Childcare vs career and independence.

[Twinmama22]

Looking for advice on childcare and work. Should I give up my job/ become reliant on husband?

I recently gave birth to twins. They are such dream babies. We go everywhere together and they seem to cope whether we are out all day or at home. They are still little so they are fairly easy to look after at this stage. Once weaning and crawling starts I'll be in for a shock.
One of the reasons the babies go everywhere with me is because I have absolutely no childcare where I live. Literally all my family live 100 miles from me. I have good friends where I stay and they offer to help but they work full time, as I did, so can't really help out when I need it. Hubby has a very good job and we are in a privileged position where money isn't too much of a concern. The pay off is he works long hours, although is very hands on and supportive when home.

My dilemma now comes as where we live is a high cost area and the cost of putting them into nursery almost matches what I would earn at work. We also have the chance to buy our dream home close to our families. Its a small town and houses like this don't come up often. Hubby can work remotely with only a few days in the office every few weeks. I however would need to give up my work to allow this move to happen. The current plan was for me to go back 3 days per week and the babies go to nursey, but the cost just doesn't make financial sense.
I have a very specialised role and it's unlikely I would get the same job at home. I've recently completed a masters in this field and whilst I have transferable skills, I really like my job and the people I work with. I also feel guilty and disloyal at leaving my job after they have supported me so well through my training etc. Hubby will support me whatever decision I make but I really don't know what to do.

My options are;
Stay, work and pay someone else most/all of my wage to look after the babies?

Move home, get help from family and cheaper childcare so I can still work... although unlikely to be in my chosen field?

Give up work for say three years and take care of the babies? This would involve me having to retrain upon return, possibly a self funded 6-12 month course. Whilst money isn't a huge issue... I've always worked and been fiercely independent so I'm really struggling with the thought of my husband funding me.

Any advice, guidance, alternative thoughts would be very welcome. It's hard to get an unbiased opinion as all my friends and family want us all closer to home.

Thanks 😊

Remember to take the long term view - you often lose so much more in terms of pensions, career progression, independence and personal fulfilment by taking a short term view.

You see so many SAHMs on here who are fucked when their husbands die or leave them.

Looking after toddlers full time is a hard slog and not always exciting.

Go part time if you can so that you have a bit more balance.

Oh and childcare costs are a shared responsibility. At least half should be paid for by your DH

I had 2 children very close to each other by design. I stayed home, took them to all sorts of activities and went back to uni when the youngest was 3 and I had some government funded childcare (it was 3 years back then). I have so many great memories of those incredible years and we are very close as a family. I am going from strenth to strengh in my new career (I didn't want to go back to the same field). I remember everyone telling me childcare gap would look bad on my CV - it wasn't the case at all. One word of caution - when you say nursery is good for the children's development. It's probably true from the age of 3 when they start playing with other children. Last time I looked at the evidence, it said nursery is more help to children from low income families, the evidence for people on good incomes is not conclusive.

And I'd also thoroughly assess what you'd gain if you did move back closer to your family. It was a dream of mine for years - I knew realistically it couldn't happen as there are so few jobs in that area. I had a whole fantasy about what it could be like.

Would your family be involved? Or would they decide not to be? Or only in a limited way? It's easy to see others with lots of family support and want the same but not all families are up for that.

What has become apparent though is that my parents would never have wanted to do any childcare whatsoever. So we wouldn't have had anyone to do those drop offs, looking after sick child etc. And they'd have expected me to run around after them as that's what they see the daughter's role as being . So my life would have become a nightmare of facilitating parents and child's lives with even less time for myself and in a much worse job!

