Am I being too judgmental?

[sugarbaby]

I am a SAHM with a 3-year-old DS. My sister on the other hand has a 2 and a half year old DS and works full-time. Her DS goes to nursery from 8 in the morning until approx 5 at night, he has breakfast, lunch and dinner there. Well that?s all very well I guess, I guess not everyone is as lucky as I am and can afford to stay at home. However, not only does my nephew spend every day at nursery during the week, but on weekends, he spends at least one day with my mother or my sister?s MIL so that they can ?do things around the house?. Things like cleaning, shopping, clearing out the spare bedroom .. all the things the rest of us seem to manage perfectly well with a child around at the same time. In fact at Chrittmas my BIL said that they don't actually know what toys their DS plays with because he's at home so little. The clincher came this week, my sister has a week?s holiday. Perfect time one might think for spending time with her DS as she doesn?t get much time normally? Her DS however is back at nursery, full-time, not only that, he?s still being dropped off at 8 in the morning in time for his breakfast. I mentioned this in passing to my mother and she said, ?well he can?t stay off for too long now can he, he might not want to go back, and besides, she needs a rest?! Now please someone tell me I?m not being too judgmental, I just feel this just isn?t right! My sister is constantly encouraged to leave her child and seems more than happy to do so, I, on the other hand, was severely criticised when I decided not to go back to work. I mean it's one thing wanting or needing to work, but she's going to miss out on so much of his growing up? It's actually at the point now where my nephew has no confidence other than when in a nursery environment or at my mother or my house (him and my DS do play together sometimes), in fact my DS actually thinks that my mother is my nephew's mummy, and my nephew has called my mum mummy on more than one occasion. Any thoughts?

Im the same as Iota. We have no family nearby so I look after ds Mon-Thurs and then he goes to nursery Fridays. Sometimes I work Fridays and sometimes I have day to myself. I work Saturday mornings and sometimes Sundays and I relish my Fridays off.

From 5pm and they are in bed when? 7pm?! YOu can't do much in that time - I understand her working but why would she palm him off in the Christmas holidays and every Saturday? Prime time to go out and do stuff with him. Very sad.

Agree with everyone on here who suggests that you concentrate on your own life, sugarbaby, and cut your sister some slack.
And agree totally with Pruni that when you are obliged to be out of the house contributing to paying 50% of a mortgage five days a week all day, you either need to find the extra cash for a cleaner, or agree to live in cheerful squalor (our current preference).
I would not choose to have my children looked after all day on a precious weekend day, true, but I can imagine scenarios where parents can't cope otherwise. And the only way I got our house orderly and really comfortable for our family Christmas this year was to send dd to nursery for a couple of days while I blitzed the place.
But hey ho, at least she didn't go there for breakfast. They don't serve arsenic you know.

Lockets you sound normal to me as well - normal encompasses a huge variation in attitudes in my book

Have to say though I couldn't be F/T SAHM to pre-schoolers with no support (paid or free) Perhaps that makes me abnormal in your eyes?

Is the issue here what she is doing (it does seem a tad excessve to get him in for breakfast on a week off when she doesn;t have a lot of time with him), or the fact that there seems to be one rule for her and rule for you 'I, on the other hand was severely criticised when I decided not to go back to work". Is your sister the golden girl? Would you just think "how odd" but not really worry if she wasn't your sister.

Reminds me of the time we were in France camping 3 years ago. Was talking to another couple and the bloke said "oh we only go away for 10 days, couldn't bear to spend any more time with the kids, far too much like hard work", then next day- yep you've guessed- parents reading paper all moring and sunbathing- kids in kids club. Before I get jumped on I must point out that a) I'm just bitter with envy as we could never leave ds1 in a kids club (mind you we can't have holidays with him no so perhaps that's irrelevent), and b) I didn't think they were wrong as such- sure the kids were having fun- just found it amusing that he thought he was doing so much with the kids.

I don't see the problem with her getting him there for breakfast. If you've paid for a full day at nursery you may as well get everything you're entitled too. What's the point of paying for a full day only to turn up at 10am

I think you are being a little judgemental, but only because you care. I find it odd that the Nursery was needed on time off work or weekends, surely this is family time? Especially if the poor mite is in care all week long!

I can also imagine how tough it is to do housework etc when working full time.

I work Part time, but my hours work around dh's. So I dont use child care. I couldnt afford to be a SAHM, but I also cant afford child care!

Think at the end of the day, it is what works best for the family and the child, its a personal choice.

Be interesting to see how things will turn out when new baby arrives.

