To ask if you couldn't imagine leaving your baby and then young dc with strangers?

[A2J]

As in nursery/childminder etc?
I was OK once they could talk but before that I couldn't have left them with anyone except very close friends (female) or family.

It probably stems from my own childhood although any abuse I experienced was when older. Weird friends of my parents.

Luckily I was bolshy and stuck up for myself. More than I can say for my parents.

So IABU. I'm also a troll, AI or have posted under numerous names and am also a cunt. If name calling makes people feel better that's OK. I won't be doing it though.

I'll admit to being U. It's been good reading a lot of these posts and I'm glad women have made and are making the right choices for them. I'm still happy with my choice though but I have been made to think about people outside of my circle.

I probably won't post again because there are too many attacking others. I don't mind if they attack me I probably deserve it. Just the same as if I say something daft and a friend will call me out. As I will them. Although I don't know any of you. But all's fair.

Thank you to those who put me in my place without name calling. Shows maturity.

Edited for spelling.

It's pretty important for women to continue to work and be self-sufficient. Even with high childcare costs.

Look at all the threads on here about single mums struggling. Including the one about the school today where the "D"P upped and left when the baby was 5 days old.

By all means, stay at home to save your child from "strangers" (they'll have to go to school eventually anyway - are all the teachers "strangers" too).

But don't then whine when your partner buggers off with someone else and you're left with no career and no money.

I kind of agree with OP that most mothers who use childcare for very young children aren't doing it because they have no alternative. Childcare is so expensive that financially it doesn't stack up for the lowest paid anyway. With the exception of single parents who get universal credit to pay for most of it.

I think plenty of mothers prefer to work than stay at home all of the time, for lots of perfectly good reasons. Including career progression, a better standard of living, retaining financial independence from their husband, status, job satisfaction, boredom from staying home, needing a break from demanding toddlers, not enjoying household chores, etc. None of these are wrong. It's ok to make a balanced decision for the family rather than to put your child first 100% of the time

The idea that the mother looks after the child all of the time is a new one and not something that has historically happened (except maybe for a brief period after the war). It's totally normal for other people to help with childcare and even to be paid for it.

There's good and bad childcare just as there are good and bad parents. I don't think full time nursery is Ideal for any age child simply because they are in one room in a very restricted situation, which if it is 8-6 5 days a week is not great, but using some nursery hours or a childminder is not inherently worse than being with a parent or grandparent.

OP did you really need to start a thread though if you're saying you're really happy with the choices you made? Was it really beyond your imagination to think that other women do things differently?

These threads are started just to attack working mums (though interestingly not dads!) and it's really unpleasant.

Your child could tell you about their day at 5 months? Haha. I have an extremely early talker who knew 500 words by 18 months but even he wasn't saying anything intelligible at 5 months.

My DD wasn't in childcare at 5 months.

I was just commiserating about the poster's late speaker.

Edited to say: When my DD did go to nursery, which was PT and when she was 3, she had more than one room she could go in. The nursery was chosen due to it's facilities and the fact it didn't take children under 2.

You count how many words they can say?

My DD can say all sorts but I don't know how many words she can say in total. I do know she talks all day, to me, to nursery staff, to her dad on the way home and when they get home, to the dog, to herself, to her toys...

And she has an amazing vocabulary, I'm always surprised. But I don't count the words.

This.

@cloudjumper yes, the 'looked after by strangers' phrase is always a giveaway of the OP's intention!

I don't know a single person who has ever left their child with a stranger.

I do know many, myself included, who researched and visited many professional childcare options, did settling in visits with our children and then left them with people they loved being with (my kids talked about their nursery workers for years after) and in an environment where they thrived.

But don't you see you had a choice most people returning to work don't. I'm still waiting for someone to answer who pays your bills when your a sahm

Working for £10 while other people look after your children all day is insanity. People act like careers can’t be re-built once kids are a bit older. Working effectively for free just to avoid doing the extra work of rebuilding it once kids are school age just makes no sense. Women can have it all but not at the same time. Careers can be rebuilt, the fundaments of a child’s brain of which 90% is developed in the first 3 years, cannot. I am a high earner and spent years studying and gaining my professional qualification but I still choose to prioritise the kids during this short season of life. If more women did this then putting careers on pause etc wouldn’t be so looked down upon by employers.

Why should women put their careers on hold - I didn’t want to. DT’s thrived at nursery.

There needs to be more emphasis for fathers to put their careers on hold instead of the mother

If more women did this then putting careers on pause etc wouldn’t be so looked down upon by employers.

You could equally say if more women went back to work and held senior positions, more employers would have family friendly policies

But the reality is that women can do what they want and you don't get to control their choices because it would suit you better

If more women did this then putting careers on pause etc wouldn’t be so looked down upon by employers.

I'm not sure I agree. I mean, it's not worked out so well for us in the past has it?

What we need is more MEN pausing careers, working family friendly hours and insisting on flexibility.

