Would anyone be interested in calmly discussing this Times articles with me please?

[Sycamoretree]

Article from Times 2 today.

here

Have read with interest as DH is currently SAHD due to redunancy over a year ago, so my youngest, (DS) has only been cared for at home with a parent. He is 20 months old.

My DD is at pre-school and starts reception in Sept. She had a nanny for the first couple of years until DH got made redundant.

DH is trying hard to get back into full time work and nursery was/is something we are considering. We certainly could no longer afford a nanny for one on one childcare.

I'm particularly interested in anyone who can confidently refute this quote from Steve Biddulph:

"quality nursery care for young children doesn't exist. It is a fantasy of the glossy magazines."

On the one hand I am furious that such an article gets printed as so many of us are between a rock and hard place when it comes to just surviving, and nurseries are often the only solution.

On the other hand, if any of this is actually true, then as a society, we need to start having this debate/conversation - surely?

lol anna...a "mature student"...yes, it is still possible, but i'd be 40 before i had finished with all the exams etc....i know that isn't old...but i'd be competing for jobs with women half my age.

Why do nursery staff have to love the children in their care? I didn't want my CM to love my DCs or DS#2's careworker to love him. Children need care, food, company, stimulation and someone to rely on when they are afraid or uncertain. They don't need love from them. And they got plenty of that from home anyway. Do we expect teachers to love children?

In many ways my DCs got a better deal from the childcare settings they were in. People whose job was 100% to care for them. People who had more patience and time. And more space to play and create chaos. At home they'd have had most of my attention that wasn't tied up with housework or the radio or the shopping etc. I am not that good at being a mum - in the sense of playing with, entertaining my DC at home. I will admit that. Have frequently done so in fact. I happen to think I am very good in other ways.

Not necessarily. If you went and did five GCSEs now you would have recent qualifications and lots of useful life experience. Much better than some 20 year old!

Oh franca has already said that!

DS#2's keyworker cried when he left nursery. So I think he was loved, but that wasn't essential IMO.

thank you anna.....you know i might just to it!...my youngest is 9 so has 2 more years at primary school...when he starts secondary school i would deffo have more time.

orm

Bella, I meant I agreed with your post re the article (boys/girls) sorry for bad english!

That sounds like great timing - you've got months ahead of you to find out what's on offer locally and get signed up (even do some preparatory reading) and then get going seriously when your youngest gets to secondary! Go for it !

If you are only awake for 12 hours a day and you spend 8 of them in childcare then that is the issue, if there isn't somebody who loves you or even the same person offering that care it causes attachement disorders which men in particular are more prone to anyway, that is the point of the article.

sorry about typos...listening to jeremy vine on radio two..

thanks anna

Daftpunk - that's not old. Get out there and get some qualifications for what you want to do.
First thing is to find out what it is you would like to do and then find out how to go about getting it.
Not too late at all at 35.

Katybrown I have 9 children and love them all. I don't think that I love them less than someone with fewer children.

Franca - The bit about not needing carers to love the child - but I see that you pretty much agree for very small babies.

I do think that tiny babies need 1-1 and, yes, love. Someone cooing over them etc.

Older is different - cheerful and caring and kindly in childcare is ample. By then they are old enough to know that when parents leave they come back, and that they are loved by family etc.

"i didn't have the choices you had" - pmsl. Obviously you have a very differnt impression of my schooling than teh reality.

I also went to the (very rough) local comprehensive school. Sixth form girls were told by the school to make sure we never walked around school on our own for our own safety, I was badly bullied for staying on into the sixth form (and probably also because I had a posh accent in small mining town in south Wales with the highest rate of knife crime in the country at that time), I have had bottles and cans thrown at me on my way home from school and had freinds who were indecently assaulted on school premises, and suffered from depression in the first year of my sixth form.

My only choice at the time was to stick it out and escape by going to University. Tbh in any kind of decent school I would have been sitting oxbridge exams but I was so desparate to get out that I chose not to stay on an extra year to resit my chemistry so I could get a place doing Medicine which was my dream and instead took a place doing Economics because "I won't survive another year if I have to stay here".

