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.

ch, that's right but they seem to have some kind of device strapped around their heads which means they see things other than as they are written and are mortally offended by the fact that mothers exist who think going back to work early doesn't damage children. I can accept staying home and going back to work are both fine but they can't because they have to have their life choice vindicated all the time as morally and psychologically right for the child. I don't need that justification because my children , many of them are almost grown up and are fine and it all worked for us.

hm, thanks for the other thread. I had a quick look. Two posts sum up the two views on there -

(1) There are still a lot of sexist attitudes lurking about. This is one example!
v
(2) Mums are mums and dads are dads.

Anyway thankfully I don't live in a world where sexist mumsnetters who think men but not women can work rule. Perhaps it's as well that liberal private school edcuated Blair with working wife or Cameron (Eton) and the gorgeous working mother of 3 Samantha are in charge, rather than the average keep them chained to the kitchen by emotional blackmail because you'll damage the child forever if you dare set foot in the office before it reaches some arbitrary age determined by the collective will of the PC stay at homers of 1 - 3 years of age.

Oh give over, you offensive person. You called women who care for their children 'prostitutes'. That is the single most offensive thing anyone in this 'debate' has said, and you said it.

"she has critised people who are sahm on more than one occasion"

Criticism is great. You love it. You're robust in your choices, keen to prove them right, hapopy tk have a platform to show mother at home is best; rather than some cushy "we all agree with you" kind of place where you're not challenged and can continue to live in a 1950s cloud cuckoo land where men earn and women stay home.

I think you are absolutely terrified of what might happen to you if you let yourself feel the emotions of parenthood, actually. And that's why you run off to work, terrified of how you might feel if you actually gave yourself over to spending time with your babies.

8:39:38 PMfa, i really enjoyed pregnancy and I adore new babies. Just don't want to be with them all day

What a great comment for your kids to read back on!

Mothers have a different bond from fathers we have carried them and looked after ourselves with our baby inside us.Most of us live in the real world where we actually look after our kids. without nannies.

Actually, if you hate your kids, are selfish, misogynistic, money and self-obsessed, please do go back to work as soon as possible and employ a kind, nice woman who likes kids to replace you. It is undoubtedly the best thing for your children. Well done. MN is a total freakshow sometimes.

I wonder more if it's Xenia's choices (which are way done and dusted) offending us so much as ours offending hers? Why would a woman with 5 kids on their way to adulthood (I assume, if oldest is 22) decide to post in critical terms about what we choose to do now? Then is not now. Probably (hopefully) in 20 years time our children will be posting saying "god, you'll never guess - the leave was for the woman only! And it was only 6 months! Imagine that!".

Indeed tribpot. In fact it may be next year we see these changes - lots of threads - husband and wives deciding who takes the leave with the new paternity regime.

Look at why my being happy with what I have done upsetting others. I have never said any of you who love your children very much and want to be with them which is surely a lovely thing, are wrong. I just said I love mine but don't want to be with them all the time (like many fathers don't to be honest and quite a few mothers don't either).

I don't think those of us who choose to work when we don't have to are deficient or damaging our children. We're just different from those of you who choose to stay home.

Let's respect each other's choices and look at the benefits of either choice. This thread tried to list some reasons why going back early might be a good thing for some. You could equally argue to me why 6 months is better or 1 year or whatever your own preference is.

Being new to MN and reading this has made me understand one thing common to most chat forums.

And that is, in the real world, you are more likely to be sociable with like minded people and avoid those that rub you up the wrong way. Online it is VERY different and you come across many different views and opinions. You should take a breath and be thankful we are not all the same.

Some people tend to give strong opinions which may smack you the face, either knowing (how rude) or not knowing that they cause offense, or debate!

Is there an age limit to joining NM - I have a mother in law who is in her 70's who gives better advise than some i've read. She still has children - no longer babies or school age obviously!

2 weeks would have been far too early for me as my eldest DD didn't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time and I was a wreck. I couldn't even get dressed let alone go out to work.

far, that's what I like about it. You can get to hear the views of people of different races, religions, ages, classes, educational achievement etc. It's fun. Far too often people in the real world seek others like them. It's a big problem in recruitment - people recruit people like them and thus lose other candidates who may well be better but are different.

