To ask what made you want to be a stay at home parent?

[Hjjo]

ds is 13 months. I feel like it’s constant and it won’t ever stop will it? He’s not even difficult. He’s a placid baby mostly. I’m just so bored. I feel terrible but I want to be at work and just away from the nappies and the routine and the non stop demands. I feel terrible for being able to be a sahm but not wanting to :(

We are all different. I stayed at home with my children until the youngest went to school and I don't regret it for a minute. I loved that time with them, I was the one who saw their first steps and heard their first words, I was always there for them when they needed me and I made some very good friends along the way. I wasn't ever bored. I found being at work much less satisfying.
But I would never say that that life is for everyone, no one should feel guilty for the choices they make. My choice was right for me, it isn't for everyone.

I can’t imagine not being a SAHM as I can’t imagine leaving my child for any reason other than an emergency 🤷‍♀️ He is 2 years old and in term time we go to toddler classes and stay and plays 4/5 days a week - sometimes it’s 1 class a day and others it’s 2 at 3 different classes and 2 stay and plays 😋 We’ve been going to classes since he was 3 weeks old - some are still the same as when he was a baby (just going up through the age groups) and some are new as they didn’t all continue from baby to toddler.
We also go swimming, to parks, soft play ect. when his classes aren’t on.

The way I see it is that this stage of them being little is so very short and I don’t want to waste it!! I want to spend as much time with my small as I possibly can before he goes to school and stops needing me as much 🥲
Plus, I’ve worked in nurseries and a lot of them are really bad and the staff clearly don’t want to be there ☹️

How many nurseries did you work in?

The nursery we used was excellent.
It had a very low staff turnover, in fact my DS left 5 years ago and most of the staff are still working there. So it's clearly not a terrible place to work!

I agree, surely from the child's point of you, no-one is better than their actual mum (or dad). Parents should stop being so selfish, if you can afford to SAHM (D), even if you find it boring, surely that is best for the child. After all, this is what worked for thousands of years before the onset of third party child care.

God don’t feel bad. I have always worked and that’s just that. It’s a part of me, and I’d have probably gone insane if I’d have stayed at home all the time. Definitely not for me and it’s not damaged my kids in any way!

And none of mine even remember being at nursery, they know they went there and have seen the photos but have no recollection. Same as if I’d have given up my career and had days out and endless group activities. Yes I’d have remembered it, and probably for all the wrong reasons if I had stayed at home when I didn’t want to. I also couldn’t afford to, I wouldn’t have much of a pension if I did. We can’t always rely on husbands earnings

How is it best for the child to have a SAHP if they are bored, miserable and unfulfilled?

It's only a good option for the child if a parent feels happy and fulfilled doing it.

@youngones1 How is it in the child's best interests if the parent is unhappy and unfulfilled as a SAHP?

Happy parents bring up happy children 😊

Parents should stop being so selfish,

I'm not even going to reply to this bullshit comment 🙄

if you can afford to SAHM (D), even if you find it boring, surely that is best for the child. After all, this is what worked for thousands of years before the onset of third party child care.

This is where you're wrong. The concept of a SAHP is a very, very recent phenomenon. Children from wealthy backgrounds were cared for by hired childcare and those from working class families were cared for by the extended family. Having a parent at home purely for childcare purposes is a relatively recent luxury.

So don’t use a nursery? It’s not rocket science. Other forms of childcare are available.

@Bamboozles What a shame you're not enjoying your precious baby. These are the best of times! You are the in a very privileged position. One year olds are so entertaining. What did you do at work that is so exhilarating? Most jobs are repetitive too

What an absolutely condescending post. I’m sorry that you have only experienced boring, repetitive work, but that’s on you.

As I said above, I worked full-time (and more) AND looked after ours full-time together with DH who also worked full-time, doable by working opposite shifts/days, thus saving the high daycare fees. I can assure you that 1yo’s are FAR more repetitive than my job at the time and honestly very dull in comparison. Whilst I loved my kids very much I found it mind crushingly dull and the only way I could do it was knowing that I was able to run out the door at some point and do something that wasn’t. If I hadn’t had that, I honestly could not have done it. It also made me appreciate why so many of my mothers/grandmothers generation literally lived on things like Valium and Bex due to the sheer relentless of child rearing with no escape.

I’m hoping that your ‘fix’ to this is not that only people with dull, repetitive jobs should have kids?

OP do not think about it a second longer. Get yourself back to work. you will be back to your normal self in no time.

@ToddlerMama27 thanks for your msg!

I can’t imagine not being a SAHM as I can’t imagine leaving my child for any reason other than an emergency 🤷‍♀️

Actually had to leave my child to earn money to feed my baby. Thanks

Yes, this is exactly how I felt with my four children.

But why do you have to be SAHM? Go to work. Much better from your own financial security perspective as well. Stop being a martyr to it, life’s too short.

This. And what happens if your marriage or relationship goes tits up, as most do. You are totally vulnerable.

