to be glad I didn't sacrifice my career for my kids

[FunnysInLaJardin]

Just that really.

I worked really hard for 15 years before the DC to establish my career in law. There was a certain amount of pressure to give it all up and be a SAHM.

I m so glad I didn't. My DC are now 15 and 20 and I have realised that that period of their childhood is so fleeting.

I did work PT while they were growing up, but now they are nearly grown, I am so pleased to have my work and career as the bit of me still standing.

What a shitty comment. So women basically have no value apart from bringing up kids or being hit on at work?

There's so many comments demonising working mothers and implying that women's jobs have no contribution to society. Yet I'm assuming all these people making these comments hitting out make use of the following services:

Nhs - dentists, nurses, doctors and everyone else working in it.
Education
Local authority- looking after your roads, street lights, waste and everything else your local council does.
Police
Fire
Civil service- processing your child and any other benefits. Not to mention the countless departments there that are there to keep our country moving and safe - home office, foreign office, work and pensions, environment etc etc

And before we start going on at mum's "going up the corporate ladder", think about all the corporate services we use daily

Retail - buying food and clothes
Banking
Insurance
Water companies
Heating companies
Automobile
Oil and gas
Housing
Solicitors

There's probably heaps of others I've forgotten. But there's a whole infrastructure and world of working mums out there who are actually working in services you use day in and day out and furthermore enable you to stay at home with your children. Start to criticise these women and your criticising the very organisations that keep you safe and keep us at a country moving.

It simply isn't suitable or feasible to say that all women should stay at home for the first 3-5 years of a child lives. Organisations like social work, education and nursing would simply crumble. Instead of this black and white thinking that women are only good for office gossip and only work to fund "luxuries" we should be campaigning for better, more affordable childcare and flexible working arrangements that benefit everyone.

Yes to all of this 🙌
This really goes against the narrative that working mothers are all selfish bitches choosing to be anywhere other than with their children.
I have zero issue with women choosing to be a SAHM, after all that’s what feminism is. It’s being able to make that choice. But people need to respect that other women might make a choice which is different.
There is no single choice that definitively makes you a better mother.

I think it’s also worth remembering that women have ALWAYS worked - people like to pretend it’s some kind of modern-newfangled post-feminism trend but that just isn’t true. But women’s contributions to history and society tend to get erased in favour of this pretense that women as an entire class never worked outside the home until 20 years ago.

Just as a random example, a huge proportion of the code-breakers of Bletchley Park were women - we owe them our freedom.

Why do we still have to have these threads in 2025? Where the SAHMs come out to say how much more they value their kids than the paid work mums.. the paid work mums say how pleased they are to have been financially self sufficient.. Most women have no choice but to keep working and a few have no choice but to stay at home to care for a disabled child. An actual free choice in this is rare. It should not be a smug-off.

I agree with this. The freedom to make the choice is what we should be aiming for. We shouldn't be fighting about whose choice is better.

No. By telling them the risks without putting down other women who have made perfectly reasonable choices for themselves and their families by saying they're "yummy mummying about".

Depends how old she is. In 1980 a building society manager told me they do not consider the wife’s income for a mortgage from a young childless couple.

It's not that they should stay at home from 3-5 years, it that they should have the choice to. The op was saying how much better it was for her to be at work because the childhood was so fleeting and implying she is now in a better position than SAHM. My point was that even though women often do struggle to get back into the workplace I am personally happy I made that choice (and sacrifice in career that came with it), but as others have agreed, it should be a choice for all and that it should not be so hard for women to get back into the workplace which is what seems to make it a tougher choice for many because if you have time out of work you are penalised.

‘It's puzzling to me when I see others lacking trust in their husbands. If there was no trust before marriage, why would they go through with it? Could it have been out of desperation?’

I think many people marry despite suspecting it might not be right & just hope for the best. I trusted my DH implicitly & knew he had my back. Our family is the most important thing to us both. He is now chronically ill & disabled & it’s my turn to support him. He was a high earner as a young man & we were savvy enough to save & take out critical illness cover so were mortgage free many years ago. All earnings were family money from day 1.