I am not sure this is the most helpful comment. It's very hard to envisage what childcare you will need until the baby arrives and you know how you feel about it all, what sort of little person they are. For my first, I put her down on all the nursery waiting list even ones where you had to pay a deposit and it turned out to be a waste of money as a) I changed jobs to one with fewer days but longer hours making nursery unsuitable and b) a nanny was the right choice for her personality because she turned out to be super sensitive and would have hated a nursery, and the one-to-one care was right for her - she couldn't cope with nursery before the age of three. Then, for the other, nursery from 11 months was perfect - she was outgoing, sociable and bored out of her mind at home with me (!) and she loved it from day one. What would the OP have gained by thinking about all this earlier? I actually think she needs to leave the decision a couple of months as, like @TinyTeacher says, 3/4 month old babbies are very different to toddlers and need totally different things so you risk making a decision about childcare based on how they are now instead of what they'll need over the next 2-3 years

If you van afford to do so, stay home whilst they are little as it doesn't last long and you can ever get this time back. I have 7 children aged 17 to 30 and I miss the baby stage. I regret taking it for granted when they were so small xxx

@Leopardpj in many areas of the country, if you don't get on a waiting list promptly, you won't get a nursery place so you can't necessarily afford to leave it to the last minute. For the nursery of our choice, we only just got a place and we signed up when I was 36 weeks pregnant.

I think there's a middle ground between being totally inflexible and planning 100% in advance and being totally last minute.

But what I would say is that I actually don't know anyone who totally changed their minds about what they wanted to do childcare wise/working hours wise from what they initially decided. Maybe this is just the people I know but I remember reading Mumsnet and taking on board "oh I might change my mind, I should stay flexible" but actually I did exactly what I had planned (4 days a week and also my DH did 4) and nursery 3 days.

Fair enough @Grumpyfroghats and I do take your point about nursery places, it's like that where I live too. I guess my experience was different because I ended up moving to a new job after both my maternity leaves which was never something I would have predicted -I had to change my childcare a few times to suit our changing circumstances, my changing days/ hours and also two different children who needed different things at different points. Maybe I'm unusual or was very fortunate to be able to do that. But in my case all my early planning ended up being not very helpful, is all I was trying to say! Great that you were able to get the best childcare for you. I think three nursery days is a really nice balance.

I was also told by a few (older) women "oh you won't know what's for the best till the baby's here" but in the event I was glad that I'd planned ahead.

The thing is, you can turn an offered childcare place down or not hire a nanny who you've interviewed, but magicking childcare up is hard at short notice. Places are fewer now than 10 years ago when I was looking and costs have gone up (and wages, not).

Unfortunately not making a decision turns out to be making a decision.

The OP is also typical of posters on here in that she doesn't seem to expect her DH to make any changes.

I should say my views are coloured by my younger sister's experience. She was conflicted, didn't plan and is working on minimum wage a couple of decades later despite a degree and professional qualification. She did have loads of time with her children though!

I worked part time when my children were small. I don't regret doing so and I don't miss the baby stage at all and would not want it back.
Everyone is different.

This reminds of baz lurmans sunscreen 'Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.'. I am very grateful I didn't give up my career, my husband left me for someone else and having my career gave me something just for me, and helped me come out of a very dark time. I think maintaining independence is really important and I wouldn't give that up for anything.

Hey.
I think the best thing a mum can do is stay at home and raise her kids. That’s where you’re going to get the most satisfaction out of life. I’ve read some posts that say they can’t handle being around their toddler 24/7. If you can’t handle being around your toddler 24/7 then maybe you weren’t ready to have kids.
society is so broken and mental health is a huge problem because children have been taken out of their mothers’ care and being nurtured by total strangers.

Mental health issues don’t just arise out of nowhere. They are very deep rooted.

This is purely my opinion and I’m sure it’s going to make many people angry. Everyone has a right to an opinion.

Interestingly, I chose not to spend 24/7 with my children, because I saw the impact that doing so had on my mother, who ended up with mental health problems, as did all 3 of her children.

i'm glad it worked out for you, but people should do what's best for them, and not try to insist there is a "best".

