if you have shedloads of help with your kids are you missing out?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

met someone at the weekend with a 2 year old and a baby. I said something about it being hard work. And she said that she has someone one come and help her everyday for 6 hours a day. The helper comes at 1 - having picked the 2 year old up from nursery! So basically it looks like this woman is never on her own with 2 kids. I later overheard her husband go on about how amazing she was and how you wouldn't realise she had a 9 week old. [don;t know why I cared about that but it did niggle me, I felt like knocking on his head and asking if he would like to join the real world ]. On one level I do think, well if you can afford to make life easier why not, but on the other hand is tehre a smidgeon of benefit - a sense of achievement if nothing else - from the hard work? when dd2 was born I had about 12 hours a week when dd1 went to a childminder, reduced to 6 when dd2 was about 3 months. I do think it made an enormous difference. But if you take it to a certain level are you missing out on something? or am I an arse?

I'm pretty much with you on this LTH. I have given up a full-time City job to bring up DS, and I consider it my job. If I had a nanny I'm not sure how I would feel about my role/job/call it what you will. I hope I'm not being puritanical - and I'm sure if I have more kids then some help from family/friends will be much appreciated - but I couldn't justify not working and not being a full-time mum.

Having said all that, I gave up my job to be with DS, not to clean the house or do the ironing - hence I am not averse to help with those (in just the same way as I was happy to outsource those before having DS)!

I always feel it is encumbant on me to point out that my Indian grandmother committed suicide, presumably with PND, in the 1930s. And frankly my extended family would drive me to the ADs within a week.

And my partner's Indonesian sister in law has PND, I think, and is finding it all the harder to explain this to the professionals as it's a culture where PND is simply 'not believed in'.

I get very litle help at all.
I do that shower thing too, infact i usually crouch in the bath at 7.30 a.m for a 39 second wash whilst singing 'Polly put the kettle on' to dd2.
DP works away every week, 2 - 3 - 4 days depends.
I love my life, i feel very proud to be looking after my kids every day and feel fulfilled.
However i would just LOVE for my Mam to be a little more involved and realise that sometimes, i clould do with a break too and not just my Sister who works part time and whinges non stop about her life and how hard she has it.

I don't want this to sound patronising as that's not how it's meant, but i often say to DP, ' I don't know HOW single Parents with no help do it'. At least when dp is here he does the odd School run and i can have 5 minutes.

With regards to having full time help with the children though, and me being a SAHM, no i wouldn't want that.
Just a little peace and quiet now and again would be nice

Well,I can help on the showering in peace front.
Bring them in with you (then leave them there for another 30 mins while you get on with essentials). It's the only way I get anything done.

Yes, each to their own. I personally think completely the opposite from LadyTophamHatt. I think it's great for children to be exposed to other people and different ways of doing things. Nothing wrong with being praised or told off my others I think, and even if you have help surely you can take the credit for bringing them up?

I never had any help while at home on mat leave, but I think it would have been more fun for my children to have a less tired mum tbh. If you are happy doing it all by yourself, then by all means, but don't turn into martyr-mum or think your children are better off just because you don't let any help into the house.

nice idea but dd2 doesn't like the shower and it takes me the next hour to get dd1 into her Uniform. She is the worlds slowest girl in the mornings bless her.

That's a nuisance.
I started mine young precisely so they would get used to it.

Yes, when i get an Hours break from them i'm sure i'm alot nicer to be with afterwards.

dd2's latest trick is ripping the toilet roll to shreds so.....i just let her

our's is dunking said loo roll in toilet..he especially likes to do this after a hearty poo! Horrible mummy has threatened to make him get it out if he does it again..

been away all morning and I think a round of congratulations is in order. when I saw 80 odd posts I thought damn, I;ve kicked soemthing off. (I ahd been worrying, and wondering whether I could delet op!) But it would seem not. all very civilised. I think that a lot of what people have said is why I like the Snowdon thing - because it's not morally judgemental - it's just a set of different experiences. We all know people who'd have a great day out taking the fenicular; and maybe there are some of us who would get a real kick out of doing it alone. But no-one needs look down their nose at anyone else for doing it differently.