Going to University was like starting my life over and I still maintain (without wanting to be overdramatic) that it saved my life. I have some regrets that I never did Medicine but theyare always tempered when I remember my first blessed year at UNi.

By the by I was the first person in the extended family who went to university. I know that providing choice for women doesn't always make it easy to take up that choice - beleive me I do know.

In contrast my grandmother who was from a dirt poor background who also got a scholarship to a private school but had to leave to go into service at 15 when her parents couldn't afford to not have another wage coming in. The headmistress petitioned them to let her stay on even the extra year to get her matriculation so she could get an better paid job but her paretns just wouldn't accept that she would be able to do anything other than fairly menial work.

I'm convinced that my grandmother would have been a significantly happier woman if she had been able to have some kind of decent job. As it was, one of the most intelligent women I ever knew spent her whole life as a cleaner with no self esteem and no confidence.

sorry that was a bit of a stream of consiousness

I agree with those people who have said that babies (under 1 year olds) need love and a consistent individual care-giver as part of their childcare. It is not enough just to meet their practical needs. I have worked in baby rooms in nurseries and it is true that there are some babies that will be fine, but it is also true that there are many more who are not getting their emotional needs met. When a baby is spending most of their day in a nursery environment, this means that the majority of their early lives are being spent in an impersonal (& often disorientating) environment where the quality and quantity of their interactions with adults are not as good as they should necessarily be.

I do believe women should be able to work and I also am not anti-nursery. I think they provide an important service for pre-school children. But I personally think the disadvantages of a nursery for babies are such that it should be discouraged (and certainly not recommended). Perhaps a solution might be longer maternity leave (up to a year) or lower staff ratios for children under 18 months (1:2 at the very minimum). Personally I would like to see an end to nurseries accepting children under the age of one.

It does seem to be worrying that whenever we have these threads on mumsnet, very few people who have actually worked in nurseries come out and support them as an option for babies. Quite the opposite - most nursery workers say that, based on their experience, group-based daycare is not ideal for babies.

just the words 'baby room' make me shudder...

daftpunk I did evening classes and did some GCSEs and an access and now doing OU degree, OU are fab but I also enjoyed evening classes for the socialising/group atmosphere. It also gave DH time on his own with the kids. OU do meet ups etc too. Even if you don't ever want a paid job, you have something as a back up should you ever have to work and also the boost to your confidence is fab and also it gives you a good excuse to get out of the housework

Oh yes, I am early 30s and was one of the youngest in my groups, other than Maths which had loads of 16 year old resitters , there were loads..especially OUers..in their 40s, 50s and up. It is great. 35 is nothing honestly.

I agree re baby room, I looked round one and there was just about 6 babies laying around on the floor and girls chatting in the corner. Luckily, DDs nursery was fab but there were few small babies there mostly toddlers. It seemed very regimented though.

jellybeans;

thank you...and yes, any excuse to get out of the housework!

DS1 was at nursery full time and DS2 will be too. DS1 cried when he had to leave when I was on Maternity leave with DS2, and we went back several times to say hi. Although I was not happy with the nursery as an organisation, the girls were lovely.

DS2 gets extremely excited when DH drops him at nursery (privately run at an old stables)and starts shouting, waving his arms about and trying to shuffle out of his car seat (DS2 not DH!). I call the nursery twice a day just to see how things are going and they always have something to tell me about something DS2's done or played with or something that made him laugh.

I think daycare is a personal thing. I can't believe that every single chilminder or nanny out there is a Mary Poppins and that every nursery is like a Dickensian orphanage.

You have to find what suits and go with your instincts.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone living on the continent as from what I understand, in France certainly, they have a very different view on utilising daycare.

