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.

mozhe, that's true. Also studies of the 1960s and 1970s show that all parents interacted with their children much much less. Children were sent out to play and seen again at night. Even my siblings and I went off to the park near our house for many hours on our own and it was great fun. Just because the mother was home did not mean she spent more time with the children so in fact a working mother might spend longer one to one. Some of the one to one of SAH parents and those who work is awful, it's 5 negative comments for every positive one, criticism, shouting, swearing.

Children like securty and certainty, even if that certainty is that usually my parents come home from work, talk to me and put me to bed. They even adjust to mothers or fathers away in the forces or mothers who live in London in the week and go back to the country at weekends as long as the other carer is good. What they don't like is lots of changes.

In a way my advantages of going back earlier is therefore valid. If we think a sudden change of carer, death of a mother, going into care, evacuation in war, going go boarding school at 7, hurts children why it hurts them is because it is a change, a breaking of a routine or pattern, which upsets their security. Therefore the mother who returns to work very early causes least damage and still bonds with her baby. The mother who has been with the child virtually all the time for 1 - 2 years may be causing a lot more damage.

does anyone on this thread think that is is in fact morally wrong to try and combine motherhood with a high-flying career? (ie with all that such a career demands of you - the hours, the deadlines, perhaps not taking all the maternity leave you're legally entitled to)

FWIW i don't. (not that i'm a high-flyer, quite the opposite in fact. i crashed and burned a long time ago

I certasinly don't think it's morally wrong to do both pollyp!
Haven't read all this thread but am one of those working mothers who sometimes reads mumsnet and find it very interesting!
I went back at 3 months with my first - I had been badly depressed during pregnancy and found the first couople of months with my baby v difficult (had no friends with babies to talk to/share stuff with). So it was with much relief that I went back to work - even a job that I hated (I soon got myself a new one!).
It took me 6 years to pluck uop the courage to have a baby again - I ADORE dd1 but wasn't sure I was up to 2 kids. But this time I am enjoying having a baby much more - i managed my depression with medication this time so much better. And I didn't want to go back to work in the same way. But I have to work - dh is a freelance creative type - no regular salary. Plus I like the change of scene and different kind of stimulation. I'm trying to freelance rather than take a permamnet job and share childcare with dh - Xenia I think you would be impressed by quite what an egalitarian example my dds are being set.
We are having teething difficulties as we have no peoper chidcare so have to juggle like mad - hope we'll sort something out soon. But we both like and need to work and both like & need to spend time with our kids.

tonton, that's good. I come on mumsnet and I suppose it's SAHM who perhaps have more time to post, but it looks like I see women I never see in my life. I see two working parents, people in meetings, people I work with and they are all sharing childcare. Yes you get the odd moan about unhelpful husbands but the pattern seems to be if you both have careers you both share care. So two teachers in my sons' school - they share drop off and collection from before and after school club. The playground is full of fathers on their way to work dropping off children at 8.15am. Parents share childcare. It's great. It's normal and it works and yet I come on here and people say leaving a child to go back to work means you don't bond properly.

Anyway yeserday I read that 38% of couples with children where both work full time the woman earns more than the man. That must surely be a big change from when I went back to work with daughter 1 22 years ago.

Xenia - I just had to quote you -

"I come on mumsnet and I suppose it's SAHM who perhaps have more time to post,".

I cannot believe what a crock of horseshit that is! You are one of the most prolific posters on MN and furthermore you have as good as admitted you know nothing about being a sahm. Good god - I sometimes dream about going back to work. My 60 hour weeks in the City were a doddle compared to being a sahm of 2 babies.

You may be right piglit, but whatever the reason I would agree that SAHM are on average better represented here than in RL, and certainly among prolific posters. And I speak as an SAHM atm.

Thank god for Xenia's posts. It is very rarely that you get the perspective of someone like Xenia, warts and all. For someone who must bill by the hour, I cannot imagine how much her posts on mn cost, although I am sure some of you might argue as to their worth.

Interesting argument bs... perhaps we can work out what it costs per hour to buy in the services SAH parent costs - should we say £8 an hour? and compare it to my hourly rate and then we can say that my posts are worth x times the value of those from SAHM, nasty little monetarist that I am.... I like being provocative. You do bring out the best in me.

