To have mum guilt over childcare situation

[ChamomileHoneyTea]

DP and I both work full time so I will have to leave DS in nursery when my maternity leave is over (when he turns one).

I know most parents rely on childcare these days but I just feel so guilty! Growing up my mum didn’t work when we were kids because they could live off one salary. My auntie had to go out to work but left my cousins with my grandma because she didn’t work.

Fast forward to now and I can’t afford to not work because we need my salary to survive. My parents are both still working full time so they can’t help. DP’s parents are retired but don’t want to help out.

Just feeling so down and guilty as if I’m abandoning my DS :( can’t help but think my DS is worse off than me at his age and me & DP are failing him :(

I agree and I’m certainly not advocating for families to be in poverty just so a parent can stay at home and scrape through life on one income. However, in general if there is an option for one parent to stay at home and the family to live comfortably, then I personally feel that should be done and is in the best interest of the very young child.

Has there been a study on this that I'm not aware of?.

Lots.
The link between poverty and poorer outcomes is well known.

It's only in the best interest of the child if a parent wants to do it though. If a parent feels bored, miserable and unfulfilled at home then that isn't going to be beneficial in any way to the child.

This. My mother never worked and even she agreed that with prices the way they were (9 years ago when she was still with us) it was not possible for most. Give yourself Grace. And trust me a lot of parenting is guilt about one thing or another 😆

Me neither. I have 2 girls and a boy and I’d have felt far guiltier teaching my daughter ‘you may as well not work hard at school when girls don’t grow up to be teachers, scientists, police officers, shop assistants, cleaners, doctors or ANYTHING ELSE MEN CAN DO because there is the option to sit around at home and be paid for by a man. But DS - you had better get a job as you will need to be the one forking out.

I'm going to screen grab this and put it as a screensaver on my work laptop.

Thank you ♥️

No point feeling guilty. You have to work so that's that. I felt mum guilt with my first (who started nursery at 5 months and always LOVED it) and it was pointless. Eventually I realised guilt is like a sack of rubbish you are draggingaround with you and that I could just put it down and walk away from it.

I think @Mariposistaaa post was great and though it touched a nerve with SAHMs, I can see it wasn't intended to because she was speaking to the OP and others in her position.

I have every respect for SAHMs but I will say that WOHMs can still have a great bond with their children. You just have to "make the time count" that you spend with them. I was always still my kids' favourite person despite working FT.

I did worry about it of course but it dawned on me much later that toddlers/ pre schoolers don't really care who is giving them food or shaking a tambourine with them or singing wheels on the bus during the day. When they really need you (the parents) and only you that tends to be in the difficult adolescent years. It really helped that by then i was quite senior at work and could easily juggle my diary to accommodate teenage crises whereas if I had taken years out and gone back at junior level it would have been harder to manage.

Surely you can’t be that dense to think that every woman in a professional role had a working mum and if they had a SAHM in the first few years they would automatically become a drop out with no future career prospects?

Also are you unaware of the simple concept of ‘choice’? If women want to work then that’s great, go for it. If they don’t want to work and rather spend the first few years with their children then great, go for it.

If you’re pushing this judgemental, narrow and simple minded opinion onto your children I feel sorry for them and much rather be a SAHM who ‘sits around at home’ 🙄than a militant working mum who pushes my own narrative down my children’s throats because I seem to have some sort of complex.

Have you lost a child, you say only living child.

@Bakensmile thank you! I was typing out a furious post and won’t bother now. “Sit around and be paid for by a man”? Stupid and inflammatory comment @Mariposistaaa

No I mean comparing less affluent children with a SAHM vs wealthier with 2 working parents

I can bet that @Mariposistaaa considers herself a feminist which is ironic as she seems to be advocating for the choice to stay at home to be taken away for women.

How very unfeminist to assume that where a woman has chosen to stay at home she is somehow less valuable to society or setting a bad example to her children. It screams insecurity and ignorance. If a man had made those comments he would have been flambéed on here!!!

They wouldn't have done it if it made them miserable. They valued time and relationship over money. I remember one particular friend explaining to me very cogently that she's accepted that they'll never own a house, but that spending the early years with her daughter was so so much more precious to her. Just because it's not what you would choose doesn't mean it's not the more positive choice for others.

When they really need you (the parents) and only you that tends to be in the difficult adolescent years

I'm afraid all of the science on secure attachment actually points to the opposite... When individuals experience secure attachment to one person in the early years, they develop a sense of trust and confidence in their other relationships on later life.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for childcare, but we need to be honest about the studies, as this also helps us to understand which form of childcare is best.

Now this lady is making sense! Print this off and frame it!

I was responding to this

I chose to be a SAHM is because I certainly do remember being left in nursery with loads of other kids and barely getting a look in.

I am sure there are more options and better children to carer ratio now compared to when the poster was a kid as there is an increase in both parents working.

Also, are you telling OP that she should not work and stay at home because the kids need wont be met in the daycare? My SIL kids are teenagers and doing very well emotionally and other wise and they went to daycare as both parents were working. And there are many more examples.

‘I remember one particular friend explaining to me very cogently that she's accepted that they'll never own a house, but that spending the early years with her daughter was so so much more precious to her.’

Unless social housing, renting is so precarious just now with kids having to leave schools or have long trips due to a S21, not to mention renting is horrifically expensive, I actually think it’s better to try to own than rent.

Or at least have enough income (dual?) so another rental can be secured.

OP, it’s hard at first but due to covid I had a 18m maternity and my whole family benefitted from my returning 4 days.

Due to the personal allowance, dropping to 4 days isn’t a straight 20% salary reduction…

This!! Love it

Sorry I meant to quote: "toddlers/ pre schoolers don't really care who is giving them food or shaking a tambourine with them or singing wheels on the bus during the day" beforehand

No I was responding to the common argument made that, because generally quality of life is better now, children nowadays will do better in childcare. Which doesn't make sense because attachment theory transcends what era you're born in and children's basic psychological needs remain the same.

But I'm not trying to argue that this friend has made the right or wrong decision. Just that, if a mother knows deep down that she wants to stay at home, she should be empowered to make that decision, even if it comes at a cost, not have her very real feelings minimised because working is the norm and told that she's wrong to feel as she does.

Jeezo there are some real insecure arseholes on this thread.

Be secure in your own choices and stop trying your validate yourself by being a dick to others who chose to live their lives differently to you.

If you love your children and do the right thing for you and your family that's all that is needed. Whether that is going out to work or staying at home.

Obviously you don't need it.

I was a parent who would of never imagined putting my baby into nursery, however along came the pandemic and went from having a fabulous time out at groups and friends every day with my older baby to a baby who was bored senseless at home. The only option at the time was to start DC at nursery, he was so much happier. He ended up having to go full time due to the job I returned to, really I never imagined this would ever have been the case but it was the best resolution to a bad situation and did really change my perspective. (Have older children also) he learned so much, how to be gentle around younger children, table manners, still now years later eats a much wider range of food than any of my other children and is doing really well at school. I was happier than the alternative and found I had so much more energy and patience at the weekends than had ever had before. Weekends became something I really cherished and looked forward to. There’s probably pros and cons to each option and it’s sad you don’t have the choice. I look forward with our next child to working and only having to send our child part time. However just to reassure you, it’s not the end of the world if your child has to go full time to nursery, sometimes circumstances are what they are and all you can do is make the best choice. As long as the nursery a really high quality setting, that’s the most vital thing