Yet another article re: why mothers should return to work

[boogiewoogie]

Just snatching a couple of minutes during a coffee break, will come back. What do you think of this?

I find the vast majority of those mothers who stay at home having valid arguments, mostly they seem to be concerned about the care of their children. That is NOT saying that they think mothers who work neglect their children. It is just a different perspective, attitude, whatever you like to call it, on the raising of pre-school children.

yawn !

yes, she is a very vociferous advocate of child-led breastfeeding.

I agreed with this article. Financial independence is very important. Even if you don't work for money when your kids go school and you have a few hours in the day do NOT spend it doing the housework. Be a school governor, write a book, work in a charity shop - do something to keep up your skill set - and maybe earn a bit of (or a lot of) cash too.

yr - and very few posters are totally polarised on one side or the other à la Xenia "all women should work full-time all the time".

Yet I constantly feel I have to fend off people who assume that because I am against that polarised position I must somehow have the opposite polarised position, which I don't.

Totally agree on quality of child care - worries over children's experience in paid care is the major issue for most mothers who choose to stay at home. And as both the articles linked to further down the thread say, those fears are not unjustified. Not all daycare is good and not all children do well in daycare.

Also think there is some confusion between "nursery" and "pre-school" so people end up talking at cross purposes.

and yesterday I wrote a post about SAHMs who (to my mind) neglect their children.

Their are good, bad and indifferent mothers, and whether they work or not has little to do with it.

No, people may feel very very strongly about something (i.e. I feel very very strongly about being the person that MUST look after my child throughout the day) but have absolutley no hang ups about it. It makes ds and I happy. I think other posters here have said similar things and I understand where they come from.

Being "hung up" or having a complex about something are value judgements or assumption made by others, not a fact.

yr - out of interest, when will your son start some kind of pre-school?

yr - another question - would you leave your son with your mother if you could (even for say one day a week?)

"I find the vast majority of those mothers who stay at home having valid arguments.."

Surely, you are deliberately trying to wind me up?

"Their are good, bad and indifferent mothers, and whether they work or not has little to do with it".

Anna - spot on. There are crap SAHM's and there are crap WOHM's. There are lots of crap parents, who shouldn't be parents at all, full stop.

I think most people on MN are NOT in that crap category, simply because they spend so much time thinking and writing about their children.

I f you believe in continuum concept parenting then you certainly don't leave your baby or toddler with anyone else, grandparent, father or anyone. It's the 24/7 mother/child bond you cultivate and indeed ensure their skin is against your skin all night too. It's all just a question of degree - some parents happy to leave their toddler with it's father for a day, others would never dream of it; some with grandparents; some with even a school below age 3 or a nanny. Some parents won't ever send children to school and home educate.

What always puzzles me is how you can possibly like it? I adored my babies, loved breastfeeding them and spending time with them up to a point and ideally not more than a few hours a day buit how can anyone enjoy that and make it their life for 5 years? That's what I've never understood - don't you want to work, earn money or even go out and do other things not babysit for 3 years? I can't understand the appeal of it.

Or yr you could say we're probably the worst ones because we choose to post on line as that's more interesting than chatting to a child for half an hour.

eleusis - there are lots of valid reasons for staying at home.

Like yr, I really want to be the main person in my daughter's life and feel I can give her things no-one else can IN MY PRESENT LIFE.

However, IF my mother lived nearby and not in another country, I would be happy to leave my daughter with her on one or two days a week (and she would be happy to have her). IF my sister lived nearby and not in another country I would be happy to have her daughter (6 months older than my own) on a couple of days a week and for her to have mine on a couple of days a week. IF there was a wonderful nursery here in Paris (and I looked for it...) I would be happy to put my daughter there a couple of days a week.

But none of those things are there, so in those circumstances I absolutely want to be with my daughter all the time, bar the occasional outing with her paternal grandmother and the odd holiday on her own at my mother's.

Anna, I didn't say there weren't valid reasons to be a SAHM. It is not for me. I hate medial routine thankless task, and there are far too many of those in the SAHM job description. But, if you enjoy that life, and are happy with the combination of rewards and risks, then go foit. I wissh you the best of luck.

But to compare the two view points (two view points being WOHM and SAHM) by saying that "I find the vast majority of those mothers who stay at home having valid arguments.." (and granted you are not the one who said it) is surely a very selfish perspective.

Okay, here is my broad sweeping generalisation: I find that WOHMs are more willing and able to understand the SAHM perspective than vice versa. That's just my experience. I tiake it from mumsnet and people whom I know in real life. Is it a true statement? Probably not. It is hardly a fair sample of the population. But, I'm just making a point with the sweeping statement.

