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?

True, career women/men aren't entirely happy the whole time. No it is hard. But look at the posts on MN, many sahm aren't happy the whole time either.

Deffo Riven .

Also dont you think it is interesting that if you ask Nannies/Nursery workers, most will tell you that if they can help it they dont want to work after having children?

LaQuitar - why is your image of a WOHM a burnt out career woman? As if all WOHM are ball-busting corporate ladder climbers who get home after the children have gone to bed and see them for a couple of hours at the weekend? What about someone who just works? Someone who manages to fit in some amount of work in a way that works for the family and the children??? Someone who uses some form of childcare yes but this is mostly either relatives, a childminder or a nursery ... far more common than a nanny IME.

I think my issue AliGrylis, is with your assumption that the 2 working parents are WEALTHY. Certainly not the case with any of my friends.

Oh i agree wishing

But my own experience is this. As a London nanny i am more familiar with that type of working family. Also it seemed to me that many posters talked about that type of working family.
Of course you are right and there are different working families too

by having a saho you cna also be a role model by teaching your children, money is not the most important thing in life.

imo.

But if i cost 40 K to a family then makes me wonder if one of the parents could afford to stay home and live of those 40K. As Ali said yes some families work for luxuries not for the bacon. Some . Not all

Wishingchair, how many times do I have to say that my issue is not with people who are making do the best they can. I admire them. It is with wealthy people who choose (note the word choose!) to contract out childcare.

And I (in a previous post)already made an exception for relatives. They truly care about the child they are looking after and hopefully have the same values as the parents. In addition, the same relative is likely to be with the children throughout their childhood. My concern is with short term childcare solutions (nurseries, child minders, nannies) whereby the child is always having to adapt to new people and situations.

pmsl at the idea of me coming home sobbing - hasen't happened so far...

AND I'm in London
AND I'm single ie no backup option at home
AND I'm s company director and therefore occasioanlly required to work late.

Thankfully lots of (most?) childminders do continue working after they have their children.

I think it is very easy to stereotype but WOHM and SAHM. When it comes down to it, very few of us match up to those stereotypes and instead are just individual families muddling through and trying to make the right decisions for our own families and circumstances like everyone else is.

And quite frankly, given I drop off my daughter at school and pick her up, what does it matter to her if I work when she's at school???

I was not talking about c/m. Of course they do. Because they work with their dc. They dont have to leave them

You'd be surprised to know that there are many nursery nurses who actually care for the little ones they look after. And many children just aren't traumatized to meet and spend time with new people.

And I still can't find anything wrong in working even if you don't need too. Obviously, I never met families who can afford a 40.000 pounds nanny, so I admit I'm totally ignorant of these situations.

need to. Sorry for typos

Oh there are Franca

And this figure is before bonus and presents. But i stopped nannying before the credit crunch, i quess is a bit different now

Most children/young people are so self obsessed they barely notice what their deadly dull parents are doing

xenia is just bitter, because they divorced and he got half the money.

which us sahm would get if we divorced our dhs

xenia, you really should stop being so bitter love, enjoy your life and your children you only get one life.

This is one reason I would not want to employ a nanny - you have no privacy if some one else is living in your home. I think most people shed the odd tear from time to time. We all have bad days whether sahm or wohm.

Ditto - a £40k nanny is well out of my universe.

My DDs went/go to a nursery and came out of that experience happy, well-balanced and able to adapt to new situations and make friends easily. There are members of staff there who have been there for years and years and then there are the young members of staff who are just starting out who are full of energy and fun. DD1 looks back very fondly at her time at nursery.

But Ali

• by your assessment I should never work. DH is a city boy and brings home more than enough bacon for house/school fees/holidays yadda yadda. But before I even met him I trianed as a lawyer and represented children going through the care system. These are the most disadvantaged childen in our society. Once I had my own DCs, who lets face it have every priviledge both financial, educational and familial, I was not prepared to only think of them. It seemed so very insular when I could be of so much use elsewhere. Eventually we moved and I decided to take a different avenue. I wrote a book. It was successful. It entertained people and, I hope, raised some serious issues. I've written three more. Are you seriously suggesting that I shouldn't have represented those kids or taken a creative road because DH earns enough for me not to?

"always having to adapt"? MOst children I know (who go to childminders, have one childminder from cradle to school and in fact they often continue helping after that with school pick up.

My DS knows my childminder better than he knows my sister, and calls her mother Nanny. No, she is not family and he is not as attached to her as he is to me (thankfully) or my mother but he certainly has a relationship with her as close as an Aunt and I don't think most people would have a problem with the idea of an Aunt looking after a child.

I just wanted to test my comment about DD1 having fond memories of nursery because that doesn't mean she wouldn't have rather been at home, so I interrogated her when we got home from school:

Me: Did you like nursery?
Her: Why?
Me: Just want to know if when you look back, you think it was mostly good or not so good
Her: Bit of both - good because it was fun and I made lots of friends, but if I'd been at home it would be good too because I'd be with you and I'd be able to nap in my own bed.
Me: So when you think about nursery now, is it a happy feeling or a not so happy feeling?
Her: (getting fed up with intense questionning) I thought that was the last question
Me: No, just this last one
Her: It makes me think of the smell of baby poo and my friends
Me: If you had a child, would you be happy to send him to nursery a couple of days a week?
Her: You said that was the last question
Me: Alright, this is the last one.
Her: (getting cross now) I don't know because I'M NOT A GROWN UP and I might not even have a single child because I'm going to marry XXXX (name of girl friend made at nursery)

Decided not to pursue the hypothetical "yes but what if you did have a child" line of questionning.

So a mixed bag really. I asked her if she would rather I didn't work (bear in mind I work from home generally within school hours 3 days a week). She said yes because I'm always saying "just a minute" when she wants me to play. I did point out that I work when she's not here and generally if I say "just a minute" it's because I'm doing a chore which has nothing to do with work but then she went on and her ideal would be no work and no school for her ... just us hanging out at home all day long ... so suspect it was the no school that was most appealling. Idyllic but not real life sadly.

"which us sahm would get if we divorced our dhs" - dream on!

My father left my motehr after 35 years and becasue the children had all left home court deemed that each's salary was sufficient to support each individual and made no maintenance award. My mother did get slightly more of the capital but still only anough to buy herself a one bed flat without a mortgage (previously they had a 4 bed house with mortgage).

My motehr was more intelligent than my Dad but her earning were around half his because of the time she'd taken out of the workforce.

She is very bitter for example that her superannuation they putinto a PEP of which he got half but his got put into his pension of which she got none!