Most of our lives we don't have children at home. I will have them at home, assuming I have no more, for 32 years or if we count until the youngest finish university 35 years. That still leaves at least another 35 when I won't have children at home. A mother of one will just have the 18 + university. It is not most of our lives by any means. But it's probably the most important things that we do as parents, male and female, income earners or not.

what I don;t get is why you have to have two parents working f-t in order to share care? sorry but that's claptrap. I know plenty of people where both work less than f-t (despite having interesting and in some cases very high earning jobs which they enjoy). And moreover, I don;t get why splitting everything down the middle is the be all and end all anyway. the important think is splitting the decision-making, the power, the enjoyment in life, the satisfaction, down the middle - it doesn;t mean that each half of a couple has to spend the same number of hours at work and the same number of hours with the kids. people are people - they're individuals and you can't prescribe solutions like that - either on a macro level, or at the micro-level within each relatinship. it's so short-sighted and removed from reality - and the wonderful complexities that make us human - that I find the idea quite staggering.

blimey, I've got my rosey spectacles on today: "the important think is splitting the decision-making, the power, the enjoyment in life, the satisfaction down the middle," I forget to add the work, the grind, the boring bits etc etc ...!

what i find fascinating about this thread is the fact that we all seem to be coming at it from such different perspectives.

you don't need to work f-t to share care, but if you do both work full time you do both need to share care. and have child care as well!

if both of you want to get to the top of your tree professionally, then it is likely that you will need to work full time.

for the purposes of this thread, the question then seems to be whether or not its right for both partners to be chasing that top of the tree status when they have children.

Oh for heavens sake Xenia. Almost every single serious study ever done on young children shows that the single best outcome for children on all measures (behaviour/aggression/academic achievement - the lot) occurs when the mother is the main carer for the first year (not enough men do this job for studies to adequately study this in population-based studies, I suspect). The ONLY exception is if the family is severely disadvantaged - ie terrible poverty, mentally ill mother etc.
Now I work and neither my dh or I stay at home full time as sole carer for a complete year for any of my children so I am hardly biased or have an axe to grind, but I have read the research. Most of the researchers are not very happy with the results. Very good quality care can ameloriate the disadvantage of the mother not being the main carer, and the best replacement carer is indeed a very good, loving nanny who can give the kind of one-to-one, highly responsive care (and LOVE) that a mother tends to give, but as one will cost at least £30K out of your taxed income, this is an option to very few parents indeed (around 4% of families have a sole nanny). Some other people are lucky and find fantastic childminders and wonderful nurseries. But not all.
Don't pretend you don't despise SAHMs. YOu called them prostitutes, remember?
As for the idea that only full-time workers share care, that is just rubbish. I know numerous families where the mother is the main carer (may work p/t, school hours only, or not for money at all) and in every single case the fathers also do lots of stuff such as take the kids to school as much as they can, bathe the kids and do the evening routines, read to them and in a couple of cases, take over sole care on one day of the weekend so their mother can do whatever she likes.
You admit you don't know any SAHMs, so why pretend you know all the details about how their lives are organised? You cannot possibly know anything about them or their families.
Oh, and do you honestly think the only reason why the death of the mother would damage a child "is because it is a change, a breaking of a routine or pattern, which upsets their security". If you really do believe that then I honestly think it explains a lot.

whilst I agree with much of what you say dara I think it is a great shame - though as you say somewhat inevitable - that such researhc focuses on mothers. I for one, think there is no reason at all to assume (esp in light of the findings re one loving carer) that fathers would be any different in the same role. but the principle that a single loving carer is best has certainly been established by serious research - and xenia does seem to be in denial about this

umm didn't xenia say that her children had the same nanny for ten years? assuming the nanny wan't the hand that rocks the cradle, couldn't that have been the loving carer?

It seems to me that their is a lot of resentment on both sides of the argument here.

The SAHM's seem to generally be slightly in awe of the working mums, (I am sure that most would not come outright and admit it but I am pretty convinced that that is the way it is).

Equally working mums, regardless of how much they "love" their careers along with the financial rewards they bring, I think have a deep down regret of having missed time with the children when younger.

The only answer is to live with your choice. Life is too short for regret.

yes polly peachum - but I don;t think anybody said anything about xenia's children lacking a loving carer. and opinionsrus - I don't think this thread is about resenting other people's choices, nor do I think the "sides of the argument" are sahms and wohms - in part because a vast number of people don;t particularly define themselves to be in one category or another. there are alot of wohms taking a very different view from xenia - or perhaps not even a very different view - more a different attitude - a more liberal and tolerant one.

