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.

It's an option for men in theory but I mean, even this thread only has women in the title and I doubt anyone would make a thread about feeling sorry for fathers who have to go back to work 2 weeks later and saying how sad it is that they don't get a choice.

My point is that in society, it is women who are offered that choice and this thread is a good example of it.

They're 'allowed' to be sad.

The rest of us are allowed not to care.

Nobody is “offered” anything. Two loving parents who work as a team choose what works best for them and what is in the best interest of THEIR family.

Then why are threads like this always about women?

Many of these women are not "having a career" they're torn away from their kids to be menial wageslaves. Bring back the 1950s

Maybe the clue is in the name of the site, MUMSnet?!

Well yeah, the fact it is named mumsnet is part of it.

Though, it was named mumsnet back in the 90's/early 00's which I believe is the timeline OP was talking about.

Very dramatic! I don't think any of the women I know - teachers, doctors, lawyers, charity workers, PRs, editors, copywriters, to name a few - would call themselves menial wage slaves. They'd definitely describe themselves as having careers. And in talking to my friends about juggling work and motherhood, the concept of being 'torn away' from our kids isn't one I can say sounds very familiar.

When I had mine maternity leave was only 6 months long, a year sounds like bliss and you even get money to help, we got nothing. There was no golden age either, my grandmothers worked, kids were farmed out to unregulated childcare often, my mother was made to give up her well paid job because there was no right to maternity leave.

I'm surprised everyone saying that in the past all working class women were out working, my gran had 10 kids and wasn't out working in the 50's, she certainly wasn't rich either, they lived in a council house all their lives and got by on my grandads wages.

My mum was a SAHM too and I adored having a SAHM, so that was what I wanted for mine. I'd have been devastated if that wasn't possible. I agree with the PP who said that middle class women joining the workforce en masse in the 80's allowed housing pricing to start to climb and climb - until the point now where there is no choice but for women to work so they can afford to live.

I agree with you OP, I think that it's a real shame for those who would like to be SAHM's and the kids that would love to have a SAHM. But you'll never convince the hugely defensive MC working mothers that dominate here.

@sunandfizz What if you couldn't afford to pay the bills? Would you have still stayed at home?

Even in the ‘old days’ a man’s wage often wasn’t enough. Working class women have always worked - they were servants and wet nurses, farmers and laundresses, seamstresses, cooks and cleaners and factory workers and goose girls and piece workers and matchstick makers. The middle class were governesses and doctors assistants and nurses and secretaries. Only the rich got away with it - and they hired Nannie’s and nurses for their babies.

For a brief few decades women became housewives. It was short lived because life is expensive.

I agree with the PP who said that middle class women joining the workforce en masse in the 80's allowed housing pricing to start to climb and climb

The problem is capitalism, not feminism. That women have been afforded more opportunities is a good thing, not a bad thing. That we have a society in which women are represented across careers is a good thing for us and our children.

There is just so much emotive language on here about women being 'devastated' and 'torn' from their children. I get that some women absolutely feel like that. But on the flipside there are women frustrated and depressed and stifled by having no choice but to stay at home. And women living with abuse, trapped in desperate situations that they have no financial or practical means to escape. To focus only on the subset of women who would prefer to be SAHMs is a very narrow perspective.

You know, it's almost as though women are actually full human beings who find different kinds of lives fulfilling and satisfying and there is no 'one size fits all' approach.

And totally by coincidence, in most cases the best interests of the family involves the mum stepping back her job, not the dad. 🤔

You have spectacularly missed my point

What's your point?

We wouldn't have had 3 kids if it meant using nurseries. It's just something we never considered doing at all. Nobody really discussed using nurseries then, definitely not all day every day for babies. The norm was they would go a few mornings per week at the age of about 2.5 or 3. If they didn't want to go on a given morning, or were tired, they just didn't go.

Can you explain it again then? Your point seemed to be that women don't have careers, only menial and unsatisfying jobs but I don't think that's borne out.

There you go again with 'nurseries all day every day' for babies. Totally ignoring that many working families rely on grandparent childcare and also childminders exist. So if people don't want to use nursery, there are alternatives. It feels like a very deliberate narrative being pushed here, with a very clear agenda.

The vast majority of babies don't go all day, every day anyway. Most mothers who do go back to work, go back part time.

I have the career-iest of "career jobs", very far from being a wage slave, very intellectually stimulating, financially lucrative etc - and I wish I hadn't had to go back to work after 1 year.

I am speaking for jobs like investment banking, management consulting, big law, senior management in corporate etc.

I also wish I had started earlier with kids but at my workplace the pace is just so absolutely full-on at all the job levels in your 20s that for many women they are early to mid-30s before reaching a level of seniority that would allow them enough flex in their schedule to be able to handle a nursery pickup. (Almost all have nannies. Many have two for extra coverage.)

I don't think it's feminist to accept this "male pattern career" (work all hours in your 20s, kids in 30s while trying desperately to stay on the career ladder, definitely don't take a career break because there is no coming back...) as a default.

We should advocate more for entry and re-entry schemes into careers later in life, for example. Part time or even 9-5 (not 9am-11pm) versions of professional jobs. Flexible independent consulting options that aren't "well, I guess I'll become a life coach for other ex-professional career women who are finding they can't have it all?"

Feminism that overlooks our biology as women is useless.

@sunandfizz How many years ago did you have your children?

@RowanRed90

Many of these women are not "having a career" they're torn away from their kids to be menial wageslaves. Bring back the 1950s

What about the women who are family breadwinners, whose families depend on their salary to survive? They’re all “menial wageslaves”? All of them?

What would you suggest a single mother who wants to “bring back the 1950s” should do?

It was 2003, 2005 and 2008.

@sunandfizz Things have changed so much from a financial pov since then.