To NOT feel guilty that my kids are in childcare?

[Kanfuzed123]

Inspired by the childcare eating a £45k salary and the anti nursery sentiment from a few posters on there as being inferior for a child.

anyone else not feel in the slightest guilty that there kids are in nursery and have been post maternity leave?

yeah when they cried at drop off was rough and I called into the check out they were but that soon settled. They do lovely events for the parents and upload lots of amazing activities they do, they’ve made fantastic friends.

I could’ve reduced my hours but I didn’t, we could’ve maybe managed on one salary (glad we didn’t when rates shot up) but I went back FT when dc 1 was 15 months (used annual leave for part time before then) and dc2 was 13 months.

anyone else just not feel guilty? I like the lifestyle we can get when we’re working, especially since the 15 funded hrs and now 30, it’s so affordable. (Eldest is in school and youngest now has the 30 hrs) bill is less than £400 a month inc club etc. I like having something else to focus on too.

im not alone or am I?

I have always been at home when my 3 girls were little so I can't answer directly but I wanted to say that the only time a parent should worry about their decisions are when children are not happy.

Different situation I know but when my girls went to nursery school age 3, DD1 liked it but struggled a bit, DD2 found separation so hard that she could only do 10 minutes for weeks and even when she left age 4 she only ever stayed 40 minutes (severe autism), DD3 would go anywhere with anyone and on visit day thought I was leaving and said goodbye at the door before she had even been inside or met anyone! (Autsim)

My point is that all 3 girls were completely different. All families are different, all parents are different.

If you feel guilty, ask yourself whether your child seems happy and whether you are happy. If both are a yes then it's the right decision.

There is not a single thing other mothers will not try to make you feel guilty about! Only online though - mums in real life i have generally found pretty non judgemental.

If you didn’t send your kid to nursery some
twat would guilt you for denying them an educational opportunity.

I also feel not a jot of guilt, about childcare, or any of my parenting decisions actually.

To be fair though, plenty of children aren’t happy to go to nursery- they still have to if their parents are working.

Not guilty at all about nursery. My son loved it and I did not particularly enjoy the toddler years - I liked the peace and quiet of a work day. He was in four days a week, and I slightly dreaded my day with him on my own sometimes. All those posters who say 'Don't you want to spend every second with your babies?' - hell no.

I would be a terrible SAHM too - I resent doing housework and I suck at cooking 😂 No-one would want me in sole charge of a household. Mat leave was hard enough.

The only child I knew who did full time five days a week was the child of two senior consultants at the local hospital. I'm sure we're all grateful they both worked full time.

No regrets here. My two are older now but were with a childminder from nine and eight months respectively until they started school, 8am-5pm five days a week. Both have happy memories of their time there and absolutely loved their childminder.

Just because they are open those hours, doesn't mean that's what all the kids there do.

Mine did 3-4 full days at day nursery (8-5ish) and it was highly unusual for there to be kids doing the full 8-6 or all 5 days.

Lots of parents working part time or compressed hours or occasionally needing 8-6 or liking to have the ability to know that transport delays are covered etc

At my son's nursery a large number of them are five days - they've prioritised full time places.

But there are children doing them, and they’re prioritised for places because they bring in higher revenue for the nursery. Yes not all children do full time but you shouldn’t be at all surprised by the number who do

Our nursery is open 730-630. I’d say most children are picked up between 4 and 5, if my vague observations count for much.

It really wasn't the case at the nurseries we used.

That’s not really true. It is a fixed rate at most nurseries for a half day or full day. I pay for childcare 730-530, but it’s very rare mine do those hours; I think DS has only done until half five once, when I was stuck in traffic. Same price.

Oh right ok that’s probably the case across the entire uk then, exactly the same as your nursery 😂

It’s true there is a day rate but not doing a full 5 days still makes you a part time customer

That works the other way too though @AquaPeer - just because it’s the case at yours doesn’t make it universal.

But in any event, it’s one of those things that I don’t see as a massive deal. For me I have preferences. I prefer to minimise the time they spend in nursery and I prefer for my children to have their own bedrooms and I prefer for all sorts of things. It doesn’t mean in the context of a whole childhood five days a week in nursery or sharing a room is ‘bad.’

no regrets. I like working (and have to anyway) and my kids were fine. I never bothered feeling guilty as I couldn’t change it anyway.

Why would anyone in their right mind feel guilty about providing for their child? It was literally a necessity for me. It’s all very well people going on about how it wouldn’t “suit their family,” but many families don’t have a choice. It has to suit their family.

Particularly as there’s no credible evidence, despite years of people trying to find it, that good childcare does any harm.

No guilt here. I went back to work full time by choice when they were 3 months.

I feel pride at financially providing for my children and to be able to show them, especially my daughters, that you can still have a career after becoming a mother.

Not to mention that their nursery is wonderful. They adore going.

@NuffSaidSam

Whether it's good for society on mass to have the majority of children in (often quite poor quality) group care throughout their childhood we'll have to wait and see. Mental health in young people doesn't seem to be brilliant at the moment, but obviously difficult to ascertain any specific causal link

A lot of assumptions here and you admit there’s no evidence of correlation, let alone causation.

Commercial childcare predates the mental health crisis in young people by about 40-50 years and there have been significant numbers of children in childcare for at least 20 so if there were some major problems as a result we surely would have seen this by now. And how can you know most childcare is poor quality?

@Thepeopleversuswork full time hours for everyone wouldn’t have suited our family, but that is our family. I don’t think nurseries are bad places or cause harm to young children. But for us with a commute, no local extended family and our finances we could do part-time hours. Made for a happy family and yes we were probably lucky to have that choice. But many parents choose to carry on full-time and use childcare even though they potentially could go part-time, not all parents who use full-time nursery are forced to, they choose to.

That is one of those situations where the guilt would make sense. As a parent, you have to weigh up everything and make tough decisions.

Was part time until my youngest went to school
Felt no guilt about sending them to nursery and neither did my DH
If I had known anyone in real life who spoke about nursery the way some posters do , the friendship would have been over

@crumblingschools

But many parents choose to carry on full-time and use childcare even though they potentially could go part-time, not all parents who use full-time nursery are forced to, they choose to.

Hmmm. I didn’t choose to and neither did most of the working mums I know.

And what is wrong with people choosing to work full time if their children are well cared for?

Well i chose not to go part time because I didn’t see why I should do a full time job in part time hours for part time money.

and as someone who manages a lot of people, I’ve never seen a man do that to avoid feeling guilty.

I’ll just leave this here…

Children are only young for a few years and I’ll never regret the time I am spending with them while they’re small.

I choose to work full time, I could be a SAHM or I could work part time but I don't want to.

Going part time would've killed my career progression
SAHM would've killed my career completely

I don't see why I should have to give up my career/career progression just because I had children, men don't have to.