The internet brings different people together. It's one of the greatest mediums I think for achievin good communication. It may even in the end bring down some of the worst totalitarian regimes, more influential than Caxton's printing press or the photocopier was in communist Russia.

On the bonding thing - that's a bit insulting to working mothers, you SAHM lot - we do bond. It doesn't bother me that you think we don't and you think bonding needs a certain amount of time at home with just the mother because I know I love and am attached to all 5 children but others might think going back to work means you don't bond which is wrong.

So don't be put off returning to work early if that's right for you and your family and do give men a chance if they want that particularly when they get their new paternity leave rights.

"hm so okay to leave 2 week year old with father but not with anyone else. Not sure how you work that out. Do you need a genetic blood tie then to look after children properly? That's unlikely."

Expectant and new fathers experience hormonal changes just like the mother, so there is some evidence that fathers are the next best choice to look after a very new baby.

I can imagine there are some lovely child-carers and nannies out there who cope wonderfully with the demands of the unpredicatble newborn baby, but I would prefer to leave my newborn in the care of her father if I had to leave her for any signficant amount of time.

Havent read all the thread, but my ds was born in April 2002, I went back to work in JUne 2002 and I was an absolute wreck. I was emotional, knackered, got ill and ended up is hospital then was diagnosed with PND.

Not a good idea imo.

QUOTE "Let's respect each other's choices and look at the benefits of either choice. This thread tried to list some reasons why going back early might be a good thing for some. You could equally argue to me why 6 months is better or 1 year or whatever your own preference is."

Isn't it too late for that when you come out with little gems like this?

QUOTE "Anyway thankfully I don't live in a world where sexist mumsnetters who think men but not women can work rule. Perhaps it's as well that liberal private school edcuated Blair with working wife or Cameron (Eton) and the gorgeous working mother of 3 Samantha are in charge, rather than the average keep them chained to the kitchen by emotional blackmail because you'll damage the child forever if you dare set foot in the office before it reaches some arbitrary age determined by the collective will of the PC stay at homers of 1 - 3 years of age."

Can someone CAT me and tell me who Xenia is? I'm a little concerned that when the penny drops with other people, they begin to revise their posts and warm to her. Who exactly are we offending here?

Ooh - me too!

can someone email me as i don't have CAT?

i'm very suspicious of the change in behaviour towards her too...... tell me. tell me, tell me! want to know if i'm wasting my time and energy arguing with a regular trolling for a laugh.

dee_pinktulips AT hotmail DOT com

I'm not anyone. It's a boring topic to want to know who people are.

On the bonding thing I like people to make good arguments. Is it not better though that the baby gets used early to its nanny, grand mother or other day time carer whilst bonding with and getting used to having the parents other than 9 - 5 otherwise you get more of a wrench for it when it's older which is not so fair on the poor baby?

Money.

I went back after 4 months b/c we needed to pay the rent.

Otherwise, I'd have burned rubber on that hellhole.

You should have been American. They're all defined by what they do for a job there.

You meet them and the first question they ask is, 'What do you do?'

xenia, I thought you were off on a flight today? Did you sort your problem out?

I'm with Xenia all the way, in some ways I think my views are probably more controversial....I actually think both parents working outside the home is better for families, on the whole, than only one,( or none if one parent family ),and the other withdrawing from the world of economic activity.But, of course, it is upto individuals...it's just that I think women who spend 5/10/15 years as sahms are probably do more harm than good.
And bonding with your children is not dependant on the number of hours you spend physically in their company, it is much more complex, and subtle than that. I think it is interesting how very angry/hostile/abusive some mnetters are toward Xenia and her very reasonable views.Certainly she has strong views but ' out there ' they are shared by many...I'm going to try and get them to join mn ! Xenia if I ever have no6 your posts will have encouraged me to go back to work a lot earlier than I did with the others,( 8-12 weeks...it felt like an age, but I'm ashamed to say I ' daren't ' turn up any earlier...well not fulltime at least, though did sneak in for ward rounds...)