Hi Xenia
^^

anna - i am hoping he can start 2 mornings (i.e. 6 hours a week) in a very small, private kindergarden this sept. he will be 3.3 by then. if he hates it he will come back home until i find him something he likes. he is ready to have mummy leave for a few hours. if i had any doubts i would not leave him.

my mother is dead anna and suffered from a terrible illness which left her physically incapable of looking after any of her grandchildren (she had 8 incl. ds)

she would have been my no. choice of care apart from dh

dad is dead too - he loved children

my sister lives miles away, otherwise she would be excellent too

my in-laws would be excellent, but they live abroad

i would have considered leaving ds for a day or so with any of my or ds family, even when he was a baby, it just wasn't possible

so dh and i are very much alone in raising ds

Eleusis - I don't think that sweeping statement is helpful or true, just as I don't think polarised positions "all women should work all the time" or "all mothers should stay at home all the time" are helpful or true.

The reality of women's lives is that they are more heterogeneous, and richer in many ways, than those of men. We ought to use these discussions to understand how other women's experiences can help us improve our own.

Reducing the argument to "the best way of hedging your bets and covering your risks in life is to work full time all the time" is far too simplistic a way at looking at women's lives.

I have never felt inferior to men because I am a woman, and I don't want a man's life, I want a woman's life. I'm not in competition with men. I don't feel that I am unambitious or not achieving anything in my current SAHM life (as one poster said of me). Quite to the contrary, the time at home with my daughter has given me time to think quite beyond any time I have had before and it is one of the happiest and richest times of my life.

Perhaps Xenia might have also found it so if she had had her children later, after lots of other life experiences. I can quite see how at 22 it would have been impossible to stay at home with a little baby. I certainly couldn't have done it - I had far far too much to do at that age.

yr - when I read you, I think that you are actually not as polarised as you say. Like me, IF you had loved family close by, you would be happy to leave your son with them. Circumstances unfortunately meant that couldn't happen.

yr - he probably won't hate it. My daughter will start also this September, five mornings of 2h 45mns, and I am sure she will love it as the school is wonderful - just little tiny ones born in 2004 and 2005 - and she needs other children and more stimulation.

xenia, i am not isolated nor do i sit on my arse all day while ds is left alone, i come and post here and then leave, ds does not at his age need me to play with him 24/7, he isn't clingy or wingy like some children, so i am lucky, right now he is playing in the sand pit in the garden, i am drinking my earl grey, can see him from my chair, typing this on my wireless lap top ? how about you ? children playing with nanny again ?

yes, some people enjoy being with a 3 year old, i am one of them. i get one whole day "off" once a week, ds and dh have a whole daddy day, so i go shopping, have lunch with friends (no kids allowed !), do something girlie like hair or buy clothes and make-up, whatver, how does that sound ?

today we spent 4 hours at the zoo (dh is away on business), lots to see and do, had lunch and then tea and cake and came home, we do something like this almost every day

don't most SAHM mums do this stuff and are happy doing it ?

Xenia, there are many jobs that are more interesting than childcare and many that aren't. I don't think much of it is menial to be honest. Walking in the park and talking about birds, painting and cooking are all things that people get paid to do, albeit Nigel Slater and Bill Oddie don't generally do it with a 3 year old in tow! I love sitting in a sandpit, some people hate it. I think this article is right in that anybody taking a career break needs to do it with their eyes open - whether they are sailing around the world, taking up crofting or looking after their children. However, there is a limit to the number of exciting jobs that people are prepared to pay you to do - is it more interesting playing with play dough or working in a calls centre? I think too often this kind of debate centres on people giving up professional high paid jobs, whereas for many people this isn't really relevant.

I will certainly be returning to some kind of paid work after I finish my maternity leave - I didn't spend all those weekends and evenings studying to be an accountant to work for a few years and then give it up. However, I have to say that accountancy isn't as glamorous and jet set as some people think . (you do all think its glamorous and jet set don't you...? )

Anna - you are right - i am not extreme -it's not all or nothing, i love xenia's depiction of skin to skin with a 3 year old boy ALL day, who does that ? Ds is still bf, but WHO does skin to skin with a 3 year old ?

Not even my totally mad, co-sleeping, hippie chick friend, who is more extreme in her attachmnet parenting than anyone I know, with Buddhism coming out of her ears, is like that, who does that with a 3 year old boy !

They need therapy if they do !!!

thanks for the comfort re. kindergarden anna. he seems to be a very confident, independent, jolly little chappy, ideal candidate for leaving home for a few hours !

Anna 16:59.30
Xenia 8:19.58

You both seem to be saying that everybody should look at their own situation and do what is best with them. You agree!

Yes, Anna: swweping statements are not helpful. That was MY point.