Advantages of Going Back to Work Early

[Judy1234]

Coming out of several other threads this is interesting. As I said elsewhere with my first child I went back to work after 2 weeks. I always work up until I went into labour. I think the longest I took off was 5 week with any of the 5. You don't often get parents writing about returning to work quickly so I thought just setting out some of the advantages might be helpful for those who can't decide how much time to take off at home. I don't want this to be seen as me saying all parents should both be back at their desks within 2 weeks however; just food for thought particularly with the new paternity leave rights coming in next April.

1. The baby does not have a huge wrench when you suddenly return at 6 months or a year. At 2 weeks she can get used to her good childcare from the father, relative, nanny or whatever so has continuity and no shock to the system of a later return.

1. You don't have time to get out of the swing of work so it's all less disrupting to your life.

1. You can establish a breastmilk expressing system early on without worrying about how to manage breastfeeding when going back at 3 months.

1. Both parents are equally as involved with the children. The pattern at home isn't established that the mother does everything to do with the baby. The mother isn't better than the father at child things. You may get a more involved husband.

1. You only lose 10% of pay in the few weeks you take off.

1. You don't lose touch with work, lose promotion, position etc.

1. If I'm allowed say it, being at home with babies can be boring (not for everyone, I know) so you can skip all that and concentrate on the fun cuddles bit.

1. You inconvenience an employer or your customers less. No one will like me for saying this but in the real world fathers and mothers taking leave is hard to manage. I can say this having had to manage maternity leave for two of my nannies over the years.

1. You may find the physical recovery from birth easier in an office than managing small children and domestic work at home with heavy lifting, toddlers who kick you, heavy rubbish to put out, floors to scrub etc.I certainly found sitting still at a desk, time to rest, relax, get drinks at my leisure helped me get back to normal. Dressing in office clothes too helps get you back to being your normal self. I loved leaving behind the clothes at home covered in baby sick etc.

10. Sometimes it aids mental health particularly if you hate being home with a baby.

Again, the anger thing is overwhelming on this thread....why though ? I have never said I despise SAHMs, nor that people shoudn't be SAHMs.....although have said I think SAHMdom is, overall, a choice that I think is less good for families and children.I stand by that, and share many of Xenia's views,( which she in a lawerly way puts far more eloquently than I could...),on why I think this....I work for money,most people do, but it isn't that ,that motivates me most.I work because I feel passionately about the area of medicine that I have spent the best part of 20 years in,( not going to reveal exact area...but probably the 'mob' element of mners would kick me off this thread if they knew.), and hope to work in for the rest of my life,God willing, Have also manged to have 5 lovely children and hopefully more....have never arranged flowers in my life, do not know the names of all DCs friends,( incidentally cannot help feeling that ' sorting out friendship difficulties ' exactly the sort of over parenting example I was looking for in earlier thread...personally have NEVER, and would never do anything like this...),last week took children to wrong school,( which they left last term...) and so the list goes on...My kids are happy ,welladjusted, loved, all breast fed for two years,( so far...yes, it's posible even for us ' neglectful' WOHMs to do that!), and I am all the above too,( including the breastfed....I was one of 11 children of a double doctoring household...cheers mum !).If one of my daughters,( one sitting on my lap now chewing current copy of BMJ..), chose SAHMdom in future it would be her choice but would be very, very disappointed.Unlikely though..methinks.

Please don't ever be disappointed by a choice your child makes. Our job is to prepare them for life as best we can, not to judge them because of the path they follow.

Obviously I agree with mozhe. Anyway it's great having 5 children and a career. She and I both think so.

What is amusing is no one has really discussed the thread topic at all, as if even posing the 10 points or advantages of returning to work was an MN heresy, that there's some collective ehtos that we return to wor because we have to and we know it damages children and we have to say we wish we didn't have to. We don't all feel like that.

I hope my children have jobs they love. My father, a psychiatrist, his advice was pick work you'll enjoy for 40 years and we all did. YOu spend a lot more time working over a career to 65+ than you do with children but in fact what I've also mentioned to girls when I've done careers evenings over the years is to have babies too. That great fun as well and it's not a choice - career or children. Both are possible as most parents in the UK know. I'm taking the 5 children and It (I'm the It) skiing next month. I don't just work. I do other things too. It's not a stark choice - work 100% of the time or be a parent at home 100%. Working parents parent and as people say below can be full time mothers or fathers too. I also think parents at work bring a good perspective on things. It's something you have in common with the people you work with... excpet I put my foot in it today, asked one of the men if he had children.. no and then he added "not by choice". So that reminds me never to ask that question. I should know by now. We are all luckly, SAH or working parents, to be able to have children at all.

You're not quite right re: people not commenting on the original subject - several of the first posts did, but they disagreed and/or criticised.
I would be the first person to agree that for either partner to give up work involves personal sacrifice. I feel very uncomfortable about women who seek to find a man at the earliest opportunity, get married, stay at home and look after the children. I had a career for 15 years before the birth of my first child and was happy to be a SAHM - especially as we hoped to have a small gap between our children - ds2 is only 18 months younger. Maybe if I had been younger when I had ds1 I would have felt differently - who knows?
It's brilliant to have 5 children and a career, but others' choices are equally valid.

