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 :(

You're confusing biological difference with learned behaviour: for millennia men have not been expected to be the primary caregivers so skills supportive of this have neither been taught to them nor expected of them in general.

I can't say I agree, there maybe elements of learnt behaviour but there is biology too. I know I hit the stereotype, I had a job and not a career as a PP said and became a SAHM at 25 with a husband with a very high powered, high income job but as I said i loved it and looking after out 4 children and wouldn't have swapped it for the world - my only regret is that that they grow up too fast!!! It suited me just fine but completely get its not for all women. However as I've said in a previous post I do think it important that one parent (yes the father if that suits) is the carer particularly in the early stages, you can miss so much by not being around your children when they are young and as I've said before the bond is very string, yes that may have been the case if I'd worked but that was never an option.

But they don't live at nursery which is how you are acting. As working parents, we both spend quality time with our DS because working hours aren't the only hours in the day, not to mention weekends and annual leave.

It's also equal which is important to both of us. Neither of us would want to leave the other one to do the majority of parenting, we believe it is best for our son for him to be parented equally by both of us when he isn't at nursery. This means he also has a strong bond with both of us, not just one of us.

Does your DH feel he missed out/wasn’t around/has a lesser bond?
Was there a reason you had a job and not a career and therefore were the default to be a SAMP?

I can't say I agree, there maybe elements of learnt behaviour but there is biology too.

In relation to this particular topic it is learnt behaviour, stereotypes and societal expectations not biology.

I'm an academic and this particular topic is on of my specialisms.

In fact, biology makes the opposite case you are making. There is evidence that if men are actively involved in parenting from day one then their level of oxytocin increases too, potentially to levels that are similar to those experienced by new mothers.
So the bond can be equally as strong with both parents providing they both are active patents from the start.

@Char65

I can't say I agree, there maybe elements of learnt behaviour but there is biology too. I know I hit the stereotype, I had a job and not a career as a PP said and became a SAHM at 25 with a husband with a very high powered, high income job but as I said i loved it and looking after out 4 children and wouldn't have swapped it for the world - my only regret is that that they grow up too fast!!!

That's great and fine but surely you can understand that your one personal experience does not establish an infallible biological rule?

For every person who has stayed at home and loved it there is a person who stayed at home and didn't love it (as on this thread). Your enjoyment or otherwise of your role as a SAHM is not hard-wired, it's a complex combination of circumstances which brings to bear factors including your relationship with your spouse, your personality, your level of education, your financial circumstances, your personality, etc etc. It's multifactorial.

Meanwhile, as @ElaineMBenes points out, if its evidence you are looking for, there is some that men are not at a biological disadvantage in looking after children.

That doesn't mean everyone should feel that they have to do a perfectly progressive 50/50 swap approach. Some men will always prefer working in an office and some women will prefer to be at home (and vice versa). And that's all good and well. But please stop saying its biology, it's not. It's a combination of learned behaviour and disposition.

I think there are some women who dominate these threads because, quite honestly, they don't really have a maternal bone in their body and, even if they did, they would suppress it at all costs because it's more important to them to prove they are exactly the same as their husbands; nothing can possibly be biological - it's 100% sociological and look how very enlightened we are with our kids in nurseries all day etc.

There is nothing wrong with admitting you're not cut out to be with your kids full time. Nothing wrong with that at all. But it all starts to sound a bit desperate when you try to deny the lived experience of other women who do feel a strong maternal instinct to be around for their DC (as opposed to someone else). Just because YOU didn't feel differently to your DH, so what? That's just you. Why do you need everyone to feel like you? Don't tell other women how they should feel. You have no idea (clearly). Just live your life and let others do what feels right and natural to them.

I wouldn’t have had a family with a partner who I didn’t think would be equally involved and supportive of my ongoing career. With twins it was also essential! We shared night feeds - saw the worst of each other when sleep deprived. Thankfully we sleep trained at five months in time for me going back to work.
DT’s education was very important to us - I want them both to have choices. DS or DD may in years to come want to be a SAHP (and I will be 100% supportive of their decisions) but I don’t want DD in particular to be the default SAMP. Thankfully both have started post grad careers with many opportunities so will be financially independent.

Yet the ones who do feel that way, tend to believe that at least one parent should be a SAHP (usually the mother) which is exactly expecting other people to feel like them and of course, if they don't they get digs thrown at them such as they don't have a maternal bone in their body or they simply couldn't cope with their children all day or it makes them selfish or other such nonsense which are judgements that are never aimed towards men for daring to want to have their careers.

Which leads back to how incredibly sexist it is but no, it's just ''biology''. No double standards at all.

And there are some women who thought k it's acceptable to write insulting posts like this one.
Shame that.

Families should make decisions that suit them as individual family units. Some women will want to stay at home and be the primary caregiver and others will want to continue working. Others will have little choice due to their individual circumstances.

All options are valid and neither makes you a better or worse parent.

I couldn't care less what other people do. However, if women feel they have a strong biological urge towards something, who is anyone on here to tell them otherwise. You might not feel like that. That's fine. Many women are very different to you and, obviously, they will have husbands who are very different to your husbands. This should be patently obvious.

Whu do you need to insist that biological factors don't exist? Does this make you feel better? Why? Can you speak for billions of women across the planet? Do you need them all to feel the same as you?

