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!

No, OP, sorry to prove you wrong but my dm died when I was 5 months pregnant,and ex's mum died 15 years before. Both fs had been dead for 20 years.

So I've worked full time & cared for ds full time since 2012. Ex does maybe 14 nights a year.

It takes some planning but it can be done.

Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes parents pay for their own childcare.

I am baffled by the amount of responses saying they do not know anyone who uses grandparents to help with childcare. I live in an extremely affluent area and Grandparents are out and about everywhere with little people!
I can guarantee that our local primary have more grandparents picking up than parents.
Myself and my peers help with Grandchildren on a regular basis for a couple of afternoons or a whole day every week.My grandson is at nursery 2.5 days a week and myself and son in-laws family share the other hours and pick other grandchild up from school on those days.

This is what I was thinking too. I’ve delayed having a family to ensure I’m in a financial position to raise a child. Children are expensive. If I wasn’t financially able to raise a child, I just wouldn’t. The same applies to considering whether I have the support system.

I work full time and use paid childcare.

Nurseries are generally open 8am to 6pm. I understand you work til 11 but you could have looked for another job that fit in nursery hours. UC would have paid 85% of your childcare too!

I don't know a lot of people who have grandparent help to be honest. If only 1 in 10 children are in paid childcare, why are nurseries over subscribed?

Eh? I have a childminder that i pay for. No grandma on the scene at all.

I’ve had people brag to me that “they’ve been driving since they were 17” definitely bragging, now I’m older I know it’s common for parents to pay for all driving lessons until their kid passes. But people don’t mention that when bragging.

I am not envious and have definitely had multiple people tell me I’m lazy and some people saying I only got pregnant so I didn’t have to get a job after leaving school. Believe what you want though

You may be older now but you clearly still think and convey feelings like a 16yr old. @Ruddeo do yourself a favour and stop making this about everyone else and what “they have said or done to you” and start looking at yourself and what you need to do.

What about this is conveyed like a 16 year old?I mentioned what people had said to me because someone had the temerity to say it’s not true. I made this thread with the thought that anyone who’s being made to feel rubbish because they aren’t able to do as much as someone with a free childminder can read it and maybe feel a little better.
As for the point about nurseries being popular, well children get ill regularly and having a back up free childminder in the form of your own mother will save you from getting fired for taking too much time off. Not to mention all the jobs that do not fit around nursery hours but having a grandma to pick up and keep the child for a few hours will make things easier

Everything you say reeks of immaturity @Ruddeo just drop it.

It feels immature because you seem to have a grudge against a particular kind of woman who has family support. A more mature approach would be 'I chose not to work because I didn't have any support and the childcare would be too high a cost, that has set me back financially but on the other hand I got to spend time with my kids. Other women chose to work because they had family support, they probably wished they could spend more time with their kids but are happy their kids have a good relationship with GPs. Some women don't have support but work full time and pay for childcare. They probavly have it hard right now, financially and missing their kids, but they know they'll have better long term financial outlook'. Maturity is realising that every path has pros and cons, and we all try to make the best choices with what we have available to us.

The ad hominem of saying I talk like a 16 year old was actually quite immature, just because you don’t like what I’m saying.
If you haven’t got an actual point to make and just want to make bitchy comments then leave! Surely you have something better to do than waste time arguing with people intellectually beneath you

I get called immature by people lacking in reading comprehension as I’ve said I have no issue with other people’s lifestyles and if they have family helping. I just take issue with people who act like they’re doing it all when they actually have extensive family helping.

I think you are feeling behind because of your circumstances but you can only run your own race. My parents paid for my youngest sister to do her lessons and test at 17. Meanwhile u couldn't afford it until I was qualified in my job at 25. We passed within weeks of each other, her first and my dad sent me a gloating message about how she'd beaten me to it.

Not her fault our parents had golden children and scapegoats. Not at all. Life throws shit at people. You have to have a wee rage, give your head a wobble and run your own race

You got called immature for your claim that ‘9 times out of 10’ women with FT jobs and active social lives were doing so ‘off the back of some exhausted grandma’, and by continuing to assert this, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s clear that you feel bad about your own life for some reason, but own that. Don’t slam other people on no evidence. Your decisions are your decisions.

100%

If you wanted to, you could get a full time job and pay for childcare. Either you earn enough through your part time work, or there are other reasons you choose not to. That's ok, those are your choices. I don't begrudge your choices, so why begrudge mine?

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

Firstly I seriously doubt anyone has ever said they are "better than you" because they work.

I work FT and until recently was a single parent. Have never had an hour of childcare unpaid in my life (other than via sleepovers with friends). A good half dozen of my friends are also single parents who work FT. Childcare is essential to them to enable them to work.

Honestly I find your post ignorant and offensive.

“all”…no
”some”…yes

Source…me, my parents live 200 miles away, both in laws are dead, one of which when youngest was a baby.

I’m sure this will somehow be a controversial take, but I wouldn’t have had a child at 16.

As it stands, I’m 36 with a severely disabled 9 year old, no real access to out of school childcare, and elderly grandparents.

I am unsure what this social life OP speaks of is.

I find it ignorant and offensive you’re accusing me of lying

I’m assuming that the thread has perhaps moved on, but I don’t know anyone whose parents are providing this kind of childcare. Every working mum I know has their child in nursery. My own children were in nursery full time to enable me to work.

Reminds me of motherland when Meg says ‘my mothers load is literally my mothers load’ 😆

in reality most people I know use paid childcare, or a mixture.

Yes most use childcare op we did. My friend is so good minds gd 4 days. Called on again for gym. Think its easy when you have one though. If you 2 or 3 its too much for people. We always had creches

The reason people are saying you still sound quite young is that you appear to have little understanding of the challenges mothers of all ages face, not just mothers who were pregnant in their teenage years.

You also don’t seem to realise that you have absolutely no idea what is going on in other families and so you have no right to make comments about their childcare arrangements

I’m sure you would say that people wouldn’t understand what it is like to be a teenager mother if they haven’t experienced it. That works both ways.

So who are these people who are directly judging you and telling you directly “I am better than you because I work”? @Ruddeo