I'd say your Top Ten Tips on getting back to work are based on gargantuan assumptions:

1. The baby does not have a huge wrench when you suddenly return at 6 months or a year. At 2 weeks she can get used to her good childcare from the father, relative, nanny or whatever so has continuity and no shock to the system of a later return.

Not everyone has father/relative/nanny avilable or the means to pay for good childcare

1. You don't have time to get out of the swing of work so it's all less disrupting to your life.

Not everyone has a career to disrupt. Some people have jobs not careers and don't put them above everything else

1. You can establish a breastmilk expressing system early on without worrying about how to manage breastfeeding when going back at 3 months.

You mean you established a routine early on. Easier said than done for a lot of people

1. Both parents are equally as involved with the children. The pattern at home isn't established that the mother does everything to do with the baby. The mother isn't better than the father at child things. You may get a more involved husband.

Not everyone has a husband or partner around to share the load with

1. You only lose 10% of pay in the few weeks you take off.

Great if you qualify for that and if losing 10% doesn't make a vast difference to your income.

1. You don't lose touch with work, lose promotion, position etc.

Not everyone is in a position to progress. See point 2

1. If I'm allowed say it, being at home with babies can be boring (not for everyone, I know) so you can skip all that and concentrate on the fun cuddles bit.

Meh - whatever

1. You inconvenience an employer or your customers less. No one will like me for saying this but in the real world fathers and mothers taking leave is hard to manage. I can say this having had to manage maternity leave for two of my nannies over the years.

I could say why inconvenience anyone at all by having children in the first place? Oops I did say it. I managed to get to point 8 before I did though. We all prioritise differently I suppose.

1. You may find the physical recovery from birth easier in an office than managing small children and domestic work at home with heavy lifting, toddlers who kick you, heavy rubbish to put out, floors to scrub etc.I certainly found sitting still at a desk, time to rest, relax, get drinks at my leisure helped me get back to normal. Dressing in office clothes too helps get you back to being your normal self. I loved leaving behind the clothes at home covered in baby sick etc.

Might be stating the bleeding obvious but not everyone works in an office or is in a position to sit and relax whilst at work

10. Sometimes it aids mental health particularly if you hate being home with a baby. Yeah it could do I suppose

Really your list only goes to show how feasible it is to go back to work after 2 weeks if we are all called Xenia and live Xenia's life. Thank God I'm not and I don't.

?On status etc... if we don't value childcare you say therefore men won't do it. Why should that be any different than women unless we think women ought to take on roles that aren't valued.?

Oh, but I DO place value on the time that a parent spends with a young child. Those fathers afforded the chance to spend more time with their children than the traditional past seem to absolutely gush about the wonder of being an important player in their infant?s/pre-schooler?s life. But men who are able to, but not prepared to, reduce their hours of work, are unlikely to be persuaded if they read your negative views about SAHParenthood.

Fathers (and mothers) don't need me to tell them what it's like to be with a baby at home. Most fathers with SAH wives do a good bit of childcare and know what it's like from the days they have done a whole day on their own without help.
bacon, thanks for addressing the list. Yes some jobs (most) are not careers. You work in a shop. You type. You work in a factory or call centre. If your husband gives you the luxury of choosing in those cases to stay at home or continue working then it's not surprising (for those who don't like those jobs, and many do, and for those who don't feel they need a job for sanity) that they stay at home.

On the 10% thing I thought for employees whatever your salary level you only lose 10% of pay for the first 6 weeks whether you're on £100k or £10k. It's after 6 weeks that things change although a very few employers offer full pay for long periods.

Xenia, aren't you fed up banging on about working the whole time?

I can't see how you get the time to work, you seem to be on this site ALL the time.

Never mind your kids...

"Fathers (and mothers) don't need me to tell them what it's like to be with a baby at home. Most fathers with SAH wives do a good bit of childcare and know what it's like from the days they have done a whole day on their own without help."

I'm not talking about the reality of working less and spending more time at home with children. I'm talking about the overall impression that society has of people working a very full-time week in a place of emplyment vs the overall impression a society has of a person who is pending more of their time at home, caring for their very young child/ren.

The individual views you have shared here go towards forming the overall impression society has about SAHPArents and part-time working parents.

spending

Completely off the point but you must be Welsh little bird??

Go on then Xenia, discussion of the OP

Disadvantages of Going Back to Work Early

1. The baby has a huge wrench when you suddenly return at 2 weeks. At 2 weeks she is not even aware of who is her mother, except the instinctive smell and feeding connection. If you leave her with another carer, you risk the important attachment both for the mother and the child. No-one can really definitively tell you how bad this is yet, because we just don't know.

1. You don't have time to get out of the swing of work so it means you don't have an opportunity to adapt to the most important change in your life.

1. You may establish a breastmilk expressing system early on but let's be honest, a lot of people find establishing breastfeeding difficult even in optimum conditions - ie with just baby and breast at home and no other distractions.

