To think all these mothers bragging about working full time are just using their own mothers as unpaid childcare?

[Ruddeo]

I came to this realisation recently after years of being made to feel like a lazy piece of shit by them, because I had my first child when I was 16 and didn’t have a job until they went to school and this is part time.

Once you dig beneath the surface of the full time job, the active social life and weekends, 9 times out of 10 there’s a tired exhausted grandma who just wants some rest!

I've always worked FT, I live on the other side of the world from my family.
Single parent.
Any support I've had I paid for.

I read about people on here with grandparent support but I dont recognise anyone like that in real life.

Eh?

No. My mother lives 2.5 hours away & DHs has done one day of emergency childcare in 8 years.

My parents do an evening babysit abouts 2-3 times per year, usually for mine/DH birthday/our anniversary. Often they get us a ticket for something & the "gift" includes the offer to babysit which is brill. They do usually do 2-3 days once during summer holidays, then SiL usually offers the same but if she didn't we'd pay for camps.

We pay for childcare covering our working hours and always have.

Are you the same poster who started the IVF thread, or are there two OPs this week who had a baby at 16 and are negatively generalising about other groups of parents ? .

I don't think it's helpful for parents to be making these jabs at eachother. From personal experience, my husband and I both work full time and our child has never been looked after by either set of grandparents, not even for 5 minutes as a baby to allow me a shower. We pay for nursery and have done since she started. In my experience working full time with a young child and no support is utterly exhausting, especially considering there is no safety net and no one to call in an emergency. I wouldn't dream of making comments or assumptions about other parents, their working or childcare situations. In the trenches of bringing up children it helps to just be a bit more kind!

I never had any family childcare although did work part time for a few years. I went full time whe DS was about 8 or 9. I used to take him to school and his dad who was self employed would pick him up. If we were struggling other parents would help and we would reciprocate. Loads of parents juggle and/or use paid childcare.

I agree OP, in my experience friends with full time careers have plenty of family support including a) providing regular daytime childcare which avoids having to pay for full time nursery fees b) Ad hoc babysitting which enables couples to have one n one time or just time to decompress/run errands etc Or c) helping with housework, life admin, watching kids school events, getting a shop in etc.
Before anyone jumps on me I’m aware that this won’t be the case for all FT working parents though.
I worked PT when mine were little as the cost of childcare and the additional tax meant that I’d have actually been worse off than working full time.

I have worked full time since my kids were little and paid for childcare, even as a single parent. I certainly dont brag about it, it was my personal choice to give my kids a certain standard of living that I wanted for them. I dont judge others for their choices, most people are doing what feels right for them anf their circumstances. Life is hard enough without doing down people who have chosen a different path to us. Each to their own