Is this a ‘Soft life’

[Wellthatwasabrupt]

And would you want it?

Has Dh, one young Dc and dogs, lives overseas by the beach and countryside, nice house with pool and sea views.
Works 6 hours per week from home. Does all drop offs and pick ups, food shop, dinners, majority to do with Dc and sorting bills. Has a cleaner.
Dh works Mon-Fri -finishes 4.30, no one works weekends.
Days are free based around Dc school drops, coffee with friends, Pilates, yoga, studying or reading if you like, watching Netflix all day if you like, shopping, beach, pool, garden

Would you call this a soft life? Would you like it, be honest?

Thst isn’t true though. Working parents cannot give the same amount of time as they don’t have the same amount of time.

I don't work 8-5

It's not the amount of time, it's the quality of time. I never said I could give my kids the same amount of time as OP, I said I can do the same things OP says they do, I just do it in less hours cause I also work more than 6hr a week.

Children don't need you breathing in their face every waking moment anyway. There's a school of thought that they are more likely to build resilience, creativity and drive, if you let them have more independence and have the space to be bored, and roam and explore nature by themselves. They also get better at impulse control and assessing risk.

School age kids can get a lot out of playing in the garden independently while parents wfh, or playing with peers during wraparound care. They don't need hours and hours of 1-1 time with Mummy every single day after school.

I wouldn’t even have engaged on this thread if I had understood it was at heart a SAHM vs Working mother basher. I have an 18 year old about to go to Uni, with a multitude of cousins any age from 30something down to a bit older than her. And loads of friends children in an even wider age range. Trust me. Unless you’re talking about emotionally unavailable or abusive families or other factors like that - there’s no difference in outcomes in normal loving families. They’re all the same if they have parents who love and care for them. I agonised over this when DD was 1. I don’t even think about it anymore because I can see now how irrelevant a conversation this is.

Wow, how nasty. Defensive much??

Oh dear. I work full time in a great job that gives me a huge amount of satisfaction (and lots and lots of money). Didn’t realise that made me a shit parent.

I don't see how what i said was nasty at all. Children don't benefit from helicopter parents, that's a pretty mainstream view.

Edit to add - and I was agreeing with the person I was replying to! Not being nasty to her

Definitely doesn’t make you a shit parent, I work full time and I definitely am not able to give the same amount of time or attention to my child as when I didn’t work, I think that’s obvious

I completely agree!

I also agree with @Kingdomofsleep 's post.

Nasty about parents who choose to spend more time with their children than the wraparound brigade deems adequate, is what I meant.

I didn't say a single negative thing about any parent in that comment. I just said that school aged children don't need constant parental interaction, and benefit from some free roam time where they're unsupervised or only loosely supervised.
If this makes you feel attacked - that's not intentional, I know nothing about you.

And wtf is "the wraparound brigade"? Do we rescue people from natural disasters between 4-5pm?

I do agree with you, but...I had the fortune to be a latchkey kid in the eighties. I'd have loathed wraparound care, stuck in school with the kids who bullied me. I work in school now and nothing breaks my heart more than the kid in tears because he or she really doesn't want another hour and a half in the building they've been stuck in all day, with the kids who they aren't necessarily friends with doing activities they have no interest in. Some will have been at breakfast club, too, and some schools offer that from 7:30am. I wouldn't want to be stuck in my workplace for an extra three hours a day just because I had nowhere else to go.

I understand wraparound care is a necessity for many, but let's not pretend it's this great thing for kids. Most of the kids I work with are resigned about it, but if you asked them, they'd 100% rather be home or out roaming around than cooped up at school.

If you ask the parents, most would say they much rather pick up the kids from school themselves and avoid wraparound care but some people have to work and most jobs do not allow such flexibility. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@ObelixtheGaul I thought latchkey kids let themselves into the house (hence the name 'latchkey'). That is different from your parents using wraparound care and your being stuck in school.

Since you work in a school during wraparound hours, did you also have to use wraparound care for your dcs? I don't know whether you had young dcs during that time.

I am typical Gen X. Was left to my own devices after school by my parents and roamed around in the neighbourhood after school. I thought that was glorious. There are commentators who take the view that Gen X have more emotional resilience and fewer mental health problems than Gen Z simply because we had so much more free and unscheduled time to get bored and find ourselves with our peers on our own terms growing up, without parents hovering.

@ObelixtheGaul just re-read your post. Ignore my first para. You confirmed you are a latchkey kid.

What??

Yes, that's what latchkey kids did, it's what I did and I thought it was great. But I was very young and we wouldn't let kids that age do that now. I am fortunate not to have the problem, if I did, yes, I would use wraparound care, I am sure. I was responding from the kids point of view to the argument that it's of benefit to the child. It's just something many parents have to do.

But they dont ‘do the same’ if theyre having to use alternative childcare like breakfast and after school clubs. God Id love to be able to use one of this with my autistic son. Anyway, deviating here. Point is, youre not doing ‘everything but more’ just makes you sound like a bit of a … you get the picture.

I'm not sure you've read my post properly, or the one I'm quoting but ok