School as child care

[Differentforgirls]

From another thread.

A poster said that state schools are there for helping parents to work. Therefore teachers are childminders. Teachers!

I think schools are there to educate our children and, though the staff go above and beyond these days, that is their primary function.

AIBU?

So you weren’t actually looking after your children then were you? You were taking advantage of your poor MIL, who probably had other things to be doing but you guilt tripped her. Where was your FIL/Dad? I bet you didn’t expect them to do childcare did you.

My dad watched my children two days a week. MIL one morning. Both offered. I didn’t ask. My children benefitted from both.

Some very guilty people on here venting 😬

Beside your phone? Seriously? The whole time?

That explains a lot…

@MNHQ Can you explain that deletion please ^, in the context of the rest of this thread? Thanks.

Apologies op *latter before it's corrected

I’ll ask again, what exactly are we supposed to feel guilty about?
Your thread is supposedly about school. So why would any of us feel guilty about sending our children to school and using that time to work?

Or have you veered into talking about childcare more generally? In which case again, what are we feeling guilty about exactly?

It’s interesting how you’re throwing the word ‘guilt’ around. It suggests you think working mothers should feel guilty. Which is very telling and doesn’t reflect well on you.

We used paid childcare from 9 months. Neither of us feel guilty or bad about those decisions. We did what was best for our family.

guilty of what?

Guilty for using childcare 😂

Would there be less guilt if none of us worked and kept our children at home 24/7

What are we meant to be guilty of again? Guilty of going to work and keeping a roof over our families head?

Not everyone has family on tap to help out, or can make themselves or their husbands available every day to be on standby to not be working or beside their phone 5 mins away.

What is it you expect of parents who work while their children are at school? Not work? Risk financial insecurity? Employ a back up nanny on standby?

I cannot abide it when people guilt trip elderly relatives into providing weekly childcare. It’s just so grim. So many of my mum’s retired friends agree to this and they just disappear from their social circles and become isolated and depressed. Grim. I’m ‘sure’ they enjoyed it OP. Of course they did!

I’d feel so much more guilty if I’d emotionally blackmailed grandparents into giving up their retirement to look after my kids. Now that is incredibly selfish.

They were 49 and 54. Not sure they’d appreciate you calling them elderly people with no minds of their own.

OP was wildly lucky, and has no idea how very lucky she was to have so much free family childcare. She also worked part time for a flexible job and other benefits such as holiday entitlement much better than statutory conditions. She judges everyone else for not having all this available to them.

She, in fact, used much more childcare than many working parents, because she used family members as childcare, sorry “babysitters”.

Could you maybe try to stop talking about people in their late 40s and early 50s as if they are children? It’s so disrespectful.

At least I didn’t use teachers eh?

Has anyone else noticed posts disappearing, mine did in relation to why I corrected my spelling. Also you will note the op post being updated constantly. It's ok though all back in work Tuesday cause it's inset day tomorrow obviously.

Your children didn’t attend school now?

😂

Literally no one has said that teachers are just babysitters. It’s all in your head.

Funnily enough some of the EYFS teachers at my kid’s school actually do a bit of babysitting locally, and some of the TAs work at the wrap-around. None of that makes anyone think any less of them.

They are paid to work by all of our funding

TAs aren’t teachers and probably need to work at the wraparound as they get paid badly.