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 well, clearly as well as being emotionally crippled by the separation from his working mother my son is going to be common and thick to boot. There's no hope for the little mite, clearly I should abandon all hopes of university for him and plonk him in front of Jeremy Kyle so he can observe the other commoners with whom he is destined to associate.

Ho hum.

"It is widely recognised by the reception and year 1 teachers at my children's school that the children that are in afterschool club every night don't do as well as the ones that go home."

What nonsense you talk PosieParker. Are you a teacher? Did the teachers discuss this with you? How do they measure this anyway? At our school just as many children of sahms as wohms are in after-school clubs because the clubs are great and offer a variety of good activites which the children enjoy. I think you are talking utter crap and all to make yourself feel better about your own choice. Why do you need to feel that children of wohm are less happy or clever or whatever? I don't get it.

Semi-decent take in today's Times on WOHM.

Yes, the teachers discussed this with me as I thought the after school club could be an opportunity for a little more learning. These children obviously catch up later in their school life but I do believe that children who have a SAHP who is happy with their choice that has no massive financial implications is better off. Judging by the outcomes of boarding school children I can see both that children from better off families who have a high level of expectation do acheive well and that there are emotional consequences for children that don't spend enough time with their parents.
It's all very well saying there is no fallout from any choice but this is nothing less than naive.

PosieParker, sorry but I very much doubt that what you are saying is true or you are bending the truth rather a lot. Perhaps your teachers were saying it was not right for YOUR child? If the teachers really said this it would be 1. very unprofessional of them (as most parents know who attend after-school clubs) and 2. how do they measure it anyway? Are children in after-school worse readers? Worse at maths? do they concentrate less well?

At most schools I know the majority of children attened some type of after-school clubs a few times of weeks. Is this bad? Is this bad or are you talking about the children who are in after-school clubs all day until 6 o'clock? You are making huge generalisations and personally I feel you are massively beding the truuth quoting what the teachers at your school have discussed with you. In my school the teachers would not even know who attends after-school at what day. They have other things to think about.

Also, with you referring to safe car and holidays I cannot help feeling you are a bit jealous. You are looking at what extras children of wohms MIGHT have compared to children of SAHMS, and this makes you want to find something children of wohms are missing out on too. Its very obvious from your posts you are trying to make yourself feel better. Why not just accept that just as you and your children can be happy, me and my children (in nursery and after-school clubs) can also be happy? And we have several great holidays a year too

agree with riven

duchese, this is the same group that reported slightly negative outcomes for children of WOHMs.... this argument is never going to be settled, is it?
I hope I have a little of the best of both worlds, indeed I hope we all do. I'm very happy and my children know I had and will have a career, I also tell them that they are very important and that's why I chose to stay at home even though my dss both ask that my daughter is put into a nusery that's attached to their school so they can see her at lunch.
Only time will tell whether I have made the right choice, fingers crossed my dp doesn't leave and my daughter(s) have a good career and my sons expect an equal share in their child care, I do have a cleaner twice a week so no domesticity is inflicted!! And I do have my own assets, thank the lord.
A new report for a new point of view, thank goodness there's one for each of us.

Posie- I don't think it will be, no. The whole debate rests on unquantifiables, so is prone to bias on all sides.

The after school club is on site and so the teachers know and it was about all children not mine as mine were new, just plucked from the state system.

fairymum, what I get from your post is that you'd like posie to be jealous of you!

you don't sound so happy with your own choice if you don't mind me saying

Posie, if the teachers did say that they are both unprofessional and prejudiced. It is possible for teachers to be prejudiced you know, they are human beings. But I'd be worried about their attitude to the children they teach.

Boarding school is completely different to having both parents work, you know. Not a comparison at all. I would have thought that was obvious.

Posie

How do the children in the after school club do compaired to the ones whos folkes take them home then let them stay out playing unsupervised 'till late at night?

The teachers were telling you what you wanted to hear.

Since stressteddy wants someone to respond about influence, I should say of course she is right - in that influence happens; it would be simply silly to deny it altogether.

But parents can come to completely different (& equally valid, by the way - I can understand feeling doubtful about particular bits of grammar) decisions based on that simple straightforward fact, that influence happens.

Hence dh & my deliberate choice of a nanny who is not a carbon-copy of us - so that where dh & I are not sporty, she got them walking miles in fresh air every day; where we wouldn't have chosen to parent en-masse with other toddlers, she got them together with her mates & her charges for mass play. And she got them eating all sorts of exotic meals we wouldn't have had the imagination to try out.

And indeed, as a concrete example - where I grew up with all sorts of weirdy anxieties about not saying Toilet etc. because of the spectre of commonness - because of the variety of influence they've had, my children use Toilet and Loo and Bog all cheerfully uncomplicatedly and interchangeably. Which I applaud.

Oddly enough, I was talking to a group of women last night, some of whom had been to boarding school. I have only ever heard people who had been away saying either that they hated it or that they were OK but wouldn't do that to their own children (on MN and IRL). Yet out of the four people in this group who had been at public school, three of them said they really enjoyed it and a couple were sending their own kids away. Interesting counterpoint to what I've heard before.

No, no search with any results........
Fairy I don't get your point about what WOHMs are missing out on, I was saying that without this some may not be able to afford this. As for my family we have three holidays a year, a couple of nice cars... I really miss out on nothing and I stay at home, it's not a stately home but plenty big enough for me and my growing family.

Completely agree with riven's post of 9.15 this morning, and also her post about accomplishment.

That's interesting research from the ESRC duchesse, and I can believe that it's true (although at least some of the dissatisfaction among SAHMs could, IMO, be put down to the widespread contempt we endure, as evidenced by some of the posters on this thread).

For what it's worth, I saw some Joseph Rowntree research (separate from the research referred to below) that indicated that the absolute worst option (in terms of parents' own levels of satisfaction) was to be a SAHP during the day/week and do paid work at home in the evenings and weekends - which is exactly what I do. And yes, it can be a pain sometimes (although I freely choose to continue with it).

ah reading more of your threads Posie you can be forgiven, our worlds are not the same