As a child were you in full time childcare?

[Lasvegas]

So many surveys about how nurseries etc not best for little kids. Real test I think is looking at adults now who were in childcare in the past. I wondered how you were affected if at all if you were in nursery, with CM or Nanny full time (50 hours a week) when you were little. I mean affected in later life not can you recall crying etc. I wasn't at nursery as a child, my mum worked a gew hours and my grandmother had me and my sister.

no my mum lived off my dads pension, owned her house outright. and therefore chose to stay at home becuase she had the financial backing to make that choice.

I had a SAHD. This was back in the 1970s when such things were even more unusual than now.

He says its the best thing he ever did with his life. Which is nice really. I don't remember too much though-lots of freedom and playing with other kids really (we lived in a block of flats and there were always kids my age about).

to answer fsmail's question from ages back, my Mum was at boarding school from age 7 and still really resents my Gran for sending her (and blames any personality defects on the experience!). As a result my Mum was adamant that she wouldn't work when we were small kids, and is treating the fact that I am now looking for work as a huge tradgedy for me and my dd.

very sorry, meggmoo. that's terrible.

I was looked after by a family who treated me like their own child & then when I went to nursery school, I enjoyed myself thoroughly (except for being forced to eat things I didn't like - memories of sitting alone at the table staring miserably at an egg sandwich long after everyone else was off playing). My ds loves his crèche. He's very sociable so I think he prefers the days he's at crèche to the ones he spends alone with me. (or maybe not! we have fun. it's when his big sister turns up that he seems upset )

I grew up in a village and went with my mum to her work every day until I started school. (She was the secretary of a small business) I would help her count the money, go with her to the bank etc and often go out with my dad on deliveries. I didn't know any different. I always felt toally involved in everything and there were never any secrets - because I was always there they talked about everything they would have talked about anyway (hope this makes sense!)
On hindsight, my social skills would have been better if they had mixed with other people with kids of similar ages - we were quite insular.
That's my only complaint though.

My brothers were 11 and 13 when I was born and my mum was 40. I don't ever remember her moaning or complaining or appearing knackered looking after me which she did as my dad was a baker and worked weird shifts. She did go back to work part time (from 2pm to 5pm) 4 days a week but my dad usually had finished his shift by then else she'd take me to the office and let me play on one of the other typewriters until my dad could collect me. I remember Fridays being the best coz she had that whole day off and I'd help her do the housework which was great fun (????duh) We also had a 'special' dinner that night coz my dad didn't get in until about 8pm coz Fridays was when he collected in his earnings from his customers. He used to come in and empty out all the coins on the floor and I helped him count it. Fridays also had the Wonderful World of Disney on, bath night and the excitment would start building for the weekend coz we would be away at the crack of dawn to the caravan for the weekend. By the age of 5 my brothers were more or less grown up and doing their own thing. I was scared going to school coz I was shy. Perhaps if I'd gone to some sort of nursery or had a little more interaction with kids I would not have been so shy but once there I was fine.
I thank my parents for the weekends at the caravan the most because our village was a grimy dirty place and the caravan was in the highlands and I loved it. To this day I hate driving back to the central belt if I've been anywhere up north because it feels like I'm leaving home behind.

My mum worked full time since I was a baby. I went to my aunty's after school & played with my cousin who was the same age. I loved it there (except for getting jam & bread for tea EVERY night). I asked my mum if I could go & live there. I didn't realise it would be hurtful.

As an adult I love my mum but we're not very close. I always felt she put her work before me. I feel now as an adult she puts her work before me & her grandchildren. She rarely sees them. I know where her priorities are & where they've always been.

The effect on me - distant relationship with my mother. Am now SAHM & revel in each moment (more or less!) with my boys. The opposite of her. Still v. close to my aunty.

I had a SAHM but DP was in full-time daycare until he went to school then his Mum ran the after-school club for her friends children, in her house.

DP reckons he can't remember anything about Daycare except holding his breath one day to see what would happen and falling over! No negative feelings about it at all but his Mum maintains he did sulk a lot when she picked him up.

He loved having all the kids round to his after school each day and from then on his Mum was a SAHM so I guess he never felt like a latch-key kid.

My mum was a SAHM. I didn't have any sort of childcare until I started going to playschool when I was 3 (which I hated). My mum didn't meet up with other mums either so I didn't know any other children at all. I still have problems getting on with other people my own age.

My mum was SAHm and I was the youngest of four with a 8 yr age gap betweeen me and the next sibling.

I cannot remember going to playgroup , although I'm sure I must have done something like that. This is nearly 40 years ago. Howver what I do remember is crying my eyes out when I went to school because I did not want to leave my Mum , this went on for a few years and was very shy.

I din't want this to happen to my children and although I went back to work part time after both they were in day care nursery . I finsihed work when the oldest was coming up to three and he then went off to playgroup. A very confident child and was happy to be left.

When my youngest was coming up to 2 I got him into a nursery for 2 mornings a week, again to give him confidence with other children and leaving me as he would only have one year at playgroup before he went to school as he is a summer baby and I wanted him to be confident, he is now happy to leave me and has settled well into playgroup and starts school in September.

My Mum never went back to work and was always there throughout my school days and even when I first started work.

I do feel however that my early years with my Mum all the time made seperation very stressful for me.

