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.

Indeed. Most women, in most cultures, have always worked. The notion that the SAHM is some kind of ideal default for either mother or child is a very small, culture-specific temporal blip.

Women know the deal.

They know what the most economically viable option is for them when they go off on maternity leave. They may not love the choice (be it giving up work to be a SAHM or going back to work when they'd rather not. Not everyone coverts the same thing!!)

Women manage.

Yes, please send me back to the olden days where I couldn’t get have a job once married, or have a mortgage in my own right or have a bank account and everything I had was actually technically my husbands. And just to top it off of he was a bastard I couldn’t even divorce him…eh no!

A lot of women (my mum included) did all the childcare and housework during the day and then had to go to work in the evenings. Relentless slog all day every day.

I feel more sorry for the women who are forced to stay at home and give up careers or forced into career breaks due to lack of affordable childcare!!

Er I wanted to go back because I didn't want to hamper my career or earning power. Plus house prices mean most households need a dual income.
I would have loved to stay off work until DD was at least 1 year old but in hindsight I'm pleased I didn't because my career wouldn't be where it is today had I done that.

I was brought up to always earn my own money and never rely on a man. I am passing that down to DD because it means you don't have to settle and you have freedom to leave.

I agree OP. I was lucky enough to take several years off with each of mine, the thought of leaving them as tiny babies in a childcare setting still makes me feel sick ten years later. I had a few friends who were forced back to work much earlier than they wanted and they were absolutely miserable about it.

All women should have the choice.

I'm sure everyone would love to live in a time when a whole family could be supported by one wage. As this would mean we were all being well paid indeed.
However, you should know, this has never been the case. Working class women from low income households have always had to combine paid work with childcare.
No one had a peep to say about how sad it was that my granny did all the domestic work and childcare and took in washing, and cleaned other people's houses in her 'spare time', back in the good old days.
Now higher costs have made this a problem for a new cohort of women its suddenly 'very sad', and we have to wheel out a bunch of harmful sexist stereotypes to support their right not to have to work.

And when it was legal for your husband to rape you.

Given the divorce rate and the increasingly popular choice of having children without marriage, women who are not economically independent make themselves very vulnerable indeed. Too many men aren’t willing to accept responsibility for their children.

I love my job. I love the satisfaction I get from my work. I love that I travel and meet interesting people and I love the feeling of achievement and fulfillment I get from it. I also love to look at my pension and see the security I'm building for my future. I love to pay my cleaners - I absolutely loathe housework and and am so glad and grateful I can outsource it. I even love paying my tax bill in January and knowing I'm making a contribution to the public services we all depend on.

I didn't love maternity leave and while I love my children beyond all measure, I would have been extremely unhappy as a SAHM.

I also think that stay at home parents make an extremely valuable contribution to society by the way, and I wish that childrearing and motherhood was not so undervalued and diminished as it is. And I would love to live in a society that recognised this and had far better parental leave policies and much more affordable high quality childcare too. I'd be happy to pay more taxes to support high quality provision. I think we should be investing in our children's early years.

The absurd tradwife ideology that's creeping in so insidiously everywhere is not about making life better for women, no matter how many wistful and disingenuous posts pop up here and everywhere else online harking back to a past that never existed. It only ushers in a bleak future where women are more disempowered and all the progress we've worked towards is dismantled. Things are not perfect now, and they weren't perfect in the romanticised fantasy of the 50s that's being pushed so hard from some very suspect circles.

Genuinely gobsmacked by OP … so every woman going for a job interview would be written off as “won’t return to work after having a baby” who needs an education huh? When we can stay at home and change nappies? Cannot imagine anything worse (took 5 months off after each of my two kids and that was damaging enough to my career)

Exactly what "olden days" are you referring to? Over 100 years ago, my great grandmother worked after having children (no such thing as paid maternity leave), my grandmother worked (again, no such thing as maternity leave, let alone paid leave or any other state benefits), my mother worked...it has always been thus. (And it's not always dependent on wealth - my great grandmother was well off - the property still needed running, no matter how many children she had.) I think you're wishing for a past that didn't exist for the majority. It would be more accurate to say you wish one salary was enough to support a family, and we lived in a country that was forward thinking enough to value education and women.

