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 don't think sahms are disgusting. Far from it. Stay home and raise your babies if that's what you want and I also don't care if their dad, your parents or the government funds it. Life is short. It passes by fast. Take what enjoyment, happiness and love you can where you can find it. I really appreciated my year off with each child, with hindsight of I could have afforded it id have taken 2 years. We couldn't though without taking too many steps back in other ways than we wanted and I value my career too.

I come at life from the advantage of career options and a decent husband and plenty of disadvantages I don't need to list. Just live your life.

I very much doubt it is 9 out of 10. For a start a great many people don't live near their parents as they move away for university and work - of my university friends not one lives near their parents, many don't even live in the same country as them.

I've always worked fulltime apart from 4 maternity leaves. My in laws fucked off to France when I was pregnant with the eldest, my father died soon after and my mother lives 2 hours away and doesn't drive. So in my case, you are very wrong.

I had my eldest at 18, worked full time from when he was 3 months old and paid for childcare. so no, you're wrong.

I can think of 2 families I know of with this kind of support usually shared between 2 sets of affluent grandmothers.

That's it though. Everyone else in my and my children's peer groups it's paid childcare. And even that is a pain in the backside to organise around kids specific needs, commutes, days that run late etc etc. The juggle is the hardest bit I think, during mat leave there was work and effort and whatnot but the rushing to drop. Pick up, the deciding if they are sick enough to call in to take the day off work again or if they are just sick enough that you can drop them off for a miserable day. Then the guilt the other way for the balls dropped at work. The juggle is hard.

Definitely not all but in some cases. My mum once tried to put me down for being a SAHM, saying that she didn’t have that option because her husband didn’t make enough money to support the whole family, implying that I’m privileged and lazy. I told her she seemed to be forgetting that she had the option to go back to work easily because she had a mum who looked after me and my sister all the time for free, whereas I have nobody who is willing to look after my children long enough for me to even go on a single date with my husband. And it wouldn’t make any sense financially for me to go back to work with the cost of full time childcare for two children. Weirdly enough she hadn’t tried to criticise me for not working since.

A lot of people just pay for childcare, most I know literally spent an entire wage on childcare bills when their kids were little. It’s quite normal.

None of my friends have used their parents for regular childcare. Not one.

They all work full-time.

Obviously this is more about what is going on with you @Ruddeo and there is a lot to unpick from what you have posted.

To answer your actual question though, almost everyone I know who works FT use paid childcare (possibly with some elements of family help here and there but no way does anyone I know have FT family childcare)

The people who do have family help are those - who like myself - work PT. My lovely MIL looks after my kids after school on the days I work to save us childcare costs.

Even then I am in the minority as I don't know anyone else who has the same level of family help that I do.

FT workers are statistically more able to afford paid childcare so on that point alone your theory falls down.

Are you me? Same situation. 3 in 4 dead, 4th one a grandfather in Asia working full time as a University professor.

Yea, I mean I worked full time whilst my son was in childcare as parents still worked. Also studied in the evening to qualify. Was it hard? Hell yes it was, but I am benefitting from it 20 years later.

I think you need to stop caring so much about what these other people think and just get on with living your own life, OP.

Don’t be silly. People don’t work full time to brag, they work full time to pay their own bills and provide the best lift they can for their children and themselves.

My husband and I worked opposite shifts to facilitate childcare, mostly in jobs we would prefer not to do but work the best for our circumstances.

Learn to drive. It will open so many doors for you.

This, anyone who is telling you what a lazy shit you are to your face for being a SAHM is not a positive to your life!

From a whatsapp group of about 30 mums that I'm in, I'd say about 50% are working full time...roughly 30% of them have help from grandparents some of the time and private nursery to make up the rest. Others use full time nursery.
Only 2 of us have grandparents doing all of the care...I can't speak for the other person but my Mum insisted that she really wanted to do it and I also pay her roughly the local rate of a childminder (which she didn't want but I send anyway).
Small sample size but I don't think 9/10 is realistic.

I literally don't know a single person who has used their parents for childcare. We all use childminders or nurseries (latest pick up for my children's 6:30) or nannies.

I had a nursery place arranged before my eldest was 3 months old & dh had organised his job so it would cover my out of hours obligations. It wasn't on our radar to use our mothers - regardless of anything else, they were busy with their own full time jobs.

I don't know a single person who uses their mother as childcare?

Look at how many grandparents are on the school run. Go to a toddler group and count how many Grandmas and Grandad's there are. Go swimming mid week and do the same. Go to the park after school it's full of us. I do it happily I love my grandchild and I know in the new world we live in two incomes are required so my generation has had to step up and we do. In droves.

Ah a sahm vs wm thread. Op we’re all great and all exhausted too, no need for this

You sound really angry and bitter.

You've obviously done a great job at parenting, having a baby at 16 must have been hard, and I would never judge anyone who doesn't work because childcare doesn't work for them. It's hard for working mothers, childcare is expensive, and the work/parent balance is massively and unfairly skewed against women.

I'm sorry other people made you feel bad when you had a young baby, but it's maybe time to get over that now?

I don’t know anyone who uses family as childcare. We all use a nursery. Our family don’t live in the same country so we arranged nursery places.

yes I don’t know why people are denying how common it is. I also haven’t got a problem with it as long as grandmas happy to do it, my gripe is with people who don’t acknowledge how much gran does and use it to imply other people are lazy

I think you might have missed it, but I posted the actual figures upthread, because they are gathered by the ONS. 63% of 0 to 4 year olds are in paid childcare settings. So your guess of only 10% is way, way off. As I said in that post, I’m sorry you haven’t got the support you hoped for but it’s not the fault of those 37% of women who are lucky enough not to have to pay for childcare.

@Tontostitis most GPs don't do it full time though.

And most people only have the luxury of SAHP if there is someone else in the household earning enough to cover household bills

I don’t know anyone who lives near enough to their parents for the parents to be useful. Also it seems pretty disrespectful to parents to expect them to be regular carers for you when they’ve already brought their kids up.

I presumably lead a very different life to you OP but everyone I know without exception uses full time private nursery or breakfast club / after school club. It’s extremely straightforward.