1. You put equal stress on both parents to care and adapt for a newborn baby, lack of sleep, while keeping the home organised etc. Most people find this one of the hardest points in their relationship, so why make it more difficult than it has to be?

1. You only lose 10% of pay in the few weeks you take off. You will also miss out on any additional paid maternity leave that you may be entitled to. In many cases, half pay or the 400pounds maternity allowance may be more than your net salary after tax and childcare.

1. You don't lose touch with work, lose promotion, position etc. You send the message to your employer that women should only be promoted if they are prepared to act as though they haven't had children.

1. You miss out on the experience of bonding with your child to the extent that you actually enjoy spending time with them, comforting them and doing boring day to day tasks, because of the strong love you feel for them.

1. You perpetuate the idea in our modern society that having children is an unnecessary inconvenience to the smooth running of an efficient world.

1. You may find that your physical recovery is seriously compromised if you suffer from one of the myriad post-natal complications. You may end up back in hospital.

10. It may put unbelieveable stress on you personally and make it more likely that you suffer post-natal depression. We just don't know, because thankfully it is very very rare that anyone tries it.

11. If all of the above don't work out for you, it may make it much more likely that the experiment fails, and you actually end up giving up work altogether rather than phasing it back in gradually.

Initially I thought that you were offering a different point of view, put actually you have revealed your very personal wider political ambitions to make all women work full time throughout.

mozhe I don't quite follow the logic of your argument. Are you saying that being SAHM is overall a less good choice for families and children because you feel passionately about your work?

great post QGM.

yes GQM great post, particularly points 1 and 7.

I cannot imagine being disappointed by the choice my daughters make on how to live their own lives - barring if they chose a life of substance abuse or crime - b/c it is different from my choice.

I honestly can't.

And I truly, to the depths of my being, think there's something really wrong, unnatural, freakish and sad about a parent who does. I never knew unconditional love until I had my girls.

I thought I did, but I was wrong.

"I don?t really like most women as close confidants actually?"

I'm not at ALL surprised.

Women probably cut other women like this a very wide berth indeed.

For millions of women worldwide, being an 'advantage' to the economy by working is slavery, particularly in developing nations. There's nothing feminist or choice-driven about it.

It's a shame that people w/so many advantages and wealth don't use these tools to go out and see that, and even, to better the conditions in which these women, and their children, live.

For all some people have money, they're poorer than anyone in any slum I've met.

GQM - Very well put. That list certainly offers a more realistic picture.

'Quite a lot of homes men fear women in the home, do their bidding there on the female territory - you see it in Muslim homes in Algeria'

FWIW, I know personally three women who converted to Islam in part b/c they enjoy the importance of women in the home and the traditional role of the women as a mother and keeper of the home.

These are educated women, two of whom also work part-time as obstetricians.

expat's talking a lot of sense again this morning.

One of my life ambitions is to build a happy family. I use the word build because it's something that you have to work at and put time into. And yes you have to spend a lot of time together. As one earlier poster mentioned, I've heard a lot of people say that if they spent a lot of time with their teenagers, they didn't seem to have the expected difficult time with them.
Xenia mentions wrap around care at schools - so families are never together. Children don't just miss out on parental contact but on building bonds with their siblings.
I genuinely don't have a problem with Xenia and Mozhe's choices. What I do get annoyed about is there dismissal of what parents contribute when they decide to work less, materially gain less but invest in something which has much more value.

I think the only person xenia is trying to convince with her many, many posts on mumsnet is herself.

Both my parents were doctors like mozhe's. My mother worked PT before I was born. She sometimes regretted not having had a more succesful career (although I suspect that was also to be less dependent on my dad who is someone "likes to show off" and who on his death bed will think, I wish I had worked more and spend less time with my children)but if it had to be a choice between SAHM or WOHM my mother would choose SAHM. I never thought about respecting her less for it. I actually was happy she was at home whenever I got home from school.

o and I was at work for some "work"/audit project 1 week after ds was born ha-ha.

All I was trying to do on this thread was say it's possible and sometimes the right thing to do as a father or mother to return to work quite quickly. Some women don't realise a lot of parents manage it well and it's the right thing for their family.

It always interets me with SAHM how their husbands think about it. Do they want you and encourage you to be at home? Or was it you pushing for me? Or did you both equally discuss who might put their career on the back burner for bit? Is it dependent on who earns most or do you have beliefs that really you need the female chromosome to do this job properly? Do the husbands feel burdened by having 100% financial responsibliity and does it affect how you as a SAHM feel about spending money or does it make your men feel better about themselves, a kind of ego boost - this woman devotes her life to my needs and those of my children?

I can see this thread has done nothing to make you reassess your stereotypes.

Poor little wifey made to stay at home, chained to the kitchen sink and nappy pail so her husband can boost his ego Money? That's not a problem. Every so often my husband slips a £20 note into the palm of my hand, pats my bottom and tells me to go and buy myself something nice

Or

Poor little hubby. Wifey won't go out to work because SHE is the master of the home and SHE is the only person who could look after their child. That's what she's going to do and HE'd better like it or lump it.

Yeah really, that's just how my life is