What is the man ‘doesn’t want’ or ‘cannot have’ a career as well? If you have children, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, someone needs to earn the money to bring them up.

OP, I agree with you. One decent salary should be enough to support a family and thus enable a degree of choice but very sadly it just isn’t these days.

I think women should have the choice. If they want to go back to work, then childcare should be affordable (hopefully it is more so now with the 30 free hours?) And if they want to be able to take a few years off until their child is of school age it also would be amazing to have that choice too, if its what they want to do.

I have an 11 month old and I've been able to hand in my notice and not return to work (I will have to pay my maternity leave back which is bonkers considering I'd worked there 10 years, never off sick etc!) And I feel so lucky to have been able to do that, as its what I want to do. I do think its sad that women who dont want to return to work are effectively forced due to money. I think both choices are equally valid and respectable.

Going back slightly further, the children were part of the working unit, too, from the age of around 3 with whole families doing piece work in the home (usually a very small, unsanitary rented room or two if they were lucky).

My feeling is that a single wage should be enough to support the basic needs of family. No luxuries or extras but a roof over the head and food. Then a family can decide how they want to set it up.

In my family, my husband is a sahd and I work. That should be an option for everyone. It's up the the family which adult works and which stays home or both adults go part time/ flexible.

It is best for children to have a fully dedicated primary caregiver, I don't think it matters if it's the dad or mum. Unfortunately that's not an option for most families. If both parents want to work then they should be rewarded with the ability to purchase nicer things, better holidays etc. childcare should be available and affordable for all and the money going to the the teachers/ nursery workers not big business behind them.

My granny cleaned toilets in the evening for money after she was widowed. I wouldn’t give up my financial independence for anything.

It’s scary how easily some people overlook the advances we have made in women’s rights. Equality hasn’t just fallen into our laps, women have literally died and been imprisoned for our rights to vote, work, inherit, make our own reproductive choices. You are harking back nostalgically to a time you haven’t even lived in and I guarantee life was not better for most women in the fifties.

Even in posh families like mine women got shat on because the men were supposed to provide for them, but often didn’t. Independence is such an incredible gift. Be bloody careful what you wish for.

Lots of people, male and female, children or none, would prefer not to work if it wasn't a necessity - or at least, to be able to work doing something they loved but which wouldn't pay them a living wage, e.g. as an artist.

I don't see why the necessity of working is worse for post-maternity leave women - at least they have had an extended period, with pay, of doing something that's a change from their usual job.

And, certainly not everyone wants to give up their 'day job' and the population of motivated, ambitious people does not exclude women who've been on mat leave.

well, not everyone wants a career. not sure what is so hard.

I would have like to have a career but couldn't as both DC have complex needs . no school holiday childcare, no wrap around childcare, months out out school. It's difficult in these sort of circumstances to have a career if you are forced by the state to be at home with the DC. I am sure there are many other scenarios where which are not compatible with having a strong focus on work and being to put in the hours.

I went kind of mad and just refused to go back. I couldn’t leave the baby. Had to pay back my maternity pay of course. Crazy times.

I really wish more families could choose to have one parent at home if they want to. I feel like we’ve been scammed into thinking working outside the home is best.

How sad that staying at home with your children is seen as a luxury.

It should be possible for women to choose if they want to work or stay at home. It shouldn't be looked down on or seen as a luxury to want to be at home with your children if you want to, just as it shouldn't be looked down on or seen as a bad thing to want to have a career and children.

At the moment it is not possible for most women to choose to stay at home if they want to due to mortgages and rents based on 2 salaries. Many of my friends would like to stay with their children for longer as babies but they don't get that choice.

Yanbu

Women should be able to stay home with their babies if its what they want

Some women don't get a choice (either way)