They aren’t strangers though, are there? At first they are but they have settling in sessions and develop a bond with keyworkers.

Are teachers strangers?
Do they raise children?

If you think raising a child just means staying with them 24/7 then you have a very short sighted view of what raising a child means.

You also don’t know how accommodating your workplace will be. I moved jobs when I had kids to somewhere more family friendly. The contrast is stark!

This depends entirely on the Mum. Lots of SAHM parents really struggle. I found on mat leave my world got very small and I became isolated very quickly. PT working was great for me.

My son adores his nursery staff and I think they’re fabulous too. My eldest starts school this year and I know I will always remember his lovely teacher fondly. She has been an amazing influence on my son.

This is very individual circs though. We could have afforded for me to stay home with our daughter but it would have been disastrous for my mental health. A year of maternity leave was bad enough. I found the time when she was tiny went so slowly it was almost like time stood still!

This is not true. Not everyone wants to or is cut out for being at home with their children.

One of the reasons I didn't want to stay at home with my child was because my Mum was a SAHM and really wasn't cut out for it temperament-wise - the result was I was a very anxious clingy child with attachment problems who ended up with mental health problems by my teens/early-20s. I'd have been far better off in childcare with regular consistent childcare workers who actually know what children need.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's tremendously wasteful for women not to be using skills they've got, with the shortage of workers the UK has. The OP describes herself as having a job she's trained for, enjoys and is good at.

Children grow up. Not everyone enjoys the toddler stage. I'd imagine definitely not with multiples!

With two parents engaged in parenting, it's possible for both to do parenting and work. Where you tend to run into problems is with the "big job" and "person [nearly always the woman] who does everything else" mentality.

And of course the difficulty of surviving on one salary and the pressure that puts on the only wage earner.

Hz - but it’s never been true that children are raised only by their mothers. When humans first evolved the children would have been raised as part of an extended family group. Then in medieval times the children again would have been part of a group - the women had to work in the fields, just surviving was tough, they certainly weren’t at home devoting every minute to their infants or doing baby classes. They were very busy - farming, gathering wood and water, cooking from scratch, sewing etc - they were working! Look up baby boards. Until about 100 /150 years ago children were raised either as part of an extended family / neighbourhood, or if the were wealthy by governesses etc. the difference now is that we no longer live in extended family / neighbourhood groups so it can be lonely and isolating to be a sahm. We really haven’t evolved to be at home on our own.

I would've make any major decision yet. You just had them for a short while, you probably still have hormone overload, and you don't know how you feel in 3 months or 1 year when your twins and circumstances change. If you are on mat leave, I'd just enjoy it without the extra stress of moving and just wait a bit longer. I would try and go back to your job and have them start nursery. If you then find it just doesn't work, at least you tried, and you won't regret having given up your dream job. You can then calmly look for a part time job in a related field. Houses always come up, it's probably best in the current market to rent for a while anyway.

I think you need to take the house out of the equation. What would you decide if that option weren't on the table? Giving up future earning power and financial independence for children and family is one thing (and only you can decide if that is worth it for you), but there is no way on earth I would allow a house to sway that decision.

@PrinceYakimov's advice is good. Making a decision based on one house isn't rational.

And just because friends and family express their wish you were nearby, doesn't mean they'll actually be hands-on if you move.

Although if your family are willing, could they stay over one night a week and do childcare one day? I have a friend with twins whose mum did that for her.

Sort childcare now (you may be surprised by the time it takes), go back to work for a year and see how you feel then.

Do a proper spreadsheet and don't forget to include possible promotions and pension.

You have till the twins are in their pre school year to make a house move if you want.

This - there’s a reason that back in the 50s when it was expected women would give up work, Valium was known as ‘mother’s little helper’. Lots of intelligent women going slowly out of their minds behind their immaculate net curtains!

Move home. Enjoy being with your babies full time whilst they are small. Being near family and worry about retraining/going back to work when the time comes. 😘