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!

Neither my nor my partners parents were alive by the time we had children. Never even had a babysitter until my children were high school age. You are being massively unreasonable and frankly talking nonsense.

You think 90% of working mothers have free childcare from their mums? Sounds like absolute nonsense

Talking about before my child started school and I didn’t have a job, so it’s too late for that now but I’m hearing people who also had kids young basically saying they’re better than me because they worked full time and raised a baby at 16 and I didn’t work. Then you scratch beneath the surface and they had their own mum doing all the babysitting so they could work

Surely its school nurseries that finish at 3, which are more for socialisation and preparing for school, you need a nursery that is for childcare which will have hours that better suit working times.

Many people might use a combination of GPs, paid childcare and working part-time. Not sure how many parents who work full time solely use GPs for childcare

Huh?
nursery was open 8-6 when mine was small. I'm not going to claim I had no help because I was in the tax credits era so I got some fees paid but I worked 9-5 and used nursery around those hours. You can't say you can't find a 9-5 job within an hour's commute of a nursery surely?

I never knew anyone who used their mothers as full time childcare. In fact most of the mothers were working full time themselves

Ok maybe that’s not accurate for the whole country. But it’s certainly not far off reality among people I know

@Ruddeo if you didn’t work how did you support yourself and your baby?

So send your child to a nursery or childminder with more suitable hours? I don’t drive either, but I’ve still always had a FT job.

Full time working mum here. DM was still in work when DS1 was little, I went back 3 days after mat leave and he went to nursery 2 days. DH worked compressed hours, so he had one day to be at home while I was at work.

DM did help with DS2 as she'd retired by then (she was a nurse, retired early from full time nursing and just did bank). DS2 was a handful, so I felt that having both boys for a full day was too much to ask, so she used to have DS2 one day and do DS1 school pickup and tea the next when DS2 was in nursery. DS1 was starting school as mat leave for DS2 finished, thankfully.

Went back to a full time CAMHS service lead role once both boys were in school. I started work after school drop off, DM helped with school pickups a couple of days a week, they had a couple of days in after school clubs and DH finished early on Friday to pick them up. It was easier for her to have them both when they were school age. I don't feel we over-relied on her, I was conscious of trying not to anyway.

I work full time. My kids go to nursery. My mum does occasionally have them for an evening or an hour at the weekend but never overnight, for a full day or instead of paid for childcare. And neither does anyone else I know!

This feels like a very specific beef you have with a specific person or couple of people. I don’t know anyone who uses their parents for childcare with the sort of regularity you describe. I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just saying that suggesting it is 10% of all working mothers is likely a huge exaggeration.

I think you should work on whatever it is that makes you think they are looking down on you or what is causing you to feel crap. I suspect it is all in your head. Most of us who work full time (using paid childcare!) don’t have the time or energy to notice, let alone care, what others are doing.

Not my normal. It's all paid childcare with my friends, either nursery or nanny. Most of us don't have grand parents close enough for regular childcare and/or they have caring requirements themselves.

We've had the benefit of building our careers prior to kids so we do have some autonomy of our time and finances to cover childcare. But there has also been active decisions to accommodate childcare needs i.e. my husband moving from private practice to in house as a lawyer as we both couldn't have such demanding jobs.

Do you know every mother in the country then? I use nursery like everyone else I know.

Ok so why was a childminder not an option then?

Certainly not all and probably not even most but yes, a lot of children are cared for by their grandparents. That is simply a fact, there are stats to back that up.

Some grandparents are happy to do it and others are quietly resentful.

People should be communicating with each other and regularly checking to make sure the arrangement still suits everyone.

What you’re actually saying, is that anecdotally other young mums, that you know, judged you for not working, when they had much higher levels of family support. For that, you’re not being unreasonable but to suggest 9/10 of all Mums have family support is wildly inaccurate.

I'm a completely lone parent without any family support and I do it by working bloody hard.

The job I work shifts finish at 11. I can only work the days my partner isn’t working. I actually physically do far more than most of the people I know especially as I don’t drive so have to walk everywhere. But they think they’re better than me because I didn’t have a job until my child started school and am only part time now.

Hey look, there’s no need to argue about figures - the government collects stats on this! 63% of 0-4 year olds are cared for in paid childcare settings. So you’re way out with your guesstimate, OP. I’m sorry other people’s circumstances are making you feel bad about yourself, but you seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, perhaps because you’ve had a struggle through having your first baby very young. I’m sorry you didn’t get the support you hoped for.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years

OP, I don’t know where you live, but my DD and her friends all have full-time jobs and leave their DC at nursery. I’ve looked after my DGC when there’s an inset day at school or other odd times, but I live too far away to do it on a regular basis. Not everyone lives just up the road from their DM. It sounds to me as though you have a massive chip on your shoulder about the fact that you have a part-time job and others work full time, which you attribute to family help. How about you do you, rather than making sweeping and highly inaccurate generalisations about what others may or may not do?

My mum quit her part-time job to look after my children. It was very much her choice. So I paid her so she wasn't out of pocket. It was cheaper than full time childcare for 2 kids and it meant she had almost the same amount as her job so she retained some financial independence. Again, that was my choice. Each family has a different set up and you never know how that arrangement was made. It may look like the grandparents are being taken advantage of but maybe they actually enjoy it. Looking after grandchildren can be very hard but also very rewarding. But everyone is different.

Becoming a parent at 16, there would have been all sorts of support both financial and practical for those mothers.
‘Myself and my siblings have got 10 children between us. Myself and 1 DSis went to Uni when our firstborns were under 1, they went to full time nursery. I went straight into full time work, had 3 months maternity leave with 2nd DC and my mum didn’t do any childcare for any of us as she didn’t live nearby.
Both my DDs work FT with compressed hours, use nurseries for 3 days, I look after their grandchildren on 1 day as I’m retired now and their husbands do childcare for 1 day.

@Ruddeo , I'm sorry you have people in your life who made you feel like shit for raising your children in a way that worked best for you. It's great as well that you are now making strides to improve your circumstances, now your children are of school age.
Try not to get distracted now by what people are doing and how they are doing it. That's energy best used making a good life for you and your children.