To feel sad some women are forced to go back to work

[JTT95]

I think it is messed up that these days a lot of women have to go back to work after maternity leave whether they like it or not. It seems like everyone is sending their babies to nursery at 1 or even earlier. I know that some women want to and are happy to go back but there are many women who are heartbroken to leave their babies so young. I wish it was like the olden days where a man’s wage was enough to suport the whole family.

The majority of my education was in no way relevant to my job in terms of subject matter. My degree I didn’t use from the moment I walked out of university. Should I not have bothered? If I were to quit my job now I wouldn’t see it as wasted. I have lots of skills that make me who I am that I can use in my daily life and I can use when interacting with others. Although I work, I don’t see myself only as an economic machine- I am not in the office far more than I am in it.

No i don’t mean that at all.

If all your education was simply to learn certain job tasks, then yes, it was wasted, regardless of how you choose to spend your time.

Personally i believe education is far more than that, and being educated makes you a better mother too. Most importantly, many women earn a great salary as a result of their education and can purchase a house/invest for the future, and they are then in a great financial position to take a break in their career!

And yet your next post refers exclusively to women!

You're not doing yourself any favours by being disingenuous here.

I'm sad that I couldnt send my kid out to work and contribute to the family, as in the olden days. She has long slim fingers - perfect for factory work!

Everything I’ve said refers to either sex. It’s obviously up to the parents to decide if and who of them would prefer to stay at home and take a career break.

In reality it seems that women seem to enjoy it more than men, maybe because they’ve given birth, although I know a couple of cases where the father chose to stay at home and look after the kids as his wife was earning significantly more than him.

It's presented as an option to women though but it isn't with men. Maybe more men would stay home, go part time etc if it was presented as an option as much as it is to women.

Who cares what other men/women do. If your husband really wants to be a SAHP and you’re happy to keep working then why would other dads not doing it stop you? I wanted to be a SAHM , my husband not so much and I couldn’t care less what set up other people have.

Are we pretending that societal norms don't exist or influence people now?

Well even being a stay at home mum is not mainstream these days (feels like 99% of babies are in nurseries and I hardly see any around), yet some people go against it, like myself. So if it’s something your husband wants then he should just go for it. Especially if it’s something you want to see changed, maybe he’ll start a trend.

Women are still often the default parent, even if they work.

Women are asked about their plans after having a baby
Women are presented with ''a choice'' they have to make when having a baby
Women are judged for either staying at home or working

There's a reason why it is all on the woman. Societal norms.

So it sounds like you've made the life for yourself that you wanted and are very happy with that. I don't know why your sadness is only extended to women who would like to stay at home and can't, but you have no emotive statements to make for women in the opposite situation: ones who have to stay at home with children and are unhappy about it.

You're also plucking numbers out of the air - you 'feel like' 99% of babies are in nursery and seem to imply that's a bad thing. Actually, many families with working parents have grandparents doing some or all childcare, a lot of parents (more mothers than fathers I assume) work part time. You probably see fewer babies around because the birth rate is declining. That's causing a lot of panic in right wing circles in particular and the response is an endless churn of material online trying to persuade women that their purpose and fulfillment lies in relinquishing work and staying at home with children.

I think there are women for whom that's true, and women for whom it really isn't. Women aren't odd or lacking in maternal instinct or less feminine or 'normal' if they actually enjoy work and value spending some time apart from their children. Lots of babies spending some of their time in nursery - or with grandparents, or a childminder because nursery is really not the only option - are happy and stimulated and well cared for, and still very bonded to their loving parents. There isn't a superior way of doing it; women do and should have options and different solutions work for different families. So, if you want to feel sorry for other women, why not start a thread about how you feel equally sorry for those who are miserable as SAHMs as you are for those who are miserable working?

Most of your reply is completely irrelevant to my post. I’ve never expressed my opinion about working mums/using nurseries. I said women should be able to work and use childcare if that’s what makes them happy.

I don’t know anyone who wants to work but is stuck as a SAHM so that’s not relevant to my post either. With the very generous nursery subsidies, I think anyone who wants to work is able to these days. There is no funding for SAHM’s and a lot of people would struggle to live on one salary so that’s why the opposite scenario is more common.