My post wasn't clear - I was referring to the SAHP who seem to spend all their energies on justifying why they're better parents than everyone else.

I assume WOHP (like me) don't have the energy to worry about what anyone else thinks 😂

If you didn't financially need to work or had friends you could leave them with, that's great for you. Not all of us are so lucky.

I don't think the "working for £10" argument exists. Most working parents I know have more than £10. They also have pension contributions and work benefits, for example healthcare or death at work benefit which add up to more than a tenner! But each to their own, I don't judge SAHP so I don't be expected to either!

What a hideous and ugly thread.

So much misogyny.

The patriarchy is safe and thriving clearly.

I think we can safely say the OP got exactly what they wanted from this thread

The picture is far more nuanced than that, and you can hardly call most day nurseries "formal education".

Some studies have shown marginal increases in behavioural issues and aggression in children who started nursery early, others have shown small advantages in cognitive skills and language development.

There's a wide discrepancy in outcomes based on the quality of the childcare received. There's not much certainty regarding correlation vs causation.

Benefits have also been identified based on having a working mother as opposed to a SAHM during childhood.

There's no cut-and-dried answer to whether all children are better off in nursery, with a childminder, or at home, although there's a million "experts" with an opinion. You know your child's personality and your family situation and you make a choice based on that.

@HJA87 dh and I both worked for no immediate financial gain when we had 2 children at nursery and one school age child in wraparound care. So I guess in your opinion I'm beyond insanity!

However, your whole perspective is based on the premise that having one parent not working is 'better' for the child. That's your opinion. It doesn't make it true.

Our children went to a fantastic nursery where they experienced activities and relationships which added to their lives. It wasn't a replacement for anything, it wasn't 'lesser' than time spent with us as parents, it was another experience. I'm not claiming it was better (or worse) than if I'd packed in my job and stayed at home- it was a different experience of equal worth.

I'd also add that remaining in work meant my pension and longer term prospects were completely unaffected. Yes some careers can be rebuilt but many are negatively impacted by several years out of the workplace and occupational pensions are definitely impacted!

But actually those factors were not the foremost ones in my decision to keep working and use childcare. The main reasons were that dh and I were both equally skilled in the workplace, we enjoyed our work lives and we didn't make the assumption that one of us should need to leave in order to be good parents. And actually I really liked the fact we could afford an excellent nursery (which we wouldn't have been able to without both earning.)

Our children are adults now, happy, well adjusted adults who have achieved well and are at the start of their own careers. They have a great relationship with dh and me. So, I don't know why anyone would assume things could be any better if I'd given up my job!

HI OP, YABU. My child (now adult) was looked after by a childminder who I hadn't known before from 10 months until starting school. I was a single parent and sadly, parents dead. I needed to work to support myself and child. Childminder was a truly fantastic woman who I am indebted to till this day. In an ideal world (which doesn't exist), children would be cared for by close family members but that's not an option for many, for valid reasons.
I recall a friend of mine telling me that she would never leave her child with a childminder; very thoughtless comment. This friend was a SAHM until her children were much older and was financially supported by her high earning husband. People need to think before they speak (myself included)!

@Parker231 "I love being a parent - DT’s are our greatest accomplishment. However DH and I have careers so we used a nursery with highly educated professional staff- two of which became our babysitters. DH is a doctor - would you prefer he stayed home with DT’s ?"

I agree.

Also outside of being a parent I am still a person in my own right - and I do sometimes like having time for myself and to be myself and not just Mum.

My son is my world - but I still exist outside of him

What I do, if I took three years out (or more, many have multiple children), the industry and the work would have changed so dramatically that I couldn't just go back. I took just over a year out for mat leave, because of how the AL accrual worked for me, and had to work twice as hard to figure out all the new ways of working, the new technology and the changes to the company. Triple that and I'd have to go back to entry level, if I could get in at all.

And my employer needs someone doing what I do, so if I'm not going back after mat leave they have to backfill my position. So my role isn't there to go back to. Where do I go? Do I start building my reputation again? From the bottom? Or do I take the flexibility and good will my previous hard work and reliability has afforded me and use it to my advantage to do my job and still be around for my DD whenever necessary? As well as giving her socialisation and activity that she really enjoys.

Aside from that, who's paying for my pension? Who is making sure my shares and investments are still being put into? Who's planning for my retirement once my child is grown? Because all of DHs earnings are going towards keeping us afloat day to day. There wouldn't be anything left after that to plan for our retirement. And three or four years can make a massive difference to those things.

If I take multiple years off work and DH leaves, or dies, or is suddenly unable to work, is that entry level position I have to take going to keep us afloat? Is it going to pay all the bills AND let DD have the activities she loves (swimming, dancing, gymnastics, anything)?

Have you thought through anything other than your own belief that mothers should be martyr's to their family while fathers get to continue progressing their careers and earning potential?

OK we've been here before - fathers looking after daughters is (probably) an exception. Men in general shouldn't be "trusted" to look after little children.