To think we should look after our own children?

[ContentedVanilla]

Why do people choose to have children if they don't want to actually do the job of looking after them? What are you getting out of it if someone else is looking after them?

If you and your partner both want a full time career then why have you chosen to have a child?

I'm not just being a bitch, I really am genuinely curious as to what people's reasons are and what makes them want children.

I read on another thread that a lady dreads the days she is not at work but at home with her child. Is it a case of not realising what it will really be like until you've done it?

me = met

Interesting Coalition. Thing is that pretty much for norm and the culture I think for many there. Many have a maid and when I visited there and elsewhere in parts of Asia I saw maids carrying the book bags belonging to their primary school charges etc. Domestic help is very cheap, subservient and common place for even some of the poorest. Somewhere like Singapore would grind to a halt if they stopped the maid culture.

The cost of living has increased exponentially since the 1950s. One reasonable salary could indeed then support a whole family. Now it cannot. It's simply a matter of economics. My mum stayed home with all three of us then went back to work p/t once the youngest was in primary school.

Both my DH and I will have to work. If I'm lucky, we could just about manage with me working p/t from when the baby's one year old. However, this is not a dead cert. My DH and I both have degrees and are in professional jobs, it just that working in the media (DH) and working for a charity does not pay a great deal.

My sister on the other hand is married to a city lawyer. She is a SAHM, which she loves. But her DH barely sees the children. I also didn't really know my dad until I was an adult. There's always a pay-off.

That should read 'the norm'.

"elsewhere in parts of Asia I saw maids carrying the book bags belonging to their primary school charges etc"

This happens in France. My DSSs were used to having their nounou carry their bookbags, suitcase etc and never carrying anything for themselves. In fact, even now (they are 12 and 15) they will not spontaneously carry anything for themselves if an adult is present . They never close the front door behind them, or answer the home fixed telephone...

Aye - my friends in Hong Kong have a maid now, having had very mixed feelings about it, but the whole system is based on the assumption that you have one.

A Lebanese friend of mine here in Paris cannot bear to return home to Lebanon to visit her family as she has always done every summer - she says her friends and family sit around being waited on hand and foot by Filipinas, Sri Lankans etc and have become totally deskilled and brainless. Meanwhile, their DCs don't learn French (which the middle class Lebanese have traditionally spoken to their children) but limited, ungrammatical English from the maids.

I'd bloody love a maid ;)

I have Lebanese friends (women) that now live in London. Made through the previous job described. Although they are very nice ladies they have very different lives and different attitudes to domestic help shall we say. (I don't have any). They've been brought up in the situation you describe and I find it incredibly difficult at times - it is as if they believe it is their entitlement. They are very demanding employers shall we say, they expect lots of bang for their buck in the domestic sphere. I hate to make sweeping generalisations though. These ladies have their nannies/maids do the school run and all their cleaning, cooking and laundry etc. They do, however, spend a lot of quality time with their children.

Have to say that I work because I have to, I do struggle to understand why you would PREFER to be at work than at home with your kids if you don't need the money.

Yes - I think I need a maid too. Maybe a new campaign for your mate Dave? "Maids for Mumsnetters" ?

My sister had Latin American women friends when she lived in Spain who arrived having literarally no idea about anything domestic - they couldn't go to the supermarket and do the shopping for even a basic meal, let alone cook it. Bolivian etc domestic help was plentiful in Spain, but not quite as ubiquitous and cheap as it had been at home.

Because you actually like your job?

And your kids get to interact with other kids of their own age while you are at work?

cherrymama - because some people like their jobs more than they do looking after children.

oh we had a maid in Zimbabwe, and a gardener (though we employed him cheap as he was the maids brother and was desperate for work of any kind, and we couldn't afford to pay him proper rates but he was just happy to have a job). It was fab.

I'd come home from work and the washing (by hand) would have been done, the floors swept, the clothes ironed, ahhh was heaven.

Very when I went back there in 2006 and saw ex IL's and old friends with their maids.

I adored my job, was very good at it and was very well paid but gave up because I wanted to be at home with my children and I was lucky enough to have the choice.
But we all have different choices , priorities and options. Asking why someone works is a bit like asking why they enjoy skiing, or coffee , or Heat magazine.
It will make perfect sense to some and be incomprehensible to others

contessa it's not simply economics, that statement disrespects women who choose to do both - children and work. Economics is not the only reason women work - as many have pointed out on this thread.

I need a maid, housekeeper, nanny, butler, chef and a driver.

pagwatch - I completely agree with you. But if one equates enjoying your job with enjoying ski-ing, why the f* should WOHPs get subsidised childcare?

It used to be the norm - pre war - that the middle classes had help in the UK. Many 'ordinary' people in small semi detached villas in suburban towns would have employed a maid/cleaner and perhaps a cook too. Domestic help was relatively cheap. At the upper end of society you'd have a nanny too, my mother had one and she wasn't really the upper end of society. Her mother went off to do various charity events and play tennis and nanny looked after the children. Her husband could afford to keep her and that was a badge of honour in the neighbourhood it seems.

It's normal in other cultures that people are employed to do the work at home etc. I remember having a very wealthy Indian friend at college. Her parents saw it as their duty to make sure that she wanted for nothing and she could concentrate on her studies. This meant that she should not be troubled by anything like moving out of halls, looking for a house with the rest of us etc. It was thought this could compromise her grades. I remember one night she had toothache and she was at loss what to do. I found it odd, but she'd never set foot in a convenience store or pharmacy in her life. She had literally been waited on hand and foot.

If we won the lottery and didn't need money at all, I would work.
DH wouldn't.
I adore what I do, it is what I have done in every spare moment and worked hard for since I was 10 years old. It is who I am.
I also adore my daughter, but I couldn't be a SAHM, I tried, I failed, it was pretty bloody awful for all of us.
currently I work freelance, sometimes pt, sometimes ft sometimes not at all for a while, DH works ft. If there were no financial pressures DH could quit and I could have the freedom to pursue my work even more doggedly than now. At the moment we couldn't take that risk.
I do think it must be very hard on the whole family when both parents work long hours, but those parents might actually be more involved in their children than sah parents who are depressed because of that situation and therefore struggle to form a bond with their children.
You can never really judge how a family works from the outside.

I like my job, I earn a good salary and work for a charity doing a job that makes a difference, I'm good at it and the people are really, really nice, some of whom I count as friends. They are family friendly employers and great to work for and I'm never bored. But I would still rather be at home with my children.