to honestley wonder, why have children if you WANT to work fulltime and are not prepared to make ANY sacrifices?

[milkgoddessmakesthefinestmilk]

i don't mean parents that HAVE to work to provide.

i mean the ones that choose to for no other reason, other than they enjoy their job so much.
if you enjoy your job so much, thats great.
but what i really do not understand is why have children?
no one makes any of these parents have children, you can go though life without having children.

this is 100% genuine question, i just do not get it.

Oh yes...and how will they learn to socialise if I don't adandon them to the care of 'strangers' (I think that's the terms that gets bandied about in these debates).

Indeed. Some studies show in difficult environments than the sanctity of home toddlers find things more stressful and levels of cortisol rise. The impact of testosterone and also raised cortisol in adult 20 something males caused by stress in the financial markets has been reported on this week too. We need some stresses. Some people are such wimps they are stressed choosing whether to leave home to go to the paper shop or to the library. Others can cope with all sorts without being over stressed but some stresses are good for us. What children do need however is core love and security. Most parents provide that. Some stay at home parents don't and some working parents don't.

each to their own I say. i have dd 3.5yr and dd 33wks. i go back to work at night in 2 weeks. We need the pennies otherwise i wouldnt, but saying that shes now 7 months so ive been there for most big things crawling, teething weaning ect.I now need the adult conversation to keep the gray matter ticking over! I couldnt have gone back sooner, personally, but Im sure the mums who do go back to work after 3months or so are doing it for good financial or personal reasons, i just coulnt do it myself

Doomed if you do

Doomed if you don`t

Xenia "If a woman really would have no hope of much of a job, low IQ, no get up and go, then I suppose they might as well be home as working the till at Tesco"

WTF????

rosie99: "however this is vastly different from leaving such a young baby in a nursery with lots of different faces and a lack of continuity of care and love."

My 1 year old loves lots of faces in his nursery and many hands to change his bum, wipe his hands and marvel at his latest car and laps to sit on for cuddles. The carers tell me he goes to each one in turn and asks for cuddles. He is confident that he is loved, enjoys the interaction, laughs and is always in the thick of things. He even has a little friend with whom he points out aeroplanes when in the nursery outdoor area.

Don't want to burst your bubble, but there are good nurseries out there providing fab care and stimulation over and above what a SAHP can do at home. Some children positively thrive on this from a young age.

Oh god, I am SICK of hearing 'there is plenty of research to back this up' (the idea that it is bad for kids to be in nursery.

There just isn't, and every time I've asked, the people who say this are just not able to provide it for me to review.

There are one or two studies, some of them really good research (like the Joseph Rowntree report) which do show an effect but the point about research like this is you need to assess it sensibly. The JRF report does control for income, which means there is an effect regardless of how much money people earn but it also shows in it's findings that the higher up the income and education ladder you go, the less likely there is to be a negative effect on children. It also shows some positive effects of being in nursery (offspring less likely to have early pregnancies for example).

Like all research it has some unavoidable flaws. For example, that report was based on children born 20 years ago. Why? Because to measure change over time, that is the only data available. What that means - and even the researchers would admit this - is that they cannot actually comment on childcare settings and parenting outcomes today, even though it may be possible to extrapolate.

And as for the other studies? Where are they? Let me see em and I'll let you know what I think when I've read them.

its

Been reading this thread for a while, it's quite long, and nearly spat out my tea at...

By Desiderata on Thu 17-Apr-08 23:51:47
All children love their mothers, MrsS, whether they sit on the settee eating custard creams all day, or not.

pmsl, i have just been eating malted milk biscuits

I am not a fulltime SAHM, I work part time and am SAHM part time. >

Have not read it all but I can see where the OP is coming from, however most dual income families I know have cut their hours or one works part time and most have already taken on a lifestyle/mortgage before having kids which they have to keep up. I only know one or two families where f/t work is everything and the kids are in care from 7am-7pm and often at weekend too so they can have some 'me time'. I do feel abit sorry for them (as do alot of other people from what I hear) but it is up to the parents. I am totally happy with my choice to SAH so don't much care what others do. I used to work f/t but gave up since I felt pulled between being a good mum and good worker. I was too tired when I came home to give DD the attention that I can give now when i pick her up. I hated leaving DD in nursery all day as she did too. I think some people get sucked into the materialist culture and 'work is everything' mantra. Thankfully, though, most parents make sacrifices and (one or both) put their job second or take time out while their kids are young.

Not all SAHMs are threatened by WOHMs but when they are - you can spot them easily because they spout the rhetoric of "why have children" or wag that just-you-wait finger of "emotionally damaged adults" from early long hours childcare and don't listen to reasonable explanations from WOHMs - then I would agree with Fairymum.

After all, if children can grow up just as well using long hours of paid childcare from an early age, then surely there is nothing special or particular benefit for one parent sacrificing to stay at home, possibly getting into debt, forgoing the ability to help their children out later with university fees or that deposit for the house. Or it could be because they simply don't earn enough to pay for childcare even if they worked.

Rather than admit sour grapes, better to convince themselves they have the moral highground. And they could truly believe it too, because it is called denial.

because you can enjoy having children and enjoy having a job?

blueshoes - careful, you are overstating your point - pot calling kettle black???

Yes quite riven. SAHMs who made the sort of stupid, senseless remarks that Xenia is making would get jumped on, and rightly so. Yet very few of the pro-WOHMs on this thread (with a couple of honourable exceptions) have picked Xenia up on the knuckle-dragging idiocy of her posts.

give up eddas you lazy slacker

Anna, I am open to all other reasonable explanations of why the OP has not assimilimated any of the sensible responses from WOHMs. Enlighten please.

Because the jury is still out on this one (whether and to what extent children are "disadvantaged" by childcare), blueshoes.

That's why the debate rages on and on and on...

I'm still giggling but at Xenia implying babies need raised cortisol levels through daycare to toughen them up, otherwise they won't grow up and become a Master of the Universe/City lawyer.

Xenia - If i stay at home, society is 'keeping me down'?
get over yourself.
given a choice my DH would much much rather be at hime with DS but he has more earning potential than me. We both had SAHMs growing up and long before we decided to have children we knew that ONE of us would stay home.
I enjoy my job of being at home with my DS. You enjoy your job doin whatever it is that you do. But i am NOT a lesser person in any way because i don;t go out to work (or work for a wage for taht matter)

it isn't any of my business what your situation if regarding your children but TBH i don't agree with couples putting their children into childcare for 12 hour a day 5 days a week and then having 'me time' on the weekends. in that case i completely agree with the OP. why have kids if you never want to spend time with them?

blueshoes, did you look at the Joseph Rowntree research quoted below? Because it doesn't support your case.

FWIW, I don't think mothers necessarily ought to stay at home; I don't even think that babies have to be looked after by a parent. What I do think is important (and it's my feeling, not something I have evidence for, just as those who feel that children are better served by working parents have no evidence for that) is that babies are cared for by a stable figure who loves them. If you can find that in a paid childcare worker then good for you and good for your child, although it's important that the child's strong bond with that person should continue to be honoured for as long as necessary.

...the jury is also still out Anna on whether children are disadvantaged by being at home with a single person. Why? Because nobody thinks to ask that question and even if they did, the research wouldn't get funded. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good question also.