To be sick of reading on MN that you are a "good role model" to your dd if you go back to work??

[ssd]

have read this over various posts on MN over the years

usually posters give various reasons to return to work, all viable and good, but then the poster throws in the "good role model" shite

why always harp back to this?

if you love your kids, teach them to respect and care for others, learn manners and discipline THEN you are a good role model

most of us eventually will return to work at some stage and if we don't we will still be good role models unless we are lying about the house taking drugs and leaving the kids to go feral, which I;m sure not too many of us do!

I know I'll get slated on here as the going back to work to be a good role model line seems to be very poplular round here and I'm not trying to wind up posters who use it, it just seems to me people work out of necessity, not to be a role model

And BTW where's all the role models for ds's??? or is just loving them enough?

And just wait until you've 3 teenagers and all their noisy spotty friends in the house -adding one extra au pair is nothing compared to that.

Yes Xenia, dumping a child who is too sick to go to school on the first child-minder/able-bodied adult who agrees to take them, that's being an excellent role model. If we want our children to grow into bloodless money-grubbing freaks, that is

"so women sho stay home because they think it is best are just conning themselves."

That's okay. I'm quite happy in my delusional state and so are the rest of my family

"don't expect them to thank you for it or even remember it."

I don't. I'm not doing it for gratitude or to be remembered.

And Xenia, I've got 4 teens and still would want still find an au pair intrusive.

"would still find an au pair intrusive"

I am not being a martyr and I fully expect my children to hate me in some way when they are bigger, I am doing this at the moment because I love it and it works for our family

I think it is more honest to say, like MillyR, that you fully expect to miss out i some way but that it's okay for you. I truly believe that WOHM parents can be absolutely amazing parents who give their children eveything they need, but it will always be a different kind of parenting to a SAHP. Not worse, not better, just different.

May be there are more differences within working mothers and withint the group of stay at home ones though. Some in both gruops are neglectful, bad at child psychology, never listen or talk to their children. Some in both groups are good at those things. Is it really so different parenting? Working fathers (and mothers) look after sick children, deal with children sick in the night, help with homework, make school costumes. We don't send the child abroad for 18 years and see it when it's grown.

But you don't look after your sick child unless you absolutely cannot find anyone to palm them off on

I'm not a SAHM or a WOHM, I'm sort of wedged in between - but I find it sad that mothers are still being made to feel like dreary unambitious bovines for wanting to look after their children instead of paying someone else to do it. Do you treat the staff who take care of your children with this much contempt? Or is that marginally better because at least they don't actually love said children and are only doing it for the money?

When you say "better yourself" you really mean "get more money and a bigger house", don't you?

Seriously is anyone who believes that children dont remember what happened before the age of 3? And it doesnt matter what you have done whith them then ?

Stupid me, i ve spend 23 years working very hard , trying the best for the babies i looked after -and later for mine- because i thought these are the most important years. I should lock them in cupboards then because 'they ll not remember and it wont effect their development'

hey laquitar you sound lovely and conscious of other posters worries, thoughts and suggestions.
Could it be that even with all your experience that you could be.....wrong? That you can only speak from your experience ie that pertaining to you and your immediate sphere of influence. Perhaps tweaking that in anyway might change the course of events or results...just a thought!

I wish you were my neglected children's nanny so that they could become tiny little clones of you!!
I'd feel much better then.

If only you hadn't retired to oversee your surrogate brood's achievements.

One might say that it's easy to oversee from such a high position...?

I LOVE these type of discussions becasue they get us nowhere and are always heavyhanded by people quick to judge others and themselves negatively

Not me here

I SALUTE YOU

Firstly I would never have an au pair or a live in nanny...would hate to have another person living in the house. It would be like flat sharing all over again.

I cannot believe that any child will do better in their career if their mother has worked without taking a career break for the pre-school/early primary years.

Career success must surely depend on intelligence (including emotional intelligence), ability in ones chosen field, ambition, having a good education and having good parental support...plus many other factors.

Great points evergreensleeves.

OMG Ronaldinhio,

Whats the need for this sarcasm and bitternes?

You just show that... well.. you are not very happy person

Oh my God you are exactly right!!

Any other gems from your 20+ yrs?

I know I've said this before on similar debates and I don;t why I try to repeat it because I don;t think most people areinterested in anything other than defending their choice by attacking other peoples.

In my circle of friends who have children we have WOHM (full time and part-time), SAHM, SRHM (shirk fom home mums!) and to be perfectly honest I would have to stop and think for a couple of minutes which was which.

In my experience, sensible balanced caring people tend to do their best and end up with nice well-balanced children on the whole. I can;t say I think that you would be able to pick out the WOHM children or SAHM children out of a line up.

Many but i ll not bother with someone as ignorant , bitter, defensive and boring as you. Sorry

hear, hear kew

please???? please????

Well said kewcumber. An excellent post

I always found having an aupair intrusive, actually. And the house is plenty big.

As for career success, I think that is mostly attributable to energy and drive, actually. Intelligence is necessary, looks help but mostly energy and drive are what count.

Some people just can never accept that, on the whole, most mothers want to look after their babies most the time. No amount of childcare provision will change this fact. At the end of the day paid work is often overated and we shouldn't always act like modern selfish capitalism is the norm, the way things should be or way to 'freedom' or 'independence'. Most of us toil in one way or another. You only get one life and it flies. If it makes you happy and you feel it's right to stay home, then do it, who cares what others think, maybe they have their own agenda and want everyone else to make the same choice in case theirs is wrong.

Kewcumber - I have many friends who have young children and who work full time. I think they are all good, loving parents who do their best for their children. I myself went back to work part time when my first was just 5 weeks old.

I still feel though that it's extremely important for children to spend most of their time when they are under 3 being cared for by one or two people with whom they have a strong emotional engagement. I think the scientific evidence is mounting that children do best when they are cared for by someone who is highly responsive to them, and the best person to do this is usually a parent.

I think it's a bit sad that sometimes you are not allowed to express opinions like this without being accused of being critical of mothers, smug or unrealistic.

"we shouldn't always act like modern selfish capitalism is the norm"

Last time I looked, the UK was a capitalist country. Like it or not, years spent at home have to be funded by someone. Either partners or the state. It's the same issue in retirement, if you've made no pension provision of your own.

You can fund a few years at home yourself if you work hard and make a million running a business Quattrocento.