Feeling a bit let down by 'the sisterhood'

[Hopingitwillallbefine]

I am a new(ish) mum to a dd (11 months) and have just returned to work full time. This was not a decision I took lightly but made for a number of reasons, including the fact that we really need the money for a deposit for a new house and I love my job and have worked hard to get where I am, and would like to continue to progress in my career. My DH also works full time. We are fortunate enough to have reasonable working hours (him 9-5, me 8-4) which mean that between us we are at home with dd until about 8.15am in the morning and from 5pm in the evening. Between 8.30 and 5pm dd is at nursery. We chose her nursery because we loved it immediately and continue to be impressed and happy with the quality and standard of care it offers. Dd LOVES nursery, has made a great bond with her keyworker and seems to have such lovely, fun and full days.

Apologies for the boring details of our life - all pretty normal stuff. However the reason for my post and what has really upset me/pissed me off in the past few months has been the attitudes of other women towards the decisions we have made as a family about working hours and childcare arrangements. I have lost count of the occasions that I have been met with undisguised horror, disgust or pity when I've told female friends or colleagues I am back at work full time. Not all of them, but enough to make me feel like a dreadful mother. Responses like "is there nothing you can economise on so that you can drop a day or two?" Or "god you poor thing, that must be miserable". Even my manager has asked me if i want to consider going part time now I am a mum. Similarly, I have been treated to a variety of unhelpful and at times offensive remarks from friends and colleagues about our decision to use a nursery including suggestions that we are risking our dd developing attachment disorder or questions like "is there no way your family could help?" (No), "wouldn't you at least prefer a childminder?" (No), "have you thought about how damaging it could be if your dd's keyworker left?" Etc etc.

These comments are so frequent that I now have a pre-prepared mini speech when people ask about work or childcare to try and head off all the criticisms and 'helpful suggestions'. What annoys me is the implicit assumption that obviously I am only back at work FT out of absolute necessity and that if there were any alternatives at all I would of course be working part time or not at all as all good mothers should - and to admit that I have chosen to return full time partly because I still give a toss about my career and enjoy being at work is tantamount to declaring that I couldn't care less about my dd. Further, I wouldn't dream of questioning another woman's childcare choices and have been really upset and surprised by how many women seem to think that nursery is virtual child abuse and it is their responsibility to educate me on the reasons why. But finally, and the reason for my post in this section of MN is that all of this, without exception has come from other women. Not one man has made me feel bad about my choices or questioned them in any way. Similarly, my husband, who earns exactly the same as me, has never been made to feel bad about being at work FT. Nobody has ever suggested that he might want to go part time now we have a child.

So I just feel a bit let down by women at the moment. I know it is impossible to 'have it all' and I'm not pretending otherwise, but I would like to continue to pursue my career while providing as much care, love and attention to my dd as I can. I love her more than I knew possible and love spending time with her. I feel genuinely excited every day when I go to pick her up and we have a lovely two hours together every evening after work when I am totally and utterly focused on her. We have lovely weekends as a family and spending time together having fun is so important to me. But I also love being at work and enjoy my day and feel so fulfilled by it. Shouldn't other women be supporting me and encouraging me, isn't this equality and freedom what we have fought for for years?

Link didn't work last time - not strictly relevant but interesting

I haven't read all the posts, so someone may have said this before. I have asked straight to somebody before "are you questioning my judgement" and "are you judging me for my action". They don't like answering that question and back away like mad.

There was a thread discussing the motherhood and academia thing earlier.

garlic I don't think that is comparing like with like.

Is thinking that a baby needs its mother in the first few weeks of its life the same as being racist? Is it morally and ethically wrong?

i would agree, for example, that "a mother must be with her newborn in the first few weeks of its life" is wrong, and cannot and should not be imposed.

I am not arguing for any opinion goes/freedom of thought and speech.

I think that if there is going to be a discussion about the judginess which some women (many? most?) face if they do as the OP has done, then it needs to listen to both sides. Dismissing them as "wrong" is not helpful.

I also really don't believe that it is always about their own insecurities. This comes up a lot, but I think it needs to be seriously considered that it's not always:

I am unsure that I have made the right decisions so I am going to lambast you for yours

but possibly sometimes simply:

It is my opinion that what you are doing is not right

Do we really want to suggest that everyone who doesn't agree with the OP's decision should shut up and fuck off because their opinion is wrong?
Who decides which opinions and choices are right and which ones are wrong? At what point are you "allowed" to have an opinion, to voice it, to interfere if you think necessary?

The OP notes that it is a significant number of her female colleagues who have expressed some form of disagreement with what she is doing, right? So that opinion does, imo, need to be explored and considered (not in order to convince the OP to do otherwise).

It's an important part of the general question of why do women feel they can judge and have opinions on other women's childcare/work arrangements?
If you come on and say "Well I think you can do whatever you like and you should tell them all to fuck off" that's not adding anything to discussion, is it?

Sorry if that wasn't clear, the whole of that sentence referred to all decisions that parents make.

So, extreme example, if someone thought it was ok for their childcare arrangements to be leaving small child locked in room all day with bowl of water, then we would of course interfere.

It's a sliding scale of having an internal opinion which should not be voiced, to commenting aloud, to suggesting perhaps that might not be best, to interfering.

Most on this thread think that the OP's decision should not be commented on, yet clearly her colleagues in RL don't feel that at all.

teetering, I wasn't rude and I certainly wasn't interfering. It's a chat forum and we can all contribute. It's not like having a face-to-face conversation and butting in.

