Feel so much guilt about wrap around

[Violettt2]

DD goes to breakfast and after school clubs. She has been increasingly moaning about this.

Is it normal to feel a lot of guilt about her having to attend these? I never used to as a kid and to be honest would have hated it too, being on top of the school day.

I am starting to wonder whether I’m wrong to have put working full time above being there for DD after school as one of my parents always was for me. I’m feeling like life’s too short to prioritise a company who would happily drop and forget about me if the need arose.

I’m not sure what I’m looking to get out of this, maybe to feel I’m not the only one in this position.

YANBU. Women can have jobs, but working just to pay for childcare is pretty stupid when you have to put them into childcare so you can go to work anyway. I don't even understand what woman would ever WANT to go to work over being with her children. Obviously the choice was removed and many can't be with their children, but that's the cruellest part of all of this because the kids end up being raised by the state.

Replacing the father (the provider) by the government was never going to end well, either. You don't want to miss key moments and milestones in your childrens' lives.

Women have always worked, since the beginning of time.

YABU to feel guilty

And I never said anything on the contrary.

Many such cases for many women. Makes you wonder why they have children in the first place.

Mine does breakfast club 5 days and after school 3

She doesn’t hate it - she only 4 and they go to the nursery for after school club so she’s with little friends age 3/4/5 only which is nice

the have tea in there and she always comes out so happy

but she’s absolutely shattered in the evenings

I could finish up my day a bit earlier and do sometimes and get her on time or by 4.30/5 but I also have a baby to pick up at nursery so it’s a big juggle trying to do it all - it’s easier if I get the baby and husband gets the school run based on where we work - but it means school
child left til 6 if we do that and it’s a lonnnng day - so I do always feel guilty
If I get baby then go to her the poor baby is out for like 50’mins in the whole round trip and he’s grumpy and cold then - so you can’t win

If you could drop a day at work it might help break it up a little dropping to just wrap around 4 days ??

Can both you and your oartner/her dad look at your schedules to see if you can cut out some of the sessions?
And how old is she?

YANBU. If you’d like to adjust things to be there more before and after school and you can afford to, then definitely go for it if that’s what you & your DC would prefer.

I love doing all the school runs and so much goes on straight after school. I love the flexibility to match my children’s needs and preferences across the week- park if it’s good weather, both have a friend round once or twice a week, straight home to chill out and decompress is lovely too. I love having time to do Art, Lego, Aquabeads, reading a pile of books to them and having a cosy cuddle and chat. My 7 year old optionally does 1 day at after school club until 5pm to see different friends there. We do what suits us each day, and all love having unhurried time to catch up.

Same to all of the above.

Also, is your DD in reception OP? I felt that way in the first year, the following year I got over it. Friendships started building, so and so goes to breakfast / after school club so I want to go too. Everyone’s parents are working nowadays. The guilt does ease off.

"I don't want to be fully reliant on DH wage and it's healthy to have your own career and purpose. working is still the smart option."

But you're already reliant on the money you make by working for someone else. Are you suggesting that your children don't give you a purpose? Your work doesn't define you, by the way, especially when the boss you work for can easily replace you should you get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I'm not trying to be abrasive, I just see huge gaping holes in your logic, and the awareness that most of the country feels the same way you do genuinely frightens me to the core.

YANBU to feel that way. Breakfast and after school clubs are generally grim. Needs must though!

My DD complains that she doesn’t go to wrap around care more. She goes once a week and it’s just playing with her friends, so she whinges to me to send her more often.

We got an afterschool nanny for this reason. The cost isn’t that much different for us – £93 per week vs £135. And she does their homework, cooking and tidying up too. The kids don’t moan anymore.

Do you wonder the same about the many men with children who work full time too?

Lucky! I looked into that and it was way out of price range for us (3 kids, 2 of whom only do 2 days ASC, other one in nursery. If they did more wrap around the difference would be smaller). Nanny seems so much simpler and nicer and economical!

Your kid hates it and you probably don't need to do it? If I was you I would stop the wraparound care.

Kids moan, OP. It doesn't mean that you have to make such a big decision based on a kid moaning.

Especially since they don't fully understand things the way adults do.

Your logic doesn’t work either. Depending on a partner for money is nothing like depending on an employer for money – the most obvious reason being that they pay your NI contributions and your pension. It’s a professional relation from which you financially benefit for the long term. Financial reliance on a partner has negative implications for a relationship dynamic, especially when either partner doesn’t want that dynamic.

Being replaceable also does not eradicate the meaning and identity one finds in work. And it’s rather naive to suggest it does. You work, you receive your salary and the feeling of satisfaction – that’s how it works. You can only be replaced forward, not backwards.

How presumptuous to think you can tell anyone where they personally find meaning and self-definition.

Having twins has its perks, as they will always be doing the same!

Men are the providers. That's their purpose in life; to provide, to protect.

Any other line of thought is in the direction of replacing the provider with the government.

Yawn.

And of course it is always the woman’s fault, I see.

if possible you and your dh could look at flexing your hours so you both do say two pick ups /drop off each?

Could you look for a childminder who does your school ? At least it’s a home and more relaxed.

or one of you could go part time and do some of the pick ups

Does your dh feel guilty?

Have you cracked time travel and you've managed to time warp from the 1950s into 2025?!