I don't think I have a deep down regret at not being home for the first year. I genuinely found babies very hard work. I loved a good few hours of staring in their eyes, smelling their skin, touching their bodies, giving them all that breast milk, knowing you created that gorgeous new born (or two with my last pregnancy). It's a lovely wonderful thing to be a parent but I did not want to be there all day long.

I thought the research found children need a loving carer in the first year. I didn't think it had to be the mother and it could be the granny or a nanny. I know in general it's found that group care with changing carers in the first year is not so good for the child and I can understand that but I don't think granny or daddy or nanny at home has ever been shown to be worse for a baby and on my own personal level I can't see any of the 5 children who have suffered for it in terms of their personality, ability to form close relationships, normality etc. In the last 3 years we've become a family split by divorce which is something which will affect a good proportion of mumsnetters SAHMs or not sadly and I am sure that has some adverse effects on the children as does living in a very unhappy home of a marriage breaking down but I don't see problems caused to my children by my having chosen to work when they were little. In fact I see huge great benefits in our case particularly given I would not have wanted to be there with them anyway. Just look at the number of mothers with depression threads on here.

I am very liberal and tolerant. In fact it's the liberal view, isn't it, to see old fashioned 1950s marriage with men working and woman serving as the man paying for sex kind of role which loads of people around the globe characterise that relationship as. Go and hunt out a few feminist web sites if you want the female economic dependence issues to be debated. Anyway SAHM who has chosen that model at home without considering that issue is silly. Of course consider it and reject it because you're bringing somethig to the party other than sex and domestic services, probably these days an educated mind and probably because in that marriage you'll these days be economically active for many years, by all means reject it but do consider it.

Dara, I'm interested in the statistics you cite, if only because they play into my hands.
I am with Disrali on the various categories of lies, with statistics being the worst of them. Given that most children are cared for by their mothers and relatively very few by full-time nannies:

1. why is it a surprise that mothers, other than the bad ones of course, are regarded as the best carers? and; (2) how can they have concluded that nannies are the next best thing?

xenia - did you lose the syntax plot a bit on that second sentence or have i failed to understand?!

"Just look at the number of mothers with depression threads on here." xenia - there you go again - assuming that they're sahms. why do you keep doing that? it's as if you think mn is populated by a bunch of under-educated oppressed sahms waiting for your enlightenment. erm it's not. and I have to disagree when you say you're liberal and tolerant. iirc haven't you said that all women should work - that's dogmatic - the very opposite of liberal.

Polly, when I have the energy I will dig up the references for you, but of course the studies didn't just say, oh, look, most children are looked after by their mothers for a year (er, because they aren't) and most children do well, ergo, care by mother for the first year is best. Of course not! They look at different children from different backgrounds, test the kids, study the kids, look at variables such as prevelance of PND, household income etc etc and then do a statistical analysis.
Many of the women in this field come from a very academic, feminist background. They all - obviously! - work and they are pretty much invariably mothers. They are not doing the research to hound mothers, they are doing it because they are interested in child development and think it important.

I don't think SAHM are uneducated. Quite the converse. When I was asking my brother what was the point in educating his daughter beyond A levels if she'll become a housewife like her mother he said because men like him want Oxbridge educated professional wives who then give up work, that it's more of a status symbol, that she's sacrificed all that for her man and the family and that the finishing school good cook 18 year old just doesn't cut the mustard any more in the showing off my wife as possession stakes which so many men play. The clever educated SAH illustrates the wealth of her man, that he can afford to have a non working wife.

All very interesting stuff.

A constant caregiver,not group care ideally in the first year, good economic circumstances,( well good enough ), absence of mental ilness in the immediate family....these are the important factors emerging from the current research dara.Nowhere does it say,( as far as I know, and I take a professional interest in the field ), that a mother is better...that's utter rot. Between us Xenia and I have 10 children,( and nannies who stayed long term...hers 10 years, mine nearly 6...),and we are both women who work(ed..in X's case) long hours away from our infants...anecdotal I know but she says hers are well rounded, secure individuals

have read (almost) all of this post. i am struggling to believe that evertything xenia has posted is true and / or that (s)he actually holds all the opinions expressed here.