I think that, unfortunately, when it comes to this issue a lot of people will dig their heels in and refuse to see the perspective from other sides. I am a SAHM and love it and it works well for our family. However, I acknowledge and recognise the argument that if a lot of women opt to give up work after having a child then it could lead to inequality in the workplace. I also acknowledge that a lot of women would be left vulnerable if they give up work. I am fortunate to have a substantial amount of my own savings and a proportion of the family income is set aside for me to top up those savings and my own pension, not every women would be in a fortunate position to do this. However, I feel those supporting the opposite side will refuse to even acknowledge that attending nursery full time from a young age could also have a detrimental impact. However, I say this as a person who previously worked for over 10 years in Early Years, so I am definitely not against nurseries. My point is that there are pros and cons to both, you have to weigh these up for yourself and decide upon what is best for your family.

I can’t imagine not being a SAHM as I can’t imagine leaving my child for any reason other than an emergency

Yeah some of us need to work to support our kids. I’d say that qualifies as an emergency.

I can’t imagine not being a SAHM as I can’t imagine leaving my child for any reason other than an emergency

how on earth do you put food on the table? The food dairy? Working to provide a roof etc is part of parenting. Surely, not being able to house and feed your child is an emergency 🤔

Working in nurseries and seeing how tired and sad some of the kids were. Some loved it but some never settled no matter what and the parents were fobbed off about how miserable the child was every day. These kids couldn’t talk so just had a miserable life in my opinion. Also the way some places were and the way kids were treated. I wasn’t going to allow my children to set foir in a setting before they could talk.

@Cinderellanellabella

However, I feel those supporting the opposite side will refuse to even acknowledge that attending nursery full time from a young age could also have a detrimental impact

You are right that people tend to be quite blinkered on one side or the other in these discussions. It’s an emotive discussion.

I think the reason why many working parents find this very upsetting is because lots of people trot out this argument that attending nursery from a young age “could” have a detrimental impact. With emphasis on the “could” or “may” because in fact there is no hard evidence for this claim despite large scale studies being done and with many decades of children in childcare. There’s just no evidence that (good) childcare does harm children.

Yet though it’s very clear that there’s no evidence of any such damage people routinely wheel this argument out as a way to make working mums feel they are failing their kids.

When you are a parent who has to work to support your child it really sucks to hear strangers with the luxury of choice using poor science as an excuse to make you feel bad about the way you parent your children when you are doing absolutely everything.

By the way I fully support the right of mums to work or not work according to what they want. But being lectured by people who have the choice to sit around criticising others about the “detrimental effect” is something I just am not going to swallow.

I'm not lecturing anyone, I'm just bringing my perspective and experience to the discussion, as I am entitled to do. I have acknowledge the pros and cons, you are proving my point by refusing to do the same. I have spent many years working with and supporting children, as well as studying early years and child development, so your argument that I talk with no knowledge of the subject is false. As I said, families need to weigh up the pros and cons and decide what is best. That is not lecturing. * *

However, I feel those supporting the opposite side will refuse to even acknowledge that attending nursery full time from a young age could also have a detrimental impact.

I'm very familiar with the research on this particular topic.
The key is the quality of childcare being used which is also linked to the socioeconomic status of the family as good quality childcare tends to be more expensive.

The research shows that for very young children in good quality childcare provision the impact is neutral. It's not particularly beneficial but it's also not having a detrimental impact on them or their development. For older children (2+) there are benefits in attending good quality children particularly in relation language development and social skills.

The biggest influence on a child's future outcomes is poverty. Living in poverty will have a much greater negative impact on a child.

@Cinderellanellabella

I have acknowledge the pros and cons, you are proving my point by refusing to do the same.

I'm not refusing to do the same. I'm acknowledging that people on both sides of this debate have very entrenched views with a great deal of emotion.

However the bare facts are that there is no evidence whatsoever that childcare damages children en masse (excluding bad childcare). I have read fairly extensively around this (precisely because I was worried about it).

And yet still women (invariably women who can afford not to have to work) pile onto these threads with weepy stories about the dreadfully sad looking children in nurseries and how they "could never" do this. It's all first hand anecdata, conjecture: someone went to a nursery and saw a child crying etc. It's completely unscientific.

Well: I have to work. I have to do this because my child would starve if I didn't. And this is why I've read about it to establish whether there is evidence that childcare damages children. And, excepting unusual outlier situations, it doesn't.

So I find it very hard to stomach women who are in enormously privileged positions making women like me feel bad and say things like "I could never do that to my kids" based on old wives tales and confirmation bias.

I've never argued that all women should work if they don't want to. I can understand wanting to stay at home and if you can afford it and want to then by all means stay at home. But do those of us who don't have that choice the decency of not posting lip-quavering, doom laden posts which are designed to make us feel panic about what happens to our children when we are out working to support them.

If this panicky stuff were in any way grounded in truth I would take it on the chin and think about how to mitigate it. The problem is it's not grounded in truth. At all. And it's highly offensive to those of us who need to work that these hoary old scare stories keep being wheeled out despite having been debunked.