Honestly I think that’s a cop out, there are lots of aspects to managing a home which can be split according to personal strengths and skills but I genuinely think hands-on parenting (including working less if that’s what’s required) should be as evenly split as possible.

Not doing this only adds to the cultural dynamic of child rearing being women’s work.

The couples I know where the woman has taken a step back at work to spend more time at home would all say “oh but that’s what works for us” but I am also 99.9% sure that the man taking a step back would have never seriously been on the table for discussion.

And it’s better for the kids to have both parents equally involved.

It’s like shared parental leave - many women don’t want to give up their maternity leave to convert to shared. I personally would have liked to taken all of my mat leave but I knew it was very important that my partner also had some of this time to bond.

Then unless cashflow supports this they should be fully prepared to go back to work. Bills and overheads can't come as a shock surely? You've got 9months to think/plan and save if being a SAHM is feasible in the mid to long term.

I don’t think your specific example is the shame necessarily but I do think it’s a shame that people don’t always have to option to do what they’d prefer. I’m a high earner and my salary would be too much to go without, so I had to go back to work after 13 months with my first and will do the same with my second (and I’m one of the lucky ones because for a lot of people it’s a lot less!), but I would love to have 2-3 years off with my children and be a sahm if I had the chance.

Of course it’s an option for men! If a mother prefers to go back to work and focus on her career while her husband enjoys running the household and doing the childcare, then of course that’s what they should do!

I know my partner would not have enjoyed running the household and childcare as much as me.

My 'kids' are now 22, 20 and 17 and when we had them, being a SAHM was a total non-issue, if that's what you wanted and you could afford this.

Most women I knew were SAHM in the pre-school years. I only ever met one or two women who tried full-time nurseries. Both took their kids out and U remember one friend telling me she did so because there was 'no love' in the nursery and she couldn't bear it.

I don't understand all the angst and drama in here about just being with your own baby.

If I'd had to have put a baby in a nursery, I would have been beyond devastated. Well, to be honest, I just would NOT have done that. The end.

Sounds like the COL crisis means women have less choice these days.

What 'angst and drama' do you find people engage in about being with their own babies, and wouldn't you describe If I'd had to have put a baby in a nursery, I would have been beyond devastated as fairly angsty and dramatic @sunandfizz ?

And again, not all babies in childcare are in nursery. Many are looked after by grandparents or childminders. I'm so suspicious of people coming on the thread bemoaning 'loveless' nurseries as though any mother going out to work is dropping her baby off in a gulag - when she's very likely to be sending the baby to grandparents anyway.

But again, and you seem to keep ignoring this point that not only I have made several times, but several others have made, we'd all like to do what makes us happy, but we are all constrained by the necessity of having to earn a living. Somebody's got to empty the bins and clean the streets, etc.

I've spent most of my life working to pay the bills. I have got on with it as a necessary thing, like most people do. I'm just grateful that these days I haven't got to come home and make a fire to boil water for my bath, or use a washtub and scrubbing board to get the weekly wash done like my Great Gran did.

Exactly. Although my mum worked part-time, I know that most of her friends did not in the pre-school years. I also didn’t go to nursery until I was 4. So those were “the olden days” I was referring too (the 80s/90s).

Ok so no one is allowed to be sad because of a less than ideal situation they have found themselves in. The person I was talking to did indeed “get on with it” and went back to work because she had to but she is sad and would prefer to be with her baby than sat in front of a computer all day every day. People can’t help how they feel.

Well, my mother was a full time teacher in those same olden days and I went to a childminder. I can't remember any of my friends whose mothers didn't work in the 80s.

It's not that nobody is allowed to be sad. Of course they are. It's the idea that one sector of society's sadness is something we should be doing something about.

We've all got bills to pay. That situation doesn't magically end because of children. So we all do what we can to get those bills paid. It's not some new thing.

It would be lovely if we could all do what makes us happy. Unfortunately, there isn't a magic money tree to enable that. The COL crisis means a lot of us are working harder to pay bills. Are you sad for all of us? We all have days when we don't want to be on the treadmill any more. Should we all have the choice to just down tools?

I can't either.