BR

Have you considered hiring a less experienced nanny (e.g. ex nursery nurse or recently qualified nanny) or alternatively looking for a nanny share?. This may work out costing you about the same as a nursery place and you will also have the benefit that the nanny can look after your child when they are ill, take them to the doctors etc.

I read Stephen Biddulph's book and it made me change my plans from nursery care to getting a nanny for my baby boy when I went back to work. All the other mums in my NCT group went for nurseries apart from one who also got a nanny. What alarmed me was that the mums in my NCT group thought nursery care would be better for babies than a nanny because their babies would participate in 'baby yoga' or develop 'social skills'. The fact that they cry when left at the nursery seemed normal to them. My son never cries when he is left with the nanny. We're not rich and so we did the maths and worked what we could afford to pay a nanny then advertised on gumtree and found someone suitable but not very experienced within our range of affordability - only slightly more expensive than nursery. If I had gone for a nanny share I think it would have been slightly cheaper than nursery.

If a nannyshare or less experienced nanny doesn't suit you then I personally would prefer a small nursery to a big one for a baby since it would be less intimidating and they may be more likely to build a relationship with some of the carers.

Have you considered hiring a less experienced nanny (e.g. ex nursery nurse or recently qualified nanny) or alternatively looking for a nanny share?. This may work out costing you about the same as a nursery place and you will also have the benefit that the nanny can look after your child when they are ill, take them to the doctors etc.

I read Stephen Biddulph's book and it made me change my plans from nursery care to getting a nanny for my baby boy when I went back to work. All the other mums in my NCT group went for nurseries apart from one who also got a nanny. What alarmed me was that the mums in my NCT group thought nursery care would be better for babies than a nanny because their babies would participate in 'baby yoga' or develop 'social skills'. The fact that they cry when left at the nursery seemed normal to them. My son never cries when he is left with the nanny. We're not rich and so we did the maths and worked what we could afford to pay a nanny then advertised on gumtree and found someone suitable but not very experienced within our range of affordability - only slightly more expensive than nursery. If I had gone for a nanny share I think it would have been slightly cheaper than nursery.

If a nannyshare or less experienced nanny doesn't suit you then I personally would prefer a small nursery to a big one for a baby since it would be less intimidating and they may be more likely to build a relationship with some of the carers.

Juuuule - I am sure you do love all your children, but I'm also sure that you have a loving relationship with their father and consented to the intercourse that lead to their being, only 50 years ago rape wasn't a crime in marriage.
Plus there was a very very good chance they would all survive too.
Sorry it's moved on from my comments but I didn't want you to think that I was implying you didn't love your DC's.

Just thought I'd post here as I'm going through the wringer with these issues at the minute.

Am due back to work in the summer (office admin-low salary job). A job rather than a career iyswim. They want me back 4 day a week and won't go any lower than that.

I don't want to go back. I want to be there full-time for my dd until she's at least 2.

DP and I have no family around to help with childcare.

DP has just had a 9% payrise which means with a lot of belt tightening we could probably afford for me to stay at home (albeit with lots of lifestyle changes and sacrifices).

What's annoying me is that everyone around me (family, friends, work etc) have just assumed I'm going back and are harping on about the benefits for both me and dd i.e. "she'll be more sociable, you'll have a life of your own etc.

I'm struggling because I truly believe that I can provide dd with everything she needs at this early stage of her life (she's 7 months) and I'm confident she will be an outgoing friendly child without having to go to a nursery/cm.

I went to visit 2 nurseries this morning. One was lovely but they're putting their prices up to a level that would leave me with only a couple of hundred quid out of my pay. Doesn't seem worth it for that.

The other was more affordable but I didn't get a great feeling about it and it seemed to be lacking in a few aspects.

I think it's great that women have more equality but I hate that our generation are expected to be high-flying career women when some of us (me included) put raising our babies over our careers (or lack thereof ) and are made to feel bad for it.

Sorry for t'rant. As you can probably see my head is fried with all this

If you can afford to, BunnyLebowski, take the time out. You can find another admin type job in a few years' time when your DC are at school.