I'm going to say something a little controversial here: when I was working full time and under masses of stress at work, my head was too full of work to be able to cope with a demanding baby when I got home. So I didn't really know my child very well and know how to deal with him. And as DS missed me, he was more demanding and difficult and the more difficult he was the less I wanted to spend time with him and the less time I spent with him the less I knew him and the more difficult he became and the more diff.... etc. etc.

I wonder if your sister is absolutely at her wits ends and a bit afraid of spending time with her child, as someone else suggested, because whenever she does it's awful, because she doesn't spend enough time with him? This can become a vicious circle, and if it has got like that for her, like someone else said, she needs support, not condemnation.

I agree Caligula (I think it was me who said maybe she is scared) - if that's the case maybe the poster could suggest they all do something together one Saturday. That way the sister gets to spend time with her little boy but it's a little less scarey when you've got other people with you isn't it?

I agree too Caligula and TR. I consider myself very fortunate that we have managed to make my working f/t OTH work well for us on the emotional side, and I have never struggled to feel connected to my children, but I do know of at least one other f/t WOTH mum who got stuck in this sort of "scared of spending time with my child" pattern. I felt pretty sorry for her as she was also being judged rather harshly by her SAHM sibling and I had to nearly bite my tongue off.

I'm thinking it could be that because it's even a bit odd for me to be suddenly in sole charge of the boys again after having dh around over Christmas. Not scarey as such, I'm a SAHM so quite used to it, but it does feel a bit daunting the first day you are on your own again. I can only imagine it's 100 times worse if you spend 5 full days away from your child and you really don't know what makes him tick.

I think sugarbaby's getting a bit of a hard time over this.

She comes over to me as a concerned aunt.

you have to pay for a nursery place wether the child is there or not to keep their place open at many nurseries so i can see why she is sending him.

We are lucky in that i work evenings & weekends and dh does days so although we never see each other we don't have to get childcare. But i think that in your sisters position i would be sending my kids to nursery too unless we were all going away on holiday rather than spend money on keeping place open and not send child!

However I wouldn't off load them at the weekends.

Me too Avalon.. I mean, why bother having another child if she doesn't get to see much of the first one? It just means that the nursery will earn even more money from her for looking after 2. And that granny and the MIL will have 3 children every saturday instead of one.

Actually, It's the child I feel sory for. Now, I;m not a SAHM, but I'm out of the house for a few hours each day, and my children go to a childminder.. they love her, she is fantastic.. BUT I leave them there as little as possible..and never when I am at home on holidays!!

I don't think youre being judgemental, you have a resentment towards your sister in a big way. She is affecting you so much you've posted it on the site, Resentments are caused by threat or fear maybe you should try to identify what your fear or threat from her is? Maybe youre fearful of what effect its having on the child? Perfectly normal, however my 5yr old was in nursery all day and i used to go out at weekends and leave him with my mum (i was 18 at the time) he is turning out fine confident with strangers and new situations. I still struggle with play sometimes not always sure how to do it. Regret not spending much time with him now in a big way and i think your sister will too in the future. You are powerless over her so let it go you can't control people your wasting your time stewing over it.

Caligula that is very sad but from my observation not too unusual.
you see Mummyhill I think sending your child to nursery just because you have paid for it is a little odd. It doesn;t make logical sense to me. Why do something you don't want to do just because you are contractually forced to pay? makes no sense to me at all

I mean the granny and MIL will have 2 children every saturday

Agree with Lockets and HCC re paid for nursery. I'd still keep them off in the holidays.

My neice goes to nursery every Thurs and Fri whilst my SIL works. So when she has a week off on holiday my neice stills goes Thurs and Fri, after all they have from Satrday-Wednesday together. There's nothing wrong with that surely!! After all my neice loves nursery

exactly- they have Sat- Wed together- so its not like the situation sugarbaby is describing.

ds2 gets sent to nursery in the holidays because its better for him and if I can offload ds3 gives me a chance to take ds1 out, so I'm not anti anything- but sugarbaby's sister does sound a bit extreme- suspect the earlier posts about finding it difficut could be true

I also think it's strange to think you have to send your child to nursery just because you've paid for it. My ds went two days a week and i'd still send him even if I didn't have much work that week - I liked the time at home. But it was only two days.

We pay for dd's nursery 51 weeks a year but actually only use it about 37 of those. Whenever possible I rearrange work around school hols so they can both be off for as much of them as poss.
Dd goes on average five days in the school hols mainly because of heavy-duty home cleaning. I too would never send her just because we paid but the flexibility for the odd day is good to have.