Why should only women have that choice? We need to be making work more flexible for everyone when possible and that includes fathers as well as those who aren't parents but would also appreciate having more of a work/life balance.

I mean, people also marry and have total trust in their husbands, and their husbands fuck off anyway and leave them in the shit. We see it all the time.

There’s such a bizarre insistence on so many of these threads that we can all control everything and make all the right choices if we’re smart enough.

As though the unexpected never happens; as though it’s easy to earn a lot of money, or to meet and settle down with a man who is a 100% equal partner. As though we’re all starting out from the same place in terms of education and understanding.

There’s no foolproof way to make sure everything turns out OK in the end. We’re all just doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt.

It would be great if we didn’t feel the need to shit all over one another’s choices and circumstances all the time.

A friend of mine went back to work and her preschool kids were in childcare from 8am to 6pm. Her school aged kids in wrap around care the same length of time. Before 8am was getting everything together to get the kids to care. The time after was rushing to get dinner then off to bed. Even my friend told me it was rushed and she never saw her kids during the week. At the weekend, she had elderly parents she was helping and family visits to catch up on.

To me, that is not what I would choose and counts as never really seeing my kids. Even my friend said she never really saw them during the week. She herself described it as rushed morning and evening. She did find her career fulfilling, I know she went back for economic reasons, she didn't seem to have any issue with her choices as far as things like 'mum guilt' (which she shouldn't) but was realistic about it and what it meant.

I've based my view of what the houses of full time working parents are like from what full time working parents have told me.

You mean one friend?

What your friend told you isn't anything I recognise at all and I work full time.

No, but it would be a very long post if I listed every example, wouldn't it? It seems to be typical, of week days at least. Not everyone has the same family obligations in the weekend as this particular friend.

It isn't typical of my week days. Not everyone has the same work hours or commute either.

Maybe it is different. I only know what I've seen. Be happy with your choices and just get on with it, I guess.

My kids were never in childcare 8-6; we have flexible working patterns and some wfh so could always do most school runs between us. Grandparents helped out around that. Always had breakfast and dinner together in the week plus reading, spellings, bedtime stories etc. So your depiction of ft working parents is very different to mine.

So you are fortunate to have the family support, which obviously my friends have not. I know I wouldn't have. WFH wouldn't have been possible in my friends' careers. If you're WFH you might be physically present but you're not really able to give your all to your kids.

Of course my friends ate together and did all the homework stuff during the week, but that was part of the rush of things to fit in.

Exactly.

DH and I flex around each other and I also WFH 99% of the time which means mine are never in childcare 8-6 either and nursery is within walking distance so drop off and pick up are quick and easy. Definitely not all of this apparent rushing around.

I'm in the minority here but I do think that if you decide to have children then one parent needs to be there to put them first. If no one is prepared to do that then why have kids? Like you say, that young bit is so fleeting - why miss it?
Yeah but the best bit is when they are not so young.
Honestly what a friggin' pompous post!
For me the best years where the late primary and the teens.
The teen year years where fabulous!

My point about wfh was that it means no commute, that's all, so it gives a person more time and enables school runs. Having flexibility and support is just part of the variance among different family situations. If your friend was doing dinner, homework and stories then she hardly 'didn't see her kids all week' - that's such emotive and misleading phrasing.

Well, it was the phrase my friend used. She obviously felt that.

Perhaps she felt the pressure of being guilt tripped by people insisting that mothers must always be 'giving their all' to their kids every minute of every day.

No, I don't think she felt guilt at all. She seemed quite matter of fact about it. I think she was quite secure in her choices and she didn't state that she never saw her kids in a sad or regretful way. Just a stating fact kind of way. She would have had the option to stay home or work part-time but chose not to. She never seemed at all doubtful.

It's not what I wanted but she never criticised my choice on that either. It was just what it was.

Men are sometimes criticized if they have a high powered job with very long hours and/or lots of travel which means they are rarely at home. I've yet to hear a man being judged for not quitting his 9-5 job as a data manager/ communication officer/accountant to become a SAHD.