What I object to about your posts is that you keep volunteering your opinion on the OP's decisions about childcare. I don't necessarily disagree with your opinions, and more to the point I know you are entitled to express them. The objection I have is that (as you know very well) the OP was NOT looking for opinions but for advice and support on how to handle the often unsolicited comments she is receiving from people about her childcare choices.

I suppose ultimately what I'm saying is that, particularly in this section of MN, I think it is more useful and interesting to vigorously question anyone who has a strongly held belief about women which is a)reflected in RL and b)is not what the general opinion on here is.

Saying "you need to mind your own business" is all well and good, but wouldn't it be much more interesting to find out "why do you think that, and why do you think you can comment on it to me?".
The OP could of course ask that of her colleagues, but seeing as she's brought it up on here, and seeing as there were at least a couple of posters who appeared to agree with her RL colleagues, it would have been the perfect opportunity to delve into the problem, rather than just tell them their comments are unwanted.

This is interesting:
Buffy: OP asked feminists (not childcare arrangements experts, mind you), feminists why they thought that her work colleagues couldn't help but intervene.

Who is to say that eg teetering doesn't consider herself a feminist?

Hope, she may well do. I don't think that has any bearing on Buffy's comment (or Buffy's comment any bearing on that).

The majority opinion on this thread was indeed that the OP should be further questioned and judged about her choices, but that is clearly not what is happening in RL, and that is what the OP wanted to clear up, no?

Why is it that a woman's parenting choices are fair game to other women to comment on and criticise at will?

So surely it is relevant for someone who is criticising the OP's choices to come on and explain why they think they can do that. Or is she only interested in hearing from those who think her choices are the right ones (or that it is her choice to make and shouldn't be commented on)?

Hopeforthebest - I understand what you are saying and I agree, given my original post it would be useful and interesting to hear from people who might a) hold the view that my choices are wrong or misguided and b) would feel the need to express that to me were they to meet me in real life. However all that posters like teetering have contributed is the fact that they disagree with my choice to work full time and use a nursery, not why it is ok to impose that view on me either on MN or in RL when it is unsolicited. That is the issue that is being debated, not the fact that people disagree with me. I am well aware that lots of people aren't keen on nurseries and that lots of people think women should reduce their working hours when they have a baby and I honestly think that both views are just as valid as mine and are views that any women is welcome to hold. I definitely did not post hoping for a whole load of people to come and tell me how great they think I am for making the choices I have done. I was more interested in a debate on why it is ok to tell meI am wrong and to try to make me feel guilty or insufficient about my choices. And so far posters like teetering have contributed nothing to that particular discussion. And before she comes back and says "because that's my view and I am entitled to it" - I just don't think that's good enough. I agree that all women are entitled to their views but I don't agree that it's ok to force them on those who hold different ones when they are unsolicited and likely to upset or offend. And it seems like motherhood is unique in being open to the views or opinions of whoever fancies offering them.
And my second issue was that my DH and equal partner in every way receives absolutely nothing in the way of judgement or criticism - no responsibility for either childcare arrangements or reducing working hours is attributed to him - just me.

I am happy to endorse how you are doing things. Equality and fairness is bound to be better than sexist marriages with women doing more for children than men. There is plenty of research which says children do better where mothers work full time. Luckily we are allowed to voice views like that even if they hurt the feelings of someone with an opposite view.

I certainly think people need when they speak in real life to new parents they should be sensitive to people's feelings but if you hold a strong view like housewives damage children then I think you have a moral duty to make that comment. Similarly if you think nurseries damage children then you should also make that comment but of course as much to the father as the mother - it is sexism which is the pernicious snake in the grass here which means women are castigated and men virtually never.

Yes, anyone attending a church or mosque will hear sections from the Bible and Koran every week lawfully spouted from the pulpits about the sins of sodom etc. In our free society you are allowed to say those things.

I agree that all women are entitled to their views but I don't agree that it's ok to force them on those who hold different ones when they are unsolicited and likely to upset or offend. And it seems like motherhood is unique in being open to the views or opinions of whoever fancies offering them .

Yes. Hope, you were quick to come back with a dismissal of my racist/disablist examples - I happen to disagree with your evaluation, but one thing at a time, eh. You didn't answer my example about criticism of your appearance, which is more of a direct correlation with Hoping's issue. It's a different take on the idea that women's personal choices are public property; anyone's free to revile women who do not match perceived acceptable standards.

As it goes, I am old enough and travelled enough to have lived in a culture where this was deemed acceptable - strangers came up to tell me off, quite viciously, for my skirt length, shoes and hair style. I'm pretty sure that women in Muslem countries today face such disapproval, too. It's all part of the 'ownership' or infantilisation of women: we cannot be trusted to know what's best for us; society's free to tell us off.

Wrt to the racism/disablism - again, I am old enough to recall those things being said, for real, by speakers who considered themselves perfectly normal & reasonable. Once more, it's a case of "society" speaking through the mouths of ordinary people ... dressing up what "society" wants (oppression & exclusion) as reasonable concern for others, ignoring their own views on what's best for them. "Society" wants women to fuck off out of the workplace and stay pregnant, to brutalise a complex argument. Teetering spoke for that "society".

Babies have only been raised by stay-at-home (kept) mothers since the 1950s. As others have pointed out, this is not 'normal' for humans. I've written essays on how & why it happened (post-war economics), and the actual question of whether it's better for babies isn't the issue here. What is an issue: Millions of women speak as though "society's" economic policies were the one true way, the natural order of things. Do you not find that worrying at all?