I think the points about just how lonely having kids these days can be are very valid, and I think most people benefit from finding ways to alleviate that. I would never have really gone it alone, and welcome help. But equally I simply wouldn't like to have such a lot of help.

I'm taking a somewhat long view of this. My guess is that in, say, 20 years when the DDs are in their early to mid-20s and we've navigated early teenage crushes, school refusal, coming out, all that drugs and alcohol stuff, some ludicrously dangerous stint back-packing round the world, tertiary education (or not), career choices, finding them somewhere to live and all the rest, neither I nor they will give a damn who wiped their bums when they were small. It's a long game.

And yes, I or the mother in the OP might have "missed out" on something by not being there for each and every arse-wiping session, but, hey, we may have gained somewhere else.

Sorry if that last post was a little...strong. I'm trying to shed my old 'Issymum' persona and live up to my new 'Issyfit' image.

TheWoman is right - it's just a different set of experiences.

well I kept ds1 in nursery when I was on maternity leave with ds2 - seemed like the sensible thing to do to me - gave me 1 to 1 with the newborn

and when I became SAHM I kept ds2 in nursery part time and ds1 went to school.

I am definitely from the school of thought: "why make it harder for yourself if you can afford paid help?

And I have taken the funicular railway up Snowden both times I have been there.

humans are group animals arent they? so it is normal for children to be brought up in a group, not in a nuclear family.

back to the original post, I must admit that I would have got pretty irritated with the comment from the woman's dh.

do you know what? I think it was the dh that got to me! why I give two hoots I really don;t know. But the woman he was talking too nodding away and saying how wonderful and amazing she was, oooo it just seemed like sycophantic crap. tbh the whole thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth - too many men wearing chinos, talking about work, too many social x-rays, too much ignoring the children. I sat and watched the puppet show with the kids. And apologised to the people doing the puppet show for the fact that all the other grown ups were making too much noise over their champagne. (nearly fell throught the floor when puppeteers were offered juice to drink). I guess I'll get over it.

I agree with the puppet bit, it's so bloody rude to talk over the entertainment. If you need to chat, go next door. Here speaks a children's entertainer who hates "posh people's parties" because they ignore the kids and do f-all

I could tell the entertainers were hating it. I thought it was all a bit cringey.

If they's had chamapgne, it might have livened up their act no end. I'd very much like to see what sort of show drunken puppeteers put on :)

The only posh party I've been invited to, the kids all had the day off school because it was their mum's birthday, then I had to entertain the kids, make coffee and wash up even though I had been invited and my period of employment there had ceased. Needless to say I didn't go to the next 'posh' party I was invited to, I'm just not posh enough

Up until now I've done most school holidays more or less alone (had some help last summer, and occasionaly trips to respite for ds1). This easter I have over 30 hours a week help (paid for by SS) with ds1 (6 severely autistic), ds2 (4) and ds3 (15 months).

it is easier in the sense that with more hands on deck we can go out (I can;t if I'm alone), but I'm on my feet as much as I am without help. I'm cleaning up less destruction - but ds1 still managed to strip off and chuck his clothes into the neighbours garden today so we're not entirely free of it.

I feel more of a sense of achievement today than ever before in the holidays tbh because rather than hobbling through, just trying to get through the day I feel all the children have been catered for.

I take any help i can get atm. Whatever it is. I have PND. If i dont get help, then i miss out, and so do my children.

But its my life, and each to their own.

I'm a SAHM with a 23 month old and a 3.9 year old (plus a puppy, and 3 chickens - ). I know Cod thinks I'm a pansy because I have a cleaner twice per week (6 hours total), so she'll think I'm a right woolley wuss now!; ... this evening I've just interviewed someone to do a Mother's help role for me 2 evenings per week (5 hours in total).

Will I be missing out? Nope, I don't think so, except for a bit less drudgery perhaps.

I consider myself bloody lucky (to be able to afford it) but not lazy or a demi-mum. And in fact my heart is singing and there is a spring in my step in anticipation of a whole 5 hours to myself (well, I say myself - I shall ensconce myself in my study and do stuff for the the Pre School fundraising committee etc)