even occurred to either of us, to be honest.

I totally accept childcare can provide a good balance for many families though. Of course it can. And it's essential for some families.

You do realise most people have to work to pay for things, right? Mortgage, food, bills, etc etc.

Yes of course.

Then why ask about why it's the norm for people to use childcare? Some people have a choice, of course but the fact is most people don't.

No. We've moved on since the 1950s and we don't want women being the chattels of men because they either don't work or work in low wage jobs.

Your posts are full of guilt tripping and judgement - especially the last sentence of this one. Maybe try reading your posts objectively to gauge why people are bristling at them.

Quite bizarre viewpoint - a bit faux innocence. Clearly the pp has a "rich" husband and didn't need to work (although I'd argue all women need to work, even if it's voluntary work).

Presumably they also home educate.

I was responding to pps asking "Why didn't you put your kids in childcare - it's not about them, it's about you" etc. But why would we pay for something that we didn't want or need? There are lots of reasons people use childcare and this is obvious. I just find the "I went back to work asap because I need to prove I am equal to my husband and I will never live off a man who would not respect me and why can't he do childcare, why should I do it ..." a bit OTT because I don't think you have to be feeling / doing the same as your DH at all times to be equal or to have respect. You can respect each other just as much because you bring different strengths into a family.

Plenty of people bristle at the idea of a SAHM, Scalottia. I understand why this would be and some if the concerns are valid.

No, you asked when did putting your kids in childcare become the default.

I was explaining why it's the default for a large proportion of people.

Not everyone is married to super high earners, no matter what you read on mumsnet. Mortgages these days more often than not need two salaries to finance.

My older child’s key staff at childcare babysat him while I was having our second. She had the first cuddle that wasn’t us when we came home with our 23h old baby and counted down the days till he was enrolled in her room at childcare. I’d have felt like I was robbing my baby if I hadn’t enrolled him in childcare with her!

The issue with that though is that these ''strengths'' are usually based on problematic and sexist gender stereotypes.

Also, no one said anything about proving themselves. I love my career, it never occurred to me to give it up. Why would I? Financial independence is important to me and I would never feel equal living off of my husband.

"chattels"? What are you on about?

I do understand that most families need two incomes Spacemannn, not to mention the COL crisis.

Circumstances are what they are, but, aside from the practicalities, there is also this attitude of "I would never live off my husband, over my dead body would I be funded by a man, being 'the provider' is not fair to him, we are equals..." Why do people think like this? What is not fair to him? He's your husband and you have a baby - what does he expect? You wouldn't be living off him any more than he's living off you. I find this attitude strange.

In my case living off a man would literally have been devastating. My ex husband had an alcohol-induced mental breakdown and unilaterally decided to stop work without telling me. If I had been financially dependent on him I would have been homeless within weeks. Not a day goes by when I don't say a silent prayer of thanks that I didn't stop working.

Obviously it's not always as black and white as this. But a version of this still happens pretty often and it is pretty important for many of us not to be reliant on a man long term. Of course there are scenarios when it makes sense for either partner to downgrade their career for months or years due to the demands of childcare and often that's the woman and that's fine. But over the lifetime of a marriage, if a dynamic develops whereby one party is wholly dependent on the other party for their finances it is a very precarious position to be in. Yes you can do certain things with marriage to mitigate this but marriage is no substitute for being independent financially.

It also does, whatever you may think, change the power dynamic. The bottom line is that the breadwinner can at any moment decide they want to withdraw financial support. That changes the power relationship in the partnership. It may suit the husband really nicely not to have to worry about childcare when he has three children under ten and is working really hard. When he has adult children and his wife is still financially dependent because she's been unable to restart her career its a very different ballgame.

I think what many of us are (rightly) concerned about is that society still makes it much much harder for women who do stop work for a bit to restart again later. It's still very much the default position that the woman will downgrade her career and many men don't seem to question this (such as the OP's husband). What could be a reasonable short-term solution can draw itself out into a lifelong vulnerability for a woman because she is unable to regain a foothold in the world of work. This may not be the be all and end all but it's pretty important.