Yes, I grew up in Sweden and attended fulltime nursery from baby (8am-4pm) and so did my siblings. I loved going to nursery and have always wanted the same for my children.I do think having been to nursery FT myself has greatly influenced my feelings towards my own children attending nursery. The debate in the UK weather it's okey to leave children in FT childcare doesn't really affect me. This debate probably happened in the 70s in Scandinavia and since then generations have grown up with FT nurseries and they are absolutely fine. I also think I have a closer relationship to my dad because he was so involved in family life as my parents shared the responsibility of earning and childcare equally.

I was at home with my mum until I went to school. She admits that she saw her role primarily as sorting the house out and I fitted in around that. I see her with my children and think that she probably didn't play with me an awful lot - compared with my MIL who really does the getting down on the floor playing thing.

When I was 7 she went to work full time and my sister and I let ourselves in after school. Amused ourselves in the holidays too

My friend was in full time nursery from a year and, like Fairymum, she has been very relaxed about sending her son at a young age more or less full time.

puddle, interestingly enough my mum is the opposite, and i feel similarly to you! from seeing her with dd I imagine that when i was very little I was over-coddled by her, I think up till she got ill, we had a very cosy very mum-oriented life, and that makes me feel really uncomfortable too, i think in view of what ended up happening! I think my cosy mum-and-me life was taken away when my dsis was born when i was 18 months and life turned upside down from there, so maybe that's why i felt uncomfortable about dd just having me to care for her, rather than there actually being anything wrong with having just me.

hope that makes sense. it is very hard not to write a very long essay about all this!

Fairymum, do you think Swedish nurseries in the 70s were better than the normal run of nurseries here?
My mum worked pt from when I was young - we had live in au pairs who I don't remember at all. She went full time (teacher) when I was 7 and I had various after school arrangements, not institutional. My memories of playgroup at earlier ages are pretty negative I have to say - but I don't remember going there for 'childcare' as such, perhaps I did, I don't know.
I have to say sending my kids to nursery is something I beat myself up about a bit - though it has only ever been 3 days/wk and they seem to enjoy it....

Elliot, I don't know. I have been very impressed with the nurseries we have used in the UK, but it seems the standard varies a lot judging from what I read in the media and on MN. I would say that the 70s in Sweden was a bit like it is here now in terms of parents getting more rights at work, fathers slowly getting more involved etc These days I think the main difference between going to nursery in the UK and Scandinavia is that Scandinavian parents have more of a work/life- balance which means they also have quite a lot of family time. Of course it's not always the case, but I think as a general rule the society is just more family-oriented eventhough the large majority of women work.

I just remembered, I meant to respond to someone who said they don't believe that what happened under 3 yo has much effect on us. It's in fact the opposite, cos those events are hidden deep in our subconscious and so are harder for us to unravel & come to terms with.
Apparently.

I went one day, then a boy pulled a fake gun on me, so I went home to my mum crying and she took me back never to go anymore

I was in full-time childcare from 2-ish in 1973, when Mum went back to work as a teacher. All I remember is being supremely happy, as I was in a brilliant nursery. And once I was at infant school, the caretaker's wife would look after me until Mum got home. She remembers frequently finding me contentedly reading the Woman's Own agony pages when she arrived, .

Thinking about it, 'full-time' is qualified in my case, as Mum obviously was able to be at home with me in school holidays. And she says now she'd much rather have been a SAHM. There was a big gap between my older siblings and me and as my parents were throwing away their hard-earned on private school fees I think she didn't have much option but to work. Luckily it worked out for me, as I can see from this thread it didn't for everyone.

My mum worked school hours initially whilst I was at primary school then when I went to secondary school and was able walk there by myself she worked 9-12.30 so she was always there when I got home from school. In the school holidays I was looked after by my grandparents (boring!)

Hi original poster here. Facinating reading thread.

I was largely looked after my SAHM except for play school a few hours a week from age 3, or grandmother in school hols. Both my sister and I were such painfully shy, timid kids, wouldn't sit next to a stranger at the cinema, wouldn't interact with people we didn't know.

On other hand DD age 3 yr (who from 6 months old has been with nanny, childminder, AP, nursery). Is very confident & articulate. I don't mean to boast but health professionals and other parents make a point of saying they cannot believe how advanced her social skills are. I don't think it is my parenting rather the benefits of childcare.
Having said that she asks me nearly every day not to go to work.

We all grew up with SAHM. My elder sister went to a private nursery from age 3, while I went to the nursery attached to primary school. Brother went straight into Reception level at school with no playgroup/nursery at all.

We were all different. My sister was very confident, relaxed and a bit too friendly to people. She was always happy to go and spend the night with relatives from a very young age. She always had lots of really good friends.

I was always very shy and insecure and anxious.

Brother is confident, assertive and fairly happy-go-lucky. This might be due to having two older sisters.

Without going into details I would say our personalities were influenced by a variety of factors.

My own ds1 is now attending the nursery attached to his school. Prior to this, from the age of three he went two mornings a week to playgroup. He is in many ways a bit like me, but his report from his nursery was very encouraging. They said he was confident with adults and children, obedient, played nicely and spoke in complex sentences, so I don't think lack of attending nursery has done him any harm (yet ).