Let individuals be the judge of how they feel and what they feel compelled to do in life. Stop trying to make your priorities a fact of life for everyone. You can't tell people how they feel. They know!

If that's how they feel, that's how they feel. The issue is that they often apply it to others too, it's happened on this thread. It's interesting that you are conveniently choosing to ignore that though. Where's your lecture for those pp's?

If someone feels like that and they can stay at home, they should do it if it makes them feel happy but lets not pretend that it has nothing to do with sexist gender stereotypes.

Whu do you need to insist that biological factors don't exist? Does this make you feel better? Why? Can you speak for billions of women across the planet? Do you need them all to feel the same as you?

I research this for a living 🤷🏼‍♀️

To state that women are choosing to be SAHPs purely due to biology is factually incorrect.

That's doesn't mean I don't think any women should stay at home, I fully understand why some choose to. But you can't explain this behaviour by simply claiming 'it's biology'.

Nobody is saying anything is 'purely due to biology.' Its not and 'either / or' is it? I'm saying sociological and biological factors are highly complex and, in some ways, manifestations of each other. There is no point denying biology. It doesn't need to be a scary word. If women feel differently to men in some ways - then fine. This doesn't make them 'lesser' and they shouldn't have to suppress that.

Nobody is denying biology either.

But when it comes to caring for a baby, there is no evidence that there's a biological difference which states a mother is more caring and overall a better caregiver than the father which is what a pp was trying to say is biological. It isn't.

Like a pp said, a study showed the opposite. That if fathers are just as involved from the get go their level of oxytocin increases too.

It's also equal which is important to both of us. Neither of us would want to leave the other one to do the majority of parenting, we believe it is best for our son for him to be parented equally by both of us when he isn't at nursery. This means he also has a strong bond with both of us, not just one of us

It can work that way with a SAHP and a WOHP. The difference is it's happening all day not just when DC aren't in nursery.

So the WOHP can do night wakenings, feeds, nappy changing, cooking, playing - all the things that help form a bond with the child.

It's what we did.

Nobody is saying anything is 'purely due to biology.' Its not and 'either / or' is it? I'm saying sociological and biological factors are highly complex and, in some ways, manifestations of each other. There is no point denying biology. It doesn't need to be a scary word. If women feel differently to men in some ways - then fine. This doesn't make them 'lesser' and they shouldn't have to suppress that.

Actually a couple of people have..... but anyway. Nobody is saying it's a scary word. What we're saying is that these differences are individual rather than indicative of how an entire sex class feels.
Oxytocin is the hormone responsible for bonding and the research shows that men who are actively involved in caring for their newborn display high levels of oxytocin.
However, we know that huge numbers of men don't actively parent their newborn to the same level as mum so it stands to reason that these women have a closer bond. And the reasons men don't do this is down to society/stereotypes/expectations. And so the cycle continues........

Therefore it's far more complicated than women are better caregivers..... and those that opt to go back to work just not being maternal, as you suggested in an earlier post.

Me choosing to go back to work had nothing to do with whether I'm maternal or not. It was all about how we decided we wanted our roles as parents to look like and how we saw our family functioning.
I wouldn't dream of suggesting my way is the only way, it was just the right way for us.

@SouthLondonMum22 I don't think women are more 'caring' necessarily, but I do think women are more naturally 'attuned' to their babies / young children. I'm talking as a general rule (obviously there will be exceptions).

It is easier for MOST men to be separated from babies / young children than MOST women. How many mothers actually abandon children (ie bugger off out of their lives) compared to men? Why do children tend to stay mainly with the mum after a divorce?

My DH is fantastic with our kids, but I know it wasn't the same for him. It just wasn't.

If women aren't more caring than men, why do working mums invariably hire female nannies?

But is that biological or is it because women are more likely to spend more time with their babies? In that case, of course they are going to be more attuned to them.

It's more socially acceptable for men to abandon their children, women are always judged more harshly when they do it.

Children tend to stay with their mum after divorce because they are usually the default parent.

You could argue biology or sexist societal norms with all of those examples.

It wasn't the same for your DH, it is the same with my DH. He is just as bonded, caring and attuned to our DS but I'm not the default parent and I don't spend more time with DS than DH, it's equal.

Because it's a female dominated sector - which is due to societal expectations around gender roles.

Because society appears to believe that any man choosing childcare as a career is doing so for nefarious reasons.

Because there are more female nannies
Because some people are automatically suspicious of male childcare providers which again, goes back to sexism rather than biology.

I do believe all those things are partly (largely?) biological / instinctive @SouthLondonMum22 . Yes, the more time you spend with your child is relevant, but it's something more fundamental than that, in my view.

I don't think you can equate the rarity for women to abandon children to 'societal acceptability.' It's much deeper than that!

I disagree. I think most mothers spending more time with their child than most fathers is a major factor.

The oxytocin study that shows fathers levels increasing the more time they spend with their child backs that up too.

@delphia I agree totally with this. I think it is undeniable that their are very strong bonds between babies and mothers and it is not just in all human societies that I can think of but most of the Animal Kingdom too. That's not to say men should not play a part in raising children or that its 'women's work' its just to say there is biology at play too.