no, YANBU
But, the OP in that thread does have the smallest of valid points.
As a mother who had to go back to work full time 6 months after having DD1, but also wanted to go back to work, just not full time, I can kinda see both sides of the fence.
When I was FT I felt like I was hardly seeing DD1, and I was exhausted from caring for her hideous night waking and still having to go to work and run around like a headless chicken all day. As such, I doubt I was the best parent I could've been due to sheer exhaustion. Once we could afford it (I was the main wage earner until DD1 was 18 months old) I reduced my hours down to 4 days a week, and I was less tired, and was able to spend really good quality time with her. When we had DD2 I returned to work 3 days a week, and I now feel I have a work/life balance. I can spend time with my children (who are very shiney still!!) and also be "me" at work, spending time with adults and being "not just a mother" for a while.
Everyone is happy.
However, as I used to go to the nursery at lunchtime to bf both DD's until they were past a year old, I spent 6 months sitting in the nursery for a good half an hour every day and observing what went on there. I also worked as a nanny when I first left school, so I have seen this from both sides of the fence. I was not a trained or qualified nanny, but I worked along side girls who were, and some of them were as thick as mince and so lacking in common sense that I would have never left them to care for a dog unsupervised, never mind a child! Just as in my current job I have worked along side nurses who were extraordinarily dim and lacked all compassion or people skills. (because there are good and bad people in every area of work)
What I have observed in the nursery that my DD's went/go to is that the seriously daft/useless ones don't stay long. There are (to generalise hugely) definately two kinds of staff there. The very young girls straight out of college who are all theory and training, but no real life experience, who see only the "cute" side of babies/small children. They do things by the book, and see things through idealogical rose-tinted glasses. Then there are the older nursery nurses, women who are mothers, who understand what it's like to have children. They are less likely to try to pull a crying child away from it's mother, and do the job from a vocational point of view rather than as a job, if you see what I mean. They "mother" the babies/children, they don't just play with/care for them.
Whilst I have been in the nursery I have seen babies that were crying lustily beeing put down in a cot and jiggled until they gave up and went to sleep. Something I consider to be one step away from leaving them to cry it out. But this is done on the instructions of the parents. I have also watched them gentley rock a baby to sleep in thier arms and then sit down with the sleeping baby on thier lap and do some paperwork etc because the parent has asked the baby to be treated this way. They loved it when I asked for this to be done with my girls, they love rocking them to sleep and holding them as they slept, most of them are upset by having to effectively ignore a tired crying baby.
If I'm honest I am judgemental about parents who treat/ask staff to treat thier babies that way, why shouldn't the nursery nurses be? There are also babies/children who are at the nursery before I drop mine off, and still there when I collect mine. It's such a long day for little ones, DD1 used to be shattered by Friday when she was at nursery 5 days a week, and that was only 8.30-5.
It doesn't matter how we shake it, the truth is that there are parents who barely see thier children, who seem to not even want to spend time with thier children, and who seem to want to go back to thier old life and not change anything to accomodate the needs of thier baby. I know a lady who put her DC in it's own room from birth, rarely picked her DC up (would often feed the baby whilst it sat in the bouncer chair) and who went on a "girly holiday" when her DC was about 18 weeks because she "needed a break". This child is now two and she's just had DC2. She's my friend, I really like her, but I do wonder why she had these children.
I know the OP on that thread was a Troll, but I do know that there are people who think like that. And in some cases they are justified, but for every one of those parents who dumps thier child in nursery so they can go back to thier exciting fabulously paid job, there are about 50 who have to go back to work and hate leaving their children in daycare. It was on behalf of those mums that I was angry (as I am one of them in a way) and felt that the OP was really nasty and hurtful.
I love a good Troll thread, they can be hilarious, but that one was just viscious.